1983 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 33rd Parliament

Hansard

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

( Hansard )

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1983

Evening Sitting

[ Page

1591 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Health estimates. (Hon. Mr. Nielsen).

On vote 44: minister's office –– 1591

Hon. Mr. Nielsen

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

Mr. Blencoe –– 1591

Mr. Macdonald –– 1591

Mr. Barrett –– 1595

Mr. Rose –– 1600

On the amendment

Mr. Cocke –– 1616

Mr. Macdonald –– 1618

Mr. Gabelmann –– 1619

Mr. Skelly –– 1623

Mr. Passarell –– 1627

Mr. D'Arcy –– 1628

Mr. Barrett –– 1632

Hon. Mr. Heinrich –– 1637

Division –– 1638

Public Sector Restraint Act (Bill 3). Second reading.

On the amendment

Mr. Hanson –– 1638

Mr. Gabelmann –– 1643

Mrs. Wallace –– 1648

Mr. Hanson –– 1654

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1983

The House met at 8:05 p.m.

Orders of the Day

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

Leave not granted.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH

On vote 44: minister's office, $182,438.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I move the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 6.

EDUCATION (INTERIM) FINANCE

AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

(continued)

MR. SPEAKER: The second member for Victoria has, I believe, about one minute remaining.

MR. BLENCOE: In my wrap-up of the second part of my speech on

this particular bill, I was asking the government, in the atmosphere of

compromise — if there's anything possible in terms of compromise on

that side — and asking the Premier of this province to take another

look at this piece of legislation, particularly in keeping with the

fact that his father used to do that and would consider such action

appropriate.

There is a deep feeling in this province that the legislation that

impacts on local governments is something that should be recalled and

reconsidered. The move to centralize in the hands of the cabinet powers

that have been traditionally reserved for local governments and local

school boards — duly elected, Mr. Speaker — cannot be accepted or

tolerated by this party, and we believe it is not accepted by the

majority of British Columbians.

Within the framework of compromise, I once again ask the government

to reconsider its action. You won't lose face if you take a second

look; that's part of the democratic process. We urge you most seriously

to take another look at your actions, because in our estimation you are

not supported by the people of British Columbia.

MR. MACDONALD: I looked with earnest anticipation to see if any of the

government members opposite would rise to defend this bill. I've never seen

such a disconsolate group when they're faced with the arguments relating

to Bill 6. I have no intention of repeating the arguments I've already made

on the hoist motion, because there is so much to say in opposition to this particular

bill that no one need repeat himself or herself.

I had a dream that I was delivering a speech in the Legislature of the province of British Columbia at 5 o'clock this morning...

AN HON. MEMBER: I had the same dream at 2:30.

MR. MACDONALD: ...and I woke up to find that I was delivering a speech

in the Legislature of the province of British Columbia. But I take nothing back

from what I said at that time. I am amazed at the bungling incompetence of the

government.

Here they have a little bill, with very few words, which gives the

Minister of Education the power to issue directives to all of the

school districts of the province — and I know there are fewer school

districts than there used to be; I'm not sure what the total number is

at the present time.... What is it, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Seventy-five.

MR. MACDONALD: From about 92, which I think was the highest

we had in this province, it has come down to 75 districts. Not one

government member has stood up in the House to tell us what a directive

is. What power this little minister over here who went to Penticton and

wowed them in....

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: He wasn't even on the panel. The cabinet

ministers, when they held their panel, didn't include the hon. Minister

of Education. We had the age of the Hon. Bill Vander Zalm in education.

As we look back, it almost appears to have been a golden age. I know

that he gave different instructions and he made different speeches, and

you never knew whether the wind was blowing north-northeast or

south-northwest.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: I always blow north-northeast. I am blowing

that way tonight in opposition to this bill, but I feel, with all

respect, that the hon. Bill Vander Zalm — and he has lost that title

now, because a provincial cabinet minister, unlike the cabinet

ministers of Ottawa, does not carry the title "honourable" when he has

vacated his cabinet position, but still he is an honourable man — was

shuffled out of this educational portfolio and would never have

consented to have brought in this kind of a bill, which totally

conceals the intentions of the minister. If he had tried to conceal it,

with his ability to speak and his love of speaking in front of

television and the radio, he wouldn't have been able to conceal

anything anyway, but this minister has.

MR. BARRETT: He talks one way in Penticton and another way somewhere else.

MR. MACDONALD: What are going to be the directions? The

present minister comes before this Legislature of B.C. and says: "Will

you give me the authority to issue" — not to make regulations, even —

"directives at any time

[ Page 1592 ]

before the beginning of the school budgetary year,

May 1, that control the budget of any of the 75 school districts of the

province?" What is a directive? It is not a regulation. It doesn't have

to go to cabinet. It is, I suppose, any letter. Mr. Minister, supposing

you picked up the phone and told the school trustees of

Shuswap-Revelstoke — it is not the right name of the school district, I

know, but it is close...

AN HON. MEMBER: Shuswap is 89.

MR. MACDONALD: I know, because I have arbitrated salaries up

there in times long gone by on behalf of the teachers in the province

of British Columbia.

Here is what this bill is doing. The local MLA thinks it is a great

big joke that his school trustees in the district from which he is

elected can receive a letter or a phone call from the minister, the

all-high panjandrum of education, and by his fiscal powers under this

bill he can say: "I order that special class to be discontinued. You

trustees thought you could spend your budgetary allocation in this way

or that way and allow something, say, for modern education, for driving

education" — because there are hazards on the highways of B.C.... The

minister says: "I know better — I am cancelling that course." What

democratic legislature could consent to such autocratic powers in the

hands of a single man?

I have never seen such farcical legislation as this passed. I have

seen legislation come into this chamber which says that "the

Lieutenant- Governor-in-Council may make regulations...." And you say

to yourself: "Before we pass the bill, why don't we see the

regulations?" We're saying that about Bill 3. But this says that the

minister can "by directive." What does that mean? It's not defined in

the

Interpretation Act. I would assume it would include a phone call. I

would assume that under the

Interpretation Act the Deputy Minister of

Education has the power to wield the authority of the minister. I would

assume that two people will have this absolute dictate over the 75

school districts in the province of British Columbia — the deputy

minister and the minister — and they can exercise it with respect to

any part of the educational program of a school district by controlling

the finances. This little bill says that the directives can apply. It

includes any special-education programs. That sounds like teaching:

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. REID: You wouldn't understand that.

MR. MACDONALD: I would love to have that course. I don't think knowledge ever hurt anybody.

It's a very serious bill, however lightly we treat it. We're saying

that the minister or his deputy minister can — by a directive or a

phone call or a letter; what you will — tell any school district what

can be taught in the school and whether they can have one or two

janitors for one or two schools.

MR. MICHAEL: No.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, they can. "The budget or any portion of

it." You control the budget. You control the school district. Why would

any school trustee...?

MR. REID: That's the way it should be.

MR. MACDONALD: The iron heel, the big thumb of government, on

all 75 school districts in British Columbia — that's what you want.

That's what you're getting in this legislation: centralization, wipe

out local control.

Why do those good citizens who have come forward in the past...? I

can think of many of them. Many of them voted against the NDP, and

that's their privilege; they're all good citizens. The ones who ran for

school boards, unless they were like some who got on the school board —

I'm thinking of the city of Vancouver — and then they got on the

college board, and then they got on the city council, and then they got

a couple of junkets here and there.... I know that can happen. I know

it has happened in the city of Vancouver. I wouldn't mention names.

They might even have a salary at the University of British Columbia

while all this is going on.

Okay, there are abuses in the system. Do you think the NDP doesn't

recognize that there are abuses in the system? Of course there are. Get

after the abuses, but don't bring in this kind of dictatorial

legislation to do it.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Still fighting the election!

MR. MACDONALD: We're fighting the next election, when this

crowd over there will be judged. They won't dare to go back to the

people before three or four years are up, not with this kind of program

that they've dropped with their budget. They'll sit and take their

junkets overseas. The Premier has already said: "We can't wait to get

out of here, because all our ministers have got important targets in

Europe and Asia" — and expensive hotel bills to run up.

MS. BROWN: And Hawaii.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, and all over. They'll be jetting to the

wild blue yonder all over the world, spending the taxpayers' money. But

when a little school district wants to give a course in safe driving —

maybe one hour a week — to save some children's lives, this minister

can say: "That's extravagance. You're saving children's lives. We'd

rather spend it on jet travel: Paris today, Rome tomorrow, China the

day after." We'll watch it. You've done it in the past. That's why all

of the cabinet ministers.... Mr. Speaker, if I can refer to this

bill....

Interjections.

MR. MACDONALD: How docile they are. Their deputy ministers

report to the Premier. They can't even have a confidential conversation

with their deputy ministers, but they get little rewards. The Premier

says: "Let them fly the wide blue yonder to Paris, London and Rome, to

develop markets and to stay at the Hilton and the Dorchester, and to

walk the Elysée in Paris."

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, perhaps we might avoid some of

the interjections if we could relate our remarks to the education bill

before us. There must be some degree of relevancy.

MR. MACDONALD: The relevancy, Mr. Speaker, is this: I'm

pointing out that under the laws of the province of British Columbia

there will be two people who can issue the

[ Page 1593 ]

directives, because the deputy has the powers of

the minister. He can pick up the phone and ask any one of the 75 school

districts to do this or that. The minister and the deputy, under the

reorganization that has occurred under Premier Bennett II — King Billy

II.... He has had all the deputy ministers reporting to him. They

cannot assume their offices with any minister in any department until

they are pre-selected by the Premier. How close can you come to one-man

government, one-man rule, a docile cabinet, a docile Legislature and —

what he hopes will happen — a docile people of British Columbia than

that?

The deputy ministers report to the Premier. The Premier will have

the authority, as well as the minister sitting over there, to say

through that deputy to any school district in the province of British

Columbia: "Cut out that course. Add this. Cut out your operating

engineer" — or whatever it may be. The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke

(Mr. Michael) shakes his head. Why should anybody in that area decide

that they should run to be a school trustee? They're not going to make

much in terms of an honorarium.

MR. LEA: Why doesn't he tell us what he thinks of Bill 6?

MR. MACDONALD: Oh, he won't. There's no way. The member for

Prince Rupert makes a perfectly valid point. There's no way that any of

those members of the Legislature on the government side — the

back-benchers, as they're called — will stand up and defend this

destruction of the last remaining vestiges of the local autonomy of

school boards. I defy that member to stand up and do so.

MR. MICHAEL: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, would you please inform the member that I've already spoken on Bill 6.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is a matter of public record. I think that is being looked after right now.

MR. MACDONALD: I wouldn't mind debating this bill with you in

your own district, before the people — either in Salmon Arm or

Revelstoke. Let's get a hall. What you're doing here is destroying the

educational system that has been built up.

MR. MICHAEL: The Kingfisher hall a week this Saturday.

MR. MACDONALD: You accept the challenge? I'm speaking in

Squamish on Friday night, but any other night. I'm delighted. While

we're having a little bit of pleasantry here, Mr. Speaker, what we're

saying to all of the good people who have come forward in the past — at

personal sacrifice, because the honorarium wasn't all that great — to

run for school trustee is: "You will just be rubber stamps in the

future. The minister has the overriding authority over anything you may

do, because he has the fiscal power and can pull the fiscal strings."

That is exactly what this bill is doing.

There is another aspect of this bill that I'd like to discuss for a

moment or two, and that's what happens to the teachers and to the other

trade unions of British Columbia that bargain with the board of school

trustees in the various areas of the province. What about the teachers?

I started off my speech by saying that I've never known such

incompetence on the part of a government. The teachers are going back

into salary negotiations, starting in October. The notices will go out

to bargain under the School Act. In default of agreement, a conciliator

is appointed, and if he can't bring the parties together, they will

have arbitration. The arbitration is to set their salaries or bonuses.

Last year quite a number of the school districts went through the

arbitration procedure. There was amalgamation of areas, but there must

have been 10 or 15 arbitration boards sitting in the province — a

totally useless exercise in view of the provisions of Bill 6.

The collective bargaining process for teachers has been completely

gutted by this legislation. When I say incompetence, I point out that

by adding Bill 6 to the existing collective bargaining legislation, you

have this absolutely ridiculous situation: that under Bill 6 the

minister or his deputy can completely negate any effective bargaining

by teachers with respect to salaries or bonuses, because he can, by a

directive, affect the school district budget, or any portion of its

budget, and that includes the salaries of teachers and administrators.

[8:30]

We also have the legislation relating to the wage stabilization

program that's administered by Ed Peck on behalf of the government.

Number one is Bill 6; number two is the wage stabilization program,

which has its own separate legislation and commissioner. Number three,

you have the School Act, which allows teachers to arbitrate their

salaries and bonuses, but not their working conditions. There's always

been some question as to what is a bonus and how far that word extends.

So here we have the absolutely ridiculous situation of having, in

respect to the teachers, three separate and conflicting pieces of

legislation affecting their collective bargaining and their terms of

conditions of work.

The exercise in arbitration that the province went through last

December was an exercise in futility. Various arbitration boards were

set up throughout the province — I think there were 15 or 16 of them;

the minister would know exactly how many — and they came in with

awards. But the arbitrators were making their awards under the shadow

of the fact that Ed Peck, the compensation commissioner, would overrule

whatever they decided. He had that power. So the whole exercise was one

of futility. The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke shakes his head. In a

period of restraint, how much did that whole exercise last December

cost?

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: I am speaking to the bill, because the bill,

the Ed Peck thing and the arbitration process are three bills that

affect the conditions of work of the teachers. All three of them!

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Is that right?

MR. MACDONALD: The Minister of Forests asks whether that is

right — as if he didn't know the blunders and the inconsistent

legislation, the blind staggers, that this government has been going

through. I'm addressing you. I'm trying to pound something in with a

sledgehammer, and you say you don't even know what I'm talking about.

You're not even in the right seat. The Minister of Forests should be

taken to the woodshed.

Interjection.

[ Page 1594 ]

MR. MACDONALD: He sounds more like a chipmunk than a Minister

of Forests, but at least he's now in his right chair. At least the

member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael) knows what I'm talking

about.

As a government, you now have three totally inconsistent pieces of

legislation, all working in the same direction and affecting the

salaries and conditions of work of teachers. Which horse are you going

to ride? You've destroyed collective bargaining for the teachers with

the compulsory arbitration aspects that worked well in the past. You've

brought in a whole new compensation stabilization program at great

public expense, and now you bring in Bill 6, which does the same thing.

It can affect the wages and salaries arrived at. Commissioner Peck can

say: "Well, I'll allow X percent in such and such a district."

Let's take next December and see what is going to happen. You may

very well have, at great public expense to the school trustees and the

B.C. Teachers' Federation, a series of arbitrations to determine the

salaries and bonuses of teachers in the various areas and school

districts of the province. When that is finished, will it be the end?

Not under this legislation, because a separate set of legislative

provisions presided over by compensation commissioner Peck will then

review what has been decided by the arbitration boards.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, ability to pay. I know it is important. I

am talking to the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications

(Hon. Mr. McGeer), and he knows what I am talking about. It's a

terrible thing that people who are comfortably well off should pay

taxes that might trickle down to some benefit of disadvantaged people

in the same community. It is a terrible thing. He is always talking

about how government is too big, how we have to cut back services to

people, cut back on educational services, cut back.... No, not to

privileged groups — no way is he going to cut back to privileged groups

— but cut back to poor people, to battered wives, to the counselling

services that are needed by all kinds of people. People living in Point

Grey don't want to pay taxes; they say they are already overtaxed. They

certainly don't want to pay income tax based on ability to pay. You

tell me about the avaricious society. That's what you stand for —

avariciousness.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We need a bit of order here. First, if the

minister is going to heckle, he could return to his own seat. Secondly,

if the member is going to continue debate, he could relate his remarks

to Bill 6, the bill before us.

MR. MACDONALD: It is all one piece. I don't know whether I

was that far out of order. What they stand for on that side of the

House is a society for the privileged. They say we have to downsize

government because it may help people who weren't born into that

privileged society that they are so proud of. They are the ones who

don't want to pay taxes.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, the people who are comfortably well off. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I am off the bill, Mr. Speaker.

So you have three separate kinds....

HON. MR. McGEER: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I want to record in Hansard that I am acutely embarrassed by one of my constituents speaking in this fashion in the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, hon. member.

The records indicate that you will have every opportunity to

participate in this debate.

MR. MACDONALD: There is a secret ballot in the province of

British Columbia, but I want publicly to declare on the floor of the

Legislature that I did not vote for that hon. minister, and I never

would.

HON. MR. McGEER: I think I'm relieved.

MR. MACDONALD: There is no way I am going to vote for special

privileges to the elite, well-off groups that he has espoused all his

political life. So we have, for the teachers, three separate....

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Why doesn't the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr.

Waterland) get up and defend these autocratic powers that are being

given to the Minister of Education? There's no way he will. Oh, come

on; you know you are not going to get the floor under those conditions

and make me sit down.

In addition to the powers that I have described, you have the added

element of sheer incompetence. You have three whole legislative

enactments that deal with the salaries and conditions of teachers in

British Columbia. I think we should be proud of the working teachers of

British Columbia. I know there is a great deal of anti-union feeling in

the government benches over there. They think the teachers are just

another union, and they are against unions. The B.C. Teachers'

Federation is looked at by the government opposite as a union that has

to be curbed.

MR. MICHAEL: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I personally

take a great deal of resentment to the remark made by that hon. member

that the people on this side of the Legislature are opposed to unions.

That is an absolute falsehood. The trade union movement has tripled

since the first Social Credit government was ever elected in British

Columbia.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's not a point of order, hon. member. The Chair really cannot entertain that type of motion.

MR. MACDONALD: The government, under this legislation, under

the compensation stabilization legislation, has completely negated

these rights of teachers which have been laid down in the Public School

Act, and it hasn't had the guts to touch those arbitration provisions,

so you've got all three in a display of incompetency that is

unbelievable, and that every year, in terms of useless arbitrations,

costs the public a great deal of money. You have all three of these

things to curb the powers of the teachers, and that is what you are

doing under this legislation.

The legislation is so dictatorial, so derogatory of any powers of

the school trustees, that there is no reason why the citizens of the

province of British Columbia should bother to

[ Page 1595 ]

run for the office of school trustee under this

kind of legislation; and they won't. You're already had reports — we

all have — from various parts of the province, saying: "Why should I

dedicate myself to this public responsibility when under legislation

like Bill 6 I'm being reduced to a rubber stamp, and my autonomy to

make any meaningful decisions whatsoever within that school district

has been absolutely eroded?" Why will they do it? Under this kind of

legislation we're seeing the death-knell of local autonomy within the

school districts. The people who speak to me and to other members of

the Legislature about what an honour it has been in the past to run as

a school trustee are now going to say: "Why should I bother?"

AN HON. MEMBER: They'll be there.

MR. MACDONALD: They will not be there.

Let's take one example. I'll quote from the Cowichan News ,

July 19: "The Cowichan School Board has been reduced to a powerless

body through the centralization of education proposed by the provincial

government. 'We seem to have the same power as the PTA,' said a

discouraged Gerry Allester, acting chairman, after attending the July

12 meeting in Vancouver with Education minister Jack Heinrich." The PTA

are a very worthwhile organization, but they recognize that they have

only advisory powers. But the school trustees were elected to do a job:

to forward the cause of education and protect the welfare of children

in the schools of the province of British Columbia.

Here's another. Trustee Joan Gillatt had to agree. She I said: "The

decisions we had previously made about allocation of funding are now

totally out of our hands." That's exactly what's happening under this

legislation. All of the meaningful decisions of a board of school

trustees are being taken away from the local districts and given to the

sole authority of the Minister of Education acting directly, or his

deputy acting on orders from the Premier of province of British

Columbia. That's the extent of the erosion of school board autonomy.

School trustee Joan Gillatt goes on: "They have decided to leave the

present boards to do the dirty work of firing and of cutting salaries."

So they will still have some powers there, but the meaningful decisions

about the allocation of the budget and the educational programs within

their district are being stripped away from them. They will be there as

a charade, performing a meaningless role.

An editorial in the Times-Colonist of Friday, July 15, 1983,

said: "After their meeting this week with Education minister Jack

Heinrich, British Columbia school trustees appeared stunned by the grim

news on restraint they had just heard." It has nothing to do with

restraint. This isn't a restraint bill. This is a bill to centralize

power. If it's restraint, let the minister get up and say where his

cuts are. You already have the Ed Peck situation. You already have fair

and public arbitration of salaries and conditions. It's not restraint.

The editorial goes on: "Smaller budgets, more teacher layoffs, a

general three-year freeze on salaries, reduced pupil-teacher ratio.

These and other details were depressing enough, but what seemed to have

shaken the trustees more than anything else is the discovery that they

have now been stripped of their last vestiges of local autonomy." Our

only surprise is that they're surprised, because everything this

government has done for more than a year has shouted its intention of

doing exactly that.

After pointing out the extent to which local autonomy has been

completely stripped away from the local school districts, the editorial

goes on to give some words of praise to Bill Vander Zalm.

This bill, like others we have had in this session.... Almost all of the 26 bills laid....

Why is the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) eating peanuts?

HON. MR. CHABOT: You're wrong as usual. I'm not eating peanuts.

[8:45]

MR. MACDONALD: All of the bills that have been laid before

the Legislature with this budget have one feature in common: they all

arrogate power to the cabinet, and they all arrogate power through the

cabinet to the Premier's office. It is the thumb of control in this

bill that is being placed on the school districts and on the boards of

school trustees. But in the other bills that we have seen — and I

merely mention them not to debate them but to point out their

similarity — the centralizing tendency of arrogating all power

ultimately to one man is the feature of all those other pieces of

legislation.

Everyone in British Columbia understands the extent to which the

Premier has made himself the absolute master of the cabinet. When

cabinet ministers speak out of line, as the Minister of Municipal

Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) did when he was first sworn in, he is

told....

AN HON. MEMBER: To the bill.

MR. MACDONALD: This is to the bill. I'm talking abot the

centralization of power under this and other pieces of legislation. I'm

talking about the centralization of power in the hands of one man, the

Premier of British Columbia. We see that same thread through all of the

other legislation that has been dropped at this session of the

Legislature. The man who now controls his cabinet through controlling

the deputy ministers in the various departments and controls the

backbenchers on the Social Credit side of the government wants to go

further and extend that control through the whole public service and

through the school districts of the province of British Columbia. I say

it is time to put an end to this arrogation of power in the hands of

one man.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, may I seek leave to make an introduction, please?

Leave granted.

MRS. JOHNSTON: In your gallery this evening, Mr. Speaker, we

have two of my constituents from the White Rock area. They are two of

the very hardest-working Social Credit members we have there. I would

ask the House to please welcome Jim and Peggy Aldred.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, for one brief moment I was under

the impression that the government members were going to speak to this

bill. As matters stand at this point, four government members have

spoken to this bill and the rest have remained mute. One of those

speakers has been the minister introducing the bill. I suppose that in

those conditions I should be humbly grateful for the House permitting

me to speak, since I imagine if the government continues on

[ Page 1596 ]

this course in this bill and the package of bills

that they are pursuing, this troublesome Legislature may even be done

away with. Certainly they have made a conscious decision not to

participate in the debate of the bills, and this bill in particular,

which fundamentally alters the history of the relationship between the

taxpayers, who are the parents of children in this province, and the

trustees.

You think you know it all. You think you have the right to tell

every parent in this province that they cannot instruct a school

trustee to move in the direction that they, as parents, at the local

level want. You think you have all the answers. There is no need for

you to explain in this House why you are taking this authority. There

is no basic honesty from your party in not telling, during the

campaign, that this is where you intended to go. Not one Social Credit

candidate said during the election campaign that the role of the local

school board trustees would be dramatically altered should they be

elected. Not one voter in this province was told that the school system

that we have had functioning in this province for over 100 years, with

direct input from parents, grandparents and interested people at the

local level through elected school trustees, would be done away with.

It would be interesting if this opinion and the comments that I have

made were just confined to a member of the official opposition or

perhaps to some disinterested third party, such as parents or school

trustees.

I want to read into the record tonight an

article in the Toronto Star ,

and as I read this

article I think the importance of what is being said

relative to this bill — and strictly to this bill — may come across in

some manner to some of the less cynical members of the government who

are still there. The

article from the Toronto Star ,

dated August 5, 1983, is entitled "The B.C. Cutbacks." It is

self-described as "the first of a series on how people in British

Columbia are affected by cutbacks in the Social Credit government's

controversial July 7 budget package."

"Burnaby, B.C. — Gary Begin has been a school trustee

in this sprawling Vancouver suburb for ten years. For six of them he

has been chairman of the province's fourth-largest school board, and

for three years he has been president of the British Columbia School

Trustees' Association. But when schools reopen next month, the parents

who keep electing Begin are in for a jolt. He won't be helping to run

their schools any more. A man most parents have never heard of and

never voted for, Victoria bureaucrat Jim Carter, will have the final

say.

"Premier Bill Bennett's Social Credit government is

slashing the power of local school boards" — absolutely nothing to do

with restraint — "and centralizing authority in the provincial capital.

The move will help the government slash education spending by a

proposed 17 percent over three years."

MR. PARKS: That's not restraint?

MR. BARRETT: No, it is stupidity and a patent demonstration

that you do not trust the responsibility of the local taxpayers as

represented by the school trustees. You, sir, and your colleagues do

not hold the holy grail of responsibility for tax dollars. If it was

measured by the record of your colleagues and the squandering habits of

your colleagues in the cabinet, who drink Pouilly-Fuisse wine at $37.50

a bottle and say that's restraint, I say that's a hiccup of restraint,

my friend. You've not demonstrated one whit of restraint in hiring

limousines or buying tickets to Broadway shows. When it comes to

spending money, you're the highest non-Broadway livers there have been.

Limousines in Reno, limousines in New York, trips all over the world,

and you have the cheek and the nerve to say that you'll tell the school

trustees where to spend their money. No school trustee has ever been

accused of drinking Pouilly-Fuisse at the public's expense. You've got

a record, my friend, that is indefensible, and you have the nerve to

sit there in silence and in contempt of this House, not defending this

bill.

"Approval for the program cuts will have come from

bureaucrats.... If trustees refuse" — in a free democratic society — "a

Victoria order to fire staff in some popular local program, Bennett's

cabinet could fine each of them $2,000 for not doing what they were

told."

What is the point of them being elected, in this bill, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, that's not in this bill. You're anticipating another bill.

MR. BARRETT: It certainly is, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't see reference to that in Bill 6.

MR. BARRETT: The consequences of this bill are tied in as part of the other bill.

And I go on to read: "This is restraint in education, Social Credit style."

MR. PARKS: You're prevaricating once again.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I ask the member to withdraw that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point of order is well taken. The member will withdraw the remark. The member found it offensive.

MR. PARKS: I withdraw, Mr. Speaker.

MR. BARRETT: It continues:

"It means an abrupt shift of decision-making power

from communities to the office of Deputy Minister of Education Carter

and the Socred cabinet room. Ironically, Gary Begin had hoped to be

Bennett's Education minister himself. As a Socred candidate in the May

5 election, Begin came just 500 votes short" of winning the seat in the

Burnaby-Edmonds riding.

This is what the former head of the school trustees

in British Columbia had to say. This is what the Social Credit

candidate who assumed that he may indeed have been the Minister of

Education, should he have been elected, had to say — not an NDPer, not

a Socred flack paid to advertise, not some lowly trustee, but a Social

Credit candidate. "'If I had had any inkling that they were going to do

this, to do away with local government, I certainly would never have

run for Bill Bennett,' a bitter Begin says." He was never told as a

candidate that this was going to happen. Neither were you. But you're

going to vote for it anyway.

[ Page 1597 ]

I want to read further from the quote from Mr. Begin. I repeat:

"'If I had had any inkling that they were going to do

this, to do away with local government, I certainly would never have

run for Bill Bennett.... But I never heard so much as a peep about all

I this. I'm very embarrassed.' Sitting in a tiny cafe across from his

Mr. Gary's Fashions store in a small shopping centre, Begin feels he is

a man betrayed. At 41, with a decade of successful local politics

behind him, the ambitious United Church lay minister was looking for

the next step up the ladder. Instead, he finds himself in a fight to

'keep an entire level of local government from becoming redundant in

B.C. Under the guise of restraint they are attempting to change the

entire direction of society.'"

[9:00]

A Social Credit candidate states publicly that he was never told

during the election that this is what the government was planning on

doing. He should not be surprised — the public of British Columbia

wasn't told either. But for a Socred candidate to say, in stronger

words yet to come, his opinion of this government — and for the

back-benchers to do nothing other than perhaps interrupt the

proceedings and introduce some friends in the gallery — is hardly

adding any sense of responsibility to what may be the most fundamental

change out of the whole package of bills as it affects generations of

children in this province. It's not an accident that the night sittings

were started on this bill.

MRS. JOHNSTON: We've got to get somewhere.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, you have to ram something through. And you

have remained silent in this chamber while a fundamental debate has

been taking place about the right and freedom of choice of taxpayers in

this province to have a say in how they want their children educated,

where Social Credit candidates did not tell the truth during the

election campaign, where a prominent Social Credit candidate....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, that would have a reflection on hon. members in this House, and I'll ask for a withdrawal.

MR. BARRETT: I withdraw, but I would expect that the

government immediately put a motion of censure on the floor of this

chamber against a citizen by the name of Gary Begin who has called the

government dishonest in its electoral campaign. Mr. Speaker, what I

have been forced to withdraw has been said by a Social Credit

candidate. If I'm not permitted to say it in here, how is he permitted

to say it out there?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is well aware, I'm sure, that you

cannot use a device such as a newspaper

article to bring

unparliamentary motives to the House. The Chair has not asked for a

withdrawal; please discontinue that type of reference.

MR. BARRETT: I've withdrawn, but I've never suggested that it

was a bad parliamentary motive to get elected. Not at all. The question

is the method, and that's on each member's conscience.

"'Under the guise of restraint they are attempting to

change the entire direction of society, ' he snaps, his gold jewelry

catching the sun. 'That is not only dishonest, it is terrifying.'"

DEPUTY SPEAKER: There appears to be some rather loud

conversation going on. The members will come to order and the hon.

Leader of the Opposition will relate his remarks, in order, to the bill

before us.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Begin says that this is not only dishonest, it is terrifying.

"Official papers outlining the rigid new school

funding system state that the government wants school spending reduced

to the levels of the mid-seventies.... In Burnaby, for example, the

board has 20,000 adults in special community programs, and one-fifth of

its staff is involved in special education for handicapped and gifted

students. 'We decided as a community that we want the level of

education,' Begin says. 'Now bureaucrats will decide, not the parents

who built it over the years.'"

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your difficulty in

dealing with rudeness, but that has not been a fine point of the

government cabinet benches.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: You stand up and deal with my expense accounts,

and let us photostat yours. Stop blocking the Public Accounts from

photostatting your records, your travel, your waste of taxpayers' money.

AN HON. MEMBER: My, he's self-conscious about his expense accounts.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, Mr. Speaker, a lovely device we have going

on here now. And since the Chair doesn't wish to rule the member out of

order....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. We've had enough, if I could

get to that point. The minister will come to order, the hon. member

will come to order, and we will proceed with our debate on Bill 6, the

Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act.

MR. BARRETT: I never bought tickets to "The Best Little

Whorehouse in Texas," Mr. Member, and that cabinet minister did. You

won't let us photostat these vouchers. Let us deal with your past, my

friend.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I think we've dealt with that one. The member will come to order, and so will the minister.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, if you don't care to shut the minister up, I invite this kind of intellectual exchange from that spendthrift.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think we've done that, please. Would you please relate the remarks to Bill 6.

[ Page 1598 ]

MR. BARRETT: It would be far better if the minister were to

stand on his feet and tell the House why he supports this bill, along

with other members...

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you prepared to yield?

MR. BARRETT: When your turn comes, and I will hold you to that.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, you won't.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. BARRETT: We will see, when I am through my 40 minutes, whether or not the minister will indeed get up and introduce some guests.

Mr. Speaker, I continue quoting Mr. Begin, the Social Credit candidate, on this bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: An impeccable source.

MR. BARRETT: Impeccable source? I rarely quote Social Credit

candidates. If you are questioning his being an impeccable source, one

must remember that your credentials, compared to his, are hardly

impeccable. A three-day membership in Social Credit before you got the

nomination does not smack of undue ambition, but it does allow for a

suspicion of unremitting opportunism that is unequalled.

MR. PARKS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, if he is going

to comment on the hecklers, I would hope he would attribute the remarks

to the correct heckler. If he was attributing that three-day membership

to myself, then he is obviously attempting to mislead the House and I

think he should withdraw.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, all members will have an

opportunity to take

part in debate if they so desire. But to rise on

points of order when another member is speaking interrupts the flow of

debate in the House, and I would ask members to consider the rules that

bind us in the chamber.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I intend to withdraw at the request

of that member. If the member finds that being a member of Social

Credit for only three days before one is a candidate is offensive, then

it doesn't apply to him. It applies to the member for West

Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds). Now he should withdraw, suggesting

that it is offensive for him to be a member for only three days.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Leader of the Opposition, Bill 6.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I know I am going through a

convoluted withdrawal; nonetheless, the facts remain that not one of

them, as a candidate, stood up on a public platform anywhere in this

province and said, "Elect me as a Social Credit candidate and I will

work for this kind of legislation." I cite the Social Credit critic on

education: "We decided as a community what should be done. Now

bureaucrats will decide."

He goes on to say:

"By 1986 Burnaby will lose 17 percent of

its...budget.... Similar province-wide cuts will mean the loss of 3,000

of B.C.'s 26,000 teaching jobs.... How can teachers and administrators

work together, Begin asks, when no one knows who will lose his or her

job? How can trustees bargain for lower salaries in return for keeping

jobs, if Victoria has already decided everything? Two weeks ago Begin

led a trustees' delegation to the Socred caucus. His former campaign

colleagues told him they were simply trying to protect their own

political careers, he says."

I am not making an accusation that this legislation is politically

motivated, but a very serious charge to that effect has been made by a

prominent Social Credit candidate. He says that caucus members told him

"they were simply trying to protect their own political careers." Would

a Social Crediter lie?

Mr. Member, that is a rhetorical question. By the rules of this House I am

not able to reply specifically, but may I reply with this question: is there

any doubt?

May I conclude the remarks of Mr. Begin on this bill. As I say, when

Begin led a trustees' delegation to the Socred caucus, former campaign

colleagues told them they were simply trying to protect their own

political careers:

"'I keep telling my friends in the mayors' offices

that if the government can do this to us, they'll be next,' Begin says.

'We can only hope that sanity will eventually prevail upon the

Premier.'"

There is a question by this candidate whether or

not sanity prevails at this moment with the Premier. I am hardly

professionally qualified to pass judgment on that, Mr. Speaker, but it

is interesting that a Social Credit candidate has spoken out outside

this House, admitting that none of this was discussed with him as a

candidate; none of this was said publicly. He is embarrassed by the

government's dishonesty, in his words. He was the candidate who carried

the banner in Burnaby for the government.

One of the ministers is smiling. I suppose it's a smile of wry

amusement at having won at any cost. It doesn't really matter what one

says in an election campaign. I recall that when the present Minister

of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) was defeated as a federal Tory candidate,

he said: "I guess I was too honest with the voters." His career then

altered; he joined Social Credit and never made that same mistake again.

So, Mr. Speaker, the ticket to success is to subscribe to basic dishonesty.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: How would you know?

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Member, my success will be measured by my

conscience. I have never been ashamed of anything I've stood for in

this chamber or outside of it, and I have always told what I stood for.

To all of you, should you care to listen....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, you certainly are; you're not talking.

As we go through these continuous hour-by-hour debates, a device by the government

to fundamentally alter education in this province by this bill, a vast number

of British Columbians will not be aware of the nature of this debate, but will

focus on the nuances of the exchanged insults, the level of rhetoric and corridor

banter that is generally media fare. Rarely in this chamber, however, are we

[ Page

1599 ]

presented with legislation that dramatically alters the social structure of

this province in an area such as education. When we are presented with such

legislation, I am afraid that very little substantive awareness of what is taking

place will be out there in the community.

[9:15]

As I predicted earlier, the consequences of this legislation will be

reflected not in immediate signals and a breakdown of the educational

system, not in immediate awareness that something has gone wrong, but

it will leave a present generation — and unless there is a change in

government, will leave future generations — of young students in this

province who will be cheated of the maximum opportunity of developing

all of their skills and interests to the optimal level necessary in a

highly complex and rapidly changing society. This bill will prohibit

immediate community response to dramatic changes that result from

technology or shifting economic demand. So when we prepare the next

generation of students to find its way in an increasingly competitive

world, in a society that is changing so rapidly through increased

communication and a media dearth of rational exchange of debate at the

political level, we will have created a problem that will cost us

dearly in the next 25 to 50 years. I said earlier today that there

never really has been a fundamental debate in this chamber that I am

aware of, over the 100 years of existence of legislatures in British

Columbia, that has altered the basic philosophical commitment by other

governments, whether they be Liberal, Conservative, Social Credit or

NDP, towards local autonomy in education and the maximum amount of

local participation through freedom expressed in democracy.

We are now shifting that. We are going to leave this chamber, when

this bill is completed, emasculating any direct participation and

decision-making in curricula by local taxpayers and parents through

their school trustees. The direction of educational philosophy will be

dictated centrally from Victoria.

I regret that not one citizen of this province who is a parent with

children in school now was told prior to the election campaign that a

fundamental shift would take place in the educational philosophy of

this province. This has nothing to do with firing civil servants; it

has nothing to do with the other bill that says that ministers can call

up principals' files or police files. This is a small bill that

dramatically alters the role of the school trustees in this province.

As my colleague said, it is all to do with power. Psychologically

speaking, we are dealing essentially with a group of frightened people

who, having obtained power in this province, are too frightened to

share it — too frightened to be open and above board in seeking that

power and telling the people of British Columbia what they intend to do

with that power once they have obtained it. Having worked their way

through a massive propaganda program, paid for at the expense of the

taxpayers, to get themselves elected without telling the people of

British Columbia what they intended to do, they are now departing in a

direction that is uncharted, unexplained and frankly inexplicable for

most of the back-benchers.

It is part of the whole package, but this bill more than any other is dangerous

because it cheats the future generation of this province out of a fair deal

and honest and open free participation by the taxpayers in selecting what is

best, in their humble opinion, at the local level for their children. After

all, it is that local parent who pays the taxes anyway. As much as I have sought

to find contrary to this statement, I have not yet seen one Socred bring a barrel

of money over here to spend. They have always spent other people's money,

and they are very good at it.

I believe they are taking away a fundamental right that we have

assumed in this province belonged to the local ratepayer and local

parents to determine for themselves the education they want for their

children. I regret that. The thing that I regret most is that they were

so dishonest about how they went about it. They never said one single

peep in the election campaign, not by my word, but by their education

critic, the Social Credit candidate in Burnaby. He was not told one

word.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't believe everything you read in the paper.

MS. BROWN: Are you calling Gary Begin a liar?

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, they are calling either the Toronto Star

or Gary Begin a liar. Which one is it? Perhaps the best thing, Madam

Member, would be for a calm, rational House committee to be established

so that every interested citizen in this province now confronted with

this change could come to a legislative committee, non-threatening....

AN HON. MEMBER: More stalls.

MR. BARRETT: More stalls? This, so far, has been one of the

shortest legislative sessions in ten years. I want to point out that we

went nine months without a session.

I want to point out that for the first time in the history of this

province we went past the legal date for the government to spend money,

and an unprecedented step was taken in the province, never before taken

by any government except Social Credit, spending money illegally,

without legislative authority, beyond the March 31 deadline. Are you to

be trusted? Madam, through you, Mr. Speaker, it is our duty to protect

the taxpayers, particularly on your record in the last year when you

spent money without legislative authority. You did not call this

chamber for nine months and did not tell one whit of the truth about

what you intended to do should you be elected.

If Madam Member can produce evidence to me or to any other British

Columbian citizen that this bill was discussed in detail during the

election campaign, that she or any Social Credit candidate stood up

publicly and said, "If we are elected this is the kind of legislation

we will introduce," then I will withdraw my comment. Not only have they

not brought that kind of evidence, but they have not even participated

in the debate to defend the direction.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: As my colleague reminds me, they promised a

White Paper in the first place. I assume they ran out of ink. The

cynicism, the hypocrisy, the base dishonesty of a government that would

seek electoral support without even stating openly what they intended

to do is a measure of their own cynicism. Someday the citizens of this

province will take a serious look at the debt load created by this

government, at the vast expenditures, the cockamamie schemes such as

the former Minister of Health had — a $20 million scheme for compulsory

treatment for heroin addicts, $20 million down the tube without

producing one shred of

[ Page 1600 ]

scientific evidence as to why he was going in that direction. The expenditure of tens of millions of dollars keeping the Princess Marguerite

out of a run and hiring an American jetfoil with an American crew,

spending taxpayers' dollars. Spending money on Whistler Mountain to

save thejet set ski runs so their little rears won't get burned on the

way down in the snow. While this bill is in the House and with that

record of spending money that way, it betrays the commitments that are

against children, against free participation by taxpayers at the local

level. They will make the decisions centrally to spend $38 million on a

new prison to coddle prisoners just a mile away from this town — $38

million for a new prison while schools are closing down in this

province. You don't need that $38 million prison unless you are

thinking of somebody's future — whose I will not suggest. I want to

point out to you that when we are given these choices....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Got to have a place to live, says a member. Well

that's planning ahead, Mr. Member. Out of the mouths of babes and

sucklings. I want to say that it is interesting.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Old rugby players have to go somewhere, yes, but

on the rugby field — one thing about that — it was always open, always

honest. You always knew where it was coming from. As old rugby players

we knew what the code was, and it was consistent. Those rules don't

apply here, my good friend. Unfortunately they don't. Lying is a

measure of success here, electoral dishonesty is a measure of success,

propaganda at taxpayers' expense is a measure of success — all of it to

be joked about after you win the election. Yes, we lost. We didn't lose

— the people of British Columbia lost.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, Mr. Member, sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me — especially incoherent words.

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the fond attention of those members who are

here, the collective IQs of about 20, which should measure on some

Richter scale at about 1.5. I welcome their comments, their intelligent

exchanges and their wise contribution to what should be a very serious

debate. But I know that there will be no participation by any of them,

particularly cabinet ministers or those whupped-in-line back-benchers,

to state why they support this bill. Let us see. Thank you for your

attention, Mr. Speaker. I enjoyed the amiable control that the Chair

had over the House this evening.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I was prepared to defer because I

thought the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) wanted to enter

the debate. However, if he wants to speak in the debate, I wouldn't

want to lose my place. I didn't know whether he was rising to speak in

the debate or what he was trying to do.

Interjection.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

MR. ROSE: Oh, I see. He only speaks from his seat. Well, he speaks from where his heart is.

I don't know the Minister of Forests very well. I haven't had the

chance to hear him speak all that often, but he does a lot of growling

and grunting and reminds me a little bit of the Tasmanian devil we used

to see on the children's programs. He gets mad and angry about various

things. I don't know why he does that, because I never hear him speak

in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I should let you know that I have been designated as

the designated speaker for this evening on this particular stage of the

debate.

[9:30]

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, it does seem quite noisy in

here. I'm having trouble hearing what the speaker is saying. Perhaps we

could just quieten down a little bit.

MR. ROSE: As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I agree with you. I'm having trouble hearing what I'm saying as well.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: You're not missing anything.

MR. ROSE: I don't know. There are probably a lot of people up

there in the gallery that are anxious to hear what I am going to say;

as a matter of fact, as I haven't composed this speech thoroughly, I'm

rather anxious to hear what I'm going to say too. Nevertheless, even if

they aren't gems of wisdom, I hope that I can contribute something to

the debate. One thing I can say is that I am willing to contribute to

the debate. I haven't heard very many people from the other side of the

House, especially the Minister of Forests or anybody else over there,

that is prepared to get up and mix in the debate. It's one of the

things we lack.

I think a lot of the people in the gallery might wonder what's

happening here. They're up here all poised and probably would like to

see a cockfight that lasts all night. Why are we doing this? What is

this nonsense about speaking all night? It seems like kind of a silly

way for grown, mature people to behave.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You're doing all the talking.

MR. ROSE: It's obvious that the Minister of Environment,

Parks or whatever they threw into the latest grab-bag for him is

certainly not doing any talking. He's sitting in his seat and heckling.

That's all he's done. Even when he answers questions to the House he

appears to be heckling.

I would like to briefly discuss this matter with the gallery because

I think it's important that when we're dealing with Bill 6, in which

there probably have been at least 22 members of this party speak on a

vital issue involving the school children in every riding of this

province.... Twenty-two people on this side have spoken twice and not

even a dozen have spoken on the other side.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I want to say to you "not even a dozen" because I want to relate it to the dirty dozen of the bills. This

[ Page 1601 ]

is one of the bills we regard as one of the dirty dozen that we're pledged to fight. As the designated member........

HON. MR. BRUMMET: How long are you going to stall?

MR. ROSE: It isn't a case of stalling, Mr. Minister. Why

don't you get up and stall? You don't want to stall because you spend

most of your time horsing around. You belong in a stall.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Why the hell don't you just keep quiet and let

somebody else speak here? If the Speaker won't protect me, I don't know

who is going to protect me. An old friend and colleague from Dewdney in

the chair — a distinguished member of this House — is going to have to

do something to discipline the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr.

Brummet) because he's spoiling the environment. He's involved in a lot

of noise pollution. He should watch himself on that, although he's

probably refused to fund any of the noise pollution inspectors, so he

can probably get away with it.

All any opposition can do in the face of a determined majority

government is to keep talking in the hope that somehow the error of

their ways can be pointed out. Once a measure comes to a vote the

majority side always wins. There are two main purposes for talking

about and talking out legislation, and this is why we think it's worth

our while. As I've said on a number of occasions, it is not our job to

prevent the government from governing. That isn't our role at all. But

it is certainly our job to allow time, through the only means we

have.... As you know full well, Mr. Speaker, we don't control what

comes before us in terms of legislation. As a matter of fact, we don't

even know what's coming each day when we arrive here. We have no idea.

We don't know which of the 26 or 30 bills will be called each day. It's

a great lottery. We don't have time to prepare a lot of detailed

responses — ones that would be considered oratorical gems. All we can

do is to sit here on tenterhooks and try to determine which of the

bills is likely to be called.

We've tried to discuss these bills with whatever intelligence,

limited or otherwise, we can bring to bear on these particular problems

and provide the public out there with the opportunity to gain some

knowledge about the dangers of the government's procedures, process,

aims and objectives, and, secondly, to allow the government to get the

feedback from people so that they can govern in the interests of

people. If we're all wrong about that, that is a political argument.

That is to be answered at another or subsequent election. It could even

be answered through surveys. I don't know about that. We don't make

regular surveys — not that we wouldn't like to, but we can't afford to.

We would like to know how things are going in various areas.

My job as designated speaker is not necessarily to make a great

speech, but it certainly is to make a long one, and I intend to do

that. I think it is extremely important that we have every opportunity

for every member of this House to get up and make whatever contribution

he or she wishes to the debate. If the contribution merely involves

introducing a couple of pals from Surrey, well, that's a contribution.

It's better than saying nothing. But if it's a more profound

intervention, then that is extremely important.

I think we have to deal with three myths being put forward by the

Minister of Education. He's an affable and nice guy — a friendly man. I

don't think he's an evil man at all. As a matter of fact, I don't think

he particularly believes in what he's doing. He can deny that. He can

nod his head or bang it on the table, whichever way he wishes to do it.

But you don't have to sin by commission; you can sin by omission. The

things you do or don't do — on purpose or otherwise — can have a

profound effect. If you do things through ignorance or through being

impulsive or through taking orders where you should stand up and be

counted, it doesn't matter — the results are the same.

One of the myths in this legislation — and I've heard it not just on

the legislation but in the minister's musings throughout the province

in press reports that I've read — is that bargaining will proceed as

usual. There 's the first big lie. How on earth can that take place?

The minister has embarked on a strategy....

I don't know what the minister is doing. I thought he was going to raise a point of order or something.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I don't believe in that. I'll get my turn.

MR. ROSE: Will you? That's fine. I hope the minister

responds, because he didn't respond on the hoist motion. I think it's

important for everybody to know that the minister is prepared to

respond to the criticisms that have been levelled here. That's the

whole purpose of this.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: There's the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr.

Michael) making a lot of racket again, but he doesn't get up and make

his speech. All he does is try to heckle the people who are working in

here. They're not just sitting around; they are actually working. They

are up speaking, not just mumbling under their breath or fiddling

around with a few pieces of paper.

The first big myth is that bargaining proceeds as usual. How can it?

The minister has decreed that the total education global budget for the

province will be diminished by 2 percent per year for the next three

years. Are the teachers going to bargain about how little they are

going to lose? Bargaining as usual. What's bargaining as usual? There

used to be bargaining until you got to a place of compulsory

arbitration. Who is going to be doing the bargaining? The school boards

or the central.... What room have the school boards left to bargain on

anything? None. If you don't like what they are doing, Mr. Minister,

through you, Mr. Speaker, you can just send them a directive. I don't

know if these are going to be public, but this party is going to insist

that those be part of your annual report. We want to know what

directives you are sending to the school boards, the nature of them,

the extent of them and the kind of tone that they exemplify and reflect.

How on earth can you have bargaining as usual if you have a 2

percent per year global cut for the next three years? I ask the

question again; what are you going to bargain? Will you bargain on

working conditions? That was thrown out. Are you bargaining on safety

or seniority? Bill 3 tells us there aren't any seniority provisions for

anybody, so you are not going to bargain on seniority or wages — except

for how much you might lose. You are not going to bargain on, perhaps,

grievances. Can teachers bargain on whether or not

[ Page 1602 ]

a course that they have worked hard over the years

to develop is an important course to the community? Can that be

bargained, or is that going to be removed and wiped out by ministerial

decree as well?

The next big myth — some people would call it a big lie, but I am not saying the minister lies....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, can we stick to the myth.

MR. ROSE: Well, sometimes a lie, Mr. Speaker, is a near myth.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, what you are saying is a near myth, so we will continue with the myth.

MR. ROSE: I prefer to be a big hit, rather than a near myth. Anyway I will call it a myth, but I wasn't saying the minister lied.

MR. LEA: On a point of order, are you saying that the word "lie" cannot be used in this House?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I am saying that I would prefer the use of the word "myth," and I just asked if the speaker would use that word.

MR. LEA: I understand that is what you asked, but as long as

you don't attribute a lie to another member in the House, you can use

the word "lie."

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am well aware of that.

MR. ROSE: I thank the member for Prince Rupert, who is a real

whiz and expert on the rules, for assisting me in that matter. I did

take great pains to point out that I didn't say the minister lied. I

didn't attribute a lie to the minister. I said that there was a large

myth out there — a momentous and monumental myth — that the bargaining

was going to continue as usual. Compared to what? What's left to

bargain with?

A second one is that we are going to preserve school board autonomy. Myth number two.

MR. LEA: A near myth.

MR. ROSE: That may be a near myth, all right. If you issue

directives which detail every nickel and dime a school board can spend

on each of a thousand different topics — and if I had time I would read

them all, because a school board administration is a very, very complex

organization....

AN HON. MEMBER: You have time.

MR. ROSE: I know I have time, but you know I really don't want to insult or brutalize the House or try the Speaker's temper.

I know that somewhere in here there are all kinds of little boxes.

These little boxes for the first time, I am told by the minister, will

detail the exact nature of spending within the school board. There is

some movement on that. I hear that it is somewhat possible to shift

from one little box to another little box. Earlier we were a little

concerned because the minister said: "Look, if there is an overspending

here of a school board budget for justifiable reasons — the school bus

breaks down or there is a bad winter and we need some extra heating oil

— that would probably have to come out of teachers' salaries, and if

teachers didn't take a cut, perhaps we would have to get rid of some

teachers." Now, I don't think that many people....

[9:45]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, we could get rid of some students. We talked

about that last night way on into the wee small hours, but there is no

question about it that school boards are going to have way less

autonomy. Now the minister will say: "Well, I've heard from a lot of

secretaries-treasurer." Is that the plural of secretary-treasurer?;

that's the pedantic plural. They like this arrangement. For the first

time they've been able to slot these things into little boxes. They

love that, because by and large secretaries-treasurer have an

accountant's mentality. They like to know what they're going to be

doing — and they're putting in the proper boxes — because they don't

have to fend off any administrator or school board person. They can

say: "Look, I've got to put this in this little box, and that's all

there is." We've got these square boxes, and we can't put any round

pegs in them. Now the minister is going to allow some fluidity, I

understand. He tells us that's not going to be the case anymore. If the

bus does break down or there's going to be a terribly cold winter and

you need extra money for heating oil, perhaps he might consider this as

ex cathedra or ex gratia payment. I think it's important that we have

that fluidity. If we need to, maybe we could also have a local

referendum to pay for the extra heating oil. Nevertheless, if you do

that, and then you tell the school board, for instance, that you can

only spend a certain amount of money and then you say to them, "If you

don't follow our directions, you are subject to a $2,000 fine," I'd

like to know where the autonomy is. That question isn't entirely

rhetorical. I hope the minister will address himself to that. The

school boards don't think so. They think you've stolen all their power,

and they're not happy about that. Even the Socreds on the school boards

are not happy about that. Anybody with any kind of decency and

independence and self-reliance or any person who isn't just a doormat

is going to be mad about something like that.

The Ministry of Education is the result of the local school boards,

not vice versa. The local school boards built the Department of

Education; the Department of Education didn't build the local school

boards. Once upon a time somebody came into a district, put up some

sort of shack, hired a teacher, and there was a school. Anybody

familiar with the history of education in North America.... I know it's

not absolutely congruent in Canada with that of the United States. We

didn't have the same tendency to hire our own people. We usually sent

to Scotland for some, and that's where we got people like Ryerson. As a

matter of fact, we even have summer holidays because it coincided with

the Scottish oat harvest, but that's neither here nor there. The point

is that schools did develop autonomously. They ran their own affairs.

They had their own school boards: 50 or 60 little school boards. Under

the Cameron report, over the years they gradually amalgamated into

larger ones. They were autonomous bodies.

It's absolutely ridiculous that one level of government can

determine the nature and activities of another level of government. I

know that this level of government in the province would not sit still

for one minute if the feds came in and told

[ Page 1603 ]

you what you were supposed to do and told you that

if you didn't do it you were going to be fined $2,000 and forced to

spend next winter studying French or something like that. As a matter

of fact, I was thinking that maybe we need a B.C. constitution. Maybe

the School Act could act as the constitution. If we had a B.C.

constitution it could have a charter of rights in it which would

enshrine for all time — amendable, of course; maybe with a few

"notwithstanding" clauses, so you could wiggle out of it after you

joined it.... Maybe we could have something like that. I was thinking

of a B.C. constitution, with a charter of rights for school boards and

municipalities. That would prevent undue incursions into the legal,

reasonable and proper powers of these autonomous.... I don't even put

school boards into the same class as municipalities, because they tend

to be creatures of the provincial government; historically I don't

believe they are.

I think it would be a wonderful idea if we had a constitution. Then

we could go to court. If the Minister of Education trotted in with a

bill like this, which is the school board abolition bill, then the

boards could go to court. I think they'll go to court over that $2,000

anyway. Guilt by association. Can you imagine, if I were on a school

board and voted to follow the minister's directive, the minister's

orders that came down from on high, delivered by helicopter over the

school districts, and the board were all maverick Socreds, and here I

was sitting as a meek little NDPer and decided that, yes, I am going to

follow the directive, and the board decided to pay the superintendent

$95,000 but the director said he could only have $75,000, because that

was the rule for that size district with that number of classrooms and

that amount of floor space? If I voted against the majority of the

board, would I then still be liable for a $2,000 fine? So much for myth

number two: school board autonomy — a big, fat myth.

The next one I'd like to talk about is the myth of productivity.

We're going out there, folks, and we're sure going to get productivity

out of those old school teachers and the kids too. The minister was

asked what that means after he made a speech somewhere. I think it was

down in Richmond or in Vancouver at a little....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, up or down, it doesn't matter. Sideways. Wherever he went. He might have been flying around in circles, for all I know.

Anyway he spoke recently and he was questioned following it. I have

the reference here. I just have a few notes here because I only

expected a five-minute speech tonight and I thought I might run out of

material. He was asked what he meant by productivity. He couldn't

define it. He hasn't gotten closer since. I hope that when he comes up

here tonight at 4 o'clock in the morning, when I've finished my

five-minute speech, that he will have some inkling and will let us into

the deep and dark recesses of his mind so that we will know what he

means by productivity.

Productivity could be defined in a number of ways. I think that's

fair to say. Productivity could be determined by the number of kids

taught by a teacher. You could go from individualized instruction,

which is the ideal — the tutorial system, the one-teach-one system

where you went to see your tutor and, as Stephen Leacock once described

his experiences in Oxford, the tutor smoked at him and when he smoked

at him somehow he ingested a lot of information.... What we've tried to

do in the educational system over the years is to try to make the

classroom as little as possible like a factory where we're cranking out

widgets, but as much as possible like the tutorial system and

individualized instruction. We know that everyone learns at his own

individual rate. Everyone has his own unique set of talents, and while

he will learn some things rapidly, he will probably not learn others

quite as rapidly. This theory has some holes in it, and I don't think

it's a complete theory, but it's worthwhile.

The other concept is to have a large class and have one teacher

teach all of those people. I suppose the ludicrous extreme with that

would be to have one teacher at a microphone or a large screen over

television going to thousands — or put them in the new stadium, that'd

be a good place. The fact is that I think it's educationally defensible

to say that some things can be taught en masse. Other things, other

people, other talents and other needs require specialized, individual

attention.

But I'm a little concerned about how productivity sounds really

great out in the general public and, as people are wont to say, among

the great unwashed. If anybody stops to think about it: "Yes, I think

productivity's a very good idea." I'm in favour of it myself, Mr.

Speaker, but I'm not sure I know what it means. I know what it means in

terms of stamping out widgets or lawyers, but I'm not sure what it

means in terms of education. Does it mean one teacher or a group of

teachers teaches a larger number of students, or does it mean that one

teacher is able to enhance a larger amount of learning among an

individual or a mass? Once I had in mind what the minister had in mind

in defining productivity, then I think I could handle and grapple with

that very complex question a little more capably, because I'm certainly

swarming around in the dark.

So let me summarize the myths. In some of his public utterances the

minister has uttered the following: "There will be bargaining as

usual." That's myth one. "School board autonomy will not be

threatened." That's myth two. And finally, "Productivity in the new

system of education will be enhanced." What I'm saying, Mr. Speaker, is

that there will not be and there cannot be bargaining as usual because

this new bill changes all the rules. School board autonomy, if not

absolutely murdered, is certainly extremely ravished due to the

centralizing approach of the minister. It's an interesting thing, too,

just as an aside, that the people who shout "let's get big government

off the backs of the people" are the very ones in this whole package of

legislation here that are not decentralizing. They're not going to

smaller units; they're going to centralize the power in the Kremlin.

We're going to have several czars: the czar of education, the czar of

tourism and the czar of health. There he is. I think that if that is

not a contradictory position, it certainly appears to be inconsistent

with the kinds of sounds they make about decentralization and getting

big government off the backs of the people.

I don't think that the public out there really comprehends any

particular threat. I don't think this is a big seller. I think you'll

get away with it for a while, Mr. Minister. Some people are going to be

affected and concerned. But I think it's going to be incremental. I

think there will be an erosion of the school offerings. It's

fashionable to say: "We'll cut our offerings to suit the cloth. We only

have so much money, and our priorities are that we not spend it

lavishly, not throw it away on kids or education." In spite of the fact

that education is so deeply embedded, I think it's true that probably

most people don't like schools and some of them are not very fond

[ Page 1604 ]

of schoolteachers, but they sure want something

better for the kids than they had. If you disturb a school system you

disturb a Canadian dream.

Like the minister was, I am one step up from the lunch pail — the

first member of my generation who had a university degree. I think a

lot of people want that for their own children. I think it is a

reasonable objective or dream for a family to have. I think it's well

known in most instances, even today, that if you have an education you

have a greater opportunity of being employed, because skilled jobs

aren't there anymore. I cited a set of statistics the other night: a

month or two ago the unemployment among youths under 24 or 25 was

around 24 percent in British Columbia. One out of every four young

people is unemployed. Many of them are going to be permanently

unemployed, and that has all kinds of implications for the schools, but

I don't want to get into that at the moment. What I want to get into is

that of those under-25-year-olds who had post-secondary education, only

8 percent were unemployed.

[10:00]

It's a legitimate kind of dream that people have for their children,

as your parents had for you — and I'm sure they're very proud of you,

as I'm sure mine are of me. But if you take that opportunity away from

people you do it at your peril. You do them a disservice, and if it is

not a traitor's act, it is a grudging kind of offering that is given.

It's like telling the citizens of British Columbia who have the

tremendous dream that we are going to go ahead that you can't afford

their dreams anymore. And that is shattering. It's not only to those

people who've gone in to become teachers either, because some of their

dreams are shattered — about 5,000 shattered dreams because you changed

the rules, Mr. Speaker.

This bill, along with others in the package, destroys the morale of

the people. It destroys their hopes and dreams. I'm not the only one to

recognize that. I'm not going to talk about tenure. There's all kinds

of stuff associated with tenure and Bill 3. Now we have tenure and now

we don't. I don't know what people understand about tenure anyway. All

I know is that before I got it I had to work six years, and in order to

attract people to this province as educators you're going to have to

give them some tenure. Is this going to be the only burg in the whole

North America, the Alabama of Canada, that you can't have that sort of

security to attract able people? But I'm not going to get into tenure.

AN HON. MEMBER: Good. You know a loser when you see one.

MR. ROSE: Would Hansard like to have that remark

recorded? If you need it repeated I'm quite sure that this sensitive

and honourable gentleman would be glad to repeat that remark to you.

I think one of the things that trouble us a lot is the fact that

we're concerned about British Columbia. When morale is bad, people

rally in the streets or sit in some sort of "sit-in" in terms of

protest — and there are all kinds of legitimate forms of protest. What

I'm doing right now is one of them. I protest what you're doing to the

educational system in this province because of Bill 6. I think protest

in a democratic society is a legitimate thing. It's not something to be

scorned, because if we didn't have protest we wouldn't have a

democratic society in the first place. We should always remember that.

There are certain accepted ways to protest in our culture and there are

ways that aren't accepted. And those things change over the years. I've

seen a great change in them. I never saw anybody walking around with a

picket sign on their back when I was a kid — not in my small town,

which is the minister's small town as well. If we hadn't had people

prepared to do that we wouldn't have had the advances that we have

today. There is no question about that.

What I'm concerned about is that we have people whose morale is

shot, who are upset about this, that and the other thing or they're

afraid of losing their jobs or they're going to be whipped and pushed

back in terms of their income, if they're lucky enough to have a job.

They're not going to have any protection for where they live in terms

of their own rents. Even the Minister of Land, Parks and Housing's

(Hon. Mr. Brummet) own reports indicate that rents are going to go up

alarmingly and people are going to be pushed out on the streets. Sure,

there are all kinds of vacancies in high-priced buildings. I don't want

to get into that bill, Mr. Speaker. I'm just using this as an example

of how people do get upset about things from time to time, and

legitimately so. But if they're upset and there are likely to be

rallies and there are likely to be problems in the streets or sit-ins

here or there, or job action in some other place, it's not going to be

the most stable kind of atmosphere for people to invest or to create

jobs to bring us out of this kind of economic doldrums we're presently

in.

[Mr. Michael in the chair.]

I don't think there is any point in the Minister of Education going

to the mat with teachers, any more than there is the Premier or the

Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland) going to the mat with working

people. It doesn't help anybody. It creates a kind of social chaos or

social instability that makes investors nervous. I know that investors

are not nervous in Korea, because you don't have any trade unions or

anybody to cause you any trouble in Korea. I was really impressed by a

July 20 column by Mike Tytherleigh. He's not always my favourite

author, but he's talking about a possible showdown, about a Mexican

standoff between, say, the trade union movement or Solidarity coalition

and the government. What he says here is that the government really has

all the aces in any game played with working people. They have all the

aces. He says: "The Premier has undisputed legislative power." I agree

with that, Mr. Speaker; we see that here tonight. He says: "He has the

backing of those opposed to organized labour and the Kinnairds of the

past and the Fryers of today" — speaking of John Fryer as former head

of the BCGEU. "Although reasonable people are shocked by the wholesale

dismissals in the civil service, Bennett knows there are many jobless

in the private sector who have little sympathy for teachers, doctors

and social workers." If people are unemployed and they have little

sympathy with teachers, doctors and social workers, and even if they

are employed and they don't like teachers, doctors and social workers

because they feel that their snouts are too far into the public trough,

is that any justification for a government going out and picking on

them? I don't think that's the way to achieve stability in our society.

That's why I'm concerned about the particular climate at the moment in

British Columbia. I'm concerned about that part of it because I think

that — as Tytherleigh has said: "When the fragile economic recovery

needs labor-management cooperation, Bennett appears to be turning the

clock back to the late sixties and early seventies when the labour

scene was chaotic." He goes on to say that Don Munro, former head of

the Labour Relations Board,

[ Page 1605 ]

reminded the industrial management association of

B.C. about that chaos in a keynote speech in '79. Here is Rose quoting

Tytherleigh quoting Don Munro, former head of the Labour Relations

Board: "There existed a bitterness between many employers and trade

unions certified to represent employees. Wildcat strikes by those

employees were becoming an almost daily part of life, police

involvement in labour relations disputes was not uncommon, a few people

were jailed, and there was often violence on the picket lines and even

a few deaths."

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I already told him I was designated. We have a retreaded Speaker, so he didn't hear. A recycled Speaker....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR. ROSE: A replacement.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: A surrogate Speaker? I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, that

you didn't realize that I was here as a designated hitter. The people

across the hall are designated listeners.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: I just did discuss it earlier this evening, at the

beginning of my speech. Not to break the trend of my thought, I was

speaking about how, in a period in the sixties and seventies before we

had.... Really what it amounted to in British Columbia, regardless of

which party was in power, including the Social Credit, was that we had

a social contract. There was very little labour unrest here for about

ten years — relatively little compared to many countries. Of course,

you could ban strikes altogether, as they have done in Australia, but

there are more strikes down there than there are here. The only

difference is that those down there tend to be the wildcat variety and

here they tend to be the more legitimized, organized and have the

support of their own unions. I don't need to remind members of the

House what lengthy steps have to be taken before any kind of job action

is even contemplated.

Tytherleigh concludes: "Today Fryer has the deck stacked against him

in the battle with Bennett, but the danger is that the public will lose

the war." I think that members on both sides of the House would agree

with that. Similarly, Mr. Minister, if you proceed on a careless course

that causes trouble in the schools — the collapse of morale and

casualties among the teachers and students — then the public loses the

war. You and I come and go here. Some people come and go faster than

others. But the legacy of an inadequate education system will last for

a generation or more, and we shouldn't forget that.

I'm quoting again for Hansard : "If the battle cannot be

resolved by some diplomatic effort, then we can expect to return to the

poor industrial relations of the past." He concludes with a statement

of some considerable wisdom: "That is not the climate for economic

recovery or competing with the world for dollars of tourists and

investors." How do we avoid that kind of thing? Back off? Have no

change? Do nothing? I don't think that's acceptable to anybody.

Sometimes, as somebody else said in the debate last night, it's not

always necessary to grind out legislation to have reasonable, good and

competent government. It's only when you want to do something.

If it's not broken, why fix it? What is broken? You might better

leave it alone. So if you have labour unrest, you have economic

instability. If you have up to 25 percent of the civil service and over

5,000 school teachers concerned, are they going to have the confidence?

Even if they are employed are they going to have the confidence to

spend money to have an economic recovery led by the consumers? I think

the answer to that is obviously no.

Look at the people who attended the PNE this year. Why is it down 20

percent in good weather? Because they haven't got the money for that

sort of thing. Look at the number of people who haven't been going to

the Whitecaps games. They can't go to everything.

AN HON. MEMBER: They got defeated.

MR. ROSE: Well, I know that they can't go anymore. Maybe

that's the reason. They didn't go in Montreal and they're winning.

Nobody is at those games either.

All I'm saying is that if people don't have the confidence that

they're going to have a job, they're going to squirrel the money away.

They're not going to spend it. Unless they spend it, how is that going

to help the businessman? It isn't. So any kind of manner by which you

can increase the security of people — not to make them fat, sassy, lazy

and layabouts but provide them with a reasonable kind of security so

they can operate without fear — I think is going to be helpful, not

only psychologically but economically.

This bill is anti-education, anti-pupil, anti-board and

anti-teacher. I've spoken a little bit about the interference with

previously autonomous boards. I don't think I need to repeat much of

that, unless, of course, I run out of other things to say. Probably the

greatest concern expressed by the board....

I understand that deputy ministers are not necessarily going to be

under the control of the ministers anymore. I don't know if that's true

or if it's just an assertion. But if the minister doesn't have the

power to control his own deputy minister, and the deputy minister has

the power to make independent decisions and can report directly to the

Premier, I don't know what the minister's role is. Certainly it will

weaken the minister's power as it has with principals and

vice-principals.

[10:15]

I'm not speaking now of Bill 6, Mr. Speaker, but of Bill 3. Even in

the most affluent areas if a particular district wishes to buy or hire

a particularly capable superintendent, and the going rate for those

people happens to be higher than what the minister sets under the

compensation commission of Bill 3, the local people will be told they

can't hire that person. Similarly the local people will be told they

can't have that course, or they can't offer that kind of space. That's

a retrograde step and is part of that whole autonomy thing.

There have been some pretty strong things written about

centralization and the way that this government has proceeded. I don't

like to use the term "fascist" and I've said that in here before. I

don't even like it if the shoe happens to fit. By the way, I looked in

Beauchesne and it's not considered unparliamentary; "Nazi" is, but

"fascist" is not. I

[ Page 1606 ]

won't be hurling any of those things across the

floor, but I think we should all be aware that some people consider the

direction of this government to be to the far right and not the

democratic right. It's going beyond the democratic right, and I think

they believe that with some degree of sincerity.

Rainer Ziegenhagen, who I guess should know what he is talking about

considering where he was born, talks about jackboot politics, and he

was writing for the Central Okanagan Capital News ,

which is a publication in Kelowna. He is talking about the $2,000

fines, the centralization and all the rest of it. I am not going to

read it all, but I'll read part of it:

"Before this is all finished, doctors and teachers

won't be the only ones who will be told where to live and how to

practise their profession. The guns are aimed at all of us. Their

legislation isn't aimed at curbing union power. It is going to hit us

all. Look at what has happened already."

"School trustees, you are now redundant."

The minister may assure us that Mr. Ziegenhagen is wrong, but he has the right to say it and this is his opinion.

"Renters, on October I you will have no more rights.

Minorities, you have been told you had best leave. B.C. will no longer

offer you any kind of protection."

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: You're wrong.

MR. ROSE: This is his opinion, not mine particularly, but I

share that opinion. I think that if the federal government and the

Minister of Justice for all of Canada is so upset about the

possibilities of the destruction of human rights in British Columbia as

to fund a group of people to protect those rights and to make public

statements concerning the loss of those rights and the human rights

commission.... In spite of the fact that I am not a Liberal, Mr.

MacGuigan, a former dean of law — I think of Waterloo or York

University — is certainly not bereft of intelligence. He is concerned

about it, and his record isn't remarkable in terms of the civil

libertarian, but he has certainly got a fine legal mind. If he has been

the dean of law and the Minister of Justice, he can't be the village

idiot. He is concerned about this....

HON. MR. RICHMOND: He is wrong.

MR. ROSE: Don't just say from your seat as the Minister of

Tourism sitting on your portfolio that he is wrong. He may not be wrong

and there is a good chance that he may be right. He goes on to say:

"Teachers, you may want to say the Lord's Prayer more than just in the

mornings. Employees, you are now eligible for instant dismissal for no

reason, without recourse to the courts." Now I know there is an

amendment put forth to change that, but that's shot full of holes too.

That is just a euphemism. I wish they hadn't even put it there, because

I think it is just going to lull some people to sleep.

Anyway, I am talking about Bill 3 and I realize I have strayed a little bit off that path.

The

article continues:

"You who are poor, or are ill, and you who are aged,

they have decided that you contribute so precious little to the B.C.

spirit that they'd be better off without you. You were part of the

problem. But the bootboys have the solution. Have you heard the

argument that we really shouldn't complain because this is exactly what

we voted for May 5 and now we are getting what we wanted?"

I will leave out the next sentence because he goes into some questionable words.

"Mr. Bennett promised no increases in health fees. Obviously that promise is no longer operative, to use a Watergate era word."

So a lot of people are really concerned about this. They are

concerned about the growth of centralization and the destruction of

autonomy. They are also concerned about the fact regarding one item I

mentioned earlier. I think it is unacceptable for one level of

government to assert its authority over the other level of government

when the other level of government previously was autonomous. That is a

central portion in Bill 3. I am not the only one who feels that way. As

a matter of fact, it is doubtful whether this would even be legally

acceptable, but there are a number of other people in the hall who are

lawyers. I think it will be tested in the courts. Certainly if I were

fined as a member of a board and this government came along and issued

a directive and wanted to fine me for the fact that I made a decision

contrary to one of the minister's directives, I would fight him in the

courts.

"No matter how pretty a face you put on it," says Linda Hossie on

page 5 of the Sun , July 20, "it is a travesty of democracy to permit a

law that allows one level of government to authorize fines for members of another

democratically elected level of government for voting according to their consciences

or the wishes of their electorate." That is not going to happen any more

with the college boards, because they are all going to be appointed and they

will be well trained. They will be good people, people who are well motivated,

but they are not going to be the people who will cause any opposition. They

are not going to be the people who will cause any kind of trouble whatever.

They're going to be people who are well trained, probably pals of the minister,

or at least pals of the Social Credit government. That's the way it's

going to be, and that's the way the government wants it. Anything which

has to do with advocacy, whether you're talking about renters' rights

or human rights — I'm surprised they haven't removed the ombudsman —

college boards or anything like that is going to be slaughtered. That's

the way they're proceeding. That's the game plan, and that's good,

because if you take away all your critics then you don't have much to worry

about.

I mentioned that there is a federal interest in here. Certainly

people who are interested federally in the multicultural aspect are

concerned about people's rights. If they're members of the visible

minorities, they're concerned about that. There are also people who are

concerned about the tack on the economy, the tack on civil rights and

the tack on justice, as I've just mentioned. They're concerned with the

fact that not even Reagan would operate to remove human rights. Of

course, it's much more deeply ingrained constitutionally in the United

States than it is in Canada.

An assault on human rights is not something that gets our people all

that upset. I think all of us can recall — it was certainly within my

lifetime — that Orientals even had the right to vote, so they're

certainly not going to make any particular fuss about this. It's only

those people who don't have any rights who really need them. It's not

the people who are even hurt. The Orientals, the East Indians, the

people who are visible minorities in our society are the ones who feel

the brunt of bigotry. I've never been a minority, so I can't

[ Page 1607 ]

possibly have felt that way. But half the students

in my class when I was in elementary school were Japanese, and I know

how they were treated. They were treated that way with the support of

the vast majority of the public, and they'd do it again if they had the

chance and there were a particular issue. That's why I'm really

concerned about this business up in Keremeos against the other one of

our founding races, the French Canadians, who had all the trouble up

there. It is easy to hate people if they're different and they're

non-persons. If you take this protection away from them, then we have a

far less civilized society and a more beastly society.

I'm concerned that we've become, as I said earlier, celebrated not

only throughout Canada but throughout the world. We've had telegrams on

these pieces of legislation from New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

They're all concerned about the issues that are part and parcel of this

putrid package. The federal government has been asked by the Canadian

Association of University Teachers to move in and axe some of these

bills. We are certainly celebrated over this. It is interesting too....

Oh, he's gone again. He was here and now he's gone. I guess I drove the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) out.

MR. REYNOLDS: He'll be back.

MR. ROSE: He might be back. If everyone goes we'll call a

quorum and then we'll make them all come back. I think they deserve to

listen to me. That could be their punishment — a fate worse than death!

It's important — to me anyway — to say what I have to say.

When we are dealing with the school boards, we're going to take

their autonomy away. When we're talking about planning, we're going to

give it back to the municipalities, who, in terms of regional planning,

have no capacity for it. They are involved in a large urban mass,

whereas Bill 6 deals with school districts and they are in

municipalities for a special purpose. In my one school district which I

represent provincially....

AN HON. MEMBER: I've got two.

MR. ROSE: You have two. But how many municipalities do you have? About four or five?

What I'm saying is that school districts already go and do their

planning over municipal boundaries. The same thing that is accomplished

for school districts is now going to be eroded under Bill 9, and those

planning powers taken away from municipalities to make sense of the

urban mass and tangle.

I know we're not discussing Bill 9, but I'm trying to draw the

thread, Mr. Speaker, between the distinction and difference in the

government's attitude of autonomy for municipalities, in terms of

planning, on the one hand — where I don't think it applies and

shouldn't do so — and in the case of school districts where they want

to take that away. I think that's a contradiction, and I don't think it

is particularly bright or acceptable.

I understand that we have a celebrated education critic in the

person of one Crawford Kilian. Someone suggested that he was once a

school board member somewhere on the North Shore. Someone also said

that he took a trip to Red China at one time, so that must be a

putdown. I suppose Nixon would be put down on the same count. He goes

on to support the contention that I've attempted to make, saying that

school boards have really been stripped of all their powers. As I said

earlier, I feel sorry for the minister. I don't think he wants to be

Jack the Ripper; I don't think he can defend the indefensible; I think

he's really caught up in this whole thing. He's on a roller-coaster,

and there isn't anything we can do about it. Mr. Kilian had this to say

in the Province , July 18, shortly after these bills were tabled:

"School boards are now so degraded that they have no

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

cabinet. Trustees will earn their $4,000 a year by doing the bidding of

a new group of satraps called budget information officers, ministry

officials who will give each district its orders.

"Those satraps will answer to Deputy Minister of

Education Jim Carter, whose power is now virtually total. Under Bill 3,

the Public Service Restraint Act, Carter as deputy minister 'may

exercise'" — and here's the crucial quote, taken from the act — "'all

of the powers of the government under this act.' That means setting

budgets, decreeing salaries and defining jobs.

"You never voted for Jim Carter, but he's now running your schools."

I was hoping to meet Mr. Carter this afternoon but

had to cancel the appointment because of the fact that we had this very

important and weighty matter before us.

"No matter how nice a guy he may be, or how wise, he's

not accountable to you. It's not even clear whether Carter answers to

his minister, Jack Heinrich, or only to Premier Bill Bennett."

We really don't know about the minister; we don't know whether he is

the organ-grinder or the monkey. It will take a while to find that out.

All I know is that when he was appointed, following the celebrated

Member for Surrey, Mr. Bill Vander Zalm, he was greeted with open

enthusiasm by the teaching profession and the trustees. He had a lot of

expectations. I don't know that those expectations are still there

among those who are his clients and constituents in the school

district, but he certainly started out with a great deal of good wishes.

[10:30]

Mr. Kilian goes on to say:

"Senior administrators in our schools have been pretty

well paid in recent years — better paid sometimes than the deputy

minister and his assistants. Now a rigid formula will define the worth

of every school administrator. Whether your school superintendent is a

genius or a dolt, he or she will be paid on the basis of school

district population. That's right, so many dollars per head, regardless

of ability."

And regardless of the interest or affluence of the

district. If the district wants a particular talent, it can no longer

have it, because it won't be able to pay the money to attract that

particular talent.

I'll go on a little bit, but not very long, with this particular quote:

"Heinrich tried to defend this seizure of budget power when

he met last week with educators. He invoked a hypothetical school board that

might cut special education for handicapped children unless Victoria stepped

in. It was a striking argument, since

[ Page 1608 ]

his own budget for special education next year will be 12.3 percent

below this year's."

So he's going to cut special education, while he

goes to the trustees and tells them how much more he's going to do for

special education. Why have you cut special education, Mr. Minister?

You've mainstreamed them all, so there isn't the need for special

classes anymore. The costs are going to be higher in some ways; busing

certainly is, because they closed down one of the two special education

schools in my riding. Anyway, he's going to do things for special

education, while he cuts 12.3 percent over last year. That's how much

he's doing for special education. The handicapped are going to be even

more severely handicapped.

The

article goes on:

"These developments raise an ethical dilemma for all

educators and parents in B.C. Do we stay and fight it out, and try to

protect our children and their teachers as much as we can? Or do we get

out? Do we hand over what's left of the school boards to Socred

stooges? Do we abandon our colleagues and our students? Do we try to

find an adequate private school for our kids?"

This party believes that we should have the best possible public

education. This is not Alabama or some place in El Salvador; this is a

very affluent part of the world. If we can't afford a decent public

education for everybody's child, then there's something wrong with our

priorities. The fact is that we can afford it. Of course, if we make

schools so unattractive, for whatever reason, that we drive people into

private schools or into independent schools, that's going to further

weaken the public system, because they won't be handling the

handicapped kids. Those people going to Crofton House and York

House.... They'll argue that perhaps we should have an even greater tax

break from the public system. Could you use the same argument? They're

not using the public system, so why should they pay? I know the average

person can't. Why not use that argument about sending my daughter to a

fancy Swiss finishing school? If I send her there, would it then be

logical for me to expect the taxpayers to pick that up? After all, I

wasn't using the local school. That's the same argument, isn't it? It's

a ludicrous argument.

We set up that strawman, sent him crashing down to the boards with

that. Not only me, but a lot of other people have been very concerned

about it. Mr. Kilian says: "Only a Socred stooge would accept to be a

trustee today." I'm not sure that's true. I think that there are going

to be people who are other than stooges running for school board. I'm

suggesting that they are going to stay and fight. They are going to

fight this legislation through their organization, unless it's

abolished because the ministry won't allow them to spend any money on

the B.C. School Trustees' Association and its membership.

Another thing that I want to talk about is changing the rules of the

game as far as young people are concerned. I'm going to give some

examples of this, because I've got some examples here. I probably won't

get to it immediately, but I intend to give.... It really doesn't

matter, I suppose, whether it's in the order I intended or out of

order. If I can find it, I will.

I received some very touching letters from people. There is a real

dilemma, I think. Is it the government's responsibility to employ every

professional trained in every profession? That is an interesting

philosophical question. I've heard a very highly placed politician, who

sits in the front row — I won't mention his name because I don't want

to, but his initials are B.B.... I wouldn't want to reveal his name,

but he said to me — and I don't think it was in confidence: "It's not

my obligation to see that every plumber in the province is employed."

So does it follow that every school teacher who prepares and qualifies

himself or herself to be employed in our schools will be employed?

That's an interesting question — a very interesting question.

I think there was a time when we went begging all over North America

for school teachers: "Come to British Columbia. This is a tremendous

place. We need you. We've got all kinds of growth going on here. We

think you're wonderful. Come and live with us." That's what we said to

them. I also recall a time when we said: "Look, things are tough all

over. We can't get school teachers, so you'd better take 40 and 50 in

your class. That's your class load because, after all, we can't do any

more. We've got shifts and everything, and you've got to take more

kids."

Now, in a time when we could have smaller classes, when it would be

educationally desirable, we are saying: "No, we should load it up

because we can't afford smaller classes — as educationally desirable as

they are — any more." But the question is: should we? I think the

answer is no, you don't have an obligation to employ everyone. But you

have an obligation to tell people, over the years, that the demand for

that kind of service is not going to be shut off like a faucet, but is

going to be toned down, so that they have some other decisions that

could be made before they invest four or five expensive years in that

kind of training.

AN HON. MEMBER: Enrolment's going up.

MR. ROSE: Of course it's going up. Enrolment is going up

everywhere, including the junior colleges, in spite of the fact you are

cutting back courses. Enrolment is going up because kids can't get any

work, and because they can't get any work, they say: "What the hell. If

I can't get any work anyway, I should go back to school and prepare

myself, and maybe then I'll be qualified for a particular job." I think

there is an obligation for people to do some advanced manpower planning

so we know whether or not we are going to have places for people and so

they are not employing themselves to operate left-handed monkey

wrenches when no left-handed monkey wrench operators happen to be

around. We've stolen and imported skills from all over the world, like

we've done with our money. We Canadians have been the biggest

scavengers, in terms of skills, of any nation in the world. We haven't

done our own training. It's only in the last ten years that we've even

had community colleges. So you don't know anything about that side.

Here is a statement that says: "Prospects Hopeless for Unemployed

Teachers." They go through some things here. I'm not going to quote

from this, because it's another newspaper article. This insensitivity,

where we don't feel as a government that we should do anything about

the unemployed, or where we try to tie everything to the private

sector, is absolutely ludicrous, in my mind. You want small government?

The Bennett government had small government in the thirties. There

certainly was no government on the backs of the people then. There were

a hell of a lot of people unemployed and suffering. So the fact that

you think that the private sector is going to provide that kind of

engine for recovery is just absolute lunacy. It won't wash. It's not

going to wash. It hasn't washed anywhere in the world.

[ Page 1609 ]

MR. COCKE: And it never will.

MR. ROSE: It probably never will.

I think we have a right to tell teachers or anybody else preparing

for a profession what the odds are of getting a job. That's what I

think.

"Mr. Rose:

"I'm a teacher. I've been working at the profession

for ten years. My wife has been doing the same for eight. What is going

on? I am truly worried whether we'll ever get a chance to have any kind

of permanent employment, the kind of security that the system requires

to get a mortgage for a house.

"I am not going to attempt to explain my understanding

of the reasons for this. However, I know that you have the

responsibility to speak up for us."

That's a pretty sad situation. Here is a person — I was talking

about this earlier, when we were talking about a consumer-led recovery

— that is not going to go out and buy a house. He's not going to employ

a carpenter. He's not going to buy anything from the Bennett hardware

store. He's not going to buy any fridges from eastern Canada or

automobiles from Japan. He's not going to be able to do that, because

he hasn't got any security.

Is that the former Speaker of the House?

MR. COCKE: That's the new Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder).

MR. ROSE: Is he the Minister of Agriculture? I'll talk to him

later. But right now I don't want him muttering in his beard and

distracting me, because I'm moving right along and coming to the climax

of my speech....

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. ROSE: I didn't say it was the end; I said I was getting to the better parts of it.

I've got to keep this confidential. I haven't got permission to read

it, so I'm not going to use the words here. I'll read part of it. This

woman says:

"I'm sending along this resume. I want to tell you a

little bit about my husband and our family. My husband" — we'll call

him George — "started going to university two weeks after we were

married in 1970. For two years we both went to school — George to be a

teacher and me a nurse. One year after I graduated our first child was

born, and I had five children in the next six years. I was not able to

work full-time but have always worked casual and part time, because of

the necessity.

"George continued to go to university, working towards

his goal of becoming a teacher. When I was unable to work because of

advanced pregnancy, he would take the terms off and take night school

courses at whatever he could get to support us.

"In 1980 he took one complete year at UBC to finish

his degree. We lived in Port Moody and he took the bus for four hours

every day for his finals. You will never know what hardships our family

went through to achieve our goal or how much we rejoiced at its

accomplishment. 'Now we can start saving for a home of our own and not

have to worry about every penny we spend.' But that turned out not to

be the case.

"For two years George had a permanent part-time position

courses to make himself a better teacher. Letters of recommendation, including

a resume, will show you that he's a good teacher. The money wasn't very

much. He only made $700 a month, but we consoled ourselves with the thought

that next year he would have a full-time teacher's job. Next year he lost

his job completely."

It's a tragic case. Here's a family with five children. They spent

a lot of time with great personal sacrifice because he thought the community

wanted his skills. We find out now that we don't need them any more because

we're going to have larger classes. He won't be buying a house either.

We don't know what's going to happen to his kids. They're not going

to starve to death, but he's certainly not going to be able to live and

make the kind of plans that he thought he would be able to make and had every

right to make.

From World War II on, Mr. Speaker, it's been a party. Maybe the

party is over. Some of us are old enough that we could adjust to that,

but some of us don't have to; some of the younger people have never

learned to adjust to that. Their situation is tragic. I read two

examples of what are very sad, if not tragic, cases. You could multiply

them by a thousand, and you don't have to stick to teaching. You can go

into everybody's dashed hopes in our society.

The answer isn’t centralization; we don't solve anything by

centralization. People have asked me: "What do the trustees want? We've

heard a lot about the teachers, but what are the trustees after? They

must be after something." You know, in the past anyway, they were

considered to be if not allies at least sympathetic to the Social

Credit government. I don't know that they're not any more, but I know

that the trustees are very concerned about this legislation for some of

the reasons that I've mentioned.

[10:45]

When they made their brief to the various caucuses last July, they

made the following points. They share with the government the concern

about deficit