Whitehorse, Yukon
Monday, May 9, 1994 - 1:30 p.m.
Page Number 2459
Speaker:
I will now call the House to order. We will proceed at this time with silent Prayers.
Prayers
DAILY ROUTINE
Speaker:
We will proceed at this time with the Order Paper.
Introduction of Visitors.
Are there any Returns or Documents for tabling?
TABLING RETURNS AND DOCUMENTS
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
I have for tabling a legislative return.
Speaker:
Are there any Reports of Committees?
Are there any Petitions?
Are there any Bills to be introduced?
Are there any Notices of Motion for the Production of Papers?
Any Notices of Motion?
Any Statements by Ministers?
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Girls Exploring Trades summer camp
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I rise today in my capacities as both Minister of Education and Minister responsible for the Women's Directorate to announce an initiative that we hope will expand the career horizons of the many young women in our schools in the Yukon.
This summer at Yukon College, the advanced education branch, in cooperation with the college and the Women's Directorate, will be running a week-long summer camp modelled after our successful computer camp, which we are calling "Girls Exploring Trades" camp.
This camp will be run at the college's Whitehorse campus for as many as a dozen grade 7 or grade 8 girls from anywhere in Yukon, and will provide a hands-on opportunity for these young women to gain an insight into the trades as an interesting and viable option in making their high school and post-secondary career plans. They will work with basic computer-assisted design and trade tools to design and build a simple go-cart, tutored by a number of local trades women, and learning from discussions with these women what they have experienced in their trades, training and work. Carpentry, metal working, painting, and electrical work will be included in the trades they will be examining.
Like the computer camp, this camp will be administered by a coordinator in a term position hired by the advanced education person, who will be advised by a working group with representatives from all three agencies. The college will provide the shop facilities, while the Women's Directorate will assist in locating the resource people and instructors.
It is vital that in a competitive labour market our young people be presented with, and prepared for, as many options as possible for post-secondary education and careers. Through such programs as cooperative education and job shadowing, many are getting a valuable glimpse of the working life of their community. This summer camp, which may be expanded considerably if it proves successful this year, is an excellent opportunity for girls to work in a more intensive environment with some of the Yukon's ever increasing number of trades women. I thank our partners at the college and in the business community for their assistance in developing this program, and I look forward to its success.
Ms. Moorcroft:
It truly gives me pleasure to stand and support the Girls Exploring Trades summer camp. Jobs in the trades, because they are generally well paying, allow women to be economically independent. We need to give our young women the message that they cannot count on anyone else to support them. We need to let them know that training and job opportunities in the trades are there for them as a viable option.
As I have said in this Legislature before, presenting positive role models for young girls increases the likelihood that they will seek non-traditional occupations and trades, which are well-paying jobs. I am particularly pleased to see that the summer camp will use local trades women as tutors.
I know women apprentices who have left their chosen trades because of sexual harassment on the job. We certainly do not want to discourage women's participation in the trades, but, at the same time, we must try and give young women the skills to recognize and deal with harassment in schools and on the job, particularly in non-traditional fields for women. I hope that this will form part of the one-week curriculum.
We know that young girls in the classrooms are self-confident in the early grades. Unfortunately, their high level of participation in the classroom often changes as they get older. In junior high school, girls do not speak up as readily in the classroom. We need to encourage women to retain their natural self-confidence and not step back and let the boys answer. Having successful trades women work with girls at the ages when they are being pressured to defer to boys in the classroom is a timely and effective antidote to the social pressures on girls to defer to boys inside and outside the classroom.
The Minister's statement indicates that only as many as one dozen girls will be able to participate in the camp. One dozen is a start, but I would really like to see this pilot project expanded. It could, for instance, be offered at F.H. Collins High School and at other schools in the communities. The government might also consider offering this program for three weeks, with three intakes of one dozen students each.
I make these suggestions because of the statistics on the current participation of women in the trades and apprenticeship initiatives program. Currently, women are almost non-existent in the Yukon government apprenticeship program. In the 1993-94 trades and apprenticeship program, out of a total of 57 students registered in five courses, there was only one female carpentry apprentice. The other 56 students were male.
The need for the Girls Exploring Trades program is clear. I hope that it is very successful and that more women will be entering the trades as a result of the summer camp and as a result of an expanded program of this nature. I would like to thank the Women's Directorate for their role in developing this initiative, as well as Yukon College and advanced education, and the trades women who will be participating.
Speaker:
This then brings us to the Question Period.
QUESTION PERIOD
Question re: Faro, sale of mine
Mr. Harding:
I have a couple of questions for the Government Leader, as the Minister of Economic Development, about recent developments in the Faro sale over the last week.
It looks as if the Anvil Range Mining Corporation's bid has been accepted by the receiver and the court as the bid that best meets the criteria of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and the creditors of Curragh.
As a creditor and a major player in this equation, did the
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Government of Yukon support the bid of Anvil Range Mining Corporation, and does the $27 million purchase price return anything to the Yukon government?
Hon. Mr. Ostashek:
Officials of the court met on Saturday. While I have not yet received the documents from the court, I do have an update from our lawyers.
It is my understanding that the interim receiver felt that both the Anvil Mining bid and the Jordex bid were acceptable, but the receiver left it up to the creditors and the judge to decide with which bidder they should be going into confidential negotiations with.
The Member is right; we are a creditor, but we took no position as to which bid should be accepted.
Mr. Harding:
I guess the obvious question following that is with regard to Anvil Range, which has some former Curragh directors or officers working for them, but not Clifford Frame: does the Government of Yukon have any concerns about working with people they have publicly berated, or will they be giving Anvil Range Mining Corporation an opportunity to gain the confidence of Yukoners as they negotiate development, if the government does intend to support the bid of Anvil Range?
Hon. Mr. Ostashek:
It is my understanding that there are former Curragh people involved in the Jordex bid as well the Anvil Range Mining bid. We have always taken the position that we would deal with the successful bidder on the property, and we are prepared to do that.
Mr. Harding:
As a major creditor - I believe the government is owed $7.4 million, maybe more when unpaid bulk concentrate hauling rates are looked at - why would YTG not take a position on which bid is more acceptable, because the two bids have very different specific aspects to them.
Hon. Mr. Ostashek:
I am sure that the Member opposite, having reviewed some of the court documents that have been available, would understand and agree with me that the amount being offered by either bid is going to be a long way from satisfying all of the creditors. In fact, I see the creditors only coming out of this with very few cents on the dollar to satisfy their claims, once receiver costs and outstanding wages that are owing under the Employment Standards Act are paid. There is going to be very, very little left for the creditors.
Question re: Faro, sale of mine
Mr. Harding:
I would like to talk about the Anvil Range bid and ask the Government Leader a few questions.
The potential purchasers have stated that they want to close the deal for the sale in the fall and commence stripping of the Grum within 30 days of closing the deal. They then want to start operating in the summer of 1995, which is a much quicker start than YTG had been recently claiming was possible.
Is the Government Leader optimistic and confident and about their established time lines, because my constituents certainly hope so.
Hon. Mr. Ostashek:
As I said during a radio interview this morning, all the information that we have to go by are the analysts' projections. The analysts' projections have indicated that they felt it would be the first quarter of 1996 before base metal prices recovered. If Anvil Range is going to put the mine into production earlier, I think it would be great, but that remains to be seen at this point.
Mr. Harding:
Surely the Government Leader realizes that it is not just base metal prices that determine the feasibility of a mining operation. There are factors such as smelting charges, foreign exchange rates, power, labour, transportation costs and capital outlays. Can the Minister provide anything for the House similar to the Micon study that would provide us with some idea, given different variable costs, where the feasibility range for this mine is?
Hon. Mr. Ostashek:
No, I do not believe I have anything that I can table here, because it is a simple fact that the range at which this mine will be viable hinges greatly on the purchase price and the up-front costs that are going to be incurred by the company that takes it over. I believe the number of what the price of zinc and lead has to be is probably a number that will move up and down to some extent, depending on the startup costs of this project.
Mr. Harding:
Another concern that has been identified by both bidders, specifically Anvil Range, is energy rates. Recently, the Yukon government tabled an industrial support policy that identifies the former Curragh power agreement as reasonable, while the Justice Minister and Minister responsible for the Yukon Development Corporation has, at the same time, said it would bankrupt the Yukon. Which position is YTG going to take regarding development agreement on this issue, and other issues critical to the mine reopening?
Hon. Mr. Ostashek:
When Anvil Range does come to us, we will sit down and discuss the Yukon industrial support policy with them. I have made it quite clear that this policy is not meant to be a subsidy, but we are prepared to negotiate with them in order to try to level out the power costs. Whatever we do will be approved by this Legislature.
Question re: Log export policy
Mr. Cable:
I have some questions for the Minister of Renewable Resources on log export policy.
The Minister responded to the questions last week on that matter and, after the answers, I was not clear as to exactly what the government's position was. The Minister had tabled a legislative return on January 18, 1994, in which he indicated it was his government's policy that there should be no log exports from commercial timber permits but that there could be log exports from timber harvesting agreements under certain circumstances. He outlined, in that legislative return, the four circumstances: where the logs cannot be manufactured or processed economically in the Yukon, where the exports are of a short-term and limited nature only, where there are certain other conditions relating to forest management and value-added milling operations to maximize job opportunities, and finally - and these are all conjunctive - the logs would otherwise be lost to disease, over maturity or fire.
Is this the present policy of this government?
Hon. Mr. Brewster:
First, I must point out that we do not have a complete policy. We have put one on log export because that is what the people in the Yukon wanted to do. It is still under federal jurisdiction; all we can do is advise them and we advised against log export. When we start our own legislation policy for logging, we will go back to the people if and when we get the forestry transferred to us.
Mr. Cable:
Of course, we were not bashful about passing a motion telling the federal government to speed up the land claims, so there are areas of advice. The Minister was also not bashful in tabling this legislative return, setting out the policy.
I have to ask this question again: is the policy, as set out in the January 18, 1994, legislative return, the policy of this government?
Hon. Mr. Brewster:
It is a small piece of a policy that would have to be a great deal bigger. We do not have the responsibility. All we can do is suggest, and that is our suggestion.
Mr. Cable:
Last week, the Minister seemed to introduce a new element into the policy: that exports from the Yukon into British Columbia are all right, if there is no road access into the Yukon. How does that square with the condition that there be
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value-added milling operations, which maximize job opportunities, presumably in this jurisdiction, the Yukon?
Hon. Mr. Brewster:
The only way you can get to the area we are talking about is to go up the road from Fort Nelson into the Northwest Territories. Common sense would tell you that it is cheaper to take them to Fort Nelson to be timbered, than to bring them all the way back up the Alaska Highway and into Watson Lake.
Question re: Yukon Electrical Company Ltd., consumer survey
Mr. Penikett:
Last Friday, the Yukon Electrical Company Ltd. released some of the results of a survey that showed Yukon consumers were not very happy about a number of energy-related issues. Could the Minister for Yukon Electrical tell us if any of the cost of this survey will be borne by the electrical ratepayers in the territory? If so, will he ensure that the full survey results will be tabled in this House?
Speaker:
I believe the Member means the Minister responsible for Yukon Energy Corporation.
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
That is correct, Mr. Speaker. It is Yukon Energy, not Yukon Electrical, although I am sure the Leader of the Official Opposition is cognizant of the difference.
I am advised that the cost of the survey attributable to Yukon Electrical Company Ltd. was $10,000. I will have to check into the issue of whether any of that might be borne by the ratepayers, and report back.
Mr. Penikett:
I apologize to Mr. Speaker and to the Minister opposite, who has been busy erasing the differences between the two companies, which is why I confused my appellation.
Can the Minister indicate, since the last question on the survey asked if consumers felt they were better off when utilities were government owned versus privately owned or shareholder owned, if he, or any of his officials exercised any influence, directly or indirectly, to have that question included on this survey?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
I would have to make inquiries and report back. Certainly, the political level of government certainly had nothing to do with it.
Mr. Penikett:
I am pleased to know that we know the costs but not the inspiration for this survey. I would like to ask the Minister this: since it would seem that a question such as this on a survey to Yukon consumers could be seen as evidence of a corporate agenda, in respect to a takeover of the Yukon Energy Corporation assets, can the Minister indicate to the House whether the Yukon Party has yet taken a firm position on putting Yukon public utilities into the hands of private interests outside the territory? Is there a Cabinet mandate for the negotiations yet?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
First of all, the survey was a national public opinion survey. It was funded by the Canadian Electrical Association, so I doubt whether there was much tinkering with the questionnaire from anyone in the Yukon. With regard to the policies of the Yukon Party, I think that the questions would be best asked of somebody who is an active member of that party.
Question re: Yukon Electrical Company Ltd., consumer survey
Mr. Penikett:
The trouble is that every time I try and ask the Government Leader about Yukon Party policy and energy matters, the Minister of Yukon Electrical jumps up.
Let me try to test the liberality of the Minister for Yukon Electrical. The Yukon Energy Corporation and the Yukon Electrical Company both recently informed the Yukon Utilities Board, with some reluctance, it seems, that they had spent $673,000 on consulting and legal fees for last year's general rate application. The Minister responsible for the publicly owned utility, who also happens to be responsible for the board that decides what rates these utilities can charge, may be able to answer this question: does the Minister, wearing his regulatory hat, consider two-thirds of a million dollars in outside consulting and legal fees a reasonable amount for such a process?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
The whole purpose of having a Yukon Utilities Board in place is so that that board, in an arm's-length way, can make those kinds of determinations. One of the issues they looked at is whether or not these fees are appropriate and ought to be charged back to the ratepayers.
Mr. Penikett:
The problem is - and I do not want the Minister to answer this with both hats on - there seems to be a dispute between the board, which the Minister is responsible for, and the corporation, which the Minister is responsible for, about the appropriateness of this huge amount of money spent on consultants and lawyers for this process. I wanted to ask the Minister, as a matter of policy, does he support the board's view on this or the Energy Corporation's view? Or, in more simple terms, does he think that two-thirds of a million dollars spent on a process like this is appropriate or acceptable?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
It is not a matter of supporting one view or another. The Member opposite has probably, when he was studying at university, read about the concept of having arm's-length bodies, such as Yukon Energy Corporation, and/or the Public Utilities Board. It is something he has never encouraged in practice, I am aware, but we, on this side, do believe that both such bodies should operate in an arm's-length fashion and that we should not be interfering in the day-to-day decision making or getting involved in some of the issues he likes to raise in the House. We are concerned about the overall costs involved in the running of the Utilities Board, and we are going to be examining various options to see whether or not there are things that can be done appropriately by this government, by way of general direction, to find some ways of alleviating the costs.
Mr. Penikett:
We are aware that the Minister controls the Utilities Board with one hand and the Energy Corporation with the other; what we are worried about is when the hands come together. The issue here is not the cost of the Utilities Board, but the cost for legal and consulting fees of the applicant corporations. I understand that if the Utilities Board is satisfied with the information provided by the applicants, it may reimburse the two utilities $500,000 for consulting and legal fees for hearings that sent the electrical rates up 30 percent. I ask the Minister, has he considered, or taken under advisement, the possibility of some measure to protect ratepayers and taxpayers from such uncontrolled spending in utilities hearings in the future?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
As I have said, we are concerned about the entire process and the cost of the board, as well as the other costs he is mentioning. We are going to be doing a review to ascertain what, if anything, might be changed with regard to the way in which the Utilities Board does business, because, of course, the way it does business can be a cost driver with respect to the kind of preparation made necessary by the two utility companies. The fact is, under the present system, the judgment of whether or not the costs run up by utility companies ought to be rolled into the rate base and paid for by the ratepayer is a judgment that is exercised by the Public Utilities Board, which operates at an arm's-length fashion from government. I am sure the Member opposite could go back to his university textbooks and find what the definition of arm's length is there.
Question re: Kopper King Trailer Court, eviction notices
Mr. McDonald:
I have a question for the Minister responsible for the Yukon Housing Corporation.
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The Minister is, I am sure, aware that the three families shortly to be evicted from their trailer lots at the Kopper King Trailer Court are at their wits' end in trying to find a solution to their predicament. The families did not create their situation, as the Minister is aware, but they have been working very aggressively to find solutions. Can the Minister say what he and the Yukon Housing Corporation are prepared to do to find solutions or to help these families find solutions, given that they are in a very desperate situation?
Hon. Mr. Fisher:
The board of directors of the corporation will be meeting very soon to discuss a loan beyond the current $5,000 loan that is available to help upgrade these particular trailers. I believe the Member opposite is aware that there is a loan available up to a maximum of $5,000 for repairs of trailers on a pad. The board of directors of the corporation will be looking at a one-time-only increase of that amount, up to possibly $10,000.
Mr. McDonald:
As the Minister knows, the one element of a solution to this problem is for the families to engage in a large financial obligation for the cost of the moving and upgrading of their units. The problem they face is the accessibility of land on which to relocate. Given that the families are all expected to vacate the property in three weeks - they have to be gone 21 days from now - can the Minister tell us whether or not he or the Yukon Housing Corporation will personally intercede with the developer to determine whether or not the families could get some time to react? They have only had 45-days' notice of this change in their lives. Will the Minister intercede to see whether or not they could have more time to react and find an alternate location and arrange for the large, new financial obligations they will have to bear?
Hon. Mr. Fisher:
The president of the Yukon Housing Corporation has spoken to the land owner - the person who owns the trailer park - and I believe we may very well have an agreement for at least an additional 30 days.
Mr. McDonald:
I hope the Minister will check that figure because I think it applies to one of the three; there are still two families who remain uncared for in terms of the very severe deadline they are facing.
As a sort of general policy follow-up question, given that there are hundreds of trailers in the territory that are not constructed to current building code standards and given that the trailer owners are often in the lower income bracket, can the Minister tell us whether or not he is prepared to approach the Yukon Housing Corporation to undertake the development of a special loans program that deals specifically with lower-income trailer home owners who need or who want to upgrade their trailer homes, so that the trailer home owners do not have to seek special dispensation from the Housing Corporation board for support as these three Kopper King trailer home owners are doing now?
Hon. Mr. Fisher:
We are looking at various ways of assisting some of these people, but I am sure the Member realizes that in come cases the amount owing on the trailer and the amount to bring it fully up to the code would be more than the trailer would be worth. It is quite a major problem.
We are looking at it and trying to figure out a way to assist some of these people who have to move off the trailer park. The main thing to remember is that, even though many of these homes are not up to code, so long as they do not have to move they are okay where they are, except that there could be a health and safety problem. That is what we need to address more than the eventuality that they might have to be moved.
Question re: 501 Taylor Street, closure
Ms. Commodore:
My question is to the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Last week I received a letter from the Minister confirming the closure of 501 Taylor Street as an open-custody facility, and that he will be opening two care giver homes in Whitehorse to accommodate young offenders sentenced to open custody.
Can the Minister tell us the expected date of this closure?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
I will take notice of the question and get back to the Member.
Ms. Commodore:
In the same letter, the Minister indicated that the selection of these homes will follow the same process as is currently used for child welfare foster homes. Can the Minister tell us if the rates for payment will be the same?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
Again, I will have to come back with that information.
Ms. Commodore:
I look forward to receiving that information.
The Minister also indicated in his letter that there are no required qualifications for the job, and that the government is looking for people who have a sincere interest in the welfare of these young people.
Can the Minister tell us how he will determine who those good people are?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
The decision will be determined by people in the department, not myself, but if the Member is looking for some specific criteria, I will bring that information back to the Member.
Question re: 501 Taylor Street, closure
Ms. Commodore:
My question is for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
When 501 Taylor Street was opened as an open-custody facility, there was open hostility and criticism from the Opposition in this House at that time, because we dared to house young offenders in a residential area.
Can the Minister tell us if his Cabinet colleagues have the same concern that these homes will be located in unsuspecting neighbourhoods?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
My Cabinet colleagues have not expressed any such concern to me.
Ms. Commodore:
The Minister said last month that he would be firm minded in the way in which to proceed on the sensitive issue of informing residents that young offender foster homes will be opening in their neighbourhoods.
Can the Minister tell us how he intends to inform those residents?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
I will come back with some kind of document. I do not foresee a major problem with this issue, but I will make inquiries and come back with a written response.
Ms. Commodore:
I am really concerned about the Minister's lack of knowledge about this issue. I am told that the home is going to be closing very soon, and those homes will be opening.
When the Minister comes back with all this information, how much notice will be given to residents prior to opening the foster homes for young offenders in their neighbourhoods?
Hon. Mr. Phelps:
I will also bring that back.
Question re: Deputy minister pay range
Mrs. Firth:
I raised a concern about the change to the pay scales of the deputy ministers. The reason that has been given to me by the Government Leader for the change of replacing the four categories of the pay range with one pay scale was that it was a money-saving measure.
Could the Government Leader tell us how much money has been saved since making this change?
The reason I have directed this question to the Government Leader is because the decision was made in December, before the
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new Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission was appointed.
Hon. Mr. Nordling:
The Member for Riverdale South is correct, and I will find out for her, as the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, what money, if any, has been saved since the December reclassifications.
Mrs. Firth:
That is why I asked my question of the Government Leader. Since he cited that as a reason for making the change, I would have expected that he would have had some figures at his fingertips to share with us here in the Legislature to substantiate the reason for the decision.
Not to go on too long with my preamble, I want to ask the Government Leader a question. My concern is that we will not be saving money, but that it will cost us more, because all deputy ministers are now eligible to reach the maximum wage of approximately $120,000. Deputy ministers of smaller departments, with less responsibility and staff, will now get paid the same as deputy ministers of larger departments and more staff - does the Government Leader think they should all be paid the same, regardless of responsibility or size of department?
Hon. Mr. Nordling:
No, the idea was that if deputy ministers were moved from one department to another they would not have to be changed from the DM scale of 1 to 4. As far as I know, the idea was that it depends on the time and how important that department is. For example, in good times, the Department of Economic Development has been relatively small, and not one that needed the level of attention that it needs in these times. The idea is that there would be one range.
The range has not changed from the $78,000 to $119,000.
Mrs. Firth:
I am not quite sure what the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission just said. I would like to ask a question of the Government Leader, since he made this decision and should have all the reasons for making the decision at his fingertips.
Could the Government Leader tell me if there are guidelines in place to determine how to pay the deputy ministers, according to their experience, qualifications and whatever department they are supposed to be responsible for?
Hon. Mr. Nordling:
I am not sure exactly what the Member's concern is, or what she is getting at. I will get that information, as much as I can, and bring it back to her.
Question re: Deputy minister pay range
Mrs. Firth:
It is just as I suspected; they cannot substantiate any money-saving measures; they do not really know how much a deputy minister should be paid and there are no guidelines in place. The Minister responsible for the department has to now come back with all this information; the Government Leader will not answer the questions.
Can the Government Leader answer this question: how does the government decide who gets paid what, when they are hired as a deputy minister?
Hon. Mr. Nordling:
Again, that is done in consultation with the Public Service Commission to decide on their training, experience and level of education, in order to determine where they place within the salary range.
Mrs. Firth:
There is nothing in place to assist in making that decision, not even some guidelines. Perhaps I could get an answer to this question: who hires deputy ministers in this government?
Hon. Mr. Nordling:
The deputy ministers are hired by the Government Leader, but approved by Cabinet.
Mrs. Firth:
Perhaps the Government Leader could tell me how he decides what a new deputy minister will be paid? How is that decision made?
Hon. Mr. Nordling:
I answered that in the response to the first question. The decision is made in consultation with the Public Service Commission.
Question re: Log export policy
Mr. Cable:
I have a couple of log export touch-up questions for the Minister of Renewable Resources. I know he is looking forward to these. They are just by way of clarification on where the government stands with respect to the Kaska Forest Resources application to the federal government.
The Minister previously, and, I believe, last week, indicated that, up to the expiry of the timber harvest agreement on April 30, this government was supportive of the Kaska Forest Resources application to the federal government. Was that the Minister's position? Did I hear him accurately?
Hon. Mr. Brewster:
Up until that time, yes.
Mr. Cable:
If the Kaska Forest Resources should fall within the terms of reference of this legislative return of January 18, 1994, would this government be supportive of the application?
Hon. Mr. Brewster:
The agreement was that, at the end of five years, they would start a mill. They have not done this. The experts tell us that they do not have an acceptable business plan to enable them to complete the mill. Until that business plan is accepted, our recommendation - and it is only our recommendation - to the federal government is "no more".
Mr. Cable:
I am not quite certain what the Minister is saying. Is he saying that the business plan as presented is not acceptable but that there could be amendments that would be acceptable - is that what he is saying?
Hon. Mr. Brewster:
We would have to look at them when they come.
Question re: Heritage buildings, O'Connor House
Mr. McDonald:
Driving down Second Avenue this morning, many of us were treated with the sight of a vacant lot where the O'Connor house once stood. The house had been standing for approximately 88 years until this past weekend and was a prominent stop in the walking tour of Whitehorse heritage buildings.
Given that there was a lot of talk this last weekend at the Tourism Industry Association conference about the need to encourage the development of more sites and things for tourists and residents to do, can I ask the Minister first of all whether or not he knew that this building was to be demolished and what the government is planning to do to protect the very accessible historic properties in Whitehorse?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, I was not aware that the building was going to be demolished. I understand that the owners of the building applied on Thursday for a permit, received one, and started tearing down the building on Friday and Saturday. We are always concerned when we lose part of our heritage and we are concerned about losing this one. I understand that, even if our Historic Resources Act was in place now, we would have to have a sponsor of the building and it would have to be the City of Whitehorse or the owner coming forward with a request for designation. It is unfortunate that this building has been destroyed, but we are concerned when any historic building is torn down in the city.
Mr. McDonald:
We are both agreed, then, that we are both concerned about the demolition of some of the very valuable historic properties, particularly in Whitehorse but also around the territory, I would presume. The problem with not having the Historic Resources Act proclaimed, of course, is that there is no possibility for legislative protection to preserve these sites.
Can the Minister tell us, just to get around to the final part of the first question that I asked, what the government is doing to
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protect historic sites within the City of Whitehorse and when will they ultimately be dealing with the Historic Resources Act to ensure that there is some sort of legislative underpinning to provide some protection for historic sites?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I indicated in the last sitting that we did want to look at some areas of change in the Historic Resources Act. My understanding is that Justice and the heritage branch are in discussions about that act, and it has not come back to my desk yet. When it does, it will go through the legislative process and then be brought to the House. I did give a commitment that there would be public consultation on the changes in the act.
Mr. McDonald:
Some people who had heard the Government Leader's words about the period of prosperity might be inclined to get into the development business and, consequently, we might suffer the loss of a few more of the important buildings or houses in Whitehorse. Can the Minister tell us when he is going to be bringing forth the Historic Resources Act - he did not quite complete that answer - and can he also tell us whether he has, through the heritage branch, determined whether or not there are any other buildings in Whitehorse that are in jeopardy, or are slated for demolition or removal in some way, this summer.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
You notice, Mr. Chair, how the Member asking the question tries to piggyback two or three questions onto each question, so he can save time in Question Period.
I am not sure which other buildings there may be. I can get a list for the Member. As to when the act will come to the House, it will be as soon as Justice and the heritage branch complete the consultations and as soon as we can get it out to some of the heritage people to seek their approval of the minor changes. I hoped I could get it done this spring session, but I am not that optimistic. Certainly, we will shoot for the fall.
Speaker:
The time for Question Period has now elapsed.
We will proceed to Orders of the Day.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I move that the Speaker do now leave the Chair and that the House resolve into Committee of the Whole.
Speaker:
It has been moved by the Government House Leader that the Speaker do now leave the Chair and that the House resolve into Committee of the Whole.
Motion agreed to
Speaker leaves the Chair
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
Chair:
I will now call Committee of the Whole to order. Are we prepared to take a brief recess at this time?
Some Hon. Members:
Agreed.
Recess
Chair's Statement
Chair:
I will now call Committee of the Whole to order.
At this point in time, I would like to point out for the record that the House Leaders, according to my understanding, agree that we will take our recesses at 4:30 and that it will be standard, and another one at 8:30 during the evening sessions.
We will be dealing with Bill No. 15, entitled Second Appropriation Act, 1994-95. Is there further general debate on Education?
Bill No. 15 - Second Appropriation Act, 1994-95 - continued
Department of Education - continued
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I am prepared to go to line by line, if there are no other questions.
Mr. Harding:
I hate to disappoint the Minister. We still have just a few minor items for discussion on Education, to which I would like to have answers, and I know the Minister is more than willing to answer all these questions.
I will start by asking the Minister some questions about some concerns I raised the other day when he told me he would get the answer for me, as he did not have it at his fingertips.
The first questions is: what impact on staffing did the prep-time cuts have in the last collective bargaining agreement? Can he tell me today, now that he has had time to look, what that impact was?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
That equates to about five positions. Just so that the Member knows, we are staffing this year according to the staffing formula and in conjunction with the collective agreement. So, whatever agreement is reached at the bargaining table, the staffing entitlement formula will be used. In fact, there were lots of cases in the past and, even as we speak, in some areas we exceed the formula.
Mr. Harding:
How do you arrive at the staffing positions figure of five?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I think that it changed from 40 minutes to 30 minutes, and so it is 10 minutes per day or per hour, or whatever. You equate that to a number of FTDs that you need. If the teachers are in the classrooms, you do not need substitute teachers and others to fill those positions at that time.
Mr. Harding:
I have been talking to a number of educators in the territory, and they felt that the impact that resulted from the 10-minute reduction in prep time was more like 14. Can the Minister be more specific as to how they arrived at that figure. Perhaps he could bring back a legislative return explaining how they arrived at the figure of five teachers.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can do that.
Mr. Harding:
I also asked the Minister questions about staffing, people leaving the territory, the low morale problem, and about teachers who feel they are being treated with a lack of respect here in the territory, and, as a result, may try to locate work in another jurisdiction. I asked the Minister, in light of his recent announcement on legislation for rollbacks and freezes, what the anticipated impact would be on relocation and recruitment costs. He said that he would get back to me on that. What is his response?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can try to get the numbers for the Member; however, it is my understanding at this time that there is not an abnormally high number of teachers leaving this year compared to other years.
I should tell the Member that it will not be as if we are left with no qualified teachers, because it was my understanding, up until this last week or so, that we had about 1,500 applications from teachers outside of the Yukon seeking work. The Yukon is a preferred place to teach in Canada, because of the factors that I had previously stated.
I do not think that the numbers are much higher than in other years. Last year was an unusual year, because of the Faro closure, and we had very little turnover. I am not sure of what the turnover rate might be for teachers this year, but I will provide that information to the Member.
Mr. Harding:
One of the normal things, when making a decision to change an employer/employee relationship that was adopted through legislation as opposed to the collective bargaining process, is that considerations such as how existing employees will feel about the changes and the impact that the decision will have are factored in.
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Is the Minister saying that no specific studies on relocation recruitment were done in determining the impact of the legislation?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I do not think that there is going to be a significant impact, because I do not think that a lot of teachers are going to be leaving and I would be surprised if that were the case.
In other jurisdictions across the country right now, teachers are being laid off in large numbers. I believe that is happening in Alberta and in some other provinces, and that is why so many of those teachers are seeking employment opportunities here.
I believe that the teachers who are teaching in Yukon now realize that there are not a lot of jobs available and that the job in the Yukon is a pretty good job that pays very well. We have the best student/ratio in the country and some of the best facilities in the country. I do not think that there is a major problem at the present time.
Mr. Harding:
All I know is what teachers have told me about their feelings on this issue.
The Minister may be right; there are other areas across the country where teachers have been laid off. People tell me what they feel and I get the sense from talking to people that if they do stay here, they will be staying not by choice, but because they are forced to stay for one reason or another, whether it is the employment situation or lack of an employment situation to be had elsewhere.
This situation is not good for the education system, because you have people who were previously interested in growing with the education system and interested in building partnerships who are now staying in the employ of the Yukon government in a disgruntled manner.
Without getting into another long debate on this issue, I do not think that this is going to be good for the education system.
I have a prediction to make about the negotiations with the YTA, and the current legislation. I believe that there will be some negotiations, because the government has realized how ridiculous, politically suicidal and stupid their announcement for experience-rate freezes are. I think that will be changed at the table. I believe that the government, if they do not get an agreement, will try to come up with an offer that claims that they are wonderful guys because they backed off on this ridiculous experience-rate freeze for teachers. I still believe that they will still want to enforce their rollbacks in one way or another. They may use some other method to paint a different picture. I do not think that will be good enough from our point of view. It will be surprising if it is good enough for the teachers.
When an announcement is made - if it is made - I will be waiting with bated breath to hear exactly what comes of these negotiations. However, I just want to say that I firmly believe that, given the ridiculous position of the Yukon government on experience increases, the government will back off.
Other areas are unclear to me. We cannot get any answers about whether the legislation will be adjusted. Does the Minister feel that will happen?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
We have agreed to a blackout. I will not comment on the negotiations.
Mr. Harding:
I will let the record show my prediction.
I have some more questions regarding the legislation. If the Minister chooses not to answer, that is fine. I will ask them anyway. I think he owes it to the democratic process to answer, given that we still have legislation on our calendar, regardless of what he says about a media blackout. The fact is, as legislators, we will be asked to deal with it. To say that they would be violating a media blackout when it comes to answering questions on the process when it comes to legislation would be stretching it. In terms of the specifics, they may have an argument there, but they have refused to answer any questions on this matter. The effort of trying to get answers has been difficult and somewhat frustrating.
I would like to ask the Minister a question, but I want to talk a bit more about the basics. It is a very interesting topic throughout the country, and has been so for some time. There have been groups organized for some time. At the university I was at two years ago, when I was finishing up, there was a back-to-the-basics movement. There has been an active movement in Saskatchewan, and there have been announcements by the B.C. and Alberta governments. They are not all saying the same thing, but the discussions are there regarding the basics. Although I am not exactly sure what many of those people mean by "the basics," there have been announcements.
There was also the infamous announcement by the Minister regarding the basics in the territory. It came as a complete surprise to us at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
The Minister made a comment about comrades-in-arms the other day, at the height of his politically rhetorical speech. He talked about our comrades-in-arms in British Columbia. I should tell him that we see things happening down there with which we can agree. I know that the Leader of the Official Opposition has told the Premier that there are things that our caucus is not pleased with, and there are some concerns in our party. We do not all focus as one, just as the Yukon Party and the Reform Party do not always do the same thing, even though they are very much the same. Some of the Ministers in the Cabinet are independents.
It equates to the same thing. A provincial jurisdiction may have the same political stripe, but there can be very different positions on a lot of issues. I think he knows that, but is just making a political line.
Some Hon. Member:
(Inaudible)
Mr. Harding:
There will be a question. Mr. Chair, am I limited?
Some Hon. Member:
(Inaudible)
Mr. Harding:
The Minister is impatient today. He wants a question. I have to tell the Minister that I am going to be running down some of my thoughts on issues like the basics. I think it is important, as the critic, that I point out the foundation for my question. Considering the Minister first announced his education review at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon, imposed it on everybody, and did not talk to any of the partners in education, then profusely apologized for doing just that and begged a bunch of people onside and, then, when he found out B.C. was making changes, he claimed he was leading the charge in the movement.
It has been an interesting transgression. He is ever the political opportunist. We await the next turn with bated breath.
I thought it was important to point out our position with regard to some of the things that are happening in British Columbia.
Regarding the basics, one of the things the education review survey did was indicate that parents expressed - or the comments, as they were capsulized by the education review, and the ones I talked to seemed to be quite unanimous about it - "The need to return to the basics has been one of the strongest views communicated to the Education Review Committee."
It did not really say whether that came mostly from parents or students. In the questioning of the committee, they said it mostly came from parents.
One thing the Education Review Committee did say in the briefing was that there had been very little expression from the people who said that as to what they actually meant. Some of the parents who responded said they felt there was a need for a return to the basics, yet a lot did not define what they felt the basics were. If they did define an area, they were not very specific.
Based on what he knows about it, can the Minister give some indication as to what he feels the parents meant by "the basics", in
Page Number 2466
terms of their responses to the education survey?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I did not see any of the survey responses. Secondly, I think it would be unfair for me to comment on what parents wrote in the survey, especially when I have not even had a chance to see any of them. The other thing is that when I attended the briefing - and I had the same briefing that the Member opposite did - by the Education Review Committee, they told me that because it was not made perfectly clear in the comments from the respondents about what they meant by back to the basics, it was hoped that was going to be one of the questions the Education Review Committee was going to be asking the people out there in the general public - what do you really mean; what do you call basics? I imagine some respondents in the education review made it clearer than others, but I think it was a consensus from the Education Review Committee that it was not clear enough, so they were going back out to ask that very question, clarify it and be a little more specific. I have not had an opportunity to see any minutes or reports or anything out of any of those meetings, so it would be unfair for me to comment on that at this time.
Mr. Harding:
That is fair enough, and I respect that answer. But at one point last week we discussed basics and the Minister shouted across the floor that all the parents want to go back to the basics, as if somehow there was an overwhelming support for what he announced to the Chamber of Commerce luncheon. My point in asking the question was to see if the Minister had some information from the education survey that the Education Review Committee did not pass on to me about what the parents meant by the basics. The claim that the government has a mandate based on the parents' responses when government is not sure what they meant would be stretching it. I just wondered if the Minister had some evaluation that we were not presented with.
That is why I asked him that question, but if his answer is that it was just speculation about how much support there was for his view of where he has to go with the education system, i.e.: the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, that is fine.
The Minister said it would be unfair to comment on what the parents meant because the Education Review Committee is going to go out and ask the parents. I think that is a good process and I am looking forward to seeing the responses there. I think that the committee has some strong personnel on it who are going to ensure that balanced questioning is done.
If he cannot tell me what the parents meant, can he tell the House at this point, specifically, what he now defines as the basics in the Yukon education system?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
As a parent of a student myself and as someone who, as the Minister of Education, follows what goes on across the country and has read the many articles that have been written in the Globe and Mail and Maclean's and other publications in this country, this is not something new. It is not something that the Yukon government is embarking upon that is new and innovative. It is a concern that is expressed by people all across this country.
My view is that the basics are the reading skills, writing skills, mathematics and sciences. There are not too many people out there who feel we cannot do a better job in some of those areas. Those are the basics, as I see them, and that is the cry that is not only coming from some Yukoners, but it is a cry that is coming from people in almost every province in this country.
We have heard that as Ministers of Education and we have read it in local newspaper articles and magazines. It is just a common thread throughout the country right now - that these are the four areas that people feel we could be doing a better job on, because we are moving into a fast-moving technological world and have to make sure our children are equipped to deal with it. Those are the areas that people feel are some of the basic skills one needs to deal with this fast-moving world.
I hope that satisfies the Member. I do not know what more I can say, other than it is my own personal feelings and is what I am hearing from all across this country.
Mr. Harding:
The Minister hit the nail on the head - the basics are nothing new. They have been taught in the schools for years and they are still being taught in the schools. There has been back-to-the-basics movements in this country for a long time. I can remember reading it in Saskatchewan, probably five or six years ago. They had a major organization established for a back-to-the-basics movement. What are new are the new types of education that have produced different results in progressive education and changes in education that were not the norm.
I agree, we are moving into a fast-paced new world and there is going to be a lot of need for a basic education; there is also going to be a lot of need for creative thinking and problem-solving abilities, and I believe there is also going to be a need to have a better understanding of different races and cultures through multi-culturalism. What is happening in this country, as I see it right now, is that things are being dragged down by feelings of resentment for other types of people in this country - whether they are immigrants or whether they are people who were indigenous to this country.
The Minister is right. It is not something new. I have heard it before but I did not expect to hear it in the Yukon in the manner I did. Nonetheless, it is going ahead and I do not think it is going to hurt. I was opposed to the process that was announced and initially developed. We had some confusion about the cost and the terms of reference and the establishment of who was going to be involved, but nonetheless I do not think it is going to hurt.
A lot of concerns have been expressed to me about the process of the survey. A lot of people responded, so if people are prepared to make a response, then one has to consider what they said.
The Minister, in his response, said that he wants to do a better job in the area of reading, writing, math and sciences. That has been his general line on the basics since he took over, and it is pretty good politics, I have to admit. They say the same thing in B.C., Saskatchewan and some other provinces, but the concern shared by a lot of educators is whether it is good, convenient politics or is it doing the right thing for what is best for the education system. Do we want to prepare kids for the 21st or the 19th century? That is what a lot of them say to me, at least.
In this fast-paced, changing world, it is important to understand specifically where we want to go with the education system. There are some people who say that maybe there is too much emphasis on the old ways of doing things. There is a wide range of views on this subject.
The Minister said that they want to do a better job in the areas of reading, writing, math and the sciences. He is saying that a good job is not being done in that area right now - that it has to be better. It is my understanding that quite a few basics are now being taught in the Yukon school system. I certainly get that feeling quite strongly from my constituency. Are the basics not being taught now in Yukon schools?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Of course they are. The Member knows that they are taught in Yukon schools. I do not think that I, or this party, should apologize to anybody for wanting to do a better job of anything that we are doing in the education system. It is a very competitive world. I have attended many seminars lately where people talk about how competitive it is, and how the education system has to adapt to train students for the 21st century, and that is all we are trying to do. I do not apologize for wanting to improve the quality of the basics, or of any subjects taught in our schools. I think that we should be striving to do that in any way we can.
Page Number 2467
Are students being taught enough now? The Minister said that they have to do a better job. If they are being taught now - and he said of course they are - are students not being taught enough or are they not being taught properly?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
There are many studies available that point out that Canadian students did relatively poorly, compared to foreign students, on achievement tests and mathematics.
It is a global world that we deal with these days, not only Whitehorse, so we should be doing whatever we can to improve students' skills.
There are some very good things being taught in Yukon schools and that is what the education review is all about. It was not only to point out the things that we are not doing so well, but to point out some of the things that we are doing well.
I think that is the purpose of it, and my understanding from the members of the Education Review Committee is that they are quite pleased with some of the responses they have received, and they already see some of the recommendations that they can make to the Department of Education to improve our system when the education review is finished.
Mr. Harding:
The Minister always tries to come back to that issue and that we should listen to what the people are telling us, and I agree. There is no question about that; I am not saying that the Minister should not listen to what people are saying.
Let us not forget where the criticism came from on this particular issue. I was just researching this today. This is what the Minister's speech said: "The focus on many education systems has been on life skills, physical education and the appreciation of the multi-cultural character of Canada rather than the three Rs. This focus must change if Canadian students are going to be able to hold their own in the competitive world of the 21st century."
The Minister said a mouthful there. He has said that the focus on life skills, physical education and appreciation of multi-cultural characters of Canada, rather than the three Rs, has got to change. The Minister also just said that the basics are being taught in Yukon schools. I believe these are conflicting statements.
The Minister also said that we have to be adaptable in this competitive world to compete, and I agree, but I guess the question and point of debate is whether or not a rigid curriculum around the basics the best way to teach adaptability in children for a competitive world? That is the subject of debate across this country with educators, politicians and parents interested in the education system.
I become troubled when the Minister talks about achievement tests that compare us to other countries. That is like comparing apples and watermelons, in many cases. There are a lot of education systems - the Minister knows this - that compare in a totally different way. They streamline their systems. Students who do not meet certain testing requirements drop out of the system and go on to other things.
The systems in Great Britain and Japan are very different. It is interesting, because I recently attended a meeting with Allan Bacon, President of the Canadian Federation of Teachers, and we discussed the issue of international comparisons and some of the pitfalls in making those comparisons.
I thought that Mr. Bacon made a sensible point in terms of the problems with becoming to caught up in international comparisons. I know that Mr. Bacon also had a meeting with the Minister and maybe he discussed that topic.
Mr. Bacon said that he was at an international symposium with the Minister of Education for Japan, who said that he was very worried about the Japanese education system, because Japan is having many economic problems there now and there has been too much emphasis on the three Rs, maths and sciences. The system in Japan has not created a real problem-solving, creative, entrepreneurial ethic in many of the students going through the system and there are many students who drop out. When we make international comparisons we have to be careful.
Did the Minister talk about that with Mr. Bacon or, if not, does he have any views regarding the statements I just made on the international comparisons?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, Mr. Bacon and I did not discuss that directly. However, in comparison with other jurisdictions, I can recall that there have been some discussions with other Ministers of Education. Some of the strongest proponents of improving our education system are NDP Ministers of Education across this country. They are looking at other alternatives, as well.
I am not suggesting for one moment that we are looking at doing away with all the other subjects and just concentrating on the three Rs. I think it is a combination of both. We have to look at a balance and combination. When we talk about the basics, there is the feeling on the part of some parents in this country that we have wandered away from those standards. They feel that perhaps that is the reason why our graduates are not up to snuff. That is a concern that has been expressed.
I do not want to prejudge the types of recommendations that might come from the education review. I would be very surprised if they came away from the review saying that we should do away with all the lifeskills programs and just concentrate on math, reading and writing. I think they will make all kinds of recommendations about improvements to both sides of the ledger. We will be looking at those recommendations. It is just fine-tuning and improving the system; I do not think anyone should be afraid of that.
Mr. Harding:
I will just say to the Minister again that I am not afraid of any kinds of improvements to the education system - none whatsoever. It is funny that the Minister would use comments made by NDP Ministers across the country to justify his comments in this Legislature. I find that very interesting, coming from that Minister.
We are not cut from the same cloth. The Vander Zalm government, which is the mold from which the Members opposite are cut, did all kinds of different things that the Members opposite do not do, but we do not try and justify actions taken by this government based on anything Vander Zalm or the Socreds did there or the things they do here. This government is very similar to the British Columbia Social Credit Party, in terms of their actions and policies or lack thereof.
I would like to ask the Minister a question about the whole-language approach to learning. What is the Minister's opinion and approach to that undertaking in the Yukon school system?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
That is one of the issues people are talking about. I certainly support the program we have in our schools now, but I would not want to say that it could not be improved. There are some parents who swear by the whole-language way of learning, and some who think it is terrible.
Because my children are grown, I have not had a student go through the whole-language system. I personally do not have an opinion, one way or the other. I listen to what the educators and others are saying. Right now, in our schools, I think we have a good mixture of both. Some of the recommendations that might come out of the education review may concern content, or the ratio incorporating the old system and the new system. That is something I think the education review might be hearing from some parents.
Mr. Harding:
Did I hear that correctly? The Minister has been in this portfolio 18 months now, has talked to educators and parents around the territory, and he still has no opinion, one way or the other, on the whole-language program and its effectiveness. Is that correct?
Page Number 2468
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I think it has been relatively effective, but if the Member reads educational journals, some very highly regarded educators in this country are saying the whole-language process does not work and, on the opposite side, some very highly regarded educators are saying it does work. That is what education is all about. There are people on both sides of the spectrum who are very highly educated and involved in this system, but they have opposite opinions.
My own opinion is that part of it seems to work relatively well. It develops creativity in many of the children, but I also share the concerns of some parents that it can be a detriment to some of the kids, when it comes to spelling, phonetics and some of the other subjects that are involved.
That is why we are doing the education review right now, to get a feeling from Yukon parents on whether they like it or not, whether they feel it is right or wrong. That is also why we have very highly qualified people on the Education Review Committee who will be examining this and making recommendations.
Mr. Harding:
I appreciate the Minister's wanting to appeal to both opinions on every issue, but at some point at the end of the day, the Minister is responsible for some decision making - whether it is grade reorganization, given the election promises of the Yukon Party, or decisions with regard to curriculum, the basics and multi-culturalism - which he has come out against as Minister when he initially kicked off the education review. He can try to share both opinions, but at the end of the day, he is going to have to make a decision.
I guess the problem for me, as the critic, when I listen to the Minister, is not that he would see some merit in both sides - because very often, whether it is grade reorganization or basics there is merit on both sides - but at some point he has to make a decision. He announced that the focus must move away from lifeskills and problem solving, multiculturalism and physical education and there is only so much time in the school day, at present, and we have programs out there - Achievement Culture Environment Service and music, art and drama - that seem to have quite a solid following of parents and others in the communities. It is tough to have it both ways. If he says it must change and we have to get away from what I guess he would call "frills", then something has to give. I guess that is what I am trying to find out from the Minister. What is going to give? He says we must go back to the three Rs, but there are already three Rs being taught in the schools right now. There are also other programs involving lifeskills, physical education, multiculturalism and problem solving going on in the schools right now. One cannot have it every which way but loose. At some point, one has to reconcile what one's priorities are. That is what I cannot get from the Minister. I guess, until the education review comes out and he is forced to make the decisions, he is going to continue to say, "It is in the hands of the Education Review Committee," even though the emphasis, when he first kicked off the education review, did not come across that way. He has changed his position since then, and that is fine. I guess we will have to accept that.
Did the programs such as Achievement Culture Environment Service and MAD come at the expense of what the Minister considers to be the basics, or do they complement the basics? What is going to give if one has to go back to the three Rs, while he is still in favour of some of the other areas of the education system? What is going to give?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I am afraid I am having trouble understanding the logic of the Member opposite. I am not sure what he is asking me to do. If he is asking me to make a decision today to do away with some of these other programs that he describes as the frills and then to emphasize the basics in the program because he feels that is what I believe, he would be the first Member on that side of the House to rise and attack me blisteringly for days on end. He talks about preempting the review and its recommendations, and says that I should wait before I make a move about something. I do not understand it. The Member cannot have it both ways. Either he want me to wait for the review because he has faith in what the Yukon people will tell us about their education system - and I do because we have involved the teachers, the parents and the students; we have asked them where they feel we should make changes and how they should be made - I have stated in that House that I am prepared to listen to the recommendations made by that review committee and implement as many recommendations as we can within the scope of our financial resources as quickly as we can to improve the Yukon system. I do not understand what the Member is asking me to do now. Is he asking me to go out there and make changes holus-bolus when the committee is working? He either supports the work of the committee and will wait to see if I act on their recommendations, or he does not.
I know that he has never supported the review, and that is unfortunate, because a lot of Yukoners did. In fact, 2,600 respondents did, and that is a significant number. It is over half of the parents in the territory, about 95 percent of all teachers and several hundred students - because they filled out the questionnaire and brought it in.
I know he gets upset when I talk about his colleagues in other provinces and say that they have similar problems and are trying to deal with them in a similar way. I cannot help that. He asked me why we are making moves in this direction, and he asked me where we get the sense that there is a problem. I told him that it comes from Yukoners and from a movement all across the country, and I am criticized for it. Either he wants the information about other jurisdictions in Canada, or he does not.
The Member is rather inconsistent with his comments, and it is rather difficult to deal with them. Now, all of a sudden, we have either run out of questions about this budget, or I do not know what. We are now going back a year and one-half to a speech I made to the Chamber of Commerce and a debate that we have had in this House at least three times. We are going right back over the same old stuff again.
All I would like to do is deal with the budget that is in front of us and questions relating to it. Let us not spend hundreds of dollars of taxpayers' money rehashing what we have said three of four times previously in this House. I do not think that is a reasonable request.
I am prepared to answer any changes to the policies, any new policies, any changes in this budget, any line item the Member wishes to talk about - I am willing to talk about them. I can probably haul out Hansard and pull out the same speeches that the Member made before. He is on the record. I know where he stands on these issues. He knows where I stand on the issues, so let us just get on with the debate and start talking about the budget.
Mr. Harding:
The Minister has a lot of nerve to stand up in this Legislature and speak such a load of baloney. The Minister who says now, today, that he does not want to preempt the education review, I might remind him, stood up at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and said, "We have to move away; we must change." Does he not consider that preempting the terms of reference of a review?
Had he said, "I would like to have an education review; I would like to talk to all the stakeholders; I would like them to go around the territory and talk to people, find out what they like and what they do not like," that is something different. But, when he started it, he said, "They must change." Some of the programs likes ACES and MAD do not fall in the category of what must change, but the very definition that the Minister sitting across from me set for it.
Page Number 2469
I do not know why there is a problem with my logic. He must think they are frills. Not I; I think they are important programs and worthwhile. He said they must change; I did not.
In terms of the education review, the Official Opposition has always supported a proper education review. Thankfully, the good people on the Education Review Committee have saved it from the Minister - thank goodness - and they have received a good response with it. They are working very hard on it, and that is not because of the Minister but in spite of the Minister.
I am asking the Minister's opinion on these questions, based on what he said before - whether it was a year and one-half ago or not. I do not know why he would be so wholly indignant about it and accuse me of asking to preempt the review when I am just asking for some general comments about statements he has made, when he preempted the whole darned thing in the first place by his comments.
The Minister is right. We have talked about this before but I want to know - at every juncture, we sat at this table and discussed the education policy - where the Minister is at, where his vision is, has he moved away from what he announced at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, and have some of the interesting findings brought up by the education review surveys changed his mind at all? A lot of people support the education review. They have our support. All the terms of reference are solid. Right now, this one has a solid terms of reference and a solid staff conducting it. They are doing some good consultation.
The Minister should note that, even though I have been talked to by many people who have had a lot of problems with the way information and questions have been put to people, they have not really asked a lot of questions about the survey process and, more specifically, what was in it. That is for a very simple reason: a lot of parents responded to what was put before them. They obviously felt that it was okay. That is why we have not asked a lot of questions about it. A lot of people were concerned about the way this thing was kicked off.
I am asking the Minister to go over, in his mind, what his thoughts are on the policy changes. We know what they were a while ago, when he preempted the whole thing. He said that they must change. This means to me that he has some feeling about programs that are not specific to the three Rs. I never called them frills. They were never frills to me. I believe that they were important aspects, along with the basis of our education system and the three Rs.
I never really got an answer from the Minister. This is a personal opinion and not the opinion of the Education Review Committee, the people who responded to the survey, parents or students. I know what the Minister said at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon. He said that the emphasis must change away from programs involving lifeskills, multi-culturalism, physical education and so on. He also said that we must go back to the basics - the three Rs. In his own mind, as a general policy question, does the Minister feel that the other programs have taken away from the three Rs, that there has been too much emphasis there and that they come at the expense of the basics? That is what he said at the chamber meeting.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I do not think that I have ever said that. I support the ACES program. My own son went through the program at F.H. Collins School. The program really helped build his character, and it did good things for him. I know it has also done many good things for other students who have gone through that program.
As far as the MAD program and physical education programs, as we go through the budget, I would be more than pleased to show the Member, in the various departments, where there is funding to support the various programs. They are still in the budget, and that demonstrates my commitment to the programs.
Mr. Harding:
I am pretty satisfied that the Minister is not going to say anything. He learned from the first undertaking that he made at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, and he got smacked for it by a lot of people in the Yukon. He is just going to stand behind the Education Review Committee, and perhaps that is going to be good for education in the Yukon; I hope so.
I have a touchy question for the Minister. I have heard reports that the chair of the Education Review Committee is going to be leaving the territory and making British Columbia his principal address. I heard it was the Okanagan, but I am not sure.
I received an anonymous call about this issue about the time that the appointment was made, but I did not know if there was any merit to the call or not. Because it is a touchy situation, I did not really want to talk about it. However, it now seems to be firmed up, and I have had a few people tell me that.
How long has the Minister known, or had an indication, that the chair of the Education Review Committee was going to be making somewhere other than the Yukon his principal home?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
In any conversations I have had with the chair of the Education Review Committee, he has never indicated to me that he is leaving the Yukon permanently.
When he took on the job, he gave me a commitment to do the job well, and I think that he is doing that. At the present time, it is my understanding that he intends to stay with the job until the report is given to me.
Whether the chair leaves the territory after the job is not really relevant. He is a long-time Yukon resident, has lived here all of his life, and no one in the Yukon understands the education system like he does.
I have heard nothing but positive things about the actions of the chair of the Education Review Committee. What he does after he finishes the report is his own business, and I do not think it is the business of this Legislature whether or not a person lives the rest of his life here, or moves somewhere else.
There was a former Minister of Justice, who used to be on the side opposite and once sat on this side of the House, who departed the territory shortly after he was the Minister of Justice.
I do not know what relevance it would have if the chair of the Education Review Committee were to leave the Yukon. If he were to leave half-way through the review, it would be a different story, and we would have to find another chairperson.
First of all, I have not heard that he is leaving, and I have not heard that he is going to be quitting the review before it is complete.
Mr. Harding:
I will get to the relevancy in a minute. I do not think the comparison to the former Justice Minister is fair. He was elected by the people, not appointed by the Minister, so it is a wholly different matter.
The Minister said he is not leaving the Yukon permanently. Is he sure about that? Is he leaving the Yukon at all? Is he planning on making a principal residence there? He is very careful about his wording there. This comes from many reliable sources.
Is the Minister sure about what he said? Is he leaving at all? Is he going to make his residence down in British Columbia?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I find this line of questioning extremely disturbing. I do not know why that Member would want to know the personal business of an individual who is carrying on a job for the Government of the Yukon at the present time. What he does after he finishes that job is his or her business. I do not know why in the world it would bother us. Is there something he has done wrong?
Is there something wrong with someone leaving the Yukon at a given time after having completed a job for the Government of the Yukon? Is that something the Member opposite finds offensive?
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Could he tell me what he is getting at?
I am not sure what he is getting at. I spoke to the chair of the committee a week or two ago on the matter of the Montreal conference. He did not indicate to me that he was leaving the territory permanently then. He has always indicated to me that he is going to complete the job as the chair of the Education Review Committee.
I do not know what the Member is leading up to. Is there some sinister thing here I should know something about, so I could answer the question more clearly?
Mr. Harding:
The Minister has not heard the relevance of it yet, because I am not done with the questioning. If he would just answer the question, then we could discuss the relevancy of the question.
Has the Minister heard from anybody, if he has not heard it from the chair of the Education Review Committee?
I see the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission in the background chortling away. Given his responses in the last couple of weeks to questions, the only ones chortling should be the Members on this side of the House.
I will tell the Minister the point, if he answers the question. Has he been told by anyone else that the chair is leaving? A lot of people have raised this issue with me, so I am asking on their behalf.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I have heard that the individual is liquidating some of his assets. He has not personally told me he is moving. As far as I know, he lives at Marsh Lake in a house he built. I do not know why we are getting into this man's personal business. He has lived in the Yukon for almost 20 years; he has taught in our schools; he has been a business person in this community; he has made a major contribution to the speed skating club in the community; and, all of a sudden, because he may decide to go to do something else somewhere else in his later years - and I do not know that he has - there is something wrong with that.
If he completes the report and gives it to me, I would like to know what the Member opposite is getting at. What is so important that he has to ask this type of personal questions about an individual?
Mr. Harding:
I have not said there is anything wrong with it yet, so, I do not know what accusation he is making, in terms of responding to my question. I am just asking him a question. I hear the Member for Klondike chortling away up in the back desks. When I hear that brain shaking around in his head some times, I really wonder if there is anything behind his chortling.
Chair:
Order please. I would like to ask Members to refrain from name calling.
Mr. Harding:
My apologies, if I called him a name.
If the Minister has not been told by the chair of the Education Review Committee that he is leaving, I have been told that the chair is leaving by a number of people who have raised concerns. I have to ask the next question of the Minister then, because I think it has been established that the chair is going to be leaving the territory: how much have Yukon taxpayers spent? We sent the chair of the Education Review Committee around the country to a number of conferences and there is talk of another conference in Montreal at the end of the month. The Education Review Committee chair has been sent around the territory, and there has been considerable - I would say thousands of dollars - taxpayers' money spent in this process, as well as honorariums. Can the Minister tell me how much has been spent in that regard?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can bring that information back to the Member, but I can also tell the Member that when the chair of the Education Review Committee made his first trips - I think he went to B.C., Alberta, Ontario and the eastern provinces - he paid his own way to British Columbia. He did not ask the taxpayer to do that and all we had to pick up were the costs from there. There are not too many people who do work for the government who actually offer to pay their way out of the territory. I think we are getting very good value for our money from the chair of the committee, and I can get back to the Member on what it has cost us so far for the various trips of the chair of the committee, if he feels it is relevant.
Mr. Harding:
Someone told me that the chair did not ask the government to pay because when he went down there he was establishing his residence, so he was conducting some personal business at the same time. Maybe that is why he did not ask the government to pay for part of his airfare down to Vancouver. I am not sure, but that is what I was told by some people.
I guess the relevant issue is that a lot of taxpayers' money has been spent - and I am not saying the chair has not done a good job, I think he has done a very good job - in training the Education Review Committee chair, in paying honorariums to the chair, in sending the chair around the territory to the communities, and there is at least some indication out there in the communities - I guess the Minister has not heard - that he will not be living in the territory any more. We, as a territory, lose a valuable resource person in whom we have made quite an investment. The Minister says it is not relevant because whatever he does after is not important. He has a personal right to do whatever he wants after; I am just questioning the Minister as to whether or not it is a loss of some of the investment we have made in the Education Review Committee chair, in terms of the taxpayers' dollars that have been spent. Is the Minister concerned at all about losing this valuable resource person here in the territory?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
If Mr. Weigand leaves the territory on a permanent basis, it will be a big loss for the community. It will be a big loss for the speed skating club, the real estate people, a lot of people in the territory and certainly the education community. Unlike the previous government, Mr. Weigand was just hired for a specific project, to share an education review, find out all the information he could about a review and be the chair of a certain committee. If I were to choose the chair or even any member of this committee, based on the fact that one were never allowed to leave the Yukon after accepting the job, that would be unfair as well - or that one had to stay five years. We do not put those kinds of conditions on people when they apply for these jobs, and I am not even sure whether Mr. Weigand is leaving the territory on a permanent basis.
It would be unfair to jump into Mr. Weigand's own personal business about what he wants to do. Mr. Weigand was asked to be the chair of the Education Review Committee; he has gone around to check out what other jurisdictions are doing with respect to reviews; he is conducting public hearings right now and Mr. Weigand's job will be completed when he makes his final report, as will all the other members' jobs on that committee.
It was never intended to be a permanent job that Mr. Weigand would have forever and ever and ever, and put him on the payroll, like the previous government used to do.
We do not want to do that. There may be some use for Mr. Weigand in the future on certain jobs if he is still here. I do not know what his plans are - whether he is going to be here or not or whether he is interested in doing anything in the future. I thought he would be a valuable asset to the committee because of his extensive knowledge of the Yukon and of education, and that he would be a good chair. From all reports I am hearing from committee members, as well as everyone else, he is a very competent chair, doing a very competent job, and I will be pleased to look at his report when I get it. But I am not telling Mr. Weigand that he is obligated to stay in the Yukon for two, three, four or five
Page Number 2471
years afterwards. Neither is any other member of that committee. They are free to do whatever they want after this job is complete. I am looking for a very good report from that committee. When I get it, I will deal with it, and the people can go on to their roles in life - whatever they want to do.
Mr. Harding:
The issue here is not whether Mr. Weigand was a good chair or not. The issue here is how long did the Minister know that the chair was leaving and was it a valuable or a good investment for the territory to spend thousands of dollars, maybe even tens of thousands of dollars, in training an education review chair who the Minister knew was going to be leaving the territory as a resource person. That is the issue.
The Minister obviously has identified that it is not a concern for him. For a lot of Yukoners who have talked to me, it is a concern. If the Minister knew that the person he appointed and spent thousands of dollars on was going to be leaving, he made a bad appointment. That is what people have said.
I would just ask the Minister that. I would ask him to give it more thought to see if he can see any relevancy there. I believe there is a lot of relevancy to the question, as do many taxpayers in the Yukon.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can see where the Member is coming from. He did not support Mr. Weigand when he was first supported. In fact, he said that the reason Mr. Weigand was a bad appointment was because his father is a well-known Conservative.
Some Hon. Member:
(Inaudible)
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Well, that is what he said to the media when he was asked about Mr. Weigand's appointment. He said it was a political appointment because his dad was a Conservative. This is just another approach to attacking Mr. Weigand.
He was hired as the chair of an Education Review Committee that has a short mandate of six, eight or 10 months in which to complete a report. When he completes the report, Mr. Weigand can do whatever he wants with his life. It is not up to us, as Members of this Legislature, to tell Mr. Weigand he can or cannot leave the Yukon.
I have told the Member clearly that Mr. Weigand has never once told me that he is moving anywhere. I know that he sold some of his assets in Whitehorse. I know he has a nice home at Marsh Lake, in which he presently lives. I know that he commutes once in awhile to Vancouver Island, where some of his family lives; however, as far as I know, Mr. Weigand has not said to me that he is leaving in August, September or at any given time. He has said nothing of the sort.
I do not know if Mr. Weigand is leaving or when. I know that he has given me a commitment that he will complete the education review. When that is done, he can do whatever he pleases. I will not hold him to any obligation to stay in the Yukon for another year or two just to please the Member opposite.
Mr. Harding:
I am not attacking anyone. I am certainly not attacking Mr. Weigand. I am asking the Minister a policy question regarding the appointment and if it was a good appointment. I am asking if the Minister knew that the person is leaving, and if he is aware that the government is spending thousands of taxpayers' dollars on someone who could be a valuable resource person for the Yukon in the education field, if he were staying. It is as simple as that.
I also want to point out that I never said, in any way, that I did not support the appointment of Mr. Weigand because his father is a Conservative. I know that the truth does not seem to matter to the Minister at times, but I never said that. I want the record to show that. I will get the Yukon News article at the next break and read it to the Minister to prove it. What I said was in regard to all the Tories being appointed to boards and committees, and that I would like to see a bit of balance on the Education Review Commitee and Ion some other ones. It was a very reserved comment, actually. I remember some people said I should have been more verbose in my criticism of the appointment process, given the government failed to bring in any legislation to make the process more fair, such as are in the provisions of the Public Government Act.
I know the Member for Riverside and the Member for Riverdale South in Opposition have also raised some questions about the appointment process, not just under the Member opposite's administration, but also under the previous government. It was a comment that was relevant and reasonable at the time. I would just ask the Minister not to say things that are not, in fact, true.
We have established that the Minister does not feel that this is important, so I will leave this line of questioning, as I know that the Member for Mount Lorne has some questions for the Minister.
Ms. Moorcroft:
There is always a lot of crossover between the college, advanced education and public schools. I have some questions in relation to curriculum that I would like to address to the Minister that cover a number of those areas.
Recently, the Yukon First Nations curriculum development team came up with a field testing of a model on Yukon First Nations' oral history. That model was completed in the Yukon native teacher education program. I have a sampling of the comments from the evaluations, where the YNTEP students were saying that it is great to see Yukon-based material being used and taught so that all students can relate to it; it was great to learn about the cultural history of Yukon First Nations and that First Nations as well as others will enjoy the material.
When I turn to the statistics in this budget, at page 96, where there is the breakdown of public school expenditures, curriculum support and development for the 1994-95 is a total of $99,438,000, and when I look back at previous budgets, the program support and development line was broken down into locally developed curriculum and Yukon curriculum.
In 1992-93, locally developed curriculum was over $180,000, in 1991-92 it was $170,000, and it was close to $34,000 for 1990-91. As well, Yukon curriculum monies were $73,000, $72,900 and $50,000 in previous years. I would like to ask the Minister if his government has the breakdown of curriculum support and development, with an indication of how much is being spent on locally developed curriculum and on Yukon curriculum, because I am certainly concerned when it is less rather than more money being spent in that area.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can bring that figure back to the Member and I can assure the Member that I do support locally developed curriculum.
Ms. Moorcroft:
I would like to know then if the public schools are presently using the CYI curriculum that has been developed in various modules. There were three booklets released this year on environmental education, by the CYI curriculum branch, and I know that they have done some work, particularly, in the early year's curriculum. Is that curriculum being used in the Yukon school system?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I will bring that information back to the Member.
Ms. Moorcroft:
The Yukon native teacher education program, as I just said, has been using that curriculum - the oral history, for example. However, it will be awhile before they are in the classroom, and able to use their knowledge in the schools. I certainly hope that the Minister can get back to me with a positive answer on that.
I would like to move into some questions that relate to the government employee survey. One-third of Yukon Teachers Association members do not believe that they are adequately consulted by their supervisors about decisions that bear upon their
Page Number 2472
jobs. What initiatives does the Minister anticipate undertaking to ensure that supervisors will be more open about consulting their employees?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I believe that all departments will be having a look at that survey to see how it affects them, and then implementing some type of plan to try and address some of the concerns that were expressed. That is something that we in the Department of Education will be doing as well. The report just came out a few weeks ago and nothing has taken place yet, but we will be sitting down in the near future to deal with those matters.
Ms. Moorcroft:
More than two out of every five YTA members do not believe there are adequate chances for advancement within Yukon government services. The Minister has said that the report has just recently come out, and they have not had a lot of time to think about it. However, we have to point out that there have been cutbacks at the departmental level. I would like to ask the Minister what he thinks can be done to address this concern of teachers, who may want to stay in education, but do not necessarily see their future lying in the field of school administration.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Actually, this year we are seconding a teacher out of the Department of Education to help us with some of the concerns expressed about math. In the future, I would like to look at similar types of secondments that would involve teachers coming into the system and learning a bit about the administrative side of it, and having some of the teachers in administration possibly going into the teaching side in order to understand the roles that the teachers play. I think that is something that we can look at. Again, the report just came out, so there has not been a chance - as we were getting ready for the budget in the House - to sit down and see what those comments really meant, and how we can address those areas. That has not yet been done. It is a bit preliminary to speculate on what we could do, but we will certainly be looking at that area.
Ms. Moorcroft:
I think those are known concerns that have been around for a while. The Minister mentioned one secondment that was occurring, and I am not clear if that secondment is within the Yukon system or from outside the Yukon system. I would also like to know if there is anything else in the budget to reflect the need for that kind of advanced level training for teachers.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I would certainly hope that secondment would happen within the system; for instance, where we take a math teacher and use that math teacher's skills and services in providing future plans for the math department in curriculum development. That is the plan.
The suggestion made by the Member is interesting. As I said, that is the kind of thing that we may look at. We may consider how we could initiate some kind of a program to allow teachers to move into the administrative side of things in the future. Presently, there is no clear-cut program developed. There was no such program under the previous government, and there is no such program with this government. There were concerns expressed in those areas and, once we have an opportunity, we will be sitting down to see what we can come up with there.
Ms. Moorcroft:
We have already talked about the traditionally high turnover rate among Yukon educators, and this high cost affects both the financial side of things, as well as the stability for students, families and communities. Almost 60 percent of the Yukon Teachers Association members do not believe that their advice is actively sought about how they and others could be more productive. This is a well-educated and committed part of the government work force.
What is the department doing to improve staff morale, particularly with respect to making sure that teachers are aware that their input is welcomed and valued by the department?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I guess my answer to that question is the same as my answer to the previous question. We have just received the report, and those are some of the areas that we will be looking at and trying to address in the future.
Now that we have the information provided to us, indicating that there are strong concerns in this area, we will be looking at programs that involve the teachers.
One of the things that I have said in the past is that I would like to see the superintendents spend more time in the schools. I would like to see them working with the school-based staff and the problems that they have there. I would like to see the curriculum staff working closer with the teachers. We develop the curriculum, turn it over to the teachers, and the teachers then have to deal with the problems in delivering it. I would like to see more coordination there, and I think that can happen.
I think that we do a good job now, but we can do a better job in many of these areas, and those are the kinds of issues that we will be addressing.
We are also looking at school-based management to decentralize some of the departmental budget functions to the school site. This will mean that schools are responsible for telephone, fax and modem costs, minor renovations and capital maintenance work. Again, they will be looking at what serves them best and what their priorities are for renovations in the school. This will allow repairs to be made faster on things that are more of a priority to the teachers and the school-based staff, rather than the department looking at a situation from a global view of the whole department. The schools will receive a fixed budget and they will be able to look at some of the needs in the school that are driven by the staff and the people who have to work there.
I am hoping that these kinds of things will provide a better working environment for the teachers, and consequently improve the morale.
Ms. Moorcroft:
I would agree with the Minister that the curriculum people do need to work with the teachers, and vice versa; however, when one looks at the actual expenditures in this budget on curriculum support and development, it is cut. It has come up a little bit from 1993-94, but, looking at the 1992-93 actual, it is about half of what was spent in 1992-93. It is also less than half of the 1991-92 year. The Minister talks about a fixed budget, but these cuts are going to inhibit the ability of local curriculum being developed and of curriculum workers liaising with the teachers, and then with the classrooms and the students.
I have already said that the YTA members who responded to the survey do not believe that they have adequate opportunities to develop or improve their skills and abilities, but the teachers are the ones who can make the educational experience of students relevant to modern realities. This government's approach has been to cut back in professional development funding.
We do not need a survey to tell us what this survey has told us, to know that cutting back in professional development funding is going to hurt the teaching profession and is going to hurt the students in our schools. Why has the government's response been to do the exact opposite of what is called for, which is to cut back in professional development funding?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I will first address the issue of curriculum support and development. Although it is lower than it has been in previous years, last year it was $72,375 and this year it is $99,438 - up 37-percent from last year. That is a significant increase, moving it back up to higher levels. When it comes to the professional development fund, that is an item that is negotiated at the bargaining table and it rises and falls depending on what happens at the negotiating table.
I am not going to comment more on that, other than state the fact that it does change and it has changed in previous years as well, because of what goes on at the table.
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Ms. Moorcroft:
The Minister just stood up and said that we have a 37 percent increase in curriculum support and development, and that we have gone from $72,375 to $99,438. He is ignoring the other, very relevant, facts, which are that, in 1992-93, the actual expenditure was $198,078. This year's expenditure is about half of that. In 1991-92, the total was over $200,000, so the present year's spending has not gone up. They cut it way down last year, and they are now bringing it up a little bit more this year - big deal.
About three-quarters of the Yukon Teachers Association respondents do not believe that there is any reward or tangible incentive for them to improve service delivery. Teachers, however, have by far the highest level of direct contact with the public of any of the public sector workers covered by the survey. Certainly, they are also the ones who often take an enormous amount of flak from students, parents and the community in general. Surely, the Minister can see the need, from a morale basis, if nothing else, to find ways to provide recognition or incentives of some sort for these frontline workers. Can he tell us what he has in mind for that?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can agree with that but, again, we just received the report, and we are looking at possible options for something like that. We have not developed anything yet. The report just came out a few weeks ago.
Ms. Moorcroft:
There are also some important findings related to hiring. Thirty-nine percent of teachers feel that government's hiring process is not fair, and another 24 percent are undecided; 48 percent do not believe that the process selects the right person for the job; 44 percent do not think that the process gets people into jobs when they are needed, and only half believe that the department's goals are clearly understood. One-third of the teachers feel that the single most important change in their working conditions would be less political interference. This was, by far, the highest response of any employee category, and we should remember that this survey was done long before the government announced that it was prepared to legislate wage rollbacks and bypass the collective bargaining process.
When we talk about a fair hiring process, I think we have a really key example of the problem when we look at the ad for the assistant deputy minister of public schools. It is an ad that looks for someone with an ability to develop and implement strategic and operational plans; they are looking for a well-seasoned manager with a record of innovation based on sound management principles, and extensive experience managing in diverse and challenging circumstances. The ad uses very little language to do with education background or educational qualifications. Students are not a unit of production. I think it is very important in the public schools field, and we need someone with a strong background in education. Can the Minister answer why this ad appears to be geared so strongly to a business manager and less to an educational administrator?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
First of all, this individual is not the only one in the Department of Education, administrative branch, who has these qualifications. There are many people in that branch. Almost everyone there has a strong educational background. In this particular case, the deputy minister looks at his department and how the department is run. He makes suggestions on how the job description will be written. I am not one to interfere in that process. If we want to talk about political interference, I should not be the one to write the job descriptions for junior managers in the Department of Education. It is up to the department and the deputy minister to decide what they need to manage the department effectively and efficiently. I support the job description, as completed by the deputy minister.
Ms. Moorcroft:
The Minister said that there were lots of other people capable of providing the educational expertise, yet, the assistant deputy minister of public schools is the most senior position within the public schools branch. Does the Minister have any explanation - I do not feel I got one the first time - as to why the ad has been written asking more for a business manager than an educational administrator?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The superintendents are educational administrators and they are still there. This was the wish of the deputy minister. It is what he feels his needs are in order to manage his department. I do not think there is a problem. There are a lot of people who are managers and have educational experience. They will remain there, making those kinds of decisions.
Ms. Moorcroft:
The supervisors that the Minister has indicated will still be there still report to the assistant deputy minister. For that person to have the credibility with the senior educational administrators and supervisors, it is necessary that the assistant deputy minister also have expertise and education in the field of education. Does the department or Minister already have someone in mind for the position? Does that have anything to do with the language of the ad?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, we do not have anybody in mind for that. I am sure that the person who qualifies for that job will have an education and be able to make reasonable decisions. I do not have any doubt in my mind. I am quite confident that the deputy minister or those who are on the screening board will hire a competent individual to do that job.
Ms. Moorcroft:
I think if it was important that they have these educational requirements and experience, that would appear in the job ad. What are the educational requirements and experience that they are going to be looking for in this candidate?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I am not the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission. I do not advertise the jobs, and I do not have the job description here in front of me. I can get that information for the Member.
Ms. Moorcroft:
The Minister has to get back to me once he gets stumped. He was answering those questions right along for awhile. He was saying that he supported the department and that they were the ones who worded the ad in this way and that he was not going to interfere; however, now that I have asked him what the educational requirements and experience are, and why they are not in the ad, he does not have an answer. Can he let me know when he is going to come back with that information?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I will try and get it as soon as possible. I will table the statement of qualifications for the Member. As I said before, this is a managerial decision. The deputy minister felt that this is the type of person he felt that he would need to run his department efficiently and effectively, and do the job that we wanted him to do. I agreed with that, and the job will be posted that way. I hope we will fill it with a very competent person.
Mr. Harding:
I have some questions for the Minister regarding his announcement last September that he would be bringing in some math and diagnostic testing. My understanding about the Minister's decision is that there were basically two parts to it. There was diagnostic testing and some math summative testing. Apparently the Minister went with some advice he received about the summative testing not being a particularly good idea. He can correct me if I am wrong about this scenario. These strand tests have been brought into the schools, and I am wondering how the results are being used. Are they being used for marking, or evaluating a student, or are they being used to identify areas of concern? I believe that is the question in debate about these type of tests - how are the results being used? I do not think there is much dispute about the testing in the first place. I know the Minister talked, in his ministerial statement, about how they would be used. Is there any update about how they are presently
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being used in the schools?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
As I said in the ministerial statement, the teachers would be allowed to use their own discretion on whether they used the marks on an ongoing basis. My understanding is that some have been doing that and some have not been doing it, but we left it to their own discretion. The tests have been going on. The Member is right - there is not a summative test at the end of the year. There is a cumulative test and they can again use that if they wish for part of the final mark for the students.
I am pleased to say, by the way, that in the January departmental math at F.H. Collins, for the first time, our students did a little better in some areas than British Columbia in the departmental exam. That is one of the first times that that has happened.
Although it cannot be totally attributed to the math diagnostic testing, it is partly related to that. The diagnostic testing allowed teachers to identify areas where students did not pick up on certain areas of the math and to go back and review those areas. It also allowed teachers to identify specific students who did not grasp the basics in certain areas, and allowed them to go back to those students and recommend to those students that they could get tutoring. They even gave them some help on their own in some of those areas and I know it paid off for a lot of students this last year. I hope we can continue it in the future.
Mr. Harding:
The Minister's answer confuses me a little. He said that we did a bit better than B.C. at F.H. Collins for the first time. My question is: how did the math diagnostic testing, which does not teach the students anything but, rather, tests, make their marks better for the first time? How did that do that?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
When the students review the fundamentals and then they do the tests and go back over the subject several times, they retain a little more. When it came to the departmental exam, they scored higher in those exams. It helped them retain some of the fundamentals and helped them identify the areas where they might have been weaker, and to beef up those areas so that they could score a little higher.
I am not saying that the higher marks are totally and completely attributable to the diagnostic testing, but it is coincidental that, after six months of having diagnostic testing in place, the students are doing a little bit better. It may have something to do with that, but it could be a result of a lot of other things. It could be a better group of students - or a million other factors might come into play - but it is coincidental that after six months of diagnostic testing the students did a little bit better.
Mr. Harding:
How often are diagnostic tests taking place?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can bring that information back to the Member. There are strand tests given on a regular basis. About six weeks before the end of the year, there are accumulative diagnostic tests done on what students have been learning all year.
I can get some information for the Member and lay out exactly how the testing is being done.
As I said before, some teachers are using the testing for part of the final mark, and some of the teachers are using it strictly for the diagnostic exercise. Others are using the results to identify certain problem areas and work on those areas with the students.
In one particular case in one of the schools, there were a couple of areas where every single student scored very poorly. The teacher realized this and went back to review that area, and the students did much better on the next test.
Without the diagnostic testing, we would have learned about the problem areas near the year-end, rather than mid-term.
Mr. Harding:
The Minister's comparisons to the British Columbia school system are interesting.
Does the Minister have any thoughts on the statistical validity in terms of math test comparisons, given the Yukon's small sample size?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
That has always been an argument that, with our small sample size that, you cannot compare averages.
When I see an average of 60 percent versus an average of 50 percent, I do not really care what British Columbia students are doing, as long as our students are getting 60 percent or higher on departmental testing. When we see scores of 50 percent or lower, then I have to be concerned, because a departmental is a departmental. Averages do not mean much, but they do mean a lot to a student who is trying to get into university with their marks. I am concerned about the individual marks of the students.
Comparatively, there are all kinds of arguments one way or another, but my main concern is the mark itself, whether it is in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s; that is the concern that I have. I become quite concerned when the mark is low, but I am not as concerned when the mark is in the 70 to 90 range.
Mr. Harding:
Can the Minister see a bit of the danger in terms of his discussion about the success of diagnostics at this point?
The Minister has said that, for the first time, the schools did better than British Columbia students, but the Minister could not really tell me how often we are testing, so it is difficult to say whether the improved averages are a result of the diagnostics.
Does the Minister agree that this situation has to be given some time to see how it is progressing?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes, I would agree with the Member. That is why I qualified my earlier remarks. After six months, it is pretty early to be evaluating any program. I would like to give it more time.
We have to meet with the teachers and the educators to get a feeling from them and others whether it is helping or hindering, and what we can do to make it better and improve the math marks of the students.
I think it is premature to hail the success of the program. I would like to give it more time before saying yes, for sure, it helped these kids.
Mr. Harding:
Is the Minister satisfied with the marking provisions being solely up to the discretion of the teachers? Is he satisfied with that procedure and that process as it now stands?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes, for the time being, I have no problem with the teachers using their own professional discretion about whether or not they use it.
Mr. Harding:
One of the problems, I guess, with testing is that it can create a situation where students do fall by the wayside as a result of doing poorly in a particular test. My question for the Minister is, in order to compensate for that concrete decision or evaluation made on test results, what exactly is he going to do to help students who are shown by the tests to be weak in their math skills? What is going to happen?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
That is happening now. As the teacher identifies a student who may or may not be having problems, it allows the teacher to give the student some extra tutoring, concentrate on that area with that student or recommend tutoring. As it relates to the whole class, it allows the teacher to go back over a particular area in order to ensure that the students have grasped the concepts. I think that is happening already. In fact, I know it has happened. I know of a case where one of my own children was having difficulty in math. I know that the extra tutoring provided by his teacher, and by identifying areas in which he was weak, has resulted in his marks being pulled up substantially for the final in the departmental. He was extremely proud of that. He ended up in the mid-60s, as opposed to 50. He worked pretty hard to get that. Earlier in the year, he thought he was not going to make math. He feels a lot better now about that.
I do not know if it was the diagnostic testing or if it was his effort or the effort of his teacher who tutored him and many other
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students every Saturday morning, giving her time for a few weeks before the final. It was possibly some of the diagnostic tests and the repeat work they did that helped him and many of the other students achieve a better mark in the departmental exam.
Mr. Harding:
The teachers are, I would assume, pretty busy with their students to begin with and have a lot of work to do with their students. It is a big job. I believe that they work pretty much full time as it is right now. Diagnostic testing is a new thing thrown into the equation, which takes some time to evaluate where children are and, of course, it can identify some children who are not progressing in math skills. The Minister has just suggested that more time would be spent by the same teacher to bring those children who have been identified as weak in math skill development up to snuff. I was not specifically looking for just what the existing teacher can do. Is there anything else concrete going to be done, now that these diagnostics have been implemented, to help these people who are starting to fall by the wayside if they are identified as being weak in that area?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
We do now have remedial teachers who are helping some of these students out as well. I think that that is the kind of analysis that will be done of the program as it goes along, and how much help we can provide some of these students, and how we can provide it. There have not been any decisions made to date on that, but I do not think students are necessarily falling by the wayside, any more than they might have been falling by the wayside before, when we were not identifying any of their problems. I think it helps them out. If the Member has suggestions of a better way of doing this, I would be pleased to hear them. When I asked what could be done to improve the system, this was one of the suggestions that was made to me and it seemed to be a reasonable one. I think it is one that, over a period of the last few months, has gained more support from teachers than it did initially. I think that some teachers are telling us now that it has proved to be very effective in determining where there are problems and giving them help in how they can solve these problems. We are also providing some assistance to teachers who need help in certain areas, with respect to what we are discovering from the diagnostic testing. It is not without any support; it does have some support there and when we do a full evaluation of the program it will help us identify what our future needs are in these areas, so we can improve the marks for all Yukon students.
Mr. Harding:
That might have been part of the problem with the consultation surrounding the implementation of the diagnostic tests. I know that they have garnered some more support within the education community - it appears to me that they have anyway, but there are also some problems. Surely the Minister would agree that a kid who is progressing along to what is felt is the best of their abilities and all of sudden a new process is brought in and boom, he gets a diagnostic test mark back that may not be as good as he thought it would be, or as it should have been. I think that can be somewhat shattering to a child, and I know for a fact that it can cause people to become discouraged and make them think that compared to someone else they are just not able to deal with the skills in math. I think it was important to have identified how government is going to deal with that problem and estimate how widespread it is and be prepared to handle children who are falling by the wayside as a result of something new being brought into the fold.
Did the Minister do any forward-looking research into potential problems in that area when he announced the diagnostic testing? Did any of the people consulted raise concerns about it?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes, we did, and we are still doing it. In fact, we are doing it again in this budget. Initially, when we kicked the program off, we used some of the diagnostic tests that we received out of British Columbia, which have been proven. As well, we brought some individuals up to give advice to teachers and others on some of the testing. I know that was done.
This year, in this year's budget, we have a secondment of a math teacher from the Department of Education, which will be a really clear link between the administrative side and the curriculum side on how that is working and what other services or assistance we can provide the teachers and the students.
Those are the kinds of things that are going on. These programs have been going on for eight or nine months now, so it is quite premature to jump into this thing whole-hog. By the end of this year, we will be able to do some kind of an analysis in the department about what worked, how it worked, what did not work and what we could do better the next time. The secondment of the math teacher will provide that direct link between the math teachers in the schools and the administration branch, where some of this curriculum originates.
Mr. Harding:
By way of representation, I would urge, if the Minister is looking for input from this side of the House about remedial and math tutors, recognizing that there could be potentially negative situations created by this would be the best way to handle it. I believe, without crying over spilled milk, that it should have been done at the time of the implementation of the program. I am glad that the Minister recognizes that it is important at this point, and is doing some things in the budget to deal with it. I think that that is necessary. Are we going to be bringing in more of these strand tests in subjects other than math? How will they be brought in, and what is the cost of the strand test implementation?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can get back to the Member about the cost. I believe we are now looking at testing for science as well as math.
Mr. Harding:
Is that it - just science? Are there no plans to phase in social studies or other areas over time?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Not at the present time. A lot of work goes into developing them, and I think we want to be cautious about how we implement them. The Member asked what we are moving into next, and science is one area we are looking at. Regarding math, we want further refinement before we go much further, so that is what we are doing at this time.
Mr. Penikett:
I wonder if I could briefly intervene in the debate on testing, not to ask a question, but to make a comment. I make it as someone who was not among those unfortunate people who were frightened of tests as a child. In fact, that was my experience throughout school. However, I recently had a long conversation with a school principal about the effect of math testing on a group of students in one school.
There was a concern that arose because students need grade 11 math to graduate. There is a lot or pressure on students from parents and teachers who want them to succeed, and pass from high school on to further education or to work, and to have them do well enough to at least qualify for high school graduation. The principal pointed out to me that something like 40 percent of the students whom he was dealing with were struggling with math.
As in other schools, these students have been provided with some extra tutoring. With this tutoring and with some help they would have been able to get through the year and pass the math test.
The effect of the testing was that these kids identified themselves as failures very early in the year, so they just gave up and dropped out. The effect of testing, from the point of view of the school, was very good, because now, instead of having a larger group whose average score was dragged down by the struggling students, they were now performing very well, because the 60-percent survival group were all doing well in math and having no problem passing tests, so the scores went up.
What we had as a result of this testing and the particular
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application of the testing was a group of 40 percent who were identified as failures, who did not complete the course and therefore would not have high school graduation.
The effect of the testing in this case was not positive and not productive, but counter-productive, if one is really concerned about educational outcomes.
I am not taking a hard position one way or another about testing. I have read the background material provided by the department on the testing and the assessment in mathematics and it all sounds fine, but it seems to me that what this principle is giving an entirely opposite outcome from what was intended. I want to go on record as saying that that is a pity.
Chair:
Order please. We will take a brief recess at this time.
Recess
Chair:
I will now call Committee of the Whole to order.
Is there any further debate on Education?
Mr. Harding:
I would just ask the Minister if he had any response to the comment of the Leader of the Official Opposition, just prior to the break, regarding the observations that educators have relayed to him about the diagnostic testing?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes. There are arguments both ways. The Leader of the Official Opposition is correct. It is a legitimate concern; however, some concern has been expressed by others that it is better to identify the problem early in the year with some kind of testing than to go right to the end of the year and have more than half of the students fail the departmental exams and not pass the year. There are arguments on both sides. Those are the kinds of things I hope we can work out. We will look at the diagnostic testing and how it is affecting some students. Perhaps there will be some newer, more innovative ways of putting this in place.
I guess it is the old argument of should we or should we not have testing. There are two sides to the issue, and both believe very strongly in their views. If the Member has suggestions regarding other ways of dealing with this situation, I would be happy to hear them.
Mr. Harding:
I do not think the problem is so much identifying the problem of students not developing their math skills. The crunch comes when there is an effort to deliver on their problems and help the student progress past them. I think problems arise when too much emphasis is placed on the results of the diagnostic testing. I do not think it is as simple as the Minister states. It is not just the old debate about whether or not there should be testing; the student is tested throughout the entire school career. The problem is more along the lines of how we deal with the identified problems and put things in as positive a light as possible, so that the student progresses and does not fall by the wayside. That is one issue. The other issue is, I believe, the emphasis placed on the results and how they rate compared to other students and so on.
When the issue of diagnostics was brought up earlier, the Minister bypassed his answer by saying that he was not sure of the reason why F.H. Collins had had, for the first time, more comparable math marks with B.C. students, and that he was not sure it could be related to the diagnostic testing, but that it was quite a coincidence. How many F.H. Collins students were used for the comparison? Was it the general math student population or another area?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I will have to bring that kind of detail back to the Member. Those are the kinds of detailed questions on which I will have to get more information. I do not have that at my fingertips.
The Member mentioned the tests and how we use them. That is why, with the diagnostic testing, we have left it up to the professional discretion of the teachers to decide whether or not they want to use the diagnostic testing as part of the overall mark in the year, or just as a tool to assist them in some of the areas where the students may not be making the grade, so to speak. They do have that latitude - to either use it or not use it. There are some choosing each way. They have a bit of latitude there but, as I said, we are going to be reviewing it, we are going to be seconding a math teacher into the department, and we hope to solve some of these problems in the near future.
Mr. Harding:
I am a little bit disconcerted by the Minister's answer. When a Minister gets up and says something, he has to realize that it has an impact and people listen. A lot of times, people are not paying a lot of notice to details and, when the Minister stands up and says, "Interestingly enough, this year, our math students, for the first time ever, are approaching B.C. students," people listen. They respond to that. So, when I ask a specific question about what the comparison is based on, and the Minister cannot tell me, then he should be a little bit concerned about that. He should know, specifically, what the comparison is based on, if he is going to make that announcement. If he wants to reserve his comments until later, when he knows all the details, then I believe that would be appropriate.
I would just say that, by way of a representation to the Minister, to remind him that comments used to further a priority or political message of the government are sometimes not used appropriately. So, it is important that all the information is known before a broad statement like that is made.
There is another issue I would like to discuss with the Minister - the issue of library budgets being cut. That was identified by the Member for Mount Lorne last week, and the Minister responded by saying that public library budgets had been increased, and some of the public libraries were located in the schools. The problem with that is, if the school libraries budgets are cut, then they are not free to bring in information that is specific to the children, which they do as opposed to the public library, which has a much broader population to serve. So, it does not really wash to say that the public library budget is increased. Not only that, teachers need a lot of the reference material from school libraries, and it is specific to the curriculum and the type of criteria that they need to further the teaching of the particular areas they are working in.
The Member for Mount Lorne just said that some children just cannot get to the library but, if it is available in the school, then it is more effective.
I would ask the Minister to respond to those concerns, as well as another concern that people have raised with me - that they feel that teacher-librarians' time has been cut in the territory.
I believe those are very legitimate concerns raised about public school libraries, and I do not believe that it is fine to just say that public school libraries budgeting has been increased, because they serve two very specific purposes in our society.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I will have my officials look into the concern about the library staff time being cut. That is the first I have heard about it, and we will check into it.
I think I already said, in response to a very similar question the other day, why the library budget fluctuates. In this particular case, we are spending $11,000 more than the decrease on library books and periodicals. The Member says not in public schools, but we have a very high contingent of Yukoners who are taking training and upgrading in schools and use the public libraries. Some 60 percent of Yukon College is involved in upgrading skills, and those people do not necessarily have access to some of the schools.
This is just a change in the budget. It will change again in the future. This particular year, we chose to increase the budget for public libraries and decrease the budget in schools, but the difference
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is that there is an $11,000 net increase when you combine the decrease in one and the increase in the other. Overall, for public library books, periodicals and stuff, there is going to be an increase. As well, there are no new public libraries coming onstream this year, and that also makes a bit of a difference.
Mr. Harding:
The Minister is avoiding the point that was made, that is, the two types of libraries serve very specific purposes. The Minister has described it as a change in the budget but, when that money is voted by this Legislature, it does something for somebody and has a purpose, so it is not that simple.
It is my understanding that there have been a number of school councils that have objected to the action by the government in this area. Has the Minister received some opposition to his move to cut the public schools' budget in the area of libraries?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I have received representation from one letter that I have seen so far.
I do not want the Member to paint the picture that public school library budgets have been slashed, decimated and have disappeared. There is $120,000, which is a significant amount of money for that line item.
I want to again say to the Member that he only has to visit the nearby library on any given evening to see how many students taking upgrading are using reference books in the library. There are many students who use these books and other public libraries in the territory during the courses that they are taking at Yukon College and other educational institutions.
It is a matter of spending more money in this area one year, and more money in another area the next. I am sure that this will change again in the future.
Mr. Harding:
I am talking about young children, not Yukon College students. I am talking about public school libraries. I realize that people from the college utilize the public schools libraries, and I also realize that some children in the schools utilize the libraries.
I guess we have a difference of opinion on this subject, but the point is that public schools, given their own budgeting, can establish their own priorities, determine their own criteria for the purchase of materials that more adequately meet the smaller range population that they are serving, and that is the young student population in the territory. The public schools have a much broader mandate.
There was the point made by the Member for Mount Lorne, who lives on the Annie Lake Road. It is hard for students in Wolf Creek to go to the public libraries but, if they have the material at the school library, they can do it when they are at school.
I guess the Minister and I have a difference of opinion.
Mr. McDonald:
I have a brief follow-up question for the Minister. I presented this question to him last week.
I asked the Minister to tell us the percentage of total net spending dedicated to education for the operations budget, the capital budget, and for the combined operations and capital budget, to see what financial emphasis is being placed on education.
I thought it would be wise, under the circumstances, given that we were becoming bogged down in the rhetoric as to whether or not the government was showing support for education, and whether or not the government's rhetorical position could hold any water, when one uses the old "money talks" argument.
We wanted to see whether or not the percentage of discretionary funding spent on education has grown or dropped off over the course of the last couple of years. In answering the question, the Minister gave the percentage expenditure for operations for education, as compared to the combined operation and capital from the 1993-94 year versus the 1994-95 year. I had asked the Minister whether or not he could go to the 1992-93 year, which was the last year for which he was not responsible for the main estimates, and if he could tell us what the comparison of net spending would be for the operations and for the capital, and for the combined total of the two - 1992-93 compared to 1994-95. Does he have that information for us now?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, I do not have that information at hand right now. The department is doing that. They are also looking at several years - we are not going to do just two years, we will do five or six years. We are also looking at some of the projects in those budgets that are over and above the normal budget of the Yukon Territory; for example, the Alaska Highway, the new hospital and various projects of the previous government that were over and above the existing budget when they were given transfer payment from the federal government to carry out a specific project within a given time frame. We are going to put that together, but, as the Member knows, it will take a bit of time, because we have to draw information from the Department of Education as well as from other departments. I have asked them to do it as soon as possible.
Mr. McDonald:
I think the Minister has misunderstood completely the task at hand. The point of the exercise was to determine what percentage of discretionary funding was dedicated to education. I was not talking about special projects that come along from time to time; I was talking about what percentage of the funding that the Yukon government had total responsibility for that they were dedicating to education. That avoids the need to concern ourselves with how much money had been dedicated to the Alaska Highway, for example, or hospital construction - the special one-time projects that come along from time to time.
Given that the Ministers had consistently indicated that they thought it was unfair to incorporate the special one-time funding - the recoverable funding for special projects - and that we should only be comparing, from year to year, the funding that they had some discretion over, which means that they have the power to ultimately decide, I thought that it would be worthwhile to compare the 1992-93 year, which was the last year the NDP administration was in government, to 1993-94 and 1994-95 - what percentage of net spending was dedicated to education.
For the Minister's information, because it is not a complicated task, and all the information has been contained in the opening pages of each budget book for as long as I have been in the Legislature, I did a comparison of the percentages of net spending that was dedicated to education. In 1992-93, 26 percent of discretionary spending was directed to education - 26 percent of the available funding that we had that was not tied to some special project was dedicated to the operations budget for education.
In that same year, 24 percent of the net capital budget was dedicated to education. If one were to combine the totals for operation and maintenance and capital, 25 percent of the net budget was dedicated to education.
In 1993-94, the percentage of net operations funding, as a percentage of the overall operations budget - even when one removes the one-time expenditure for the land claims training trust fund - had dropped from 26 percent in the previous year to just under 23 percent of the total net spending for education. That has gone up in operations marginally this year, to about 23 percent of the total net spending dedicated to education. The capital has dropped significantly, from 24 percent of net spending to 13.2 percent of net spending in 1993-94, and again to 13.2 percent for 1994-95.
To sum that up, the net total spending dedicated to education, for combined operations and capital, has dropped from 25 percent to 22 percent. That means that, out of the money that the government has at its discretion to spend whatever way it wants, it has reduced its commitment to education by three percent of net
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spending. On the operations side, three percent accounts for about $9 million. For the combined operations and capital, that net spending amounts to about $10.8 million that could have been dedicated to education but was not, because priorities had changed. Does the Minister dispute those figures?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, I do not dispute the figures as given by the Member. However, I would like some time to review the figures and see how the Member came up with those particular figures. We will have a look at that, and I will get back to the Member. If that is the case, it will give me a good argument in Cabinet the next time around for all these extra schools we need, and I thank the Member for his work.
Mr. McDonald:
Just for the other Ministers' information, to give this Education Minister the ammunition he needs, the information was taken directly from the budget books. I did remove all recoverable funding, so we were comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. The Minister can tell his colleagues that, on the operations side, as a percentage dedicated to education, the commitment has slipped $9 million per year over the last year and one-half. His colleagues should take note of that when it comes time to establish priorities for next year.
Mr. Cable:
I have a few questions for the Minister about where he is going with his department. Last Wednesday night, he spelled out a number of priorities he had for his department, which suggested to me that there may be a strategic plan lying around. Just for the benefit of the uninitiated, does the Department of Education have a strategic plan that sets out priorities and outlines where the Minister is going with his department?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The department does, of course, lay out its plan and where it wants to go. It is an internal working document. What I gave the Member the other day is a list of the priorities that we see the department carrying out in the next few months and years.
Mr. Cable:
The Government Leader was on the radio a few days after the announcement of the wage rollbacks and freezes. He indicated that this government was not finished with downsizing. Is that a view shared by the Minister of Education?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes, it is.
Mr. Cable:
Does the Minister have any targets or goals for the downsizing of the Department of Education?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, we have no specific targets, as such. We are just looking at each and every program. If a vacancy occurs in a specific program, we will evaluate whether or not we will fill it. In the case of the Department of Education, we have eliminated 23 positions in the building across the river in the last year and one-half. We continually look at programs. I think we are getting down to the bone now, where we cannot go much further. I believe we have reduced more positions on the administrative side than any other department.
We will continue to look at more efficient ways to deliver programs. In conjunction with the federal government and its new initiatives in training, there may be other opportunities of being more efficient at delivering a program with less cost to the Yukon taxpayer. We will look at all those opportunities. However, there is no specific plan. We now have a situation where we cannot go much further without affecting programs. That is the priority we set - we want to ensure that we can still deliver our programs.
Mr. Cable:
Is this driven by the happenstance of people simply leaving, and then analyzing the replacement, or is there a broader plan? Has a committee been struck to review whether the numbers of people in the department will meet certain set priorities, as set out in the strategic plan?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, I do not think there is an evaluation, research and planning group. We have said that we will deal with these things through attrition now and try to avoid layoffs, for the most part. As someone leaves, we look at the position and decide whether or not we can combine it with another job, or whether we have to continue with that particular function. Decisions are made on that basis.
No, there is no group sitting there drawing up a master plan of what we want to look like three years down the road. We did our organization already, and I provided a chart to the Member. That is basically where we are at now, and we are not contemplating major changes from that, other than looking at any other positions that become vacant and deciding then whether or not we will fill the positions.
Mr. Cable:
If there is no people target, is there a financial target the Minister is working toward?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The financial target is to balance our budgets in the Department of Education and become more efficient in the delivery of a service. As to a dollar value, no, there is no dollar value out there where we want to achieve $1 million or $2 million in savings this year. We are looking at each situation, case by case. That is the way we have to do it. The broad-brush approach of just saying we are going to reduce 10 percent in this department does not always work, because we cannot reduce. We might be able to reduce a little more over here and not so much on this side, so it is more of a case-by-case analysis when the situations arise.
Mr. Cable:
Is there any linkage with a broader group in a sense of the Public Service Commission having people devoted to determining what size the public service generally is going to be, and then the Department of Education linked into it, or is this strictly an ad hoc exercise - as people walk out the door, you look at replacing them or not replacing them?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I would not describe it as an ad hoc exercise, but we are now down to the levels where we feel we can provide the service. As other individuals come and go in the department, we will be looking at specific positions and whether we need them or not - for example, the recent ADM position. When he gave his notice and left, we looked at it, and it was obviously a position we needed to continue with. There may be other positions in the future. I do not know offhand which ones they might be, but it will be up to the deputy minister to decide - to look at the various options available to us and how we can restructure and still deliver the program, but do it at a lesser cost to the taxpayers.
Mr. Cable:
I have some questions about grade reorganization, which was touched on by the NDP critic, the Member for Faro. I have a few other questions that I would like to ask.
I believe that there were meetings in the early summer of 1993, and then an options paper was presented in the beginning of March 1994. I asked the Minister this question during Question Period: what was the reason for the long time lapse between the meetings in the summer of 1993 and the presentation of this option paper?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Partly, it was the gathering of the financial data and other data that was necessary to put the options paper out and the fact that this Legislature was in session for most of that time.
The assistant deputy minister is one person who becomes quite busy responding to various issues and he was the person, at that time, in charge of the grade reorganization and was doing that as part of his chores.
It was a combination of things such as getting the figures together and getting the opportunity to get out. I would have liked to see it happen earlier, but it did not. There was no reason other than people were busy doing other things.
There has been a major restructuring in the department and other things have happened over the past year, which has had some effect on the time lapse as well.
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Mr. Cable:
I believe the Minister circulated the options paper with a letter - I think it was March 10, of this year. The letter provided a very short time line for responses and I think that the Minister indicated previously that he was reconsidering whether or not that was adequate notice to receive responses from the school councils. Has the Minister determined whether or not he is going to be seeking further input from the school councils?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
When I said that I was reconsidering - if I recall correctly, that was said last Thursday, and I have been rather busy since last Thursday. This weekend was the TIA Convention, the YTA Convention and several award ceremonies were also taking place. I was busy at meetings all weekend, so I really have not had the opportunity - I took Sunday off - to sit down and think about this. As well, I was planning for the meetings in Winnipeg that were scheduled to take place today and tomorrow, which were cancelled. I have really not had the opportunity to sit down and think about the question much more.
Mr. Cable:
I do not want the Minister to work on Sunday, but these were questions that were posed not last Thursday, but 10 or 15 days ago.
It was my understanding that the assistant deputy minister, Mr. Lawton, was to present a report to the Minister, his summation, of the input that was received from the public meetings toward the end of March. Has that report been received yet?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Last Thursday, in answer to questions from the Member for Faro, I answered that very question.
Mr. Cable:
Just for the great unwashed, could the Minister indicate what the time line is? Could he indicate whether or not he has received the report and, if not, if he anticipates receiving it in the near future?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Last Thursday, I answered that very question. The Member can just read Hansard.
Mr. Cable:
I am not trying to threaten the Minister. I do not hear every question that goes on, and I do not read every page of Hansard. Let me ask this question: the time line that is set out in the legislative return of January 20, 1994, to the Member for Faro, is April 15, 1994, for the circulation results of the second phase of the stakeholder consultation. That has obviously not been met. What is the time the Minister now sees for the circulation results of the second phase of the stakeholder consultation? Presumably, this means circulation to the public.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I told the Member for Faro on Thursday that I had received an internal report - a memo from the deputy to myself - that indicates what was heard and what happened. It is on my desk. I also have had many representations made to me by parents who raised similar concerns to those of the Member for Riverside about the length of time for consultation. I said I would consider that and hoped to make a decision some time before the end of the school year on the approach we are going to take on the grade reorganization.
I am somewhat leaning toward the fact that there may have to be more consultation and information given to people before a decision is made.
Mr. Cable:
It is my understanding from the debates from last year - and I do not want to preempt the Member for Riverdale South on this - that the grade reorganization was one of the determining factors for whether or not the Grey Mountain School would proceed. Is that correct?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes, the grade reorganization, of course, would have some impact on the number of students who would be going to elementary school in Riverdale. I was hoping to have some kind of concrete recommendations from the school council sooner rather than later, so we could make some decisions on capital and, more specifically, the Grey Mountain School and the demonstrated need for it.
Mr. Cable:
What we are saying then is that this particular determining factor - the grade reorganization - will not be ready until June, so the resulting decision on the Grey Mountain School will probably not be made until after June. Am I hearing the Minister correctly?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes, the decision on the Grey Mountain School probably will not be made until some time this summer.
Mr. Cable:
I have a few questions on the education review and the Education Review Committee.
Some Hon. Member:
(Inaudible)
Mr. Cable:
Go ahead.
Mrs. Firth:
Just before the individual who is asking questions moves on to another subject, the Minister had also made reference to Grey Mountain Primary School, "where numbers warrant." Has he figured out what "numbers warrant" means now, after they have done the survey and everything? Is he prepared to tell us whether there is an adequate number of children in Riverdale for them to proceed with that school? Is there a final conclusion to the whole survey question?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The survey I said was going to happen in February never did take place. Once we were ready to go with the survey, we were contacted by the Grey Mountain school council. They had met with the Department of Education and the Bureau of Statistics on another way of gathering statistics and accepted their way of gathering statistics and told us that the door-to-door survey was not necessary, that they would accept the new statistical method of gathering the data.
That particular data is gathered on a fairly regular basis now. I think it is at least quarterly. I can check on that for the Member. The school council for Grey Mountain, when I met with them here a few months ago, indicated that they felt that there was a lot of movement in the sales of homes in Riverdale, that a lot of young families were moving into Riverdale and that we should certainly consider this. One of the things that a bit of time will give us is the opportunity to look at what is happening with the sales of homes and whether more young children are moving into the Riverdale area who will affect the school system.
The first numbers on the projection that we gave them in February or March did not indicate much of a change from the previous numbers that we had given out: the straight line projections. They had some problems with some of the ways that that was done. I understand that the Bureau of Statistics and the Department of Education met with the building development committee at Grey Mountain to discuss it with them. I have not heard back from the Grey Mountain school council or the building committee about whether they are happy or unhappy with the figures they received.
As I said, we are gathering the data on a more regular basis, so, if in fact the younger students are increasing in numbers in Riverdale, it will start to show up in the statistics. They gather the statistics using health care cards and some other information to give us a more accurate picture of how many young students are in Riverdale.
Mrs. Firth:
I want to make one thing clear. The survey was the Minister's idea in the first place, it was not the idea of the Grey Mountain Primary School committee. The Minister used it as justification for not proceeding with the construction of the Grey Mountain Primary School. Since that time, the Grey Mountain Primary School committee has been involved in the kind of survey that was going to be done. I hope that is clear on the record.
I have been receiving communication from the Grey Mountain Primary School committee with respect to concerns that they have, and I have to say that I share their concerns. What I am most interested in is knowing what the Minister wants. He stood up in the House during the last budget debate on Grey Mountain Primary
Page Number 2480
School and said that the numbers had to show something. He used the term "where numbers warrant." I understand that to mean that the numbers have to show something before the government is prepared to proceed with building the school. All we would like to know from the government is this: what are their expectations? What do the numbers have to show before they are prepared to go ahead and build the school?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The numbers have to show some indication of growth in the number of young students in the area. The numbers we have at the present time do not demonstrate that. In fact, I think I mentioned before in the House that we built Grey Mountain Primary for 225 students, and Selkirk for 380 or 385 students. By 1996, with the numbers we have now, and these numbers will change when this new program comes on line, we will have something like 420 students in those two schools, with a 605 or 610 student capacity.
We have some empty school classrooms in those two schools in Riverdale, and there is no anticipated growth in Riverdale. If we were to fill those up, we would have to bus students from other areas, and that costs us between $50,000 and $70,000. These are elementary kids we are talking about. Many people are reluctant to have their elementary school child bused away from their area. They like to see their school in the same area where they live. These factors are all part and parcel of making a decision.
Yes, what we have to see, from the numbers in Riverdale, is a demonstrated growth on the elementary side of it. I do not have a figure in mind, but if I can see that it looks like it is growing - and I think that eventually Riverdale will grow because of the nature of the homes that are there now and the nature of the much larger and more expensive homes that are going to be built in other areas of Whitehorse. Eventually, more younger people will be purchasing the less expensive homes in Riverdale. We will have to watch and monitor it for the next couple of months or so to see what is happening with the figures - whether they are going up or down.
Mrs. Firth:
It is not that I do not like to hear this. I get a bit concerned about the Minister rambling on and on and on and scaring people about having to bus kids from everywhere and how parents do not like that. Let us deal with the numbers, first of all. The Minister used the same argument - we had the same debate - during the capital budget estimates about the numbers of kids. We had already established in that debate that the Department of Education had used the worst case scenario. They had not built in any growth - period. In fact, they had taken the decline and extrapolated it over the next few years. That is how they arrived at the figure that there were only going to be 400-plus kids, with the capacity of 600. That is really not a fair way to use the figures. The department is obviously admitting that now because it is correcting it and is keeping a more accurate track of growth or decline.
That argument has been settled, and we are supposed to find out. The Minister has just said that the government will keep an eye on this over the next couple of months.
For the satisfaction of the people in Riverdale and the school council, and so that everyone knows where they stand, we have to have some commitment from the Minister as to how long we are going to keep looking at these numbers and what kind of growth we can expect - the Minister says that they are expecting some growth, and everyone can live with that, but what is the department's definition of growth?
That is why, when the Minister uses a statement such as "where numbers warrant", we like to have some specific numbers. It makes it sound like the department has some idea of what kind of expected growth they want and the numbers that they want to see before they proceed with the school.
That is what we want to know, and people want some specific answers, or we are going to be going like this from month to month, year to year, for the next three to four years, waiting to see if the population is growing or going down. The population does fluctuate. We pointed out in the last debate that a few families could make a tremendous difference on the numbers, and I think that the government has to make a decision on whether or not they are going to proceed with the construction of this school.
I would like a clear idea of what kind of growth they anticipate, or want, before they are prepared to go ahead. Otherwise, we are dealing with nothing.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I can tell the Member that I would be reluctant to go ahead with the school, designed as it is now, if we were going to have 200 vacant spaces. That would possibly not be the right route to go.
If the Member wishes, I would be more than happy to ask the officials to provide a briefing on how they are doing the statistical analysis, so that the Member will be more up to speed on it. It is a rather complicated process of gathering stats, but I think it is more accurate. I am following it closely.
As I stated, I think we should be getting the second report almost any day now. They did one initially, and we should be getting another shortly, which should give us some indication.
The Grey Mountain School council has indicated to us that there have been a lot of homes resold in Riverdale in the last while. There is a sense that many more young children are moving into the neighbourhoods. That is the kind of information we want to get a handle on fairly quickly. I would like to make a decision one way or the other on Grey Mountain before the fall so that we can get started on construction, if necessary, this year.
Mrs. Firth:
Is the information that is supposed to keep me up to speed the information the Minister is providing in this letter he has sent to me regarding the population of Riverdale? This is the only information I have been given. It describes the way in which they intend to collect and compile the statistics. Has something changed since that communication?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
That sounds like the document that was provided to the Member. However, what I am talking about is a personal briefing with the people from the Bureau of Statistics and the Department of Education. If the Member has any questions about how and why they are doing it, I would be happy to provide a briefing to the Member so that she could feel comfortable with the figures. Perhaps she feels she would have a better argument for the figures that are there.
If the Member would like a detailed briefing, I am prepared to ask the officials to provide it.
Mrs. Firth:
I will get this briefing, but I am going from the figures in the statistics that the Bureau of Statistics provides. I have compared them with the statistical information the Minister provided here. There are some discrepancies that I have noticed, and I gather that the Grey Mountain Primary School committee has the same concerns. If the Minister thinks I am going to be any better informed after having a briefing, which he cannot provide for me here on his feet, then I will have to go to the officials and get the briefing from them.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The Grey Mountain Primary building committee did have a problem with some of the facts and figures that were in there. They had a briefing with the officials, after talking to me about concerns. I am offering a similar briefing to that Member. This is not confrontational. I am just trying to provide the Member with as much information as I have. I have to make a decision somewhere down the road whether we need to build that size of a school, or that school, and I am trying to rely on the best information available. That is the best we have now, and I am willing to offer it to that Member if the Member wishes
Page Number 2481
it. The building committee sat down and discussed it with them, and I have not heard any report from that meeting.
Chair:
The time now being 5:30 p.m., we will recess until 7:30 p.m.
Recess
Chair:
I will now call the Committee of the Whole to order. Is there further general debate on education?
Mr. Cable:
I just have a couple of questions on the education review. I know it has been dealt with at length by the Member for Faro. The original time line for tabling the report, as I understand it, was March 1994. In a legislative return to the Member for Riverdale South, it was indicated that the time line has been changed to August of 1994 for finalization of the report. Is that the present time line?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes, as far as I am aware that is when the committee feels it can have a report to me.
Mr. Cable:
What does the Minister anticipate doing once the report is finalized? Is there going to be a white paper produced to chart education for the future, or is he immediately going to begin taking the recommendations and putting them into force?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I fully expect the Education Review Committee to make recommendations on implementation and prioritize areas that we can implement sooner rather than later. I had not discussed that as yet, but I am sure that some of the recommendations will be able to be implemented fairly quickly and others are going to take some time to implement. I am going to look to the recommendations of the committee on that.
Mr. Cable:
This question was put during the meeting with some of the Members of the Opposition, the Minister and the Education Review Committee.
Is it anticipated that there will be amendments to the Education Act?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Yes, by law we are required to conduct a review of the Education Act. I think it was a maximum of 10 years before we did a review of the act, but I anticipate that the review will probably come sooner than that. There are some minor amendments that people want and I guess we are going to have to look at a review process, which will be a public process that will go around and gather public comments. We did not want to embark on that review at the same time the Education Review Committee was going around.
Mr. Cable:
The mandate of the Education Review Committee appeared to identify the issues and then to finally identify and recommend to the Minister of Education alternative means of addressing the issues and/or concerns.
While the first two parts of the mandate to identify the issues and to clarify the principles and assumptions, I think could readily be done by lay persons, I have some reservations about whether proceeding without the assistance of some professionals in the education field would result in good recommendations on alternative means of addressing the issues. Is it anticipated that the Education Review Committee will be funded to permit the hiring of professional help in relation to some of the issues that will be turned up during the course of the meetings in the future?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
They will be funded to the tune I mentioned previously in the budgets and they will, I understand, be hiring an independent research writer to do some of that work for them.
One of the concerns expressed by some was how much involvement the Department of Education would actually have in writing the final report. We are trying to stay right away from that and have the report be as independent as possible, and be seen to be independent. In fact, I received a letter from the Education Review Committee a few weeks ago asking for that, and I told them that was our wish as well. So I understand they are going to be hiring a research writer, who may even be on staff now, to travel with them on the tours and help to write what they hear in the communities.
Mr. Cable:
I appreciate the exercise in democracy. If the education for our children in the Yukon is to be substantially overhauled, as would appear to be the Minister's intention, I wonder whether, without professional assistance from research people in the field, the Minister should be embarking on an exercise without some sort of discussion paper being put back out to the people.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The people on the Education Review Committee are very highly qualified. We are being a little premature here because we do not know what they are going to recommend. Some of the recommendations could involve our striking some kind of a committee to implement them - that may be a recommendation they may make. There may be some recommendations that they feel could be implemented fairly quickly that would not have to go to a full public review.
There has been a lot of input into this. I do not know how many times we would want to go around the block, gathering the same information, without moving on some of it. It is premature at this time, without knowing what they are going to recommend, to comment on how we are going to implement the recommendations.
Mr. Cable:
Some of the issues, I am sure, are fairly straightforward and could be dealt with quite rapidly. At the briefing the Minister afforded to the Opposition Members, there was a comment made by one of the panelists that perhaps a good number of the parents were not fully conversant with what was going on in the schools. This leaves me a little uneasy if, in fact, we are taking input from people who are not totally conversant - some are conversant; some take the time to be so, but some may not; they may be reacting.
Does the Minister feel comfortable that the 2,600 responses he received and referred to in the news media tell him the whole story or should there be some further research done?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, personally I am not comfortable at all that the 2,600 responses tell the whole story. I have not seen any of them. Until I see the responses, I cannot be comfortable with them.
I was at the same briefing as the Member. If I read the comments of the Education Review Committee properly, I would think that one of the recommendations would be that there be more awareness of what is happening in the schools now. That is one recommendation they might make that would make people more aware of what is happening in the classrooms and try and involve more parents in the school system. Those may well be recommendations the committee may make. It may be that they were leading to that kind of a recommendation when they read their 2,600 responses and commented to us about the various areas.
As explained by the chair, the next step is to go around to the communities. When someone raises that issue, they will ask why the person does not think there is enough information, or how we can provide better information. Perhaps they can get more suggestions from the people in this way and make recommendations to us on how we can go about informing people about what is presently happening in the school system.
Mr. Cable:
The discussion paper put out by the Education Review Committee that was in the papers on April 6 talked about how they have selected key issues from the questionnaires and in consultation with educators. What sort of consultations took place with the educators in the territory, prior to the publication of this four-page leaflet?
Page Number 2482
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The consultation was the questionnaires. As I understand it, the consultation process also involved asking more than 400 teachers, and almost 90 percent responded. That is pretty comprehensive comment on the system from the teachers. Getting that high a response is probably unheard of in many areas, but the teachers are very concerned about our educational system and have many positive suggestions about how to improve it. Many of them made their views known through the questionnaire.
Mr. Cable:
It reads a little disjunctively. Perhaps I misappreciated what they were saying. Were there any other consultations with the educators or with the Yukon Teachers Association on a formal basis?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
That is taking place right now. The Education Review Committee is going to the communities and meeting with school councils in the areas, as well as with staff in the various schools. I believe that is all being done as we speak. At least, that is what was explained to me in the briefing. They planned to sit down with the teachers and the parents in the communities to discuss the very issues that were in the questionnaire.
I understand that the reason for this publication was, first of all, to give a general snapshot of what the concerns were, and then to ask a bunch of questions that would focus more on how we could improve the system. I understand that is what they are doing now when they go to a community. When someone says that we need to get back to the basics, they will ask the individual what they mean by the basics, and how we can improve things.
That kind of dialogue is going on now, and my understanding is that the teachers are being included in that dialogue - at least I have asked the Education Review Committee to do that. In the meeting we had with them in the briefing, they told us that they would be doing that.
Mr. Harding:
I have some questions for the Minister. Before the break, I was asking the Minister some questions regarding the chair of the Education Review Committee and the possibility that he might be leaving the territory at some time and changing his residence. I also asked the Minister for the cost of training the chair. I was told by the Minister he was not aware of it. He has committed to coming back to me with some of the costs. Will he also come back with information on whether or not it is the case that he is setting up a principal residence outside the territory?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I do not think that information has any relevance at all to the tasks that have been asked of the chair. If he wishes to provide me with that information, I will provide it to the House, but if he does not wish to tell me what he wants to do after he finishes this job, then that is his business.
Mr. Harding:
I will accept that, but the Minister should think twice about it. He has made a political appointment. The person we have spent thousands of taxpayers' dollars on is a resource person, and he may be leaving the territory. At the time of the appointment, I was telephoned and told that the person had been planning to leave the territory for some time. I believe it is a consideration, and I am surprised the Minister would be so defensive about it. It is no slant on the Education Review Committee chair. He is certainly free to leave. The question is whether or not it was a smart appointment for the Minister to make, given the fact he was probably leaving.
With regard to collective bargaining, we asked many questions last week and were always stonewalled. There was a lot of information we wanted to know regarding how it was impacting on teachers and the education system in general, regarding the sense of low morale within the department, the lack of direction and respect for educators in the Yukon, which I feel is quite rampant. Many people I have talked to in that field feel that way.
The Minister continued to respond to us by saying there was collective bargaining underway and he would not respond to the questions on the floor of the Legislature, even though they introduced it unilaterally in the public and took a couple of days of Question Period on it. After that, they decided they had had enough of Question Period and announced they were going to, what they call, freely collective bargain, yet they never removed the threat of legislation or the May 20 deadline.
We always disputed that they were engaging in free collective bargaining. Is that process still underway? The information we have is that there is no collective bargaining underway right now.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
My understanding is that collective bargaining is not underway right now.
Mr. Harding:
Therefore, if we are not in free collective bargaining, the Minister is going to be prepared to engage in some discussion as to how the legislation is going to impact on the education system, now that there is no media blackout - is that correct?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I have said all I really want to say on that. I have told the Member opposite that I am optimistic that we can settle it by collective bargaining, and until such time as legislation is introduced to the House, I am going to remain optimistic that it can be settled at the bargaining table.
Mr. Harding:
It puzzles me how the Minister can remain optimistic when the talks have just broken down, but nonetheless I certainly am disappointed as well. But, as a legislator who had some concerns about the legislation initially and who tried to ask questions about it and who was continuously stonewalled on the subject of free collective bargaining, I do feel the need this evening to discuss the issue with the Minister. I was just reading through Hansard from last Wednesday and Thursday and the Minister's comments. I asked many, many questions that the Minister said he could not respond to because they were engaged in collective bargaining - the very, very important issues - so I am going to have to go back to some of those issues this evening.
The first question I want to ask about is the impact on young educators in the territory. I read a quote from a letter to the Minister last week in the Legislature, which really summed up the impact of this legislation on young teachers in the territory. I asked the Minister what he felt about experience increases. I asked if he understood them. He got up and said he felt he had a pretty good grasp of them. I then asked him, given the description he gave, why they should be removed. He declined to answer because there was collective bargaining underway. Now that there is no collective bargaining underway, could he tell me why he would vote in Cabinet, and I assume he did, to remove experience increments from the young educators in the territory?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The legislation that may come before us if we do not reach an agreement through collective bargaining is not even tabled in the House yet. I think it is hypothetical to say that those types of conditions are in or out of that particular piece of legislation, because we have not seen the legislation yet.
Mr. Harding:
I do not know where the Minister was. I seem to have heard the Public Service Commissioner on the radio, I have heard the Education Minister speak about it, and we received a press release on our desk about the legislation. There was all kinds of media - written and on radio - and there was all kinds of talk from the Government Leader about the legislation, so we know what is in the legislation as it stands, so let us stop this game of stonewalling. First it was free collective bargaining. Now, it is because the legislation has not been tabled in the House. Let us stop grasping at straws, and why does the Minister not start answering some questions.
I will put the question to the Minister again, and I think it is important. The young educators in this territory are facing the biggest hit as a result of this education rollback legislation announcement.
Page Number 2483
I do feel that this rollback is really demoralizing for people who are just coming into the system. Not only do they take the cuts in last year's collective agreement, but now, at the request of the government, they are going to face the increment freeze that is going to set their base rate of pay when the experience increases stop some years down the road, at the rate where it is now for the next three years. This is going to have a major impact.
It is also very true that teachers, young teachers especially, are incurring a lot of initial costs, such as loans from educational institutions that they have attended to get their degrees.
I would like the Minister to tell me why he would support the removal of these educational experience increases?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
When the proposed legislation was announced, I received many letters about the incremental raises for the younger teachers, and I replied and thanked them for their letters. I told them it was an issue that I would raise. As well, the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission has indicated the same thing, that we have heard the concerns raised by the younger teachers regarding the experience increment and we were hopeful - and I am still optimistic - that something can be addressed at the bargaining table, but if it is not addressed at the bargaining table, I can tell the Member that I have heard the concerns from the teachers and I hope that it can be reflected somewhere in the legislation.
Mr. Harding:
The Minister has just said that he heard the concerns of the teachers and that he would raise the issue with Cabinet. Yet, in responding to the Member for Riverdale South last Thursday, the Minister said that the decision to freeze the experience increases was a Cabinet decision that he supported.
Did the Minister support the decision in Cabinet and has he changed his mind on it, or what is going on here?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I think that I just said that I did support the decision in Cabinet, and since we made the decision, we have heard concerns from younger teachers. When we announced our intent to bring in legislation, we said that we wanted to hear from the teachers, and we did hear from them. We are now looking at ways of addressing that issue, either at the bargaining table, or with legislation, which I hope does not have to come about.
We are addressing that issue; I did take the message there; they did make their points clear and I do support some of the concerns they have and I am hopeful that, either at the bargaining table or in the legislation, those concerns will be addressed.
Mr. Harding:
The government employees and YTA have also raised a number of concerns in other areas where they feel they have been unfairly or unjustly treated, or have been treated with a lack of respect as a result of this unilateral legislation initiative.
Can I ask the Minister this: what other concerns have been identified by the teachers, such as the experience increases, that has resulted in the Minister lobbying Cabinet to backtrack?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The teachers were not happy with the two-percent rollback. However, I do support the government on that.
Mr. Harding:
Can the Minister be clear on the experience increases? He does not support the government on the two-percent increases, but he does on the rollback? Is that the case?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I have spoken to my Cabinet colleagues and others. I have listened to the presentations made by the younger teachers on the loss of the incremental experience increases. I have taken all this to Cabinet and we will just have to see what comes out of it in legislation.
It is premature to debate the issue now. I have said I will take the message to Cabinet. I hope that we can accommodate that and still achieve the savings we would like to achieve with this legislation or at the bargaining table.
Mr. Harding:
I have some more questions. I was reading the Minister's comments last week from Hansard this evening. He should realize that the reason we are asking this is because, in his budget, I think $45 million out of $72 million of the O&M is wages and allotments for educators in his department. This is a significant aspect and impacts on just about everything that goes on in the education system. It is a large chunk of the budget. I believe that the way that educators are treated has a major impact on our education system, and will continue to do so for a long time.
I think the Minister has lost sight of the need to build partnerships in education. Time and time again, we have seen evidence of this attitude in his actions - in the way he kicked off the education review, how he handled things with the YNTEP, the lack of consultation with the diagnostic testing announcement - the list goes on and on with this Minister.
Also, since 1992-93, one could ascertain from the commitment to education in this territory shown in the budgets - the hard numbers - tremendous disparities between the priority the previous government put on education and this one. In terms of total net spending - free of anything else and the spending of which is not subject to specific criteria set forth by the federal government - we have seen a decrease in total net O&M spending in education of over three percent from the 1992-93.
That works out to about $9 million a year of total free net spending - spending in education as an investment. Over the four-year mandate of the Yukon Party, that works out to about $40 million - a $35 million to $40 million reduction. That is without taking inflation or anything else into account. That gives some clear sense as to how the Members opposite feel about education.
Let us not get the issue confused with the lack of money. The Members opposite have spent more money than any other government ever before. Last year they tabled the biggest budget in the history of the Yukon, with the highest revenues ever. Then, this year, if they spend their slush funds, they will even increase the spending. There is lots of spending going on - more than any other government ever had - but there is a lack of spending and a reduction in spending on education. Why? Because they do not have any commitment to it. The Minister continually loses the battle in Cabinet with the Minister for Health and Social Services, with the Minister for Renewable Resources, with the Government Leader, for funding for his department. He continually loses it, and this is really becoming a detriment to the education system. When he does do something, he does it without consultation. So, we have a real problem here.
I would like to ask the Minister this: in terms of the legislation and its obvious impact on the education system and the absolutely disastrous start he has gotten off to in the first 18 months of his portfolio, is he going to reconsider and make representations to Cabinet that maybe they should rethink this - that maybe they should negotiate freely without the threat of legislation, seeing as how there is no moral and no financial justification for it?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I have said it before, and we have heard it before. We have heard what this Member has said five or six times in this House - he says the same thing over and over. We do not have anything at all to apologize for about the education system in the Yukon - not a single thing. We spent $54 million in the 1994-95 budget on the education system in the Yukon for 5,884 students. It is a $13.2 million increase from the 1990-91 Public Accounts Committee budget. We have the very best in facilities in this country - the best in the country. We have the best equipment in the country. Even after the reduction and wage rollback, our teachers are still the highest paid in the country. We have the best student/teacher ratio in the country. We have some of the best countryside in Canada in which to live - the best recreational activities.
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I just had an opportunity to talk to a teacher who came from the east coast who was in a school with 150 students. The teacher there was quite proud of the new computer room they had. They said it was one of the better ones in the area, and everyone was quite proud of it. This teacher was showing how they had six computers for 150 students. I believe we have one computer for every five students in Yukon schools - by far the best ratio in the country. This is not a bad place to work. Up to this date, 1,500 teachers from outside have applied for jobs in the Yukon this spring - 1,500 teachers. This is a good place for teachers to work. This is a good education system, and education is a priority for our government. I do not think that we have anything for which to apologize.
Mr. Harding:
I agree with the Minister that this system - the Yukon system of education could be the best in the country, but gradually, piece by piece, the Minister is taking it apart. This started 18 months ago when he took over the portfolio. Of the good things that remain, absolutely none of it was done by the Minister - nothing. No, we should not be ashamed of our education system, but if he continues to do what he is doing to it, it is going to suffer. We talk about issue after issue in this Legislature, identifying areas where the Minister has made a serious gaff. He says that the education system here is still one of the best in the country, and I believe that. He talks about all of the laurels of the past, but that was not done by the Yukon Party - none of it. He talks about the best facilities, but they have not built one facility. They have done nothing. All they have done is complain about the existing facilities, and then he stands up and says we have the best facilities in the country.
He has done nothing. He stands up and uses the record of the previous government to justify that his education system is still the best in the country, but how long is that going to last? As I pointed out before, from the 1992-93 budget, we have seen a reduction in operation and maintenance education spending - the commitment to education as a priority - of nine percent. That is almost $10 million. That is net discretionary funding.
How does the Minister seriously feel that we are going to continue to have the best education system in the country if he is not prepared to take the fight to Cabinet to keep some funding and investment going into the education system in this territory?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I wish the Member opposite had taken the time to come to the education technical briefing. He would not be bandying around all the false figures he is doing now. He would have had some accurate figures.
Mr. Harding:
I took the figures from the budget. If they are false, it is the government's fault, not mine; it is Dale Drown's fault, not mine.
I got the notes from the budget briefing, but that was not the question I asked him. Is he not concerned at the reduction in funding for education, and the commitment to education, when they are still spending the biggest budgets in the Yukon's history?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The last statement I just made about commitment to education still holds true.
Mr. Harding:
Where is the commitment? What can he demonstrate is a commitment? He started an education review. So far, that is his biggest claim to fame. What else?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
About 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, he will get a copy of Hansard, and he can read it in there.
Mr. Harding:
Let me ask the Minister this, if he is not going to answer any questions. He feels he is the dean of this House and does not have to be accountable to anyone. He cannot stand up and enunciate one thing he has done in education other than the education review. Now, he says to this House that he is not going to answer any questions about collective bargaining, or anything else. He rests on the laurels of the previous government in education. He cannot describe what his vision is for the department. It goes on and on, and this is only his first 18 months as Minister.
He says he has re-evaluated the decision to freeze the experience increases. What was the reason he supported it? He has now told Cabinet he rejects the concept, and he is making that lobby to Cabinet. What was the reason he supported it in the first place?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I do not know whether the Member has a bad memory, does not want to remember things, is not interested, or just likes to play to an audience. This is the exact same debate we had a couple of days ago over the exact same issue. He got the exact same answers. I would suggest the Member take a little more time in his day and reread Hansard. He will find the same questions and the same answers in Hansard, and that would be a better use of his time, instead of the $600 or $700 an hour it takes for us to sit in here and go over and over the same things. I do not know whether he likes hearing his voice, or hopes to hear something different each time. However, I do not think it is a wise use of our time.
Mr. Harding:
I will read Hansard back to the Minister. I will take his advice and I will read Hansard. On May 5, 1994, I asked the Minister if he thought there was a problem with young teachers in the territory and their morale relating to the rollback action. The Minister replied, "We are currently involved in collective bargaining and I would prefer not to discuss the issue any further."
I then asked the Minister about the cuts to young educators' salaries, had he received lobbies from them and what he thought. The Minister replied, "Yes, I have received them; I hope that the concern can be addressed at the bargaining table."
I then asked the Minister another question about the valid concern and what he was going to do about it. The Minister replied, "I am sure that will be dealt with at the bargaining table."
This goes on and on, every time I ask a question.
When I asked the Minister if he was concerned about the impact of the legislation on young teachers, the Minister replied, "I hope that can be achieved at the bargaining table. I am not going to comment on the give and take at the bargaining table. We have agreed to a media blackout." I can go down the list in Hansard. That is what reading Hansard does for me; it does not give me any answers.
Now there is no media blackout and now there is no collective bargaining. I ask the questions and the Minister actually tells me that he does not want to talk now, because the legislation has not been tabled in the House. The legislation was tabled on our desks one month ago, together with everyone else's desk in the Yukon.
The Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission was on the radio talking about the legislation, saying that we are going to fight the federal debt. All of the Ministers were thumping themselves on the chest, pumping themselves up about it, saying how they were being fiscally responsible even though they were still spending more money than any government ever before in this territory.
Reading Hansard does not provide me with any answers, because the Minister did not answer any of my questions.
I will again ask the Minister: is he going to take the position, on the experience increases, that he is not going to support them, and if he is taking that position, why did he support the increases in the first place?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The Member should read on. He talked about morale. Yes, I said that we are at the bargaining table, but the Member also asked me why I thought there may be low morale and I think that I went on to describe why there could be low morale, because when anyone gets their wages rolled back, that could be a cause for low morale. We discussed that, and all of that discussion is in Hansard.
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The Member asked me if I have some sympathy for the younger teachers who should be receiving increments. I think I have answered that maybe 10 or 12 times now so far. Each time the Member asks the question, I have told him that I do have sympathy for their position and that I will be making representations.
I do not know how much more I can do other than to ask the Member to read Hansard to see what I said. He could talk to the teachers who asked me the very same question at their meeting on Saturday morning. I, again, told the Member that I do support it.
What does the Member want me to do? I said that I will take the message there. I said that I am hopeful that it will be reflected, and that I hope that we can reach an agreement. If we reach an agreement, I hope that it is reflected there. If we cannot reach agreement and have to go to legislation, I hope it is reflected there.
I do not make the decision; it is a Cabinet decision; I hope that it is reflected in the decision and I will work on that.
We keep going around and around this mulberry bush. I have given the Member the same answers every time that I have stood up and he keeps asking the same old questions.
If the Member thinks this is a wise use of taxpayers' dollars, that is his opinion.
Mr. Harding:
The question and the issue here is simple. The only reason we are going around and around the mulberry bush is because I cannot catch the Minister. If he would just answer the question, we would not go around and around any more. I am just asking him why he supported it in the first place. We got a press release about experience increments being frozen. The Minister said he talked about it in Cabinet. What was the rationale for it? It is still there, as far as I know. All we have gotten is a vague commitment from the Minister that he does not support it. So, what is the rationale? Why?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
When it was first developed, we looked at what would be fair, reasonable and equitable between the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the teachers. I looked at all the things that were before us. We approved it in Cabinet. When it came out in public and the teachers started to raise some concerns over it, I had another look at it.
Does the Member want me to be the bull-headed politician who says, "to hell with them, I made the decision and this is the way it is going to be and I am not going to change my mind. I am not even going to listen to them. I do not even want to listen to them." Is that what the Member wants me to do? Because I listened to what they had to say. I think they make some really good arguments. Now, if the Member wants me to take the contrary opinion and say, "I do not give a damn what they think," I could do that. But, I am not thinking that way. I think they presented some valid arguments. I will take those arguments to Cabinet and I will make the point.
I think the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission has said similar things. We have gotten letters from them, we have heard from them and we are listening. If the Member does not want us to listen, just say so. I think we said we stated our intent; we will listen to suggestions on how we can save money and make it more fair and equitable. We are waiting for those suggestions. In fact, many teachers have written us letters and have made suggestions on how to make it more fair and equitable.
Mr. Penikett:
I am very interested in the Minister's comments this evening, particularly his comments about the best student/teacher ratio, the best paid teachers, the best facilities and so forth, because the Minister does not seem to understand that none of those things happened by accident. Every one of those features of our education system was a result of consciously made public policy.
When we worked toward the situation where we ended up with the best student/teacher ratio in the country, I remember there was criticism from right-wing circles. Indeed, it is widely believed by professionals in this territory that this present Cabinet wants to dilute the student/teacher ratio to turn us from having the best situation to a situation much more akin to that existing in other parts of the country. It is all very well for the Minister to stand up now and talk about best paid teachers when he, just a few days ago in the House, mounted for the umpteenth time another vicious attack on the previous government for, as he called it, an irresponsible wage settlement with those teachers.
He is nodding again. We cannot have it both ways. Teachers either have to be paid well, so that we get good teachers by paying them well, or we pay them poorly and the education system will suffer as a result. If it is the policy of this government to pay teachers more poorly than they are now, there will be a commensurate deterioration in the standard and quality of education in this territory because the really good teachers will go elsewhere to more attractive career options.
The Minister talks about the best facilities but those of us who were involved in making the tough decisions to help build some of those facilities - he always likes to talk of tough decisions as if tough decisions were only invented in October 1992 - but we have had nothing but attacks, including wrong-headed attacks, for what we did. Just the other day, my colleague, the Member for McIntyre-Takhini, was correctly pointing out that he keeps repeating the lie about it taking $10 million to build the Elijah Smith School, which cost $8 million. He ignores the fact that there are other schools of similar price and similar size in other communities.
It is not an accident that we believe that education should go on in good buildings - not Taj Mahals as he says, but quality facilities. The sentimentality about the one-room school with the wind blowing through the chinking and the teacher having to go out and cut wood and put it on the stove is entirely misplaced because, while it served generations of Canadians at the time, we have come a long way past that.
The Minister talked about the relationship and the morale; he is proud of it. The relationship between government and teachers, between teachers and parents and the partnership between the players in the education system, did not come about by accident. It came about as a lot of hard work over the last few years by the Member for McIntyre-Takhini and others, people in the Department of Education - unfortunately many of whom seem to be leaving now - who worked very hard to create that situation.
I will say again that if the Minister had the same respect for teachers as the former Minister did, he would never have made a decision, or participated in a decision, to say that he would legislate an agreement with them rather than negotiate with them. He would be treating them with respect, especially after his own leader had complimented the teachers on the way they conducted themselves in the last round of bargaining.
The fact that in real dollar terms, in real percentage terms, this government is putting less money into education and more money into roads is a perfectly legitimate expression of its own priorities. The Alaska Highway is more important to the people opposite than the school system, than even the future of our children.
However, it is not a view that is shared on this side of the House. The Minister cannot invent numbers to make it so.
A few minutes ago, the Minister said words to the effect that, if we reach an agreement with the teachers, we will not have to legislate. Let me turn this around, because I understand that negotiations have broken down. I suspect that one of the reasons they have broken down is that the government decided it was going to legislate before they even began to bargain. In fact, they announced the legislation, saying that they were not going to bargain. That was the position of the government until it was
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changed on the floor of the House here a few weeks ago.
Since the negotiations have broken down, what is he going to do, as the Minister of Education, to get negotiations going again? What good faith is he going to demonstrate to see a negotiated agreement with the hundreds of professionals who are responsible for educating the next generation of Yukoners?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I will be urging both parties to get back to the table and reach a settlement by negotiation, rather than having to go the legislative route.
Mr. Penikett:
The Minister is one of the parties. He cannot argue that there are two other parties as if they are independent of the Minister. The Minister is part and parcel the property of one of the parties. What is that one party going to do to get negotiations going again, to get things back to the table and to resolve whatever issue it was that caused negotiations to break down today? What is he, as Minister of Education, going to do?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I suppose when I get a briefing, like other Ministers, on why the talks broke down today, I will be asking some questions, and then urging them to get back to the table.
Mr. Penikett:
I must tell the Minister that I have a sinking feeling at the news that the Minister of Education does not, by now, know what is going on at the bargaining table. Was he not involved in crafting the mandate for the government for those negotiations? Has he not been briefed on the hour as to what happened at the table?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The negotiations broke off some time this afternoon. The Member might recall - I do not know if he was in the House, but I was - I was answering questions about the Education budget. I have not had time to sit down and get a detailed briefing from anyone on why they broke down. I have heard that they broke down from the news, just like everyone else. I suppose I will be briefed in very short order as to why that has occurred.
Mr. Penikett:
Does the Minister mean to tell us that he had no time at all in the hours between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. to get any information at all about what happened at the negotiating table in the breakdown of talks with the teachers - an event of such consequence - a matter affecting 80 percent of his department's budget? Is the Minister telling us that?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I had a very light briefing about what was going on. I walked out of the House at 5:30 p.m. and I was told it was on the news. We had a few brief discussions with people about what was going on, and I imagine that will be followed up very shortly with a more detailed briefing.
Mr. Penikett:
Based on the light briefing, could the Minister tell us what issue caused the breakdown today and what is the Minister going to be doing to address those issues so that we can get back to the bargaining table.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
My understanding is that the teachers did not accept the two-percent rollback and are quite concerned about the incremental freezes. Those are a couple of the reasons for the breakdown. They felt that the government did not need the two percent, and they have felt strongly all along that the incremental freezes would affect younger teachers more than others, and those are a couple of the reasons that the talks broke down.
Mr. Penikett:
Since the two-percent cut was the government's opening position, if the Minister is saying that the talks broke down because the teachers could not accept the government's opening position, it seems to suggest there was nothing akin to bargaining at all. Was there no flexibility on the part of the Minister of Education and the department on this question? None whatsoever?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
My understanding is that there was some flexibility on behalf of the Public Service Commission bargaining unit, but that flexibility was obviously not enough for the teachers and that is why the talks have broken down.
Mr. Penikett:
With respect, I suspect that the reason the talks broke down is because the government went into the talks with a gun at the teachers' heads saying, "If you do not agree, we are going to legislate." That is probably the real reason they broke down.
Let me ask the Minister this: will the Minister be prepared to hear his colleague, the Minister for the Public Service Commission, make a ministerial statement tomorrow morning on the negotiations, so that the House can be adequately informed about the state of play in time for us to ask questions about it in Question Period and continue the debate on this subject tomorrow afternoon?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
That is a good suggestion. I will pass it on to the Minister.
Mr. Penikett:
Before I turn the Minister back to the tender mercies of some of the more aggressive Members on this side of the House, I wonder if, in my normal kind and gentle way, I could ask a couple of policy questions that affect my constituency, mindful of the fact that the Minister may not wish to provide an elaborate answer this evening but may wish to come back in writing. I would, at least, like to cover these in general debate.
The first of them deals with special education. As the Minister will recall, in the last two budget sessions, I had a number of questions about special education, which is a subject of considerable interest in my constituency, especially as it relates to Elijah Smith School, which is a new school in an excellent building, with a wonderful staff, but who face the difficulties of working in what is essentially a cross-cultural environment, as well as having a significant number of children in the school who have special needs. The inadequacy of the staffing in this area, or supports for regular teachers, has been articulated to me over and over again. In fact, teachers have told me they experience great difficulties in the classroom because, often, their attention may have to be devoted to two or three kids who may be acting out in a serious way, and in such a way that it prejudices the teaching and the time they can spend on their main purpose, which is providing for the educational needs of the majority of kids in the class.
Can the Minister tell me if he is satisfied that the present level of staffing for special needs at this particular school is sufficient to meet the real needs there? Could he tell me if he has been engaged in any correspondence with the school committee, the principal or the superintendent on this question?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
The Member has raised that issue before, and I know it is an issue that we are also concerned about. We are coordinating our work with Health and Social Services on this. My understanding is that there are now seven resource rooms serving students. The most recent resource room that was set up was at Elijah Smith School for students with intellectual impairments.
We are trying to address the issue at that particular school.
Mr. Penikett:
Let me be clear in asking for a detailed response. I am not just talking about kids who are intellectually impaired. I am also talking about children who may have the misfortune of coming from dysfunctional homes, or who may be hyperactive or have any number of other problems that may affect their ability to learn. I would be interested in an answer that covers not just that group the Minister mentioned, but any kids who may be having problems in that school, and the general question of the adequacy of staffing in that area.
The Minister has indicated yes, so I will put my next concern on the record.
As I understand it, the Hillcrest Community Association has written to the Deputy Minister of Education, expressing concern about the walkway that was put in between Hillcrest and Elijah
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Smith School when the school was first constructed. They have written talking about the condition of the walkway, about the scattered piles of rocks left on the side of it, the cement barriers that have been pushed to the side of the walkway - which were originally intended to block traffic - but they may not have been adequate for that task, and the requests to replace the posts at the entrance of the walkway, because they do not seem to have kept out the traffic.
There are concerns about repairing eroded sections of the path and this is a problem that has been caused by drainage and runoff in the area. This may require a joint action with the city. Ultimately, there is the general concern about the condition of the walkway.
Let me explain this to the Minister in the following way: I have actually gone and looked at it, because the path is right behind my house. At one point, the walkway was so covered in slush, it would take kids with pretty high boots to get through it.
On another occasion a little later in the spring, it was under water. I thought that the kids would be either arriving at home or school with wet feet, which I would not have thought was a good idea.
I am not sure who ought to be responsible for seeing this maintained; it may be that this is more of a city responsibility in that it sets across the green belt, although I do understand it was originally installed there to meet the particular needs of the school population.
I began by asking the Minister if he was aware that the Hillcrest Community Association had written to the deputy minister. There may have been other representations to the department and I would be interested in knowing how the department intends to respond.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I was not aware of that particular problem, but I thank the Minister for his representation and I will follow it up.
Mr. Harding:
This evening we have discussed some of the impacts of the legislation that the Minister has a problem with and one is the experience increases. He was not talking about collective bargaining, because of the media blackout last week. I also want to point out a situation of an educational assistant, because I think it is a glaring illustration of inequities.
An educational assistant who works in my riding is very, very discouraged by the announcement of the government, not just the way it was it was done, but the action that is being taken specifically. This person has worked for the school system for seven years in Faro.
She is a single mother of two children who works very hard as an educational assistant. She has discovered that her take-home pay before the rollback was around $1,350 per month, prior to the rollback.
With the rollback announcement, she became very discouraged that it was going to be hard for her to make it - very, very hard. So, she went to social services to see if there might be some top-up and she discovered that social assistance would pay her $1,700 not to work.
This is a glaring inequity. This legislation has a real impact on people like this.
Does the Minister have any thoughts about these types of situations? Is that another area of concern for him where people in a situation such as my constituent are being hurt by this legislation?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I have shared my concern about the people at the lower end of the scale and how any rollback affects people on the lower end of the scale. For me to comment on the monies they would receive from social assistance - I cannot really do that. I am not aware of how that person would receive those funds and why. It would depend on several different factors but it seems inconsistent that someone could make $1,700 and not work and only make $1,300 to work.
Mr. Harding:
Do not get me wrong. I am not lobbying the Minister to lobby the Minister of Health and Social Services to reduce social assistance funding for people like my constituent. That is not the case. What I am asking him is to share his views with me regarding that aspect and the inequities of this legislation - the way it has just swept everybody aside. It has hurt everybody - the way it was done and what it has done - but it has really hurt people at the lower end of the scale.
He shared his concern but what I am interested in is what is he going to do in terms of sharing his concern with his Cabinet colleagues about people like this. Will he take a reflective position regarding this to the Cabinet table?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I will pass on the concerns that the Member expressed.
Mr. Harding:
Before the break, I just want to illustrate how a young teacher who has been dealing with this government might feel. I want to point out to the Minister that I received a letter from a constituent and I read part of it to the Minister the other day when he was not commenting. The letter goes on and I would like to read it into the record for the Minister and get some indication as to how he feels about it.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
A point of order, Mr. Chair.
Chair:
On a point of order, Mr. Phillips.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
If the Member is going to read the whole letter, why does he not just table the letter and I will be more than happy to take the time to read it, as all Members will. It will not take up the valuable time of the House. If we all start coming in here and reading every letter we get, verbatim, into the record, it will take forever.
Chair:
Mr. Harding, on the point of order.
Mr. Harding:
I do not think we are wasting any time. I am just pointing out an example of some situations that have happened to a teacher in this territory that I think are indicative of the way some educators in this territory have been treated, and I am looking for some comment from the Minister.
With regard to tabling it, I do not have to go through that with the Minister. If he is not interested, then I will just refer to it after the break and get some comment. If he does not want to hear what is in it, that is fine by me.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I did not say I was not interested in reading it. In fact, I said I was interested in reading it and that I would like the Member to table it so that all Members of the House can read the letter - all my Cabinet colleagues whom they want me to lobby.
Chair:
Order please. We will take a brief recess at this time.
Recess
Chair:
I will now call Committee of the Whole to order. Mr. Harding, on the point of order.
Mr. Harding:
No, it is okay.
Chair:
I am sorry, there was no point of order.
Mr. Harding:
There are a couple of issues I would just like to pursue, and then I want to turn some questioning over to the Member for Mount Lorne who is anxious to ask the Minister some questions. Unfortunately for the Minister, it is still on the issue that he does not really like to talk about. I would like to ask him about the May 20 deadline in the legislation. Perhaps over the break, he had a chance to be somewhat more briefed about it. Is it still his understanding that the government is looking at a deadline of May 20 for bringing in the legislation? Is that still there?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I have not been advised any different from that.
Mr. Harding:
Has the legislation been drafted?
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Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Harding:
I want to move on to another issue. The Minister has often used when he gets into one of his political, rhetorical rants, the fact that the former NDP administration gave out too much to government workers and the teachers. He likes to say that in 1991, in a year when every government across the country was cutting back, they were giving out an 18-percent increase. In 1991, the consumer price index is clear in the Yukon: we had a 6.6 percent increase in inflation in the Yukon. The year before that it was 4.1. In Canada, from 1988 all the way up to 1992, the inflation rate fluctuated between four and 5.6.
To me, this would indicate, particularly in the year of 1991, where we had a 6.6 percent increase, that six percent was not absolutely outrageous, considering we had, and still have, the best financial picture here in the country. Actually, the 6.6 percent was barely keeping up with inflation.
The Minister has often said that that is justification for his actions now. He claims it was irresponsible of the previous administration to do so.
Is the Minister aware that inflation was 6.6 percent in 1991 and that no one really knew, at that time, that John Crow and the Bank of Canada was going to take on such an aggressive, inflation-fighting, high dollar, high interest rate policy at the Bank of Canada for two or three years, which has wrestled inflation to the ground. At the time that that agreement was signed, we had a 6.6 percent inflation, and all analysts were pointing to inflation and those figures for the next two or three years. Is he aware that we were at those inflation levels in 1991?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I cannot recall the exact inflationary levels the Member has mentioned. What I do recall is the 19-percent wage increase combined with benefits to make well over a 25-percent increase. I can remember a lot of government workers, teachers and others saying to me that they were quite surprised that they settled for that high a figure. Some people said they were a bit embarrassed by how high it was. No one said no, and everyone put the money in their pockets. Part of the reason we have such a debt today is because of those dramatic increases.
As I mentioned, there has been a $13 million increase in the Department of Education's budget since 1991. Eighty-eight percent of that has been for wages alone. This does not necessarily mean a lot more teachers have been hired; it just means that the existing teachers' wages were raised. It did not provide a lot more or different services to the students; it just provided more services to the teachers and enabled them to have a better lifestyle, I suppose. I do not deny them that, but I believe that when one looks out to the real world, in 1991 when the 19-percent wage increases were announced, a lot of people - and even a lot of teachers - felt that that 19 percent was excessive. I do not think anyone could say that that was a reasonable wage increase at that time.
I have said that in the beginning and I maintain it today. I feel that that wage increase was excessive. I believe that a wage increase was probably in order, but certainly not of that magnitude. I only wish there was as much complaining about that much of an increase as there has been about the two-percent decrease. It does not seem to jive with me or make a lot of sense. We did not hear a word in 1991. The mumblings we did hear were that people were quite surprised that it was so high. They put the money in their pockets. In the last couple of years of the last government's mandate, we paid the price of not only that kind of extravagance, but also that of building grandiose buildings and spending and wasting money in other programs.
Mr. Harding:
The Minister talks about reading Hansard. He should really read the comments of the Minister of Finance, who admitted last week in debate that there is no debt. Statistics Canada has told the Members opposite that there is no debt and the Minister of Finance confirmed that for us on the floor of this Legislature. The only deficit, and I have said this before, is in the Minister's head. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, for debt.
The Minister of Finance said we are going to have a surplus as of March 31, 1994 - back that way. When we get the lapses in from this year, unless the Ministers find anything else for this government to write off, we are going to have a surplus. There is no debt. Just for the Minister's knowledge, I am using Statistics Canada figures for the 6.6 percent in 1991.
The Minister says a lot of teachers and government workers were really embarrassed about that irresponsibility of the NDP. The government workers and teachers must have really been embarrassed, because I have here the historic salary comparisons. His predecessors, the Progressive Conservative Party of the Yukon, of which he is a former member, in 1980 gave a 12.75 percent increase. In 1981, they gave the YTA an 11-percent increase; in 1982, a 10-percent increase; a six-percent increase in 1983; and a five-percent increase in 1984. I find it incredible that he would stand up and make the claims that keeping up with inflation for government employees was a heinous crime when done by the previous government, when the record clearly shows that the previous administration, prior to the NDP, gave increases of a greater magnitude than the NDP, in some cases double. These figures were produced by the government for us, by the Member opposite.
How does that wash? We were in the same financial situation in 1985 to 1991 as we are now - a good financial position. How does that wash?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I guess we are going to rise in the House another 100 times before this is over to dispute figures. I do not apologize for a second that our government in two years has been able to pay off the $13 million debt that the previous NDP government accumulated. That is what the people elected us to do - to get rid of the debt. It seems that the Member opposite feels that the way to run government is to run up as much debt as possible and not worry about balancing the books. I would hate like heck for that Member ever to have hold of my bank account, because he would certainly run it into the ground real quick. He does not seem to think that one should actually live within one's means, but rather, that one should just spend, spend, spend, and the last NDP government showed us that with a $64 million deficit in 1993-94.
I do not apologize for a second for trying to balance the budget and for trying to get the budget of the Yukon in order. I have children who live in this territory, and so do many others in this House. The last thing we want to do is leave them the legacy of a huge debt, as has been left to all other Canadians, so they spend a good portion of their future paychecks paying off the debt and not being able to develop any infrastructure whatsoever, because we will be debt-poor. I do not think that we have to apologize a bit.
It seems quite incredible that we have to rise in this House and defend the fact that we are paying off our debt. That seems to a crime to the side opposite. The Member says there is no debt. He saw the Auditor General's report two years in a row. I do not want to go back into this debate again, because he wants to go back over the same old figures and the same old stuff that he said 15 times before.
This Member is one of the worst Members in the House for going back over things 100 times. I would remind him that the audience tonight is the same one that was here two days ago, and they heard the same debate then. They must be getting a little tired of these reruns, as well. We are not saying anything different on either side of the House. It is costing over $600 an hour to run this House, and the Member continually regurgitates the same old debate over and over. He does not say anything different, and I do
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not say anything different, and it continues on.
Let us get on to some constructive debate. Let us do what we are paid to do. Let us go on and discuss the operation and maintenance budget of the Department of Education and go through it line by line and ask questions about that. Let us actually do our job, instead of going back over rehashed debates that we have not only rehashed once, but five or six times, before.
Mr. Harding:
For the last time for the Minister, I would remind him to read Hansard. The Minister of Finance, the Government Leader, confirmed that there is no debt in the Yukon. Think about that. The $64 million - the Minister must say it in his sleep as he dreams, he has been told by the spin doctors to say it so much - is a matter of the Auditor General accepting the extended care and loan write-offs they gave to him. It is as simple as that.
Everyone has mortgages. The extended care facility, for example, was an $11 million mortgage the territory had, which they paid off in one year. How many citizens do you know who could pay off a mortgage in one year and not claim they had a fiscal deficit for the year? The accumulated position of this territory is strong. The net worth consolidated position of this territory is strong. I know the Minister wants a debt, because he can use that to lower expectations and make people think they should have to accept things like rollbacks, which furthers his political agenda. However, that is not the reality. That is not even what the Yukon Party's budget says. If you read it and take a look at the numbers, you see that there is no debt. It says that right here in the budget.
I do not want to go over and over this with the Minister, but he continues to espouse the political rhetoric without looking at the numbers.
They are really mean because, quite frankly, it seems like that is all he knows. I do not even know if he knows what is in his budget. I guess we will find out when we get into line-by-line debate.
It is obvious that from the position identified, even with the write-offs they added this year, and without taking into consideration the lapses - or money that was budgeted last year but not spent - and the fact that they have understated revenues from federal officials, we are not going to have any deficit position whatsoever.
I understand it furthers his political interests, but I would please ask the Minister to speak the truth about the numbers in this Legislature. He really has a hard time doing that because it does not fit his political message and what he is asking people in this territory to do for him.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
To sum it up, I think we are going to agree to disagree on the numbers.
Ms. Moorcroft:
We just learned a few hours ago that talks have broken down between the government and the Yukon Teachers Association. I would like to ask some questions I have not asked before and that I believe the Minister has a responsibility to answer. They are not questions he will have needed an extensive briefing on to answer. They are to do with where he stood and what his position is.
On April 19, just one day before negotiations were to begin, the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission wrote a letter to all Yukon teachers, which he then sent to them at their places of work, through the government's internal mail system. In that letter, the Minister referred to what he called last year's bitter confrontation, yet the Government Leader had already expressed his satisfaction with the result of last year's negotiations with the Yukon Teachers Association.
Does the Minister of Education agree with the Government Leader or with his new colleague, the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, about last year's contract negotiations? Were they a bitter confrontation, or were they exemplary negotiations?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I think I said publicly that I felt the teachers were reasonable in their negotiations last year. I can also recall the answer the Minister for the Public Service Commission gave when he said that letter was in a response to letters we had received from teachers; that is why it was sent.
Ms. Moorcroft:
I will ask the Minister this as a follow-up question: does the Minister approve of his colleague's decision to communicate directly with teachers in the manner he did? I expect it was against direct advice to do so.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
You are damned if you do and you are damned if you do not. You get a letter from a teacher raising some concerns and you either respond to the letter, or you do not respond to the letter. In the past we have been criticized for not responding quickly enough; now we respond and we are being told that it was wrong to respond. I do not know which position the Member wants us to take.
I think that if a teacher writes me a letter the teacher deserves a response, and that is the position that I took, and I have responded to all of the letters that the teachers have sent me. I imagine that the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, as he said the other day, did the same.
Ms. Moorcroft:
There is a big difference between responding to letters that you receive from teachers by writing an individual response, and writing the same identical letter to each teacher at their places of work during a time of negotiations.
Not only that, this letter contained all kinds of misrepresentations, political stances and appeals to the teachers to justify that they have to reduce payroll costs by sharing the burden and taking a reduction.
The Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission based much of this letter to the teachers on a faulty premise: that the government was in a tough financial situation. I am not going to go back and forth over the debate that the Minister and the Member for Faro have had, but this budget we are debating demonstrates that that is simply not true.
Is the Minister of Education now prepared to send another letter to the teachers, or ask his colleague to send such a letter, correcting the false impression that was left by this letter of April 19?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I guess that we are going to have to agree to disagree again on the figures that the Member mentioned, and I will do that.
Also, I would recommend to the Member that she raise that issue with the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, since he is the person who wrote the letter.
Ms. Moorcroft:
I have to wonder whether the letter from the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission was discussed in Cabinet before it was sent out, and where the Minister of Education stood on that issue.
During debate this afternoon, I pointed out that teachers who responded to the government employee survey last fall identified political interference as the single most important factor that is affecting their jobs.
This April 19 letter is a textbook example of political interference. I would like to ask if the Minister of Education will now apologize, or ask his colleague to apologize, for that blatant interference, so that relations between the government and members of the Yukon Teachers Association can have a chance to improve?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
No, I will not.
Ms. Moorcroft:
The Minister admitted that there was no bitter confrontation during the negotiations last year. He stood up here and said he thought the negotiations were fair and reasonable. Why will he not write an apology for the political interference contained in this letter of April 19?
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Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I did not write the letter. I suggest the Member take it up with the Minister responsible.
Ms. Moorcroft:
Well, perhaps I will ask the Minister of Education another question then.
Will the Minister take the earliest opportunity possible to urge his Cabinet colleagues to give up their threat of legislative wage rollbacks and freezes, so that, if and when talks resume between the government and the Yukon Teachers Association, they can resume in a free and a fair climate, without the coercion of threatened legislation hanging over the heads of the teachers?
That has to have played a significant role in the breakdown of talks. That has to be removed, if there is any possibility of a free and fair bargaining process that can result in a settlement.
Is the Minister prepared to urge his Cabinet colleagues to give up their threat of legislated rollbacks and freezes?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I stated earlier that I certainly support the collective bargaining process and that I hoped we would achieve a settlement through that process but, if we cannot achieve a settlement through that process, I support the government in its legislative agenda.
Ms. Moorcroft:
I know that I am not alone in being very disturbed by the sharp deterioration in relations between this government and its educational personnel since last fall. I believe that it is the responsibility, even the fault, of the Members opposite and their union-bashing, anti-democratic, misleading and unfair tactics. They take great joy in standing up here, pointing the finger, and saying the Opposition is just a bunch of union toadies. They have taken a very anti-democratic approach, and we are talking about serious matters here.
The issue underlying this whole matter is morale. Bad morale in education, or elsewhere in the public service, has a very high price-tag attached to it. I think it is time for the Minister of Education, the Minister responsible for the Public Service and their political leader to stop playing fast and loose with teachers and other employees. It is time for them to stop blaming their own lack of leadership on the workers, to stop pitting Yukoners against each other, just so they can play the tough guy and show everyone who is in charge.
It took a long time to build the Yukon's educational system, but it could take much less time to destroy it with the kind of misguided actions that we have seen this spring.
The Minister of Education and the Government Leader talk about the importance of providing Yukon students with a first-class education to give our students the same opportunities as their counterparts elsewhere. It is time for the Members opposite to put their money where their mouths are. When we look at this budget - and the Member for McIntyre-Takhini went over these figures earlier today - we see that the net O&M allocation for Education has dropped from 26 percent of the total O&M budget in 1992-93 to 23 percent for 1994-95. That is not an increased commitment to education; it is a cut. It is at least a $9 million cut.
When we look at capital expenditures, we see a drop in the Education share from 24 percent of the total capital budget all the way down to 13.2 percent. Add these figures together and the message comes through clearly that this government, which is so committed to quality education, is prepared to cut $10.8 million a year from discretionary, non-contingent funding from one of the most important areas of public spending. The government speaks more loudly with its actions and budget than with its words.
Political interference, forced confrontation with employees and major cuts in educational spending are all under the guise of fiscal responsibility. Let us get back to the basics, as the Minister would like. Let us start with some basic honesty about what this government's agenda really is. If that agenda is to fight a phony deficit or a tight financial situation on the backs of teachers, students, parents and the whole Yukon community, then let the government be honest enough to admit that. If that is not the government's agenda as it goes about spending another record high budget, let us get our priorities straight. Let us see some leadership and vision from this government.
The priorities that the Yukon Party are making are clear; they are in this budget that is before us. What we have to do is begin repairing the damage done to the morale of the territory's fine teachers by the kind of bullying we have recently seen from the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission. In his letter, the Minister claimed the government's goal was an absolute minimum of layoffs and labour stability. As for layoffs, this budget makes it clear that there is no need for any such threat. If this Minister's letter is any indication of how this government operates, I can predict with some certainty that they will indeed achieve an absolute minimum of labour stability. If that is the case, no amount of fancy talk by the Minister of Education and no amount of reshuffling of budgetary deck chairs will prevent the education ship from foundering and sinking.
The letter I have been standing here discussing talks about how the government wants to discuss alternatives and entertain amendments to their initiatives of introducing legislation. The Minister wrote to appeal for assistance and understanding. I would like to make a sincere and calm appeal to the Minister of Education.
The government says they want to discuss alternatives and entertain amendments to their legislative initiative. I would like to ask the Minister of Education if he would be prepared to entertain what we have represented as the most viable alternative, and that is to recommend to Cabinet to remove the threat of legislation and to engage in free collective bargaining. Will the Minister do that? Will the Minister take my representation seriously?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I have already answered that question.
Mr. Harding:
At this juncture, I believe we are eventually coming to a close. We have had some answers from the Minister tonight about collective bargaining, finally. We have a commitment that a ministerial statement will come down tomorrow - that ought to be a doozy - from the government regarding the status of the negotiations that have just been called off. I am sure they are upstairs working on that baby now, and it is going to be very interesting to see what happens tomorrow.
There are a couple of points I would like to make to the Minister. One is that the Minister has tried to portray that the reason why there are problems with morale is solely based on a two-percent cutback. I do not believe that is the case. Problems have been brewing in Education for a long time now. The start of it was probably last April, in 1993, when he announced his decision to kick off an education review with very well-defined terms of reference that they must get away from some of the things they were doing, they must get back to the three Rs, and nobody ever had any input into that decision. From that point on, a lot of educators, who are used to being full participants in decisions like that, have some serious input to give and are used to having it received and listened to, gradually started to feel that they were being pushed more and more out of the loop.
The other issue that really hits home is with regard to the math diagnostic testing announcement. There was also a move for summative testing by the Minister. A math review committee was struck, and it made a lot of recommendations that were simply not followed. The Minister preempted the educational review, the results of which he claims to be very serious about, when he brought that in.
I think that that is indicative of what people are feeling. They are feeling that the partnership has broken down. I have talked to some First Nations people who are involved in curriculum development, and they are very concerned about the lack of
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consultation by this government, the lack of understanding of the provisions of the Education Act, the requirements to consult in the Education Act and the fact that a lot of the provisions of that act, and some of the good things that are in it for people like the First Nations and for teachers, are entrenched. I do not think that the Minister is fully cognizant of that fact. How does the Minister define consultation as it is established in the Education Act?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
An excellent example of consultation is the education reviews that are now going on in the territory.
Mr. Harding:
With all due respect, that is not the question I asked the Minister. To begin with, it was a very poor example of the consultation process. I think it will come through okay because of some people who picked it up off the ground. What I am trying to get from the Minister is an understanding of what consultation means to him. As it is defined in the Education Act, it is law. What does it mean to him as it is defined? This is important.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
There are several types of consultation that take place under the Education Act. I will prepare a note for the Member and lay it out in point form so that he can understand what consultation is. I thought he understood what consultation was, but I will give him information on the various types of consultation that are available. I can even give him examples of how we have carried out consultation in some areas. I will provide that information for the Member.
I would think that consultation with the general public is, for instance, holding a technical education briefing on the education budget so that Opposition Members and others may attend and learn a little more about the budget. That Member decided not to come to that; he was not bothered with it. That is the type of consultation that takes place with people, and that is the type of consultation that we will do, along with meetings by groups that will tour the Yukon, and Ministers who will go around the territory. I just went around the territory with the Government Leader to several communities. I will get a briefing note setting out the various types of consultation that take place and provide it to the Member opposite.
Mr. Harding:
That was a cheap shot by the Minister. I had some personal constituency matters that I had to deal with during that education briefing that the Minister is so proud of.
I do not know what the big deal is. The Minister has an official beside him right now to tell him what to say, because he does not know what the heck is going on in the department.
I did not go to that briefing, because I had some personal constituency matters to deal with. That is very important.
Some Hon. Member:
(Inaudible)
Mr. Harding:
I was not bear hunting. What a ridiculous statement. Bear hunting? Who told you that? Did Dale Drown tell you to say that?
Goodness gracious, it was Friday; I was at a meeting for goodness' sake.
Chair:
Order please.
Mr. Harding:
I sent two staff representatives to attend the briefing and they briefed me after the briefing. Thank you for the briefing, the Minister is a great guy. Thanks for the briefing; it was wonderful. Thanks for giving it to my research staff; they briefed me. Beautiful. Now I am asking the Minister questions.
The Minister is on the hot seat and that is the appropriate place for him.
I do not want to have information from a briefing note that the Minister's officials have prepared for him; I do not want to know that. What has happened here is that the Minister has proved he is inept in the area of consultation - he has proven that - so I am asking the Minister what, by definition, under the Education Act, consultation is.
I would think that after 18 months in his portfolio, he can stand up and tell me that. I do not want a briefing note from officials in the department. The problem is at the political level, not the officials level. Can the Minister tell me what consultation is, as defined by the Education Act?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
That is probably one of the silliest questions I have ever heard in the House. The Member opposite knows full well what consultation is. I gave him an example of the education review that is now going around the territory. Other consultation goes on from time to time. Consultation involves various means. For example, the Ministers of Education are holding an education conference next month and we are taking Yukoners there. Those Yukoners were brought into the consultative process and will be providing input into that and will come back to the Yukon and provide more input into the Yukon's education system. The Member knows full well what all the options are. I will bring it back for the Member if he cannot remember them. It just seems such a silly question.
Consultation is going out and talking to the people, holding meetings, listening to their representations and that is what is happening with the education review right now as we speak. I am not sure if they are having a meeting tonight. That is consultation and that is what is going on. Consultation has gone on over the last year or so regarding grade reorganization and the other things that are going on in education. I do not know what the Member wants or what he expects, but he knows what consultation is and he knows there is consultation going on. He just has a different view from what I do, and from what some other people do in the Yukon do, about what has happened. His view of the events that have happened are different from others' views. I guess, again, we will agree to disagree on those events. I think that there has been consultation and it is continuing on an ongoing basis and will in the future.
Mr. Harding:
My view of consultation is different from the Minister's - I will give him that. My view is that it has to take place. He has learned a few things since he started, but the Minister has really botched a few times, too.
I am not asking for a general definition of consultation. There are some legislative requirements in the Education Act. They are law. That is what I am asking. They include questions as to which stakeholders are to be consulted and how. They describe the process. Those are the questions I am asking. Is the Minister totally missing the point that there are certain requirements he has to live up to, but has failed to do?
Let me ask him a simple question: what stakeholders have to be involved in consultation under the terms and conditions of the Education Act?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
What I will do for the Member is bring back a report of the consultation that has taken place and the requirements of the consultation that is supposed to take place over a given year. I will bring that back to the Member and report to him what consultation is ongoing and what will be taking place in the near future with various groups and organizations. I will undertake to do that.
Mr. Harding:
I do not want that. I want the Minister to prove to me that he has read the Education Act, knows its provisions, has just made a couple of errors but is not ignorant of the provisions. I do not want the officials to write me up a spin-doctored legislative return that will only bury me under a mound of paper. This is general debate with the Minister, not the deputy minister of the department.
The general knowledge of the Minister is very important, especially in the area of the Education Act. He has clearly botched it a few times. I will ask him again: what groups have to be involved as stakeholders under the terms of consultation in the Education Act?
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Hon. Mr. Phillips:
First Nations, teachers, school councils and the like - there is quite a long list. I meet with those various groups all year long; in fact, as recently as Saturday, I met and talked with the teachers. I talk off and on with the president of the Yukon Teachers Association about various issues. I meet with school councils on a regular basis. I tour the territory and visit the schools on a regular basis, and talk to people in the community.
When I was in Beaver Creek, for example, with the Government Leader on the Government Leader's tour, after the meeting was over, I talked to the two teachers and asked if I could go over and tour their school, because it was one that I could not look at last year when I made my tour, because the teachers were on their summer holidays. I went over there and had a chance to look at the school and talk to the teachers about some concerns they had in that area.
It is a combination of many things, and I believe I have honoured the intent of the Education Act and have consulted where necessary.
Mr. Harding:
Did the Minister consult with all the required stakeholders prior to announcing the education review?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
When I announced the education review, I announced that I was going to involve stakeholders. Perhaps the Member opposite, who is against the education review - it is clear he is against the education review - can tell me which of the stakeholders out there right now think we should not be doing the education review? My understanding is that everybody who is at the table on the Education Review Committee and everyone else are quite involved with the review process and figure they can make some really well-thought-out constructive suggestions on how to review the Yukon's education system. All the stakeholders who are involved were brought into the review, and all except one person in the territory - and that is the critic over there, who thinks the review is a sham from the beginning and refuses to accept it - has accepted it - 2,600 Yukoners accepted it; 400 and some-odd teachers accepted it as having input into by saying that the education system either needs to be changed or is doing good things now and made comments on it.
That Member may not accept the recommendations of the Education Review Committee, but he is a very small minority.
Mr. Harding:
Thankfully, the stakeholders have rescued the education review for the Minister. That is what has happened here. Now it has my support. When the review was originally announced at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, and I read into the Hansard again today what the Minister said - he totally prejudged everything - it brought back some memories as to why the Minister had some problems when it was first announced. Just about every Yukoner and every stakeholder had those same problems. Now they have come on board and thankfully it is out of the Minister's hands, so he cannot do any more damage to the education review. The results are probably going to be quite effective and helpful. It has my support now; it did not initially and I think a lot of people came on board with that approach.
I talked to many educators who are simply involved and who wrote responses to ensure that the Minister did not do anything more to damage the education system in the territory. They heard what he said and they did not like the half-cocked way he went about the education review, and that gets back to consultation.
The Minister, at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, said that he is going to involve all of the stakeholders, but did he talk to the stakeholders prior to making the announcement? Did he ask the stakeholders whether they thought the terms of reference were good? Did he review the time lines for the review with the stakeholders? Did he think that the Education Review Committee was discussing the appropriate issues that should be discussed and how to make the education system better in the territory? I think the answer to all three questions is no. That is the problem.
The Minister wants us to jump up and score political points for him by saying that we are against the education review; well, initially we were, but right now it is obvious that it has been saved - thankfully - from the Minister.
It has been rescued, pulled out of his hands. Can he tell me, in terms of his announcements on math diagnostic testing, how was the consultation there? My understanding from news reports at the time were that there were some concerns from the people involved in the Math Review Committee, and they felt there were some problems with the consultative process then, that their findings were not accurately portrayed, and that there was not enough consultation done at the political level. Who did he talk to about that, involving the stakeholders under the Education Act?
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Here we go again. This is a topic on which, back in January - I can pull out Hansard from January - the Member opposite asked the same question and got the same answer. He asked the very same question, and I told the Member at the time that, in June of that year, we had some very disappointing results in the departmentals. In September of that same year, we had 100 students go into F.H. Collins under the guise of Introductory Math 10, which is really Grade 9 math repeated, and we realized we had a major problem with the math and had to do something about it.
We talked to a few experts in education and people who felt that one of the ways to deal with it was to bring in some type of diagnostic testing. Initially, there was some opposition to the diagnostic testing, but we listened to some of the concerns that were expressed by the teachers and by others, we made some changes to it, and I think, overall, it seems to be providing some dividends. The teachers are much more comfortable with the program now than they were in the beginning. I do not apologize at all for handing the education review over to the independent board.
As sure as I am standing here today, if I had not done that, the Member opposite would be accusing me today of political interference and of manipulating the education system of the territory. He cannot have it both ways. He either wants me in it or he wants me out of it. I moved out of it in order to allow it to be an independent assessment of the curriculum and the special needs in the territory. That way, we would get the best value.
I do not apologize for that. We have gone over this time and time again. We have probably wasted most of the two hours here tonight talking about the exact same stuff that the people in the gallery and others could find repeated over and over by that particular Member.
When that Member stops, number two jumps up and says the same thing. Then number three jumps up, and so on. They all go back to the same thing, over and over. That is fine if they want to waste taxpayers' money and time asking the same questions and getting the same answers, time and time again. I do not believe that is a wise use of taxpayers' dollars.
We are here to deal with the budget. I would hope that we can eventually get on with it; it is what we are here to talk about.
I am a bit bewildered by the comments of the Members opposite when they first became the Opposition. They spoke about constructive opposition and how when things are good, they will comment on how good things are, and when things are bad, they will say so. Even when we do something good, they say that it was bad in the beginning and that it is good now only because we are not involved. They cannot find it in their heart, soul or any other part of their body to talk about the positive things that are happening in the education system in the territory. I think that is a shame. It is to the detriment of the system and to the people of the territory to have an Opposition that is so damn negative that they cannot
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think of anything but negative points to raise.
Mr. Chair, I move that you report progress on this bill.
Chair:
On a point of order.
Mr. Harding:
It is hard to be constructive when the government has been acting so destructively.
Mr. Chair, I move that you report progress.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
There is no point of order. The Member is just bootlegging a comment into the record.
Chair:
Order please. There is no point of order.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
Mr. Chair, I move that you report progress.
Motion agreed to
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I move that the Speaker do now resume the Chair.
Motion agreed to
Speaker resumes the Chair
Speaker:
I will now call the House to order.
May the House have a report from the Chair of Committee of the Whole?
Mr. Abel:
The Committee of the Whole has considered Bill No. 15, entitled Second Appropriation Act, 1994-95, and directed me to report progress on it.
Speaker:
You have heard the report from the Chair of Committee of the Whole. Are you agreed?
Some Hon. Members:
Agreed.
Speaker:
I declare the report carried.
Hon. Mr. Phillips:
I move the House do now adjourn.
Speaker:
It has been moved by the Government House Leader that the House do now adjourn.
Motion agreed to.
Speaker:
This House now stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 9:30 p.m.
The following Legislative Return was tabled May 9, 1994:
94-1-350
RCMP services: two thousand open files in 1993; Emergency Response Team activated nine times during the past five years; list of specialized services (Phelps)
Written Question No. 41 dated January 10, 1994, by Mr. Cable
: