Whitehorse, Yukon

Wednesday, November 17, 1993 - 1:30 p.m.

Speaker: I will now call the House to order. We will begin with Prayers.

Prayers

DAILY ROUTINE

Speaker: We will proceed at this time with the Order Paper.

Opening of Northwest Territories Legislative Building

Today the Northwest Territories is celebrating of its first full-time legislative building. For the past 26 years it has operated out of temporary and leased premises, including schools, banquet halls and hotels. It is unfortunate that, due to our session, none of us could attend the opening. However, there will be a Yukon presence as our Commissioner, Ken McKinnon, is attending the ceremony.

On behalf of the Assembly, I wish to congratulate the Members of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly, the Northwest Territories Legislature Building Society and the people of the Northwest Territories on their new building.

Speaker: Introduction of Visitors.

Are there any Returns or Documents for tabling?

TABLING RETURNS AND DOCUMENTS

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I have for tabling the Yukon Literacy Strategy.

Speaker: Are there any Reports of Committees?

Petitions?

Introduction of Bills?

Are there any Notices of Motion for the Production of Papers?

Are there any Notices of Motion?

Are there any Statements by Ministers?

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Yukon Literacy Strategy

Hon. Mr. Phillips: It is my privilege today, on Yukon Literacy Day, to table in the House the Yukon Literacy Strategy, and to honour the organizations and individuals in our territory dedicated to ensuring that all Yukoners are able to maximize their potential through the skills of reading and writing.

The completion of this strategy fulfills a commitment made in the Yukon Training Strategy, tabled by the previous government in May 1992. Our government has taken that commitment very seriously, and has worked closely with the Coalition for Yukon Literacy to bring the strategy to this point. It is in fact first and foremost the coalition’s strategy, one which we are proud to adopt as the government’s guiding philosophy in this area.

The strategy identifies five priority areas for action, and I stress that these are not in any order of precedence:

First is the continued expansion of community-based, basic literacy programming into more Yukon communities. As an example, the project begun in Ross River last year, which has proven very successful, will serve as the model for a similar program this year in Dawson City.

Second, the implementation of employment-oriented literacy programs will allow Yukoners to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. These programs must be able to be put in place quickly, and are key to relieving the unemployment that often goes hand in hand with illiteracy.

Third will be the integration of literacy into employment skills training. Too often, literacy training is treated separately from apprenticeship or other training programs, and is therefore often not given the time or resources it requires. Employers and educators are increasingly realizing that employment training needs literacy as an integral component.

Fourth is the expansion of workplace literacy programs. Literacy skills are essential not only as a prerequisite to employment, but to maintaining it and to progressing in one’s career.

Fifth, is the expansion and integration of literacy training, adult basic education and life skills training. Again, it is essential that these fundamental skills be acquired through a coordinated approach. All are closely linked.

It is difficult to accurately assess the extent of our literacy problem here in the Yukon. It is safe to say, however, that no community is immune. In cooperation with the members of the coalition, we will work hard over the coming months and years to identify the areas where work needs to be done, and to put flesh on the solid skeleton of the strategy, with the right planning, programs and people.

At this time, I would like to salute the members of the Coalition for Yukon Literacy for their energies in developing the strategy, and for their excellent ongoing work in helping all Yukoners to develop the literacy skills they so urgently need. The coalition members are the Yukon Literacy Council, better known in the community as Project Wordpower, the Council for Yukon Indians, the First Nations Education Commission, the Association Franco-Yukonnaise, Yukon College and three branches of my own department: advanced education, libraries and archives and the French programs division of public schools.

I would also like to recognize the efforts of the Member for McIntyre-Takhini, who as the Minister of the day played a large part in putting the coalition together and initiating this strategy.

I congratulate these organizations and individuals on the release of the Yukon Literacy Strategy. I wish them well in their efforts, and this government looks forward to continuing to actively support all of them in their efforts to ensure that every Yukoner has access to that most essential and fundamental component of a basic education: literacy.

Ms. Moorcroft: It is with pleasure that we acknowledge the release of the Yukon Literacy Strategy. Literacy is essential for a healthy society, as well as for the well-being of individuals. The New Democratic Party, as the Minister noted, recognized the need for a literacy strategy some time ago. The efforts of individuals and groups over the past few years have made a difference. Coordinating these efforts, which is an important element of the Yukon Literacy Strategy, will enable even more to be done.

Literacy is one of the goals and the objectives of the Education Act. I hope that a key principle in the strategy - that everyone has a right to a basic education - means the right to an education, as provided for by the Yukon Education Act.

The strategy makes no mention of money, and money is necessary to underwrite the activities of the volunteers and the professionals who are part of the literacy effort in the Yukon. The strategy makes continual reference to what the government will support. I would hope that the Minister of Education is prepared to let literacy workers know what lies in store for them financially.

Support for literacy needs to be more than moral; active support must also indicate financial support.

I am pleased to see the recognition of workplace literacy and adult literacy in the strategy. Perhaps in his response the Minister can let us know what work is already underway, or is planned, in this area.

The New Democrats support the Yukon Literacy Strategy released today and we salute the efforts of the many individuals and organizations involved in its development.

Mr. Cable: I, too, would like to go on the record as supporting the strategy. I should point out that, in my view, Yukon College must play a key role in implementing the strategy; that the funding provided by the government must reflect the priority. If Yukoners cannot read, then they are unlikely to get ahead in the workplace and the territory will be so much the poorer.

I think in assisting people to read and develop their skills, the Yukon College should and hopefully will play a major role.

They also say that the speedy resolution of land claims will enhance opportunities to tie literacy and employment for First Nations more closely together.

Finally, I am pleased to note that the Minister, in his fifth point, recognizes the importance of life skills training. There was a perception, last February, that the Minister had minimized that facet of training and education, and I am glad to see that was a perception only.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I thank the Members opposite for their positive comments. The Member for Mount Lorne wanted to know what kind of financial commitment we had given to these particular projects. Last year, in 1991-92, the commitment of the previous government was $154,000. This year, the commitment, so far, has been $124,200 for core funding, and there is $10,000 for developmental costs of the Dawson City literacy. There is $3,000 for a literacy software acquisition, and $1,000 for the Gzowski tournament, which is a total of $138,000 so far this year. In the 1993-94 budget, it is projected that we will spend another $25,000 this year for the Ross River base funding, another $25,000 for the city base funding in Dawson City, $10,000 for rural literacy project development, $15,000 for more core funding adjustment for the Yukon Literacy Council, and $10,800 for workplace literacy development, and other miscellaneous projects. The total this year is $224,000 for the literacy projects. I think that shows a definite commitment from this government.

Speaker: This, then, brings us to the Question Period.

QUESTION PERIOD

Question re: Yukon native teacher education program, admission

Ms. Moorcroft: Earlier this year, the Minister of Education distinguished himself by threatening to cut off funding to the Yukon native teacher education program if the advisory committee did not admit a certain person to the program. Now that the Minister has had some time to reflect on this matter, could he tell this House how he plans to deal with the issue of altering the admissions criteria to the Yukon Native Teacher Education Program?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I never once threatened to cut off funding to the Yukon Native Teacher Education Program. In fact, it was exactly the opposite: I gave them assurances in every meeting I had been at that that program would continue and the funding would continue.

We have a program right now that has 80 positions available within it; there are less than, I believe, 40 students in the program at the present time. I wanted to sit down with the Council for Yukon Indians and discuss ways that other people, other Yukoners, who wanted to become teachers in the Yukon could access the program. I gave them assurances that it would not prejudice the First Nations in the program to start with - they would have preference on entry and preference on exit - but we do hire other teachers from time to time in the territory and that it would be better in Yukon schools to hire a teacher that was trained through a First Nations education program at Yukon College than to hire a teacher to go into Pelly Crossing, for example, from southern Ontario who knew nothing about First Nations. Those are the assurances I gave them, and the program funding is going to continue.

Ms. Moorcroft: The minutes of a meeting the Minister attended clearly show him saying, “I have some hard decisions to make in the future regarding cutting programs.” Why did the Minister think that he had the right to unilaterally change the admission criteria to the Yukon native teacher education program?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: If the Member had all the facts, she would see that I never did change the criteria. I never have changed the criteria. I asked the committee in charge of the program if they would be prepared to open the program up. They have said no, they are not at this present time, and I would like to discuss it further with them in the future.

Ms. Moorcroft: Could the Minister please answer my question. Why did he tell a student that they would be admitted to the program on his say so? Why did the Minister think that he had the right to unilaterally ignore the admission criteria and the recommendations of the Yukon native teacher education program advisory committee?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The day that I met with the committee, the individual in question attended to appeal to the committee. The individual knew that the committee concurrence was required, and the individual appeared to meet that requirement.

I did not tell the committee that this person would be accepted. I was there to ask the committee if they would accept this individual and others into the program.

Question re: Mathematics testing

Mr. Harding: I would like to ask another question of the Minister of Education.

Yesterday, the Minister told this House about an initiative that he approved some months ago and that was the new math testing program for Yukon high school students. I think that the Minister may have overlooked an important element in the math tests, and that is to ensure that the resources are there to help those students, who, as a result of these math tests, are found to require extra tutoring to bring their skills up to standards.

What step is the Minister taking to ensure that enough resources are available, such as tutors, texts and counselling to help students who are having problems with math?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: In the Department of Education, we are planning to second a math teacher who will provide the kind of services the Member asked about.

We have two superintendents who are overseeing the projects. Both of the superintendents are previous math teachers and have experience in that area. As well, we contracted with a previous math teacher that was here, Mrs. Davis, who is a very qualified math teacher who helped develop some of the tests, and if we have to carry out that kind of work in future we will.

The bottom line is to improve the math skills of Yukon students. I do not think that is a bad objective. I think that is a good objective and that we should be trying to do that.

Mr. Harding: I have no problem with that objective.

Yukon schools have many special-needs children, children who will have problems with math, English, social studies and even behaviour and socialization. This has influence on the development of special-needs children and also other students.

I would like to ask the Minister why he is not replacing the two school psychologists who have left the Department of Education this year, leaving only four psychologists to serve the needs of more than 5,000 students?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: When the psychologists were hired by the Government of the Yukon, they were hired into term positions. The purpose of hiring these psychologists was to carry out assessments on Yukon students. Over the past two years there have been an enormous amount of assessments completed on Yukon students. We have now assessed most of our students and in fact there was no need to carry on employing these particular psychologists.

Mr. Harding: My information is that the waiting lists are growing.

The Minister’s attitude toward First Nations students is a troubling one. He has not replaced the native curriculum coordinator, he is not developing the Yukon stay-in-school initiatives for First Nations students, and now he seems to condone the appropriation of a math tutor at F.H. Collins for the use of all students, and not just First Nations students, even though Indian Affairs substantially underwrites the cost of this tutor for that specific purpose.

Could the Minister tell me what tangible examples he can give of his support for First Nations students, and particularly First Nations math students, given the examples of his tacit refusal to support them?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: If the native curriculum coordinator was so important to the side opposite, I would have to ask them why they left the position vacant for a year and one half.

The program the Member is talking about at F.H. Collins is a federal program. We are working with the First Nations to try and work it out. If we start jumping into all these programs that the federal government has pulled out from, we will have enormous costs for the future. We have to be careful about that.

Question re: Gambling

Mr. Cable: I have some questions for the Government Leader on gambling.

Early in the summer, it was reported that the government was being lobbied to permit slot machines in Yukon hotels and to promote a casino in Whitehorse. The Government Leader was quoted as saying that he thought it would be a real plus for the Yukon, especially in the summertime, and somewhat in the wintertime. Could the Government Leader inform the House as to whether he has had the opportunity to reconsider this position and that, on balance, gambling would be a positive stimulus to the Yukon’s economy?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek: The Member opposite is quite correct; the government was approached on several occasions by various groups that are interested in legalized gambling and video lottery terminals in the Yukon. I told those groups at that time, as I have since in press releases, that this would be a major change in direction in the Yukon and would have to go to public consultation before anything proceeds. That is the stage we are at now. It will go out for public consultation through the Council on the Economy and the Environment at some point this winter.

Mr. Cable: I think it is well known that there are a number of negative social costs associated with gambling. These are primarily hidden costs, such as policing costs, family breakup costs and addiction costs. Could the Government Leader indicate to this House what instructions he has given to his officials to research into the negative social effects of legalized gambling?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek: The government has, over the past seven or eight months, accumulated a lot of information from every jurisdiction in Canada where there is legalized gambling. Information including both the pros and the cons of increased policing costs and the increased social costs will be made available to the Council on the Economy and the Environment for their deliberations.

Mr. Cable: I have heard it said that governments in North America are moving increasingly away from regulating gambling into becoming investors and promoters of gambling, and that in the course of doing so the governments themselves are becoming the biggest addicts. Could the Government Leader indicate to the House if he sees his government simply regulating gambling, or becoming an active participant in the sense of being an investor?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek: I believe the Member opposite is trying to put the cart in front of the horse. I said, quite clearly and on numerous occasions, that this government will be doing nothing - absolutely nothing - until we see what the sentiments of the Yukon public are.

Question re: Faro school teachers, moving expenses

Mr. Harding: I would like to ask him about former Faro teachers now being asked to pay moving expenses. The Minister of Education’s deputy clearly committed to the Faro school council and to the Del Van Gorder School staff that because of the forced nature of the transfers from Faro, moving expenses would be paid by the Yukon government. I want to ask the Minister why he is now breaking his word on this commitment?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I am not breaking my word, because I did not give that commitment. This matter is now before the court, and also in the grievance procedure, and I am not going to comment on any matter that has gone to grievance.

Mr. Harding: Thankfully, the courts today have granted an injunction against this tack by the Yukon government. Two members of the school council have sworn depositions that this commitment was made to the school by the Minister, and a letter was sent by the school council to the Minister after the commitment was made that confirms that his department would pay outright for the teachers’ moves.

Does the Minister realize how important his word is, and that broken trusts will destroy the credibility of his ministry?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: As I said before, this is a matter that is before the grievance procedures. I am not going to comment on a matter that is being grieved by employees of this government. It is inappropriate.

Mr. Harding: His actions are the things that are inappropriate.

The depositions of the school councillors and the letter confirming the understanding of the move payment terms clearly show that, only if the teachers moved back to teach in Faro, would they have to pay for the move. This never happened. Why would the Minister go back on a promise to these teachers, who were forced out of Del Van Gorder, in the first place, by government delays in determining staffing levels?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: That former union member, who was a union rep before, would be screaming bloody murder if I was interfering in a grievance procedure, and I am not going to interfere in a grievance procedure. He is the last one in this House who should be asking me to do so.

Question re: Education travel

Mr. Harding: He made the commitment. I will simply leave it there.

I have a question regarding Education departmental travel policy. Has the government recently cut back, or curtailed, travel for the Education department to educational conferences and training opportunities?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: We are looking at every conference where attendance is requested, and we are looking at their value to the Yukon. We are assessing them on that basis. We have not picked any specific conferences. We assess them on a conference-by-conference basis. Yes, the travel has been cut back, but it had to be. We cannot afford to run the kind of deficit we ran last year.

Mr. Harding: It is probably what you are running again this year. Aside from the deficit issue, can the Minister indicate whether or not members of his Education Review Committee will be travelling outside the territory, in the scope of their mandate, to carry out the task of the education review?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes. In fact, as we speak, the chair of the committee is going to look at three jurisdictions and what they have done with their education review. He is looking at British Columbia, Ontario and, I believe, New Brunswick; he is looking at the areas where they have just carried out reviews and is seeing what they are doing in changing their education.

Mr. Harding: This Minister will cut off learning opportunities for our existing departmental employees and then pay to have the committee travel around outside the country and all across the country when their mandate should be to hear what Yukoners think, rather than to tell parents what they should be doing. What is the purpose of this travel when their mandate should be to listen and present Yukoners’ views rather than their own or those of other jurisdictions?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Some of the questions we are asking in our review are the very questions that are being asked in other jurisdictions. I think it is important, and so did the chair of the committee, that he go to these other jurisdictions that have recently carried out reviews and see the areas they are looking at.

I might point out to the Member - and this is kind of unique to this individual, that the individual combined the trip with a personal trip and paid his own way to Vancouver - all we picked up was the airfare from Vancouver to Edmonton and from Edmonton to Toronto. It did not cost us anything for the individual to go to Vancouver and talk to the people in Victoria. He paid for that himself, and that is a comment on the dedication of the individual involved. It is too bad we did not have more Yukoners like that in the past, then we would not have had such a high bill for travel from the Government of Yukon.

Question re: FAE/FAS, education of children suffering from

Mr. Penikett: The Minister seems to be getting quite excited - perhaps I can calm him down with a straightforward question.

As a matter of Yukon Party policy, who is responsible for educating school-age children suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Alcohol Effects?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can handle that one - it is the Department of Education.

Mr. Penikett: Does the Minister of Education agree that the Education Act, which is the law of this territory, guarantees that every child is entitled to receive a free educational program, appropriate to their needs, and an individual education plan where they have special needs?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: If that is what the act says, yes, I do believe that.

Mr. Penikett: I am a little concerned that the Minister does not seem to know that that is what the act says.

Let me ask him this question: through no fault of their own, or in some cases their parents, a small minority of students, including FAS children, create huge demands on the system. Nonetheless, the law requires that they receive an education, even if it cannot be safely provided in a regular classroom. I would like to ask the Minister what provision the department has made to guarantee this small number of children a quality education, without unfair costs to their families.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Obviously, the Member is talking about some specific concerns from some specific parents. It would have been nice to have heard about this before we sat; I could have brought the answer to the House. If I know of instances where parents have been denied an education, I will have my officials check into them. I am not aware of any children that have been denied education.

Question re: Education, special-needs assessments

Mr. Penikett: As with the last question, I am asking a policy question.

A key philosophy of the Education Act is equality of opportunity for all Yukon students to develop their potential to the fullest possible extent. As a consequence of the Minister’s special program staff in the Department of Education, such as the two psychologists mentioned previously, can the Minister tell the House how much longer it now takes a student to get an assessment of his or her special needs?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I would have to get back to the Member on that. It is not something the department has informed me about. My understanding is that we are meeting the needs as they arise. I can get the exact time frame and bring that back to the Member.

Mr. Penikett: In the past, the department has provided extra resources to those schools that have extraordinary numbers of students with special needs. Can I ask why the Department of Education has not yet acted, after more than one year of pleading from the school administration, the school council, the Kwanlin Dun First Nation and others, to establish an education support worker, with or without the cooperation of other government departments, to help the students and their families in the Elijah Smith Elementary School?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I am puzzled by the question. The Member asked me the question in a letter a few days ago and I replied. I talked to the Minister of Health and Social Services, and that issue is being addressed in a different way. Instead of putting someone in the school, they have a special unit that is looking after the Kwanlin Dun village and dealing with those problems in that particular manner.

Mr. Penikett: The problem is that my colleague, the Member for McIntyre-Takhini, has a letter from the Minister of Health and Social Services saying that it is a Department of Education responsibility.

I want to ask the Minister this: earlier this year, the Minister of Education promised this House that nothing would happen to the level of service provided by his department. He even wrote a letter confirming this. However, it is apparent that cuts have indeed occurred since he became Minister, including the two psychologists we already mentioned.

Will the Minister give to this House a complete accounting of how many teachers, learning assistants, program implementation teachers, educational assistants, tutors and psychologists are now serving our schools during this session?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes, I will attempt to bring that information back.

Question re: Education review

Mrs. Firth: My question is for the Minister of Education regarding the education review. Ten months ago the Minister made an announcement at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon that his government was going to proceed with an education review. We are still waiting for the review to begin and now, 10 months later, the Minister has made an announcement that a survey will be done to find out what we should review in the education review.

I would like to ask the Minister a couple of questions. This survey is supposed to go to parents, school councils, students in grades 10 to 12, and the last two graduating classes. I would like to ask the Minister who is drafting the survey and how many are going to be distributed?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The survey was developed following a request by the chair of the Education Review Committee. He felt that he wanted to develop a survey and so that was done. The Department of Education and the Bureau of Statistics developed the survey. The survey will be going out in the mail early next week and my understanding is that there will be about 6,000 of those surveys given to students to take home to their parents and mailed to various stakeholders.

Mrs. Firth: Do I understand it then that the chair of the Education Review Committee has the liberty to change the original mandate of the Education Review Committee? I see the Minister shaking his head. I do not see anything in the original mandate that allowed this, unless the Minister is going to try to pass it off as some kind of consultative process.

Could the Minister tell us how much this review is going to cost, in addition to the $75,000 that was originally identified for the education review, because survey was not part of the original mandate of the review?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The questionnaire, as I said, was a result of a request of the chair of the Education Review Committee. He thought that that would allow those people who were not comfortable coming to a public meeting and speaking out to fill out their concerns and submit them to the review committee. The total cost of the review, with the questionnaire, is going to be a little more. We are expecting the cost to be about $130,000.

Mrs. Firth: So now we have an $130,000 expenditure because it includes some kind of secret survey so that people can express their opinions in a closed questionnaire.

I would like to ask the Minister: are there still going to be open public consultative meetings for this education review process and when are those meetings going to start?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: This is not a secret questionnaire at all. In fact, it is a questionnaire to allow all parents and stakeholders and people interested in education in the territory to respond without having to come a public meeting, stand up in front of the public and make some statements. People can respond in their own livingrooms and mail the questionnaire back to us.

Question re: Education review

Mrs. Firth: I would like to follow up with the Minister of Education regarding the education review.

I would like to know if the Minister will provide to us a copy of the survey that has been drafted and is being sent out, and if he will also tell us who is going to compile the information on that survey and when the government anticipates having that whole process completed.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The Bureau of Statistics will be compiling all of that information and providing it to the review committee when it is complete.

We expect to get the information back by mid-December, prior to Christmas. I hope that the review committee will be appointed by the middle or the end of next week, from nominations received from the stakeholders. Then the committee will get together as soon as they are appointed and receive the analysis of the questionnaire.

I expect that they will hold public meetings and tour the territory. I expect that will happen early in the new year. That will be up to the committee as to when they go, but their intention is to travel to every Yukon community.

Mrs. Firth: Can the Minister make a commitment to provide Members of the Legislative Assembly with the assessment and analysis made by the Bureau of Statistics after they receive the survey results?

Personally, I have some concern about the timing. Many people will not be that enthusiastic about participating in this review process over the Christmas season, but that may not be the case.

Will the Minister give us the commitment that he will provide to the Members of the Legislature, prior to the next sitting, all of the information that has been compiled so that we can see what the new focus of the education review is going to be?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I do not think that I have a problem with that. My understanding is that the report will be given to the review committee and the review committee will be talking about that report as they tour the territory. I expect that it will be a public document, and I do not have any problem with providing that information.

I will also provide the Member with a copy of the questionnaire, once I receive a copy, which I hope will be the end of this week or the first of next week. I will provide all Members with a copy the day that it is being mailed out.

Mrs. Firth: I appreciate that commitment. I do not see why we could not have a copy of it now, since it is obviously a public survey. I would have expected to have it tomorrow, if it is ready.

I would also like the Minister to come back with a new time line - that is what it was called in the last education review mandate and outline the Minister gave us. Obviously, the time line has completely changed. I would like the Minister to give us a new update, including focus, proposals and mandate, if there has been any change to the mandate, membership of the committee, and the time line, tomorrow.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes. I will provide a copy. I understand the questionnaire is at the printers now. As soon as it is ready, I will bring it by and pass a copy on to the Member. I also gave a commitment to the YTA and the CYI that I would do the same. I told them that, as soon as it was available, they would get a copy of it, and I will do that.

As far as the time line of the review, I am getting really nervous about giving time lines. I gave one, and we have gone by it. I hope they will do most of their work this winter, and that the report can be completed before the end of this school year. That is what the chair, and others, are shooting for. As these things go, however, I know they can sometimes stretch on. That is our goal and what we are looking for now.

Question re: Alcohol and drug services

Ms. Commodore: The 1993-94 budget for alcohol and drug services was cut back by more than $300,000 from the year before. Also in that budget, there was a forecast of an increase in clients for the detox centre. Could the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services tell me if the cutbacks in alcohol and drug services have affected the detox centre services?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: I do not believe they have. I will inquire about it, and get back to the Member.

Ms. Commodore: I am getting very concerned about all the cutbacks in this department. The Minister has stated previously in this House that he intends to build a new detox centre to replace the present facility, which is inadequate, both in terms of space and physical structure. Those were his words. Since this is not included in the new capital budget, which takes us to April 1, 1995, can he tell us when we can expect this new facility to be built?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: With respect to the cutbacks in the department, it is one of the few departments where the budget went up dramatically last year. In fact, it went from something like $67 million in the main estimates of the previous year to almost $100 million. There have not been very many cutbacks.

With respect to the issue of the facility the Member is asking about, once we have completed the consultation on the Alcohol and Drug Strategy, we will be looking at where we are going with respect to the detox facility.

Ms. Commodore: Personnel in Social Services have been told that detox services will be privatized. This means that many more jobs will be lost. Can the Minister tell us when he expects that change to take place?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: There has been absolutely no decision taken with respect to the detox centre at this time. The entire strategy for dealing with drug and alcohol abuse is under review right now, and we are in consultation with the public at this time.

Question re: Forestry transfer

Mr. Cable: I have some questions for the Government Leader on the forestry transfer. In his speech to the Yukon Chamber of Commerce in Watson Lake in October, the Government Leader stated that he expected the transfer of the forestry resource to be concluded in the near future. This is the transfer of control and management of the Yukon forests to our Yukon government.

Would the Government Leader indicate when he, in his view, thinks these negotiations will be concluded?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek: The negotiations are concluded. The agreement in principle has been concluded for some time. They were concluded during the summer and my understanding was that the documents were lying on the Minister of DIAND’s desk in Ottawa. I had a letter from the Minister saying that she would sign them, but the election came along so they are still on the DIAND Minister’s desk in Ottawa. I will be talking to him about them when I am there on the 30th.

Mr. Cable: In his speech, the Government Leader went on to say that one of the government’s ideas for immediate action was the maximizing of the economic spin offs of the forestry transfer agreement. What has the government done to ensure that we Yukoners will receive maximum economic spin offs as soon as the forestry transfer has been concluded and signed off?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek: I will answer that question as best I can as the Minister for that department is not here; he is away at a meeting. Once the agreement is signed off in Ottawa, my understanding is that $2 million or $3 million will come to us immediately for renovations to forestry facilities in Watson Lake and Dawson City. We were hoping that we could have that agreement signed so that that work could go on this winter.

That will be one of the first economic benefits to the territory - the infusion of another $2 million or $3 million into the economy this winter when we really need the jobs, and we hope it will not be delayed and that the transfer will go through shortly.

Once that occurs, and after we sit down and draw up the policy and regulations with the stakeholders as to how the forestry assets in the Yukon will be managed, there will be tremendous economic spin offs, especially for rural communities because, as I believe I also stated in that speech, there will be regional offices created in Dawson City and Watson Lake that will take in all of the Renewable Resource department, not only forestry.

Mr. Cable: I think the Government Leader is of the mind, and I am sure that is the case, because he has stated on many occasions, that a clear policy and regulatory framework for the mining industry is necessary to get the maximum benefit from that industry. I suppose that theory would apply to the forestry industry as well. Why has the government not moved the policy and regulatory framework aspect of the transfer forward, while waiting for the formal conclusion of the turnover?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek: First, we have to take over responsibility for it. Then we have to sit down with First Nations and other stakeholders in the Yukon to draft the proper regulatory and management regimes that will be in place, so that we can get the most economic benefit from our Yukon forestry resources. Putting those regulations in place will be an extensive process.

Question re: Health and Social Services, briefing for Opposition

Mr. Penikett: Following my appointment as Opposition health critic in August, I wrote to the Minister of Health requesting a briefing on health programs, and in late October the Minister replied saying that such a briefing would be contrary to parliamentary law. Can the Minister of Health tell this House of any jurisdiction in Canada, or even the Commonwealth, where this revolutionary interpretation of parliamentary law is in effect, or can the Minister at least refer me to any citation in Beauchesne, Bourinot, Patrick Michael, which would justify the denial of the request for reasonable information to an Opposition MLA - information that ought to be available to any citizen in the territory?

Speaker: Could the Minister of Health and Social Services be as brief as possible under our guidelines?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: The Opposition Member has neglected to mention the last part of the letter that said that if he would be more specific about the information that he requires we would do our best to get him that information in a timely manner.

Mr. Penikett: I was quite specific. I wanted a general briefing on the department’s programs. I would like to ask the Minister, since he is no doubt aware that a briefing took place on November 10, 1993, in the Legislative committee room for Members of the Opposition by officials of the Department of Finance on the budget, if he could advise us, as the Minister of Justice, whether this briefing was contrary to parliamentary law?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: The Member is talking about parliamentary law, and we are really talking about tradition. I think the Member, from time to time when he was on this side, took steps to ensure that MLAs would direct their questions of departments to Ministers and not directly to officials. I remember that being an iron-clad rule in the first couple of years of his reign. I always directed my questions to the appropriate Minister when I was in Opposition.

Mr. Penikett: Just because the Minister of Justice did not make it a law, or even a behaviour common to his colleagues - for the record, we did away with that rule when we were in government - the point is that staff from our office called the Department of Health and Social Services the other day and were told that any question from the Official Opposition, even questions of fact, would have to be directed to the Minister. I would therefore like to ask the Government Leader if this is government policy or just the former leader’s policy?

Hon. Mr. Ostashek: When the request came in, it was discussed in Cabinet. The Minister is quite right in the last paragraph of the letter, where he asks the Member to be more specific before addressing the issue.

Speaker: The time for Question Period has now lapsed. We will proceed to Orders of the Day.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

OPPOSITION PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS

MOTIONS OTHER THAN GOVERNMENT MOTIONS

Motion No. 48

Clerk: Motion No. 48, standing in the name of Mr. Cable.

Speaker: It has been moved by the Member for Riverside

THAT it is the opinion of this House that the Human Rights Commission should appear before this House, during the current session, to report to this House and advise on:

(1) The status of race relations in Yukon;

(2) What activities have been carried out by the Commission to foster improved race relations; and

(3) What the Members of this House, and community leaders, may do to improve race relations in the Yukon community.

Mr. Cable: There have been two incidents recently of a highly public nature that have had about them an air of racial tension. I speak specifically of public comments made by a municipal councillor and an incident involving supposed loitering at the Qwanlin Mall. Whatever the real facts, motivations and intentions are of the people involved, there has been a perception of racial discrimination. Both incidents have attracted a fair amount of comment in the media in the form of articles and letters to the editor.

As Members know, in the areas of racial tension and racial discrimination, perceptions have a habit of becoming realities.

I do not cite these two incidents to sit in judgment on the people involved, but simply to say that they reinforce my own sense of what is going on: that there has been a deterioration of race relations in the Yukon. Perhaps this should not be surprising. In times of economic downturn, when people become threatened and unsure, blaming minorities is a common result.

I think that it is interesting to note, in passing, a newspaper article of November 20, 1992, reporting on the appearance of the Director of the Human Rights Commission and the President of the Yukon College appearing before the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. I quote from that article; “Seeth Seethram and Margaret McCullough agree on three things: racism is flourishing in the Yukon, it is hard to pin down, and solutions are not readily apparent.”

I know that my own sense of what is going on is shared by others. I suggest to the Members that it is incumbent upon this House to collectively review this matter and take advice on what we collectively and individually can do to reduce racial tensions.

As the land claims work their way through the legislative process and into our everyday lives, it will be necessary to ensure that the information strategies on the agreements and the implementation plans are adequate to combat the fear of the unknown that may arise.

It would also be useful in the land claim context to discuss what other strategies could be evolved to provide some glue between the races.

There is any number of public forums that can be used for us to receive advice on race relations. One of the forums that I recommend to you, as Members of the House, is an appearance of the Human Rights Commission before this House.

One of the objects of the Human Rights Act, as set out in section 1(b) is to, and I quote, “discourage and eliminate discrimination.” The Human Rights Commission, in section 15, is specifically charged with the promotion of education and research designed to eliminate discrimination.

This House, on March 15, 1989, passed a resolution put forward by the Member for Riverdale South, and I quote, “That it is the opinion of this House that provisions should be made for an annual appearance by the Human Rights Commission before this House, in order that an opportunity is provided to Members of the Legislative Assembly to call the commission to account for the expenditure of public funds.”

This House has not taken the opportunity for some time to receive a report from the commission, in the general forum suggested in that resolution or otherwise.

I would say to the House that it would be useful at the present time to hear from the commission. The purpose of my motion is to carry through with a desire to have the commission report from time to time, but have that report and advice focus at this time on the issue of race relations.

The Commissioner has recently proclaimed December 10, 1993, to be International Human Rights Day in the Yukon. I am told the Human Rights Commission has elected to celebrate International Human Rights Day by honouring the Year of the Indigenous People. I would suggest to the Members that, if they are prepared to support my motion, consideration be given to sitting on that day to discuss the issue of race relations and, in so doing, celebrate International Human Rights Day, and join with the commission in honouring the Year of Indigenous People.

Hon. Mr. Phelps: I was somewhat surprised when this motion appeared on the Order Paper. As the Member has stated, the practice has been, when Opposition Members ask, and during the operation and maintenance budget debate, that the government is in the practice of asking the Human Rights Commission to come before this House as witnesses. There is ample precedent, and we are quite prepared to bring them forward. I would suggest to the honourable Member, though, that the more appropriate time would be to do it this spring when we are going through the operation and maintenance budget, unless the Member, for some reason, feels there is an extreme urgency to having it heard from at this time.

The motion is a curious one and, perhaps unintentionally, the Member seems to be indicating that, somehow or other, the Human Rights Commission has the power to direct community leaders and others on how they ought to improve race relations in the Yukon community. The whole issue of race relations and attitudes toward minority groups is something we are all responsible for. Certainly, in this government, there has been a very strong attempt to improve the position of aboriginal people in society and within the government. This is not something that has been started recently; it has been an ongoing practice for a good many years.

We are concerned with issues that are public that cause stress between Indian people and the other people in the Yukon. I think that it is very easy to overstate the issue, and I would remind the Member that this government is working on many fronts to try to improve the situation of the First Nations people in their communities and within the government.

I have no difficulty with supporting this motion. I would like to hear from the Member with respect to the timing, because it seems to me it is appropriate to have the commission appear once each year and the appropriate timing ought to be when its budget is being discussed.

So, with those few words, I will resume my place here.

Ms. Moorcroft: The Official Opposition will be supporting this motion. The New Democrats are proud to have legislated the Human Rights Act in 1987 in the Yukon and this, I must say, in the face of strong opposition from some of the Members who are now sitting opposite in government. I know my colleague, the Member for Whitehorse Centre, will be recollecting some of that debate so I will not dwell on it.

Yukon has a multi-cultural community. Our visible minority population includes Filipinos, Iraqis, Sri Lankans, Vietnamese, Koreans and people from all over the world. The Member for Ross River-Southern Lakes spoke of minorities, and what we must also recognize is that, although aboriginal people are now only 30 percent of the Yukon population, they have been living here for upward of 20,000 years while the Euro-Canadian civilization has only been here for approximately 160 years. The Gwich’in people, the Na-Cho Ny-ak Dun, the Ts’awlnjik Dan, Tlingit and all the First Nations have generations of history, culture and tradition behind them. They have their own languages and their own place names. I think we have a responsibility to understand and respect people of all races.

The key to respect is honesty, open communication and tolerance. All too often people take offence and we have to take that seriously. The Yukon Human Rights Commission can play a role in improving race relations; they already take a role in public education. We would be interested to hear from the Human Rights Commission on how they have done this.

There are also many ways Members of this House and community leaders can improve race relations in the Yukon community. In particular, in the Department of Education presently, the Council for Yukon Indians offers a teacher orientation at the beginning of the school year. This cross-cultural orientation makes teachers aware of different learning styles and of some of the history and tradition of our First Nations people. CYI has also developed curriculum in the history and cultural practices of our First Nations.

This week is children’s book week. Also, within the Department of Education, we can see that our elementary and secondary schools around the territory include works by and about people of all races.

Some of those recent publications would be the Secret of White Buffalo and How We Saw the World, by C.J. Taylor, A Coyote Columbus Story, by Thomas King, and publications of the Dene Cultural Institute, which include a booklet called Mom We Have Been Discovered.

Within the Public Service Commission, training includes cross-cultural training for public servants. This is certainly a valuable exercise for public servants. Another very valuable exercise in improving race relations is employment equity. We need to see a representative public service and I would like to encourage this government to work on improving race relations to give meaningful support to employment equity, not just verbal support of it.

Earlier today I asked a question about the Yukon native teacher education program. I think it is very important that we recognize the changing roles that the land claims legislation and the Education Act have to play in recognizing the rights of First Nations.

The Yukon native teacher education program exists because there is such an abysmal shortage of aboriginal graduates in our public school system and of aboriginal teachers. Right now, although 30 percent of the students are of First Nation ancestry, less than one percent of the teachers are of First Nations cultures. We can also support Yukon College programs and the Yukon Native Language Centre, which does a number of projects.

With that, I will say that we are supporting this motion: that the Human Rights Commission carries out public education to improve race relations, but that we as Members of the Legislature also have a responsibility to work on that in our daily lives and in our Legislature.

Hon. Mr. Fisher: I also support the motion from the Member for Riverside, though I was under the impression that the Human Rights Commission did appear more or less on an annual basis before this House.

I would like to remind the Member for Riverside and the last speaker that improvement of race relations should not be merely limited to First Nations people. We should also keep in mind a very large number of people in the Yukon who are neither white nor First Nations. It is important that we remember those other people when we are discussing this. With those few words, I would like to lend my support to the motion.

Ms. Commodore: As the Member for Mount Lorne said, we will be supporting this motion. As a bit of history, because there were some people not in the House when the Human Rights Act was introduced, the act at that time endorsed the NDP government’s commitment to the fundamental human rights guaranteed to all Canadians by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and ensured that those rights would help shape the Yukon’s future. It would give all individuals, as well as all minority groups, guaranteed protection for their rights and freedoms. It would ensure that every one of us would be free and equal by discouraging and eliminating discrimination.

The government at that time had the courage to address those fundamental issues such as minority rights and pay equity, openly discussed these issues in public forums and consulted with many interest groups.

History speaks for itself. We all know the problems we faced when introducing this legislation in the House. There was much opposition to it, not only by the 2,500 people who signed the petition opposing the legislation, but also from individuals who were in the Opposition at that time.

They spoke very strongly against a number of things that were included in the legislation. I am sure the Minister remembers that. The reasons I gave for introducing the bill, at that time, sound good, and it was, and still is, our hope that the things I spoke of would happen and that someday, but probably not in my lifetime, discrimination will end.

The Member for Lake Laberge mentioned that we should not only talk about protection for aboriginal people, but for people of all colour, and I agree. We are not saying that the Human Rights Act was introduced in this House to just protect aboriginal people. We are not so naive to think that that is exactly what it was for.

Many discriminations have taken place over the years, and I have spoken in the past about some of the things that aboriginal people had to endure. There were many aboriginal people across the country who lost their status because of many discriminatory sections of the Indian Act. It was only in 1985 that that wrong was righted and many aboriginal people, as well as their children, were able to regain their status.

What a lot of people do not know is that aboriginal people of Canada could not take part in the election process. They were not allowed to vote until 1960. Thirty-three years ago, you would not have seen myself, or the Member for Tatchun, nor the Member for Vuntut Gwich’in, standing in this House, because it was not allowed. I can remember my parents not being able to vote, and that tells you what the Canadian government was trying to do to the aboriginal people of the country.

I really believe that, when the Indian Act was changed, a lot of people were made aware of the discriminatory sections in the act. They did not really know before. For many reasons, aboriginal people were put down, not understanding that the personal problems were related to that very act.

I would like to say that many changes have taken place, but we all know that is not the case. The Member for Riverside talked about comments that were made by a municipal councillor, not only in regard to the grave sites in downtown Whitehorse, but also other comments about aboriginal people, as he was sitting in council.

I was so upset at some of his comments about graveyards that I wrote a letter to the Whitehorse Star, condemning him for the words that he said. There are some people here today who do not remember that this government took it upon themselves, without the consent of the Yukon’s aboriginal people, to advertise the aboriginal grave sites as tourist attractions, and there is much evidence that those grave sites were ravaged by tourists who felt free to go in there to open up some of the spirit houses and take out things that were put in there for the deceased.

I remember the day that we chose to let the Yukon public know that we did not appreciate what they were doing and organized a demonstration at the graveyard downtown. Everyone turned out - all of those individuals who were heading Indian organizations at that time to support the Indian Women’s Association that took it upon themselves to do that - and people supported us as they were driving by in their cars, but I also remember people who were giving us the finger and other people who were yelling racial remarks at us. This gave us a good indication of what people were actually saying.

I know for a fact that racism is rampant in the Yukon. I also know that it is rampant across Canada. It was evident in the last federal election, evidenced by remarks made by federal Reform Party candidates across Canada about immigrants. These remarks were also made by the Reform Party candidate for the Yukon; although it was not made public at that time, there was evidence that he had made remarks about a race of people. That is very scary, because we know it is real.

It brings me back to the 1970s when people came out of the closet and openly made remarks about aboriginal people. It appears that the same kind of thing is taking place again, where people feel free to express their views. There was a fellow on television the other night during the newscast making a racial remark about immigrants in Canada. I thought not only does he speak for himself, he speaks for thousands of other Canadians. The problem is something that we are all going to have to deal with, and I would like to be able to find out from the Human Rights Commission, when they appear before us, the extent of the problem, as they see it.

I know that they table a report in this House every year - an annual report - and it gives us information about how many things they have dealt with. I think that there is much information that is not included in that report. I think that it is important for us to hear the kind of things they have to say and the kinds of problems that they are facing, because the conversations I have with individuals are telling me that the problem is much greater than most of us believe.

I also hear from many aboriginal people and people of colour about treatment that they get from some of the businesses in town. We would like to believe that all of those people who provide a service to consumers are treating individuals properly, and we know that is not the case. We know that young aboriginal children are chased out of stores.

I recall standing in a store one time and my daughter saying that a women was staring at her. I told her to walk around so I could see how closely the woman was watching her. She never took her eyes off of my daughter who was wandering around the store. She was not the only person who was in the store. There were dozens of other people there but, for some reason, she kept her eye on my daughter. I watched it happen. That is a very bad feeling to have, and yet we wonder why aboriginal people are hostile about that kind of treatment.

Certainly the problem is there. It is a concern to me, as it is a concern to the Member who introduced this motion. I look forward to finding out if there is any way that we can work together to improve race relations in the Yukon. I think that there is, and I would like to be able to find out if there is some way to go beyond listening to the Human Rights Commission in this House during a period of time when they will be answering questions. I hope serious consideration will be given to looking at how we can at least ensure that the Human Rights Act is being dealt with as it should be, and that people are treated equally.

Mr. Abel:  I would like to say that there are no racial problems in Old Crow. Ours is a very open community and we know how to talk with one another. If it appears that there is a problem that might involve some sort of racism, and we recognize that by talking to one another, we can resolve the problem quickly.

I can tell you of a recent case that really demonstrated to everyone that there is no racial bias in many Yukon communities. That was a response by individuals, Yukon businesses and many groups to the recent tragedy we experienced in Old Crow. Many people from all cultures came together to help the Blake family in that community.

I therefore support the motion in that regard.

Mr. Joe: I want to speak to this motion today because I believe that we must treat one another with respect. It is something on which we need to work hard. We need to speak to one another as equals. We need to respect one another so that our lives may be better. If we do not treat one another with respect, we cannot go forward as a society.

If we do not have this kind of respect for one another, we will not respect ourselves. Everyone should treat one another as equals and not put people down.

Hon. Mr. Devries: I also rise to speak in support of this motion. As I have watched the Human Rights Commission evolve over the years, I feel that many of us, as individuals, have matured in our thinking about these issues. As well, the Human Rights Commission has matured considerably in the role that it plays.

Originally, when the Human Rights Commission first started, it tended to be more confrontational. As it has evolved, it plays more of a mediation role and now tries to bring people together. This is very important in this day and age.

I directed some individuals to the Human Rights Commission on one occasion. They still found it overly bureaucratic and very frustrating. I think that the Human Rights Commission should look at ways to be a little less bureaucratic and a little more understanding of the various issues. Perhaps I should talk to them about this particular instance one day.

The way I understand it, upon completion of the land claims process, the Indian Act will be phased out. I can see where the Human Rights Commission will be facing some new challenges when this takes place.

In closing, I have found the Member for Whitehorse Centre’s comments interesting. She mentioned working together. I would love to see that button that says, “Let’s stop racism” replaced by a button that says, “Let’s work together”.

Mr. Harding: I rise to support this motion. Not having been involved with the last Human Rights Act, and being a new Member of this Legislature, I would like to know a bit more about what the Human Rights Commission sees as its mandate and learn about how they feel things are progressing with regard to race relations in the Yukon.

Personally, I see a lot of things that disturb me. One of the things I am very proud of our party for is that we take a strong and sincere view of the promotion of good race relations and in breaking down barriers that have held our country back for some years in many areas. Squabbling between races, or people’s creed, colour, sexual preference, or whatever the case may be, very often takes away from some of the positive things we could be doing in this country.

I know that it exists strongly in my community. I deal with it quite a bit in talks with my constituents. A lot of them are good people, but some of them are quite ignorant about the issues. I try my best to educate them about the other side of the issue. I have been taught it, largely from dealing with the people I have gotten to know in my own party in the territory. They have certainly given me a much stronger social conscience.

Our party is often criticized for our views on employment equity or race relations, rights for people who do not have the same sexual preference that others do, and things like that. We are criticised for that, but I defend it, and I am proud of it, because I think that there are bigger and better things in the country we can be talking and even arguing about, that will have a more positive benefit for our community.

We have one problem close to home in Faro. We have had some problems, from time to time, in our history with some of the people in Ross River. They do harbour some resentment, and rightfully so, because they feel their lives have been changed forever as a result of the Faro mine. The people in Faro do not really have enough of an understanding of how that has happened. They have published an extensive report about that, which I have looked through. There are a lot of good things in there that people in Faro could use to try to understand some of the historical problems and feelings the First Nations people there have.

We have started to work together on a more positive relationship and I hope it will pay off. With respect to the community development projects that we had last year, there was a working partnership between Faro and Ross River that I think, although it had some hiccups, worked quite well. I know that there are other things underway that the community and the council are doing to work with the Dene Council and let them tell us more about how they feel about things and make sure that we, in Faro, know where they are coming from and know what views are. I am pretty proud of that.

I saw some things in the last federal election that quite frankly horrified me, and that makes this motion fairly timely. In the election campaign in the territory there were two of the candidates, in my mind, who ran messages in their election campaign that I feel were pointed at something - quite clearly pointed at something. To me it was the promotion of long-time feelings of racism. Whether it was the sign on the Reform billboards saying, “special status for none; equality for all”, or whether it was the ads the PC party ran about the NDP pandering to the special interests. I knew who they were talking about. They can say all they want about it not being the First Nations people or that it was not this or was not that.

I know exactly what they were trying to promote. Even in my community in the last election I had people saying that our party does too much for Indians. I do not agree; I do not think our party does any more than should be done for native people. According to a lot of First Nations people, we could do more.

They want some rights to self-determination and quite clearly they are entitled, even under the laws that we have created in this land. The Supreme Court has said that we have absolutely no control over certain rights that they have. That is what I try and tell people in my community when they talk about land claims. I will say to them that even the British system of laws that we have created have, at their highest level, said that native people have these legitimate claims.

There is nothing government can or should do to stop this process. We should actually promote it and recognize their interest. When I see things like I saw in the last election campaign - the promoting of these feelings and for political purposes the capturing of votes on the basis of racism - I think it is a horrendous trend in this territory. I hope that in the next election we do not see more of that.

Then I hear about the Reform Party’s policy on immigration. I have had people tell me that they are voting for the Reform Party because they believe that all the immigrants are the root of all evil in this country.

Most of us are immigrants in this country. Here before us were the First Nations people. We all came from somewhere. My family came from England. We were immigrants. To try and say that the root of all evil lies in immigration and the immigrants are coming in and doing negative things to the growth of this country is wrong. It is quite simply wrong; it is populist politics, not leadership. It is pandering ignorance votes, as far as I am concerned. People should not always be criticized for being ignorant, but if they refuse to consider other views, then one can justify criticism.

We certainly have, in our party, people who feel very strongly and have racist views, but one thing that scares me about the Reform Party is that I see so many people in that particular party joining that party for that very reason. They feel that party stands for anti-immigration, anti-land claims, special status for none, equality for all. I have had people in my own community come up to me and tell me that is what they might like about the Reform Party. I have also had people tell me they do not like that about the Reform Party.

When I read the comments after the election that took place at the Reform Party headquarters about “nail the faggot up to a tree and shoot him”, well, that kind of thing just scares the hell out of me because that is their reason for joining this party. When someone spoke in French - the candidate who won from our party - at a victory celebration, what did they say: “This is the Yukon; speak in English.” No understanding for Quebec’s culture. That is their reason for joining a party. When one has that kind of populist politics, it is dangerous.

In London, England this year, a party won a municipal election in the city that is incredibly ultra right wing, full of racism; their whole platform is a plank of racism, and they got populist support for it and now have a member sitting on the council who out and out espouses the supremacy of the white race and reduction of all others in the communities as the way to economic and social prosperity.

That is also seen in Germany with some of the ultra right wing skin-heads and some of the parties over there. I, for one, do not profess to be the most progressive of people in this territory by any means, but I would really hate a situation where that kind of thing continued to snowball just when I thought things were starting to get somewhat better here in this territory.

We saw, during the last Remembrance Day ceremony, that there were some people from - I am not sure if they were Sikhs, but I think they were from Pakistan or India or Northern Punjab - but they wear turbans, which is a religious ceremonial garb, and they were not allowed into the Legion to celebrate Remembrance Day. These men were veterans of the Second World War, decorated veterans, and should have been treated with respect, not be asked to take their turbans off. It is not a hat; it is a religious garment.

It is similar to a nun going into a Legion - would she take her habit off? Would she have to do that? No, she would not because it was part of her religious garb, just as a turban is.

When I hear things like that I become quite perturbed. I understand where some of the people from the Legion may be coming from, and it is their Legion, but I really felt bad for those people.

I think that if you want to talk about the issue of the RCMP and whether or not the RCMP officers should be required to wear hats or their turbans, surely to God we could work something out that reflects positively upon our views of their right to religious freedom, as well as our right to ceremonial uniform and also practical uniforms worn by the officers.

I will support this motion quite strongly.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: It is the luck of the draw, I guess, that I have to follow Trevor Winston Churchill Harding again, but I guess that is the way that it worked out.

I want to speak in favour of the motion that is before us today. The Human Rights Commission has come before the House in the past and it has been a useful exercise. I do not believe that we have had them come before us since the last election and we now have so many new legislators here. It will be very useful for us to hear from them about their activities. I am sure it will help us gain new insights into and understanding of the Yukon’s concerns and the concerns expressed to the Human Rights Commission.

I will be very interested to hear from the Human Rights Commission about the activities they have carried out to improve race relations and what they advise us, as community leaders, to do with respect to this motion.

I think that the Member for Old Crow said it well about working together in communication. I think it is important in race relations that we do talk to each other. From time to time we seem to be battling these things out in the press and I think that we all lose when that happens. We are far better off if these kinds of problems, concerns and issues can be dealt with face to face, rather than in a more open and public forum where sometimes only one side of the story is actually heard.

As stated in the Yukon government’s employment equity corporate report, First Nations people want the chance to bring their knowledge and skills to the workplace so that Yukoners can benefit from programs and services that reflect and respect Yukon-rich native and non-native cultures. I think that it is important that we realize the concerns that they have there.

There will be many opportunities that First Nations people will be able to capitalize on in the near future with land claims, and they will be involved in many ways, in many of our lives, with the economic opportunities that will come about as a result of that land claim.

In fact, I would suggest to most of us in this House that, with the settlement of the land claims, they will be taking the lead role in many of our communities. They will be taking the lead role in building strength and diversification in those communities.

We checked with the Human Rights Commission, and it is my understanding that they were not aware, until a few moments ago, that this motion would be discussed in the House here today. I am sure they would have appreciated some advance notice of this so that they could have had an opportunity to take part in, or listen to, the debate.

I would like to give the Members of the House some examples of cooperative programs that my departments are engaged in with First Nations. The issues of discrimination and race relations were not a priority concern for most First Nations or non-aboriginal women who were interviewed during the Women’s Directorate survey of Yukon women’s priorities and concerns. However, a number of First Nations women were asked about the quality of their lives, and they identified discrimination and racism as a problem they had faced. Several First Nations and non-aboriginal women also identified the need to improve communication between the races as an issue. I think the key word, again, is communication.

What are we doing in the Department of Education to address the question of race relations in the Yukon? We have a number of initiatives. The curriculum programming in our schools, particularly in social studies, focuses on fostering respect for others; harmony in relations in multi-culturalism. We have some specific projects, including the play “Rainbows”, which is a dramatic production developed in the school system, which toured Yukon schools, and centreed on the question of improving race relations. There is participation with the Human Rights Commission on an ongoing basis in activities to end discrimination, and joint participation with the Yukon Teachers Association on the Global Project. It is a grade six program promoting the understanding of people of different races.

In the department, we have specific programs developed to address the inequities in employment, including the employment equity program designed to promote fair representation including First Nations in the government. Of course, as has been mentioned by others here, we have the Yukon native teacher education program, which prepares First Nation candidates in Yukon schools, which is designed to remedy underepresentation of First Nations teachers in the schools. It is a program whose funding will continue. That was a question which came up in the House today, and I will say it again - it is a program that we intend to continue.

In the area of tourism and the arts, we have an extensive arts policy consultation, which is being carried out at the present time. It also includes visiting First Nation communities. In fact, a very prominent First Nations person is on that art consultation committee, which is touring Yukon communities.

We also have consultations with First Nations regarding the interpretive sign text, and topics including the direct production of text in contracts for this.

We have a recruitment emphasis on employment equity in the Department of Education. One of the individuals just hired in the Department of Tourism is a First Nations person.

First Nations cultural awareness is included in the tourism literature we put out. I can table these for the information of the House, although I do not have copies for everybody. We have Pathways to the Past, which is a lot of information about First Nations people. We have the new Yukon Visitors Guide, which has four pages devoted completely to First Nations people and some of their history and culture. We have a guide book on scientific research in the Yukon, which is prepared by the heritage branch and has a lot of input from First Nations people, as well as a book prepared on the Frenchman and Tatchun lakes people of long ago. It is more information for people on First Nations history and culture. I will leave those with the table officers. If Members wish to look at them or obtain copies, I would be more than happy to provide them.

We have also initiated a process of consultation on the living First Nation cultural centre which, when it comes about, will be a project that will greatly benefit First Nations and non-native people in the understanding of First Nations culture and history of the territory. It will serve many purposes. It will be an avenue for the First Nations to teach their young people about their history, stories, culture and past, and it will also allow them to showcase it to non-native people, to allow them to better understand what the history of the First Nations people is. It will also be an economic opportunity for First Nations people to teach their culture and heritage to Yukon people, as well as to gain some monetary reward for doing so. That is a project about which I have had preliminary discussions with the Council for Yukon Indians, and it is something they are very interested in and something we would like to proceed with in the coming years.

In cooperation with First Nations, the heritage branch has been facilitating an increased awareness in the nature and importance of First Nations culture through programming in oral history, archaeology, historic site development and resource management. For example, this year, there is the Rampart House oral history project that the Vuntut Gwich’in carried out at the Old Crow campus of Yukon College; a moosehide oral history project with the Dawson First Nation was carried out on the Dawson campus of Yukon College; the Fort Selkirk historic site development is an ongoing project.

This year, in the budget, Members will see that there is an increased amount of dollars on that particular line item to develop an interpretive plan so that by 1995-96, the interpretive signs and the type of work that has to be done on the interpretive plan will be complete - teaching people and letting people understand a little more about the history of the First Nations people in the Fort Selkirk area. That is a very positive initiative that is going to take place.

As well, our department is involved with work with First Nations on the Fish Lake archaeological project in 1993 with the Kwanlin Dun and preliminary work at Canyon City, which has already begun. As well, there is the book I talked about on the Frenchman and Tatchun lakes long-ago people booklet that has been produced.

We are also coordinating scientific research projects, consultation and involvement with First Nations through the Scientists and Explorers Act administration process. That is ongoing work. We have been involved in the promotion, preservation and application of Yukon First Nations geographical place names for landscape features. That is an ongoing project that we have a First Nations person and others working on in the Department of Tourism.

As well, we have a lecture series that the heritage branch staff carry out. This year, they took that particular lecture series on First Nations history to the Na Dli detention centre in Whitehorse for young offenders.

Obviously, the various departments in the government that I am responsible for are doing some work toward the promotion of better race relations in the territory. I would be more than happy to support the motion put forward by the Member for Riverside. It would be a very useful exercise to hear from the Human Rights Commission in the House. I look forward to it.

Mr. McDonald: I would like to begin by thanking those other Members in the House who have taken the time and trouble to express their support for this motion. Even though a motion such as this seems like a motherhood statement from the Legislature, it often is an important statement to many people who look to this Legislature for some leadership.

I am one of those people who feels that a dialogue between the Legislature and the Human Rights Commission might be a very good thing, even if the dialogue were to take place on a regular basis, and not simply when the Human Rights Commission comes forward to the Legislature looking for operating funds for its support. That certainly has been our experience with the Human Rights Commission in the past. To have the commission speak to legislators directly in a public forum, before the media and on the record, about some of the more difficult issues of our day - and particularly about race relations - may not be a bad idea at all, particularly if Members and the Human Rights Commission are encouraged to be honest about their feelings and are prepared to speak freely about problems they have faced in the past and about their own feelings about racial equality in this territory.

It is not at all curious for us to be asking the Human Rights Commission to come before the bar of the House. I do not think it is curious, either, that we should be asking them to come before their normal allotted time, which is some time in May.

Some Members have spoken about the need for all of us to bear some responsibility for improved race relations, and I could not agree with them more. Certainly, the Human Rights Commission has been charged with the responsibility to improve relations in the territory as part of its mandate, but there would be many in the public who would expect that, of all people in the territory to speak regularly and forcefully on behalf of improved relations, it ought to be this Legislature and the people here. This should not be considered what was once called by a previous Member for Klondike, “a wasteland Wednesday motion”. This should rank right along with our discussions about budgets, deficits, the actions of public servants, and that sort of thing. This should rank along with all those debates as being extremely important business for this Legislature.

I, for one, probably would not have minded if the motion had even been a little more strongly worded, to not only ask the Human Rights Commission to come along and explain what they are doing, but to also have a statement coming from this Legislature, and from Members and all who speak, that they are opposed to racism. It never hurts to say it once in a while, because we have all been exposed to even some of the milder forms of racism that are expressed in the workplace now and again, or on television, or even in community centres. Clearly, some of the actions that took place during the federal election campaign did make one wonder whether or not someone, or some people, felt it might make good politics, or at least convenient politics, to extract a little of that latent racism in people in order to garner a few votes. If that was the case, if that was the intention, it should be condemned, because that kind of behaviour is inappropriate.

We do not have to dance around this subject too much, but there are a number of things that have been happening recently, over the last few months, that would cause one to suggest that things are not all wonderful on the race relations front. We should not pretend, through the use of words, that the problem does not exist. We should be able to feel free to identify the problem and to actively work against it.

One of the things that has caused an improvement in race relations in this territory, this country, and around the world, has been that there have been principled people who have been prepared to speak out, even when it is unpopular. I know that is difficult for some politicians to do, because they are in the business of attracting votes and speaking - in a sense - to their bosses virtually every day of their working lives. It is important for them to say things to people, or to object to comments from people, even when they know they are not on the record, even though they know it may cause some friction between them and persons who are expressing, perhaps even thoughtlessly, comments that are designed to hurt others.

We in this Legislature have come a long, long way - even in the time that I have been here, from the early 1980s to the present - in terms of our tolerance of others, our expressions of support for First Nations people and for others in this territory who may not be a member of the most numerically populous ethnic group.

I did participate and witness some of the worst, meanest, nastiest debates that I have ever seen in my life right here in this chamber. It did not take place in the street, or in front of the liquor store - it took place right here, where we are standing right now, on some of the most important legislation that this territory has ever considered.

The Member for Watson Lake said, quite correctly, that we have matured since those days and I agree with him. A lot of us have matured and we are wiser for the debate in which we have participated. But, as I said, good things do not come without principled people taking a stand, and asking the Human Rights Commission to come and speak to us about race relations is perhaps a minimum activity that we, as a Legislature, should support.

I would like to say one thing about race relations that has been an important guiding principle in my life, from the time I started working in the Yukon, back in 1975, to the present. When I was working in the mines in Elsa, I can honestly say, even to the point that it embarrasses me, that some of the lunchroom conversation underground - out of sight; out of mind - was not very progressive. I am embarrassed, not because I feel that I encouraged that to happen or made comments myself, but because I did not resist those comments; I did not stand and try to resist them. I smiled along with everybody else and that is a condition I matured out of, so to speak, because I have come to realize how important it is not to simply play along with certain kinds of behaviour but to discover that good race relations is not only a matter of smiling, being nice, and simple tolerance, it is also showing the ability to move over a bit, to accept other people on their terms, to sometimes change some of the actions and ways of things that we have in order to make room for different things or actions that other cultures may want to pursue.

For an example, it may be that we have always played soccer with our heads bare, but if someone comes along with a turban and wants to play soccer, there is nothing wrong with that. We should not feel limited. We should not feel put upon. We should not feel belittled because someone else wants to express themselves differently - even in activities that count to us, activities that we consider to be an essential part of our culture and our way of doing Ithings. If we are not prepared to move over a bit and make some room, we have not learned a lot and the tensions that arise from time to time, certainly tensions that may arise as a result of economic stagnation that this country faces today, will always plague us and always cause us to wonder whether or not we are truly the good people on this earth that we believe Canadians to be.

I know others may want to speak about this, but there is some suggestion, now that the economy is a little flat, that people may be of the mind that we should be considering, for example, that jobs should be provided to what some people popularly refer to as Canadians first and foreigners next. I saw on the news the other day some fellow saying that he had no problem with East Indians coming in to Canada, as long as they did not take work from what he called us, meaning white people. He does not think he is racist. He does not think he is expressing racist sentiments. I think he is.

It does not necessarily mean that this person is an ogre, or a mean s.o.b., but it does mean that we should be reminding people who say those things that it is not right, it is not tolerant. We should be reminding ourselves, particularly those of us who are not First Nations people, where we came from, what our lineage is, what our roots are, and wondering whether or not our forefathers would even have had work, had the dominant culture resisted our participation in their economy when, for example, Europeans came to North America.

There are some tough questions we have to ask ourselves. I cannot express moral superiority, or anything of the kind, but I can say that my own views have been evolving over time, and I have come to the conclusion that it is hard work, and sometimes very unpleasant, to do the right thing when it comes to race relations. Because the 17 elected people in this Legislature are considered to be among the most important leaders in this territory - at least, some people in the electorate seem to think so - we should be prepared to do the tough things and express the appropriate sentiments.

I thank the Member for Riverside for raising the issue for us. I look forward to what I hope is an honest and free-flowing conversation with the human rights commissioners, or whomever attends for the Human Rights Commission, presuming they agree to come and have a dialogue with us.

I hope this is only a part of a continuing dialogue we have with each other, and with the public, about this important matter, so we do not sleepwalk our way through some major moments in Canadian history.

Mr. Millar: When I first learned that we were going to be talking about this motion today I really did not know what it was all about. I guess I grew up in a pretty sheltered life because I never had anything to do with racism. I did not even know, to be perfectly honest, that it existed.

I spent my early years in Dawson City. Both of my parents worked. I was raised a lot by a native lady. I played with her children a lot and her friends’ children. To this very day those people are some of the best friends that I have in the whole world, and they are native people.

As I continued on through my life I certainly became aware that there were tensions. I spent part of my time in the military back east, in London, Ontario. I think that is when I first really became aware that there was such a thing as racism in the world. There was a lot of racism between the French- and English-speaking people within my regiment and my company. It was a pretty mild thing. As the Member for McIntyre-Takhini was stating, I never really paid much attention to it. I carried on with my own life and I ended up back here.

A year ago, I was elected to this Legislature. I am certainly aware of what was going on with the First Nations and land claims, et cetera. I was probably one of those people who was going ultra right wing, as the Member for Faro said. I think that people have to ask themselves why that is happening; why are people turning ultra right wing? I certainly do not know the answer to that question.

I agree with the Member who brought this motion forward that there are some serious problems in the Yukon right now. I think they are much more serious now than when I was a youngster growing up in this territory. I see it in the schools a lot now and I do not think it is just the white folks. I think there is a prejudice on the other side too.

I am one of those people who does believe in equality. I do not think that one race should be above the other. I think that we should be able to walk down the streets together and participate in things; maybe there is poor communication out there. Maybe there is a perception that the pendulum has swung too far.

I do not know if it is true or not, but I would just like to tell you something that has happened to me in the last week. I sit down, when I go back to Dawson, and I talk to my friends that are in the First Nations to get a sense of how they feel about things like the land claims and other issues that are going on in the Yukon. I was talking to a friend last week about it and it was brought to my attention by a native fellow, who is starting to become involved in the land claims, that in Dawson there are two friends, like me and one of my native friends - we grew up together and did things together, and all of a sudden - well, not all of a sudden, these two people work in the mining fields in the summer and they both trap in the winter, spending a lot of time in the bush, one of them, the native fellow, can go up the Dempster and hunt right off the road. The other guy has to drive a mile off the road to be able to hunt. I have since been told by my colleagues from Ross River and from Vuntut Gwich’in that this is actually not true - the native fellow is not allowed to do that either. I did not know that, and I am sure that a lot of people in both the native and white communities throughout the territory do not know they are not allowed to do that, because it is something that is happening right now. That is causing friction between these two friends. They are having a hard time getting along. The one guy just does not understand why one can do it and the other cannot. It may be a miscommunication, but on that basis, what is going on here is extremely important.

I look forward to hearing what the Human Rights Commission has to say and participating in the process.

It has been mentioned here a couple of times today that people have to speak out and make tough choices. I could not agree with that more. One of the things that is happening - although I am not going to judge this - is that a political person on city council spoke out and said something. He was immediately branded a racist. I do not know if that particular individual is or not. In his view, he was just stating facts as he saw them. We have to be careful on both sides, and listen to what everyone has to say. We must look forward to a fair time down the road when everyone is treated equally. On that note, I think I will sit down.

Mr. Penikett: I do not plan to intervene in this debate for very long, because there is another important motion we want to discuss this afternoon. I would like to contribute a couple of thoughts to the debate about racism, race relations and the Human Rights Commission.

The Member for Klondike may well be right when he implies that the use of terms like “racism” or the tack that some position or point of view are examples of racism can be overused. I do not doubt that the useful effect of such criticism is dulled by excessive use. However, my own view is that it is a great mistake to believe that racism is a new phenomenon or even an old one. It has been with us in some form for a very long time. It is with us still.

When the Minister of Education, earlier on, jokingly described my friend, the Member for Faro, as Winston Churchill, I immediately hoped that he was referring to the grandfather and not the grandson, because the grandfather was not only the wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain but also a noted orator. I was concerned he was not thinking of the grandson, as he has recently become a pariah in British politics by attacking non-white immigration in that country. Then I realized Winston Churchill Sr., the grandfather, had at one point in his career described the legendary and visionary leader of the Indian independence movement, Mr. Ghandi, as a half-naked fakir.

While nobody at the time would have described it as a racist remark, it certainly was not a term of endearment.

The fact is that this question is not just a question of law; it is a question of our attitudes, our education, and our socialization. I heard that Zbignew Brezinski, an ex-Canadian who has achieved great prominence in the United States, said recently that television is now a more important socializer of children in North America than the family, schools and churches combined. There is plenty of evidence that kids are learning more attitudes from television than they are from the traditional providers of values.

It is not surprising that a lot of the feelings about race have been coloured by developments in the United States; not only the civil rights movement in the 1960s, but also the backlash against some of the achievements of the civil rights movement, whether it was employment equity or voter rights, registration drives or other such initiatives that have happened in the last few years.

It is interesting when you think of the United States, because as a result of slavery there are 12 million blacks in the United States. I also saw a statistic the other day that said there are one million people in United States jails, and half of them are black people.

Obviously, it would be called a racist attitude to describe that phenomena as a function or failure of the black race in the United States, although people point out that not only victims of crime are usually poor, but the perpetrators of crime are usually poor. We would probably find that very high Afro-American prison population a function of poverty and indeed many would argue that poverty is a function of racism.

I think that the Member for Klondike is quite right, that there has been, in the last few years, a rise of extremely reactionary right-wing movements everywhere in the western world. Perhaps we have been fortunate in seeing less of it in Canada than there is evident in the United States, Britain, France and Germany and most western European countries where the backlash has been against immigrants, particularly non-white immigrants, immigrants of a different religion or different colour.

While I know this is not at all Mr. Preston Manning’s stated intention, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Reform Party, for example, has attracted a lot of people who harbour similar kinds of sentiments. One would not have to sit very long in coffee shops in Whitehorse before one could hear Reform Party supporters talking, I hope carelessly and not seriously, about shooting yappy Indians or spiking environmentalists to trees.

The Member for Klondike is right in a sense that the pendulum has swung in quite a different direction and I think it is for the reasons that were articulated by the Member for McIntyre-Takhini; namely, that it is a function of a depressed economy and a certain kind of anxiety and anger felt by people who are feeling marginalized or seeing their position suffer as a result.

It is interesting that one of the things that are always said by defenders of the Reform Party is that the Reform Party and its advocates, it is claimed, are saying what people really think. What I understand is meant by that is that that party and other right-wing movements in the world are making respectful again the expression of certain sentiments about other groups in society, racial minorities or religious minorities, which, in recent years, as a result of legislation like the Human Rights Act of the Yukon and elsewhere, have become disreputable and unfashionable.

I remember, as a young person in this territory, it was quite common to hear words like “nigger” and “squaw” and “kike” and “wop” and so forth used in the workplace. It is far less common now and even though I have heard the Government Leader denounce what he regards as politically correct attitudes, the fact of the matter is that almost everybody who uses the term “politically correct” these days seems to not understand the origin of the term at all. I am grateful to that great British writer Orwell who always reminded people that the term “politically correct” was originally used to describe lies told by the Communist Party to describe things that obviously were not true but were necessary to advance the position of the Communist Party in some debate. That is the origin of the term.

The sense in which it is used now is to describe attitudes or manners of speech that try to be more sensitive, more civilized, in the form of address or description of other groups in the community, other races, people of a different gender, people of a different religion, and try to be more respectful. I would be the first to admit that the efforts to do that do not always produce elegant turns of phrase or particularly poetic forms of expression, but I am one of those who believes that it is a thoroughly useful and admirable thing for opinion leaders in society to try and use forms of address or terms to describe groups and peoples in the community, our friends and neighbours, that do not demean them but that are respectful.

The Member for Watson Lake talked about the Indian Act disappearing as the result of claims. I doubt if the Indian Act will disappear in the country. It will not have application here for the purposes of governing First Nations and that is, of course, a good thing that we all applaud. I think it is significant to realize, when you are mentioning land claims and land claims legislation and self-government laws, that part of what those measures achieve is an affirmation of the aboriginal identity - a positive statement affirming the rights and the distinct character of First Nations. It does no dishonour to Mr. Trudeau, who is currently around the country promoting his book, that he, at one point early in his time as Prime Minister, issued a white paper, which was essentially an assimilationist document. It essentially said that we should not respect the character and the distinctiveness of aboriginal people, but we should try and make them like everybody else. In other words, like the non-native majority. It said that if we fully assimilate them into Canadian society, their problems will disappear. Of course, so too would their identity, and that is what First Nations objected to. That Prime Minister and his Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, Mr. Chretien, now the Prime Minister of Canada, were persuaded of the wrongness of their proposal, and withdrew it. There were people, at that time, who made the point that to address a problem of a group in society by trying to render them indistinct by assimilating them was, in itself, arguably a racially inappropriate act.

One of the things that a few of the critics of the claims process that we have been going through here in the last few years have done is to argue that the process itself was ethnocentric in the sense that it was being done in the context of British parliamentary and legal tradition, rather than a synthesizing of the two traditions. That may be a fair comment.

The problem with suggesting that the difficulties in relationships between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people, such as those described by the Member for Klondike, have no element of racism in them is that, I suspect, it is wrong. Notwithstanding all that Members of this Legislature have done to try and improve the social and economic circumstances of the disadvantaged people in this community, the fact of the matter is that it is a pure, simple sociological fact that the majority of poor people in the Yukon Territory are still aboriginal people, and the majority of aboriginal people are still poor. That is inescapable, and I think that it is a mistake to ignore the element of race in it.

I was very fortunate, some months ago, to be invited by the Baha’i community in this territory to attend a speech given by Nathan Rutstien - I will have to check the spelling of his name. He was a gentleman who had originally been a broadcaster, and has now devoted his whole life to the cause of fighting racism. In the lecture he gave in this town, he made a couple of really important points, among them that racism is very definitely a human invention. It is not an accident. It was, at one time, a conscious policy. He defended that view by saying, in respect to the situation in the United States, that it was necessary, when people in that country were bringing large numbers of Africans on to the continent to work for nothing, as slaves, to deal with the fact that the community that was doing it was a fundamentally Christian community, and very devout community, in a time when the religious leaders were prominent in that community. He cited plenty of evidence, and quoted from sermons of religious leaders of that time, who were urging their flock of European immigrants to understand that black people were not humans, that they were animals, sub-humans, who therefore did not need to be treated as people, with respect. They did not have souls; they would not go to heaven. They were not entitled to the kind of treatment that people who were human ought to be.

That conscious policy to describe the African populace - the unwilling immigrants - as sub-human was a necessary concomitant of the whole slave trade and the continuation of the use of slaves, until the American Civil War. It was also interesting to hear this gentleman talk about how, while they were consciously provoked, most racism is, at heart, a set of irrational fears. He felt it is, in psychological terms, a sickness that affects everybody and to which, to some extent, everybody suffers from.

He also made an interesting point that some of the people who were most irrational about contact with people of other races, or communication with people of other races, failed to understand that the very air we breathe is filled with the cells of other human beings of other races and other religions, and we literally take it inside our bodies every day, without it obviously doing any harm to us. If you went back far enough, through enough generations, it would be possible to demonstrate, at least mathematically, that every single one of us is related to everybody else.

As disturbing a thought as that may be, we are, in that sense, all connected by blood. That is a very sensible and rational view, but it is quite clear that is not a view that has taken hold everywhere in the world. We only have to look at the murder of Baha’is in Iran, the continuing religious carnage in places like Ireland or the unbelievable genocidal activities of some people in the former Yugoslavia to realize how relatively fortunate we are in this part of the world. However, as the Liberal leader said, we are not immune to some of the nastier passions that beset people.

For all the discussions of this type of issue that are taking place around the dinner table in my household, it is wonderful to see how children see these things and interpret them. I remember some years ago spending some time with one of my daughters in her class at school. In the middle of showing me something on the computer that she was doing, she turned around and suddenly asked me, “Daddy, am I half-Indian?” I said, “Well, yes, you are.” Then she looked me straight in the face and asked, “Daddy, are you half-Indian too?” It suddenly was clear to me that she did not understand what she had been hearing from other people at all. She did not know what it meant.

Children, at least when they are very young, are remarkably immune to some of these more negative attitudes. It is only as they grow older and are put down by other people and as people are colonized - and I mean that in the sense that they are always being told that their way of doing things, their beliefs or their group is inferior in some way - do they start to get victimized by it.

One of the things that is so disturbing about the influence of television and its socialization powers is that it is very difficult - other than trying to be selective about what kids watch, which is almost impossible - to make sure that young people see positive images of not only their own race, but also of others. There is very definitely a role for parents, schools and governments in this. There is a role for human rights institutions and human rights commissions, such as ours. However, as I said at the beginning, I doubt that legislation is the whole story, because we are talking about changes in attitudes, which take a long time to change.

As the Member for McIntyre-Takhini said, we can, as individuals, do things that are worth doing even though they are difficult, such as standing up to bigots, not laughing at racist jokes and trying to resolve misinformation and misunderstandings, such as was passed on to us by the Member for Klondike about his friend.

All of us - and this is a lesson to us as legislators are well - can play a role in trying our best to understand other points of view even if we do not agree with them. At least if we understand them there is some prospect that we will be less than violent in our responses to those different points of view.

In the end, someone once said that we should all remember that there is nothing in the world so alike as two human beings. I suppose if everybody would keep that in mind we would be a lot further ahead.

I would commend the Member for Riverside in bringing forward this motion and providing this opportunity for all of us to enter into a brief discussion, and I would look forward to hearing from the Human Rights Commission at a seasonable time to hear what they have to say, and learning about what they would have us do in response to this continuing problem.

Hon. Mr. Ostashek: I rise today in support of this motion in principle. I believe the motion is a good one and that the Human Rights Commissioner should appear before this Legislature, as has happened in the past.

I believe that we, as legislators, should do all that we can to promote and develop race relations in the Yukon. It is essential that we do that so that we can have a harmonious relationship that is so essential to the social, cultural, and economic health of the Yukon.

This government is committed to improving race relations in the Yukon and I believe the depth of that commitment is evidenced by our four-year plan, and the objectives in that plan, mainly: to meet the needs of the First Nations people, settlement of land claims, the implementation of self-government, promoting a better understanding between all Yukoners and to respect Yukon traditions and values, including the traditions of tolerance and protection of the rights of others.

This government is strongly committed to achieving true, responsible government that is open and accountable to, and representative of, all Yukoners.

The opportunity for the House to be advised on the activities of the Human Rights Commission is in keeping with the principle of open and accountable government and being responsible to the Yukon people that we serve.

As I said, although I support the motion in principle, I agree with my colleague, the Minister of Justice, that the commissioner should be asked to present this information when called before the House to review the expenditures.

The timing would allow for a full and comprehensive reporting of their activities in relation to the commission’s overall expenditures.

I also agree with the Minister that although it is important to hear from the Human Rights Commission about its activities respecting race relations, it is also important to keep in mind that there are a number of other activities and initiatives that the Yukon government is involved in that impact on race relations in the territory.

Since taking office, this government’s top priority has been to work toward the settlement of the Yukon land claims and the self-government agreements with Yukon First Nations. The umbrella final agreement, as Members in this House are aware, recognizes, encourages and protects the cultural distinctiveness and social well-being of Yukon Indian people.

Settlement of the land claims will provide certainty for all Yukoners and I believe that will go a long way to improve race relations in the Yukon.

In addition to our efforts in respect to land claims, the Yukon government continues to promote better race relations in a number of ways, such as making appointments to government boards and agencies that are representative of the population of the Yukon as a whole. Some Members of the Opposition may not agree with that statement, but it is a fact.

We are making our best effort to achieve a representative public service. Employment equity principles have been integrated into training courses on race relations and First Nations. We are reviewing all legislation and policies of the government to ensure that they comply with human rights legislation by working with the race relations council at other agencies, in order to provide cross-cultural training to the public service employees and to ensure Yukon government programs and services are sensitive to the needs and cultural values of the Yukon Indian people.

The Yukon government is unquestionably committed to the promotion and development of positive race relations in the territory. I believe, as part of that commitment and in accordance with the principles of openness and accountability, it would be beneficial to have the Human Rights Commissioner appear before this House to answer questions put forward by the Members at the spring sitting when the budgets are tabled. I understand that the commissioner has been invited here several times before and I do not know why that tradition should not continue.

In closing, I commend the Member for bringing this motion forward so that we could discuss it in this forum today, to restate our commitment to good race relations in the Yukon.

Speaker: The Member will close debate if he now speaks. Does any other Member wish to be heard?

Mr. Cable: I have just a few comments. The Minister of Justice indicated that he was not quite sure what the motion was intending to do, if I recollect his comments correctly, and he read the motion as suggesting that the Human Rights Commission come here and direct us to do certain things. Of course, that is not the case. I would suggest that is not how one would read the motion.

Obviously, the Human Rights Commission, a creature of this House, is not going to come here and direct us in any direction. The motion clearly sets out that the Human Rights Commission is being asked to report and provide advice to us - advice as to whether, in the view of the Human Rights Commission, there is a problem and, if so, how we might go about solving it; and whether the information I am picking up on the street and what other Members are picking up on the street is accurate - whether there is an increase in racial tension. That is a first order of business, and then advise us on what the commission itself is doing to improve race relations. This is one of its mandated roles.

I would have to say to the Government Leader and to the Minister of Justice that I do not think it is appropriate to deal with this subject in the midst of the lightning and storm of the budget debate. The whole point of the exercise would get lost in the midst of the budget debate. This is not a dollar and cents issue. It is a people issue and it is an issue that I would suggest that Members of this House should be prepared to devote a morning or an afternoon to, or a morning and an afternoon, to hear what the people who are on the front lines dealing with this issue have to say. As the Member for Whitehorse Centre suggested, or alluded to, there may be other people we want to hear at the same time.

I am under no illusion that the Members of this House are going to change human nature overnight, or perhaps at all, but I think we have a role in forming attitudes. If we make a statement, as the Member for McIntyre-Takhini has suggested, that statement, I think, will be listened to. It is easy to coast and let a problem grow. We have many examples in this century where problems have been allowed to grow because good people - if there are good and bad people - have sat back and have done nothing about it. They have remained silent. This is an issue where, if we as, in some people’s view, some leaders of the community, sit back and do nothing and do not talk about the problem, then the problem will get worse. I am of the view that talking about a problem will, on many occasions, reduce the intensity of the problem or make it go away.

The reason I suggested Human Rights Day is that it would have the collateral benefit of giving the Human Rights Commission a podium through which to reach the public, through the media coming here and talking to us. They have had some budgetary cuts and advertising problems, and this would assist them in getting their message out and, in the long run, this House’s message out on race relations and other associated objects of the Human Rights Commission.

My suggestion to the Minister of Justice is that he get together with the Human Rights Commission, talk to them, and determine whether they are in a position or are willing to come to this House - not in the midst of the budget debate, but at some particular time that suits their convenience and after they have had sufficient time to prepare for it, and find out whether they are in agreement with talking to and advising this House. If that takes place, this House and the Human Rights Commission will be giving a clear signal to the Yukon population that we believe in harmonious race relations, that we are promoting them, and that we see a problem that should be resolved.

Some Hon. Members: Agreed.

Speaker: I believe the ayes have it.

Motion No. 48 agreed to

Motion No. 50

Clerk: Motion No. 50, standing in the name of Mr. Penikett.

Speaker: It has been moved by the Leader of the Official Opposition

THAT it is the opinion of this House that the profit guaranteed by the Public Utilities Board and Cabinet for both Yukon Electrical Co. Ltd. and the Yukon Energy Corporation should be set at no more than five percent for the duration of the current recession so as to reduce the burden of rising electrical costs for both businesses and the residential consumers.

Mr. Penikett: Yesterday, as we were concluding the debate at second reading on the capital budget, the Government Leader invited Members of the House to come forward with positive proposals and seemed to promise that any positive proposals put by Members would be responded to positively. I sincerely hope that will be the case today.

Yukon taxpayers are saying very loudly and clearly that scheduled rate hikes in electricity are simply too much to bear on top of the tax increases, which they have already experienced this year, and especially when the territory is in a very painful recession.

Part of the evidence for that concern is the petition organized and gathered by Leah Ziegler, which obtained, to this date, more than 4,000 signatures protesting the rate hikes. I want to say at this time that, since the organization of the petition has been wrongly attributed to me, the work that went into it has been entirely Ms. Ziegler’s. In bringing it to this House, I was simply the messenger for the people who signed it.

It is important to review, at the outset, the situation in respect to power rates, because a lot of misinformation and confusing claims have been put forward. Even the Government Leader, last night, was not immune to that.

Some of the government’s friends are at it again today and I may have more to say about that later.

The facts are that the Yukon Energy Corporation and the Yukon Electrical Corporation, in a joint submission, originally asked for a rate of return in their application to the Yukon Public Utilities Board that would have seen consumers’ power bills rise by close to 60 percent - I think the number is more precisely 58 percent.

The Yukon Public Utilities Board, in dealing with this application, slashed that request so that the power bills would go up by approximately 30 percent, still a very large price increase.

The territorial government, the Cabinet, intervened with a proposed rate relief program that will use public funds - or taxpayers’ money - and will allow power bills to climb by something between 12 and 16 percent. According to the information in our power bills, I think the number used there is 15 percent.

Yukon Electrical Company, I gather, is now telling consumers who may have the misfortune to live in an electrically heated house that using 2000 kilowatt hours will cost over $200 to heat for one month, this December, and that, typically, many power bills are in the $100 to $200 range. Many, many citizens are complaining that on top of the tax increases that the government recently imposed, this is too much to bear, especially in times of recession.

Our submission is really very simple. It is that the Yukon Energy Corporation - the public company - and Yukon Electrical Company Limited - a private company - should share in the pain experienced by the general public in this current recession. They should share the pain along with the rest of us: individuals, businesses and municipalities.

In talking to citizens about this issue over the last little while, I have been reminded that not everyone understands the role played by the different utilities.

Some people are not even clear about the difference between Yukon Energy C