2011 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 39th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 25, Number 10

[ Page 8163 ]

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2011

The House met at 1:34 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Hon. M. de Jong: Members may know that today is Health Care Assistant Day in British Columbia, a day when we honour the more than 37,000 health care assistants that work in a variety of capacities across the province. They go by many names. They are community health workers, residential care aides, home support workers, long-term-care aides, continuing-care assistants, personal care aides. They work in a variety of settings: in hospitals, in residential care facilities, homes and community care facilities. We're very fortunate that we have a number of them here in the gallery today.

[1335]

I had the opportunity to meet with them earlier, and I know that the House will join with me in welcoming Carolyn Unsworth, a care aide worker from Queen's Park Care Centre in New Westminster; Rita Rossi, a care aide worker also from Queen's Park Care Centre in New West; Georgina Moseley, a care aide worker from Glacier View Lodge in Courtenay; Graham Bunch, a care aide worker from Arrowsmith Lodge in Parksville; and his wife, Carol Bunch, a community health worker from Parksville and District Home Support.

They and their colleagues do incredible work. They are, as I was reminded in our meeting today, those people who have perhaps the most direct personal contact with people who are in need of care in our health care system.

I know that all members of the House will want to make them feel welcome and honour their 37,000 colleagues on this day when we are honouring health care assistants in British Columbia.

S. Fraser: I'd like to join the Minister of Health in welcoming Carol and Graham Bunch, constituents of mine and friends of mine from just north of Qualicum Beach. Would you please help me make them feel very welcome.

Tributes

GEORGE SCOTT WALLACE

C. Hansen: I rise in the House today to mark the passing of a former member of the Legislative Assembly who made such a tremendous contribution to British Columbia political history and British Columbia generally, and that is Dr. George Scott Wallace.

Dr. Wallace came to Canada in 1957. He was first elected to this chamber in the 1969 general election, and in 1971 he joined the British Columbia Progressive Conservative Party and served as its leader through the following two elections.

I got to know Dr. Wallace when I was, at the time, working in the legislative buildings as an assistant to then MLA Gordon Gibson, who was, of course, the leader of the B.C. Liberal Party at the time.

Our offices actually were right beside each other in what is currently the Douglas Fir Room. As two one-member caucuses in this chamber, we had a lot of opportunity to work together, and I got to know Dr. Wallace as a true gentleman and somebody who really exemplified what an honourable member is in this chamber.

He served in this chamber until December 31, 1977, at which time he returned to his general practice. He continued, even after leaving active politics, to be an advocate for special causes in the community and in British Columbia. British Columbia is indeed a better place because of Dr. Scott Wallace.

C. James: I just want to add, on behalf of the opposition, our sympathies to the family. What a huge loss it will be to not have Scott Wallace around our community. He really was, as the previous member has said, someone who exemplified public service.

My grandparents, although not Conservatives, in fact voted for Scott Wallace during the time I grew up because of his work in the community and because of the fact that he represented the community as a member should and was an extraordinary individual. He was also well known as a doctor in this community — not simply as a politician but as someone who served the community and served individuals.

I thought the most touching piece, for those members who have not taken a look at the obituary, was the fact that he took his children with him to visit patients on the weekend because he felt it was an important link between his family work and his community work. I think that says everything about Mr. Wallace. I pass along, on behalf of the opposition as well, our thoughts to his family and the loss for our community.

Introductions by Members

M. Farnworth: I'd like to join with my colleague the Minister of Health in recognizing the members of the HEU and health care workers here in the gallery today. They are Mike Old, the communications director with the HEU, Graham Bunch, Rita Rossi, Carolyn Unsworth, Georgina Moseley and Carol Bunch. They are here to observe this chamber and our deliberations and to have meetings with government and the opposition. We'd ask the House to make them all most welcome.

[1340]
[ Page 8164 ]

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to introduce a friend who has joined us today in the gallery, Len Friesen, a longtime businessman in British Columbia and the owner of Friesen Men's Wear for many years and known to us, also, as the founding member of the Community Business and Professionals Association, a group of small business people who always wanted to express their views and their perspective on how we grow British Columbia. I hope people will make Len welcome.

N. Simons: I'd ask the House to join me in welcoming, from the Sunshine Coast, two of my constituents, Arthur and Barbara Whistler.

G. Hogg: I'm delighted to hear that my grade 9 teacher, Mr. Friesen, is in the gallery today, and a former neighbour and friend. So I'd like to add my welcome to Mr. Friesen, who gave me ever so many detentions, none of which were deserved.

B. Penner: I rise to provide an update to the Legislature on an admittedly personal matter. My wife, Daris, informs me that yesterday our almost eight-month-old baby girl uttered her first words. Apparently, Fintry yesterday said "dada" repeatedly during the morning, probably wondering why her dada wasn't there but was here in Victoria. Today the milestones continue, and she took her first steps. I ask the House to send their thoughts to Fintry and congratulate her on that important milestone.

K. Krueger: We have two guests who are managers with Domtar, who are a major employer in Kamloops. It's the second-largest pulp mill in North America and a great corporate citizen of the city. They made a presentation to caucus members today.

They have, actually, two pulp mills in one. The major one uses chips in the traditional way; the other one uses sawdust and does really creative things. They make concrete siding for houses that's impregnated with sawdust. You can cut it with woodcutting tools, and it's guaranteed for 50 years.

They also make pearls which look an awful lot like the ones I haggled over in the silk market in Beijing and bought, not knowing they might be sawdust and not have come from oysters at all. But they're very beautiful, and hopefully, the people I gave them to will never know the difference.

I'd like to introduce and ask the House to welcome Bonny Skene and Carol Lapointe. Carol just moved to Kamloops from Quebec to manage the Domtar mill. Thank you, everyone.

L. Reid: I, too, would like to welcome a new little person, Addison Gayle Hall, born last night, 5 pounds 11 ounces, the newest addition to our family. I'd ask the House to please make her welcome.

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

Bill 9 — NATURAL RESOURCE
COMPLIANCE ACT

Hon. S. Thomson presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Natural Resource Compliance Act.

Hon. S. Thomson: I move that the Natural Resource Compliance Act be introduced and read for the first time.

Motion approved.

Hon. S. Thomson: I'm pleased to introduce the Natural Resource Compliance Act. The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations was created to provide a streamlined, integrated approach to land-based management.

This act builds on that vision by integrating compliance and enforcement provisions and processes across natural resource sectors. It will establish one title, natural resource officer, for all compliance and enforcement staff responsible for enforcement of the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. This will support more efficient on-the-ground enforcement of legislation under the ministry's broad mandate, including the Wildfire Act, Wildlife Act, Forest Act, Forest and Range Practices Act, Land Act and Water Act.

I move that the Natural Resource Compliance Act be placed on the orders of the day for second reading in the next sitting after today.

Bill 9, Natural Resource Compliance Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

HEALTH CARE ASSISTANT DAY

K. Conroy: Today, October 18, has been proclaimed Health Care Assistant Day in B.C. Care aides, community health workers and other front-line caregivers are being recognized today for the work they do looking after British Columbians in long-term and acute care facilities and in our communities.

[1345]

Health care assistant is the new name used to describe several different positions, including community health workers, residential care aides, home support workers, long-term-care aides, home health aides, continuing-care assistants and personal care aides.
[ Page 8165 ]

There are over 37,000 people who work in this sector, where they deliver services and programs to seniors and people with disabilities that enable them to live independently in their homes. They're supported in a variety of facilities, from assisted living to extended care to hospitals.

This recognition is the result of the collaborative efforts of the stakeholders on the Seniors Care Human Resource Sector Committee, who recommended that an appreciation day be developed for seniors care workers. The committee represents a number of partners, including the B.C. Care Providers Association; health care employees union; B.C. Government Employees Union; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation; Vancouver Community College; and Health Employers Association of B.C.

Each of the organizations has made a commitment to celebrate today through a variety of measures, including public awareness, advertising, on-site celebrations and professional development. To mark Health Care Assistant Day, the project committee is also supporting two innovative scheduling initiatives to increase the retention of health care assistants and reduce staff turnover.

I know, on a personal level, our family is indebted to the people who work in the facility where my father-in-law now lives. He's quite a character at 86 — usually jovial; sometimes cranky; quick with retort, often with colourful language or sometimes inappropriate comments. But the people who work with him are always patient, smiling and take care of him so very well.

To all health care assistants, on behalf of the many families of lives you touch today and every day, thank you for what you do.

CHINESE COMMUNITY LIBRARY

R. Lee: This is Canadian Library Month, a time to raise awareness of the valuable service that libraries provide and their importance in our lives as Canadians. It's my pleasure today to speak about a library which has played a very important role in the Chinese-Canadian community for decades now.

The Chinese Community Library Services Association held its 39th annual fundraising dinner this past weekend, and I had the pleasure of attending. It was great to meet the many volunteers who make the community library such an important social hub which provides so much to their community. The community library offers children's writing contests, children's storytelling contests, health seminars, Chinese chess competitions, computer training and much more.

I've had the pleasure to attend many of these contest award ceremonies. The community library is committed to preserving and promoting Chinese language, culture and heritage. This community library also provides a sense of belonging, especially for seniors around Metro Vancouver who can read Chinese.

Yes, this library also lends books. While the library is very special to the Chinese-Canadian community, it's also very similar to the thousands of libraries across B.C. and across Canada.

Big or small, our libraries are about much more than just lending books. Our libraries are also places we can go to learn and to make connections with others in our communities. This is why I want to mark Canadian Library Month by saying thank you. Thank you to all the volunteers who make our libraries, such as the Chinese Community Library, such special places.

SHILOH–SIXTH AVENUE UNITED CHURCH
IN NEW WESTMINSTER

D. Black: This Saturday, October 22, I am looking forward to attending a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Shiloh–Sixth Avenue United Church in New Westminster. The congregation at Sixth Avenue United worships in a beautiful heritage building that was originally constructed in 1911. The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1911, and the church opened on Sunday, January 28, 1912.

The members of Shiloh practise a progressive theology that invites all people to participate, regardless of race, culture, sexual orientation, class or ability.

Shiloh demonstrates what the social gospel means in practice. Vitally important community programs are carried out by the staff and volunteers there. The Hospitality Project provides much-needed resources which assist 3,000 people a month to access family and seniors programs and immigrant resources.

An advocate there helps people negotiate more complex issues when they need specialized help with landlord-tenant legislation, health care, housing, disability and income assistance.

[1350]

Two days a week the New Westminster Food Bank is open at the church, providing food to an ever-increasing number of clients. On these days the Hospitality Project drop-in services are expanded to include a community kitchen, a children's drop-in, tutoring, flu immunization clinics and free clothing. Because of their vision of inclusion and caring, the congregation has made significant contributions to the quality of life in New Westminster.

On behalf of all our citizens, I congratulate them on achieving their 100th anniversary, and I thank them for their valuable service to our community. May their caring ministry continue for many more years in the future.

ALPHA INTERDENOMINATIONAL COURSE

M. Dalton: Most of us have seen it perhaps on the side of a bus or on a bumper sticker or on TV — an invitation to attend Alpha. But what is Alpha?
[ Page 8166 ]

Alpha is a program that gives people the opportunity to explore the meaning of life and investigate their own spirituality in a safe place. Alpha provides a free forum where people can meet to discuss God, the afterlife and the teachings of Christ. Participants take a ten-week course that usually meets over coffee or dinner. This allows individuals to build lasting friendships while seeking to help each other find the answers they seek. Though the course is an examination of different aspects of the Christian faith, people from all backgrounds and religions are welcome to attend. Many who belong to different faiths often do.

Alpha is interdenominational and is offered in a hundred different languages. It was founded over 20 years ago by Nicky Gumbel at the Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London, England. It has spread like wildfire as people are drawn to the relaxed and meaningful manner it is presented in.

This fall in every part of B.C. there are 180 Alpha courses being held in churches, prisons, pubs and workplaces. Some 400,000 Canadians and 16 million people from over 160 countries have taken it. Alpha Canada is based out of Richmond. Shaila Visser is a national director, and Stephen Mulder heads up the B.C. ministry. In Maple Ridge, Roger and Heather Drew have enthusiastically spearheaded Alpha in the community for over a decade.

For those who are curious or struggling with questions and the notion that there must be something more to life, check out Alpha's website — www.AlphaCanada.org — to find a course near you. It could be the start of a new, fulfilling journey.

LITTLE HOUSE SOCIETY IN DELTA

V. Huntington: Addiction and substance abuse is a societal challenge with tragic consequences that affect all of us. Today I rise to recognize the South Delta Little House Society. This society is a group of concerned citizens dedicated to advancing education related to alcohol and drug use, abuse and addiction, and abstinence-based recovery from addiction.

For 27 years the Little House Society maintained a tiny house as a meeting place for addiction and related recovery groups. Sadly, in 2009 that little house was destroyed by fire. Determined to rebuild, the society set about raising the $250,000 needed to complete a modern multipurpose facility for recovery and other community groups that needed room for training, meetings and therapeutic uses.

The community response has been nothing short of phenomenal. In less than eight months and with no corporate or provincial support, the Little House Society raised all the money required. Over 80 community businesses, more than 100 individuals and families, six local service clubs and a number of faith-based groups stepped forward to contribute.

Rebuilding the little house is just the first step. With construction nearing completion and buoyed by outstanding community support, the society is creating educational strategies that will increase the awareness and ability of any community to deal with the challenges of substance abuse and addiction.

The goal is to share what the society is doing in Delta with other communities globally. I ask this House to join me in commemorating the Little House volunteers for their commitment to making a difference when it comes to an issue which causes our society such pain, heartbreak and loss.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Surrey–White Rock.

G. Hogg: Well, thank you, kind Speaker.

Interjections.

G. Hogg: I trust that's not eating up my time, wonderful Speaker. [Laughter.]

[1355]

FOSTER FAMILY MONTH

G. Hogg: When people think of heroes, their minds often wander to sports arenas or boardrooms or perhaps, for a very few, even to legislatures.

Interjections.

G. Hogg: There are the very few.

But, kind Speaker, our real heroes are found providing daily caring, compassion and support to people across this province. They embody the values, spirit and substance of a caring society. And 3,300 of them are foster families, caring for 5,900 children and youth. They take on one of the most important roles in our society.

This month marks the 21st year of our province, of us, celebrating Foster Family Month. As a former foster parent I was rewarded with some of the most wonderful and some of the most challenging experiences of my life. There is always a need for foster families, for families with a desire to make a positive difference in a child's life.

I ask this House — indeed, I ask all British Columbians — to celebrate Foster Family Month, to recognize and to celebrate the incredible work foster families do in our communities each and every day of the year. They are real heroes.

Oral Questions

GROUP HOME CLOSINGS AND
COMMUNITY LIVING SERVICES REVIEW

A. Dix: For the last 12 months four successive Liberal ministers responsible for CLBC — the Government House Leader; the member for Kamloops–South
[ Page 8167 ]
Thompson; the new minister of state, the member for Burnaby-Lougheed; and the current minister — have stated repeatedly that no one is moved from group homes without their consent. This view has been contradicted over that time by the B.C. Association for Community Living; by Moms on the Move; by opposition MLAs, of course; and by family after family who provided direct evidence to the contrary.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Forests, the member for Abbotsford-Mission, said yesterday: "In this House we heard the previous minister and we also heard the previous CEO of CLBC say that no one gets moved without it being their choice, without them agreeing. But we know that that hasn't been what has been happening."

Does the minister agree now with the member for Abbotsford-Mission?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Every minister that has held this file — including myself and, in fact, including the Premier — has acknowledged that there are challenges. Anytime we're dealing with issues in this ministry, we're certainly dealing with things that are sensitive and emotional because we are dealing with people that are vulnerable.

We can all agree that we need real solutions for these individuals and for the system that provides those supports to those individuals. That's why, as the members opposite will already know, all the Crown corporations of government will be reviewed. Right now the deputies from Finance, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Children and Families and my own ministry are working together to look at solutions for bridging gaps that exist, which I think is incredibly important.

I think we can all agree that we want to be providing individuals with the support that they need, and certainly, that is what I am focused on ensuring.

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition has a supplemental.

A. Dix: This is a specific question that has been specifically answered by members of the government side. It tells us, surely, why we need an independent review. Time after time government ministers have been asked this question about people being moved without their consent, and they've repeatedly said that wasn't happening.

Now we know, because we brought evidence to this House, that it has been happening. The member for Abbotsford-Mission, who sat at the cabinet table during some of this time as a parliamentary secretary in this House, is saying that it's happening. So if we're going to have a review, if we're going to understand it, this is why it has to be independent. The government has given us spin for a year, and people have been struggling and suffering with the consequences of the government's policies.

[1400]

Will the minister confirm today that there is a change in the government position, that they understand the facts now, the facts as related by the member for Abbotsford-Mission? Will she agree that, in fact, it has been government policy for a year to move people, whether they give their full consent or not?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I think what we certainly can all agree on is that there's a great deal of passion related to the issues relating to individuals that receive services from Community Living British Columbia. We all care about the people that are receiving services from Community Living.

Again, I have acknowledged over and over in this House that there are some challenges. There are individual situations that need resolutions, and there are some bigger challenges to be addressed. That is exactly why the deputy ministers from Finance, the Ministry of Children and Families, my ministry and from Health are working together — all of the agencies that provide support to these individuals — to find ways of working together to create a more seamless system that addresses the gaps that may exist.

Challenges are not new. There were challenges at other times in history. There were challenges in the '80s and '90s when the important decision was made to close institutions for people. Today is not different. There is increasing demand and a finite budget. But we are working to make sure that people receive the supports that they absolutely require.

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition has a further supplemental.

A. Dix: The minister speaks of challenges. The Premier yesterday, I think, demonstrated just how out of touch the government is with the reality that people are facing at CLBC. They are told by government ministers for a year that people aren't being moved without their consent — including in this House, including in estimates debate — while they were being moved in reality, while they were facing that in reality.

Surely, nothing shows the need for an independent review of CLBC, a review independent of government, more than the fact that the government has been saying one thing and doing another. This has involved some of the most vulnerable people in the province.

Will the minister…? If she doesn't want to answer the question about whether people are now being moved or not, with or without their consent, if she doesn't want to answer the question as to whether the very serious allegation made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Forests is true, will she at least agree to an independent review of CLBC today so that we can get to the bottom of it?
[ Page 8168 ]

Hon. S. Cadieux: I'm sorry if the member opposite didn't hear that there is a review going on. The deputy ministers are looking at all of the issues relating to things that have been raised. We're looking at ways to ensure that any gaps that exist are addressed.

We know that people are passionate about this issue. People are passionate about this issue for good reason. I am just as concerned as any member on the opposite side of this House relating to the individual concerns that we hear in our constituencies and, certainly, that have been brought to my attention in this office.

I have made my expectations to CLBC very clear. In cases where communications have not happened as they should, they will go back and address those situations, because it is my expectation that they will work with families to ensure that individuals are cared for in the way in which they need to be cared for.

COMMENTS BY CLBC CHAIR AND
COMMUNITY LIVING SERVICES REVIEW

N. Simons: Last week the minister said that we have a pretty fantastic system. Subsequent to that, they fired the CEO of Community Living B.C. The minister supposedly in charge of this file…. I'd like to ask her a question about the comments made by the chair.

[1405]

The media, the opposition caucus, families, self-advocates and advocates across the province were referred to by the chair as "outside noise." One advocate, Dawn Steele, who is passionate for good reason, for the same reason we're all passionate about this, said: "The chair's comments reflect utter contempt and disrespect for the families and community whom she and the Community Living B.C. board were appointed to serve and who they have failed so completely."

She added: "What's most disturbing is that the exclusion of families has peaked under a Premier who promised to put families first."

What does the minister say about the comments made by the chair of Community Living B.C. board that the concerns raised by the public were simply "outside noise"?

Hon. S. Cadieux: As I've said before, and I stand behind, CLBC is a good model. It's a model that's looked at from places outside British Columbia as a model that is innovative and forward-thinking. It serves thousands of people, thousands of British Columbians, every day, day after day, month after month, with all sorts of services, from residential services to community inclusion activities to employment supports to respite for families.

We know that each situation is different, each client is unique, just as we are all unique as individuals. People with disabilities and people with developmental disabilities are no different. We need to address their needs individually, and that is the model and the vision that CLBC has.

I have made my expectation of CLBC very clear. That expectation is the same as I have stated in this House before; that is, families and individuals will be worked with the way we would expect to be worked with if it was us requesting the service — myself or the member opposite.

We are acknowledging that there are challenges and that there have been situations that needed resolution. I will continue to be diligent in my efforts, as will the deputy ministers that are working together on this issue, to ensure that that happens.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

N. Simons: Well, the people doing the review were the same ones that told families that people weren't being forced from their homes. They're the same government that's been saying all along that families would be consulted. I think the people deserve to have an external review in which they can have confidence.

I go back to my original question. The comments made by the chair of the board of Community Living B.C. were seen as disrespectful. They were supposedly reflecting the board's position. The question to the minister is simply this. Does she agree with the chair of the board, and if not, what is she going to do about it?

Hon. S. Cadieux: As I've stated before, I've made my expectations very clear. As I continue to do, I will continue to have discussions with CLBC about how they are managing through this process.

We are dealing with the issues in this ministry that are very sensitive. They're very important to individuals. They're very important to families, and they're very important to every one of us who hears about them.

We can all agree that we need those solutions. That is exactly why the professional civil servants, the deputy ministers, are going to look at all of the ways in which the system supports these individuals — to ensure that we have the most seamless process as possible so we can ensure that the supports we provide to individuals are the best that we can so that they can be fully included in our communities.

C. James: I heard the minister say that she's having discussions, continuing discussions. Well, the families and the children and the adults with developmental disabilities expect more than discussions. They want action, and they want it today for their families.

I sat in this House yesterday, as we all did, and heard the minister say "this is not a crisis." Well, I don't know what it'll take for this minister and the B.C. Liberals to recognize a crisis.

[1410]

We have parents speaking out, desperate for action. We have advocacy groups who are trying to make sure that
[ Page 8169 ]
the voices of families are heard. We now even have members of the other side, of the B.C. Liberals, speaking out on this issue, trying to get the minister and the Premier to do the right thing. We have group homes closing. We have individuals moved from the only family they know. We have families at the end of their ropes.

Again, my question is to the minister — very specific. What will it take for the B.C. Liberals to do the right thing: action now, halt the closure of group homes and order an independent review today?

Hon. S. Cadieux: As I have stated, and as I will continue to state with this continual line of questioning from the opposition, I absolutely am taking action. Every minister in this file has acknowledged that there are challenges. There are going to continue to be challenges in a system where there's increasing demand and finite resources, but we all know that we want to provide the best supports we can to people with developmental disabilities in this province so that they can be fully included in our communities.

That was the original goal with CLBC. It continues to be the goal of this government and of CLBC. We know that there are some issues that need to be addressed, and that is exactly why we are taking action by having the deputy ministers of Health, of Finance, of the Ministry of Children and Family Development and of my ministry working together to see how we can better address the gaps that exist or that seem to exist so that we can make sure that the system continues to be improved upon.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

C. James: If the minister or anyone on that side had been listening, they'd know that the gaps in service do exist — not "may" exist, Minister. The gaps in service do exist, and we've raised families who have pointed that out over and over and over again.

The minister may want to close her eyes to this crisis, but we will not. We will continue to ensure that families' voices are heard. Families like the Martins, who took the brave step of making a presentation to the Finance Committee last week on the public record. "I don't see how I can meet the demands of work, home and caring for our son…. I'm not okay, and this is more than I can take." Families like Katy Kwong, of Richmond, again speaking on the public record: "I hope the government will heed the stress signals from needy families. Please don't wait until disaster strikes. Families are broken and…everything is too late."

These families deserve more than being referred to by the chair as outside noise. It's heartbreaking to hear these stories, but it's even more heartbreaking to have families brushed aside by this government. When will the minister do her job and call for an external review today?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Well, I have to say two things to start off. One is that my eyes are wide open, and two is that I am doing my job. I'm doing my job every day.

I have acknowledged that there are challenges and that it is unacceptable when families have the additional stresses and additional challenges in their life that come from having a family member with a developmental disability to care for. If they are placed into a situation where there are added stresses on them through lack of communication or poor communication about how the supports are going to be provided for their children, that's not acceptable to me.

I have made that very clear to CLBC. I also recognize that we have some bigger challenges to face, that we provide a great number of supports to these individuals through the Ministries of Health, the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Children and Families, and others. We need to ensure that we work together to close the gaps that exist, that have situations come up from time to time where people do fall through the cracks, because that isn't acceptable.

Thank you very much. We will continue on that path.

[1415]

S. Simpson: On numerous occasions during this question period the minister has been asked whether she agrees with the comments of the B.C. Liberal–appointed board chair of CLBC about outside noise — about that chair saying that the families, the advocates, the opposition are nothing but outside noise. The minister has been asked if she concurs with the chair's comments. Could she tell us: does she agree with the chair's comments that it's nothing but outside noise?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Again, I have made my expectations very clear to CLBC in how I expect them to work with families.

I have been meeting with families. I have met with advocates that work very passionately on behalf of individuals with developmental disabilities. I had a meeting last Friday with the Community Living Action Group, and they were very candid in their comments to me. I appreciate very much them bringing the issues that are of concern to them and in their individual groups to my attention. That is one of the reasons why I think it's especially important that the deputy ministers continue to work, to look at the issues, to look at what the gaps are in the system and how situations are created so that we can address them.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

S. Simpson: That answer, like the answers of the Premier yesterday…. No wonder nobody in this province has any confidence in the B.C. Liberals to care for the developmentally disabled in this province. This is a
[ Page 8170 ]
minister who fails to answer questions and who will not deal with issues. The past minister over here was no better. He was no better.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Just take your seat for a second.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Continue, Member.

S. Simpson: Day after day, story after story of desperate families worried about their loved ones' futures. One week the minister is removed, and the next week the CEO is fired. The chair of the board, the B.C. Liberal–appointed chair, insults families across this country who are worried about their loved ones. Now members of the B.C. Liberal Party are standing up and saying their government is wrong. If this isn't a crisis, I don't know what is.

Will the minister do the right thing — appoint an independent review, get to the problem and quit stonewalling?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I have acknowledged again and again that there are challenges and that I recognize them. There are finite resources, and we need to work within a budget to figure out how we are going to deliver the services that we need to deliver to people with disabilities in this province. That's why, as I've stated, I've made my expectations to CLBC very clear. I have also ensured that deputy ministers are working together to look across the ministries at how services are provided to ensure that we can start to address any gaps that do exist.

Today I will also be sending a letter to the chair of the board of CLBC in light of the fact that they have a new CEO, an interim CEO. I am asking the chair of CLBC to provide to me, by November 1, an overview of the direction they're taking and the direction that the new CEO sees in addressing the challenges that exist.

COMMUNITY LIVING SERVICES REVIEW

J. Horgan: Directly to the minister: you've been in power for ten years, you created the problem, and you're going to ask the deputy to get back to you at the end of the month with a solution? Not good enough. A full independent review today, hon. Minister. It's within your purview. Do it now.

[1420]

Hon. S. Cadieux: To the member opposite, I would offer that challenges have existed for a long time. "Clearly we cannot afford to put in $30 million every year on an ongoing basis. That's just not sustainable. We need to find ways of doing things in a different manner, so that we can make sure that we have those services" — available — "for every individual out there."

Mr. Speaker, that's a quote from the Minister for Children and Families in 1999, when this opposition leader was chief of staff to the then Premier.

I offer it to suggest that this is not a new challenge we face today. It is not unique to this government. The reality is that growing demand and finite resources require rethinking in how we deliver government services on an ongoing basis. They acknowledged this when they were government. I have acknowledged this in my role as the minister, and that is exactly why we are working cross-ministry to see how we can best manage the challenges today.

DREDGING OF FRASER RIVER AND
ACCESS TO WATER LEASE PROPERTIES

V. Huntington: Well, I'm not used to being waved down by the opposition, Mr. Speaker.

Four weeks ago one of Ladner's most experienced commercial fishermen had a serious medical emergency aboard his vessel. This man, who knows the channel reaches….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Member, just take your seat for a second.

Continue, Member.

V. Huntington: This man, who knows the channel reaches of the Fraser River like the back of his hand, was unable to reach the ambulance waiting at dock in Ladner Harbour. And why, Mr. Speaker? Because the channels are no longer being dredged, this gentleman could not get his boat up the river.

This province is the landlord of the water lots along the Fraser River. The province knows that float homes and docks and vessels are sitting on the bottom of the river. I'm asking the Minister of Transportation: when will the province protect its leaseholders from bad decisions made at the federal level and accept its responsibility to ensure that its tenants have safe access to their water lease properties?

Hon. B. Lekstrom: I recognize that this is an important issue not only to yourself but to the residents and businesses that you represent.

I know that there's some history to this. The federal government, back in the 1990s, used to look after dredging. That was transferred to the responsibility of the two federal port operators that are part of Port Metro
[ Page 8171 ]
Vancouver. There is ongoing work. We've had some preliminary discussions on this already.

I know that there is an engineering report that the group of residents and businesses had worked to put together. I'm looking forward to reviewing that as well. I know that the member has coordinated a meeting — I believe in mid-November sometime — with Port Metro Vancouver, herself, the affected parties and our Ministry of Transportation. I'm looking forward to working with the member to find a solution to this.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

V. Huntington: I hope so, because a solution has to be found to this issue. A week ago the government committed $50 million to the enhanced container capacity program at Deltaport — $50 million so that B.C. Rail can build a rail yard for CN on agricultural land. The dredging problem facing the minister's leaseholders could be solved with 1/5 of that amount.

When is the minister going to help the people of Delta develop a long-term sediment management plan, and when is he going to find the urgent dollars needed to protect the millions and millions of dollars of private property that are held under the province's own water lot leases?

Hon. B. Lekstrom: Once again, to the member. Certainly, as I said, I believe she is very passionate about this subject. We've had the opportunity to have a brief discussion. You raise, I think, a valid point.

There is concern there, and we've made the commitment to not only work with you, Member, but with the affected parties and with Port Metro Vancouver, which does have a $7 million commitment to dredging — and that is over ten years — with the communities. My understanding right now, very preliminary though, is that it's nowhere near the amount of money that would be required to meet the needs of what we're talking about here today in question period.

As I said, I'm looking forward to reviewing the study and having the meeting take place with the member, Port Metro Vancouver and the affected parties in my ministry to find out what we can do to find the solution cooperatively and work together on behalf of the people that are affected.

[1425]

FUNDING FOR GROUPS PARTICIPATING
IN MISSING WOMEN INQUIRY

K. Corrigan: Today West Coast LEAF released its annual report card on how B.C. is measuring up in women's rights against international standards. The report gave B.C.'s response to the hundreds of cases involving missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls a D-minus, primarily because of the B.C. Liberal government's refusal to fund groups that have been granted standing to participate in the Missing Women Inquiry.

To the minister — and we have asked this repeatedly, as have the many groups that have effectively been shut out of participating: will the government reverse its decision and fund the groups that have been granted standing at the Missing Women Inquiry?

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, we've been very clear about the importance of the Missing Women Inquiry. Those tragic circumstances…. We don't want to see them repeated in British Columbia. That's why, to date, British Columbians have invested over $2 million to support an inquiry process wherein the province of British Columbia is actually providing legal support to those who have been most impacted — the families of missing and murdered women in British Columbia.

[End of question period.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Coleman: This afternoon in the House we will do second reading, to begin with, on Bill 11, the Greater Vancouver Transit Enhancement Act; proceeding, if we get through second reading, to continue second reading debate on Bill 3, which is intituled Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, 2011.

Hon. K. Falcon: I rise to table a report.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Tabling Documents

Hon. K. Falcon: I have the honour to present the 35th annual report pursuant to the Public Service Benefit Plan Act, year ended March 31, 2011.

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 11 — Greater Vancouver
Transit Enhancement Act

Hon. B. Lekstrom: I would move that Bill 11 be read a second time now.

Bill 11 amends the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Act and provides consequential amendments to the Motor Fuel Tax Act. At the request of….

Mr. Speaker: Minister, can you just wait one second.

Members, could we hurry off to our other duties so we have a little bit of quiet in the House.

Continue, Minister.
[ Page 8172 ]

Hon. B. Lekstrom: At the request of the Mayors Council on Regional Transportation, we are amending legislation to enable them to fund the expansion of priority transportation services and upgrading of existing infrastructure across the Lower Mainland. This funding will go towards the regional priority projects that are identified in TransLink's Moving Forward supplemental plan, including the Evergreen line.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Evergreen is the new rapid transit project connecting the communities of Coquitlam, Port Moody and Burnaby to the SkyTrain network. This funding will also go towards the Highway 1 bus rapid transit project, a new service linking Surrey and Langley to the Lougheed station across the new Port Mann bridge.

Other priority transportation projects include increasing bus service around the region to improve reliability and reduce crowding, serving new demand from population growth, upgrading SkyTrain stations and improving road and cycling infrastructure.

[1430]

Since October 2010 TransLink has been conducting extensive public consultation on the projects in the Moving Forward plan. In July 2011 a second consultation process was initiated, which focused specifically on the funding strategies recommended in the plan.

On October 7, 2011, the Mayors Council approved the Moving Forward plan, with mayors representing 70 percent of Metro Vancouver's population voting in favour. The plan includes a regional fuel tax increase of two cents per litre as of April 1, 2012. The increase will generate approximately $40 million annually for priority regional transportation services.

The regional fuel tax increase is a key component of funding these vital transportation projects. The region is facing some tough issues, and we have made tremendous progress in recent months. The Mayors Council and the province will now work towards finding longer-term regional funding options, and I look forward to continuing to engage with the Mayors Council to develop transportation solutions for the benefit of the region and the province.

H. Bains: It is my pleasure to speak on this issue that has been before us for years. Before I get into the details of this bill, I just want to take this opportunity to applaud and commend the mayors' attempt. They, for the past two years, have been taking the lead in trying to convince this government and TransLink that there are some dire needs in their region, public needs of transportation in each of those communities that they represent.

They felt that their voice has been ignored. They felt that they have been far removed and disconnected from the decision-making process — and the frustrations that set in as a result of all of that. So I want to commend them.

Last Friday they sat through a meeting, and they looked at the options before them. I sat through that meeting myself and observed and listened to a very profound and serious discussion that took place. They continually used the term that they are "pushed into a corner" and that they are trying to do whatever they can under those circumstances that they are pushed into.

They are the ones who actually represent their communities. They are accountable to people that they represent. They know the needs of their region. They know what kinds of transit needs are for that particular region that they represent.

They understand full well that, looking forward, you are looking at another million people moving into Lower Mainland, and they are looking at 80 percent of them, or the majority of them, who will be settling south of the Fraser and in the northeast sector. They are worried about the future transit needs for that growing demand, that that growing population will place on them.

They understand that there's a direct link between land use and public transit. Because they are far removed from the decision-making process, are removed from the table where the decisions are made, they know that the other half of the equation — that is, the land use decisions — cannot be made in conjunction with the transit planning that goes on behind closed doors in those boardrooms, where appointed boards talk about these plans, and that's where those plans are passed and pushed.

The whole process of governance they talked about…. Mayor after mayor spoke. When they spoke, whether in favour of that proposal of two cents on the property tax or when they were speaking against it, all of them, almost, agreed that the governance model must change.

They want to be at the table. They want to make decisions at the planning stage, because they bring that expertise by listening to their constituents, by listening to those bus riders, by listening to the motorists. They know what is needed in their communities. They also know the direction that they want to take their communities as far as the land use planning is concerned.

[1435]

When they see that TransLink is making plans, it goes to the government-appointed board, and then it goes to the mayors, who are only asked to say yes or no to that plan. They can't even amend any plan that is before them. They can say yes, or they can say no. If they say yes, then they are asked to pay for that.

I mean, there is something wrong with that democracy, a model that is being pushed by this government. They have said right from the beginning that they should be at that table because they bring that expertise about land use. And do you know what? Mayor Trasolini very
[ Page 8173 ]
eloquently said: "I'm waiting. We're waiting." Finally they gave up on this government.

He said in one of the council meetings, which I had the opportunity to attend…. They said, "We're going to put a hold on the densification along the Evergreen line," because they don't believe, the way things are going with this government, that the line will ever be built. Why should we be wasting our resources in that particular area when later on we may find that it probably was the wrong area to densify our growth?

At that meeting, because they feel they are pushed into a corner, because they know there is a need for these kinds of services in their communities, Mayor Trasolini again stood up and said: "By passing this motion, I'm going to go back to my council, and there will be a resurgence of growth along the Evergreen line."

They were waiting. That just shows that the communities are waiting. They waited, they waited, and they waited, but this government wouldn't come. It was quite an eye-opener, attending that meeting. You could see and hear in speech after speech from these mayors, and you could see and feel what they were saying — the message that was coming out of the meeting that there's hardly any trust left between that group of mayors and this government.

They said they had been taking, as they say, a leap of faith in the past with promises made by this government that, yes, the government will come to the table and will deliver. That never happened. They are saying they're taking a leap of faith this time again, and they passed the resolution instructing the government to give them enabling language for raising two cents, from 15 to 17 cents, so that they can pay for the Evergreen line.

The second thing they talked about was that this isn't their plan. They feel that there is a better plan. They feel there has to be a more comprehensive public transit plan that is needed to deal with that population growth in those regions that I just talked about. A million new residences will be coming to the Lower Mainland.

They want to have that plan, which will deal with south of the Fraser — a plan that will deal with connecting those town centres, a plan that will deal with the issues of the northeast sector. That's what they need, and then to go along with it, they need the long-term sustainable funding so that they don't have to come back to the taxpayers time and time again — continuing to dig deeper and deeper into the taxpayers and not even providing any new service.

That's the frustration that was coming out of that Mayors Council meeting. They noticed, as a lack of trust that they believe existed, that there was no one from the government side present at that meeting. A number of mayors stood up and actually made note of that. No one was present there, and they made note of that.

That just shows that the mayors are there. The mayors were there two years ago. They all wanted to move forward, but a lack of leadership and lack of vision coming from this government when it comes to public transit in the Lower Mainland was stepping in the way. That's what was coming out of that meeting very clearly.

[1440]

Today here we are. We're talking about raising two cents of gas tax that would authorize TransLink to raise an additional two cents, which will give them about $40 million to pay towards the Evergreen line.

The mayors also didn't like the property tax portion that is linked to that motion they passed. They said no to that proposal some time ago. I take you back, Madam Speaker, to September of 2010, when a memorandum of agreement was signed by the government, the mayors and TransLink, committing to find long-term, sustainable funding to deal with the needs of public transit in the Lower Mainland.

Part of that understanding, after speaking to some of the mayors at that meeting…. It was the previous Premier along with the previous Transportation Minister who went there and made that announcement. Part of the understanding that the mayors came out with from that memorandum of understanding was that the carbon tax would be part of that discussion. Carbon tax that is being collected today would be part of that discussion.

That's what their understanding was. But guess what. Just a few months later TransLink put together a proposal, went to the mayors, and guess what. They were asked to come up with that revenue to pay for the Evergreen line and other proposals strictly from the property tax, which would raise something like $68 million to $69 million. It would have raised the average property tax per household somewhere between $35 or $63, depending on the two funding proposals that were on the table.

Madam Speaker, you could understand and I understand and people on this side understand, certainly, why that mistrust exists. They felt that the carbon tax would be part of the proposal. And they agreed: "Yes, we will put property tax on the table for discussion." But guess what. Only property tax was proposed to them at that particular time.

You know why? You know what happened, Madam Speaker? Unanimously, all mayors rejected that proposal. Back to the drawing table again.

That is some of the background — why mayors feel there is that mistrust and disconnect that exists. They are serious, and we are serious, and I think everyone in the Lower Mainland that uses public transit, who lives in the Lower Mainland, understands that there has to be land use and public transit that has to be planned together.

They go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. But if you have mayors missing from the strategic planning table, how could you have a discussion on land use? Those are the people who make those decisions. They need to be at that table.
[ Page 8174 ]

That's why the mayors feel they were frustrated. They feel that they were pushed into a corner. They feel that they had to do what they were doing. I applaud their effort. I thought they made the best out of the bad situation they were pushed into by TransLink, by this government.

I also sensed from the mayors that they believe they could work with the current minister. You know what, Madam Speaker? You've got to give respect where it is due. I believe that if we are open and honest with each other, we can have that dialogue. I think there can be some solutions found, working with this minister. I think that's the sense that was felt by the mayors.

Interjection.

H. Bains: The Minister of Jobs and economic development says he doesn't believe in that, but I do. I believe in some of those people out there, and I guess they probably don't believe each other or trust each other. You know, that's fair game. That's their decision.

I just want to go back to talk about some of the issues that the mayors talked about there. Here's one mayor who said: "There is a better way, but we were pushed into it." They believe there should be carbon tax. He said a change of government is needed. He also said there is no trust.

[1445]

The next mayor said the debt-servicing cost is going to increase from $160 million today to $220 million. They are saying their hands are being tied continually, and that mayor opposed it. Another mayor talked about: "Why aren't we using carbon tax? We've been asking for a carbon tax. Why is that not there?"

They want fair and equitable tolling policy. There is no discussion on that. The other one talked about carbon tax as an option. But it's not here on the table.

Again, it was Mayor Trasolini who said that once the decision is made here to pass the two cents, there will be a motion to increase growth along the line. Soon he walked in there after seeing that motion passed. He said there will be a resurgence of development along the route.

Another mayor said that the government appointed a municipal auditor and brought it within a month, but the provincial government cannot give alternative modes of revenue. "If we are asked to pay," they are saying, "we should be at the table to have authority to make decisions." Again, they are talking about governance change.

Another mayor talked about governance change needed. "Do not like the position that we're in, but we need to move on." Another mayor: "Disappointed that more MLAs are not here, especially from the government side." Another one said: "The Premier this morning said that the government will support two cents but never mentioned the part that the package was conditional by the provincial government, that the property tax must be part of the package." And this is the mayor who supported it.

Another mayor said: "Do not like the situation that we are in. We must move forward. Need help in governance structure." Another mayor talked about: "There is a history that adds to the cynicism that exists today." This mayor said: "For nine years we were sitting with our backs to the wall. Nothing changed."

Another mayor talked about: "We're missing an opportunity for long-term transit solutions and funding. Nothing in the plan deals with growth in the South Fraser and nothing to deal with the governance. Can put government's feet to the fire and have them change the governance model." "If this motion is passed," they said, "that will not happen."

You can understand, Madam Speaker, the mistrust. These are the mayors speaking, and these are the people that you need on your side, because these are the people that actually bring that expertise, bring their needs from their communities onto the table.

Everyone who I spoke to and, I'm sure, the minister speaks to, all agree how important it is. Well, it's not only important; it is paramount that we have land use discussions along the public transit at the same time. One is not feasible without the other.

If we continue to go in this direction where transit discussions take one table and the land use decisions are made somewhere else, we will be back at it here next year and the year after. That is no service. That is no favour to our children or their children that will be living in this region. I think that is very, very unfortunate — the kind of cynicism and mistrust that exists between the mayors and this government.

That is something that I thought I would bring in as a message to the minister. I'm sure the minister has heard this. I'm sure that they were very clear to him when they met with the minister. If they didn't, this is what they talked about, and I want the minister to know that that is exactly what was talked about.

[1450]

I will move on to talk about why the mayors feel that they need to move on, despite the fact that they feel they are pushed into this corner. I think that collectively they have a vision for the Lower Mainland, because they believe that we can do much better. We are a growing community. We are a growing region. Now is the time to do it right. Now you can do that, and we have that opportunity. All they're asking is cooperation, some courage, some vision from this provincial government to be real partners and to come to the table.

For the second year in a row, and this is another issue here, they are moving forward because they know that there was hardly any leadership that existed in the previous minister and the minister before that. All they
[ Page 8175 ]
wanted to do was impose their ideas on TransLink, and then they told TransLink and the mayors to fund it and make it work.

Whether it was the turnstile decision…. It wasn't discussed with the mayors. It was basically brought to them. "Here's what you're going to do. I was in London. I was somewhere else. I saw these turnstiles, and well, you're going to have one too." No study, although TransLink's internal business plan did not support that.

The minister knows that, the previous minister knew that, and everyone else knows that. There is no business case for turnstiles. Certainly, there are some benefits to it. There's no question about that. But it was a decision that was imposed on them — $70 million, money that TransLink can use in a better way, providing better service and adding more service for people.

The way things are going right now, for the second year in a row the transit users, commuters, in Metro Vancouver are faced with the reality that there may be no new investment in buses, rapid transit or roads.

In October 2009 the Mayors Council voted to increase TransLink funding by increasing parking taxes, property taxes, gas tax and transit fares. That was a plan that was, at that time, put together by TransLink. It was called funding stabilization, and had they not done that, there would have been drastic cuts to the services that exist today.

That $130 million basically just put them in a survival mode. There were no new services. It wasn't going to bring in any new infrastructure changes or upgrades. It was just to keep the services that we have.

Right now, as we sit here, even this plan is way, way too late because of the mismanagement, the lack of leadership shown by this government. As a result of this B.C. Liberal mismanagement, projects like the Evergreen line are delayed. It is going to be delayed, even if we pass those two cents, which I'm sure is going to be passed here today or whenever we take that vote.

Prior to the 2009 election B.C. Liberals committed to starting construction in late 2010 on the Evergreen line and having the Evergreen line open by late 2014.

TransLink doesn't have the operation funds, as we sit today, to operate a third SeaBus. It's sitting there and rusting. They promised that the third SeaBus and the SeaBus operation would be upgraded to ten-minute intervals during the Olympics, which they did, but then it was taken out of service and is sitting there ever since.

During the estimates of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure it became clear that the Evergreen line would be delayed again. The minister said that the construction won't begin on the Evergreen line until 2012 and will be completed, with a build time of four years, in 2015. So you can see the delays as a result of mismanagement by this government.

Despite being the project lead on the Evergreen line, the B.C. Liberals have continued to delay building the Evergreen line and have refused to provide the necessary funds required to start the project.

[1455]

Now, I might say that under the throne speech, the funding gap that existed originally has been filled by the government. I think that is the right thing to do. We've been asking for that. Two years ago we asked for it. The mayors asked for that. "Where is that $173 million going to come from?" You never get the right answer or the clear answer from anyone from that side of the House.

Finally, in this throne speech that funding gap seems to be filled right now, as government said that instead of $410 million they are raising it to $583 million. So that is the right thing. I think it's a good step. It's the right step, but it's long overdue, I must say, because that was part of the skepticism that everyone had. Although they could come up with $400 million, the TransLink portion, where is that $173 million going to come from? No one ever gave that clear answer. They were all over the map.

The previous minister talked about: "Well, efficiencies can be found." They talked about how we could do it through development along the line, but no one made a clear commitment except through the throne speech. It has said that they will raise it to $583 million instead of $410 million. So that is a good thing.

If the B.C. Liberals had acted sooner on our plan, our proposal that we put forward and the mayors put forward in 2009, the citizens wouldn't have been paying this extra money, and we would have those services for those citizens a lot, lot sooner. But as a result of mismanagement by this government, this legislation is now required. Citizens will be paying two cents more on their gas and additional property taxes for two years.

I just want to take you back to September 2009. Our previous leader went to the UBCM and announced that government should transfer the remaining corporate tax cuts to a provincial green fund. This is similar to what the Metro Vancouver mayors were calling for in the 2009 election.

We called for the government to cancel the corporate tax cuts scheduled to come in over the two years and put that money into a provincial green fund for transit improvements and climate change solutions in communities across the province. By 2012 that would have meant $150 million in annual contributions to the green fund.

That would have gone a long way towards hitting the emission reduction targets as set out by law by this government. The green fund would support transit and other initiatives that actually contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

For example, the fund would have provided some additional support to TransLink to operate new buses or the Evergreen line, or it could support smaller municipalities in retrofitting public buildings.
[ Page 8176 ]

Despite the government saying the carbon tax was revenue-neutral, they were willing to raise that corporate tax rate to pay for their HST sales pitch. Madam Speaker, I just want to draw your attention to that portion.

Mayors asked for it, the NDP asked for it, and even the TransLink board asked for it — to give them a portion of the existing carbon tax to pay towards improvement on the public transit. The government of the day continued to say no, continued to reject that idea.

But when the time came to do a sales job on the ideologically driven HST tax, they were willing to dip into that fund and roll back those corporate taxes to buy those HST votes. So you can see how misguided their priorities are. That's why that cynicism existed. I don't blame those mayors, being in that situation.

As far as the capital cost for the Evergreen line is concerned, B.C. Liberals have mismanaged the capital funding of the Evergreen line. Now the line is delayed, and the government still has to pay for the unfunded cost. Government recently committed to fund $583 million, as I have just reported, an increase of $173 million from the original budgeted cost.

[1500]

We committed, on this side, in the 2009 election to make up that unfunded portion, up to $183 million of the Evergreen line to jump-start the project. But this government couldn't see the direction that we needed to go then, didn't see it last year.

Finally, the mayors took the lead and said: "Look, we've got to do something." They pushed this government and finally got the ear of this current minister, and they were talking about finding ways to fund those very, very important projects before them.

So the mayors had a plan two years ago, the NDP had a plan two years ago, and the citizens of the Lower Mainland had a plan two years ago. They all agreed on one thing, except this government. They will not come forward. They will not listen. They just continue to use their arrogant way of denying and being contemptuous of mayors, being contemptuous towards the citizens and continuing to ignore the public transit needs of the Lower Mainland.

Madam Speaker, in 2009, during the provincial election, all 21 mayors unanimously called on the provincial government to transfer money collected from carbon tax to pay for transit. This was rejected by the previous Premier, Mr. Gordon Campbell.

TransLink suggested many other solutions at that time. I might add at this point that they did have a very comprehensive and detailed plan for moving forward. They had about four different plans at that time. One was called base plan, which was drastic cuts, if they were not able to raise any more funds from beyond what they were at that level. Then there was a funding stabilization, which they ended up adopting, by raising the parking tax, by raising the fares and by raising the gas tax and a bit of property tax.

But there was a plan that actually, in my view, would deal with the next 20, 30 or 50 years of our growing communities in the Lower Mainland. Had they listened to that plan, had they adopted that plan, which is needed today…. That's what the mayors were saying — that we are piecemealing this very complex issue. Today they are asked to pay two cents plus the property tax. Tomorrow, or next year, they will be back asking the taxpayers for more money because the bigger items are still on the table. The bigger projects to deal with our next ten, 20, 30 years of transit needs are still out there — the extension of LRT into South Fraser, connecting those town centres south of the Fraser, the UBC line and increasing the bus fleet.

At that time they talked about doubling the bus fleet by 2020. They are not talking about that anymore. They talked about buying more SkyTrain cars. They talked about expanding the current SkyTrain stations. They talked about a hundred SkyTrain cars at that time. Now we will get only 28.

That is the plan — no, their plan.

Deputy Speaker: Member, through the Chair.

H. Bains: Through you, Madam Speaker.

I just had a meeting….

Deputy Speaker: Member, are you the designated speaker?

H. Bains: Through the Speaker. Yes, Madam.

Deputy Speaker: Please continue.

H. Bains: At that time that was the plan: almost a hundred new SkyTrain cars. Now they are talking about a maximum of 28 from the existing fleet. That is, largely speaking, to deal with the Evergreen line.

As I see it, there is no revenue available. There's no capital. There's no operating money available. And we're sitting at increasing — not doubling — the bus fleet. Now they are talking about increasing maybe 7 percent of the existing bus fleet. So, they are going backward.

They drew up this plan, and I'll tell you what they actually talked about in that plan, which was a $450 million plan, out of which $130 million was collected, and you are talking about the $320 million left. So out of that, $70 million will be raised through this initiative now.

[1505]

But of all those services, most of them are off the table now because there is no comprehensive detailed planning to deal with our growth. At that time they talked about 160 additional buses to maintain service reliability, and if they go to the next stage, 300 additional buses, which means 460 buses and community shuttles, for a total of 460, to add new routes, develop new markets
[ Page 8177 ]
and add capacity to existing services. They talked about one additional bus depot, plus two under the maintenance and upgrade program — so three, total.

Approximately 250 buses invested in new and improved services; 900,000 additional service hours per year, for a total 37 percent increase over 2009 levels. Seven additional cars to lengthen West Coast Express trains. Significant expansion of the frequent transit network. A third SeaBus was purchased, allowing service to be improved to ten-minute frequencies for the Olympics. During the Olympic time the bus was purchased — SeaBuses purchased — I believe at a cost of $20 million. It is sitting there. It is sitting there parked. That is the kind of mismanagement that the mayors talked about: $20 million invested, and it is parked because they don't have operating money to operate it.

The services needed…. It was demonstrated during the Olympics. It was demonstrated after the Olympics. But they can't put it to service because of a lack of funding to operate it.

They talked about Expo Line station improvement and capacity upgrades. They talked about funding for the Evergreen line. They talked about 52 additional SkyTrain cars by 2012 in addition to the 48 cars under the base plan. So they talked about 100 new cars — SkyTrain cars.

Now they are talking about…. They will have 28 additional ones for the Evergreen line. They talk about replacement, a major overhaul, original Mark I SkyTrains, SkyTrain operations, a maintenance centre, an emergency control centre with SkyTrain operation, SkyTrain electrical equipment replacement, SkyTrain propulsion power system repair and upgrade, and 38 additional SkyTrain cars, for a total of 138.

This was their vision, 138, and more than doubling of rapid transit service hours; $3.7 billion from major rail and/or bus rapid transit expansion on priority corridors including Broadway, Surrey and other regions. They talked about road maintenance funding at 70 percent of the required level. They talked about road maintenance funding at 100 percent of the required level by going to the next stage; $7 million per year in road infrastructure for transit; $55 million dollars per year for improvement projects; $12 million for bridge rehabilitation.

They talked about a new Pattullo bridge, development of a goods-movement strategy. They talked about maintaining at the current level, $6 million per year; increased funding for a municipal cycling initiative; new commuter greenway; and upgrade to part of the B.C. Parkway.

If they go the next level, they talk about $17 million per year for a cycling program, for a total of $23 million. They talked about expansion of the TravelSmart program and other customer support services, implementation of improved wayfinding and signage, improvement to communications technology on buses and trains, smart cars, a gating system implemented. Additional staff required for an expansion project will be funded through project capital funds.

There was a plan. That plan was unveiled July 30, 2009. Because they did not have the funding revenue sources available to them…. This government would not come to the table. This government did not show leadership, and they had no vision.

[1510]

That plan was rejected by the commissioner because it did not come with the attached revenue sources to fund it. So they ended up adopting $130 million. I called it at that time — many called it at that time — that TransLink was put on life support, and they've been at that ever since.

What are we going to get with this two cents and the property tax? We will get Evergreen line, and there will be station upgrades: Main Street station upgrade, Metrotown station upgrade, Surrey Central station upgrade, New Westminster station upgrade, Lonsdale Quay station upgrade.

There will be new bus service along King George Boulevard, B-line service, which I believe will be connecting White Rock city to Surrey Central, and Highway 1 bus rapid transit connecting Walnut Grove in Langley through, when the new Port Mann bridge is built, to connect the Lougheed Highway. A White Rock to Langley bus service will be part of that new bus service.

All of those services are badly needed. I could read you letters that I received from my constituents. This community is growing. Surrey alone is growing. We're talking about south of Fraser, but Surrey alone is growing at a rate of a thousand new citizens every month. Every year a small-size city is moving into Surrey — about 10,000 to 12,000 new citizens moving into Surrey.

Then we are talking about Delta. We're talking about Langley, Aldergrove. We're talking about White Rock — all of those areas that need to be connected.

This plan also talks about increasing bus service around the region, which may include, they say, North Shore, Marine Drive to downtown; south of Fraser, Fraser Highway and 104th Avenue; Richmond, Cambie Road and Queensborough; Vancouver, 4th, 41st and 49th Avenues; Burnaby and Coquitlam, Willingdon and Pinetree Way.

Roads and recycling — part of that package is increasing funding to the major road network from $10 million to $20 million per year; increasing funding to TransLink bike capital program from $3 million to $6 million per year.

That's what this plan is going to bring us. The plan that TransLink laid out in 2009 — which actually, in my view, in large part deals with the current needs of the public transit in the region, and looking forward to the next ten, 15 or 20 years — would have dealt with it had this government shown some leadership at that time.
[ Page 8178 ]

Today, despite what we have before us, the services that will be improved through two cents extra gas tax and property tax increases, which may be there forever — who knows? — unless mayors and TransLink can come up with a new funding formula, an alternative way of funding mode to replace that $23 property tax on average for the household…. It will be there for 2013 and '14 if they cannot find an alternative mode of revenue.

Right now what is needed is a comprehensive plan that I talked about and that the mayor is talking about. But you know what? After all of this — this plan — was put together two years ago…. Everyone kind of agreed that plan would deal with the issue and the needs of the region.

But today what do we have? We have another study. There is a rapid transit study going on right now. The study is geared to finding what is needed — a Broadway corridor — and what is needed south of Fraser, and also to talk about the existing SkyTrain Expo Line. What are the needs there, and how can they make that better? That's the kind of study that is going on. I'm told that study will be completed by next year, I believe it is.

[1515]

I think it's a problem that we continue to go back and study and study and study when we have already done the study and the people of the region and the mayors have already decided what is needed, and it was put together by TransLink in that very, very detailed plan that they came up with in July 2009. We're back at the drawing board again.

Those are some of the serious concerns that I have, and those are the concerns shared by mayors and many people who make their home in the Lower Mainland. I think the issue, when I talk about lack of leadership, even when I put this two-cents proposal on the table…. The Premier's actions were on that.

What did she say the first time it was proposed to the mayors, whether they would be approving two cents? The Premier, first of all, ruled out any immediate action by the provincial government to change or to deal with the government's model. This is what she said: "There's no appetite to start monkeying with it before we get through municipal elections. We will look to municipal governments for direction on that and see if we can find some consensus. I don't think this is going to be a fast process."

The mayors have been talking to this government for a long time. The Premier is talking about, "Well, you know, we need to take direction from the mayors," and the mayors are already very clear on the direction they want to go. And what is the Premier talking about, again? "Yes, we will talk to them again." It's just another way of saying: "No, I'm not interested."

Then, when we talk about the two-cent gas tax, the mayors negotiated a plan to use the gas tax increase to help pay for the Evergreen line to the northeast, and the Transportation Minister at that time said: "You know, the province will back it." But after the meeting with the minister, the minister complimented, in fact, the mayors for their hard work in coming up with the plan.

One mayor said: "It's really great for us to be acting in concert with the minister." But, a week after the deal was agreed to, our Premier tossed, at that time, as I said, both the minister and the region's mayor under the bus. In a press conference, July 18, this is what is the Premier suggested: that she might veto the gas tax. She said: "When British Columbians say that they're not really excited about paying more gas taxes, I get that. Because my focus as Premier is about how we make life more affordable for people, rather than less affordable."

That is what she was on July 11, but on July 13, with the backdrop of the B.C. Liberal caucus meeting, the minister corrected the record and said that he had spoken with the Premier and ensured that they are both on the same page. The Premier had penned a letter to the mayors confirming her support: "I stand behind what I committed to. Nobody likes new taxes. I would concur with that."

She didn't like it the first day; she liked it the second day. She didn't like it; then she liked it. I think that's the kind of flip-flop position that was taken by the Premier. No wonder the mayors are skeptical. No wonder they see that there's no direction coming from this Premier. No wonder they are saying that there's no vision that existed in this Premier's agenda.

This did not help that mistrust that existed between the mayors and this government — when you take a popular position rather than the right positions. Mayors were taking the right positions. They thought they had a deal with the minister, only to find out that the Premier threw both of them under the bus.

[1520]

What does that show about the leadership of the government? No wonder they are being described as a government without gas and without ideas. You know, you're on; you're off, depending on which way the wind is blowing. That is also a sign of incompetence, in my view, and the mayors see that. That's not what we need in moving forward to deal with the growing population of a million more in the Lower Mainland in coming years.

My mayor, Dianne Watts — you know, I give her credit. She stood up. She said: "It is a tough pill to swallow; there's no doubt about it. But I think we have an opportunity right now with the minister. We can look at the governance. We can look at some sensible funding strategies."

Madam Speaker, Malcolm Brodie of Richmond — your mayor — said: "We have confused urgent with important. What is important is the rest of the transportation improvements — the buses, the road network and all of that. That is important but not urgent."
[ Page 8179 ]

The mayor of Burnaby said: "It's a bait and switch. Every time we do this, they say we won't do it again. Then two years later, we come back and do it again. We're tired of this game."

Now is an opportunity for this government to move from the photo ops and do the real job. Now is the time that we need to deal with this issue overall. We need to deal with the issue not on a piecemeal basis. We need to have that comprehensive plan. That is needed, that is understood, and that is being proposed by the local mayors. We need to deal with this now as we move forward, as we're developing our communities. Land use decisions are being made at those council meetings. They need partners in this government, which are missing. They need to work with TransLink. They need to be at the strategic planning stage, because they know what is needed as far as the transit needs are in their regions. They know what the solutions are.

When they come up with those needs, when they put those solutions together, they will work to make sure that we have long-term, sustainable funding to go along with that as well. That is just common sense, and that's what they're trying to have this government understand, which is not being understood.

Piecemeal is not an answer to deal with this very complex situation — today two cents, plus the property taxes. Yes, we will deal with the Evergreen line. Yes, we will have upgrades of some of those stations. Yes, we will have a few more buses and a few additional services. But the major portion of the transit plan still is out there — hasn't been talked about, hasn't been talked about how we're going to fund that. The UBC line needs to be dealt with.

What kind of technology, and how are we going to do that? Here we're sitting since 2009, and no work has being done — hardly anything. What kind of technology will work? What kind of line, what kind of impact will it have on those local businesses and the residences? That work needs to be done.

South of the Fraser, the city of Surrey will be larger than Vancouver in the next 15 or 20 years. My friend from Vancouver doesn't believe that would be the case one day. But you know, that's a reality. It's going to be a bigger city in B.C., and we need to start to plan today. You can't do that by piecemealing it. You've got to have that discussion with the mayor and the council and the residents of Surrey.

They already have a plan out there. They're talking about light rail along King George Highway. They're talking about light rail along 104 and connecting White Rock, Langley, Aldergrove, Fleetwood and Newton. They know that more than 80 percent of the trips that are taken south of the Fraser end up south of the Fraser. So they need to develop a strategy to deal with that scenario before them.

[1525]

It's not that they are all coming across the bridges and coming to Vancouver or Burnaby to work. A lot of them do, but most of them travel within the region. We need to deal with that issue.

We need to talk about how we are going to connect those town centres with more buses — fast buses. The unions have been upfront on this issue. They've been asking for more buses for years now, but do you think this government will listen? Do you think this government will actually take a hint that "Hey, we are here to govern. We are here to show some leadership"? But I guess, you know, you are asking too much from this bunch.

None of that exists out there anymore because they spend most of their energy and time trying to drive through their ideologically driven policies, such as the HST, and then try to defend themselves from that bad policy decision. They have no more time left to be innovative or to come up with creative ideas to deal with the current and the future needs of our population.

When you are talking about today's funding…. That's one thing I wanted to warn you about: piecemeal is not the approach. Piecemeal will not do it.

The second thing is that we need to have a better way. I mean, we need to have a better governance model, a governance model that understands and a governance model that recognizes that the locally elected officials need to be at the table at the planning stage, because they are the ones who know the transit needs of their regions. They know what kinds of land use decisions need to be made, based on the transit decisions that need to be made to deal with that growth.

That is missing from this bill. We were hoping that the minister would have taken the time and listened to the mayors as he said he would, that those kinds of concerns that mayors brought to his attention would be incorporated in this bill somehow.

I also want to say — and the mayor said this — that there is a better way, and there was a better way. It was proposed to them by the mayors two years ago, it was proposed to them by the NDP, and it was proposed to them by many experts — to use a portion of the carbon tax to pay for improvement on the transit needs of the region.

The money is there. By July next year, $1.1 billion will be raised through carbon tax. As you know, around 55 percent or 60 percent comes from the Lower Mainland, the revenue that comes. All you need is a portion of that to pay for the regional needs of public transit. And there is enough money on the rural side to deal with their public transit and green gas emission reduction programs there as well.

As I sat through a meeting before the last one, when the mayors were actually given the presentation by the transportation commissioner, Mr. Crilly, he said…. That's why I said we need a very, very comprehensive and long-term, stable funding formula. He said that
[ Page 8180 ]
with the new two-cent gas fuel tax and if the fares are increased by 12 percent and if they could find new sources to replace the property tax, and there were more fares they talked about…. Even if all of that was in place, they said, by 2013 or 2014 services will be levelled off. And if you don't find some of those funding sources, these services will be starting to decrease.

So there's a huge challenge before us. Everyone understands that, except this government.

[1530]

At the end, I just want to conclude by saying that I will stand here and I will support, reluctantly — very reluctantly, as the mayors have done that very reluctantly, because there was a better way. The government ignored that. It wasn't that it was just thrown in their lap at the last moment. They've been talking to them for the last two years. They continued to ignore that. So there was a better way. They chose not to go along with that. That's why I would support that very, very reluctantly.

I am also reluctant to support this. The comprehensive plan that is needed to deal with the growing demand of the Lower Mainland is missing. Also, the governance model that needs to be changed and dealt with immediately is missing.

I'm asking the minister. Yes, we will go through this bill. Yes, you will get my support, but I'm asking him. Those are very, very important issues that were brought to him by the mayors, by the communities, by the opposition. I say: let's pay attention to those, because those are serious issues.

With that, Madam Speaker, I thank you and I thank the House for giving me the opportunity. I think, hopefully, the minister will listen to the mayors and will take a serious look at their proposal that they are proposing and do the right thing.

It means that soon hereafter he will introduce a motion to change the governance, or that he will put a process in place so that he starts consulting with the mayors, that the governance model is changed to reflect the request by the mayors to be more involved, to be at the table so that at least they are accountable and, then, that there's the transparency that is needed in that process, which is lacking right now.

Those are my remarks.

D. Horne: It's with great pleasure that I stand today and speak on second reading in support of Bill 11, the Greater Vancouver Transit Enhancement Act. Obviously, for the community I represent, Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, the completion of the Evergreen line is something of extreme importance and something that we have been waiting for, as many have mentioned, for many years.

[D. Black in the chair.]

Obviously, the critic spoke about transit in the region for some time. One will remember that in the 1990s initially the Millennium Line was supposed to come into Coquitlam and into the Tri-Cities. Unfortunately, with changes made to the routing for that line, it didn't. The people of the Tri-Cities, unfortunately, didn't get the SkyTrain line that they had been promised and had hoped to get at that point.

But now with this new funding proposal put forward and requested by the Mayors Council on transportation for the region, we hopefully will now see the Evergreen line completed, and construction will begin.

I have to say that the member before me spoke on leadership and on getting to the process and getting to the point here where we're now talking about the funding for transportation. It's important to note that for several years now the province has taken the lead on the Evergreen line.

The province has completed and spent significant dollars over the last number of years in making sure that we're now in a position to go to tender and actually build the Evergreen line. The province took the lead in making sure that the engineering, the environmental studies, the design for the stations and the alignment were all completed. The province has spent considerable resources acquiring property along the route. The province has put many things in place in order for the Evergreen line now to move forward. It's only by the leadership of the province putting us in that position that we now are able to move forward with the Evergreen line, now that the funding is committed.

[1535]

You know, it has been a long process since TransLink and the Mayors Council first came to the province and asked for funding for the Evergreen line, and one must remember that that is the way that this process started. It was the province and the federal government that did step up with their side of the funding.

One of the things that I found most interesting is that in the "plans" that the previous member, the critic for Transportation, mentioned, all of the options that he was talking about were basically a greater contribution by the province of British Columbia, by those that live in Kamloops and in Prince George and in the Peace region paying for transit in the Lower Mainland.

What this bill does.... This bill is the regional commitment to transportation for the Evergreen line and for other transit improvements within the Lower Mainland. I think it's important — the opposition critic may not — for there to be a local commitment and local financial support for transit in any region, and that is one of the things that this does accomplish.

One of the things that I have to say, too, when we speak of leadership is that in the end the Mayors Council has requested us to move forward with this two-cents-a-litre gas tax, which this bill enables. I have to say that, as
[ Page 8181 ]
has been pointed out, the mayors representing 70 percent of the Metro population did indeed vote in favour of this in the end, which is important to note.

Very, very importantly, I think, because this has been a long process, Peter Fassbender has spent considerable time and has shown considerable leadership in coming to the point that we are in now with this resolution and with the point that we actually do have the funding for the Evergreen line and that we're moving forward.

I also have to talk a little bit about transportation in general, because obviously, not only does this fund the Evergreen line, but it also, as the previous member mentioned, funds many other projects within the region. And not only has the province committed $583 million — up from the $410 million, I must add, with that additional funding to fund the gap — but the province spends a considerable amount of money on transportation infrastructure as part of the $14 billion provincial transit plan.

We do have a plan for the region. Basically, it started with the Canada Line, which has been immensely successful. The ridership numbers on the Canada Line far surpass what we expected in the first place. The reason why is because…. You know, one of the problems we had in estimating these things is the Millennium Line, whose ridership has never been all that good. Obviously, in building the Canada Line and now moving forward with the Evergreen line, we're in a great position to have rapid transit within the region, to expand rapid transit, to expand bus service, and that's really what this bill accomplishes.

I can say, for those that I represent in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, that this is a huge step forward. When I first moved into Westwood Plateau, where I live with my family, there were a handful of towers in the Coquitlam town centre, with just a few around Coquitlam Centre. For many years when I first came out to Coquitlam, which I would on occasion — my family was out there — there was no Coquitlam Centre at all.

The growth in the region is immense. Now not only do we have a handful of towers, but we'll have 30 towers over 20 storeys — and, actually, many of them almost 30 storeys — that are currently under construction or have approval, so the growth in our region is huge.

Being able to serve that and having the people who live in my area be able to get on a SkyTrain line, be able to get to Richmond, to Vancouver, to Surrey — to all the areas within the region — is extremely important, and that's why I definitely am in favour of this bill and hope to see its passage soon.

[1540]

V. Huntington: I wasn't originally intending on speaking to the Greater Vancouver Transit Enhancement Act. However, as I sat and thought about what the impacts on south Delta are with regard to a two-cent gasoline tax, I found myself agreeing with the critic for the official opposition when he said that the Metro Vancouver mayors have been forced into a corner. I believe they've been forced into that corner because of a legislated structure they were forced to accept in the first place.

In the case of Delta South, we were forced to accept the consequences of a provincial decision to construct the Canada Line, and for that decision, the residents of south Delta were forced to use the line. Why? Because TransLink needed the residents of White Rock and Delta, all south of the Fraser, to help pay for the line, which now has ridership over its anticipated numbers.

That line serves Vancouver and Richmond, not south Delta and White Rock. That decision meant that we lost a convenient, heavily used express bus into the heart of Vancouver. We were forced to go to Richmond and reboard the Canada Line.

Now, that alone doesn't sound like the end of the world, and it isn't if you are able-bodied, if you don't want to go to south Granville, if you are fit and if you can find a parking spot at Bridgeport, which I must say, Madam Speaker, I have twice been unable to do and will not bother trying to do again.

I dearly hope the minister will hear this and help me resolve this problem, because the requirement to use the Canada Line has stranded — literally stranded — Delta seniors and disabled. They no longer use transit, they can't get to medical appointments, they can't visit friends, they can't get to the theatre, and they can't get to special events or family. They are stranded. I don't know how many times I've heard the same words.

The single loss of accessibility and safe transit has literally diminished their quality of life. Our bus, our 601, was a friend to these individuals. It was security, it was safe, and it was easy. It waited, and it helped, but not the Canada Line. It's fast. It's in a hurry. It's crowded with strangers. Doors close automatically. You wait standing up. There are no facilities. If you are slow, you miss the connection, and then you wait in a dimly lit and frightening bus loop.

I need help to resolve this untenable situation. Even one or two buses during midday would solve a very real social situation in my riding, and TransLink isn't listening. I hope this minister does.

These are among the reasons the people of Delta South do not support the two-cent gasoline tax. They see no end to the lack of service they face and to the resulting problems that our seniors and disabled face. Our mayor did not support the tax, and neither can I.

I understand the excitement of the member for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain. I sympathize with the longstanding need for the Evergreen line, but it comes with a big price for the people of Delta South, who see no end to the sacrifices they are forced to make for residents north of the Fraser when it comes to transit and which Transit simply must resolve.
[ Page 8182 ]

R. Howard: I am pleased to take my place in this House today to speak to Bill 11, Greater Vancouver Transit Enhancement Act. It's with pleasure. I must say, it could only take the member for Surrey-Newton to take such a watershed and celebratory moment and turn it into a funeral march — and a rather long one at that.

I'd like to, first, talk about the highest-profile piece that would be enabled by this legislation, which is the Evergreen line, although my comments can also apply to the rest of the transit improvements in the package, perhaps just to a lesser degree.

[1545]

To offer some context for my experience with the Canada Line, I happened to be on Richmond city council at the time when the Canada Line was envisioned. We struck a task force to try and make sure it happened. Through much diligence and much debate, especially over whether it was going to be at grade or elevated, we persisted, and the Canada Line is what it is today.

It's been acknowledged in this House many times — sometimes by me, sometimes by others — that it was a great example of a P3 that came in ahead of schedule, came in on budget and, as far as its current ridership goes, is well ahead of budget and generating great success stories for all in the region. I'll get into that in a few minutes.

I think that sometimes in these large transportation projects, the value and the benefits are a little underestimated often. As history has demonstrated, these kinds of multi-jurisdictional, linear, large projects are often very difficult to get off the ground. The stars have to be aligned just so to enable them.

You have to have the route settled, which is often difficult because you have a whole bunch of different local governments and sometimes regional governments involved — in this case, TransLink as well. You've got to have the technology — whether it's tunnel, at grade or above grade. Then there's the small matter of who is to pay for the improvements, because while local governments often feel a high level of ownership, as they should because these projects occur on their soil, the dollar amounts are so large that they cannot undertake these projects themselves.

In this instance, the provincial government has stepped forward with no less than $583 million. The federal government is at the table. I forget the exact dollar amount. If memory serves me correctly, I think it's around the $400 million mark. So, huge amounts of money and lots of work that has been done in the past.

I just want to make a comment, too, about the responsibility of the various projects that we've seen in the Lower Mainland when it comes to major rapid transit projects. There's always the debate amongst transit enthusiasts and professionals: should the rapid transit lines be the most senior level of people-movers in the system? You know: from walking to bicycles to cars to buses to elevated rapid transit. Should it shape or should it serve?

I think we've seen instances — the Canada Line is a great example — where the answer to that question is both, because it served one of the busiest corridors in the entire region, but it also has encouraged development and density along the line. So it served the population that was there, and it serves to shape the future as well.

The Millennium Line, on the other hand, was brought in under the opposition when they were in power. I happened to have some involvement in that line before I entered politics. There's a line that just kind of came out of nowhere and was intended to shape. There was no service, because there was no density along the line. The line was motivated by political reasons, I strongly suspect, and therefore, heavy subsidies are required to make that line operational, to make it viable.

So as we are considering the relative merits of our various positions on this, I think it's important to understand that for this government, certainly, when it came to the Canada Line and, I believe, the Evergreen line, the answer to the shape-and-serve question is both. That is the responsible way to do it.

The opposition critic, the member for Surrey-Newton, talked about…. I think, the word he used was "reluctantly," and there was this pall cast over his comments about all of the unhappiness that was happening and the reluctance. So I thought I would just read a couple of quotes into the record that might throw that into question.

[1550]

This is from Joe Trasolini, the Port Moody mayor, on CKNW on August 7 of this year. "Not only the residents of the northeast sector but the entire Metro region have reason to celebrate," says the mayor. Doesn't sound like reluctance. It doesn't sound like there's a negative pall to those sentiments at all.

Another from Anne McMullin, spokesperson for all chambers of commerce in the Lower Mainland, in the Province, October 9 of this year: "People are jubilant all over Metro Vancouver. What's good for Port Moody, Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam is good for the whole region." Again, sounds like a pretty positive mood in the transit rider population these days.

I want to go back into the benefits, because as we add to the system, so the Evergreen line will now be added to the Expo, Millennium and Canada lines, as well as all the various and intricate bus services. It lifts up the whole system. The whole system starts to behave like a system. Ridership on the Evergreen line will in fact impact ridership on the Expo Line and on the Canada Line, because people find it easier to get around. They have more trust in the system; the system is more reliable.

As the bus systems throughout the Lower Mainland, as they were in my community, get kind of adjusted, get cranked to feed into the major transportation systems,
[ Page 8183 ]
they get deeper into the neighbourhoods, better service into the neighbourhoods. That, again, encourages people to get onto the buses to the rapid transit station. It really goes a long way to encourage people to move around without using their cars all the time. So it has this very significant benefit to the entire system.

The other thing, of course, as we walk through the list of benefits that these major projects create, is jobs — jobs during construction. Thousands of jobs are enabled as a result of this very significant work that takes place.

Another benefit that we often talk about is the greenhouse gas emissions that are not emitted by the vehicles that are replaced by rapid transit ridership — very positive impacts on the environment. I think one of the things that really impacts us is the congestion and how that ties back not just into the economy but how it ties back into family.

We have the B.C. Trucking Association, for example, when they talk about congestion and the economy. I apologize to the House; I didn't have time to pick the number off of the B.C. Trucking Association material. But the cost of congestion to the economy is really significant.

The Canada Line, for example, is the equivalent of ten roadways running up and down that line. So you can imagine what ten roadways worth of traffic being pulled off the roads and onto public transit does to free up movement for goods and services in the economy.

Interjections.

R. Howard: Some 200,000 cars a day during the Olympics. Well, there's another great success story, as we saw. I digress, but it was a good story, during the Olympics, when the Canada Line did such magnificent service moving people in and out of the downtown core.

So we come to time savings to families and one of the favourite stories I tell. I have a constituent who lives in Richmond and works in Vancouver. Prior to the Canada Line it would take 45 to 60 minutes for them to get to work, and it would take 60 to 90 minutes to get back home. Now it's 30 minutes door to door. When you look at that, that's an hour a day back into this person's life, that she gets to spend with her kids, with her family. I don't know how you put a price tag on that, but it's a magnificent, almost untold story.

We heard great stories in Richmond, and I know we'll hear them in the Tri-Cities region. As the Evergreen line opens and starts to move people, the merchants along the line report, in some instances, double-digit sales increases, activity increases. So it has really lived up to its billing when it comes to shaping the community and providing opportunities for retail and service sector merchants.

[1555]

All of that takes me to what we call TOD, transit- oriented development. This is perhaps the greatest success story, because with the opportunity for individuals and businesses to locate near a station, you get increases in density. That increase in density allows the creation of neighbourhoods. These are neighbourhoods where you can live, work, learn and play, and do it without a car — or at least do it without a second car.

We have seen in my community in Richmond such remarkable response to the rapid transit line. We're seeing these pods develop around the stations, especially. It's starting to create this dynamic, vibrant, livable city that I believe is going to be the model moving forward. I have every confidence that the Evergreen, in combination especially with all the other transit improvements that are happening as a result of this package, will continue to be heralded in the future as a great thing.

I just want to close with a word to the mayors who have asked that this legislation come forward. It enables them to really tackle some challenges that they feel deeply about in their community.

I was kind of struck by a comment that was a joint statement by Mayors Peter Fassbender, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Greg Moore, Richard Stewart, Gregor Robertson, Dianne Watts and Richard Walton in the Vancouver Sun on October 5 of this year. They said: "After a year of public consultation sessions across the region, meetings with key business and community stakeholders and a robust on-line engagement, what has become overwhelmingly clear is that this region cannot, must not, become choked with gridlock the likes of Los Angeles or Seattle."

I believe we're very much on the right track. We're very much working with the communities, with the mayors, with the regional government, with TransLink. This enabling legislation, this enhancement act, will really take a giant step into the future, and I'm pleased to support it.

G. Gentner: It's a pleasure to stand here and follow a dear friend and member for Richmond Centre. It takes me back to the days of white ankle socks up to the jeans and running shoes. The member for Richmond Centre back then, of course, was playing a guitar, way back in 1967 at Garden City Elementary talent. I'll never forget that. He's come a long way.

Interjection.

G. Gentner: He still does have a little bit of that talent. I'll give him that. Thank you.

This bill — I would have to say we're not about to throw it under the rails. It's a bill which we reluctantly have to support. It's a band-aid solution to bad governance, bad public policy, hoisted upon regional and municipal gov-
[ Page 8184 ]
ernments and, of course, TransLink, which is a creature of the province.

To set the tone, I want to talk about where we are with this and how we got here from last summer, particularly with the minister. The Lower Mainland mayors negotiated a plan to use a gas tax, to increase it to help pay for the Evergreen transit line to the northeast. The minister back then, the current minister, said the province would back it. There are other details which the province was also going to back.

After the meeting the minister complimented the mayors "for their hard work in coming up with a plan." Goldsmith-Jones told reporters: "It's really great for us to be acting in concert with the minister." I mean, kudos.

[1600]

But a week after the deal was agreed to, the new upstart Premier basically threw the minister under the bus. In a press conference the Premier said she would veto the gas tax. "When British Columbians say that they're not really excited about paying more gas taxes, I get that. Because my focus as Premier is about how we make life more affordable for people rather than less affordable" — July 11, 2011.

Interesting. A government of flip-flops. It's just more of the same. That is what this bill is. I mean, we can talk about the greater Vancouver transit piecemeal act. They're making it up as they go along because they haven't entrusted local authority with the ability to make up its own governance, its strategies.

You know, we talk about flip-flops. We saw the same thing, of course, with regards to the MSP premiums. The minister of the day suggested to throw it on to cigarettes and, of course, the Premier slapped him or, basically, put him under the bus. The Premier also talked about changes to the Senate. She had to recant that.

So we're talking about a tone of flip-flops which we see, basically, introduced in this legislation here today. I find it rather interesting that the minister here, who is agreeing upon a 2 percent fuel tax, was sitting here not so long ago opposed to the HST, about taxing individuals, or the way it was implemented, by the then Premier. He knew what the conscience of his constituents was all about, hitting their pocketbook, and he had the wherewithal to stand up. But obviously he didn't have the wherewithal to stand up on the flip-flopping of his Premier and this government.

It's interesting. You talk about flip-flops and the HST. I'm really looking forward that this minister can convince cabinet to ensure, when we get back to the PST, that sandals and flip-flops will be exempt, because I'll tell you, there's going to be a lot of flip-flops going on between now and then, and they're going to need a lot of exemptions.

Maybe I'm making a mistake. Maybe we should not exempt flip-flops. Maybe that's how we'll pay for the Evergreen line — a tax on flip-flops — because that is what this government has become. It doesn't have a direction; it's rudderless. It's making it up as it goes along.

I want to talk about the incompetence, somewhat, of TransLink. I'm not going to hold them responsible for it. A few weeks ago we discovered, through the death of Mr. Kehoe on a bus, that there were no surveillance cameras for buses south of Fraser River. Think about it. For whatever reason, there are surveillance cameras looking for the security of passengers north of the Fraser River, in Vancouver, but the old dilapidated buses south didn't get them. The point is this. There's a lack of fairness because of the poor governance that's been put together by this government.

It's also interesting when the southern routes like Port Coquitlam, White Rock, Surrey and Tsawwassen are left out with no security, yet we find out that there certainly was security in the buses of Surrey when it came to security cameras to look at the drivers, to watch the drivers, see what they're up to. Let's put the practice right side up. We've got security cameras spying on drivers, but when it comes down to the security of passengers south of Fraser, we're not worried about all of that.

It harkens back to one reason only: a poor governance model, the lack of accountability — the lack of local government, the lack of the citizenship to have access in how the transit services are done in the province of British Columbia and, in particular, in the Lower Mainland.

[1605]

I want to talk about governance, and I want to talk about what happened. We were here, many of us, a while back, relative to Bill 23. We passed it, where we ripped apart the autonomy, that somewhat quasi autonomy that the local government had and where we're going. There used to be a report way back in early, I think it was, 2002 — Lidstone, and Young and Company. It was supposed to be the new era of the Liberal government to, shall we say, give the authority away — you know, decentralize it, delegate it. It was a good idea, but lo and behold, we come up with Bill 43, and what they did is exactly the opposite.

What they did is put together a board not consisting of the residents or elected people. Before that we had a few MLAs that sat on the board. Unfortunately, the government members, the MLAs on the other side, didn't attend, so they changed the model. What do we have? The Institute of Chartered Accountants. They're a member of TransLink, or they're putting together recommendations to the mayors. Okay, they are good people. They know a little bit about money, but here we are after all this so-called expertise with the Institute of Charter Accountants, and we're still in debt and still can't find the money.

It's not their fault. It's the fault of the government which has not put a proper governance model together. It's time to unshackle TransLink and give it back to the people — the people of the Lower Mainland. That's what we were expecting with this bill here today, but that's not what we're getting.
[ Page 8185 ]

We're getting more of the same, a band-aid solution — 2 percent now, two years from now another 2 percent, reason being that this government doesn't want to give it away. It doesn't put trust in democracy.

We talk about auditors general and MAG, the municipal auditor general — how we're now going to look into what they're doing in this government. Perhaps it's going to look at the governance models and the auditing of TransLink, and it can't even properly audit itself.

Then, of course, the governance model. We have the board of trade that's part of it — the Vancouver Board of Trade, not Delta Chamber of Commerce, not the Surrey Board of Trade, but a specific interest group downtown that doesn't care about the security needs south of the Fraser. That's why you had a problem. That's why we have a problem with our buses south of Fraser. I'm not saying it's systemic strictly south of Fraser, but there are no security cameras on buses south of Fraser for a reason.

We need improved transit services. We need proper transit services in my community, and most of my council members are very opposed…. They're reluctant to accept this because of the poor transit services we receive in Delta. I don't want to get on my high horse on Delta, and I'm sure the member for Delta South would agree that per capita we're not getting our fair share. We have industrial parks. We have three different urban areas and a fourth community now that's part of Metro Vancouver — the First Nations. Why should we be treated differently?

I mean, we do have a rural base, but we keep it rural because we want to protect our community. But we're being punished, and because we're being punished, we're not getting the type of infrastructure that Transit should be providing. In my community 72nd Avenue alone gets 37,000 vehicles a day on it — 37,000 vehicles a day. That's half of what all Lions Gate Bridge takes. Do we get the proper transit service there? No.

It's really quite shocking when you do the comparative. We see gridlock up and down Nordel every day, a transit system that's partly responsible for paying for River Road, which for years has been irresponsible. We've got residential groups. We've got the Sunbury Neighbourhood Association. Why aren't they on TransLink? You're giving it to a group downtown.

The seniors involved with Deltassist — why aren't they part of the screening panel of who gets elected to TransLink? We have the B.C. Wharf Operators Association, the B.C. Trucking Association. They seem to have more input than the residents.

I see the need to come forward with the 2 percent increase. But really, why are we not looking at the larger enchilada and doing it right? It's really the responsibility in my community to the homeowners who are trying to get to work every day. To get to work every day — and I'm sure that many of you will listen to your favourite radio show, CKNW, every morning….

[1610]

Listen to the traffic reports. Every day Alex Fraser Bridge is an hour and a half long. If you want to get over that bridge and you've got to go to work at eight or 8:30, you better make sure you're on the bridge by six, even though on off-peak times it's probably half an hour.

Why is it that the money isn't coming to probably the fastest-growing areas in the Lower Mainland, south of the Fraser? I realize…. I'm not disagreeing with the need for Evergreen. I'm not disagreeing with what's being proposed here. But this is a band-aid solution for an ongoing problem, and the biggest problem of all is the lack of coordination and cohesiveness between planning at the municipal level, at the regional level and the board of TransLink that has been handpicked by the government opposite.

You've got to mesh it. You've got to make it work. It ain't working, and the government keeps burying its head in the sand. I don't understand that. I don't understand why that is. I do know, of course, that we have a minister opposite that says one thing, the Premier contradicts him, and now they suddenly scuttle about and try and patch it all up with a 2 percent tax increase.

Now, I've got to talk briefly about the pocketbook. That's why I'm a little reluctant, but I know the other side will make fun of the 99 percent and the Occupy group downtown and all the rest of it, the burgeoning middle class. But you know what? For the person in my community, transit is essential. It's absolutely essential to get to work every day.

You know what? I talked to a mom the other day. There is a municipal election. I do knock doors now. Okay, I'm supporting a school board candidate. Her name will not be on the record here. But nevertheless, I will tell you this. Knocking on the door, I came across a soccer mom. The amount of money it costs her for gas to get to work every day has taken such a bite out of their pocketbook that she's had to cancel SurDel Girls Soccer for her two girls. I mean, we're talking maybe cents a day, but the pocketbook issue is mounting. It's mounting every day. It's hurting people. People are trying to make ends meet. Some people, of course, are trying to go to school, university.

Statistics Canada has made it very clear in releasing its findings on cross-country analysis on median family income. Vancouver had an average family income of $68,000 and didn't even make the top ten metropolitan areas by per-capita income. Edmonton was second. The cities such as Guelph, Regina and Sudbury were well ahead of us, and yet we have one of the highest standards of living. So slap on more taxes? You go, because for me right now it's a temporary solution to a larger, larger problem.

We can look at what's been happening with the MSP premiums going up, up and up — the highest. You look at what's going on in Alberta. Their MSP, I think, is zero, even today. Last year they went up 6 percent, and
[ Page 8186 ]
they're going up again. The property taxes are going up. Hydro was increased at 10 percent. I won't get into that argument, because we know darned well why those percentages are going up. If the government has its way, they'll go up even further. We're seeing higher costs in all infrastructure costs, whether it be municipal or private, and it's getting away on us.

How do we find a way to pay for all these services that are necessary? Well, I think the first way to do it is to make transit accountable. Make it accountable to the taxpayer, to the guy and the lady going to work every day. Make sure they have that direct input, because right now it's not happening.

I want to also talk about the situation the mayors were thrown into. They were thrown into this situation. I mean, those who voted yes or no for the 2 percent tax — they had no option, really. Many who voted against it did it not because they're for or against the 2 percent, per se. They're against the structure that this government has foisted upon them, and they're tired of it.

[1615]

That really means, as far as I'm concerned, that the whole apparatus of governance…. I mean, we've grown as a province. We're growing as a Lower Mainland community. We're not in the 19th century anymore. There is a fourth level of government. There's the federal government, there's provincial government, there's municipal government, and there is a regional government — a regional government that needs overhaul. It needs overhauls, including the metro transit system, where there is some accountability and direct democracy. That's what's lacking here.

This is, in my estimation, only a short-term fix. It does not provide a long-term funding. You know what? The plan is too late. It's way, way too late. It's a knee-jerk reaction to mismanagement by this government of TransLink for years. I'll leave the discussion on the Evergreen line to my good colleagues in the Tri-Cities, but we know that there has been this SeaBus that has been parked now for some time because of the lack of funding. The government knew about this.

I'm proud to say this. It's called the Pacific Breeze. That's in storage. I mean, I'm proud to say that on this side, way back in 1974, it was the Dave Barrett government that introduced the SeaBuses to the Lower Mainland. So you got us two, and now we're looking for the third one, and what does this government do? It's in storage. I mean, come on, give your head a shake. Something's wrong with this.

In San Francisco they have a sea bus linking system that's all throughout the Bay, and the GVRD, through its diligence, before it became Metro Vancouver, was also looking at ferry options across the Fraser River, and that's on the shelf. That has been there for some time.

But unless we address the TransLink governance model, we're not even going to get close to getting the Pacific Breeze back in the water. I think the Premier, with cutting down the governance…. This sort of sums it all up, when she was asked about it: "There's no appetite to start monkeying with it before we get through municipal elections. We will look to municipal governments for direction on that and see if we can find some consensus. I don't think that this is going to be a fast process." Oh boy, that's a yawn.

How much longer are we going to have to wait — 2013? I guess maybe in 2013 we're going to see a final turnaround in the due diligence of TransLink. Now, the Liberals have been dragging their feet on this long enough, and you know on our side for two years we've made it very clear what we would do. We would try and find ways to fund transit.

One, of course, was the use of the carbon taxes, and the other one, of course, is through our green funds, but the green funds would be used to help out all communities but some would also help to support transit. I mean, that was a very progressive and positive way of looking at things. But of course, I guess because it was the NDP that suggested it, it too was thrown under the bus.

Briefly, before I conclude, I want to talk about a few options. The type of fairness, I think, is very important — and the lack of fairness that we've seen for transit users, particularly those living in the suburbs, the middle class. I don't see the real options here, the options whereby…. We need park-and-rides on the Trans-Canada Highway. I don't see that option being put forward here, because this is a short-term vision.

I look at the traffic jams, and I look at what is happening in my community on South Fraser perimeter road. I talked about the pocketbook issues. The other pocketbook issue we know is going to be tolling the Port Mann bridge — three bucks one way, three bucks the other. I have an employee now that's probably going to have to find work elsewhere, because she's going to have to put that into the mix in her everyday lifestyle. How is she going to pay for it?

Those toll evaders are not going to use transit, because there isn't a proper transit system going to be put in place when those tolls are executed. Instead, the toll evaders are going to find their way through a stop-and-go new freeway, with all its traffic lights, called the South Fraser perimeter road, dumping more congestion at the Alex Fraser Bridge.

[1620]

As I started talking earlier about the traffic jam and the congestion in my community, the number one issue in North Delta right now is traffic congestion. When all those toll evaders…. I don't blame them. They're trying to make ends meet, trying to find their way to get to work. They're going to do it down the South Fraser perimeter road, which is going to be bumper to bumper. By the time they get to the Alex Fraser Bridge it's going to be a bloody mess. It's going to be a terrible mess,
[ Page 8187 ]
all because this government has not done any cohesive planning putting it all together.

The origin and destination studies of where the trucks are coming and where they're going, where people are coming and where they're going to work — they haven't done that modelling. It hasn't been done, because the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

The only way you're going to do it is put the trust where it belongs. That's the people, the voters, the metro transit system, the regional governments, the municipal governments. Give it back. Give it back.

R. Sultan: It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of this Bill 11, which will raise the gasoline taxes by two cents a litre in order to help fund the Evergreen line. This $1.4 billion project has been talked about so long. It's only 11 kilometres long, but $1.4 billion. How could that be possible? It was once described by the Vancouver Sun as the Nevergreen line, but it now looks like fruition has arrived.

It's important to my constituents on the North Shore for several reasons. First of all, it's vital that Vancouver, that British Columbia, maintain the free flow of freight and traffic, as painful as it might be to some communities — and I'm looking at a representative of one of them right in front of me today — in order that we have a free flow of commerce from British Columbia to Asian markets. We don't have many choices. Rupert and Vancouver, in its many hundreds of miles, and there are hundreds of miles of port area. That's about it. Don't try shipping out through Bella Coola. It's not going to work too well.

It's also important because the North Shore, while relatively thinly served by TransLink, funnels all of its traffic through, essentially, two choke points across the Burrard Inlet. Should traffic pile up, we become landlocked or have to find our way out of the North Shore over the Duffey Lake Road. If any of you have been on the Duffey Lake Road, that's not a very practical solution.

So we have a strong vested interest in ensuring that the highway and road system of Metro Vancouver does not become clogged, because if it does, we're very much the losers on the North Shore. It pays us to encourage mass transit in Metro Vancouver.

Finally, it's of great interest to those of us on the North Shore because the high average property values on the North Shore mean that we end up paying a disproportionate share of any financing scheme which depends on property taxes.

The financing decision was not a terribly difficult one in economists' eyes. The Vancouver Sun, on the seventh of October, headlined in their editorial: "Mayors Should Not Turn Down $1 Billion in Transit Financing."

We posed a difficult issue as a government, as governments — plural, in fact — to the mayors of Metro Vancouver. There's a billion dollars on the table for the taking, but you have to come up with your share — originally one-third, one-third. But give the mayors credit. By the time the meetings, the conferences, the headlines, the press releases were all done, I think the provincial contribution of the entire project crept up closer to 40 percent.

[1625]

So if pain was felt, frankly, it would be, say, the member representing Cranbrook or the people of Prince Rupert. Why should they be paying a disproportionate share for mass transit down in Vancouver? We have some explaining to do to those folks.

But given that reality, it's a little bit much to have representatives of Metro Vancouver ridings come to this House and say that somehow they've been taken advantage of, that we have not done our fair share, that somehow they've gotten a bad deal. As the Vancouver Sun said: "So we congratulate the mayors who are taking a regional view and encourage the others to do the same."

The main reason I just wanted to talk on the bill was that I have tried to maintain fairly close contact with the evolving debate on the North Shore, particularly in conjunction with our three North Shore mayors, two of whom serve as chair and vice-chair respectively of the Mayors Council of TransLink. For them to take the approving decision that they did took courage; it took a tolerance for abuse from the public — one of the mayors told me a lot of graphic details on the hate mail that he has been receiving; and it took leadership.

The lack of leadership is decried. I applaud the leadership displayed by a majority of the Metro Vancouver mayors, and for the record I'd like to list their names into what I would call the honour roll.

Mayor Peter Fassbender of Langley city probably deserves the most credit for having the most sustained impetus for this project. Mayor Richard Walton of North Van district — currently chair of the Mayors Council and a person to whom I said last August, when he declared that they were going for a two-cent-per litre gas tax: "Are you crazy? Haven't you looked at the calendar? You're facing a civic election immediately after the decision." He said: "We've got to be bold. We have to show some creativity, Ralph." I thought: "Wow. I don't hear that very often."

The vice-chair, Mayor Pamela Goldsmith-Jones of West Vancouver; Mayor Darrell Mussatto of North Van city; Mayor Gregor Robertson of Vancouver; Mayor Dianne Watts of Surrey; Mayor Ralph Drew of Belcarra; Mayor Richard Stewart — our former colleague, as a matter of fact — currently mayor of Coquitlam; and Mayor Ernie Daykin of Maple Ridge; and others.

And then, to avoid threats of defamation, litigation, I won't try to characterize the others. Let's just say the not-so-honour roll. I would say very bluntly that we certainly didn't get much help from Mayor Corrigan of Burnaby, and we certainly didn't get much help from Mayor Brodie of Richmond, and we certainly didn't get
[ Page 8188 ]
much help from Mayor Lois Jackson of Delta. I'm sure they had their good reasons.

The track record of this province in funding mass transit on the Lower Mainland, I think, is a generous one. As has already been pointed out by the member for Surrey-Newton, the current commitment is $583 million in a $1.4 billion project — not small change. That, of course, is not counting the two-cent-a-litre gasoline tax, which is really the mayors' little project of their own, so we don't want to take credit or blame for that.

It's pointed out that over the last ten years this government has committed around $1.5 billion to the mass transit projects on the Lower Mainland, and there's much more to come when we talk about the line out to UBC and so on.

So that's the track record. I think it's a proud day in the cooperation it has evidenced between the federal government, the provincial government and the various Metro Vancouver mayors. It's been a tough deal to patch together. Let's not acknowledge that it was not a very difficult deal to put together, and as has been pointed out by various speakers, the end is not in sight. This is only the first instalment. There's more fun to come and more rhetoric in this Legislature, I'm sure, in the months and years ahead.

[1630]

But a lot has been talked about in leadership and whose fault it was that we got stuck in this situation in the first place. And to end my few remarks…. As I said, I got the honour roll off my chest and the not-so-honour roll off my chest. I did a little bit of research on Google here as I sat listening to some of the charges, and I couldn't help but stumble across a story in the Vancouver Sun of July 7, 2011, by Kelly Sinoski.

He wrote, talking about history:

"A vehicle tax was introduced in the late 1990s" — and of course, as an aside, we all know who was in power then — "to help to finance TransLink when the agency was created by the provincial government. But after a huge public outcry against a $75-a-year levy on automobiles, the then NDP Premier, Ujjal Dosanjh, backed away from it without providing other revenue sources, setting the scene for a decade of chronic financial shortfalls for TransLink."

That's the history.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

B. Ralston: I rise to make a few comments on the bill that's before the House. I'm not sure that the mayors elevated to what the previous speaker called the honour roll will really appreciate that particular form of recognition. It's very clear, when you actually listen to some of the comments made by the mayors — and certainly, the leading mayors in that group — that they regarded this as a necessary but very unpalatable temporary measure to simply advance the transit file slightly, but far from ideal.

Indeed, if I could quote from the mayor of Surrey. "It's a tough pill to swallow; there is no doubt about it. But I think we have an opportunity right now with the minister. We can look at the governance. We can look at some sensible funding strategies." That sentiment is echoed by all of those mayors who support it, to leave those who didn't support the measure aside.

It is regrettable that an honest disagreement about policy, as described by the member opposite, is somehow dishonourable. There was an honest disagreement among the mayors about the merits of this proposal, and for very good reasons.

I suppose this measure does raise the broader questions of: how did transit financing get to this point, and why did this measure come forward with such controversy and experience such a painful and protracted birth? One looks at the history of the bill that set up TransLink and the present governing structure. It arose when the then Minister of Transportation expressed his exasperation with the process by which the RAV line, rechristened the Canada Line, came about.

Imagine the temerity of those elected officials. They voted three times but ultimately decided to move forward with the Canada Line. Such was the distaste for that process, on the government side, that the then Minister of Transportation moved a bill which restructured in a very fundamental way the governance of transit in the Lower Mainland.

It is very clear in the bill itself that anyone who was an elected official was forbidden from being on the board. Whether you're on a diking district or a police board — any role that involved you in a capacity of publicly representing people — you were disbarred from eligibility for being on the board.

The bill came forward in the very characteristic way, characteristic of the Minister of Transportation of the day, now the Minister of Finance. There was second reading, a speech by the minister, one or two speeches by members of the opposition, and that debate was shut down.

[1635]

Ordinarily, one would expect, in a bill of this complexity…. And this may be the genesis of the subsequent problems that have been experienced, by the mayors, the councils and the region generally, with the governance structure that was set up. There was no debate at committee stage. It was rammed through on closure.

You have an important bill designed to establish the governance of a very important regional agency, TransLink, with huge economic goals and a huge impact on the region, its future development, its citizens, the quality of life, climate change — all the rest of it. No debate was permitted in the Legislature. That's the B.C. Liberal way. That's B.C. Liberal–style democracy.

Is it any wonder that the Minister of Transportation of the day, now the Minister of Finance, expressed his
[ Page 8189 ]
admiration for Chinese democracy, where if you want to build an infrastructure project, you simply bulldoze the people out of the way and get on with it. You don't have to mess around with any of this debate or listening to contrary views or anything like that. That typified the kind of debate that led to this particular bill.

Rightly, the mayors are unhappy with the governance structure. When you think about it, it doesn't really make sense in any fundamental way, I think, any thoughtful way, to delink, to decouple, land use and regional representation. The mayors and municipal councils have control through the zoning power that they are given under the Local Government Act, the power to zone and rezone and to designate under official community plans. Collectively, at the regional level, they have a similar power to set up regional plans and pass them and plan the future of the region.

When they are removed in the way that they are…. They are basically an afterthought. They are given a yes-no option, typically at the end of the process after it goes through the governance structure of TransLink. No wonder they are frustrated. It's no wonder that the decision-making process is very torturous. It's no wonder that this kind of solution comes forward as a last gasp and the mayors involved very reluctantly — I wouldn't say consent — more or less acquiesce to the measure as an interim measure only. As the mayor that I quoted said: "We look forward to reviewing governance and looking at some funding options."

At one point there was a fellow named Tom Prendergast who came from New York and has since gone back to New York to run the transit authority there. When he was here and running TransLink for a brief period of time, he very quickly identified that the long-term transit financing was a major issue for the TransLink authority and put on, invited municipal officials and provincial officials to a seminar, where they had senior officials in transit from New York, San Francisco and greater Toronto to examine in a serious way options for long-term financing of transit in the region and, indeed, in the province. I think I was the only elected official from the provincial Legislature on either side who was there.

What was clear from that presentation was that in order to properly fund transit — and other agencies in other regions spoke of their similar difficulties in funding transit in the long term, even more mature systems such as the New York system — one of the keys was a diversity of sources of revenue. But the TransLink mechanism that was set up didn't give any further diversity or any options to create further diversity in sources of funding.

The same traditional sources of transit funding were put into the legislation. Again, there was no debate in the Legislature. The minister didn't have to defend that at second reading or committee stage. No apparent thought went into this, at least by the minister, perhaps by those who drafted the statute. So you have gasoline as a source. This is what the tax, the 2 cents a litre, is — what we are talking about.

[1640]

But as Mayor Brodie pointed out in a speech he gave several years ago when he was head of the transit authority, gasoline as a source of funding is inherently unstable because of course, as we all know, the price of gasoline goes up, but sometimes it goes down. It rises and falls seasonally. It is inherently an unstable and somewhat unpredictable source of revenue.

You have the farebox as another major source. Yet we all know the public expresses a limit, and there is a diminishing return. If you want to encourage people to take transit and to use transit, particularly those people who might have a choice as to whether to use it or not, you certainly don't want to discourage them by raising the fares to a point where there is a diminishing return on ridership.

Of course, the final traditional staple of transit funding has been the property tax. The source of controversy in this particular debate and this particular financial solution was, as some mayors pointed out, that they were very reluctant — if not, in some cases, absolutely opposed — to what is an aspect of this proposal: a further claim on property tax. It's styled as a temporary measure, but I suppose one, looking back, could say that income tax was a temporary measure in the First World War and hasn't left us since.

There is a concern that given that municipal sources of revenue are limited and given that property tax is a major source of revenue for municipalities, to see the transit authority intrude into the area of property tax — with an insatiable, perhaps, or at least an increasing demand over the projected 20-year plan that has been put before TransLink — might very well erode the basic staple of municipal finance. So, understandably, there is a reluctance there.

Now, TransLink does have some other sources. They earn some revenue from advertising. They have some power that was added in an amendment to assemble land and sell it.

Some of the important measures that were put forward in this seminar, for example…. One of the preferred options, particularly in a system like TransLink where we are still building a new system…. It's a bit different in New York or London, where the real issue is maintaining and repairing, perhaps, in the case of London, an increasingly dilapidated system that dates from the 19th century in the cases of many of the lines.

Where you're building new lines, you have an opportunity to impose a tax that would capture the increased land value that results from what is entirely public investment in transit stations. It's a well-known development result that when you build transit stations — it doesn't happen necessarily right away — there is a rapid increase in the value of land within a certain
[ Page 8190 ]
radius of the transit station due to obvious reasons of convenience and accessibility to transit.

That value increases, and municipalities are usually willing to increase the density of new properties that would be built around the transit station. So there is a dramatic increase in land value. One of the mechanisms used in other jurisdictions to generate revenue for transit, since it is generated by public investment, is to convert not all but some of that increase in density to return it to the treasury as a source of revenue.

This has been mooted. It's not exactly a new idea. It's been discussed. Yet here we are, building the Evergreen line finally, but there is no plan to recapture the increase in value that will result to property owners around transit stations on that particular line. Neither is there a plan at any point in the future to do it. So when the mayors say the governance is wrong and the sources of revenue are limited, in my view, this is not simple political rhetoric. This is a real challenge to the region.

[1645]

The member from West Vancouver spoke of the economic importance of transit for movement of people around the region, particularly at a time when you see stories in, I think it was…. I was reading Vancouver Magazine, which had a story about young couples, in some cases with children, who are living in Vancouver itself, earning a collective income of, in some cases, up to $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000, living in basement suites even as they approach their mid-30s or late 30s because they're simply unable on that income to afford to buy a modest property within the city limits. It becomes clear that in order for….

Those are the people, in many cases, that do the work in Vancouver, whether it's.… In one case, I think, someone was a teacher. Another person was a cook. These are people that are engaged in work that's vital and important to the prosperity of the metropolitan area and the city. So the one way, beyond tackling the housing problem, is to give those people access to transit that enables them to live in close proximity to their jobs yet not be totally boxed out of the property market.

These are real concerns. It's a growing concern, particularly in Vancouver itself, but housing affordability even in the inner suburbs and to some extent in the outer suburbs, depending on your income, is becoming an increasing problem.

Not only does a good transit system facilitate goods movement; it also will increase the desirability and the livability of the region in some of those environmental ways — just the sheer ability of people to be able to afford to live in the region and to do the work that's necessary, that makes the region tick. So there are all those reasons for looking forward to an effective transit system.

This bill is one that is going to be supported by those on this side, but with the same reluctance and the same caveats as the mayors have properly expressed. It really stems from, in my view, as I've said, the way in which the governance structure of this entity was constructed; the way in which it has not worked, clearly; the limited sources of revenue that are available; and the long-term challenges. Unless those things are fixed and dealt with, the problems will persist and become much deeper.

Now, there is something in here for the people that I represent. In 2013 on the King George there will be B-line service, Guilford to Surrey Central along 104th Avenue and Surrey Central to White Rock along King George Boulevard, which is a needed enhancement. It's a major traffic corridor, and it will be used. There is very little effective north-south transit within the city of Surrey, a city of 500,000 people. But the long-term problems need to be addressed.

There are other sources. Indeed, the critic from Surrey-Newton, our Transportation critic, has spoken of the carbon tax. In 2009 it was proposed by the NDP that a portion of that tax be dedicated to public transit within the region. I think part of the problem with the efficacy of the carbon tax is that people see no link between its vaunted environmental goals and what it's actually used for, which is simply offsetting tax reductions on the personal and corporate tax. As it is in this year's budget, I think it's actually a negative value on the budget. The offsetting tax decreases are greater than is raised by the carbon tax.

People are looking for some real link between that. The mayors have proposed that. Indeed, in 2009 the Metro mayors, the 21 mayors, unanimously called on the provincial government to use the carbon tax, at least a portion of it, in that way, and that has been declined. So, the bill is a stopgap bill, a temporary measure, and that has been declined.

[1650]

The bill is a stopgap bill. It's a temporary measure. It's certainly nothing to elevate anyone to a roll of honour on the basis of having supported it, and certainly, that is not the motive of those who did support it. But it's a temporary measure, and I believe that collectively we can do better. We can devise a long-term mechanism that will enable the transit system to grow and to blossom and serve the goals that we wish for it. That can be done if there is some appreciation and some patience with the democratic process, which is completely lacking on the opposite side in the way that this entity was constructed.

With those brief comments, I'll end my remarks.

J. McIntyre: I'm very pleased today, this afternoon, to rise in support of Bill 11, the Greater Vancouver Transit Enhancement Act. Before I get into my remarks, I just want to say a couple of things.

First of all, I'd like to thank the member from the government side who spoke before me, from West Vancouver–Capilano, because as usual, he well articulated
[ Page 8191 ]
the benefits to the North Shore, and I would also like to take the opportunity to thank him for his work. Over the last years, and certainly as we have shared the responsibilities of representing West Vancouver, this member has worked long and hard on a number of transit and transportation issues that have affected us on the North Shore and in West Vancouver. I want to thank him publicly for his work.

I also want to make a comment. In listening to the debate this afternoon, several members from the other side of the House have talked about the governance with respect to this act and with respect, I guess, to the Mayors Council. Despite some of it being, I will admit, controversial and perhaps controversial when it was reorganized, the fact that the mayors of all the Lower Mainland municipalities, constituencies, have looked long and hard at this issue and have actually — they've gone in this direction and that direction — now come up with a solution and something they support, I think speaks to the success of some of this.

Prior to that we had a TransLink board, I believe, that rotated. It had different municipal representatives on it, and it rotated almost every year. Now we have a system where the mayors, the ones who are on the line, who are duly elected in every one of those municipalities as political heads of those municipalities, have had the opportunity to study this issue and deal with their ratepayers and their constituents.

The fact that they did put all their heads together and did come up with a solution, I think, as others before me and others have written in the media lately, that they should be applauded for that courageous step.

On to my remarks. I think that the introduction of this bill and the fact that we can move on with the building of the Evergreen line is timely. It's more than timely, and it finally provides this concrete step in advancing the building of a $1.4 billion project that's going to involve, obviously, the Evergreen line but also the bus service enhancements, improvements to roads and to cycling networks that are all, as I say, long overdue.

This whole issue of financing the public transportation improvements has been a thorny issue. I think all of us recognize that. It has been way over a decade, and I know even, if memory serves me right, certainly before I ran for political office, which would be before 2004-2005. I was involved in some of the market research and polling surrounding what I'll now call the infamous ill-fated parking stall tax.

I think that Craig McInnes in his October 6 article in the Vancouver Sun summed this up quite well. He says that the history of that quest, meaning the quest for funding, "has been one of a string of failures, based primarily on a disconnect between the people responsible for growing the transit system and those who were afraid of being blamed by voters for raising taxes. Remember the vehicle levy, the parking stall tax and expanded tolling? Fundraising plans were voted by TransLink only to be shot down by the province" — and I certainly remember one in particular that was shot down by the NDP; that would be the vehicle levy — "which would then turn around and chide municipal leaders for failing to come up with the revenue needed to expand transit.

"Meanwhile, TransLink was chewing through its cash reserves and finally had to produce a status-quo plan that allowed for no growth for ten years. That plan didn't include the $400 million TransLink share for the Evergreen line."

[1655]

Let me review some of that chronology, and just the recent chronology, only going back to 2007. That's when TransLink and the Metro Vancouver mayors made a $400 million commitment to this Evergreen line. In 2008 — a whole year goes by — the province committed $410 million and signed an MOU to deliver the project.

I want to add that that $400 million is now, of course, $583 million. To 2009. Another year goes by, and the federal government commits $417 million, part of the Building Canada fund that, of course, we're all sensitive to, requires completion of the project by 2017.

In July 2009 TransLink publicly stated that while expansion is a top priority, they were unable to meet their commitment. Then in October '09 the Mayors Council rejected a plan — and I think this is the one that Craig McInnes was referencing — that would have funded the Evergreen line and other service expansion. It was rejected as it would have required a $150-million-a-year vehicle levy, which averaged about $123 a car, plus another $200 million from other yet-to-be-defined services.

Since then, of course, the province has been working with the mayors to devise a plan to secure this funding. So then we fast-forward to September 2010. The province and the Mayors Council entered an MOU on livable cities, where they agreed to develop a sustainable, long-term funding strategy. Of course, the only option for mayors, they are saying, is to raise property taxes, so a committee is then established to look at additional solutions, looking at possibilities of new vehicle levies, road user tolls, tax increases and real estate development fees.

Then we move forward again to April 2011, and here we have the mayors saying that the property tax is not an acceptable option. But now they are looking at vehicle registration fees, an increase in fuel taxes, regional carbon tax, household levy and additional parking sales tax.

You can imagine we are now very pleased that just last week, on October 7, 2011, the Mayors Council finally voted in favour of a plan to help TransLink pay for its share of the Evergreen line and several other of these
[ Page 8192 ]
priority transportation projects across the whole region. These are important projects, such as more local bus service, more service hours, as well, as I mentioned, as improvements to the road network, cycling infrastructure and, of course, to the SeaBus terminal, which is very important for the North Shore.

This legislation, Bill 11, will allow the region to increase the fuel tax by two cents a litre, starting April 1, 2012, which I understand will allow them to generate in the range of about $40 million annually.

As rationale for this important step…. I think, from some perspectives, it is being regarded as very courageous, given that the mayors have stepped up, just several weeks ahead of municipal elections and before the long-term funding solutions have been developed, to fund that extra $30 million a year that is required. So as the rationale, let me again quote from an article.

There has been a lot of press recently. There was an article in the Vancouver Sun on October 5, in advance of the vote, that was co-written by seven supportive mayors. Those would be Peter Fassbender, Greg Moore, Richard Stewart, Gregor Robertson, Dianne Watts and Richard Walton. Their rationale:

"The future of Metro Vancouver's economic well-being and livability depends on a stable, well-funded transportation system. Our population has grown from 1.9 million two decades ago to over 2.5 million today, and another million are expected over the next 20 years. But the swift, broad-based growth of our region has been accompanied by an inexcusable lack of leadership in transportation planning, and our streets and highways are now clogged with traffic. In many areas there is little or no public transportation system.

"In order to accommodate our rapidly increasing population, as well as take advantage of our region's enviable positions as the Asia-Pacific gateway, we must move forward with a long-term funding model to meet both our current transportation needs and those of our children and grandchildren."

Let me read another quote into the record from Michael Goldberg, just today, who wrote in the Sun. He's a well-known professor emeritus now at Sauder School of Business. He adds, in his article entitled "The Critical Importance of Expanding Transit Now" — and I think he gives a very good rationale here:

"Vancouver is in a global competition for people, jobs and investment. Central to creating a competitive global city region is mobility and the efficiency with which people can move around the region, both in terms of the dollar cost of movement and, especially, the time costs. In such a global setting creating an efficient, user-friendly, cost-effective and sustainable public transit system is of critical importance.

[1700]

"Accordingly, building out our rapid transit system to service the rapidly growing municipalities in the northeast of the Metro Vancouver region and south of the Fraser River in Surrey is absolutely essential if we are to build a globally competitive urban region. The recent decision by the TransLink Mayors Council to fund the Evergreen line and the additional transit lines is thus to be applauded as a vital step to position our region to compete globally."

Transit ridership is increased significantly, triggered in part by the mode shift during the 2010 games. We must provide the necessary infrastructure to meet demand if we want to be considered an international economic centre.

I agree with the supportive mayors that the time for debate has come to an end, especially after six very long years and extensive public consultation and engagement. The province has to get on board now and facilitate the Lower Mainland mayors achieving the objectives of their Moving Forward plan a.s.a.p.

Let me conclude with a quote from the editorial in the Vancouver Sun on October 7, the very day of the vote that was urging the mayors to do the right thing, entitled: "Mayors Should Not Turn Down $1 Billion in Transit Financing."

"In the meantime, if the Mayors Council turns down the supplemental plan they are voting on today, TransLink will be stuck for at least another year with an operating plan that allows for no growth. That road leads to more congestion and gradual deterioration of the world-leading quality of life we cherish here.

"The plan is not perfect. Not everyone will agree with the choices being made, but we must move forward. The plan before the mayors is the best compromise available. What makes it compelling is that if they turn it down, the mayors will turn their backs on $417 million from the federal government and $583 million from provincial government.

"Those dollars won't be available for another plan, one that will no doubt be equally problematic to sell across the region.

"The mayors have an opportunity to respond to a growing need here for a bargain price, and they should take it."

Here in this House, we should seal the deal for them.

D. Thorne: It's a pleasure for me to rise today in support of Bill 11. I actually thought the day would never come. I know the member who spoke before me, from across the way, mentioned six years. Well, it's been a lot longer than six years coming, so much so that we in Coquitlam — as you yourself probably know, Mr. Speaker — have dubbed the line the Nevergreen line — right? It's become quite the handle.

I think it's a good day. I don't even think of this, really, as debate. I think of it more as both sides rising in support and making comments — some more critical than others.

I also have a few criticisms about the whole way this has gone, which I would like to make, but in general I support the bill, and I would like to commend the Mayors Council for making this decision, because I think they had to obviously take a fair amount of flak from different quarters — and will continue to do so.

To make this decision that has not always been popular and will not always be popular in an election year, I think, speaks for their decision to do the right thing. That doesn't always happen in politics. I think that they really should be commended for it, especially under the circumstances.

There are lots of reasons why. I've heard people speaking in the House today about the fact that they also need rapid transit and not that they're opposed to the Evergreen line, but: "Why aren't we getting it in my region? We need it just as badly."
[ Page 8193 ]

Well, I just wanted to make a few comments about that. One comment I wanted to make, which is just an aside, really…. I was reading an article yesterday in the Province about aging in British Columbia, specifically in the Lower Mainland. They were looking at the areas where senior levels will be increasing in the 20-year period from 2007 to 2027. Coquitlam is the highest in the corridor from Hope to Pemberton. It's a 183 percent increase in seniors expected in the next 15 years in Coquitlam.

[1705]

This Evergreen line will probably be overused, like some of the other lines, because of that, because we all know that young people and seniors probably use transit more than anybody else, if you look at the numbers. So I think that's one thing.

I mean, the reason certain areas…. Just to read this into the record, because it seems to be forgotten sometimes. The GVRD's livable region plan originally designated regional centres and town centres in specific areas. They were the areas that were slated for high-density development — the regional centres — and rapid transit.

So what has happened in the Lower Mainland, particularly in the northeast sector, is it was designated — Coquitlam centre — as a regional centre. Coquitlam has gone ahead and done its share. They have gone ahead, and they have overbuilt, really, for the services, particularly around the road system and transit. It's a nightmare out there.

I know it's a nightmare everywhere in the Lower Mainland, really. I'm sure. My colleague across the way is laughing because it's a nightmare in her community, too, but I guess I'm prejudiced. I think that it's a worse nightmare in Coquitlam.

You know, Port Moody has stopped development. They have gone so far as to say: "Until something starts to happen, we are not going to develop any more." They have been turning down development applications.

Coquitlam has not gone that far. They have continued to develop, as anyone who has gone out to Coquitlam recently and seen the kind of development, the highrises in my colleague the Speaker's riding…. It's quite phenomenal. People are buying because rapid transit was supposed to have been finished by this time and running. I think that it's a very good thing that we are getting it now. It is behind schedule, but it's not a moment too late, and we will take what we can get, I would say.

The town centres like Delta and different areas were not in the top level for rapid transit, and that's the reason they're not on the list right now. Surrey is a regional centre. Richmond, Coquitlam and the other, smaller centres will come in afterwards, when the bigger centres finally are finished with rapid transit. Hopefully, the mayors have started down the path where we will get some ongoing funding where we can finish rapid transit in the regional centres and move on to the smaller centres.

This plan will give us the Evergreen line. It will give us more buses in different areas. It will enlarge the numbers of people that can ride the current SkyTrain, because they'll get more cars. The stations will be enlarged and a few more things like that.

One hopes that we never have to go to the property tax scenario. I think most of us are in agreement that that's a last-case scenario that we have to do that, that we will find other ways. I mean, there are all kinds of things, and they've mostly been tried and turned down or failed — road tolling, the parking lot tax and the transit levy or car levies, different things like that.

The one thing that we have suggested on this side of the House — and we hope this will be a solution very soon, perhaps as soon as next year — would be using a carbon tax for rapid transit. So one hopes that will come in.

I just wanted to say a few words about the governance of TransLink at the moment. That has been mentioned by most people that have spoken today. I know it's a different governance model than we had in the years when I was a city councillor, and I was actually sitting on the board of directors of the GVRD. I have had a lot of personal experiences with how our transportation and our TransLink plans have developed.

[1710]

I remember back when we were voting on the Canada Line, which was called the RAV line at that time. We voted and we voted, and it failed and it failed. Finally, late one Friday afternoon the vote went, and it passed with one weighted vote. Just for anybody that isn't familiar with how that works, that's a village, basically, the size of Belcarra or Anmore or, perhaps, Lions Bay — 500, 600, 700 people — actually putting the Canada line over the top. It had failed consistently.

I believe that that was when the germ of the idea for the new style of governance came into being. I think the government of British Columbia was pretty upset at the independence shown by the mayors and councils and wanted to do something about that, and in fact did.

We moved from elected people making the decisions for the cities and municipalities to an unelected, appointed board — well, a varied board, varied membership — being the people who made the decisions and then passed the decisions on to the elected people to find the money to pay their share.

That has caused a lot of problems for the municipalities and cities, not the least of which is the disconnect between the elected people and the citizens who live in the cities. It has caused a real disconnect around land use planning and land use policy development, all of which is part of the job of the regional district, which is no longer called the GVRD. It's now, of course, called Metro Vancouver, but they have the same purpose. They're actually working on an update to the livable region plan right now. I think it has been passed by all of the cities and municipalities.
[ Page 8194 ]

It's tough for those councillors, those mayors and their citizens to make good land use decisions when they don't know, from personal participation, what decisions are being made at a board that is basically a closed board of unelected people.

So there are a lot of problems with it. It is not a popular model of governance. I thought it was very funny when the Premier made a comment just recently about there being probably no consensus around changing the governance model that TransLink has and that the government would try to find some consensus after the municipal elections next month.

I can tell you, I would be very surprised if there isn't consensus before the election and after the election. I have never spoken with anybody in municipal government in the last three or four or five years, since this new model of governance has come in, that is not opposed to it. They want to be participating themselves as representatives of their cities or, maybe, some hybrid model of what we had before, but not what we have now. I think that if the Premier and the government are worried about finding consensus, I really don't think that's one of the problems we have to worry about. I wanted to just say that.

Now, other than that, I think that's basically all that I want to say. I did want to just add that one of my concerns right now…. It's probably, really, got nothing to do with Bill 11, but I just hope that the discussions with CPR around using the railbed through Port Moody and Coquitlam have been completed. I should have probably checked that out before I spoke today, but it just entered my mind when I was listening to everybody speaking. I remember the last time, when we were doing the West Coast Express, dealing with CPR was a troublesome, as some of my colleagues will remember, and a very timely exercise. That it took a long time is what I'm trying to say.

I hope that that goes well. I hope the shovels are in the ground very, very soon. It really is a pleasure to be able to speak and support this bill. Everybody in Coquitlam is just waiting for shovels in the ground.

[1715]

M. Farnworth: I'd like to take my place in this debate, and actually, I would like to pick up from the comments made by my colleague from Coquitlam-Maillardville, who said that everyone in Coquitlam is waiting for shovels in the ground. And you know what? She's absolutely right, and they have been in Port Coquitlam. We have been waiting for shovels in the ground since 1992 — in fact, even before that.

I think it's important that I go over that a little bit, because a number of colleagues on the other side of the House have made some very interesting comments that I think should be put into some context. They've been doing a lot of chest thumping about how pleased they are with this particular piece of legislation. We will be supporting that piece of legislation — it is important — reluctantly, because there are some real problems with it and some real problems in the way that it came about. But it is a piece of legislation that should finally get what is called the Evergreen line or rapid transit out to the Tri-Cities.

In 1992 I bought my first condo, my first place. I was 32 years old. I bought in part because…. In fact, a key reason was that it was going to be next to a SkyTrain station. Not only did the real estate agent tell me that, but it was on the map: "There is the station. It is there." I was on city council: "It will be built." The provincial government: "It will be built. It is there." I naively believed, you know: "Hey, all these people, the real estate agent on down, are saying that there will be a SkyTrain station." So I bought my condo.

As it turned out, the lack of a SkyTrain station would be the least of the problems associated with it, but there was….

Interjections.

M. Farnworth: We don't have enough time to discuss that topic.

But as we know, in 1992 we started construction, or the process on what would be the Millennium Line to bring SkyTrain out to Coquitlam started, which was to bring the first phase to Lougheed Mall. That proceeded during the '90s when we were government.

In 2001 the governments change, as they do from time to time. You know, it's something that I'm expecting to happen in 2013. I think it would be a very appropriate time for government to change in the province. But in 2001 the governments changed, and the current government came in with a different set of priorities. Those priorities at that time did not include extending the Millennium Line, as it was then called, from Lougheed Mall out to the Coquitlam town centre.

That would have a significant impact on the Tri-Cities because the Tri-Cities, along with the south of the Fraser, are one of the key growth areas in the Lower Mainland. Over the next 20, 30 years, the south of the Fraser, the Surreys, increasingly the Langleys and the Tri-City areas are going to see the bulk of the growth in the Lower Mainland, in terms of residential development, in terms of commercial developments, and there is significant potential in terms of some industrial development as well.

The key to make that happen is a requirement for a comprehensive transit system that involves what we have in place right now and that allows the livable region strategy to actually be fully implemented.

That's why it's crucial that those transportation links and those transportation lines are built. That was how much of the development that was taking place in the Tri-Cities and many of the land use planning decisions
[ Page 8195 ]
that were being made were being predicated on — that transit line being built. When it didn't get built, it has an impact in terms of livability, it has an impact in terms of the ability to move goods, but more importantly, it has an impact on the well-being of people's everyday lives — the people that we represent.

I know that one of my colleagues across the way said it's important that this piece of legislation get passed because it's crucial if we're to become a world economic centre. Well, I hope we become a world economic centre, but that's not why this bill is important.

This bill is important because what it will allow to happen is the building of the Evergreen line, an improvement of our transit infrastructure which will benefit the people who live here — the people who've grown up here, who raise their families here, who work here, who pay taxes here, the people who get stuck in traffic every day because they don't have an option or an alternative to take public transit, whether it is a bus or whether it's SkyTrain.

[1720]

That's why this bill is important. That's what this will allow to happen: the Evergreen line to be finished.

You know, I said that the government's priority changed, and it did change. The mayors and the livable regional strategy had identified the Tri-Cities as the next stage to be built after the completion to Lougheed Mall. The mayors voted at TransLink, I think…

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: …three times, my colleague has pointed out, that the Tri-Cities was the next priority. The province came along and said no. The priority was the RAV line, the RAV line to Richmond, and the issue used was the Olympics. In essence, if we didn't get to like the vote the first time, the pressure was put on to make sure we get the vote the second time, and finally, we got the result we wanted the third time — by one vote.

The result was that we've got the RAV line to Richmond, and it's a very nice transit line indeed. But the reality is….

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: My colleague from Richmond is smiling, and I would smile too if I were him, because it is very nice. But the reality is that it was not the priority that had been deemed most important by the elected officials at the local government level — the people who deal with those planning issues on a day-to-day basis, the people whose job it is to see the implementation of a livable regional strategy in a part of this province that is hemmed in geographically by rivers, by mountains, by the ocean and by the U.S. border.

The result is that the people out our way in the Tri-Cities have had ten years of unnecessary traffic congestion because of a lack of commitment to the plan that had been put in place by the duly elected people at the local government level in the province of British Columbia — in the Lower Mainland.

Since that time what has transpired has been announcement after announcement that the Evergreen line is coming. "It is coming." "It is coming." I could make a joke about the second coming being quicker, but I won't. The point being that delay after delay and announcement after announcement for, generally, pre-election purposes….

I mean, we have a really nice building out our way with a tin roof. It looks very nice and has a big sign, "Evergreen line is coming." Well, it's been up there now since before the last election, when it went up, and nothing's happened.

The mayors have been trying to find a solution, yet time after time they have been met by a government that has been obstructionist or has not been as cooperative as it could be.

We have seen it in terms of the way that the TransLink board has been rejigged, the removal of much of the local autonomy. Much of the democratic rights of TransLink have been stripped away, and we still have not got those issues resolved, in part because the province didn't like the fact that TransLink was exercising its democratic right, the powers that it had before it to use.

Anyway, we are at a situation today where there is significant investment on the table, and I believe that we cannot afford to lose over a billion dollars of funding from the province but, more importantly, from the federal government in terms of constructing the Evergreen line, which has got to be in place.

The mayors have reached a decision — not an easy one for them. I commend them for making the decision, for reaching an agreement that will allow for a funding formula in place. It will allow for the revenue to flow that will allow, finally, the Evergreen line to be built.

Once that's taken place, once we see that on the way, then people will start to recognize that they do have transit options other than their vehicle, that there will be alternatives in terms of their ability to get around. I think that that's what all of us want.

[1725]

More importantly, from a local economic development perspective, is the implementation of a livable regional strategy. What matters to me most is the people who live here, who raise their families here, who work here and pay taxes here. We can see more transit options but also development options in terms of housing.

Whether it's dense apartment-type housing — which we see, for example, around Metrotown and which we're now seeing around Coquitlam town centre — or whether it's townhouses, there's much more certainty in the type of development that can take place. That can only help our local communities. That's crucial. That,
[ Page 8196 ]
to me, is one of the most crucial things in terms of the long-term economic future of the Lower Mainland and our communities — that sense of certainty.

I support this bill. I'm not happy about the way that it was achieved. I think it could have been… A lot of the problems and the challenges that local government has faced in this province could have been avoided had the government followed through on some of their key decisions that were made in terms of the Evergreen line in the first place. But the fact is that I am hopeful this will now allow the Evergreen line to actually be built. We will get rapid transit out to Coquitlam town centre.

That condominium is still there. I, unfortunately, do not own it anymore, and in many ways I am quite happy I don't own it. But the people who live in my neck of the woods will have transit options that they currently don't have and that they should have had many years ago.

With that, I will take my place and look forward to the comments of my colleagues.

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to get an opportunity to stand and spend a few minutes talking about Bill 11, the Greater Vancouver Transit Enhancement Act. This piece of legislation is at least the next significant step in what has been a long and somewhat difficult road to get to the building of the Evergreen line, which is the rapid transit line into the Tri-Cities area.

What this piece of legislation does is it ratifies the decision of the Mayors Council to add two cents to the gas tax, which will raise about $40 million or so a year and allow the Metro area to make its contributions to be able to build this line.

We know, as this process has unfolded, that there have been many delays, and it's been very difficult. I suspect the Evergreen line has been announced and reannounced, I don't know how many times, probably at least as many times as Surrey Memorial Hospital has been announced and reannounced. Part of the problem with it…. I think the difficulties and the delays that we've seen in this relate back, in many ways, to the relationship that unfolded between the government and the local councils and the local mayors in the region.

Lots of that, I think, was around a reaction from one of the minister's predecessors. As some of my colleagues have spoken, we know that there was a difficult period around the Canada Line, where the mayors and the TransLink board — the board of the day, which was a much more accountable board that ran TransLink, made up of elected officials from local governments — resisted the priorities of the provincial government and of the previous minister — now the Finance Minister, but previously the Transportation Minister.

It ultimately passed, as others have said, after about the third try, I think, by a single vote. Part of the problem is the fallout from that was that the minister of the day — not the current minister, but the previous minister, who is now the Finance Minister — had a bit of a hissy fit over this and essentially blew up TransLink as we know it. He instead created a Liberal form of TransLink, threw out the elected officials and put in place a private board for TransLink, which essentially made all of the operational decisions there — fundamentally a very bad idea no matter how you look at public policy. There was no logic to this, but it was the decision that the minister of the day made.

[1730]

The problem with that was on a number of levels. Certainly, there's obviously the problem of accountability. We're spending an awful lot of taxpayers' money. What happens here is that that board that was making those decisions — you'll know it's a board that doesn't meet in public, essentially, that makes its decisions behind closed doors — is not accountable. And yet it is spending public dollars without being accountable at all for the expenditure of those dollars.

Now, we have the Mayors Council, but the Mayors Council is a mile away from these decisions and ultimately has very little influence, other than to be jammed into the place where they have to make these kinds of decisions, as was made around the two cents.

The challenge here is around the accountability piece, but maybe the bigger challenge with this is the disconnect that happens long-term between these decisions about transit. We would all agree in this place that getting the Evergreen line built has been too long in coming, and it has to happen, and if this makes the deal work, then it's a good thing.

But the challenge with this is that we see a real disconnect between the people who ultimately have responsibility for land use planning — who are local councils, which engage communities and engage neighbourhoods and make decisions about how their communities develop — and a TransLink board that does not have a meaningful connection to that and doesn't have the connection in terms of truly engaging those communities in the way that local governments engage.

I know there are a significant number of members of this House who have spent time as local elected officials. They will all know too well the process of engaging a local community and what that does and doesn't mean, in terms of meetings, development meetings and such, to get decisions made.

But if we want to be a truly sustainable place, if we want to make those decisions, then folks should think about this, and know that the correlation and the connection between transit and land use planning — and housing, actually, and where residential construction happens — are just inextricably linked. They have to be linked, and they have to be connected, and they have to be part of one set of thinking in order to succeed in developing sustainable communities and developing
[ Page 8197 ]
the communities where I think we all know that this is where we have to end up.

We hear a lot of this conversation. We know that there's a lot of excitement out in the Tri-Cities to get rapid transit and to get the SkyTrain out there, and that's great. But we know that there are other communities…. South of the Fraser we know that we've heard the mayor of Surrey talk about wanting to look at light rail options, and there are fast bus options. In Vancouver we looked at the Broadway corridor.

These are all discussions, also, that relate to land use planning, and I fear that the TransLink model that we have today is one that makes it very, very difficult to get to intelligent decisions around those things. So it's really essential that as we move forward with this, we begin to start thinking about other ways to do that sustainable planning.

Now, I've said that I believe that the previous minister had difficulty dealing with local governments around this. I also know, from talking to local elected officials, that the current minister has worked hard and has a pretty good working relationship with many of the mayors and the local leadership in terms of getting at making decisions and getting at practically making decisions. I would hope that the minister will continue to build that relationship in terms of rethinking what TransLink looks like, as we get through this period.

I think that it's very positive that we're in this place to be approving these two cents and moving forward and being able to finally get shovels in the ground, as some of my colleagues who represent the area most affected have said. The sooner they get the shovels in the ground, the better. That's a positive thing.

But in the long term, if we take a longer view of this, we really do need to look at a different structure. I would hope that this interlude — I hope it is an interlude — between the decisions that blew TransLink up as we knew it and created a structure that not many people in the Lower Mainland were very supportive of — that we will move back to something that is more accountable.

[1735]

I'm hopeful that the minister, once he has this behind him, will begin to have some conversation with local elected folks about what that structure and that future might look like. I know that it's certainly our expectation, depending on whether that does or doesn't happen, that we will be having that discussion after 2013, with local government about what that relationship looks like and look forward to that.

So as we move forward, as this process unfolds, we always have to remember. I think back to before I got to this place in 2005. A whole lot of my work related around the growth of communities and how you grew them sustainably and what that looked like and how you put transit and land use and housing together and how you met the needs of people who had different and diverse needs in communities.

We all know transit is part of the lifeblood of the success of communities like that. But we all learned pretty quickly, in doing that work, that you could not separate these things, and I worry about the separation.

So I'm looking forward to this. I'm looking forward to what comes after we get to this point and looking forward to how it will all unfold. So with that, I'm pleased to support this. I think it is important that it go ahead.

But at the end of the day, there's an awful lot more work to be done. There's a lot more work to be done to determine what is really the long-term plan and how resources get applied to this long term — whether it's things like the discussion we have had about reallocation of carbon tax dollars or whether it's other approaches — and how we govern these decisions and how these decisions remain accountable to the people who ultimately pay for it and ultimately will use the system, which are the taxpayers in the most affected communities.

I don't think those questions are at all resolved at this point. I think there's a lot of work to be done on that. I think there's a lot of good faith that has to be built, that has been broken. Hopefully, that will occur over the coming months, and if it doesn't occur over the next 15 or 16 months, hopefully, it will occur after that. With that, I am going to sit down, and I'm going to leave it to my colleagues to make their comments.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you to my colleagues on all sides of this chamber. I've been interested in the dialogue and discussion so far. I follow members from Richmond, from Coquitlam, from Port Coquitlam, from Surrey, from places of the Lower Mainland, from Metro Vancouver. The transit rider — that's how I usually get around, if I'm not on my bike or doing a co-op car — will know that those areas are largely underserved by transit.

So this discussion, I think, is very important in those communities for people who do want to get out of their car or who indeed are transit-dependent, because it is about providing measurably better service in those communities, and it's about finding a way to grow our green infrastructure in British Columbia.

I thought a good title for this bill could have been "My Two Cents' Worth," as it's about two cents of gas. I sent the joke to Mr. Lekstrom, the minister.

Interjection.

S. Chandra Herbert: Oh, names. I'm sorry, hon. Speaker. I withdraw that name. I sent it to the minister. It's his name, I know, but there we are.

I'm glad that I don't have a career in comedy, because I don't think I would last long. Anyways, thank you, hon. Member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast, who tries his
[ Page 8198 ]
best to have a career in comedy while being an MLA. No comment there.

I come from the community of Vancouver–West End. For those that know it or those that don't, it's of course the tall, pointy buildings down by Stanley Park. It's about 15 blocks by 15 blocks. My constituents, 70 percent, walk, bike or bus to get to work.

Now, that's an incredibly high rate. I don't think that there are many communities anywhere else in Canada…. I know Vancouver–False Creek certainly is in that range as well. But aside from that, it is able to do that because it is densely built. It's also able to do that because many, many years ago we used to have a streetcar, long before I was alive and long before I think most members in this House were alive. But that's how the development happened, and that's why density was concentrated there.

[1740]

We are now lucky, of course, to have pretty good bus service. We've got the SkyTrain and all those kinds of things, which make it so we can use transit to get most places in the Lower Mainland. I think this bill should have been a celebration. Instead, it has been dealt with, with conflagration. There has been a fight, a controversy — those are my two-dollar words — because of the way it came to be.

Of course, when somebody has promised something over and over again, and it's delayed and delayed and delayed, as the Evergreen line has been, people start to get upset. Obviously, when people are told one thing, they expect to get that one thing.

But with this Liberal government, that has not been what we have seen with public transit in Metro Vancouver. It has been more a policy of promise big, deliver low, which is not generally a good recipe for success, I've found. Hopefully, we will turn a page on that very shortly and deliver big, promise low. I think that is generally the better way to go about things.

We've had an issue, of course, with: where is the money going to come from? That has been a longtime challenge, and I know it was a challenge when we got to the Canada Line, the RAV line. I remember attending TransLink meetings at the time, and municipal councillors, municipal mayors saying that the northeast sector of Metro Vancouver should be receiving the Evergreen line. This has been promised. It's in the regional growth strategy. This is what we need to do.

However, the Minister of Transportation at the time…. The B.C. Liberals thought they knew better than what the communities indeed were requesting. So after numerous times they forced through the RAV line instead of the Evergreen line. So the communities in northeast Metro Vancouver were made to wait again.

Now, again this comes back to an approach I have spoken about with this government, where it's a "my way or the highway" approach, an approach of father knows best, of government knows best, and forget you municipal councillors who are closer to the ground. We have our ideas, and we're going to ram this through.

Obviously, that leads to tension, and that doesn't lead to cooperation. That is partly, I think, why negotiations to get us to this bill today took so long.

Why should this bill be a celebration? Why should the coming of the Evergreen line, why should the improvement in bus transit and so on, be a celebration?

Well, it makes sense environmentally. Obviously, we have a climate crisis here in the world today, where we understand that unless we get our habits under control, within very few years the overwhelming increase in warmth and temperature in our planet will make species go extinct, will put, of course, a number of countries under water and also will impact our own country and our own province in quite dire ways, as has already started to happen.

Transit needs to be a key focus for all of us, because people do want to do what is right for the world, but they need that option. They need that ability to do so.

That's why I think the carbon tax was so controversial. People wanted to do something good for the environment, and they thought: "Okay, well, maybe this is a way to do it." But they didn't see anything coming out of it.

They saw their gas prices go up, but they didn't see more access to transit. They didn't see an ability to get out of their cars, particularly south of the Fraser, particularly in the northeast part of Metro Vancouver, because there was not that access, that increase in transit because they were being punished in a way, saying: "You are going to pay more for gas, so why don't you get out of your car?"

If you are 44 minutes away from any sort of SkyTrain stop, and that's driving, that's a pretty hard thing to consider. I think there's a recent study which has come out, which kind of shows how much time people are spending on the road. In Vancouver it is estimated 67 minutes in a commute to and from work. I'm sure that in some communities in Metro Vancouver it is obviously much longer. I think that's a challenge, and that's why transit is so important.

It also allows us to build denser communities, communities where you actually have jobs closer to where you live, where you are able to build up, as we have done in Vancouver. That provides you with more services and a higher quality of life, I believe. Certainly, that's what my constituents in the West End tell me, because we have such great public amenities and such ease of access to transit to get around our city without a need for a car.

[1745]

It is also, of course, good for the economy, because if we're not wasting money on fuel, spending time sitting in lineups and commutes, we can actually be spending our time working, spend our time with our families.

The number of people I know who have to spend time away from their families because of lack of access to
[ Page 8199 ]
transit, because they're stuck in commutes, is staggering. The amount of time, when they chalk it up over their lives, some people figure…. They told me they would spend a year of their lives sitting, stuck in traffic, when they space it out over that time.

Obviously, that's something that we as legislators need to pay attention to. Our municipal councillors have been raising this issue for many, many years, but somehow in the gap between Metro Vancouver to Victoria, it disappears.

I don't know if it gets stuck in transit. I'm not sure if the congestion holds it up, or maybe it's that waterway. It somehow doesn't seem to get here. Maybe B.C. Ferries took the wrong route. But that message doesn't end up here all that often.

I am happy to see there is some action here. But I must say that I approach this bill with reservations, because I think — as the NDP official opposition has been calling for, for a number of years, as the mayors have been calling for, for a number of years — we could have taken some of that carbon tax revenue and put it towards transit so that we weren't just punishing people without giving them any options. We weren't just increasing their gas taxes without providing them with an option to get on to transit.

That, of course, could have been done, but for the last two years we haven't really had an effective provincial government. It has been a government mired in the HST debacle, mired in internal fights. There has been very little attention paid. So unfortunately, we've had delay after delay after delay, which brings us to today. I would have much rather seen some of that carbon tax revenue go to public transportation so people could actually have that option instead of just punishment.

Of course, there's a longstanding concern with TransLink, with how it's operating, with its democracy or lack of it. I remember being able to go to TransLink meetings and see the councillors, see them debate, hear them talk about what was important in their communities, where growth was needed, how the plans of transit fit into the regional growth strategy. There was a bit of a long-term vision.

It was still challenging, because they didn't have ready revenue all the time at their fingertips, but it was better than what we've got now, where people are just feeling that they are so disconnected from decisions made that some councillors I've talked to say: "What's the point? They're just going to do whatever they want to do anyways."

We as legislators, I believe, need to pay very strong attention when people are giving up, because they're giving up their power in a way. They're saying, "I can't deal with this. It's useless," and when we lose people's focus, when we lose their attention, when we lose their interest in improving the province and their communities, we lose a vital commodity, which is of course our neighbours working together.

In the end it becomes the job of a few people. And a few people making decisions instead of the many, I think, can lead to bad decisions and decisions which, as we saw with the HST, end up in a huge debacle, which of course serves nobody very well and divides us rather than unites us.

I think that in Metro Vancouver, surveys show that the population of our province and the population of that area want better transit. I hear this across the province. All across the province people want access to better transit.

But in Metro Vancouver, of course, with the incredible congestion we have in some of the roads, caused so often by single-occupancy vehicles, people who would like to sit in a bus or sit in a SkyTrain or sit on a train and do their studies, do their work on the way to work or just have a coffee, are stuck sitting in endless commutes. That's, again, because of poor decision-making and a lack of forward thinking.

I think we need to see an improvement in the democracy of TransLink, but we also need a long-term funding model for transit, because our communities are growing and we can't simply expect people to spend their time sitting in endless commutes. Nor should we accept that, because it's bad for the economy, and it's bad for our environment.

It's also really bad for our health. If you can be out walking instead of stuck in a commute, your health improves. Again, that should save us money in terms of the long-term health costs of our province. There are so many reasons to invest in transit, so many reasons to invest in transit for our communities.

This is a very small step. It does not, I believe, serve the long-term needs of our province. I think of handyDART and a number of the concerns I've heard of handyDART users, who don't see a measurable difference in this plan for themselves.

[1750]

I think of many communities who look at this and go: "Well, this is just barely a start." I think of the crowded buses that pass up people again and again throughout Metro Vancouver, and I think of those users and the amount of time that's wasted for them and their families. That's what we need to be focusing on when you talk about transit: the users, the people who could be using transit and the people who indeed are using transit but are having a real hard time of it because of the endless delays and the pass-ups.

I'm excited that the Evergreen line will eventually happen. I know it's been delayed. I plan on getting out there and using it as soon as I can. I remember taking the bus from my home in Metro Vancouver — in Vancouver, in the West End — out to my parents-in-law's place in Port Coquitlam. It took me over an hour and a half on transit to get out there, and that was one way.

Now, some people don't want to see their parents-in-law, their mothers-in-law and their fathers-in-law, but
[ Page 8200 ]
I have a very good relationship with mine, and so I did want to be able to get out there to see them. The transit distance made that difficult because I had a job, I was going to school, and I didn't want to spend three hours in one day just to get out to my parents' place.

Some people have to do that all the time, every day, and I understand that my instance was one small piece. Some people are stuck in commutes of an hour each way. Two hours a day they are stuck sitting in transportation, not able to get to where they need to go because of a lack of transit in their communities.

I remember a great deal of excitement one day. I was opening the paper. This was before I was an MLA. I saw the Minister of Transportation at the time, and I saw the Premier. I think it was the front page of the Vancouver Sun. It had a huge plan, a transportation plan, of what we were going to achieve. It was happening ASAP. We were going to have SkyTrain all the way through Surrey and out to Langley. It was all sorts of things which looked very exciting.

I thought: "Okay. Well, this must be coming soon. They wouldn't be announcing these kinds of things if they didn't have support to pay for them, if they didn't have a plan to actually get there." But indeed, it was just smoke and mirrors in the run up to an election, I believe, as we saw with the similar announcement of the Evergreen line right before the last election. And of course, here we are only now being able to try and figure out how it would actually be paid for or if we could make it happen.

Again, it was the short-term optics — promise big, but deliver low. I guess they hoped that over the four-year term of this government people would have forgotten what they announced before the election and wouldn't hold them to it. But we in the official opposition will hold them to it and have held them to it.

I'm not sure why this government has decided to wait this long, why they decided not to take the official opposition up on its offer of supporting the use of some of the carbon tax revenue to put towards transit. I think it makes very much sense. I think it's something that could easily have been done.

The provincial government decided, in their last-ditch attempt to save the HST, to save the Liberals' HST, to use corporate tax revenues and roll them back to put them towards trying to save the HST. Then when, of course, the HST was defeated — because people didn't think it was good for their lives — that money and that offer was off the table.

I think the government could look at other funds rather than dinging people with an increase in their gas tax for transit in this case. That's an example of how they could have done that, but they really should have done that, I think, through the carbon tax. It makes sense. People said…. A lot of people I talked to actually thought the carbon tax was going towards green initiatives. They just seemed to think: "Okay. Well, if it's called the carbon tax, it's supposed to help with the environment. This money will go to support the environment."

Well, of course it hasn't. It's gone into corporate tax breaks to a large extent. That whole carbon tax thing is another debate, but it's actually revenue-negative, so it's costing the government right now because of those tax breaks. So that is a concern because it means that we have less money to invest in transit. I guess that's another argument of why today's bill is here.

But if I can return to the idea of democracy, of the idea of working together, I think of people like Mayor Joe Trasolini in Port Moody. I think, of course, of our mayor, Gregor Robertson, in Vancouver. I think of Surrey's mayor, Dianne Watts. These are all people with diverse interests, diverse political backgrounds, connections and so forth and very different communities, to a certain degree, but they could all unite around the idea of public transit for their citizens.

[1755]

I think we in this Legislature will for the most part unite in the support of public transit. But I think we would have been able to unite with great celebration had this been done in a cooperative and collaborative way rather than a "my way or the highway" sort of approach, which is what we've seen with this Liberal government.

I understand a number of my colleagues are interested in speaking. The MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood is here, I understand, and will be keen to speak very shortly. I think he's pulling together his notes.

I think I will just go back to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and their plea to the federal government, because I don't think we in the provincial government should ignore the role the federal government could play in support of public transit. They of course are coming forward with the Evergreen line, and that is very important. But I believe they could be doing much more in support of public transit in our province and across Canada, because again, it's good for the economy, it's good for the environment, and it's good for people's health.

It also makes life, in my experience, much more fun if you're not stuck bumper to bumper, worried about the person behind you who's trying to get around you because they don't think you're going fast enough, even though you're following the speed limit. You can actually instead be on a bus or be on a bike. That's another thing about this plan I like, of course — a little bit of an increase in support for bike lanes, although I think we could be doing more there, too, to ensure people are safe and not at risk when they're out riding their bikes on our city streets and our municipal streets.

I think that we are making some headway here. We could be making much more if we actually respected the mayors and the councillors of our municipalities, if we actually respected the people who have to wait
[ Page 8201 ]
and wait and wait for transit, and if we actually listened to them and took a much more proactive stance and a long-term stance, with democratic, accountable government at TransLink.

I thank the minister for bringing the bill forward. I thank my colleagues for their remarks, and I look forward to hearing what other members have to say. I will be in support of this bill.

Deputy Speaker: I'll now recognize the member for Surrey-Fleetwood. [Applause.]

J. Brar: I have a lot of support on this side, but I'm looking for support on that side.

I rise to speak today to the second reading of Bill 11. It's called the Greater Vancouver Transport Enhancement Act. This bill permits TransLink to charge an additional two cents per litre on gasoline in the GVRD for funding transit projects. This new tax, two cents per litre on gasoline, is expected to raise around $70 million. With the help of that money, TransLink should be able to provide funding for the Evergreen line rapid transit project, move forward on other regional roads, cycling and transit priorities.

I don't have any problem when it comes to these projects, nor do many of the members on this side. But the problem I have with this bill is the piecemeal approach, or we call it a plan-as-you-go approach, for this extremely important public policy issue — public transit.

We have seen that this is a temporary solution for a long-term problem. We have seen this in the past, and this is not the first time we have seen something like this happening.

This government, the B.C. Liberals, have failed to listen to the people of British Columbia when it comes to the public transit needs of the people of British Columbia. After ten years in power they failed to develop a comprehensive business plan to address the public transit needs of the people of British Columbia.

That's the problem I have with this bill, because this bill does not address the long-term solution for the people of British Columbia when it comes to the public transit needs of the people. This is just a temporary solution. It talks about just a few projects which are on the agenda of TransLink.

[1800]

This is not the first time. I have seen that they've done that before. I remember the B.C. Liberals made the announcement of twinning the Port Mann Bridge during the middle of the by-election in Panorama. That was their plan. When the by-election was there, they came out just to make the announcement of the Port Mann bridge when there was no business plan for that project. There was absolutely nothing, but they just announced it because of the by-election. So they make the plans as they go — about the public transit. This is a very important issue for the people of British Columbia.

Particularly surprising for me is that after ten years being in power, the response for this is piecemeal. This is temporary. This is not the solution that the people of British Columbia are looking for when it comes to public transit. It is not only the opposition which is talking about this issue. It is the mayors of this province who are also having serious concerns when it comes to the long-term plan of public transit, when we talk about that.

For example, Surrey mayor Dianne Watts states about this bill, when it comes: "It's a tough pill to swallow. There is no doubt about it, but I think that we have an opportunity right now with the minister. We can look at the governance. We can look at some sensible funding strategy." That is the Surrey mayor.

Similarly, Richmond mayor Malcolm Brodie states about this: "We have confused urgent with important. What is important is the rest of the transportation improvement — the buses, the road network and all of that. That is important, but it is not urgent."

Similarly, Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan is saying about this: "It's a bait and switch. Every time we do this, they say, 'We won't do it again.' Then two years later we come back and do it again. We are tired of this game." That's what the Burnaby mayor is saying.

The problem is this. This is a temporary solution, and the B.C. Liberals have failed to develop a long-term plan to address the pressing needs of the people of British Columbia when it comes to public transit.

I would like to speak briefly about the people of Surrey. Surrey is the fastest-growing city in the province and probably in the country. We expect that there will be one million more people south of the Fraser in the next decade, and we need lots of buses and lots of public transit to deal with that situation.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

I have seen a lot of seniors coming to my office from time to time, and they make complaints about the lack of bus service in the city of Surrey. I have seen a lot of working people coming to my office, and they say they have issues about the bus service in the city of Surrey because they cannot go from their home to the workplace. That's the issue.

I have seen seniors coming to my office. They have complaints that they have to walk too long to catch a bus, whether it's 72nd Avenue or 152nd Street or 64th Avenue. There are people, particularly senior people, who have to walk a long way to find or catch a bus. That is the problem in the city of Surrey. We have a growing population, and this government has completely failed to provide a solution for the people of Surrey and particularly for the growing population of the city of Surrey.
[ Page 8202 ]

Surrey's mayor is on the record saying that we need 500 new buses to make the transit system work in Surrey. That's the gap. That's a huge gap, because we are way behind when it comes to the city of Surrey and when it comes to the bus service in the city of Surrey and the public transit.

There are a lot of people in the city who talk about how the bus service of the public transit in the city of Surrey is not accessible. In other words, they cannot depend on the bus service from their home to a workplace because there's no direct route going from their home to the workplace.

[1805]

Those are the issues that people talk about almost every day, that people go to the local MLA's office and people complain about. But this government has failed to provide a comprehensive business plan to deal with those issues that people face, and people particularly face them in the city of Surrey and south of the Fraser. This bill offers very little and a temporary solution, but it's not a long-term, comprehensive plan to address those issues, as I stated before.

The other issue which this bill is silent about is democracy. You know, in this country we are proud when we talk about how we believe in democracy. That is the fundamental value we believe in.

A few years ago, I remember, the then Minister of Transportation tabled a bill. I think it was Bill 43. Basically, that bill took away the decision-making from the duly elected council of mayors and handed it over to a board that was appointed by the Minister of Transportation. So there was a time that the decision-making, when it comes to TransLink, was dealt with by the duly elected local officials.

That was the system, and that was working for people, but that was certainly not working for the Minister of Transportation, because the Mayors Council at that time, the elected council, were talking about the issues that were important to the people of British Columbia. They were certainly not talking about the issues that were important for this government.

That was the issue, and the minister chose to introduce a bill, Bill 43, and basically amend the act to take away the decision-making from the duly elected board and hand it over to the board that was appointed by the Minister of Transportation. This bill does not talk about that.

Certainly, whether it's the mayor of the city of Surrey, the mayor of Vancouver, the mayor of Burnaby or the mayor of Richmond, they all have concern about that. They all want the government to address this issue when it comes to the board of TransLink.

The other issue I want to talk about is the whole issue of taxation. This government was in favour of giving back 2 percent of HST to win that game. They were supportive of that thing, but they are not in favour of giving the gas tax for the public transit issues. That's very important. That's what our position has been, but they have refused constantly — constantly — to do that.

I think it's the right thing to do, because in the long run we need to work on and develop a long-term plan. We need to find a long-term solution when it comes to funding the public transit issues. We cannot just go the way it is now, a piecemeal approach, and just fund the project as it goes.

To summarize my point, I just want to say that this bill…. We support it because it does take some baby steps. It does address some of the long-term project which is pending and has been delayed, whether it's the Evergreen line and some of the other issues. So we support the bill.

But what we don't support is the overall long-term approach of this government. What we don't support is the complete lack of a business plan for the long run when it comes to the public transit issues.

We also don't support…. We want the government to think about the gas tax, the carbon tax, to support the public transit in the province of British Columbia so that we have a long-term strategy for funding the public transit projects, not that every few years we come back here and talk about the same thing.

[1810]

Those are the things we have objections to; otherwise, we support this bill.

I know the minister is looking at me and probably wants to conclude this bill as soon as possible, but those are very important issues that the people of British Columbia want and that this government should consider. We need a long-term strategy, not a piecemeal approach as this bill indicates.

With that, Madam Speaker, I will take my seat, and I will probably ask the minister to proceed with that.

A. Dix: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

A. Dix: A friend of ours, Bob Penner, is visiting us in the Legislature today, meeting with a number of MLAs, and I'd like the House to make him welcome.

Debate Continued

Deputy Speaker: Hon. Members, seeing no further speakers, the minister closes debate.

Hon. B. Lekstrom: It has been an interesting afternoon — a great deal of discussion on this bill. It is one where I have heard, I thought, some very productive discussion and maybe some not-so-productive discussion on what we're actually discussing here.
[ Page 8203 ]

I do want to address a couple…. I certainly support this bill. We're discussing this bill as a result of the Mayors Council requesting our government to move forward on this to allow for a two-cent-per-litre increase in the fuel tax, gasoline tax, in Metro Vancouver in order to fund their Moving Forward package. It is about 12 projects in all — obviously, the primary project being the Evergreen line that has been talked about for many, many years and, I think, a project that has been wanted by the people of the Metro Vancouver area.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

But I did hear a number of things, and I do want to talk briefly about what I heard. I heard members speak about the carbon tax and that there was a wish that the carbon tax should be used to fund this. The one thing I want to point out is that presently in the budget — and I know the members have all studied the budget page by page, year over year — the carbon tax is actually dedicated to tax reductions for all British Columbians.

What I'm hearing, though, is that there could be a possible movement from the opposition — and rightfully so, if that is their choice. They would like to take the carbon tax, raise taxes for personal individuals and corporations and shift that to pay for transit. The reality is that you can't use the existing carbon tax, as it's already in legislation based on tax reductions.

We've heard that quite a bit. I also heard that it's too late. "The plan is too late. We're going to reluctantly support this." I encourage members: if you're reluctant, I wouldn't support it, Members. I'm supporting this because I believe it's the right thing to do. It's what the Mayors Council for Metro Vancouver has asked us to put before this House, and we have done just that.

Also, we heard a great deal, and rightfully so…. There were people that expressed concerns about what the long-range funding proposals are going to be — not just for what we're talking about here today, which is really the Moving Forward package or the ability to fund that on what the Mayors Council has asked us to put forward.

We made a commitment. I have had some very good discussions with the Mayors Council, and I'm looking forward to many more. Part of our discussion was not only to allow us to get to this point here today but to actually talk about what the future is going to hold as we move forward with additional transit and transportation issues in Metro Vancouver. I think it's important that we're not back, going through the same discussions that it took to get to this today — this proposal.

I made a commitment to them, as the minister, that I am happy to come back and sit at the table, and I believe we've already got meetings set up to begin that process to look at what long-range funding solutions can be held for both parties. It has to work not only in the interests of Metro Vancouver and the Mayors Council but for all British Columbians. There's an impact. We all need each other in this province.

So I was somewhat taken aback by a couple of the comments from a number of members talking about the funding. I heard comments such as "the province has refused to provide the necessary funding." You know, you have to smile. As I said, I think I heard some productive discussion here. I heard some not-so-productive. I heard some political discussion, without question. Far be it from us in this House to bring that into play.

[1815]

But I do want to point out to British Columbians that this is a $1.4 billion project. There are three parties involved in this: the federal government, which has contributed $417 million; the provincial government, which has committed $583 million; and going back even a number of years, the Mayors Council committed to $400 million.

The discussion has always been: how will they raise their $400 million? That's what it's been, and I'm very proud of the discussions I've had with the Mayors Council, the work that we've done together, because this wasn't an easy decision for them, without question.

When I hear people say that the province should actually put more money in, what I'm hearing you say is — and I'll use my riding — the people in Pouce Coupe should fund more for Metro Vancouver transit. I don't accept that. I don't think the people in Vancouver would accept that. There is already 583 million provincial tax dollars money going to support a transit system — albeit not just the Evergreen; 12 projects in total — for the benefit primarily of Metro Vancouver but — you know what? — for the benefit of our province. We work together in this. The farmers in the Peace country, where I have the honour of living and representing the people there, need the ports of Vancouver. The people in Vancouver need rural British Columbia for the resource extraction that allows us to deliver and build a stronger and better province.

Today what we're discussing — I'll going to refocus that — is Bill 11. We're discussing it at the request of the Mayors Council that passed a resolution asking the provincial government to move on their ability to allow them to increase their gas tax by two cents per litre, and we have lived up to that. That's what we're discussing today.

I also have heard a number of issues. It's behind schedule. I've heard that from probably three or four people. Again, you have to smile, and I'm not going to point the finger. There are three funding partners, as I pointed out. The province and the federal government have been there, but rather than move quickly, the Mayors Council wanted to ensure that they engaged the public that they
[ Page 8204 ]
represent. They went out, they spoke to them, so there has been a delay — without question.

I accept that. I'm okay with that. But what I'm not okay with is the political insinuation that it's the provincial government that held that up. Far be it from that. That's not factual; it's not truthful. So let's make sure that the public understands what we're talking about.

Interjection.

Hon. B. Lekstrom: There's a $173 million difference, I heard my critic speak about. It has always been…. And I think the Mayors Council would tell you what I'm about to say. We have asked, and they've committed to $400 million. Certainly, in my discussions with them, it was very clear that we were not coming back asking for another penny on that. So the thought that it was just the $173 million spread between what was committed and the $1.4 billion projected cost that was holding this up is not factual. I wanted to clear that up as well.

But there are things here that…. What I do find interesting…. I think this is the House of the people. This is where we come to speak on behalf of the people we represent, each side, whether you're on government side or opposition side. I think we do that. I think we should be doing it with the utmost of respect, and I think that for the most part of that we do.

What we want to do is make sure that as we go through this, and what we're talking about…. I've always encouraged, certainly, not only members on the opposition side but the government side to focus on the bill at hand. I think we slip on occasion. I think I have seen, probably, virtually every member in this House, including myself, slip away to get into a political discussion versus a factual debate on the bill at hand. But we're elected to do a job, and hopefully, we all represent the people based on what they expect of us.

I won't carry on at great length. I know our time is short today. But the long-term funding solution, as was spoken about here in this House many times, by many members, particularly the opposition…. I will give you the same commitment that the Mayors Council and I have had. We are planning to come to the table, to find long-term funding solutions so that every time there's a movement on a new piece of SkyTrain, a new transit addition, we're not back, going through the same discussion that we've had to go to get to this point today. I'm look forward to that. I think that's very positive.

The other one is that, although I've heard reluctance on the side of the opposition to support this, I've heard people quote the Mayors Council that they are reluctant to support it. We're all elected officials. I go back to the same thing: stand up for what you believe. If you feel you can support this bill, I encourage you to do that. If you feel you can't, that's your prerogative, as well, as an elected official.

Fifteen of 21 mayors voted in favour of this, representing 70 percent of the population of Metro Vancouver. They may have had some reservations. They may have had different issues, but at the end of the day there's a vote, and that vote passed the request to ask the provincial government to increase their gas tax, or the allowable increase, by two cents. We're discussing that today.

[1820]

A long-term funding solution, as I said, we will find. So I'm going to close with this. I want to close by simply thanking the Mayors Council for the work that they've put into this. It has not been easy. They have gone out; they have engaged the public. They have heard both sides — people that support it in order to enhance transportation initiatives in Metro Vancouver and the other side.

But it takes courage. It takes courage, at whatever level of government, to make a decision — sometimes not the most popular decisions. But sometimes it's the right decision, and I believe that the vast majority of the population understands that.

I'm looking forward — as I know many people are, not only on both sides of this House but the population of Metro Vancouver — to getting shovels in the ground, to the development of not only the Evergreen line but the enhancement to transit services throughout.

I'm looking forward again to working with the Mayors Council not only on the long-term funding solution, but they've raised the issue that many of you have raised on the governance side, saying: "We think that what you've put in place isn't working the way we envisioned it, and we think we can find ways to refine that and make it work better." I have every intention of sitting down with the Mayors Council to have that discussion, to see what we can do to make that sure things operate in the best possible manner for the people that we all represent, which are the constituents out there.

We're discussing this legislation, as I said, because the Mayors Council passed a motion asking us to put it forward. I'm proud to be the minister today that is able to put this Bill 11 before this Legislature for discussion, for vote and, hopefully, for passage so that we can get in the ground and we can get on with the request for proposals for the Evergreen line and the other projects, and we will deal with it at that point.

Thank you, Members. I look forward to the vote. I would move second reading.

[1825]

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.
[ Page 8205 ]

Second reading of Bill 11 approved on the following division:

Hon. B. Lekstrom: I move that the bill be referred to Committee of the Whole at the next sitting after today.

Bill 11, Greater Vancouver Transit Enhancement Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. R. Coleman moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

The House adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

[ Return to: Legislative Assembly Home Page ]

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.

TV channel guide • Broadcast schedule

Copyright © 2011: British Columbia Hansard Services, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

ISSN 1499-2175