1986 Legislative Session: 4th 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)

MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1986

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

7973 ]

CONTENTS

Tabling Documents — 7973

Ministerial Statement

Sunday liquor sales. Hon. Mr. Veitch — 7973

Mr. Cocke

Oral Questions

Louisiana-Pacific plant. Mr. Williams — 7973

Mount Pleasant area prostitution. Mr. Mowat — 7974

Groundfish processing. Mr. Hanson — 7974

Canadian bed and breakfast registry. Ms. Brown — 7975

National NDP position on Expo. Mr. Ree — 7975

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Education estimates. (Hon. Mr. Hewitt)

On vote 16: minister's office — 7975

Mrs. Dailly

Mrs. Wallace Mr. Rose

Mr. Gabelmann Hon. Mr. Ritchie Mr. Lauk

Mr. Hanson Ms. Sanford

MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1986

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, l have four people here from the

great riding of Cariboo, from Cinema in the north part of the riding.

I'd like the House to welcome Mrs. Nancy Poulk, Leonard Dillabough,

Martin Dillabough and Grant Mitchell. Would the House join me in

welcoming them.

Hon. Mr. Heinrich tabled the annual report of the British Columbia Railway

for the period ending December 31, 1985. Hon. Mr. Curtis tabled the annual report

of the activities of the compensation stabilization program for the year 1985.

SUNDAY LIQUOR SALES

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a ministerial statement.

As we all know, Expo 86 is a provincial event, a unique opportunity

to attract hundreds of thousands of new visitors to British Columbia.

Expo is the drawing card, but once the tourists are here, we will be

actively encouraging them to travel to holiday destinations throughout

the province, and of course to return year after year. The exhibitory

and the tourism component at B.C. Pavilion is set up to make this

happen.

Mr. Speaker, many of these first-time visitors coming to Expo will

expect to have access to services they are accustomed to both at home

and at other international exhibitions. This expectation includes

access to a licensed establishment seven days a week during the fair.

This service is available on site at Expo, and today I am announcing

that it is being extended throughout the province.

We want our visitors to have a consistency of experience wherever

they travel in British Columbia. Therefore, through an order-in-council

amendment to the Liquor Control and Licensing Act, we are enabling

neighbourhood pubs, cabarets and hotels throughout the province to

offer their customers the same services on Sundays as are available the

rest of the week.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I have one caveat, of course, and

that is that hopefully there is not going to be drinking to the extent

that there will be drunk drivers on the road. Other than that, we feel

that our clients, our customers and our friends come from all over the

world, where they have that privilege now. I think it is fine that they

will have the opportunity to partake of a social drink on a Sunday

during Expo.

Oral Questions

LOUISIANA-PACIFIC PLANT

MR. WILLIAMS: My question is to the Premier, regarding the

Louisiana-Pacific waferboard plant proposed for Dawson Creek. Can the

Premier advise the House why the former Minister of Trade was

responsible for those negotiations?

HON. MR. BENNETT: We have a number of ministries that participate in all negotiations. Trade and Investment — by the very name, Investment —

is one ministry that attracts not only local but also international

investment. As well, there's the whole Cabinet Committee on Economic

Development. So while I can understand that the member may think that

negotiation is simply a matter for or the responsibility of one

minister, there are a number of ministries and their technical staff

relating to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Development, which deals

with all proposals — including the Louisiana-Pacific, for which I was

pleased to turn the sod in Dawson Creek a couple of weeks ago, one of

three major sod-turnings that are helping to create jobs in British

Columbia.

MR. WILLIAMS: Could the Premier advise the House how many

other corporations, particularly British Columbia corporations, have

been offered zero percent loans? How many indigenous British Columbia

corporations or business people or retailers have been offered zero

percent loans?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, that question should be

directed to the minister relating to the B.C. Development Corporation,

which undertakes to provide incentive financing from time to time,

depending on the type of new industry or new technology that we're

trying to attract to the province. I would suggest that if the member

wants an answer in detail, he could put a question on the order paper,

or else if he wants to deal with it orally, I can take it as notice for

the minister.

MR. WILLIAMS: Could the Premier advise the House why these

kinds of subsidies were granted, in view of the fact that waferboard is

the most profitable sector of Louisiana-Pacific's operations, according

to their own reports?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Louisiana-Pacific is the largest waferboard

marketer and manufacturer. The very fact that they are successful and

do have the new technologies, particularly when we're dealing in

different woods, woods that up until now have had very little

commercial value… The aspen, a tree that in that area has to be a

10-inch tree, which is the harvestable type they're using, has about a

20-year growth rate. Therefore to deal with that wood and to be

costeffective Louisiana-Pacific had the technology.

We've seen other waferboard plant proposals, but substantially

because they weren't experienced or were experimenting, the projects in

many cases were almost double the capital value of Louisiana-Pacific's,

which not only would make them uneconomical but would lead to

productivity problems down the road.

MR. WILLIAMS: I wonder if the Premier is aware that the

largest producer of waferboard technology in the world is in my riding,

Vancouver East. It's the CAE corporation, and it produces 80 percent of

the world's waferboard machinery, the most modern technology in the

world. Is the Premier not aware of the fact that we have an indigenous

industry in British Columbia that sells to 80 percent of the world; but

they're using German technology, the 20 percent player on the world

market?

[2:15]

The Premier is saying that he is aware, Mr. Speaker?

[ Page 7974 ]

The question is, why would you loan on this scale when the company

has shown that its most profitable sector is waferboard, and at the

same time loan on German technology when our own corporation here in

British Columbia, supplying 80 percent of the world's waferboard

equipment, will not be a player with respect to this operation in our

own home province?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I guess because that firm in

that constituency doesn't have a member who has encouraged them to make

an application to put a plant in British Columbia.... We can only

deal with those firms that aggressively make application. If that firm

was in my constituency, I would have encouraged them to undertake

business prospects in British Columbia, but they didn't make an

application.

MR. WILLIAMS: I hesitate to work on the education of the

Premier, but it's necessary, Mr. Speaker. The machinery company is in

the business of operating machines and selling machinery, not building

plants. They sell to 80 percent of the world's manufacturers.

But my question is: did the cabinet officers and the Premier follow

through on the question and the statements of the former Minister of

Trade, who claimed that three other jurisdictions were competing for

this plant, i.e., Oregon, Alberta and Minnesota? Did he check and find

out that that was not the case, that none of these states or provinces

were competing for this plant at all, and that none of them would have

offered subsidies on this scale? Did he carry out those kinds of checks

before that cheque was written for this corporation?

HON. MR. BENNETT: If that member for Vancouver East wants to have another discussion with the member....

AN HON. MEMBER: Who's never here.

HON. MR. BENNETT: The most relieved person in this House,

when that member isn't here, is the member for Vancouver East, who only

questions him the first time he hasn't seen him in the House. When he

was here, he used to hide.

MOUNT PLEASANT AREA PROSTITUTION

MR. MOWAT: I have a question for the Attorney-General. I have

received a great number of complaints from the residents of the Mount

Pleasant area regarding the prostitution interfering with their daily

lives. Could the Attorney General investigate the situation and report

to the House?

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious problem

in Mount Pleasant. As the House knows, two judges have ruled. One judge

has ruled that the soliciting legislation violates the Charter of

Rights and is ineffective, and another judge has ruled that the

automobile soliciting violates the Charter. Both those decisions were

promptly appealed, and the appeal will be heard this week, which is

pretty fast-track appellate justice. There is really nothing else at

the moment that can be done. Charges are being laid, but the cases are

not proceeding to trial until these cases have been dealt with on

appeal. It's imperative that the appeal system and the criminal law

takes its course. I know that some would like me to apply again for an

injunction, as we did in the West End when the criminal law had proved

to be inadequate because of Supreme Court of Canada decisions. But you

cannot use the remedy of an injunction, which is an extraordinary

remedy, a temporary remedy.... You cannot use that to supplant the

appeal courts of the land and the decisions of the courts; they must be

respected.

I can also tell the member that if for some reason all the courts

decide that that legislation offends the Charter of Rights, I will be

strongly urging Ottawa to use the override to protect people who live

in neighbourhoods, to protect these people and their children, instead

of being so overly concerned about the rights of hookers and pimps.

MR. MOWAT: Again, to the Attorney-General. My research

indicates that in other provincial jurisdictions the appeal has not

been so, and that the federal one stands now. Could he answer on that?

MR. SPEAKER: Is the member seeking a legal opinion?

HON. MR. SMITH: I won't give a legal opinion, but I think

that there are so many Charter of Rights challenges to new criminal

legislation these days that it's impossible to find a pattern. Most of

the experience is in British Columbia because of the relatively

hospitable weather; it's not in the streets of Halifax or Toronto.

GROUNDFISH PROCESSING

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of

Environment in his capacity of regulating the processing of fish

products here in the province of British Columbia. As he knows, fish

processing plants are closed all the way up and down this coast. In

this city alone, Oakland's plant is closed. In the first two months of

this year, 2.5 million pounds of groundfish have gone over to

Bellingham and Blaine for processing, feeding 70 jobs over in the

Bellingham-Blaine area. What has the minister decided to do to develop

a processing capacity here in British Columbia, so that shoreworkers

can work on B.C. fish here within our own province?

HON. MR. PELTON: Of course, Mr. Speaker, the ministry is

concerned when these things happen. Yes, we do have input into the

processing of fish in the province. In this particular case we are

looking at the situation; we don't have the solution at this time, but

I would be pleased to bring further detail back to the member as

quickly as I possibly can.

MR. HANSON: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. In 1985, 24 million

pounds of groundfish were exported from the province, which could have

provided employment here in British Columbia and in my own city of

Victoria. The problem is getting worse. The volume of fish going out is

increasing. What specific action have you decided to take to provide

employment here in B.C. and put our own shoreworkers back to work?

HON. MR. PELTON: Without appearing to be rude, it would seem

to me that maybe the member didn't listen very well to what I said. I

would suggest that my offer to bring a

[ Page 7975 ]

response forward as quickly as possible would contain the very information that he's soliciting.

CANADIAN BED AND BREAKFAST REGISTRY

MS. BROWN: My question is to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate

Affairs. I received a complaint from one of my constituents, a Mr. Allan Birlie,

about having registered with the Canadian Bed and Breakfast Registry. He made

a deposit, which he was told would not be refunded if he withdrew his services,

and paid an additional $210 for a pre-marketing fee for preferential booking.

Mr. Birlie decided not to continue with the registry, and at that time was told

by the owner, Mrs. St. John, that he would not have his $260 refunded. Is the

Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs aware of this situation with the

Canadian Bed and Breakfast Registry, and what, if anything, can he do about

it?

HON. MR. VEITCH: I'm not aware of this particular case, but

if the hon. member would make the details available to me, we'll look

into it right away.

MS. BROWN: A supplemental. I gave the information to the

deputy and received a phone call from a Mr. Basiren in Consumer and

Corporate Affairs, who said there was nothing they could do at the

bureaucratic level. So I'm wondering if there's anything the minister

can do from his height as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Looking down on the matter, hon. member, we'll look

into it and see what can be done.

NATIONAL NDP POSITION ON EXPO

MR. REE: Mr. Speaker, on Friday last the true philosophy and

attitude of the NDP was made evident by the national leader, Mr. Ed

Broadbent.... .

AN HON. MEMBER: Ed who?

MR. REE: Broadbent, I think is his name.

... when he was supporting a possible boycott of Expo 86. My

question to the Minister of Education as the alternate for the Minister

of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Richmond) is: did this statement have any effect

on the attendance of unionized members, their families and friends at

Expo over the weekend, and is it anticipated that it will have any

effect on future attendance at Expo?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the statement

made by the leader of the New Democratic Party in Ottawa, first of all,

there's no way of telling whether or not it had an effect on family

days on the weekend. Of course, the leader quickly retracted when he

got the advice from his provincial counterpart.

One of the concerns that I think slipped by the Leader of the

Opposition when he made the statement was that the benefit to the

economy of this province will be about $500 million in increased

revenues for provincial sales tax, income tax, hotel tax, gasoline tax

and liquor tax; those are revenues that come in to provide social

services for the people of this province. It would seem to me that a

leader of the opposition making a political statement in front of a

food bank — or wherever he was at the time — is pretty short-sighted,

and he should get his facts right before he starts making statements to

the people.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

On vote 16: minister's office, $211,280.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, I would like to deal with the

whole area of school board budgets, particularly with the district that

I and two other MLAs in this room represent, which is Burnaby School

District, of course. Dealing with Burnaby School District, I think,

will give me an opportunity to make a point about the whole area of

education in this province and the Social Credit government's manner of

handling the financing of education. Then I'll have a couple of

questions for the minister. So if the minister will bear with me, I

want to start off by talking about Burnaby's current dilemma: problems

they face because of the Social Credit government's imposition on them

of taxes they should not have to be faced with.

I would like to give the minister a bit of background here, because

I realize that he's a new minister. I'm sure that he hasn't yet had

time to go through each board's budget. But I certainly hope that when

I've finished discussing Burnaby's problem with him, he will be

prepared to have an early meeting with the Burnaby School Board, which

I'm sure they would appreciate. So that will be one question, of

course, to the minister. Are you planning in the near future to visit

with the Burnaby School Board, which as we all know is one of the

largest school districts in the province? That doesn't mean those are

the only districts you should visit, Mr. Minister, but I would hope

that the problems that Burnaby faces will be dealt with by you

personally so that you can get some personal knowledge of the problems

there.

The budget for Burnaby School Board has been reduced since 1982. To

give you an example, in 1982 the Burnaby School Board budget was $62.7

million.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: The Minister of Highways (Hon. A. Fraser) says

that that's too much money. Well, I know if he's typical, and I think

he is, of the Social Credit thinking on education, it shows that he

always puts highways before the needs of the children of this province.

Certainly we need highways, but I would hope that children and the

investment in their future would have priority with the Social Credit

government. I would certainly hope so. It's this ignorance and lack of

understanding of the importance of education, which unfortunately is

displayed by some of the cabinet ministers and obviously by the

government, that is going to leave a legacy in this province that will

be quite tragic for many students.

I digress here, because the minister kind of got me off the track

there with his interjection. I think the recent report on school

dropouts, which I know will be discussed in detail later, certainly

shows that something is wrong. I think that the

[ Page 7976 ]

minister and his government have to take the blame for that whole area.

[2:30]

Mr. Chairman, to get back to Burnaby and the school board budget. In

1982 it was $62.7 million. In 1985 it is $53.5 million. That's a

tremendous drop in the operating budget of our school district. The

interesting thing is that our enrolments in Burnaby are now starting to

pick up. I think that's one of the first things that should be

realized. Also I'm sure the minister is aware that there are built-in

services which hoards are responsible for and have no control over.

There are salaries, inflation — all these things that school boards

have no control over — and yet the budget has been forced and squeezed

by the Social Credit government.

Actually what does it mean? We can talk in millions of dollars, but

what does it really mean to the taxpayers of Burnaby? You'd think,

wouldn't you, that if that budget dropped like that, the taxes in

Burnaby would drop? The taxpayers are asking what's going on. You tell

us that you've had to cut back here and cut back there. You showed us

that the budget has dropped by millions of dollars, and yet when we get

our tax notices, taxes keep going up.

As a matter of fact, let me give you the figures. The average

Burnaby taxpayer has been paying between $100 and $125 more. Can you

believe it? In spite of a reduced budget, they've been paying between

$100 and $125 more in school taxes during the last two years and more,

and yet some services have had to be dropped — and the budget has

dropped.

What's the reason? The reason is simple. The reason is that the

Social Credit government has decided to purposely shift some of the

costs which they took on before on a shareable basis and, instead of

continuing with those costs, they have dumped them right back on the

local school board, which therefore had no alternative but to put them

on the local taxpayer. Of course, it is really a Machiavellian move,

because the average taxpayer looks to his school board when he sees

problems with his taxes and has concerns about education. He thinks,

because the school board is elected, that the school board must be

making the decisions about these matters. Of course, once boards have

an opportunity to explain to the taxpayers that they are not

responsible for this increase, that it is the Social Credit government,

some of the taxpayers accept it and understand it. Unfortunately there

are many taxpayers — and, may I say, particularly those who do not have

children in school — who do not visit the schools regularly, who don't

talk to the teachers and trustees. They are the ones paying the taxes,

and yet many of them have not had the opportunity — or, may I say, even

taken the opportunity — to find out the real reason. Therefore their

displeasure and concern with increased taxes in Burnaby turns on that

hapless local school board.

Of course, what happens in Burnaby has happened all across the

province — not in every district, depending on the circumstances, but

most certainly in the school district of Burnaby.

The three MLAs from Burnaby had an opportunity to meet face to face

with the school trustees and officials last Saturday morning at 8

o'clock. Just to show you, Mr. Chairman, that the board in Burnaby do

indeed take their concerns seriously, they were willing to meet early

Saturday morning to discuss their concerns with their MLAs. One of

their first concerns expressed to us was this increase in taxes. In

spite of the fact that they've already had to put this increase on the

taxpayers because of non-provincial sharing, they look at this year's

budget and, instead of getting relief from the Social Credit

government, what do they find? They find that once again they are going

to have to increase school taxes on the citizens of Burnaby.

You know what is most interesting? This is the year that the Social

Credit government, with much fanfare, has announced that there are

going to be millions of extra dollars for education in the province of

British Columbia. Naturally everybody thinks, well, that's great. That

should help the school boards. But let's find out what this Social

Credit government has decided to do with the extra moneys. Instead of

very carefully looking over the budgets of the school districts,

working with them and restoring to them some of the sharing which they

should restore and which they took away in previous years, what do they

do? They say: "We will set aside this money, and you will have to apply

for it. We will also set the parameters on what the money should

generally go for." Here we have the tragic situation of a local school

board elected to run their own district, and they don't even have

control over the use of this money so they can put it right into their

operating budget. Instead they are told: "We will decide basically what

you are to apply for."

Well, of course, where does it put a board? Naturally the money is

there. What are they going to do? Sit back and refuse it? I want to

point out that when the Burnaby School Board makes application for this

money, I am sure they are going to be typical of many school boards. I

can assure you that making their application doesn't mean that they

agree with the principle of this educational excellence fund which the

government has put up and which has obviously been done strictly on the

basis of benefiting themselves politically. The school board is not

agreeing with this or condoning it. They have no choice, or else they

don't get any money for these particular projects which the government

has mentioned. If you talk to the school board of Burnaby, I'm sure you

will very quickly find that if you give them the choice on how that

money should be used, they want it restored to their basic operating

budget. They don't want this nonsense of being told they have to make

application and apply that money only to certain areas. If Burnaby

citizens had a choice and were asked: "Do you want to keep your taxes

down this year — you'd rather not see an increase — or would you prefer

an increase and have this access to an education excellence fund...?" I

can pretty well assure you that if that choice were ever put to the

average taxpayer, they'd say: "We don't want to pay more taxes; just

make sure the school board has enough money to operate in the manner in

which they should be able to."

I want to make it quite clear that application for this will

certainly not be a check mark and an okay for this arbitrary political

action by the Social Credit government. They estimate that on top of a

close to $200 increase in taxes in the last few years, there may be

another increase of over $25. That hasn't been finalized yet, but an

increase will definitely have to be imposed if they are going to try to

maintain services. I would like to point out to the minister that....

Here is an example of Burnaby's budget. If you want to compare

budgets in the lower mainland, here is Burnaby's increase over the

shareable budget which they feel is necessary this year to maintain

their operating standards and the quality. I don't know if the minister

has this example. I'm sure he has, but I would like to get it into the

record.

[ Page 7977 ]

Surrey has an increase of 11.8 percent — $11.2 million. Delta has an

increase of 9.9 percent; Richmond, 10 percent; Vancouver, 8 percent;

New Westminster, 10 percent; Burnaby, 8.6 percent. You can see that

some districts are well over the amount of shareable that Burnaby finds

necessary to carry on this year. They figure that $4.8 million is

needed, which works out to 8.6 percent. There's no way the Burnaby

school district can be accused of being extravagant or wanting a

tremendous amount of extra money for operating — 8.6 percent is the

increase.

I recall that last year.... of course, the present minister was

not the minister at that time, but there were statements made in debate

about the Burnaby school board, I think about salaries or high cost. I

want to get it on the record right now that.... Let me give you an

example of the present situation in the Burnaby school board. They have

the lowest pupil teacher ratio in the lower mainland. They have the

fourth-highest percentage of their budget devoted to instruction, and

the second-lowest percentage of their budget devoted to administration

in B.C. Those are the two areas that government usually refers to: how

much of your budget do you devote to instruction and how much to

administration.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I was so interested in what's

happening in Burnaby that I would just like to intervene and let my

colleague continue.

MRS. DAILLY: I don't have too much more now, because I know

we'd like to hear from the minister on some of these facts. I would

like to repeat that in those areas of the budget devoted to instruction

we have the fourth-highest percentage, and in the amount devoted to

administration we have the second lowest.

The important thing here is that the Burnaby school board has an

excellent reputation — I know all former ministers would agree — for

handling their budget in a careful manner. The tragedy is that here's a

board that for years has tried to play the game with the government, do

what's expected of them, keep up a good standard, yet each year they

really get kicked in the teeth. I've shown you what's happened, and for

all of this they still find themselves having to go to the taxpayer to

impose extra taxes, primarily because the Social Credit government has

purposely deflected.... has taken away from them some of the

operating shareable costs which they heretofore gave to them.

[2:45]

For a school board that's worked very hard — all the school boards

throughout the years — and with a non-partisan approach to their work,

they find this pretty difficult to handle. However, I know the minister

perhaps will say: "Look how well Burnaby has done with that amount of

money." I'm sure that might be a logical comment to make when he takes

his place. I just quoted to you that Burnaby has those high standards,

and you might say: "Well, then obviously they haven't suffered too much

with having to cut back." The point is that if you talk....

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Not cut back — I agree with the minister — but

having to contain themselves and impose more taxes because of the

cutbacks from the provincial sharing.... Provincial sharing

cutbacks, Mr. Minister. I think you should check with your own

district, and you'll find out that the Social Credit government has

taken away many of the provincial-shared items that were in the budget

before. I think you'd better look very carefully at your school board's

budget, and you'll find out what I'm talking about.

Mr. Chairman, the point is that the board has tried, but the board is getting

rather tired. I can say they'll keep trying. They have a job to do. But what

they're trying to say to the Social Credit government and to the Minister of

Education is: "Look at the situation we find ourselves in. Will you not

go back and restore some of that former provincial sharing?"

As far as keeping up the standards under these costs, I want to

point out that the trustees say: "Yes, it's true. We're doing our best,

but there are a lot of things that are happening in Burnaby because of

this imposition on us of costs which we didn't have to bear before and

which are having a very bad effect." There are many areas. I can talk

alone about the extra load that is placed on the teachers of the

district, and that says a lot for the teachers — that they have

maintained the standards in spite of all the other problems they've had

to deal with. The school boards burn the midnight oil — I know they do

in Burnaby, and I know they do across the province — to make the best

of what they have. But the attrition rate, the exhaustion, of trying to

maintain good standards under this environment is not good.

There are areas that have been cut back that will definitely affect

children in the future. I can refer again to the high dropout rates.

It's up to this minister-and I hope he'll talk about it — to certainly,

as our critic has said, get involved immediately in investigating the

reasons for this.

Mr. Chairman, I have taken a fair amount of time, and I haven't

posed a great many specific questions, but I would like to repeat to

the minister that I hope he will react to some of the things that I've

mentioned here. I hope he will make an opportunity to meet with the

board face to face, and I hope that he will accept the fact that the

Burnaby School Board would like to have restored to it some of the

things which have been taken away when it comes to shareable costs in

operating. I think the minister's officials could certainly spell out

to him the changes that were made.

I think there is also an area of great uncertainty — I'd like to

close with this — on future planning. There are districts in Burnaby

that

would like to know what will be taken into account in next year's

budget- what year of salaries will be taken into account, for example.

That is still all up in the air. On what salary

schedule — what year —

will you base the budget shareable appropriations in discussions with

them?

There are many more questions from Burnaby, but I want to leave some to the other members for Burnaby.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, to try to respond to the

questions, I am making it a point to visit school districts throughout

the province. The member might be interested in knowing that this

morning I visited the Surrey School District on my way back from

Penticton to Victoria, and I will be visiting north Burnaby as soon as

I possibly can.

To respond to another question that she raised about the provincial

government grants and how the provincial government should give more

money to Burnaby School District: Mr. Chairman, you know as well as I

that it's not the "provincial government," it's the provincial taxpayer

who contributes. We just act as the vehicle for the funds flowing

through the provincial general revenue account and on out to those

areas of social requirement in health and education and social

programs. Our responsibilities are to attempt to cover the

[ Page 7978 ]

costs in this province and not to create a legacy of debt for our

children, who are going through our education system and will have to

pick up the banner after we pass from the scene.

It's fair to say that last year when we were so difficult with

school boards and told them that there would be no increases for

teacher salaries.... Even after all those terrible things we did,

we were over S900 million in the red for that fiscal year — in effect,

borrowing to pay for the groceries in this province. In 1986-87,

although we've improved our position, we still anticipate, as the

Minister of Finance's budget indicated, having a shortfall this year of

some $875 million — still borrowing to buy the groceries in this

province.

I don't know whether that message can get through to the opposition.

I doubt it. I hope it gets through to some of the school boards in this

province who have been given the challenge of controlling costs in

their various school districts, and if not to the school boards, Mr.

Chairman, to the electors of this province, who should evaluate the

performance of their school boards, and not with 15 percent or 20

percent turnout as we've gotten in the past. Now that the school boards

have been given that local autonomy — the ability to tax where they

figure they need to tax, then I think it's up to the people of this

province in the various school districts to determine whether or not

they have good managers on their various school boards. If we see

increases in teachers' salaries being a part of the operating budget of

the various school districts, when the school board knows full well

that there is no money in next year's fiscal framework to cover salary

adjustments this year.... We got caught once, Mr. Chairman, and it

cost about $19 million to cover last year's increases, even after the

Minister of Education of the day said very clearly, very succinctly, to

all school boards: "Ladies and gentlemen, there is no money in the

fiscal framework for increases." We cannot afford more money. When I

say "we," I mean the people of the province of British Columbia and the

economy.

Now we're down to the Burnaby School District, which received its

fiscal framework material back a few months ago and then got a further

adjustment, because we came up with the $19 million for salary

adjustments last year. They received, I believe, $55,848,000 to run the

Burnaby School District; last year they received $54,158,000 in their

fiscal framework. The approximate difference — $1.69 million more this

year than last year. That's not a cutback, Madam Member. That is an

increase over last year's assistance from the provincial taxpayer to

the Burnaby School District.

Interestingly enough, the operating budget for the Burnaby School

District — I believe my figures are fairly accurate-went from $56.6

million up to $61.2 million this year. I've got to ask myself why. Do

they have, Madam Member — a question to you, since you've been informed

by the school board — in their operating budgets for this year an

anticipated increase of wages to teachers? I would have to assume

that yes, they have. If they have, Madam Member, they are really saying

to their local taxpayers: "We are going to raise your taxes because we

want to give the teachers an increase in wages, and you're going to pay

it all because the provincial government has told us that they aren't

going to pay any more wage increases to teachers through the fiscal

framework."

That's not because we hate teachers, Mr. Chairman, or because we're

against the education system. It's because the thrust of the throne

speech this year, the budget speech, was to create jobs in this

province, not to give increased salaries to those people who already

have jobs, particularly in the public sector, which is the only sector

we can control. That's the reason the fiscal framework does challenge

the school districts and the school trustees. But I would certainly

hope that school trustees would recognize that it's not because we're

against them or their teachers. It's because we have this problem

called an operating deficit at the provincial level, and we're

attempting to say to local administrations: "Become lean and efficient,

as best you can, under the fiscal framework formula. Where there is

need over and above that unique to your school district, we have given

you the ability to tax." School boards, Mr. Chairman, in my opinion,

who tax for increases in salaries this year will answer only to the

taxpayer at the polls at the next election of the school board.

With regard to the dropout rates, and the leaked document that the

very astute member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose), who puts the fear of

God into parents, into students, into teachers, into school districts

around this province by indicating that there is total disaster out

there — not in a document that is an official ministry document; no,

sir, one that he skulked around to find, got, and then was selective in

his statistics, and made a great press release.... I'm quite

prepared to debate it with him, Mr. Chairman.

But I just wish that he would think before he acts, because he's not

hurting anybody, certainly not politicians, but the impact on parents

and students and school boards is very unfortunate. I would hope that

the opposition would think before they act. In many cases they don't do

themselves any service; they only bring ridicule on their party. The

majority of people in this province understand a cheap political trick

very easily. I, for one, am quite prepared to debate with that member

his selective statistics at any time.

MRS. DAILLY: I made a note of what the minister started off

saying, when he said: "We can't hand out any more money." He's worried

about the legacy of debt, so what right do the school boards have to

ask for more? And then he gave us a lecture on his great concern over

debt. Isn't it interesting, Mr. Chairman, that we never hear those

words used when the government borrows millions and millions of dollars

for their own pet projects: ALRT, billions of dollars of debt — a

billion anyway. We're going to find that....

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Well, in time when you consider what the taxpayer has to pay.

Do we hear you talk about the legacy of debt that the people and the

average taxpayer are left with because of the Social Credit

government's handling of that particular form of transit?

We could go through northeast coal and talk about the legacy of

debt. We can name any project of the Social Credit government that has

added to the debt of this province, but what does the minister refer

to? The only time he talks about the legacy of debt is when he's

talking about education. Doesn't that just about tell us where that

government is at? The only time they talk about debt is when they're

talking about the future of the children of this province, and then

they get concerned about debt — never about anything else. At no other

time has that minister stood up and expressed concern over his

government's policies that are leaving the people of this province with

a legacy of debt.

When it comes to education, that is one area that a government will be measured by. When you start cutting

[ Page 7979 ]

back on the future of the children of this

province, you are indeed mishandling the mandate and what was given to

you to do by the people. Nobody in this province ever asked you to cut

back and get concerned about the legacy of debt by cutting back on the

lives and education standards of our children.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

I'm also disappointed to hear the minister flail and rant against

the Education critic of the opposition, who brought the problem of

dropouts to his attention. He may not have liked the manner in which it

was brought to his attention, but the point is that if people in his

own ministry have expressed concern, I think that minister, instead of

ranting about the critic who released it, and killing the messenger,

should take the message that there is a problem and announce to this

House that he is going to look into it- instead of putting up a

smokescreen against the way the member from the opposition released

this report.

I think it's time the minister realized that that probably is an

area that needs to be looked at, and I would recommend that he do

something about it, instead of just putting it to one side because the

opposition brought it to his attention.

[3:00]

You ask me specifically about salaries, and you said: "I hope that

Burnaby School Board isn't putting the increased salaries into their

budget." It's not up to me to go into detail about the Burnaby budget,

in case I give some wrong figures, but I am willing to give a few

points here and hope that when the minister meets with the board it

will be far more important and valuable for him to speak in detail with

the trustees and the officials who deal with this every day, which of

course I do not.

I would like to say to the minister that the Burnaby School Board

budget this year recognizes current year inflation as follows. For

supplies, they recognize an amount slightly less than the Vancouver CPI

increase. They have to recognize that; that's inflation. For salaries,

the amount is projected on the basis of the expected CSP process. I ask

the minister if that is unacceptable. That's what they've put in their

budget. For statutory benefits, they've recognized the amount required

by senior governments, which is apparently about twice the CPl increase.

So what I'm trying to say is that they're faced with these

inflationary costs; they have statutory benefits that are required, and

then when it comes to salaries.... I've explained that area to the

minister. I'm not giving the complete, adequate answer to your

question; it is the answer which I hope you will look for and deal with

directly with the school board when you talk to them. I'm going by what

I picked up at our meeting, and certainly you can't go into details on

a whole major budget in two hours.

The new budget of the Burnaby School Board essentially maintains

non-salary items at current year levels while addressing some problem

area shortages which were cut more severely and for a longer period

during restraint. They are pointing to the areas of art and music,

which suffered badly during restraint. If the minister says art and

music are baloney — which one Social Credit minister said quite a few

years ago, before you were in the House, Mr. Chairman; and I can assure

you there was a great reaction from the public to that — most people do

not consider art and music unnecessary. So the Burnaby school board is

attempting to restore some of that.

I want to point out again that in spite of a shareable budget

reduction of over 14 percent since 1982, and in spite of community

growth — we have had growth in Burnaby — house taxes went down only 4

percent. I want to say to the minister — and this is important — that

they're complaining, and rightly, about provincial changes in the

sharing rules. Your changes in the sharing rules since 1982 have

shifted about $105 of provincial costs to the average homeowner in

Burnaby. It was done very cleverly by your officials. The deputy and

officials in the Ministry of Education are told by the Social Credit

government: "You do this job for us. We want to get more taxes away

from the province and onto the taxpayer. Figure out the way you can

best get this across and sell it." I think some of the way it has been

worked out is almost Machiavellian, because it's a very clever attempt

to put a lot of this blame on the boards and not where it belongs, with

the province.

I would like to say, Mr. Minister.... I don't know if I've

answered a couple of your questions, but I really feel that the Burnaby

School Board, in asking to have some of this money that was taken away

restored to the shareable, are asking too much. I think that what I've

read to you from the reports shows that they're being very responsible

in their budget this year. Perhaps you could comment on whether you

consider any of that budget irresponsible — the little bit that I've

given you.

HON. MR. HEWITT: With regard to recognizing inflation, I told

the member that the fiscal framework gave an increase to the Burnaby

School District, this year over last year, of $1.69 million. That's not

a cutback, but an increase. I really can't quite quickly figure that

calculation out over their total budget, but it's not a bad increase.

In that were funds for non-salary inflationary items, supplies, etc. We

also, as the member knows, on a general basis — it all applies to the

Burnaby School District as well as to others — put an additional $6.1

million into textbooks in response to the concerns that were expressed

to me by the school boards of this province. That benefited the Burnaby

School District, because it means they have a larger credit with our

textbook department. So we did recognize inflation.

Burnaby School District had, I believe, a reduction in students of

112 — not many, but 112 fewer. The member may or may not know that the

fiscal framework is driven by the student population. As a result,

there is an adjustment. Even so, they still got $1.69 million more than

last year.

What is not in our figure, and what the member has now told me is in

Burnaby School Board's figure, is an anticipated salary adjustment for

teachers. The member stated that they put in a figure — I don't know

what it is — which they are assuming will result because of the CSP

process. Well, Madam Member, I guess I have said it very clearly and

succinctly, as did my predecessor last year to school boards: if you

put money in your budget in anticipation of the decision by the CSP,

you can no longer argue lack of ability to pay. It's there. And the CSP

people — Mr. Peck — will look at it and say: "Well, there's money in

your budget. Therefore I can only conclude that you have the ability to

pay, because it is your budget. You prepared it. And if it doesn't come

from provincial government revenues, then it must follow that you're

prepared to go to your taxpayers to get it." If I were on the school

board and I got the direction that has been given to

[ Page 7980 ]

school boards, the information that has been given

to school boards at this particular time, I would direct the secretary

treasurer of my school district that no money be placed anywhere in the

budget in anticipation of a salary adjustment for teachers this year.

Then I would go to the negotiating table and I would tell the members

opposite — the teachers' representatives — that I do not have any money

available for teachers' salary increases. We would then move to binding

arbitration. I would tell the arbitrator that there is no money in our

budget for salary increases: "We adopt the same principle as the

provincial government — i.e., job creation as opposed to increases in

salaries for those who are already working for the school district. So,

Mr. Arbitrator, there's no money there." If the arbitrator, in his

wisdom, comes up with a figure and says, "This is what I arbitrate,"

then the school board arrives at Mr. Peck's office and says to Mr.

Peck, "There is no money in our budget for salary adjustments," Mr.

Peck will undoubtedly have the staff evaluate the budget, and if the

money hasn't been put in, I would suggest to you that Mr. Peck is going

to have an awfully tough time coming back and saying: "I approve a

certain percentage increase because it's within the guidelines." Mr.

Peck is going to have to determine where that money comes from, and if

these boards are as lean and efficient as I think they are.... I

grant that they've gone through some pretty tough times over the past

three years. We've challenged them at every turn, not because we

enjoyed doing it but because it was necessary to do. But if the money

isn't in the budget — hidden, reserved, wherever they may put it — then

Mr. Peck can only come up with one conclusion: this school board does

not have the ability to pay salary increases this year.

I grant you, some school boards will negotiate an adjustment, as

Prince George has done. Others will put the money in anyway in

anticipation and will be drawn to the conclusion that there is an

increase to be given. In the end when they give that increase, they

will probably.... First of all, they will have to go to the

taxpayers to get relief. But they may think when they come back next

year that the Minister of Education will again go to the Excellence in

Education fund to get sufficient money to cover off. But I can assure

you, Madam Member, as I have assured school trustees at the BCSTA

convention, that this was a one-time deal, I will not do it again. We

all have to play our

part in this economic recovery, and I have a great

deal of difficulty understanding why the public sector seems to be

insulated from the realities of an economy that is just starting to

breathe again. For some unknown reason, we want more. We don't want to

be part of the solution; we want to aggravate the problem.

Madam Member, my answer to you is as an MLA, as a person concerned

about the future financial status of this province. We talk about

cooperation and communication. Maybe it would be worthwhile if you sat

down with your school board and passed the message to them again: "The

minister has advised me across the floor of the House that there is no

money available for salary adjustments. I suggest you put nothing in

your budget for 1986-87."

MRS. DAILLY: I certainly will pass that on, but I think it

would be much better.... I am looking forward to the minister's

meeting with the board directly so they can explain to him their

rationale and reasons for those details that I have given him in the

budget.

It is interesting the way the minister ignored the other areas —

didn't attack them — that were going in the budget for increases, but

zeroed in, as the Social Credit government always do, on the teachers.

It is great to find whipping-boys and — girls, and with the Social

Credit government it's always the teachers. The teachers are people,

they're human, they're necessary. They are more than necessary for the

future of our children. If the Social Credit government has done

anything — and this minister just on the scene is picking up the same

theme — it is to discredit the teaching profession. Always select it

for the ones to be kicked around. What they're asking here for the

teachers.... I am not here to speak on behalf of the board, but it

seems to me that all you continually do is select the teachers to be

the basis of all the budgetary problems. My opinion is that the Social

Credit government is the basis of all these problems that the boards

are facing now because of the Machiavellian way in which you shift

costs onto those local taxpayers, and then at the same time try to put

the blame for any tax increases on teachers. I consider that a pretty

reprehensible way for any government to handle the education process.

Now here are a couple of facts for the minister. I gave you what the

school board is planning in their budget, or would like to. Here is

what the province has left them with. Okay, $435,000 higher than last

year. Through what you have announced to them, you have ignored

government-approved salary increases since 1984. You've just said to us

that that's what you believe.

Here is another area: you have removed investment and rental income

from the use of the board. Is the new Minister of Education aware that

his ministry has now removed the investment and the rental income from

the use of the board? That's been taken away, something that they had

before.

Increases in the expectations of higher service levels in special

education. You yourself have decided that that whole area of special

education is important, and I agree with you. But at the same time

you've increased the expectations of the higher service levels in that

whole area, and the board will be stuck with that. You have created

uncertainty in planning due to a newly established authority to reduce

school district grants in mid-year.

[3:15]

So all I am saying to the minister is that you have much to answer

for, and I hope that you will have an opportunity — you said you would

— to face the school board directly and hear from them. They can do a

much better job of explaining their case than I can.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, just briefly, I have some

difficulty in shifting costs. The statement that the member made.... I

told the member that we increased the budget from the province to

the Burnaby School Board. It gave them an increase this year over last

year.

MRS. DAILLY: The shareable budget.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The shareable budget. We gave you an

increase on the fiscal framework this year over last year. What we did

do is give back the local autonomy, if you will, which was asked for by

school boards — the ability to tax. We also gave them the

accountability to the taxpayer. We've said the issue around teachers'

salaries is one concern, because approximately 80 percent-plus of the

total budget goes to salaries. There's no problem with that, but if you

control that cost you can see there's very little need for major

[ Page 7981 ]

adjustments to a school budget or to taxes to the local property owners if that one is controlled.

No, Madam Member, I'm not picking on teachers. You always say we

discredit the teachers, that we're attacking the teachers. It's not

true. I think it's fair to say that negotiations have been going on

with the HEU — the hospitals and the hospital employees — to a point

where the hospital employees have taken a strike vote. But in that

particular case I think it's fair to say concessions have been asked

for by the employer. At least that's what the news broadcasts tell me.

They are public servants too. So we're really asking all the public

sector — you and me, our staff, the people who work for the government

at any level — that the private sector, the economy that generates the

revenue that pays our way and pays our salaries as public servants,

can't be loaded any more. We've got to mark time, if you will — not

Mark Rose but mark time — to allow the economy to recover, not load

additional tax on taxpayers, on property owners but allow the economy

to recover so we can improve services in all parts of the social

programs that we provide.

With regard to investment income, it has not been removed. I'm told

that it is still available, and l believe it's to reduce both

provincial grants and residential tax at the school board level. I'll

get some further information on that. I'm not sure how we arrange that,

but it has not been removed, by the information I have in front of me

right now.

Just a few other statistics that have been given to me. The '84 tax

rate in Burnaby was 5.98; the '85 tax rate was 5.76. So the tax rate

was down. Assessed values in the Burnaby School District went up by

about 10 percent, so the reflection of the tax increase equates not

just to the tax rate but also to the assessed values of properties

within the school district, and they went up, which of course generates

more tax on the particular household.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm going to start out in a slightly different

vein, because there's one thing that this minister has done that is a

good thing, and that is the funding of the MacKirdy assessment centre

in the Cowichan district. The minister looks like he doesn't even know

what it's all about, but….

HON. MR. HEWITT: I didn't hear you.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm complimenting you for funding the MacKirdy

Centre in Cowichan — a much-needed facility. We've been functioning

there, and I think that it indicates the concern and the dedication of

the much-maligned Cowichan School Board that they had already in place

such a good assessment facility there that in fact when you went to the

regional assessment you utilized that centre and the people who were

there already doing that job to enhance that. I just want to say that

we appreciate having that there, and I want to encourage you to ensure

that the funding is available to provide the staffing for that spot,

because it's no good having the spot if we don't have the staff

available. I would like your firm assurance that that staff is firmly

in place and will continue to be paid adequately and be able to stay

there in the kind of ratio that's needed in that kind of assessment

centre.

I was interested to hear the minister talk about how if in fact you

had no money in your budget for CSP, then Mr. Peck would not allow it.

Certainly that's not what history has indicated, because we saw board

after board go down under the axe when Mr. Peck agreed to some

increases that just weren't in the budget, and what it meant was that

they had to lay off teachers in midterm and we had disasterville in the

school districts around this province. So I don't wonder that school

districts and boards are a bit concerned about ensuring that they do

have something in there to prevent that from happening. They want to

know that they're not going to have to be laying off teachers in

midterm as they did before.

As the minister may know, I have two districts in my constituency.

One of them, the larger one, is of course Cowichan. The big problem

there has been the textbooks. The minister makes much of having granted

some several million dollars to make up the shortfall, but in fact he's

made up only about 50 percent of the shortfall from his so-called

Excellence in Education funding. We have situations where young people

are changing courses. They're on the new social studies course now.

They've gotten to the point where to the grade 5 level they're on the

new course. What's going to happen at the grade 6 level? They're going

to have to go back to the old course. That certainly doesn't indicate

excellence in education to me, Mr. Chairman. It's anything but. It's a

retrograde step, and it's not going to mean that those young people are

getting the quality of education that excellence in education would

indicate. It's simply a myth, the idea of excellence in education,

because it's not around in British Columbia.

Another thing is the fact that those school texts are not available,

so that kids wait around for three or four months and don't have a text

to work from or are trying to do a social studies course, or even a

math course, without textbooks. This goes on for three months and at

the upper levels what happens? Those kids get discouraged and they drop

out. We've just seen the kind of dropout rate that we have here in this

province, and that's one of the things that's aiding and abetting it.

That minister is simply a partner in the kind of dropout situation

that's occurring in this province, by the very situation that he has

been creating through the lack of facilities, the lack of an adequate

number of teachers to service the needs, and the lack of even the

school books that are required. Those kids can't even take their books

home, because they don't have their own books. So what are they doing

as far as home study? It's just unbelievable.

Machinery and equipment are outdated and not being repaired because

the money isn't there. The specialist programs — the music program —

are gone, apparently permanently, so the kids are not getting a

well-rounded education. What we're seeing is not excellence in

education. It's anything but excellence in education.

Lake Cowichan and Cowichan have both put in for grants from the

Excellence in Education fund, and the reason they're putting those

applications in is that there simply isn't enough money in the actual

school budget to carry the normal costs. In the case of both Cowichan

and Lake Cowichan, they have put in for computer upgrading and

repairing, just to get their equipment up. Those should be normal

maintenance costs, but there's no money there to do it, so they're

applying to the Excellence in Education fund. That's not excellence in

education, just keeping your equipment in shape. It's a misnomer, a

myth, to try to convince people that we have excellence in education in

British Columbia. It's anything but excellent.

In Lake Cowichan they have another application in just for teacher

training, to provide some facilities and some funding so they can get

the kind of training for the teachers that's required in that school

district. Lake Cowichan was

[ Page 7982 ]

particularly hard hit. That minister may not be

aware of it, but when the industrial-commercial tax base was

confiscated by the former minister, it hit Lake Cowichan as hard as any

district, and probably the hardest, because it had a high industrial

tax base. They're still reeling under that. Now if they try to go to

the taxpayers for any funding, the residential tax base is so limited

that it would mean horrendous increases to bring the funding up to any

kind of adequate amount to supplement any of these bare-bones basics

that the fiscal framework is covering. So we have a very bad situation

there. They're trying to deal with it. They're trying to get funds from

the Excellence in Education fund, but don't let's kid ourselves that by

getting funds from Excellence in Education it's giving us any degree of

excellence in our system. It's simply giving us just that little bit

that will keep us going, but still we have just a bare-bones type of

education system that is not providing the kind of education that the

kids of British Columbia are entitled to. They're entitled to a better

kind of education than those basic things that you're being prepared to

put out there.

You say that the taxpayer has to pay. I've quoted this to other

ministers in this House before: do you know that in every developing

country the first thing they do — and Japan is one of the outstanding

examples — is put funds into education, because they recognize that by

educating our young people we're building a good economic base for

future prosperity in a country or in a province? But this government

doesn't seem to recognize that. They are still determined to do the

least possible for education, to make it an elitist system, actually.

It will be only for those people who can afford to pay for private

tutors or attend private schools, because the public school system is

going to offer such a minimal standard of education that we're going to

have a great mass of our population out there who have never had the

opportunity to have the kind of education that we should be entitled to

here in British Columbia.

That's true in Lake Cowichan; that's true in Cowichan; and that's

true in every school district in this province. This minister comes in

here and simply perpetuates the thing and adds to it the myth that we

have excellence by setting up a fund called Excellence in Education,

which is a pure misnomer. All he is is a partner in bringing the

standards down even more in this whole education fiasco that's been

going on here, which is unfair to the children of British Columbia.

It's an economic disaster because we are not going to have the

children trained to take on the jobs and live the kind of lifestyles

that should be their birthright here in British Columbia. It's a

travesty; it's a disgrace, and I am very regretful that this minister

sees nothing different, simply the same kind of cuts and chops that

other ministers before him have seen. It seems to me that the people of

British Columbia have lost all trust and all faith in this government.

The time will come when the results of this will have to be borne by

future generations because of the lack of opportunity for education in

British Columbia.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'll just try to answer the questions.

MacKirdy Centre in Cowichan is one of three centres that we fund,

including Chilliwack and Kamloops. It is included in the provincial

funding. As far as I know, Madam Member, it will continue to be funded.

I certainly haven't had any indication from staff as to not carrying on

with the present funding. I'll certainly do what I can to evaluate it

myself and maybe visit the centre during the coming year so I know a

little more about it.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

You mentioned last year the fact that the compensation stabilization

program ended up by requiring increases to be paid, the reason being

that the CSP found money in the school districts' books of account.

They found money in the reserve account, contingency reserves, etc. If

the money is there, the CSP people are going to find it. You see, the

big problem here in this particular year....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Again, I'll repeat that I'm not taking it

out on teachers. The average teacher's salary is a reasonable figure.

I'm not saying they're underpaid or overpaid. They average about

$37,000 a year. A teacher's salary certainly isn't low pay, but I can

appreciate that we're asking them to mark time. As I said to the member

for North Burnaby, other public servants are being asked to do that

and, in some cases, more.

With regard to the textbook problem, on average we spend about $11

million to $12 million a year. The member for Coquitlam-Moody had one

of his other leaked documents, one that he absconded with. l don't know

whether he lives under a desk or under a garbage can in the Ministry of

Education — he's small enough to do that. I guess in the dark of night

he comes out and gets these reports. Of course, he's selective, and I

guess that's politics: being selective in information.

[3:30]

On average over the past years, as I've said, we've spent about $11

million to $12 million. The document that he got his little hands on

indicated that we could look at $22 million, but he didn't tell you

there were priorities one, two and three. As a result of my going

around talking to school boards and to teachers and to my staff, we got

a further $6 million to cover priorities one and two, and got it up to

$17.25 million.

Priority three would have taken us to his famous $22 million, but

interestingly enough, priority three items were not needed this year.

They dealt with the new math curriculum, which really doesn't impact on

the system until next year, and as a result that was not funded.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, he wouldn't mislead the public. He has a tough enough time misleading himself.

The Excellence in Education fund, as I said publicly before....

You're quite correct in some of the uses of that fund to date:

textbooks, which have benefited all school districts on a pro rata

basis; non-statutory inflationary items, which have benefited all

school districts on a pro rata basis; salary adjustments 1985, which

are now covered, which benefited all school districts in this province.

We haven't taken anything away. What we should have done, I guess,

is put $50 million in the Excellence in Education fund, and put the

other $60 million of that $110 million in the fiscal framework. I

started on February 11; I said the first thing I was going to do when

the Premier appointed me was go out and talk to the people, as opposed

to talking to Mr. Buckley, the BCSTA or Mr. Clark of the BCTF. I went

out and

[ Page 7983 ]

talked to those people in the field, the school

district boards and the teachers associations, and they identified two

major areas of concern: textbooks and salary adjustments.

We went back, and I've got to tell you it wasn't an easy fight. We

went back, but we did get the money from Treasury Board out of the

Excellence in Education fund because the budget had been finalized; the

budget for 1986-87 had already been finalized and issued by the

Minister of Finance by that time. As a result, we had to get it from

somewhere. I said I would get it and I got it. I can tell you that

after I got it and after going to the BCSTA convention and hearing the

chairman spend a number of minutes finding what was wrong with the

provincial government, we were always in confrontation mode. Well, I

have to tell you I was somewhat taken aback. I thought maybe Mr.

Buckley as chairman of the BCSTA would say: "Mr. Minister, we

appreciate what you've done. You've been our advocate in Victoria and

achieved some success." Then he could have had at me on all the

terrible things possibly we've done or what I hadn't done.

But I didn't even get a little thank you. All I got from that

chairman was more of the same. So the confrontation, in my opinion, is

not Victoria to the BCSTA; it's the chairman of the BCSTA to Victoria.

I will continue to meet with school boards, and I'll find out what the

people in the field want rather than finding out what petty politicians

want at the BCSTA level.

Mr. Chairman, the rural school districts: I can tell you that I come from there,

no different than the member from Cowichan; I have rural schools. I have concerns

about the rural schools. I've said to my staff that we've got to review the

fiscal framework, the formula, to make sure that we're being fair to those small

schools, not so much in the rural area, if I can use the term urban and rural,

which is what is in the fiscal framework primarily. But maybe I could further

define that and identify as urban, rural and remote — remote not necessarily

meaning that you're far away from a metropolitan centre, but there may be a

body of water between you and that metropolitan centre where your students have

to go by water-taxi, and you have difficulty with a small school with only several

grades in it as opposed to a larger school.... Maybe we should look at some

of the high technology approaches to education in those remote areas where we

can possibly have networking, if you will, of computer education.

When I say computer education, I should really term it as video

computer education where they can possibly see the best educator in

front of them on a screen teaching them in a remote area, while at the

same time that teacher might be teaching in a high school in Vancouver

because it is convenient to him making that lecture in Vancouver where

he is being employed. But while he is doing that, maybe there is a

camera on him and in one of the Gulf Islands a classroom is sitting

down hearing that very same lecture as the people in Vancouver are in

listening to the man in person. Wouldn't that be great? So maybe we

should spend part of our education dollars ensuring those people in the

rural schools in our province, many of them in my constituency as well

as the member from Cowichan-Malahat and others, the best opportunity,

and do it via high technology because that way we can span the water,

or we can span the mountains and get the information right to our young

students or young people in the province.

MRS. WALLACE: I guess if you want to make robots out of

children, you teach them with computers. You're certainly going to lose

the human touch if you follow that through to the nth degree, because

certainly there is a lot more to teaching than just sitting watching

somebody perform on a television screen. There is that one-to-one

relationship that children develop with the student-teacher

relationship.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Your teacher would still be in the classroom. She might be learning as well, or he might be learning as well.

MRS. WALLACE: Well, I think there is a limit to what you can do with computers, I am saying. I just want to comment on the textbook thing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is also a limit as to what you can do from your chair.

MRS. WALLACE: This is a little

article that was in the local

paper from the director of elementary education in Cowichan regarding

the textbooks. He said: "The biggest concern at the elementary level is

the math program. Are we going to get new materials?" Now the math

curriculum in draft form is being piloted in grades 7 and 8, and the

teachers are instructing it as best they can using whatever materials

are available, but without student texts. So there is a problem out

there.

The new social studies curriculum which I mentioned has been

gradually introduced as far as grade 5. Without funds to proceed

further, students educated on the new curriculum all along may have to

revert to the old one. The crisis, if it arises, may hit hardest at the

middle schools, of course. The social studies situation has been a

major concern for a number of years, said the principal of the Mt.

Prevost middle school. "The textbooks are totally obsolete and reading

levels inappropriate."

Here you've had students on good new textbooks up through grade 5.

What are you going to do to their interest in learning if you dump them

back onto those old obsolete texts? You're going to kill it. You're

going to stifle it. You're going to have more and more dropouts. That's

the stuff that dropouts are made of, Mr. Chairman.

The grade 9 science. It's on stream; it's supposed to be coming on,

but there's no word yet whether or not that funding's going to be

available.

The minister says that he thinks he's solved the textbook problem.

I'm telling him that he hasn't. It's still out there, and it's still a

serious situation.

HON. MR. HEWITT: My staff advise me that the math that the

member refers to is in "pilot" form, which means it is being evaluated

to determine whether or not they move toward it. After they've

evaluated it, when the final decisions are made, textbooks would follow

along.

How long would we evaluate it? Within the next budget year.

MR. ROSE: While we're on the subject of textbooks, and just

before I begin.... I might not be too eloquent, because I'm tired

today. I spent the whole night up running around the Ministry of

Education looking for other documents.

Interjection.

[ Page 7984 ]

MR. ROSE: It's too soon. I'm not going to release it for a

week yet. I'd like to tell the minister and the House that I have not a

leaked document but an upfront document here from the Vancouver School

Board. It goes through the list of needed books in Vancouver, texts and

others, dictionaries and all that sort of thing, just for one district

alone. The minister is saying that he got himself an extra $5 million

because he leaned on the cabinet and got himself this kind of money out

of the excellence fund. He took $11 million out of the textbook fund to

put in the excellence fund in the first place, so it's an in-and-out

thing like he does with his budgeting. But I'll go into that again.

Sixty-seven million bucks are needed just in Vancouver for textbooks

and reference books, dictionaries and that kind of thing. This report

is not by one of those pinko lefties that's on the Vancouver School

Board — that's how they're described by some people. By the way, he

didn't mention meeting with the Vancouver board, the largest board in

British Columbia. He met with all the other boards. I think he met with

Abbotsford-Chilliwack. He could be assured of a nice comfortable

greeting when he went there.

This is the kind of thing that we're getting sick of: all this

business about how the minister and how the Ministry of Education

cannot afford to do these things anymore. It showed in the budget

paper, under vote 18, an actual increase in spending. It's not an

increase in spending at all. If you look under vote 18, you'll find

that the non-resident tax return, $576 million, is going down to $491

million. Sounds to me like you're spending $84 million less. I'd like

that one explained to me.

I think it's another example of the old shell game. Every time we

get up here we get manipulated into talking about teachers' salaries.

That's all we ever hear about. Now, do your number-crunchers tell you

that if you scapegoat teachers you're on solid ground, but if you talk

about stealing money from education for children then you're likely to

be in trouble? So scapegoat a few teachers. Even if there are only 20

on school boards, you tell them that they shouldn't be running because

they have a possibility of a conflict of interest. Where conflict of

interest is concerned, just have a look over on that side. Never mind

what might be conflict of interest because some person exercises his

civil rights to run for school board; now this is a suggestion that

somehow he's in conflict of interest even though he's running on a

board other than that. Sounds like the ex-minister of post-secondary

education, communications and all those grab-bag.... Was the former

Minister of Universities, Dr. Pat McGeer, in a conflict of interest

because he was also on the university staff? If you want to look at

conflict of interest, have a look there. If you want to look at other

conflicts of interest, are all real estate agents now going to be

denied the opportunity to run for municipal councils on the grounds

that they might affect some rezoning or other? Tell us a little more

about this. Or are you just after a cheap headline over the weekend,

something that I was accused of a little while ago — skulking around,

trying to get a cheap headline?

While I'm at it, government spending has gone up, year after year,

during restraint: in '83-84, up I l percent; '84-85, 5.3 percent;

'85-86, 3.9 percent; '86-87, 5.7 percent. That's what government

spending has done. What have you done to the educational system? In

1983-84, up 1.1 percent: "I'm sorry, folks, but we've got no money for

education. The public can only pay so much." You shifted it off to the

residential taxpayers last year by 5 percent, and you'll probably do

the same this year. What you are attempting to do, in my view, is have

the residential taxpayers so burdened and so mad at school boards and

school teachers that they'll somehow buy your phony argument. It won't

wash. They don't trust you anymore — have a look at the polls. If they

did, you would have called the election a long time ago, you would have

called the election for this month. You've got to go by extra

legislative.... In order to get any news out of this place.

The dropout rates, the business that I....

[3:45]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I was accused of skulking around and being unfair

to certain districts. This is public information, paid for by the

public. You find it a little bit embarrassing. You've got 19 million

bucks' worth of propaganda on TV. Every time you turn around, some

cabinet minister is smirking out of some ad, which is nothing but

propaganda, paid for by the people.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The committee will come to

order. We're committing quite a few faults here, hon. members. We're

offending the rule of anticipation. We're offending the rule of strict

relevancy during Committee of Supply debate. Could we please return to

order.

MR. ROSE: My view, Mr. Chairman, is that the money that

should be going into education is not going into education. I was right

in the middle of a diatribe announcing, after I compared what the

increase in government spending has been.... When you give

incentives to certain groups or individuals, it means the average

person is going to have to pay more.

Lake Cowichan was one of those districts cited as having a dropout

rate higher than the provincial average. Why? Because it doesn't have

the money to spend on it. I'll get into the dropout rate thing with

you, because I know you want to do that. You're quoted in the paper

that it's an area of real challenge. With sublime neglect of the

subjunctive — I'm quoting: "If it wasn't for this type of review, we

wouldn't be up to date on what changes are required for striving for

excellence in education in this province." I was surprised when you got

up and seemed so angry and inflamed. Your face was scarlet when you

said that — not only your face, but every part of your physiognomy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's an unfair reflection.

MR. ROSE: This is an old joke between the Chairman and me,

because of the business that one of the rules is that you can't cast

reflections on the speaker. So he's, I think, accusing the Minister of

Education of casting reflections. I don't know.

What I'm saying is that money has been moved out of the education

system. I've talked about this. The non-residential tax thing for

anticipated income in vote 18 has gone down from $576 million to $491

million. That's $84 million out of the system.

Anyway, I don't want to talk about that right now. I'd like to talk about some other things. I'll talk about the drop-out

[ Page 7985 ]

rates in a minute. We had all this business about

teachers' salaries and all the rest of it. The School Act requires

boards and teachers to go through a negotiation procedure, and if that

is not successful in reaching a settlement — and I don't see how it

could be, since the government controls the total global budget — these

settlements get arbitrated and they are approved by the compensation

stabilization commissioner and then are passed to the homeowners

through their property taxes. That's what's going to happen. Your law

at the moment forces them to bargain. But you insist on not funding the

consequences. I'd like to know what the minister's view is on this

business of forcing the boards and the teachers to bargain every fall,

either go to arbitration or settle by negotiation, and whether he

thinks it should be changed in the School Act. I wonder if he'd care to

answer that question.

AN HON. MEMBER: That requires legislation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Once again I'll remind the committee that it

would appear we are discussing amendments or necessity for legislation,

which is really not within our bounds in committee.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'll keep within the bounds of the

committee. I will say that one of the areas of review will be underway

in the near future. It is the School Act Review Committee. I have

communicated with a number of people or bodies around the province. I

hope to have the committee operating and providing some advice as to a

new School Act in the not-too-distant future.

The member gives us the figures that government spending is up in

1983-84,1984-85 and 1985-86. I didn't really put the percentages down,

but I won't disagree with what he says other than to say that I think

he should also recognize the impact of a suffering economy on such

ministries as Human Resources, which had a sizeable increase, and the

ever-increasing budget for Health. Those two to a great extent would

have driven the need for increased budgeting on the total budget. But

those are two essentials that we have to deal with, particularly the

one dealing with social assistance, because times were tough.

Then he said that in 1986-87 — and I'm looking at page 30 of the

budget speech, table 5, and he's correct — the total budget went up 5.7

percent. I know he didn't mention this, but on that same page and in

that same table it shows that the budget for Education went up 8.5

percent. So when you think about it, it did better on average than the

total provincial budget. But the other thing he didn't add to that

either was that the $110 million is over and above that increase. He

relates to vote 18, which says that it dropped $84 million. Quite

correct. The reason is because of the incentive program that this

province gave to commercial and industrial properties, to businesses,

to assist in the economic recovery, to hold those costs reasonable so

our businesses could be competitive and could create jobs.

But the Minister of Finance was also clear to point out in his

speech that we replaced the $84 million lost to the school boards

because of reductions in commercial and industrial property-owners with

$90 million from general revenue.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, he didn't say that, because he uses

selective statistics. He's very good at it. But when you get down to

the total budget spent, let me give the figures. Revised financial

forecast, 1985-86: $1.092 billion. Estimates for 1986-87, Ministry of

Education: $1.185 billion. That's an increase of 8.5 percent in the

total Ministry of Education budget. But he'll run into his selective

statistics search, vote 18, and identify that it's reduced. Of course

it's reduced. It's reduced because of the incentive program that we put

in place to create jobs. The total budget, Mr. Member, however you cut

it — page 30 of the budget — shows an increase for education at the

provincial level of 8.5 percent, plus $110 million in the Excellence in

Education fund. I wish that for once the opposition would take a moment

to recognize that there is an increase, and stop calling out

"Cutbacks!" It's silly nonsense, and the member should know better.

MR. ROSE: I don't know how I could become such a financial

ninny on this. All I know is that 68 out of 75 school districts said

they didn't have enough money even for a status quo budget. How do we

know, in terms of your framework, what's actually going to be spent? In

1985-86 you did not spend $65 million that was in the previous budget.

You didn't spend the independent schools adjustment fund of $27 million

last year. You didn't spend $11 million on textbooks until you were

caught at it. And you didn't spend $1.8 million on special initiatives

in vote 64 of last year. That's where you got your $110 million for

your excellence fund, for your pork barrel. But there isn't any point

in us arguing the old one about liars can figure and figures lie, and

all that stuff. The fact is that 68 out of 75 school districts — most

of them in ridings held by Social Credit — say that they do not have

enough money this year to even have a status quo budget from last year.

The other thing that really troubles me some is that we hear a lot

from the other side about obeying the law. What happens to a school

board that tries to obey the law and have an arbitration or give

increments to their teachers as they are contracted to do — they sign

contracts with those teachers — and suddenly they're told they can't do

that: "You've got to break the law. You've got to break the contracts

with your teachers." I'd like to know how you feel about that little

one.

You also broke a sacred.... Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't want to

quote our Prime Minister. "Socreds Broke School Vow, Top Trustee Says."

Here's this guy who's causing you all the trouble. Here's Mr.

Confrontation himself. You couldn't have asked for a quieter guy for

eight months of his first term. He was so quiet, I thought he was

running around with Hush Puppies on all the time. He thought he could

cooperate with you guys. He thought that if you talked nice to them and

dealt logically with the Premier, everything would come out hunky-dory,

everything would come up roses. What happened to him? Well, if I

weren't in this august chamber, I could think of some provincialisms I

could use to describe what happened to our friend. I know what has

happened. What did he say? He said: "After three years of restraint you

promised to bring an end to it this year." The new bill doesn't do

that. You broke your word, and that's why nobody trusts you.

You say how wonderful this local decision-making is, and all the

rest of it. I would like to know why you don't trust them. Why can't

you trust your local boards, instead of hobbling them with all these

things like frameworks and limitations on their bargaining power? You

don't given them any power. You've defanged them completely, and you're

going to do it in perpetuity. The question is, when are you

[ Page 7986 ]

going to change that, and when are you going to start playing square with people?

You're not going to get up? There were three or four distinct

questions in there. There were so many that I've forgotten most of

them. I want to know why the minister decided not to keep the word of

the previous minister and sunset the interim finance provision which

gives the ministry complete control of the global budgets of school

boards — there was a pledge three years ago to do just that.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, Mr. Chairman, it's again selective.

This member, I'm sure, has read the amendments to the act. He's

intelligent enough to have read the bill that indicates the amendments

to the Education (Interim) Finance Act. In making those amendments, we

moved from the provincial government giving directives to school boards

that in their total budget they could only use the moneys provided

through the fiscal framework and the local tax rates on residential

property owners — they had to meet that, and they couldn't exceed it...

When we changed that, to allow them local autonomy and the

ability to tax the residential property owner, we moved away from the

directives being given by the provincial government, and brought

autonomy back to the local level. Had we left the sunset clause in

place, we would not have had the bill that amended the interim finance

act to give back that local autonomy. The member knows that as well as

I do. The sunset clause would have ended the interim finance act. It

would have gone, and we wouldn't have accomplished what we set out to

do.

[4:00]

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, Mr. Member, the act as it existed

would have gone back to the old system of provincial decisions,

limitations on the local school board and less autonomy than we've now

given them. We amended it, if you look at one of the sections in that

bill, to allow a shareable operational budget, and allowed the school

boards to tax their residential property owners over and above that,

should they feel there was a need. As I've said many times before, it

might be some unique program that they had in their school district, as

opposed to increasing taxes for salaries. So that bill….

I'm out of order. I apologize for that. We aren't to be discussing

that, Mr. Member; it's before the House. Enough said. The Chairman is

going to reprimand me if I go any further. But if you analyze the

material in the bill before you when it's up for debate, and read it in

its entirety with the interim finance act itself, I think you'll find

that it is not going back on what was understood before. It's an

amendment to give back local autonomy to school boards, as was

indicated in the Let's Talk About Schools project and the discussion

that my predecessor had with the BCSTA.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Again, we will caution the committee on the

rule of anticipation. There is a more appropriate forum to discuss the

particular topic.

MR. ROSE: There's so much gobbledegook coming from the other

side I don't quite understand it all. Three years ago the minister's

predecessor promised that the interim finance act would sunset. He has

now gone back on his word and says: "Yes, you can tax 8 percent of the

tax base; in other words, you load it on the homeowners while we retain

the right to tax commercial, industrial and machinery." And somehow

this is a return to local autonomy. I don't get it. I think it's just

gobbledegook.

Does the minister agree that the government has a trust problem over

this? I think you've manipulated the data. You talk about my being

selective, but you've transferred the business and industrial taxes to

provincial general revenue to exaggerate the provincial contribution.

It has had terrible effects on certain districts. I think there should

be a grant in lieu if some districts do not have a decent enough

industrial base to make a difference. You've transferred the teachers'

pensions into the new formula for residential taxes. Here's another

shell game. And you've manipulated the cash flow as a result of changes

in the fiscal year. In other words, you've got six months more out of

it than you promised in the summer of 1983, and you reduced last year's

funding levels to show an artificial increase of funding this year.

B.C.'s brief to the minister of February 21 backs this up.

When I listen to the minister, I'm reminded of Lewis Mumford's

description of the hunter: "...had become soiled by the sadistic

lust for power; not being able to count on a voluntary response from

the community, filled the silence with self-praise." That's from The City in History , page 25.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I'm not even going to respond

because I'm not sure what the question was, but let me further

elaborate on the legislation.

The School Act that we had had a finance system in it. The Education

(Interim) Finance Act was changed, which suspended the School Act

financing system. You're with me; you understand that. You know that

that was done. Had the sunset clause in the Education (Interim) Finance

Act gone into being, it would have taken us back to the financing

system under the School Act. Mr. Member, would you want the

disproportionate financing of education in this province back again? Is

that what you're advocating? I doubt if it is, because you know as well

as I that the disproportionate funding of education in this province

meant that those who had industry and commercial development within

their school district were recipients of a considerable amount of

dollars to fund the school system, well in excess of what really was

required.

Industry and commerce do not have children who go to school, but

they do make up part of the total provincial economy. That's why the

interim finance act brought into being the fact that the province

receive the commercial and industrial base.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The member says: "Confiscated it." Will the

member agree that all dollars collected from the commercial and

industrial taxpayer of this province are redirected throughout the

province on a fair and equitable formula per student? Will you nod your

head in agreement with that?

MR. ROSE: Equity is not equality.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I see. There's a swift answer: "Equity is not equality."

[ Page 7987 ]

Mr. Chairman, what happens is that now the formula identifies that

students will be funded throughout the province, as opposed to some

small rural school districts in my constituency who weren't funded to

anywhere near what was adequate, because they didn't have that

industrial and commercial tax base. All the dollars that flow from the

industry and commercial tax revenue for school purposes flow through

our general revenue account and back out to all school districts, to

all students in this province. I think it's a darned good approach, a

fair and equitable approach, that industry and commerce share its

wealth, if you will, with all young people going to school in this

province.

The returning of taxation onto the residential property owner gives

flexibility to the local school district to fund those things that are

unique to that school district. I said this last week, I guess, but

I'll repeat it. In the Castlegar School District, they have a

kindergarten–grade 1 Russian language course. They want to extend that

to grade 2 and grade 3. They will probably look to fund that, as I've

suggested to them, from their local residential tax base, and rightly

so. It is unique to their area because of the Russian heritage they

have. That's the type of thing available to them now that wasn't

available until those suspended sections of the Education (Interim)

Finance Act that we talked about a moment ago. Those are suspended —

primarily because we're having discussions, if you will, at this

particular point in time — and they'll stay suspended, which will allow

us now to work towards a new school act where everything will be

amalgamated back into one act, as it was prior to 1983, when I believe

the Education (Interim) Finance Act was brought into being.

MR. ROSE: We all put the best face on everything we do or

somebody else does; the minister is no different than I am in that

regard. You had a situation, before this business of the confiscation

of the commercial-industrial taxes, where you had some districts with a

lot of commercial-industrial base that were very rich districts, and

some districts that weren't so rich — right? — because they didn't have

the same kind of tax base. I understand that; I made allowances for it.

I said there should be some grants. The point is that now you've got

them all poor. You had some rich and some poor, but now you've got them

all poor: 68 out of 75 said they can't live within the budget.

Asking them to tax only the homeowners, in my view, is a deliberate

scheme to get the residences that can only form 8 percent of the total

tax base to bear the brunt of any kind of increase for whatever

purposes, unless it's part of a porkbarrel through the excellence fund.

All I'm saying is that if this new financial formula is such a great

deal and if controlling the total budgeting from Victoria is such a

great deal, then why don't more school districts stand up and applaud

you when you go to the B.C. School Trustees' Association? You are

hardly star of that show.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, I thought you were lucky to get out the way

you did, as a matter of fact. I'm quite sure that since we're a very

moderate nation and not a bit revolutionary or bellicose — or any other

sort of pejorative noun like that — you were able to get out alive.

Anyway, there is very little point in talking about these things in

this Legislature. Number one, estimates are not reported; two, it

doesn't change anything. We've got a brand new, shiny minister, but the

same old policies.

MR. GABELMANN: I want to be very specific and ask a few

questions about one particular school district. It's Vancouver Island

North, so the minister can get some information to answer perhaps some

of these questions and concerns. I should say that I just want to deal

with this at a very technical level, at this point. I want to clarify

in my own mind some of the questions and answers, and then perhaps

tomorrow in debate I might have more to say about some of the problems

in the other two school districts as well. I apologize to my colleagues

for being somewhat technical as we go through this.

As I understand it, Mr. Chairman, in Vancouver Island North the

revised proposed budget, as presented, was for $12,491,508, almost

$12.5 million. The expenditure last year was $11,958,911, just short of

$12 million. The government says that this year the budget must come

in, with the exception of the local taxing, which I will get to later,

at $11,437,764. That's my understanding. That's a million dollars less

than the revised proposed budget, and $600,000 in rough numbers less

than was spent last year.

For the last couple of years there has been a declining enrolment,

as I understand it. In 1985, full-time equivalent: 3,138; 1986 FTE:

3,078 projected by the school district. I'm told, and perhaps the

minister can tell me if I'm right, that the ministry says: "No, your

projections are wrong. They'll be 5 percent less than that." So instead

of 3,078, they will be something in the order of 5 percent less than

that. I'd like to know how it is that the ministry has a better handle

on educational enrolments in Vancouver Island North than does the

school district, who live there. That's the first thing. I have to go

on the basis of the projections from the school district. So there's a

decline this year from 1985 of 60 full-time-equivalent students, as I

understand it.

I understand that in the previous year there was also a decline in

population of 100 or so. I don't know the exact number. No budget

change resulted from that, primarily because of the recognition of the

unique nature of that district, with its dispersed population and its

small schools, schools with very small student populations but

nevertheless requiring a full-time teacher.

[4:15]

The proposed government budget, as I say, is $600,000 less than last

year's expenditure. My question to people in the area is: if you have

60 fewer students, you shouldn't have a problem. You should be able to

reduce your budget. They say no, that's not possible to do, because the

first option you have in reducing your budget in those areas is closing

a school. You close Echo Bay, Quatsino, some of the small schools. When

they do the economics on that, they figure they break even. First of

all, when you close a school and put the kids on correspondence

courses, those children are no longer counted in the budget figures, so

they lose in terms of the grants, because those students are no longer

in their student population. Plus they've got to maintain the

buildings. They figure the cost of actually closing those schools, on

balance, is about even. But from an educational point of view it's not

even at all; it's far less, because the kids would be forced to do

correspondence programs. So for them the question of closing these

small, rural.... I use the word "rural," which really doesn't apply

in an area like coastal British Columbia. Isolated camps and

communities. Their first choice is to

[ Page 7988 ]

close those schools. They say that that's wrong,

and I agree with them. I have defended at every step and in every way I

can the maintenance of small schools in those communities.

So I said: "What about cutting back in some of the bigger high

schools and elementary schools in the bigger communities?" I asked the

questions, and I named the schools that I wanted to inquire about so

that it would be random and I wouldn't be getting the best-case

scenarios from the people in the district. So I picked two schools: one

high school and one elementary school. In the high school the full-time

equivalent this year is 521 kids. They have two special education

teachers; the need is for many more, but they have two. They have 1.74

learning assistants, one librarian and 1.65 counsellors. And get this,

Mr. Chairman: they have 1.49 administrators; in effect, 1.5

administrators in the school. Not, I would submit, heavy in

"non-teaching personnel" — very lean, in fact, in a high school of 521

students when you consider, too, that some of these kids are boarding,

because they come in from outlying areas and live in town. In these

kinds of communities the school acts as a social resource in a much

more meaningful way than it does in the bigger towns. It is the one

place in town where problems can be determined, where kids can be

identified as having problems. But in this case they have this very

lean staff. I understand that the actual number of teachers in that

school of 521 is 30.97.

Mr. Chairman, I forget whether I named the high school. It is North

Island Secondary School — NISS. The elementary school I'm going to cite

is Cheslakees, which is considered one of the better.... I picked

it myself and was told I had picked one of the places that have among

the best educational systems in the district. Full-time equivalent this

year is 135;151 if you count 32 kindergarten kids, who count as 16. If

you count the 32 kindergarten kids, you're looking at a total of 151

full-time equivalent, grades I to 7. That's 150 children. Learning

assistants, 0.5; half a learning assistant. Librarian, 0.38;

administration, 0.43. In asking about it, I learned that the principal

also serves as a librarian as well as doing everything else — plus

teaching — in order to get these kinds of numbers. Counsellors: in an

area that requires counselling more, I submit, than does Campbell River

or Victoria or Vancouver in terms of the kinds of problems and needs

that exist — zero. No counsellors at all. One kindergarten teacher for the 32 kids, split; 5.4 regular classes.

Total teachers, including the ones I've named, 7.71. This is an

elementary school with 7.71 teachers, 151 kids. This school district,

with this lean administrative structure, this kind of inadequate backup

resources in terms of counselling, learning assistance and the like,

now has to find $600,000.

Yet another problem in the way this is established is that the

ministry has said it will give $69,000 in disbursement grants, but that

disbursement grant is dependent upon the board coming in with a budget

beyond what the government has allowed, which requires that they go to

the public for a tax increase in order to qualify for the full $69,000,

as I understand it, built on a sliding scale. So they're caught in a

never-never land. I'm told that the tax base in this particular school

district is presently $7.85 per $1,000 assessed value. In order to meet

the budget — last year's budget, not this year's proposed — they would

have to go to $9.02, an 11 percent increase in school taxes for the

people in that area.

I heard the minister earlier, I think in response to the member for

Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly), talking about the teachers not going for

salary increases. I'm not able to find out what portion of this budget,

if any at all, is earmarked for salary increases; but even assuming

that the CSP guideline number was chosen, you're talking here about

maybe one-sixth of that amount being for teacher salary increases

should an arbitration board so decide, and should Ed Peck so recommend

or allow. Even then, you're still only talking about one-sixth at best,

if my arithmetic is correct, for teacher salaries.

The issue isn't teachers' salaries; the issue is basic education.

It's not even excellent education. This school board is now faced with

saying to itself: "Do we go to the public and say taxes are going to go

up by 11 percent, do we look at the $600,000 requirement and close

schools, which won't save very much money," or do they reduce teachers

in the schools that I've just talked about? The minister may say they

could do something else. What else could they do? One proposal was that

they could cut their libraries entirely. Forget about having libraries.

That's one alternative. Another is that the one person they have on

staff who runs their computer program, which I submit is a very

important element in the district's education services, could be let

go. Or the one person who runs the resource centre could be let go. If

they have to make these cuts to meet....

Let's say they do a saw-off. They don't cut the whole $600,000 but

cut some portion of it and collect the rest through taxes, and then

enable themselves to pick up some of that disbursement grant. Their

first cuts can't be the schools. They can't close those schools. They

can't cut any more out of the teaching staffs in the schools as they

now exist. They can't cut the support services in the schools, because

they're already at bare minimum. Where do they go? The first thing

they're going to have to do is look at libraries; the next thing

they're going to have to do is get rid of their computer program; and

the next thing they're going to have to do is get rid of their resource

centre. That's as I look at it. I'm not quoting anybody when I say

that. Those are my assessments of their fat: the computer program, the

libraries and the resource centre.

That's the kind of problem that exists, particularly in those

districts that are rural. The minister in an exchange earlier with the

member for Port Moody was talking about how the new tax structure makes

everybody equal. It doesn't make them equal at all. The residential tax

base from which money can be collected in Vancouver Island North School

District is minimal. It's even less in Vancouver Island West, which I

intend to pursue at another point in these estimates. But I wanted this

afternoon to zero in precisely on this one situation, and first of all

in a technical way, so that we can sort out whether what I'm saying is

right or wrong, whether the facts are right, and whether my conclusions

are close to being right, because if they are, then the only conclusion

you can come up with is that there is inadequate funding in the

government's response to that particular district.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, with the regard to the FTEs — the full-time equivalents for students — the member might be interested

in knowing that in 1985, to be used in the '85-86 fiscal framework, the

figure was 3,170.5 students. The actual student count that occurred in

September '85 was 2,990.25 students. I don't know, Mr. Member, how they

get quarters or halves, but let's just take that as a given. What I'm

saying really is that the projected figure given by the school district

was approximately 200 more than showed up. That is one of the reasons

why the drop took place in '85-86, because I think we funded at that

time the figures that they gave to us. The figure that's in the fiscal

framework

[ Page 7989 ]

for 1986 is now 2,930, which is down about 60 students from the

number who actually showed up last September, so the student population

has declined.

Where do we get those figures, and are we more accurate than the

school board? It really doesn't matter, Mr. Chairman, whether we're

more accurate or not. But first of all, where did we get the figures?

We got them from B.C. Research. They indicate that in this school

district, depending on the activity that happens up there — the

employment, I guess, the families coming and going, new activity —

there will be 2,930 students registering in September 1986. If there

are any more than that, then they will be funded. So it really does not

have an impact on the school board. They can accept that figure and

proceed. If 3,000 students showed up in September 1986 the monthly

allocation to the school district would be adjusted upward to account

for that. However, if the student population were less, then the

monthly allocation would be reduced accordingly. So there's no sense

being high on your estimate. B.C. Research has been pretty accurate

over the years, so I would suggest that we would go with that unless

the local school board had some evidence to the contrary. But if I were

a school board trustee, I would think I would like to have a surprise

on the positive side in September, recognizing more students showed up,

knowing I'd be funded, rather than to set my budget, my tax rate, etc.

and then find out I'd budgeted too high and would not get as much as I

would like. You can consider what would happen — the possibility that

you wouldn't have sufficient funding to fund all the teachers.

Mr. Member, I look at the figures last year, the fiscal framework

that we put out on April 12 — and that was adjusted for the additional

moneys we gave them for salaries last year — and what their needs

budget was. They're short $805,000.1 don't know what that relates to,

and I don't think you do either; you mentioned you didn't have the

specifics. But in there is probably an amount of money for salary

adjustments. If I took roughly 80 percent of the total budget and took

3 percent of that 80 percent, it would come to about $300,000. If

that's in their budget figure, if they took that out, they'd narrow

down the difference.

[4:30]

The fiscal framework, Mr. Chairman, which quite often is attacked,

shows, I think in this particular case, in Vancouver Island North

School District 85, the beneficial side of this fiscal framework,

because the pupil cost in this school district is $4,225 per student

for 1985. The provincial average is $3,537. I guess we could argue

whether or not it is enough. I am just saying that the fiscal framework

allows for that relief. The provincial taxpayer and the economy

contributes 81 percent of the total funding in your particular school

district, as opposed to Burnaby, which was considerably less. The

elementary class size in your school district — and again I am relating

to 1985 numbers — is 22.2 students, and the provincial average is 24.

The class size for secondary students in your school district is 19.5,

and the provincial average is 25.1.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

In that I think you would see that there is some consideration given

to the rural aspect of your school district, and also that the province

or the provincial economy is paying approximately $700 a student more

to your school district because of the rural aspect of your school

district and because of the sharing of the industrial and commercial

base that is related in the fiscal framework and is shared equitably

across the province. This is opposed to those school districts that

have large industrial bases and used to benefit, to the detriment of

other school districts prior to the fiscal framework coming into place.

MR. GABELMANN: Let's just deal first of all with the

full-time equivalent question. As I understand it, in 1985 the board

budgeted for 3,170.5, if I am quoting you correctly. On September 30 it

was a couple of hundred less, 2,990. Right here in January, the middle

of the year, the actual number was 3,138. The budget was for 3,170.5,

and the government said: "No, it will be 2,990." On September 30, the

date that everybody uses to count, it was 2,930, less than the

government had said it would be.

But in January it was 3,138, approximately 32.5 less than their

initial budget and much higher than the September 30 count and much

higher than the government prediction. The problem here is that in an

area like Vancouver Island North, a lot of kids don't get to school by

September 30. They're still fishing. They're still logging. They're

helping their families make a living.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: I am just talking about.... These aren't

kids who are dropping out. These are kids who work from age 12 — and

younger in some cases — with their parents. Keep in mind, we need to

remember what kind of community it is. It is not like Victoria. It is

not like Campbell River. It is a community where the whole family works

and tries to eke out a living. They work part-years, and when there is

something to do, as there is in the summertime and the early fall, they

are out working.

So the school population at September 30 is not an accurate

reflection on the school population, yet the government persists in

using that date as the date by which it is going to choose to determine

the number of population. I can't say how many. The only thing I can

say is that from the government's figure of 2,930 it went up in

January, if I am correct, to 3,138, close to the original prediction.

Having said that — I could be wrong about some of the numbers, but

the point is fair — their predictions have been closer than the

ministry's predictions. That is point number one.

Number two is that in the first of these last two years, there was

no budget reduction for diminishing population. In the second of these

two years, there is a whopping budget reduction for what the district

argues is a small drop in student population. These arguments can go on

forever. The $4,200 into Vancouver Island North per student, I suspect,

in Vancouver Island West is probably $4,800 or $4,900 per student. I

don't have the numbers, but I would guess it is.

You can't measure education in those kinds of rural areas, dispersed

areas, by figuring out how much it costs per student. A school that has

eight, nine or ten kids in it is going to cost a lot more per student,

but the argument is: is that enough? What I'm compelled to say to the

minister is no, it's not enough, because the minister in his response

said the formula works. He said: "In the $600,000 that we're looking

at, attempting to come to grips with, there must be $300,000 in that

budget for that particular item" — increased salaries for teaching or

school board employees.

[ Page 7990 ]

In fact, I don't know what the figure is, because it's a

confidential number, because they're bargaining. I don't know what it

is, but I am willing to bet the minister lunch that it is less than

$100,000, and not the $300,000 he talks about. I don't have access to

those numbers, but the minister does. He can't do the 80 percent of the

budget is the payroll and 3 percent of that is what must be in the

budget.... Look at the proposal; they sent it in to you. True, we

can all do those numbers — 3 percent of 80 percent of the budget.

I can do that too, but what I'm saying — and I hope the minister has

heard me — is that I don't know what's in the proposed budget document

sent in, but the minister can know. He has that information; they sent

it in. I'm saying to you it will not be the $300,000; it will be

considerably, dramatically less than that. If I'm wrong, my argument is

a different argument. Then it's a whole different kind of argument than

the one we've heard earlier this afternoon, if I'm wrong. I don't

believe I'm wrong.

If I'm right, we have to look at how you find $300,000 or $400,000

out of an existing budget that is already not pared to the bone, but

pared below the bone. The bone has already been bruised and chipped

away at, and now they're being expected to go down even less than that.

Inflation may be running at 4 percent in Canada; it may be running at

3.9 percent in Vancouver, but inflation runs a lot higher in these

kinds of communities. It runs higher in terms of running an operation

like this. It is run higher up there.

Keep in mind, too, that these districts used to have smaller teacher

salary components because young teachers used to go to these areas.

Young teachers get paid less. Because of restraint and because of

what's happening, teachers aren't moving anymore; teachers are holding

on to the jobs they've got, so they're staying there. The teachers are

getting older, and because of that, increments are being paid more, and

so the costs are going up in that particular school district.

The same is true in Vancouver Island West; the costs are going up at

a greater rate than they would be in another area where the teaching

age is more widely representative of the age in general. Here we have

young teachers and, for the most part, most of them are still getting

increments, and so we have costs that aren't acknowledged.

I want to come back to the minister to say: if the minister is going

to say to this particular school district, "You can have $11.4

million-plus to run the show," and they say, "We did it last year on

$11.9 million something, close to $12 million," there's a $600,000

difference. If the minister is going to say to them, "You spend

$600,000 less than you did last year because you have X number fewer

students," — an arguable number, and unless y