2014 Legislative Session: Second Session, 40th 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)

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 6, Number 7

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)
ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Tributes

RICK HANSEN FOUNDATION

Michelle Stilwell: It's an honour for me today to acknowledge one of my inspirations in life and a real difference-maker for many people across British Columbia and the rest of the world: Rick Hansen.

Rick is here today with his colleagues from the Rick Hansen Foundation, who have been meeting with both sides of this House, educating us on the foundation and the great work that they do in areas of research and accessibility for all, breaking down barriers and, most importantly, building inclusive communities across British Columbia and Canada. Would the House please make them feel welcome.

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Introductions by Members

L. Popham: I would like to welcome and introduce six amazing people who are part of a team called the Wounded Warriors. They have just completed a run down Vancouver Island while raising awareness for post-traumatic stress disorder. In the House today we have Al Kobayashi, Dan Bodden, Steve Kobayashi, Stephan Deschamps, Channing Knull and Gerry Boivin. Today in a two-minute statement I'll be telling a little bit more about their story, but for now, please make them welcome.

S. Hamilton: I'd like to take this opportunity today to introduce two people in the gallery that are here to see us. First of all, my constituency assistant, Kim Kendall, who works very hard on behalf of my constituents, along with my other constituency assistant, Debbie Ward. They help keep my life in order.

Secondly, a gentleman who first arrived in British Columbia in 1996 after coming from Ottawa who, when he was in Ottawa, started Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind. After arriving here, along with his wife Linda, he began the organization B.C. Guide Dogs and since 1996 have graduated over 104 guide dog teams. They've run some 300 dogs through their program as well as graduating some 28 autism dogs.

This is an organization that my wife and I are very proud to support and have been part of for quite a number of years now. I would like the House to make welcome Mr. Bill Thornton, president of British Columbia Guide Dogs.

A. Weaver: Today I would like to introduce a young student. Her name is Tessa Owens, from St. Michaels University School in my riding. She's the type of innovative student who, as one of the Vancouver Island reps of the Defend Our Future group, recently was in Antarctica touring the continent and attended the Rio+20. She and her fellow colleagues are the students and youth of today who give me hope that we will have a better future tomorrow. I'd like the House to please acknowledge her attendance here today.

G. Hogg: It is somehow appropriate on this day, Pink Shirt Day, that we recognize the gentleman who is sitting at home wearing his pink shirt and watching us. He is a survivor of Woodlands and an avid fan of all of the work that takes place in this Legislature. So please join me in saying hello and sending our best wishes to Phil Traynor.

C. James: I have a constituent who is visiting me in the House today who has served this province for over 20 years as a civil servant for all of the people of British Columbia. He volunteers. He's very active in our community. Would the House please welcome Peter Holland to the Legislature.

D. Barnett: I'm very honoured and privileged to have two young ladies here today who are both my constituency assistants, one in 100 Mile and one in Williams Lake. Would the House welcome with me today Bonnie Gavin and Bev Harris.

As always, from the Cariboo-Chilcotin, you know we had Carey Price. I'd also like to welcome Rick Hansen here today, who is from my constituency and the city of Williams Lake.

J. Shin: I have the pleasure today of introducing to the House two Vancouver Island residents. Mr. Chong Tong Lee is the past president of the Korean Society of Manitoba and now is an active member in the Korea Veterans Association of Canada. Mr. Benjamin Myung Jung Kim is the president of the Korean Marine Corps Veterans Association and the past president of the Korean Veterans Association in its eastern chapter.

My grandparents on both my mom and dad's side passed away a decade ago, and little did I know that I would now have the pleasure of having such an enthusiastic, quite literally, army of adopted grandfathers in the Korean community who have been incredibly supportive.

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Both Mr. Lee and Mr. Kim are influential leaders, long serving now over 1,000 residents of Korean descent living
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and studying in Victoria and Vancouver Island. I ask the House to please give them their warm welcome.

B. Routley: I had the privilege today of touring the Legislature with Janelle and Ellazora Hardy, and thank you, Speaker, for taking a few moments out of your busy schedule to say hello. It was very interesting to meet this mother and daughter, because Janelle's mother was an MLA in the Yukon and also an MP representing the Yukon.

She had some interesting stories to tell about her and her sister being in the mall. I know this doesn't happen here in British Columbia, I'm sure. But they were in the mall, and somebody was spreading lies and rumours about her mother in the mall. Her sister went up and confronted them and said: "This is totally unacceptable, especially to say that about my mom."

I guess that showed me the family side and what families might have to put up with sometimes when we're engaged in politics. She passed on her best wishes to all of those that are legislators and their families, so thank you. Please join me in welcoming them to the Legislature.

S. Chandra Herbert: Well, it gave me great pleasure today to meet two heroes, and I know they're heroes probably for most of us, if not all of us, in this chamber. Of course, Rick Hansen — I got so flustered I spilled coffee on myself, because I remember meeting him as a very young man. And then, of course, out front with the ceremony for Pink Shirt Day, meeting Travis Price, who was one of the originators of Pink Shirt Day, standing up for another student in his school out in Nova Scotia.

Just to say to the Speaker, maybe for next year for Pink Shirt Day…. I would name it Pink Suit Day. I will get a pink suit if the Speaker would wear a pink gown or pink robe.

Thank you, hon. Speaker, and thank you, everybody, for a great ceremony out there today.

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

BILL 12 — NATURAL GAS DEVELOPMENT
STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2014

Hon. R. Coleman presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Natural Gas Development Statutes Amendment Act, 2014.

Hon. R. Coleman: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Coleman: I'm pleased to introduce the Natural Gas Development Statutes Amendment Act. Bill 12 amends the Oil and Gas Activities Act, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act and the Strata Property Act.

The Oil and Gas Activities Act changes will modernize British Columbia's regulatory framework and clarify land owners' rights. Amendments to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act will modernize the administration of natural gas and oil subsurface rights. Bill 12 also will introduce minor changes to the Strata Property Act, amendments to help strata owners carry out their responsibilities.

I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

Bill 12, Natural Gas Development Statutes Amendment Act, 2014, 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)

PINK SHIRT DAY AND
PREVENTION OF CYBERBULLYING

J. Thornthwaite: Today is Pink Shirt Day in British Columbia. Today we stand up against bullying at schools, in the workplace, at home and on line. Today we declare that intolerance has no place in our society.

Pink Shirt Day began in 2009, when David Shepherd and Travis Price organized a protest at their Nova Scotia high school in support of a student who was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. A day after the bullying, Price, Shepherd and 50 other students showed up to the school wearing pink shirts. After that the bullies were never heard of again.

Bullying is not a new phenomenon, but bullies now have new tools with which to harass. Cyberbullying is an increasing concern, particularly for youth. One study estimates that more than half of teens and adolescents have been bullied on line, and one in three has been the target of cyberthreats.

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The problem is made worse thanks to the increased access young people have to new technology, particularly smartphone apps like Snapchat. Cell phones are now the most common medium for cyberbullying. Most youth, whether they're a bully or a victim, believe bullying on line is easier to get away with than bullying in person. But awareness is growing, and students are taking action. Delete Day is a student-led initiative where trained peers help students delete inappropriate on-line content.

Bullying is no longer restricted to the halls of the school or to the hours of the school day. It happens 24 hours, often under the false assumption that when you're on line, you're anonymous. The best way to fight it is to raise awareness and get parents and educators involved.
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I ask the House to join me in encouraging all British Columbians to help us to promote safe schools, positive learning environments and increased on-line protection for our children.

JOHN GAIPTMAN

R. Fleming: I'd like to take an opportunity this afternoon to recognize somebody who many members of this House know quite well, Mr. John Gaiptman, on the occasion of his retirement as superintendent of the greater Victoria school district. I know that many of John's friends, family and colleagues are excited about the things that John may get up to in retirement.

There are an awful lot of people in my community who are sad to be losing a great leader in education who has given so much to his community with his experience, skills and the enthusiasm he brought to his job.

John began his teaching career in 1978. He held various positions within the province of B.C. He began with the greater Victoria school district in 1993 as principal of Lambrick Park Secondary. He came up to the board office in 1998, first as a district principal and then assistant superintendent. He has been superintendent since 2002.

John has achieved many positive things at school district 61 during very extremely trying times. I think the districtwide results speak for themselves over his ten-plus years as superintendent. We now do have higher graduation rates. We have improved aboriginal education and better outcomes on courses that are provincially measured under John's leadership.

I think beneath the data is a real sense, spoken by many elected officials and administrative colleagues and employees in the district, of the profoundly positive impact that John had on the learning culture in his district. He was the kind of superintendent who was always in the schools, in the culture, so to speak, speaking directly with students.

It's hard to single out just a few of his many accomplishments, but I think certainly one that parents and educators and thousands of past students will remember and credit John with is around the area of music. When he became superintendent, the strings program was threatened, and the choices offered in education were made more difficult by funding situations. John has presided over a renaissance of programs for students from all social backgrounds to learn and experience the joys of playing an instrument. I know that John is out attending music concerts almost every night.

We don't know what he's going to get up to, but I ask the House to congratulate John on the wonders of his career and wish him well in his next chapters.

CARING PLACE SERVICES
IN MAPLE RIDGE AREA

M. Dalton: It's an honour today to speak about the Salvation Army Caring Place, a vital organization that supports families and individuals in my community. In 1990 Sally Ann opened Mountain View Community Church and nearly immediately started to focus on human social development in Maple Ridge. These efforts led to the launching of the Caring Place in 2003. With limited funding and a whole lot of community spirit, dedicated volunteers and supporters have worked tirelessly to make the Caring Place the great place that it is today.

The Caring Place serves upwards of 10,000 meals each month and provides 25 emergency shelter beds, 15 cold weather beds and another 14 beds in transitional housing.

The Caring Place runs a variety of programs, including client advocacy, Sonia's Cradle, for babies and toddlers, and meals and catering under the talented direction of Tim Sarsfield. Last year a nurse practitioner clinic was initiated with Fraser Health to give marginalized people a better opportunity to receive a continuum of care. In addition, the Caring Place reaches out to kids by organizing a summer camp program, back-to-school program and a school lunch bag program.

Thank you to director Darrell Pilgrim, shelter manager Mike Emery, corps officer captains Orest and Tracy Goyak. Thanks, also, to Connie McGonigal, Steph Wagner, Shirley Berggren and the many, many others who work or volunteer or give help and hope to the needy in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.

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Just this last weekend over 100 walkers raised over $13,000 in the Coldest Night of the Year campaign to support the Caring Place and the Salvation Army. The Caring Place is a testimony of how a community can rally together and tangibly demonstrate God's love for all.

INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FAIR
PARTICIPATION BY KIRI DAUST

D. Donaldson: On the heels of the Winter Olympics, where many members of this Legislature highlighted their constituents' achievements, I have news of another high-level international performance by a resident of Stikine.

It was based on an outdoor event and eventually led to a top finish at an international competition attended by 24 countries. Sixteen-year-old Telkwa resident Kiri Daust represented Canada at the Taiwan International Science Fair in January in Taipei.

As far as the outdoor event that led him to this world stage, it was walking in the woods with his family. Daust began noticing rust on the leaves of the highbush cranberry — berries that his family gathered to make jelly. His natural curiosity kicked in, no doubt assisted by the fact
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that both his parents are scientists.

He set about identifying the rust by sending pictures to plant disease experts, then designed and carried out experiments in the field to determine the effect it was having on the highbush cranberry. He found that berries of infected plants had significantly less sugar and, by going through historical records, found a pattern that linked the rust to wetter summers.

This is important, as climate change modelling due to greenhouse gas emissions predicts wetter summers for the northwest, and the low-sugar berries could have a negative impact on birds and other animals that depend on them.

Kiri took his project to regional and national science fairs and earned his place at the Taiwan International Science Fair this year, where he took second place in a category that included plant diseases and microbiology. Along the way, his research was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal the Canadian Field-Naturalist.

This is all from a young man who hasn't yet completed biology 11. But it doesn't stop there. The mainly home-schooled Daust also plays violin with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra.

Congratulations, Kiri, and also to the other Canadian representative at the international fair, Andrew Schulz, from Fraser Lake in my colleague's constituency of Nechako. It shows how much talent there is, in all disciplines, in northern rural communities if just provided the opportunity.

RECOGNITION OF WORK
OF DR. ERICH VOGT

R. Lee: I rise today to pay tribute to the life and contributions of a great man who had boundless charisma and fierce determination: Dr. Erich Vogt.

Dr. Vogt was a gifted Canadian scientist and also well known for his distinctive ability to lead and to create. Dr. Vogt's fingerprints are all over the top scientific institutions of British Columbia as a founder of TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics at the University of British Columbia; the B.C. Innovation Council; and even Science World.

Through the '70s he served as president of the Canadian Association of Physicists, chairman of the TRIUMF board of management and founding chairman of the Science Council of British Columbia, and he served on about two dozen international physics advisory committees. He also reigned as TRIUMF's laboratory director from 1984 until his retirement in 1994.

Among his many awards and decorations, Dr. Vogt received the Canadian Centennial Medal in 1967, the Royal Society of Canada in 1970 and was appointed as an officer of the Order of Canada in 1976 and of the Order of B.C. in 2006.

In 2011 the TRIUMF consortium universities founded the CAP-TRIUMF Vogt Medal for contributions to subatomic physics in recognition of Vogt's contribution to the institutions of physics.

Dr. Vogt lived in Vancouver. He is survived by his five children and his 16 grandchildren. His eternal optimism in the face of daunting challenges uplifted all in his presence until the very end, and he will be sorely missed. A public memorial service to celebrate Dr. Vogt's life will be held on March 8 at UBC campus. I ask the Speaker to send condolences to his family on behalf of this House.

WOUNDED WARRIORS RUN FOR AWARENESS
OF POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

L. Popham: Last week the Wounded Warriors ran from Port Hardy to Victoria to help to raise awareness around the mental health challenges faced by people experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. They're part of Wounded Warriors Canada, a non-profit that is helping members of the Canadian Forces who have been wounded or injured in service to our country.

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They wrapped it up Friday at the end of a run in excess of 600 kilometres and six full days. The team visited Legion branches all the way down the length of Vancouver Island. Their motto? "Not all wounds are visible. Honour the fallen. Help the living." It's a message for all of us.

Retired Lt. Col. Chris Linford, a Victoria resident and national ambassador for Wounded Warriors Canada, helped with this run. He has suffered from PTSD for 20 years, after a 1994 mission in Rwanda during that nation's genocide, as detailed in his book Warrior Rising.

He said: "I was a strong, fit soldier, a nursing officer, ready and trained. I tell you, of the 200 of us sent to Rwanda, 200 returned injured with PTSD. I spent the next ten years hiding it from everyone because of the stigma. The stigma is powerful. It totally controls you, and PTSD controls you."

Many people in our communities are dealing with PTSD. Too many of these people will succumb to the need to numb the anxiety or the pain of memories, turning to substances which will ultimately only worsen their condition.

As many as one in ten Canadians are affected by anxiety disorders like PTSD. That number is higher for our Canadian Armed Forces personnel and our first responders, like firefighters, paramedics and police officers.

My heartfelt congratulations goes out to the B.C. Wounded Warriors team. You have made us all proud by raising much-needed awareness around PTSD.
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Oral Questions

GOVERNMENT APPROACH TO
TEACHERS' COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

A. Dix: The Premier's determination to score political points at the expense of public education has been perhaps the central feature of her career at the cabinet table. We remember Bill 28, found to be unconstitutionally illegal in the courts. Then the Premier, after Bill 28, said she accepted the ruling — in word, apparently, but not in deed, as she introduced virtually the same legislation.

Then her government set out to try and provoke a school strike to keep children out of school. Then they were found again to have acted illegally, before the courts. Now here we are again. The same position, the same rules on class size and composition are what the government is seeking to impose. When will the Premier stop scheming and start putting children first?

Hon. C. Clark: Our government has worked diligently and with sincerity to make sure that we get to an agreement. If you look at the history of how this unfolded over the last several years, the government went out and imposed a cooling-off period and appointed a mediator who was respected by all parties and held in esteem all across the province. That mediator, as a result of those actions, helped us to get to an agreement that we all wanted.

We are now going back to the bargaining table. We'll be back again next week. I do believe we can get to an agreement. We want an agreement, and we know — all of us, whatever side we sit on at the bargaining table — that if we want to put kids first, we need to make sure that they have stability and that their classrooms are free from labour disruption.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition on a supplemental.

A. Dix: Well, you wait a year to get an answer around here, and you get that.

The Premier knows what the evidence presented by her government before the courts was. I know what it was. It was that they, for political purposes, sought to provoke a strike.

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There are repeated rulings of the court. They waste the time of the province. They waste the time of parents and teachers and school children with their inveterate scheming on these questions. Year after year they ignore rulings of the court. They don't care about it, and now they're playing the same games again.

Why doesn't the Premier respect rulings of the court with respect to class size and composition?

Hon. C. Clark: I draw the member's attention to the reality. First of all, the government worked diligently to make sure that we got to a settlement, and we did. Second, the government made a significant investment in the learning improvement fund, $210 million, which resulted in 500 new teachers, 400 new learning-assistant supports, 7,500 hours added for other learning-assistance teachers — a significant investment intended solely to improve the learning environment for children.

That is what the government wants. It's what teachers want. It's what parents want. That's why we're working so hard to get to a settlement, because we know that nothing will benefit kids more than labour stability in their schools.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition on a supplemental.

A. Dix: Hon. Speaker, 1,734 classes in the Vancouver school district, in the Premier's old riding — outside the government's own rules on class size and composition; 1,700 classes in the Minister of Education's riding; 654 in school district 23, the Premier's new riding. They don't even respect their own rules with respect to these questions around class size and composition. The people who have lost out after 12 years of the Premier's scheming on this question….

Let's be clear. Her own point person on this testified to that scheming in court. So let's not say…. The judge ruled as to point of fact that the government was conspiring to keep kids out of school — as a point of fact, not a judgment; a point of fact — in her decision. Now we have the same legislation, the same position.

Why doesn't the Premier do something for those public school children who are being denied what they should get, even under the Premier's own rules in schools today?

Hon. C. Clark: Well, again, I'm happy to have the opportunity to draw the member's attention to some important facts in this Legislature.

The number of students graduating in British Columbia over the last 12 years has increased by 15 percent. The number of aboriginal students graduating has increased by 103 percent. The number of ESL students graduating has increased by 62 percent. The number of special needs students graduating has increased by 166 percent.

Now, none of those facts are represented by the selective use of facts that the member likes to present in the House. But we get to those great outcomes for kids because we are focused every day on trying to put the interests of students at the centre of all of our decisions.

When we ordered a cooling-off period so that we could reach a settlement, the Leader of the Opposition opposed it. When we appointed a mediator, the Leader of the Opposition opposed it. When we got to a settlement, the Leader of the Opposition said he didn't really
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like it that much.

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Well, you don't get to a settlement by being constantly negative and selectively using facts. You get to a settlement by working hard, by putting students at the centre of your decisions and never wavering in your determination to get there, and that's how we got there.

R. Fleming: Everyone in British Columbia today — parents, teachers and students — can see that the Premier's comments are a farce. They know that this government isn't interested in bargaining. This is a government that was capable of plotting and scheming to provoke a strike, and that was proven in court. Even after losing in the Supreme Court for a second time, they're still continuing with this strategy. At every opportunity over the past 29 days, the minister and this Premier have been escalating tensions that are counterproductive to good negotiations — negotiations that finally must put kids first.

It's clear now that this government will not bargain in good faith until every legal option has been exhausted.

Madame Speaker: Pose your question.

R. Fleming: So will they at least do what Judge Harris urged today? Will they schedule and conclude as soon as possible to get out of the courts and get back to the place where this crisis of their own making can be resolved? And that is the bargaining table.

Hon. C. Clark: Well, another question from the opposition that flies in the face of all available facts. He talks about getting back to the bargaining table. We are at the bargaining table with the teachers. And it is our sincere purpose in being at that bargaining table to get to an agreement with the BCTF, just as we have with a third of the public service in British Columbia before the expiration of their contracts.

We have reached those agreements with the hard-working men and women of our public service here in British Columbia through hard bargaining and good faith. We intend to do the same with the B.C. Teachers Federation.

R. Fleming: There's no stay on the facts. The facts have been determined by the B.C. Supreme Court. They are still the facts, and those facts are that the B.C. Liberals squandered their chance to negotiate better learning conditions for our children in favour of trying to provoke a full-scale strike and shut down every school in British Columbia.

The B.C. Liberals were pursuing a strategy that would create chaos in the lives of children and their families so they could sway public opinion. That's how low this government can go. And the losers were our children.

So I would ask the Education Minister, since it's clear that this government will not bargain in good faith until they are forced to: will they at least expedite the appeal so we can get the focus back in the education sector to where it should be — on our children?

Hon. P. Fassbender: To the member opposite, when we talk about facts…. The Premier has clearly stated that we stayed at the table, we continued to negotiate, we invoked a cooling-off period, we brought in a skilled mediator, and we came to a negotiated settlement.

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I would challenge the member for Victoria–Swan Lake to remember his comments. And would he stand up in this House and send a message to the BCTF, which he said: "500,000 kids on the curb" and "leave their parents' lives disrupted because of dysfunction in the classrooms"? That is not our position. We want to negotiate. We're at the table. We'll continue to negotiate to keep the children in schools, to keep their parents focused on their future. That is our goal.

FEE INCREASES AND COMMENTS
BY PREMIER ON BUDGET

M. Farnworth: The Premier recently said about her budget: "We said we weren't going to increase taxes. We didn't increase taxes." But over the next three years the budget contains a total of $4.4 billion in tax, fee and rate increases. So how on earth can the Premier say, "We didn't increase taxes," when an additional $4.4 billion is being hoovered out of the pockets of hard-working British Columbians?

Hon. C. Clark: Well, I don't know if the member got a chance to read through the budget documents, but if he did, he would see that in British Columbia, for a single individual earning $80,000, we have the lowest taxes of any province in Canada. For a two-income family of four at $90,000, we have the third lowest. For a two-income family of four at $60,000, we have the third lowest. For a senior couple with a $30,000 income, we have the second-lowest taxes.

We are very proud of our record on taxes here in British Columbia. We know that's one of the ways we've been able to grow our economy. It's one of the ways we've been able to make sure we continue to attract investment. And it's very much how we've been able to differentiate ourselves from members of the opposition.

We want to put British Columbians to work at high-wage jobs in a growing economy that depends on our resource sector. That's what we stand for on this side of the House. We know where we stand. We'll look forward to finding out where the opposition stands.

M. Farnworth: That's the problem. We know where
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the Finance Minister stands. We don't know where the Premier stands. She stands in this House and wants to quote from the finance documents, yet when she's out in Kelowna, she says: "No, we didn't raise taxes. No, we're not taking any more money out of the pockets of taxpayers in British Columbia." It's one thing outside this House, another thing inside this House.

But let's set the record straight — not selectively but with the facts. They're as follows: in this year's budget, over the next three years, a total of $2 billion from Hydro hikes, $650 million from MSP hikes, $145 million from ICBC hikes, $160 million from ferry fare hikes and $180 million from tuition hikes. That's not even counting the whacking $1.2 billion in increases that are specifically labelled as taxes in the Premier's own budget.

In light of the evidence tabled by her Finance Minister, can the Premier please explain why she continues to mislead British Columbians outside this House that they've not raised taxes and they've not taken fees and that there's not $4.4 billion more coming out of the pockets of hard-working British Columbians?

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Hon. C. Clark: If challenged with the question about who in this House cares about making sure that the pocketbooks of British Columbians are growing rather than shrinking, I think it's fairly obvious who stands for that. It's the government that's the member of the exclusive club we call the Triple-A Credit Rating Club.

It's the side of this House that's proud to say we presented one of perhaps two balanced budgets in this country and one of few in North America. It's the group of us in this House that's proud to say we are constraining the growth in government spending at one of the slowest rates anywhere in Canada so that we can keep taxes low for every British Columbian.

Do we care about people's pocketbooks? Absolutely, we do. That's why we're controlling taxes. That's why we're controlling the growth in government spending. That's why we're maintaining our triple-A credit rating. That is why we are balancing our budget, and that is why every single day we are focused on grasping the opportunity to grow our economy — to say yes to economic development, to say yes to our resource communities, to say yes to rural communities, to say yes to putting people in this province, from every corner of this province, to work.

M. Elmore: How about another exclusive club that B.C. is a member of — the highest child poverty rate in Canada?

The fact is that this Premier's budget contains $4.4 billion in higher taxes, fees and rate increases. That's $4.4 billion coming out of the pockets of people across the province and making life less affordable for British Columbians. Yet the Premier is still telling media that she didn't raise taxes at all.

To the Premier, does she deny that her budget is built on $4.4 billion in new dollars that will come straight from the pockets of people in this province?

Hon. C. Clark: These are difficult economic times. There's no question about it. And the economy has remained sluggish. There is no question about it. But the Conference Board of Canada predicts that British Columbia will lead the country in economic growth next year. Projections, across this country, are that British Columbia is gaining steam in growing its economy because of the work that we're doing.

Despite the fact that it's been tough fiscal times, we have found money for an early childhood tax credit. We have found money, which the NDP would have taken away, to make sure that parents can invest in their children's future education. We've put that money aside. We put that money aside, over the objections of the opposition, because we know it is important to invest in young people and their education if they want to be able to compete in the world.

The difference between the government and the opposition, though, very clearly, is this. While they stand up every day and they say they want a poverty plan, we over here say we have a jobs plan.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. Members, this is your time.

Hon. C. Clark: We know this — that the best way to lift children out of poverty is to make sure that their parents are working at high-paying, secure jobs. That is what we work toward every single day.

M. Elmore: The reality is that B.C. has the worst child poverty in the country and the worst private sector job record in this country.

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B.C. families are being fleeced to the amount of $4.4 billion in taxes, fees and rate increases, which is a heavy burden on our families in British Columbia. Over the next three years an average family will pay nearly $900 more in just hydro rate hikes and increases in medical premiums. The Premier denies she's raising taxes, but each month British Columbians will receive a hydro bill that tells a different story.

To the Premier, will she admit that this government's hidden taxes are going to make life less affordable across the province?

Hon. C. Clark: A million people in British Columbia pay reduced MSP premiums; 800,000 of them pay no MSP premiums whatsoever. That's in an effort to make it a little bit easier for those who are struggling as families to try and get by. We need to make sure that we are ad-
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dressing those issues for people who are struggling, absolutely, but we also need a long-term plan.

We need a plan to make sure that British Columbians can go to jobs that are secure and high-paying, that will offer them the promise of lifting them and their children out of poverty forever. The only way to do that is to plan for economic growth. The only way to do that is to say yes to our resource economy. The only way to do that is to say yes to economic development projects. The only way to do that is to work hard to attract investment.

GOVERNMENT DEBT AND COMMENTS
BY PREMIER ON BUDGET

C. James: Just four days ago the Premier said her budget wasn't created by "raising taxes, borrowing or stealing." But in fact, the Premier did raise taxes — $4.4 billion in taxes over the next three years. The Premier did borrow. Provincial debt will shoot up by another $7 billion. That's on top of the billions of dollars of increase to the debt already during her time as Premier.

My question is to the Premier. If she's so proud of this budget, why are we hearing one message inside this Legislature and another message outside the Legislature?

Hon. C. Clark: Well, it is a little interesting to hear the opposition talk about how important it is that we look after our debt and deficit in British Columbia. It may be the very first time that I have heard a member of the opposition express such a sentiment.

If she is indeed so interested in making sure that we reduce our deficit or that we continue to eliminate our deficit, that we continue to work hard to eliminate our debt, that we work toward paying off our debt so that our children don't inherit the burden of our decisions when we're gone, I would ask her to think about: perhaps she's on the wrong side of the House, because it's on this side that we care about those issues.

DEETKEN GROUP ROLE IN REPORTING ON
JOB CREATION IN NATURAL GAS SECTOR

J. Horgan: Just so we can get away from some of the fabrications, let's take a look at some of the things that were said prior to the election. Before the election the government released information on job creation statistics in the liquefied natural gas sector. They characterized this information as independent. Two companies we know of, Grant Thornton and Ernst and Young, put their name to those documents.

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Freedom-of-information requests have revealed that a third company was involved, Deetken Enterprises, who have conveniently, since 2007, received $3.4 million in payments from the province of British Columbia — leading up to the last election alone, $961,000 in payments.

I want to just read into the record that one of the bits of advice that Deetken Group gave to Ernst and Young and the minister's representatives in the Ministry of Finance was: "We should remove all reference to 'proponent' information, and this should be described as data provided by the province and its advisers developed from industry benchmarks and other sources."

My question the Minister of Finance is this. Did we pay almost $1 million to have a private company aggregate someone else's information and then scrub it clean? Is that what we paid $1 million for?

Hon. M. de Jong: Well, as a former colleague used to say, move over and make some room on the grassy knoll.

I hope the member and members opposite aren't shocked to know that in preparing material for budgets, we seek advice from reputable outside firms — in this case three extremely reputable international accounting firms whom we provide information to and ask for analysis.

We then take this extraordinary step. We actually publish the report that they give to us so that everyone can read it. We lay it out there for the public and for the opposition to analyze. If the member is shocked by the statement he reads that officials — professional public servants — made clear and wanted to make clear that the information being provided to those firms was not from an individual proponent but from government.... I'm sorry that offends him, but it is entirely consistent with the facts and the professionalism of a public service that has served this province very well.

[End of question period.]

Introductions by Members

M. Mungall: It's on a very rare occasion that I look up into the gallery and see somebody from my riding. I did that just now in the middle of question period, and I see one of Nelson's own fantastic, amazing city workers working with CUPE 378. I don't even remember her last name. I've always known her by her first name — Karen. May the House please make her welcome.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: Madame Speaker, continued debate on the budget.

Madame Speaker: Vancouver–Mount Pleasant continues.

Budget Debate

(continued)

J. Kwan: Just to carry on the debate that I started on Monday before we adjourned, we were talking about truths and information that the government had tabled
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through their budget. In response, I was talking about a broken promise — in fact, a series of broken promises.

I talked about the Premier's slogan on her campaign bus, the "Debt-free B.C." slogan. We suspected during the campaign, but we now know from Budget 2014, that that is simply untrue. The Premier, far from delivering a debt-free British Columbia, had actually increased the debt for British Columbia at a faster rate than any other Premier in the history of British Columbia.

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Now I want to go to a second point, which, really, my colleagues laid out in the question period just now. We know that the Premier was recently in Kelowna, and she claimed that she had not increased taxes in Budget 2014 for British Columbians.

Well, looking at Budget 2014, maybe if the Premier actually read the document from her own budget, she would know that what she claims is simply not true. Budget 2014 will see your hydro rates increase by 20 percent by the end of the three years, costing an average of $215 per year. All said, in the three years in which the government projects — in that period — with a 20 percent rate increase, that's $2 billion out of the back pockets of British Columbians.

Now, the Premier will say that is not a tax increase. I think I just heard her say just now in this House during question period that the tax increases, the fee increases, are in fact being managed. Rather than saying that there are no increases in taxes, she's now saying that it's being managed. I think that's what the Premier just said. But that wasn't the case when she was up in Kelowna and she claimed that there were no tax increases.

The truth is, of course, that aside from the hydro rates, if you look at the MSP premiums, you also see that that's going up as well. That's another $400 more over the next three years for taxpayers. That is another tax increase for British Columbians. When you account for that amount, that's another $2.3 billion out of the back pockets of British Columbians.

That's not the total list. There's also the ICBC rate increase. There are also many, many other hidden taxes, which are, of course, disguised in the form of fee hikes.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

Ferries is another one. I know that my colleagues have been raising this issue inside this House and outside this House. That, the truth is, is another tax increase.

Knowing the facts of what we know now, how is it that the Premier can continue to say with a straight face that she has not increased taxes for British Columbians? It is a mystery to me, and the truth is that she cannot do that. She was caught in question period today by my colleagues who raised these issues directly to her. She was caught, and she actually, instead of saying no tax increases, switched the wording ever so subtly to say that she's now managing the tax increases. That is the truth of the pattern of behaviour of this Premier.

Now, I heard the Premier say just moments ago on the question that was raised by my colleague the MLA for Vancouver-Kensington on British Columbia having the highest child poverty rate year after year after year. The Premier responded by saying her plan in reducing the child poverty rate is her jobs plan.

Let's just take a moment to review this government's jobs plan to see how they have done. The Premier, we know, spent millions of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars making false claims about her failed jobs plan. You've heard it. We've heard it in ads — using taxpayers' money for advertisements to claim that the Premier's jobs plan is number one in job creation. We heard it ad nauseam.

The truth is this that B.C.'s labour market "performed poorly last year compared to other provinces." This is actually a direct quote from the government's own budget document, and the budget document continues to say employment in B.C. actually stalled in 2013. The reality is that B.C. is dead last in private sector job growth, and we have the highest unemployment rate in western Canada. That is the truth, and those are the facts that cannot be disputed.

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B.C. actually lost over 21,000 full-time jobs since this Legislature last sat. In January 2014, B.C. lost over 8,500 private sector jobs. Even the government itself is projecting that unemployment will continue to increase over the next two years.

Because the Premier failed in the jobs plan, in the last 2½ years over 12,000 British Columbians left British Columbia to look for work elsewhere. That is the Premier's record.

So I have to ask the Premier this: how's it going with that jobs plan? How's it going, anyway? How is it contributing to reducing the child poverty rate? It is not. It has failed British Columbians, and that's the truth of it.

One would think that an honest person would actually admit that and look at the statistics honestly and look for a way to address these issues in a way that would actually help British Columbians and not make matters worse. We don't have that situation here, because the Premier refuses to see the truth. That is what's going on right now in British Columbia.

Deputy Speaker: I caution the member and remind her, on temperance.

J. Kwan: The Premier, of course, doesn't stop there on that issue.

On a number of different issues, we now know that on the LNG plans, the plans that the government has promised…. She promised that British Columbians would start collecting LNG revenues by 2017. How might you think that would actually materialize? What are the gov-
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ernment's prospects on the LNG promise?

Now, you'll recall that the Premier's commitment is "three LNG lines up and running by 2020 and the first one by 2015." If this was true, then where are the jobs and revenue projections in Budget 2014? I actually don't see it there. In the Liberals' three-year plan, B.C.'s unemployment rate is going to increase, and there's no revenue from LNG. That's the truth.

With no projected revenues from LNG for Budget 2014, the Premier appears to be blaming the investors for not coming up with the LNG plans fast enough. This is what she said out in the media: "We're depending on the private sector to make those decisions. We can't control that" Then she goes on to say: "We make our best guesses about when the first money will flow into the so-called prosperity fund."

Well, the framework for the LNG tax regime was supposed to be completed by the end of 2013. Now we know we'll be lucky if we see it in the fall of 2014. Without the tax regime, how can investors possibly formulate their plans and invest in British Columbia — not to mention building or completing their first plan by 2015? The truth is that the Premier only has herself to blame, when it is her government that has failed to meet any of the deadlines for the LNG promise.

So that's the government's economic record to date: failed jobs plan, higher unemployment rates, increase in debt, increase in fees, and the LNG promise is further away, as you look down the road, because of this Premier and this government's own doing.

In the meantime, when you look at the other important factors in evaluating how British Columbia is doing…. You look at other factors like education, like the issue of poverty, our quality of life here in British Columbia. Let me just touch on a couple of these issues.

We were talking about the education situation. Now, I have to speak to this, and I can attest to this, because I was here in this House back in 2001 and in 2002. In fact, it was this very Premier who was Deputy Premier then — who was the Minister of Education — who brought forward an unconstitutional piece of legislation that was struck down in the courts.

Back in January of 2002 the Premier, who was then the Education Minister, led the B.C. government to attack school children with Bill 28, the legislation that removed the rights of teachers to bargain for smaller classes with more student supports.

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Now in the meantime, as the Premier — the then Education Minister — did this, she claimed that this was going to bring more flexibility, a more responsive and better-managed system for the students, to meet their needs. She claimed that the students' needs would win out over mathematical formulas, "where decisions are made by all the education partners in the system" and "where meeting students' needs is the absolute number one priority." That's a quote from the then Minister of Education, the now Premier.

We now know, 12 years later, that the Premier all along had a different plan in place. In 2011 the Supreme Court ruled that the Premier's legislation was unconstitutional. The B.C. Liberal government, of course, at that time did not appeal the ruling. They did not appeal the ruling.

Then the Premier said this: "We need to go back and make sure that we address the issues that the court raised, and we will absolutely do that. You know, I think whenever you bring in legislation that ten years later turns out not to have worked, you have to take responsibility for that absolutely. Every time, you want to get it right, and that time we didn't get it right." That was the Premier, and she was quoted on April 14, 2011.

Now, moving forward, after the Premier admitted that she didn't get it right, she then, of course, began to lay the groundwork to introduce yet another bill that was virtually identical to the one that was struck down by the Supreme Court and that was ruled to be unconstitutional. She brought forward Bill 22, the education legislation that was virtually identical, which was just deemed by the courts to be unconstitutional.

Then, by doing that, the Premier claims: "This week our government introduced an Education Improvement Act aimed to keep teachers in class by suspending job action, setting a cooling-off period and appointing a mediator, in an attempt to break new ground with the union." That's what she said publicly. That's what she's saying now publicly.

Of course, what we know, though, from the courts, which we recently just found out, is that this is simply not true. The courts actually had a different ruling. The courts actually found that the government was conspiring to provoke a full-blown strike for political expedience at the expense of whom? Students. For what? Political gain for the government.

Now, you might ask: what does this have to do with Budget 2014? Well, I'll tell you exactly what it has to do with Budget 2014. If the government actually followed the court decision, the decision from the judge, the government's so-called contingency moneys embedded in the budget, the so-called surplus, the so-called balanced budget, would have had a big fat hole punched right through it. That is the truth of it.

If the government, if this Premier, actually put students first and, instead of political expediency, invested that money into the students' education, the government would not be sitting here today claiming that they have a surplus or a contingency fee or a balanced budget. That's what it has to do with Budget 2014.

Why is this relevant and important today? That action shows exactly the pattern of behaviour of this very Premier, dating back to 2002 when she first brought in an unconstitutional education bill to strip classrooms of supports and to reduce the number of teachers that are
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required to support the students for better learning environments.

She began that work more than ten years ago, and she's continuing on that work. Today in Budget 2014 in choosing to not invest money in the education system, she has made a political statement that, once again, she will put political expediency and political gain ahead of the children in British Columbia. That is what's going on right now, today, with Budget 2014.

Now, I know that some members may not want to hear this, and they might think it's nonsense. But if a person wants to be truthful about the evidence that's before them, they will be able to see that what I'm saying is exactly what is happening right now under this government and their direction.

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I want to bring up another issue, because I know that time is fast running out in my allotted time to speak to the budget. I do want to bring up this issue that's close and near and dear to my heart.

For so many years now, for 23 years, I have participated in the February 14 memorial march in our community. For the people of Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, this is an important event. I was there for the first year that it started, and every year after that I have tried to attend. Only in the years when the Legislature was sitting, when February 14 happened to fall on a sitting day, have I missed the memorial march.

This year I attended, and hundreds of people showed up. It was a clear, beautiful day. Before the march started, we heard testimonies from family members who really poured out their grief and the hurt that they continue to experience at the loss of the women who went missing and were murdered in our communities.

Now, at the time they appointed their former Minister of Justice, the Attorney General Wally Oppal, to head the inquiry for the missing and murdered women, the government said they cared deeply about this issue and that they were going to find ways to stop this tragedy — this "tragedy of epic proportions," as Wally Oppal had described it — from ever happening again.

From that inquiry, Wally Oppal made 63 recommendations. That was 14 months ago. Over a year ago 63 recommendations were tabled before this government.

There were two urgent recommendations for this government to act upon. One of them is a shuttle bus on the Highway of Tears. Now, that's Highway 16, and why do people call it the Highway of Tears? That is the very highway where very many women are put at risk every single time because there is no public transport. They have to hitch a ride to go get groceries, to run errands, to get from one town to another. Every time they do that, they put their lives at risk.

That was one of the highest-priority items that Wally Oppal had put forward in his inquiry. I would have thought that after 14 months of the inquiry being tabled, I would find a mention in Budget 2014 to actually fund that recommendation. After all, it is in the throne speech that this very Premier claims that she wants to ensure that B.C. is violence-free.

I challenge the Premier to get up and to acknowledge that when she does not provide for safe public transportation in an area where people cannot get from one place to another, she is creating a violence-free British Columbia — that she's not putting women at risk. I challenge the Premier to not acknowledge that every time a woman along the stretch of Highway 16, the Highway of Tears, has to hitch a ride, they're not putting their lives at risk.

It's not as though that's an impossible task to do. It is absolutely achievable, if the government has the political will to do it. We heard, through two volumes of the report — a report called Forsaken from Wally Oppal…. In it he found evidence of fact, of wrongdoing, from the institutions that failed the women and their families in the investigation, from the police on down.

One of his top priorities in calling on the government to act is to recognize the injuries that have been done to the victims and the families — calling on the government to establish a compensation fund. So 14 months ago that was Wally Oppal's recommendation.

Today do you see in Budget 2014 a compensation fund for the victims of the missing and murdered women? Not one mention of it.

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If you saw the faces of the children and the grandchildren that were in that memorial march on February 14, if you saw their faces, you would know how wrong that is. All these years and so much pain and so much grief, and their struggle to continue on. The government could have done the right thing in this budget, and they didn't. I find that unconscionable. I do. I think it's despicable, and I don't mind saying it.

Some people say I wear my heart on my sleeve. So be it, because if that was your child or any child that you know, you will know that this action from the government is not acceptable.

The Missing and Murdered Women's Coalition met with the Attorney General. After six months requesting for a meeting, they finally got a meeting on November 25.

They put forward five priorities for the Attorney General to act on: calling on action on the Highway of Tears, for the shuttle bus for safe transportation; calling for compensation for the victims' families; calling for mental health and addiction services for and by aboriginal people, for women in the community and their children. They called for the government to appoint Bev Jacobs as the champion to get the 63 recommendations implemented over time. The government, to date, the Minister of Justice, to date, the Attorney General, to date, has not provided a response to the coalition on their five priorities.

There's one other priority that's easy to do and doesn't
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even necessarily cost a whole lot of money, and that is to make police sensitivity training mandatory — easily done. Wally Oppal, in his inquiry, found that the police had absolutely failed the women that went missing and were murdered.

Why couldn't the government act on that? Why couldn't the government take these recommendations seriously and fund these recommendations in Budget 2014 with a timeline so that we can truly put an end to this tragedy, so that we can truly find a way out of the cycle of violence that is there and the potential risks that women face today?

Violence-free B.C. means action now. It doesn't mean that you can bring in some computer system that will somehow make a difference. It's about preventative actions as well. If the government had taken their own commissioner seriously, they would have put a budget and a timeline in Budget 2014 to implement these recommendations.

Now, there's much more to talk about, and I see that the green light is on. I haven't even gotten to Housing, which is my critic area, or CLBC, which is my other critic area, but I know that I'm now running out of time. What I will do, of course, is carry on this discussion with the ministers during estimates, and I'll look forward to that.

L. Throness: It's a pleasure to speak to the budget today and to turn the attitude of this chamber in a more positive direction as we talk about a very positive story. It's a happy story. It's a great story. It's a story of a provincial budget, a balanced budget that was tabled last week in this House.

I want to begin, first of all, by thanking some important people. First of all, the people of my riding, the people of the great riding of Chilliwack-Hope who have sent me here. It's a tremendous honour and a privilege to serve them, and I'm working as hard as I can to do so.

I also want to thank my staff. I've opened two offices. I've opened a constituency office in Chilliwack on Vedder Road, and I've opened a satellite constituency office in the city of Hope. I would certainly invite all of my constituents to visit there at any time. I wouldn't be able to operate my offices without the help of my constituency assistants, those being Sheila Denis and Gabrielle Loosdrecht. They work tirelessly on behalf of my constituents, and I want to thank them.

I also want to thank a few people, special people: my father, Harald, who has been a tremendous example and a guiding light for me, and I believe he's watching today; Susan Mathies, who helped me to get here, who worked so hard for me; and Harvey Schroeder, who was a former Speaker of this House and a Minister of Agriculture. He gave me my start in politics and has been a friend and a mentor ever since.

It's always an honour to speak on behalf of my constituents, who voted overwhelmingly last May for responsible economic management — and that is to say, balanced budgets.

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Over the last week I've been listening to the opposition in this place call for more spending. I thought it would be an interesting thing to look back and to put these remarks in context by thinking about the size of our modern governments.

Our own provincial government is really spending an immense amount of money. This year they're spending $45 billion. It never ceases to amaze me how the expansion of technology and of automation has allowed a flood of goods and services to be poured out in our economy — only a portion of which makes its way back to the provincial treasury in taxes.

Allow me to give you some idea of the sheer size of government. I went to the Legislative Library, and I did some inquiries. I found out that 100 years ago B.C.'s budget was $13.7 million, just under $14 million. After you adjust for inflation, that turns out to be about $700 per person in B.C. What is today's budget? What is the equivalent amount per person in last week's budget? It's $9,725 per person.

In 1914 there were about 2,000 public servants. I know that because I went through the books and I counted them. They're individually listed in the estimates of 100 years ago. But what is it today? Today the province pays the wages and salaries of 386,000 people in this province — an enormous increase in the size of government.

Let me give you another illustration from my own experience. Years ago I worked on Parliament Hill, and I would make access-to-information requests. I made a request for all of the grants and contributions in one department federally — in one department, only of the grants and contributions, not of program spending. And they said: "Yes, we'll give that to you, but it will cost you $11,000 to print, because the list is 48,000 pages long." That's the grants and contributions from one federal department, not the program spending at all — 48,000 pages long.

Just for fun I went on the web, and I counted all of the boards and commissions and agencies and departments and other agencies of the federal government. I counted 341. I did the same thing for the province of B.C. Of course, the provincial scale is an order of magnitude smaller, but the principle is the same. We're living in an age of unparalleled size and extent of government. I could only count about 65 bodies with the province; there may be more.

When you add, to our federal and provincial governments, our municipal governments…. And there are 161 of those. You add our regional district governments. There are 29 of those. Remember that every one of those governments has its own boundaries, its own budget, its own tax base, its own paid officials, its own set of programs and services, its own set of plans, bylaws, regula-
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tions and enforcement.

I don't think our citizens really understand or know just how big our government, collectively, really is. I don't even know if it's possible for one person to understand how much $45 billion is, yet the NDP call for more. They call for more and more spending.

Maybe the moral of the story is that we as citizens can be very grateful at the immense riches of a country that enables our provincial government alone to spend this enormous amount of money while still leaving money in the pockets of our beleaguered taxpayers — so much so that we're a have province in Canada. We make a pretty good living here in B.C.

Now, some would say that our governments are too big, that the tax bite is too large. I would be one of those who would prefer lower taxes. And in this regard, British Columbians have reason to congratulate themselves. As the Premier was saying during question period, an individual who's making $80,000 will pay the lowest rates in Canada when all taxes are included.

When you take a senior couple who are making $30,000 a year together, they're paying the second-lowest tax burden in the entire country. Of course there are always going to be disputes about levels of taxation. But these levels are set on a macro scale by the voters of B.C.

B.C. voters could certainly find politicians who would call for lower services and lower taxes. But where are they? They're not here in this chamber. They rarely appear as candidates for elections, and there are none elected that I know of today. Why is that? It's because their message wouldn't be very popular. You will see calls for greater efficiency, greater restraint in spending.

I would certainly stand on the side of smaller government philosophically, but I've always said that people who call for low taxes…. We all love tax cuts. I want tax cuts. We all love tax cuts, but when people who call for tax cuts also start to begin to call for service cuts as well, then I will sit up and take notice.

Most people who want tax cuts oppose service cuts when it comes to them. When you really sit down and say, "What are you willing to take in the way of reductions?" the list gets shorter and shorter.

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On a larger scale, this sentiment is echoed by the electorate. That's the reason why we have the size of government we have today. They're set by the demand of the electorate.

When you combine these great forces — the great power of our economy to produce abundant revenues, the desire of the public for more and better and bigger programs, tempered by those who want to restrain growth in government and in taxes and in spending — the convergence of these three great vectors produces a budget like we have today.

The budget before us is a great budget. It's a stellar budget. It's a budget I could be proud of, a budget that every oneof my constituents can support. A balanced budget was our first and greatest promise, and in this budget we have kept it.

It's not just an estimate. It's not just a guess. The numbers are all in from the past. We actually did balance this budget last year, and it makes the one we tabled last week all the more credible. We've done it once. We can do it again, and we are determined to do so.

Now, what did the NDP say about the budget last year? I want to bring it to mind, because without doubt the NDP are proud of their record. They're proud to have their record brought up in public again. So let me talk about it a bit.

The government's budget was presented last in February 2013. It took two months for the NDP to come up with a critique. When the NDP Finance critic finally got around to it in April, he said that it was a sham budget, that it was deliberately structured to hide a $790 million deficit — an attempt to deceive voters prior to the election.

Well, we know, of course, that this was all just talk. We know that perhaps it was an attempt by the NDP to frighten voters prior to the election instead.

The idea that you can't spend more than you earn is a simple rule of common sense. It's a rule that the NDP has been protesting over the past week in question period. At one and the same time, they're saying: "Why don't you spend more?" Then they say: "Why don't you tax less?" When you add those two together, what is it a recipe for? It is a recipe for budget deficits.

True to form, that is exactly what the NDP ran on last May. If you can believe it, the most attractive thing the NDP could think of, the best plan that they could think of for our economy was to propose multiple years of budget deficits. They were perfectly open about it. Their platform included at least three successive budget deficits totalling over $2 billion. Happily, the voters rejected this idea.

But we live in strange times — a strange time in terms of economics — when this kind of thinking seems to be acceptable. We seem to live in an era when governments around the world have separated revenues from spending, as if you can spend without an income to support that spending. I'm speaking in particular of the United States today, which is spending vastly more than it takes in.

Here are a couple of facts about the American condition. This year the American deficit will amount to $514 billion. That's $514 billion in additional debt in one year. When you add up all of the past deficits, that amount adds up to $17.3 trillion, a debt-to-GDP ratio of some 73 percent. That's a massive burden on their economy but also a threat and a risk to the whole world's economy.

In addition to this, the Federal Reserve is doing what they call quantitative easing, which, in another way of speaking, is just printing money and injecting it into the economy at the rate of $85 billion a month. It has never
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been done before. Who knows what's going to happen when it finally tapers off and stops? It is a scary thing.

Well, during the by-election two years ago and again during the last election, I warned voters in my riding about these kinds of financial practices in the States. Politicians may wish to disconnect revenue from spending, but the markets don't do that.

I want to quote Bill Clinton, who warned about it in 2012. He said that as the U.S. economy recovers, demand for money will increase, and so its price, expressed in terms of interest rates, will rise too. This is what he said: "Interest rates will go through the roof, the cost of financing the deficit will be staggering, and the private sector will be screaming for affordable credit." Rising interest rates could slow the American economy once again.

There was an American economist who said: "If it can't go on forever, it won't." At some point spending unsupported by revenues has to stop. I do think that there will come a day of reckoning in the States. I hope it never does, but I think it's going to come.

When it comes, it could have a huge impact on B.C., and we need to be ready. If a smart province, hypothetically, wanted to be ready for a problem like that, what would a smart province do?

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I would say it would do three things. First, it would balance its budget. Next, it would diversify its trading partners so that it's not so dependent on one economy. Third, it would generate new streams of income to accelerate the paydown of provincial debt. Happily, these three things are the main thrusts of B.C.'s economic policy. I want to talk about each in turn.

First, we've balanced our budget. I want to compare our budget, our economic situation, with some other governments in Canada. Quebec, for example, will have a $2.5 billion deficit this year but a public debt which comes out to a whopping 54 percent of GDP.

What about Ontario, Canada's largest province and supposedly the economic engine for the country? Ontario's latest budget from last year posted an $11.7 billion deficit. Its debt-to-GDP ratio is 37 percent.

Take the government of Canada, which almost balanced its budget this year. It still has a $3 billion deficit but a 33 percent debt-to-GDP ratio. The smaller provinces are much the same thing.

But B.C., by contrast, is in an enviable position, a fantastic position. We are the only province, aside from Saskatchewan, which has a balanced budget. We're not only balancing it, we're projecting a surplus for the next three years totalling $840 million. Not only that, we are building in a cushion, a contingency factor of another $750 million. That's $1.5 billion of caution, of prudence, that is built into this budget.

When all is said and done, our debt-to-GDP ratio is just 18 percent, roughly half of what other governments' are in this country and a quarter of the American debt load. This is a world-class achievement. This is nothing to be sneezed at.

The second thing we've done is to diversify our trading partners so that we are not so dependent on the United States and so that if their economy sneezes, we don't immediately catch a cold. That's exactly what we've been doing and what we will continue to do. In 2001, for example, 70 percent of all B.C.'s exports went to the States. Last year it was 47 percent. Our exports to China in 2001 were just 2 percent. Now they're 20 percent.

Our Premier is leading the way in drumming up new business for B.C. Last fall she went to China, and she led a trade mission to China and India for two solid weeks. She brought 350 people with her, including 150 companies. She came back with 60 partnerships and business deals.

This is a bold and visionary Premier who leads the way, who gets the job done. I'm proud to be part of a government that is aggressively protecting British Columbians by diversifying our economy and insulating us from the threats and risks that are posed by debts and deficits around the world.

Thirdly, if we wanted to be economically secure, we would want to create streams of income in order to enable and accelerate the paydown of our provincial debt. Why would we want to do that? We need to accelerate our revenue streams because we are now paying, every year, over a billion dollars in interest on our provincial debt. That's not only a drag on the economy, it takes priority over other things that we would love to do.

I took the liberty of counting all of the interest payments that all the provinces and the federal government are making on their debts. The amount turns out to be $55 billion a year spent in interest on debt in this country.

Can you imagine what this country could do with $55 billion a year? We could build all the infrastructure we want. We could give all the tax cuts we could desire. We could have any social program that we want. But we don't have those options now because so much of our GDP has to go to pay the debt. Payment of debt needs to be a priority for us, and it is.

How is our government proposing to accelerate that paydown? Of course, we have our idea of liquefied natural gas, to begin a brand-new industry in B.C.'s north. Here, I want to offer a short update and a summary of the state of play of this industry right now.

Currently there are 12 companies and consortiums of companies which have expressed interest in building LNG plants in B.C. The National Energy Board has granted seven export licences and is considering five more right now. And there are very recent encouraging signs.

Last October when the Prime Minister went to Malaysia, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, the head of Petronas — the energy giant — promised to invest $36 billion in B.C.

In that regard, in the Globe and Mail there was a news report today, and I want to quote from that report.
[ Page 1627 ]
Petronas has "just finalized a further 25 percent equity participation from an Indian party and an established Asian LNG buyer…. In diversifying the ownership structure, state-owned Petronas will strengthen its chances of turning the $36 billion project into reality." And we hope it becomes a reality.

[1510]

Last November a company called CNOOC from China signed an agreement with our government to assess the feasibility of building an LNG plant north of Prince Rupert.

In mid-January, just a month ago, Chevron led a contract to the Fluor Corporation from Texas — up to $5 billion to build its LNG plant in Prince Rupert.

A day later there was another report — in January — from the Globe about a company called Woodside in Australia, one of the premier LNG companies in the world, which signed a contract with the province of B.C. to assess the feasibility of building another LNG plant.

We're hoping that at least one final decision will come through this year, perhaps in the third or fourth quarter of this year. If only three of the 12 plants end up being built, it will result in a revenue stream of about $100 billion over 20 years, which will take care of all of our debts and then some.

Now, for some strange reason, the opposition has criticized the government for its emphasis on LNG, which suggests to me that if they had won the election last May, they wouldn't have bothered. They wouldn't have tried. They wouldn't have seized the opportunities to secure these gigantic investments in B.C. for the benefit of our people and our children. But there is absolutely no reason for us not to chase this investment and every reason for us to do so. That is simply because there is no risk to the taxpayer in doing that.

We have not spent billions in the hopes of attracting LNG. In this budget we've allotted just $29 million over three years to invest in the proposals. Should the number of LNG plants be fewer than we had hoped, there will be no loss to British Columbia. B.C. only has the prospect of gain in this area. Therefore, we have every reason and, I would argue, every responsibility to work as hard as we can to capture this investment, for us and for our children, to secure our province's financial future.

Money is already being spent by the private sector. Every company that has reached an agreement with B.C. is spending multi millions in non-refundable deposits, and I understand that up to a billion dollars has already been spent by these 12 companies in B.C.'s north in order to pursue their bids.

The north is booming as a result, and that's why in the town of Kitimat house prices went up by 26 percent last year alone. Why? Because it's driven by hope. It's driven by the very real expenditure of funds in that area. And it's not only driving real estate. It's creating jobs. It's creating investment. It's increasing tax revenue to the province, which helps to sustain the social programs that we all value.

And so we are doing these three great things. We are balancing our budget to secure our financial position. We are diversifying our trading partners to reduce our reliance on our great friend to the south. And we're seeking to create a new stream of revenue in LNG to accelerate the paydown of our provincial debt.

This is an admirable plan. It's comprehensive. It has all the bases covered. And all British Columbians as well as global investors can feel secure and confident that our financial prospects rest in capable hands. We don't think only of the next election. We're looking far down the road, far into the future, setting a course to continue to keep B.C. as the envy of all the provinces of Canada.

With all this economic talk, this budget does not forget those who need help the most. This year we're going to spend nearly $18 billion on health care. We are putting $2.5 billion more into health care over the next three years. We're putting $243 million into maintaining services for people with developmental disabilities. We're putting more into policing, into children and youth with special needs. We're putting more into legal aid. For young families, we're doing things that will be of special interest. We're helping new homebuyers with some extra relief from the property purchase tax.

The early childhood tax benefit will start next year. It'll give 180,000 families with kids under six years old help to the tune of $55 a month. That's important. This is in addition to the B.C. training and education savings grant that's ongoing — $1,200 for every child born after the beginning of 2007.

I could go on. The budget is chock full of good things. We're building bridges, transit lines, highways, hospitals, schools and universities. We've allotted $1.3 billion for children and families in this budget, almost $2 billion for post-secondary education, $5.4 billion for K-to-12 education.

This is a plan of practicality and compassion, of responsibility and vision. We're moving forward with confidence to secure the economic and social prosperity of this province, and that is why I will be voting in favour of this budget.

[1515]

R. Austin: It gives me great privilege to stand and rise and speak to Budget 2014 on behalf of the people of Skeena. I'd like to also begin by saying a few thanks. Of course, I'd like to begin by thanking the voters of Skeena for once again giving me their confidence in being here for the third time and getting re-elected. I came here in 2005 with a lot of enthusiasm, and I am still here with a lot of enthusiasm to do the work on the good part of the people of Skeena.

I would also like to thank some personal people — of course, my family for continuing to support me in doing
[ Page 1628 ]
this work — and in particular to thank my son. When I was first running in 2005 he was a 14-year-old, who I must say reluctantly came beside me occasionally, door-knocking as a 14-year-old, wondering what it was that his father was embarking upon.

In this last election, as a 22-year-old with a degree under his belt, he came back for a month, took time away from his life to run my campaign in Terrace and brought a young man, a friend of his from the University of Victoria, Paul Shand, who also took time out from his life to come and work literally full-time on my campaign. I think I'd like to especially acknowledge the two of them.

I'd also, of course, like to thank my staff. In Kitimat, Roberta Walker has now been with me for almost nine years, since first getting elected, and I really thank her for her dedication to the people of Kitimat. In Terrace I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Denis Gagne, who first came to my office, originally, as a student from UNBC doing a practicum placement and then turned his practicum placement into a full-time job and has been with me now for six years. Thank you very much to all of those people.

I'd like to begin by speaking to Budget 2014 and going to, I think, what has been the discussion back and forth on both sides of this House, with the emphasis of the government saying it is a balanced budget and being so proud of reducing the debt to the point where there is a balanced budget, they say, on the operational side. Of course, they don't want to talk too much about the long-term debt that is being increased.

I thought it was an interesting campaign strategy during the last election to actually run around the province with a big bus and have on that bus "Debt-free B.C." written on it, having a Premier go and speak that message while at the same time being the Premier. I think it's true to say that all of the Premier's in the history of British Columbia have never spent so little time increasing the debt at such a high speed as they have done.

In fact, this budget here acknowledges that it won't so much be a debt-free B.C. any time soon as, of course, the long-term debt of this province is rising by $7.1 billion — a debt which, at the end of the day, has to be paid for by the citizens of this province.

It is interesting that a lot of time is spent talking about reducing debt while at the same time actually expanding the debt. But of course, you hear from the other side that those are strategic investments, because, of course, we need to build hospitals and we need to build schools. I would agree with that. But here's the thing.

Interjection.

R. Austin: It is good to hear that the Health Minister is in favour of building hospitals. By the way, while I've got the Health Minister's eye here, I'm hoping that Mills Memorial Hospital is at the top of the list in northwestern B.C.

This is not a laughing matter. I think it's true to say that both sides of this House recognize the huge potential of economic activity in the northwest of B.C. I think I'm right in saying that Mills Memorial Hospital was built in 1956-57, around the time I was born. Definitely in need of not just an upgrade. They've upgraded it many, many times before, to the point where the kind of money that's being put in upgrading it…. I think they've now decided it's sort of good money after bad.

Finally, I think the business case is being made and hopefully during this term, with this Health Minister, we will see a yes to actually having a new hospital in Terrace. That's certainly something that we would like to see.

My point again, going back to the difference between long-term debt and operational debt, is this. You can build lots of hospitals. You can build lots of schools. But you also have to have the dollars in place to actually run the programs. We can build a nice, flashy hospital — they did that in Kitimat a few years ago — but the real trick in running the government is to ensure that you have the doctors, the specialists, all of the nurses, etc.

[1520]

To constantly go on about how we are having an operationally balanced budget…. You have to still take care of having programs in place.

I think the challenge over the next year, while we see this budget unfold into reality, is going to be to understand what it's going to do. Right now we see it as a number, a data figure. But in fact, over the next year we have to see, for example, how the government will be able to spend 2.6 as an increase in health care, the largest part of our budget, when you think that, historically, over the last few years it has gone up by, I believe, at least 6 percent — 4 to 6 percent.

Of course, our population is not getting any younger, so there is going to be a huge demand on all kinds of health care services. At the same time, the government is saying: "We're going to turn this cost curve down." It will have a price. It'll have a huge cost on people who need to access our health care services.

I also want to mention, of course, the other big expenditure of any government, and that is education. I was listening to my colleague from Chilliwack-Hope describing his historical analysis of looking at public expenditure over the last 100 years in British Columbia. He talked about the fact that we now spend a much larger percentage of GDP as a government than we did 100 years ago.

I could sense — coming from him, and I may be wrong — that he almost not resented it but thought that was a bad thing. I'm here to say I think it's a fabulous thing. You know what? The fact that we spend more today, in real terms, on our citizens than we did 100 years ago shows that in spite of this House changing from left to right, we are at least constantly moving in the right direction.

All of these moneys are spent on things that I value —
[ Page 1629 ]
health care, education, social services, helping those who are going through hard times. I think that that rise to the point where…. We now have a society where the values of British Columbians are such that even if there is a government that is to the right of centre, there is still huge pressure to constantly spend money on the betterment of the citizens of this province. That's something that the government has to deal with for the next four years.

I just want to state that I do not look at taxation in terms of it being a bad thing. I look at taxation as a way in which we are able to buy things together as a society, things that I hold of great value to myself and I think things that most British Columbians value. I think the hon. member for Chilliwack-Hope, while bringing up historical data, demonstrates that in spite of the fact that we had — what is it? — 40 years of Socred governments and now 12 years of B.C. Liberal governments, there is a constant drive to create a better life and a quality of life for the citizens of this province, and I'm thankful for that.

Certainly, in my role as opposition on this side of the House, I will be continuing to drive that agenda, because I think it's in the best interests of British Columbians to make sure that we take care of the essential qualities of their life. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I chose to come into public life. Why I choose to do it at this level is because the things that matter the most to people are things like health care and education. Those are the things that are closest to what matters to a person's life, to our children, to our seniors. Those are the things that really matter.

I sometimes watch some of the events that take place in our parliament in Ottawa. While I admire all those folks who go into public life there, personally, for the people who live in Kitimat, the Nass Valley and Terrace, I'm sure that they're more concerned with having opportunity to find a job, having opportunity to get skills training than they are worrying about foreign affairs and those things, which I think, for the most part, are far away from the reality of people's lives.

I want to go on and talk about this debate that we've been going back and forth about — there being no new taxes. Any time a government is seeking revenue from its citizens in order to purchase something on their behalf, it is, in a sense, a tax. We've seen in this budget that there's going to be a large increase in hydro rates — over 20 percent.

Interjection.

[1525]

R. Austin: Yes, yes, and I just want to make this point that it's not enough for the Premier to run around and say there are no tax increases. There are tax increases, as I've just mentioned, in hydro and other things, and that's not a bad thing because that is how we pay for these things. But it's not right to go around the province and claim that we're not actually taking increases.

I'd like to make this point. Over the nine years that I've been sitting in this Legislature, there has been a dramatic shift in the way that this government finances itself. I believe that the best way for a government to finance those things that the citizens want is to do it in a progressive manner to ensure that those who make the most of their good fortune in our society are those who contribute the most.

What disturbs me about the increase in taxes all coming from fees or Crown corporations is this. I have seen a shift over the last nine years where the taxes are now burdened onto those who have the least income, because most of these increases are flat taxes. They're not progressive taxes. I have a fundamental problem with that.

I think that when you go and charge a person who has a meagre income an increase of 20 percent on their hydro rates as opposed to somebody who has a much higher income, that's a problem.

I think that if we are seeking new sources of revenue in our province, we should not be doing it by just raising MSP premiums and hydro rates and ICBC, because those are things that nobody can get away from. In fact, in terms of hydro, there are more hydro ratepayers than there are taxpayers, because as we all know, there's a large percentage of people who do not pay income tax in this province, but there are very few who live off-grid.

When you're increasing hydro by over 20 percent over three years, you're actually going after the people who can least afford to be adding those extra dollars to government revenue, whereas if that was actually done through a progressive tax system and taking it more on the income tax side, then at least those of us who could afford to pay more would pay more. I think that would be a fairer society. I think that would also…. Well, it would certainly help all of those who live on low incomes.

The other trend I've seen in the nine years I've been here is a trend that has increased the inequality between those who have and those who have not. In part it's because of this ability of government to constantly be extracting dollars from what they would regard as hidden taxes and to make sure that they're flat. I think that it's a very wrong policy.

I also, having mentioned ICBC and B.C. Hydro rates and MSP premiums, want to mention for a moment ferry rates. You might think that, seeing as I live in Terrace and I have an office in Kitimat and I also represent the Nass, perhaps ferry rates would not be of primary concern to me, but they are, and here's the reason why. I have seen over the last nine years a deliberate attempt by this government to not address and deal with the ferry rate increase.

I originally came from the United Kingdom. I watched this happen in Britain, where the answer when people were not getting onto the trains — it was run by British Rail — was simply to raise the fares and lower the ser-
[ Page 1630 ]
vice to the point where the system essentially went bankrupt and had to be privatized. At that point, the fares then went to the point where only those who were quite wealthy could actually go on British Rail, or those who were forced to use it because they had to get to work.

What I see happening here in B.C. Ferries is exactly that same model. It is now reaching the point where people cannot afford to use the ferries. Why does that affect those of us who live in the northwest? Because about a third of our economy is based on those that live in ferry-dependent communities. So it is very shortsighted for there to be a continual effort to make these ferry rate increases reach the point where people simply cannot afford to use them. It's going to be damaging our economy, and it's certainly not going to be helping us.

Also, for those of us who live in the northwest, we do want to see an increase in tourism. It isn't simply about LNG and other resource industries. We do actually want to see people come up to the northwest and enjoy what is probably one of the most beautiful parts of the province. They aren't likely to come when you look at the ferry fare increase between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert and recognize that bringing a car on board is now literally unaffordable. That's why I wanted to spend just a little time speaking about ferry rates.

[1530]

I also want to go back for a moment and speak about B.C. Hydro. B.C. Hydro is the reason why the government can sit here today and claim to have a balanced budget. What they have done is simply to go to B.C. Hydro, a company which…. The Auditor General, an independent officer of the Legislature, stated very clearly in a report last year that if it was a private company, it would have gone bankrupt quite some time ago because it has been saddled with so much debt that it couldn't make ends meet.

Of course, it's not a private company. It's backstopped by the ratepayers, by the citizens of British Columbia. And what this government has done here — just looking at the change in the budget from after the election to now — is to go back to B.C. Hydro and say: "We want an extra couple of hundred million dollars in order to balance our budget."

Really, what is happening is that the ratepayers of B.C. Hydro, just about all the citizens of B.C., are once again borrowing money to make a fake dividend payment to the government in order for them to be able to say: "I've got a balanced budget."

While I'm on the subject of B.C. Hydro, I also want to say this. If you go and look at the amount of contracts that have been signed by this government — not by the current minister but under the previous ones — for private power contracts, the amount of money that is being paid for that electricity makes absolutely no sense.

I understand that you want to begin by having some form of subsidies for renewables, but honestly, we are now paying $80, $90 a megawatt for 25, 30 years at least, signed on the dotted line, when the spot price is half that. We are actually buying electricity at very high prices and selling it off cheaply. It makes absolutely no sense, and it's part of the reason why B.C. Hydro is in the trouble that it's in.

I'd like to get to a few other of the tax changes that have happened in this budget. I see that the government has made a small enhancement to the first-time-homebuyers program.

Now, I would imagine that for the majority of people living in the province, especially those living in the Lower Mainland, that would be of huge benefit, because the cost of housing is so difficult to get in on the property ladder. But for those of us who live in the northwest, where our house prices are still relatively modest, the point at which that comes in bears no relevance to it. While I think it's a good thing overall, it certainly is not something that benefits citizens in Skeena.

I'd also like to mention one of the things that the government mentioned in their throne speech just about 2½ weeks ago and then see how this followed through in the budget. One of the commitments made in the throne speech was to try and deal with the violence that's happening within families and within homes, particularly against women.

That's something that, unfortunately, happens a great deal in the northwest of B.C. It's in part because we have had a huge economic decline over the last 15 years. That has put a lot of stress on families. It also, I think, speaks to the fact that we have a lot of remote communities in my riding, places where people don't have access to services if they're trying to flee violence in the home.

I can say I applauded the fact that the government made a reference to this as one of their five main points in the throne speech — that they were going to try and seek to create a violence-free B.C. Unfortunately, the following week when the budget was announced, there wasn't the necessary resources put in to help that become a reality.

In one particular instance it is very important in my riding, because the Highway of Tears runs right through the Skeena riding. This is a road that, historically, does not have a lot of transportation on it, and a lot of people have been encouraged over the past years to hitchhike on it.

Of course, as we all know, many women, mainly of aboriginal origin, have died on this road. We still to this day do not see anything in this budget to address that, even though former Attorney General Wally Oppal wrote a very critical report.

[1535]

It had some great recommendations in it, one of which was to ensure that the government provide some kind of public transportation along the corridor of Highway 16 from Prince Rupert to Prince George in order to ensure that women in particular but other people have access to
[ Page 1631 ]
transportation. I think this is something that we're going to continue to push the government on.

My next comment comes to something that is very dear to the heart of all of us who have lived in the northwest. As I've already alluded to, we had an economic crisis, really, as a result of the forest industry shutting down its pulp mills and its sawmills over the last 12 years. In fact, that was the major industry 15 years ago. Aside from a small sawmill that has come back to operate in Terrace, no wood now, other than that, is cut anywhere in northwestern B.C. We've lost all that manufacturing capacity.

Now what happens is that our trees, which still grow faster in the northwest, thanks to our rain and our climate, are now mostly shipped straight to China out of Prince Rupert as raw log exports, rather than creating jobs. One of the things that's most important, as my region tries to recover from that, is to take new opportunities as they come and get access to skills and upgrading. And here is where I have a very serious problem with this budget.

Again in the throne speech the government mentioned as one of their big priorities…. And as we all know, the government continually speaks to the liquefied natural gas proponents as one of the great hopes. We certainly — those of us who live in Kitimat — hope that at least one of those will come to fruition. But we lost a lot of population as a result of the forestry sector going downhill. People went to Alberta. People went to other parts of British Columbia. There simply wasn't the amount of work in northwest B.C.

Now what's happening…. As there's a resurgence and uptick in the economy, what we see at the moment is planeloads of people coming in from outside the region to work on the big projects that are currently taking place. The big projects that are currently taking place are the Rio Tinto Alcan smelter rebuild; pre-work being done, particularly on one LNG site, between Chevron and Apache; and of course, the northwest transmission line. Those are the three large projects that at the moment are driving a resurgence in the Terrace and Kitimat economy.

What people are seeing is workers coming from outside as a result of the fact there isn't enough skilled labour in our area. Now, we also have the highest unemployment rate anywhere in British Columbia still. We see workers coming from outside the region and a large pool of talent living locally who are not able to access these jobs. What do we see here? A government that says on the one hand that we're going to see a commitment to a ten-year skills-training plan in the throne speech but, in the budget that comes out a week later, a cut in the ministry for post-secondary education.

Once again, what we see here is nice words — and throne speeches generally have lots of nice words — but the action to follow it doesn't give any of us who live in the northwest the confidence that we're going to actually not repeat what we're seeing today — which is that if we get a final investment decision on any of these large proponents, any of these large plants, what we're going to see in the years to come is more planeloads of people coming from outside the region while there are still people left unemployed and struggling in my communities.

Now, I love the fact that we are going to be able to generate employment for British Columbians. That's a great thing. All of us here want to have employment for British Columbians. But as the representative for Skeena, I want to make sure that the jobs actually come first to the people who live in the local communities and then go to those who live in other parts of British Columbia. Then, if we can't find enough jobs for those people, then look to other Canadians — certainly, long before we bring in more foreign temporary workers.

It is absolutely critical that we see this government understand that we are not going to have these proponents come in and make these decisions if they don't have access to skilled workers. In fact, earlier today I was meeting with one of the proponents. I've met with just about all of them, some of them several times.

[1540]

The proponents who I was meeting with earlier today were stating they had put together a large liquefied natural gas plant in Australia. That plant went over by $4 billion from the time it was started till the time it was finished. They actually alluded to another plant that they didn't build. Listen to this. This plant went over by $25 billion.

When you ask them what the reason was, why these large capital projects went over, they stated: "Well, in the case of what happened in Australia, there simply wasn't enough skilled labour to do this. We had to bring in people from all over the world, and it became extremely expensive."

That was one of the drivers that drove these projects to the point where this company…. And it's a very large company — so large it's one of the top 15 companies in the FTSE index, on the London stock exchange. They pointed out that Australia has now actually become completely uneconomic for any new LNG facilities because of the lack of skilled labour — just one of the reasons.

Yet here we are with a government that is running around saying this is going to be the saviour for all of our problems while, at the same time, not willing to make the investments to train people and to give them the skills necessary to go and apply for these jobs if and when we get to a final investment decision.

That is, I think, one of the most critical things that, certainly, I and other members on this side of the House will be pushing for. I believe people on that side will be hearing an awful lot of it from the companies. They don't want to embark upon a big capital project and make a big decision like this — these are multi-billion-dollar capital projects — without some kind of commitment from this
[ Page 1632 ]
government to actually put in place the training that's needed so British Columbians are going to be there and, hopefully, have first dibs at getting these jobs.

I would also mention that we saw changes in the last ten years to the Industry Training Authority which have really been painful. Sometimes you have candid conversations with members on the other side, and in some of those candid conversations you can be self-critical. Sometimes people recognize that things are done in politics for ideological reasons and they aren't necessarily the best public policy. I think that happens on both sides of the House.

If you go and look at the changes made to the Industry Training Authority, what we witness now as a result of those changes cannot be described as anything close to successful. We have seen the ability of apprentices to successfully complete an apprenticeship go down drastically in this province.

I know that the government loves to compare us with Alberta on some things, but they probably wouldn't want to compare us with Alberta on this particular figure because, of course, in Alberta they have continued to run a model of training their apprentices that has led to a much higher success rate for apprentices. In this province I think it's somewhere around 33 percent of those who are able to enter an apprenticeship actually have an opportunity to succeed. I think that needs to change in order to help people, first of all, access apprenticeships and, then, succeed at it.

I mention this because, again, it is very pertinent to constituents who live in my constituency. We have a large First Nations population, a lot of young men who have not found success in the school system. But I think people who perhaps are not most adept at sitting and listening to a teacher teach in the traditional way would find themselves readily able and willing and would enjoy the kind of training that comes from apprenticeship training.

It's much more hands-on and much more tactile. It's the way that a lot of aboriginal people learn things. Traditionally, they learnt by watching other people do things. I think if we were to see this training apprenticeship scheme changed and there were some upgrading to allow young people who perhaps did not succeed in school to actually, then, get the training needed so they could access apprenticeship programs, we could see a real resurgence of the number of aboriginal people who are taking advantage of these economic opportunities that now are in front of us in the riding of Skeena. I hope that happens.

[1545]

I'd like to just quickly mention…. This was my previous critic portfolio, and it's something that's very dear to my heart. One of the things that this government did not mention in this budget — because it's, I guess, still sort of hovering above it and would completely outstrip the contingency fund — is this fact that this government even today has continued….

I see my time is up. Don't worry. I will have lots more to say as the session continues.

S. Gibson: I just want to say thanks, for the record, right now at the start to my constituents of the Abbotsford-Mission riding, probably this province's most beautiful riding. In fact, if you don't believe that, we have a film studio, and many of the films that are watched by folks here in this House and all over the province and the world are filmed right in the community. Just watch the credits at the end, and when it says "filmed in the Abbotsford-Mission riding," you can come and tell me about that.

I also want to just acknowledge the support of my family, my wife, Joy, in particular. She was a teacher for many years in our province, teaching hundreds of little kids in first grade and did a good job, too. I also want to acknowledge the great constituency staff that I have in the Abbotsford-Mission riding — Jean Dykshoorn Hooge and also Mark Duyns, two great people to support me and work very hard with constituents and for the Abbotsford-Mission riding.

It's good to be here. It's good to be here on a couple of levels. As someone who taught business for many years, I understand the importance of the free-enterprise system. The kids that I taught, the students that I taught, their aspiration, for many of them, was to go into business. This is what we encourage right here in this House. We want people to go out and move north, move up to the areas that need development and go out and start a business. That's very exciting.

Like some of you here in this House, I've also owned my own business as well. I had a manufacturing company in Abbotsford. We had 13 employees, and we all know how tough it is to meet a payroll sometimes. We know that challenge. There were a couple of occasions where it came close that we didn't have enough money to pay ourselves when we were starting out the business, but we still had to meet the payroll of our employees. So I kind of had that recollection about that.

Another thing, a dimension to my comments and remarks today in support of this budget, is the fact that I have served half my life on a municipal council. That's a long time. We have to have a balanced budget. Local government — you're required to have a balanced budget, so we knew what frugality was. We knew what it meant to cut when we needed to, to ensure that the taxpayers were well served. That was an important part of it.

I guess my attitude to our government and the great work that's being done by our Premier and our Minister of Finance is the fact that we're stewards here. All the money that we have belongs not to us but to the taxpayers. We're stewards. We look at that — all of us, as the government members. We say: "You know what? We're stewards." It's a sacred trust that we have, and it's not
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our money.

I also want to share just a little bit as an anecdote, as a story, with my background in business. A salesperson who overpromises and underdelivers. What do we think of a salesperson like that? We don't like them. We don't like a salesperson that overpromises and underdelivers. They're held in low esteem by their colleagues, by their supervisor, but most of all, salespeople that overpromise and underdeliver are held in low regard by their customers.

In the same way, a government that overpromises and underdelivers, ultimately, is held in low esteem not only by the taxpayers today but subsequent generations — our kids, our grandkids. They're going to regret that, and we're going to regret that right now. That's the kind of thing we're looking at. We're stewards, and we don't want to be people that overpromise and underdeliver.

All across the land you can find that. In fact, it's interesting. If you look around the world, a lot of governments are doing that. They're saying: "We're going to give you everything you ask for." The problem is they can't afford it — overpromising and underdelivering.

We have a mandate here now, as government members and government, to manage the economy very, very carefully so the taxpayers will say: "We trust those people to look after the money that we are giving to them." Balancing the budget is at the heart of fiscal responsibility. And all around the world….

I was very encouraged by the member for Chilliwack-Hope who spoke earlier — some good research he did. I want to acknowledge that work that he did. I thought that was very good, as I watched him speak a moment ago here in the Legislature.

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It's all about stewardship, and it's also about leadership as well. Our Premier, our Minister of Finance — right on task, right on target. We're excited about that. We get behind them. We say: "You know what? They're going in the right direction." There's kind of a vortex following along, and we feel great about that. I'm proud to be a part of that government. So we're leading in the country.

Interesting thing. When I teach my first class of students, and you'll wonder why I'm going here again, I ask them this question — entrepreneurship: "Would you rather be successful or look successful?" I asked them that question, and you could see them thinking: "What does he want? What's the question for?"

You see, in our society we tend to reward the superficial. We say: "Okay. If that person has a very nice home on the hill, they must be successful." We don't know that their mortgage is weighing them down. They can barely afford the payments. Or if somebody drives by in a Ferrari, we think they're wealthy. But it may be leased. Maybe they borrowed it from a friend, right? We don't know. In our society we tend to reward the superficial. We like to look successful.

With our government, that's not our point. We don't want to so much look successful; we want to be successful with the taxpayers' dollars. We want to be good stewards. We want to be successful. That's the passion that I have, and that's why I'm so excited about the work being done by our Premier and our Minister of Finance.

If you walk around some towns in California…. I have relatives in the San Diego area. If you walk through a town called Stockton and you walk through a town called Vallejo, which is close to where our relatives live, or you walk through San Bernardino, California, it looks pretty good. There are palm trees there. There're lots of nice Mexican restaurants to eat in. But what's the problem with those towns? They're all bankrupt. They look successful, but they aren't successful.

Back to our government. We believe in doing the right thing for the taxpayers — not just look successful on the surface but be successful. It is so powerful. It changes your attitude to government. I'm so thrilled to be part of a government that has the right attitude.

My riding of Abbotsford-Mission — great work ethic. I'm Irish. My background's Irish, so I'm kind of out of the picture, in a way. We had folks that came in many years ago — the Dutch people, the Mennonite people. They populated the area. They built farms up, and now we have South Asian people coming in. What's the common denominator in my riding? A good work ethic. I know the member for Abbotsford South here is acknowledging that great work ethic in Abbotsford.

Our government has that commitment to work ethic. If people want to work hard, we'll reward you on that. That's a great principle that we have. We're committed to that. We're committed to working with our Premier and our Minister of Finance.

We're the only province with a really positive fiscal outlook for the next three years — a balanced budget, next three years. How cool is that? Why wouldn't everybody be in favour of that?

The Conference Board of Canada. We all value that organization here in the House. They're non-partisan. They're independent. What do they say about us? Next year we're going to rock. We are going to be the most exciting province in terms of economic growth in Canada. That's just coming up next year. That stability is so important to our success.

Now, the tax rate. We hear a lot of comments about taxes. We don't even like to really discuss taxes because it's always such a negative thing to the taxpayers. But we also know that if we don't tax properly and thoroughly in a balanced way, we won't have the revenue to do all the great things in social services, in education, in post-secondary and for all the folks that need a little extra hand along the way. That's important.

We have lower taxes in many segments here. For example, B.C. has the lowest personal income tax under $121,000, right across the land. That's pretty powerful.
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That's a good message, and people like to talk about that. Personal income taxes for most taxpayers have been reduced by 37 percent or more since 2001, and many low-income folks in our province don't pay any income tax at all. That's sensitivity. That's caring.

There's big-time sensitivity and caring with our government. Don't believe it when sometimes you hear the opposite. There's a lot of caring, a lot of warmth in here.

Interjections.

S. Gibson: Right on. Yes.

Reducing small business tax by 40 percent by 2018 — that's appealing. That's attractive. Small business is the powerful force that fuels the growth in our economy. Lowering our corporate income tax rate by 10 percent by 2018. That's the commitment of our Premier. That's the commitment of our Minister of Finance.

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Triple-A credit rating. How many of you know anybody that pays a lot of money when they go and borrow money? They go to the bank to start a business, and they pay a lot over prime. That person has a low credit rating. I know a guy in Abbotsford. He's paying a lot of money. He's a good guy, but he's getting started in business, so he's paying a lot over prime. I think he's paying 4 over prime — not the best. He wants to get into business.

The better you get in terms of acknowledgment by the bank, the lower your interest rate goes. We know that. Some of you here are borrowing money at prime plus one or maybe prime plus 1½. That's great.

But our triple-A rating is huge for us. Because the magnitude of the dollars…. When we go out and borrow dollars, when our Minister of Finance goes out with his officials and we need some money for some important capital investments, that triple-A credit rating is fantastic for us. We're one of the tops in the country. It reduces the servicing of our debt.

For example, let me read this. It's interesting. Compared to other provinces, such as Ontario, with only a double-A-minus rating…. I'd hate to have that on my report card. If I got a double-A-minus rating on my report card, I'd be disappointed. I'd be sad. I want a triple-A rating on my report card. We would be spending an additional $2 billion a year servicing our debt, money that we could use in servicing programs, doing all kinds of good things for the taxpayers in health, in social services — all kinds of good things.

By lowering the government's borrowing costs, we've got the freedom to make significant investments in all kinds of wonderful projects around our province. Great things we're doing sometimes get criticism: "Well, the government's not doing anything important." That's not true at all.

Taxpayer-supported capital spending on schools, hospitals over the next three years is expected to total $11 billion. It's $1.5 billion to replace or renovate schools, $2.3 billion for post-secondary institutions — and you have seen the list; very good investments there — $2.6 billion on health care infrastructure, $2.4 billion on transportation — money being spent in the right way. Of course, those folks are going to work. There are all kinds of exciting things going on in those areas.

Diversifying the economy — we heard earlier about that. Growing markets in China. In 2001 just 3 percent of our exports went to China, and Japan was our largest customer. Today the situation is completely turned around. China is now our largest market in Asia, with 18.4 percent of total exports. British Columbia exports to China have risen over 600 percent in the last ten years — very exciting. I'm going to China myself in a few weeks, looking forward to visiting that country for the first time on behalf of Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce. So I'm looking forward to that.

India, a great economy for us — a lot of exports are going there, totalling $467 million in 2013, a 45 percent increase since this time last year. Lots of exciting things are going on internationally. British Columbia is really getting a high profile internationally. When people hear the name B.C., they love that name. They love our province — yes.

Small business plays an important role. As a former small business man, I know what that's all about. Small business fuels this province. It's exciting, and it counts for 42 percent of merchandise shipped abroad in the last year records were kept, in 2011.

Our goal is to become the most business-friendly jurisdiction in Canada. If somebody wants to start a business, if they've got an idea, let them go. Let them be inspired and go after that important market.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business — we got an A from those folks. That's cool for cutting red tape. That's the lament. Having come out of a local council, we have business people that talk to me and say: "We've got to get rid of the red tape."

There's so much bureaucracy, and all governments now are trying to do that, but our government in particular, here in B.C., is really doing very well in that area. We're the only province in Canada to receive that designation for two years.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

A little bit on LNG. That's been discussed quite a bit. I don't want to belabour that. I think the discourse has been very good in this chamber. Economies such as China and India are looking for liquefied natural gas. They want it. B.C. is just beautifully positioned to really go after that market. I know that all members in this House are excited about that.

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A significant benefit, hundreds of millions of new in-
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vestment dollars — there's money being spent there right now, millions of dollars being spent in getting ready. A huge burgeoning market. Thousands of construction jobs. Growth in local and regional economies — a vibrancy, an excitement and that ebullience that you get when you have a vibrant economy.

Higher government revenues, revenues that can be used for social services, health, education and many more. And so many spinoff benefits to the private sector. After ten years of production, estimates are that one single LNG plant could generate up to $1.4 billion in LNG income tax alone. The possibilities are exciting. The possibilities are spectacular. I know we're all excited about it on the government side of the House.

Investing in social infrastructure. Starting in April 2015 the B.C. early childhood tax benefit will provide $146 million to approximately 180,000 families with children under six years old. Very important. A lot of people are very inspired by that. Families will receive up to $55 a month for each child under the age of six, and while this is not much, it all adds up and compounds to something very spectacular.

The B.C. early-years strategy — investing $76 million over three years to support the creation of new child care spaces. This is something we've heard a lot. Government child care is an important issue today with the growth of everybody working in the family home — quality of child care.

Government also will be providing incremental funding of $243 million over three years to Community Living B.C. to maintain services for adults with developmental disabilities and their families. This is a huge issue and close to my family heart. Some of you will know about that. Adults with developmental disabilities — yeah, I'm inspired by this one. This is very important, and I want to acknowledge that.

What does it mean for the constituents of the Abbotsford-Mission riding? Well, I mentioned before that the work ethic is high in the riding. Business people, agricultural people. There's a sense of real dynamism. This government, our government, is really serving the people of the Abbotsford-Mission riding.

The agricultural component. My colleague in Abbotsford South…. We also have Abbotsford West, the largest agricultural community in British Columbia — I think $1.4 billion in farm-gate revenue. So anything that we can do to inspire small business…. If you drive through the Abbotsford-Mission riding, you see blueberry farms, dairy farms, all manner of agricultural energy being spent, and there's land being cleared too.

This government is very supportive of agriculture. Very excited about that. These pioneers and their children and grandchildren are being supported by a government that says: "Yes, we're with you." These businesses employ a lot of people in my riding.

A growing focus on locally grown products. Some of you have seen the marketing, trying to get the word out to buy local blueberries, to buy local dairy products — the yogurts, the raspberries, those kinds of things. There are even some cranberries actually grown in Abbotsford as well. So it's all about a partnership with the agricultural community.

These are my remarks. I'm very excited about this budget. Everything about it points to a great direction. Our Premier, our Minister of Finance, and every member of the government side is focused, on task and on target. We're going through, and we're going to do great things for the people of the province of British Columbia. I just want to thank you for this opportunity.

A. Weaver: I wish to start my speech to the budget with a quote from a 17-year-old that I introduced earlier. I begin:

"At 17, I may not be old enough to vote, but I still feel it is of paramount importance to convey my dissatisfaction with our government's blatant disregard for these legally binding targets. Policy decisions made today will undoubtedly have an effect on my life, both in the short and the long term, and with this at the forefront of my mind, I stand in defence of my future."

Now, I hope these words echo through the walls of this chamber. These are the words of Tessa Owens, an incredibly articulate and engaged young woman who, together with 20 other students, visited my office on February 3. The legally binding targets that she is referring to, of course, are the 2020 climate targets enshrined in law and grounded in necessity.

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The students came as part of the Defend Our Future rallies held throughout British Columbia. They sat in my office, united behind a single message. They care about their future, and they expect their government to care too — not when it's convenient, but when it's necessary. What I think we can all agree on is that now, more than ever, it is necessary.

With this message in mind, I ask this chamber: does this budget do all it can to create opportunities today that last for generations, to transition our economy to one where we live within our means so that future generations are supported and not burdened by the decisions we make today? Let me be clear. I don't intend to use my time now to simply sling mud at the budget. I do have concerns — strong concerns, profound concerns — and I will voice them. But I will also recognize when the government has taken steps in the right direction, and I'll try and offer some constructive ideas for moving forward.

There is no doubt that there are some strong points in this budget. We've managed to keep our spending under control at a time when few other provinces have. Yet creating opportunities for all British Columbians requires more than this. We need to prioritize up-and-coming industries to ensure that we have long-term, well-paying and local jobs. We need to build on our vibrant social support system, grounded in evidence-based practices
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and sound economics. We need to sustainably manage our environment so that future generations are not saddled with the debt of climate change.

My concern with this budget is that in its essence, it's grounded in the expectation of an eventual LNG boom. LNG has been positioned as a necessity for making progress on a variety of issues. If it doesn't materialize, we could very well be undermining our efforts today to create lasting opportunities for British Columbians.

The history of B.C.'s LNG industry is a history of high-stakes promises and low-stakes delivery. We are betting our future on an industry that still offers us no certainty. I ask you today: what if it fails? What steps are we taking today to prepare for the very real possibility that the LNG industry might not be as successful as the government hopes, that it might not create as many jobs or offer as much revenue as the government is predicting? How will we ensure a secure and affordable tomorrow for British Columbians if tomorrow doesn't include an LNG windfall?

The unfortunate fact is that we have no backup plan. Instead, we have put all our eggs in one basket. In the words of Preston Manning at a recent B.C. Energy Conference: "We're counting our eggs before the rooster has even entered the henhouse." This budget does not offer a contingency plan in case the rooster never makes it to the henhouse or in case the hen lays fewer eggs than we'd hoped. Smart, secure planning for the future means creating realistic plans that convey honest expectations and solid contingencies in case our first, second or even third plan does not materialize as hoped.

Anyone who has managed their own investments knows that strong, resilient investment strategies are based on diversified portfolios. We need to do the same with our economy. While the government hopes for LNG in the future, we need to prioritize investment now in other up-and-coming sectors so that we have more than one hen to bank on.

Yet creating the future that young people are calling for is ultimately about how we develop that economy. The floods in Calgary and Britain, record droughts in California and Vancouver Island, record-breaking heat and fires in Australia, devastation in the Philippines from Typhoon Haiyan and in New York from Hurricane Sandy together serve to remind us that there is more to creating opportunity than conventional economics.

We only have to look up-Island to the shellfish industry in B.C. and the troubling concerns they are having with ocean acidity as the atmospheric carbon is taken up by the ocean. Where is our backup plan if the shellfish industry sustains irreparable damage? Environmental catastrophes associated with climate change are already causing billions of dollars of damage. The debt of climate change may not be easily quantified in our 2014 budget, but we will be forced to quantify it in the future budgets if we do not continue to act to mitigate and adapt to it.

Meanwhile, as more and more research measures the cost to society of poverty and homelessness, of not adequately addressing mental health issues and of not adequately supporting those in need, it becomes increasingly clear that our inaction in addressing social inequities and health concerns will burden future generations with a social and economic debt that we have unnecessarily perpetuated and that we have the power to solve today.

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When I look at this budget and as I consider whether to support it or not, part of what I consider is this. Does it take steps to offer British Columbians a backup plan? Does it adequately invest in diversified industries? Will it allow us to better address our social challenges? Will it keep us on track to meet our climate targets so that the present and future generations can have the best opportunities possible?

In many cases I feel we could do much more. We could prioritize our investments differently to create a more resilient and affordable economy, one that is founded on a strengthened social support system, a healthy environment and a practice of living within our means. There are clear examples from around the world that we can draw on to show that the economy, the environment and social supports do not have to be trade-offs.

We do not have to pit opportunities for present generations against those for future generations. We can move beyond the outdated notion that you have to choose the environment, the economy or the social sector. Other jurisdictions have found strategic and targeted ways to integrate all three, just like we did with our climate action plan. By building on our own history and by drawing inspiration from those jurisdictions that continue to lead the way, we can take practical steps today to build that future.

Yet while I'm not fully satisfied with the budget, when considering my vote, I must also consider how best I can contribute as a single MLA in this Legislature to building the vision that I share with so many British Columbians. I'm a firm believer that being a member of the opposition is about more than opposing. It's about offering constructive suggestions grounded in evidence for improving our province.

With this in mind, I turn to the specifics of the budget to consider these three questions. First, backup plan and the economy. While the budget does not offer a comprehensive backup plan, it does take small yet important steps in the right direction.

Amending the film and television production regulation to include the capital regional district in the distant-location tax credit will support our local film industry to flourish even further. This is an excellent addition to the budget.

Supporting the First Nations clean energy business fund with an additional $1 million will help promote further First Nations involvement in the development of
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our clean tech industry, another piece of the budget that I strongly support.

We need to build on investments like these rather than going all in on LNG, however. We need to prioritize and invest in a more diversified portfolio of sectors — such as the clean tech, film, agriculture, ecotourism, etc. — that will contribute to a resilient economic growth regardless of whether the LNG stream materializes or not.

The United States is doing just that. In their drive towards a low-carbon economy, the U.S. has limited the expansion of its thermal coal exports and is shifting its focus to renewable energy and the clean tech sector. They, too, are developing their natural gas sector but are doing so as part of a broader plan to transition to a low-carbon economy.

B.C. is going in the opposite direction. While our province was once at the forefront of promoting innovation and economic prosperity through our renewable energy industry and our carbon offset program, we've started falling behind in a race that's too important to give up.

Let me give you a couple of examples. U.S. states such as Washington State and Oregon are already reaping the economic benefits of developing their clean energy sectors with the establishment of a new BMW facility in Moses Lake that manufactures carbon fibre components for electric vehicles and a Google data centre in The Dalles.

Both Washington and Oregon together have taken advantage of the renewable energy available at low cost in these sectors to put the states at the cutting edge of the technological revolution of tomorrow, resulting in both job creation and economic diversity across the region.

British Columbia has the resources and the expertise to build a strong, diversified economy. Let's recognize and support these other sectors with clear investments so they, too, can be positioned for greater growth and success.

My second point — education. Ensuring British Columbians can succeed in a resilient and diverse economy requires us to continue to build a strong foundation in high-quality, affordable education. I applaud, again, the government for its investments into skills training, investments into new trades-training facilities, such as those at Camosun College, that will support thousands of students in the future to develop the skills they need to succeed in our economy.

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I also recognize the value of the B.C. training and education savings program, which will offer $1,200 to children born after January 1, 2007, for their RESP. Now, assuming steps are taken to ensure parents have knowledge about the program and that applying is both easy and accessible, this is an example of one way the government can make education more affordable.

Yet I'm concerned by cuts to funding for advanced education. University presidents across the province have already made it clear that further cuts will impact student services and education. At some point we run the risk that these cuts will be downloaded onto students through additional increases in tuition fees.

Average student debt in B.C. is already well above the national average, with some students starting to see higher education as an economic burden rather than an economic opportunity. This really needs to be changed.

We also need to move beyond the adversarial relationships between the government and the B.C. Teachers Federation that ultimately hurt our students. We need to get the parties back to the bargaining table to negotiate a future for our education system that puts politics aside and puts our students first.

Our ability to prosper in today's economy and in tomorrow's, to create jobs today that will last into the future will depend on our ability to offer an accessible, high-quality education to our students. The higher the student debt and the lower the investment we make in our education systems, the more strain we put on such systems and on the students themselves. We need to be leaders in educating, not just for today's economy but for tomorrow's, and that starts with making education a priority.

My third point — affordability. While we invest in a diverse and resilient economy and a quality and accessible education system, we must also ensure our province is affordable for all British Columbians. At a time when the cost of buying a house is prohibitive for many young families, the government has taken a small step to make that first home purchase more affordable by increasing the property transfer tax exemption limit to $475,000.

Meanwhile, as homelessness persists, the government has committed to increasing investment in supportive housing and transferring property to non-profit organizations that provide affordable housing to low-income Canadians. These are clear steps in the right direction — steps that I support, as they will make life a little more affordable for those British Columbians who are vulnerable.

At the same time as we are making these investments into affordability, the government is also raising MSP premiums and B.C. Hydro rates while dropping the personal income tax exemption to $9,869, meaning that families will be taxed on an additional $1,500 of their income compared to 2012.

Let's be clear. These examples represent tax hikes on the poor and most vulnerable. The fact is that not enough is being done to ensure B.C. remains an affordable place to live for B.C. families.

Echoing a point made by the Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the budget also shows that no long-term strategy for addressing the fact that B.C. continues to have the highest child poverty rate in Canada is present.

It seems that for every step that promotes affordability in the budget, another step retracts from it. Let's take the good steps made in this budget and add to them a con-
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sistent vision for an affordable British Columbia.

We can start by exploring the most effective ways to eliminate MSP premiums, which constitute a highly regressive tax and a net burden on low-income British Columbians, and to raise the equivalent income through a more progressive income and corporate tax system. Let's also close the bare trust tax loophole, which allows wealthy individuals and corporations to avoid the property transfer tax, and use that money that's generated to invest in affordable housing and other proven social programs.

Utah, for example, has been bold enough in its vision to set a goal of ending homelessness within ten years. In eight years, while navigating the largest recession since the Great Depression, they are already more than 70 percent of the way there. Let's join them in their leadership so we, too, can build a more equitable society while also enjoying the net economic benefits of ending homelessness.

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Finally, my point on the environment. Last week I tabled an amendment to the throne speech asking us as a House to recognize, as we did five years ago, that climate change is one of the greatest issues facing our province; to acknowledge that the government's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is inconsistent with current expansion of U.S.-sourced thermal coal exports that leave through British Columbia harbours; and to explore all means by which government may halt the expansion of such thermal coal exports through our B.C. ports.

Some said I went too far — that the government should not pick and choose which substances should pass through their ports. To them I say: I believe that the government has precisely this obligation, in certain circumstances, to prioritize the societal and environmental well-being of the province, just as the government has done with its five conditions on heavy oil pipelines and just as the government has done in picking a winner in the marketplace, in LNG.

Others said my amendment did not go far enough — that on its own, halting the expansion of thermal coal exports will not do enough to solve climate change. To them I say: it would have been an important and practical step in the right direction. Yet instead of taking this step together, I stood alone and watched as that amendment failed, 73 to 1. I have one word: "Shame."

In my response to the budget last year I quoted the hon. Carole Taylor, from her own budget speech in 2008. She ended it by laying out the essential choice we must consider with all budgets. She said: "We can be the generation that had it all and let it slip away, or we can seize this opportunity which is before us to be the generation of British Columbians who made the right decisions, who chose to take action and, by doing so, showed their respect for the earth, for the atmosphere, for those who came before us and for those who will follow in the decades to come."

Let's seize that opportunity. Let's make practical steps today to mitigate climate change so that future generations can be a little better off. We can start with thermal coal exports. The government could follow Washington State's lead and include total emissions impacts in future environmental assessments of industrial products, including new permits for projects such as those proposed on Texada Island.

We can also work together to ensure that LNG development is as clean as possible. We can start by mandating the use of clean energy to power liquefication facilities. We can invest further in a domestic LNG market aimed at reducing reliance on heavy carbon fuels and specifically engaging stakeholders in the ferry and trucking industries to transition their fleets to LNG or CNG. We can explore means by which our LNG industry can be used to spark development and innovation in our clean tech sector.

Our children are asking us to demonstrate consistency, resolve and leadership on climate change. Let's not be that generation that had it all and let it slip away.

In conclusion, having observed and now participated in B.C. politics for some time, I'm concerned that we are institutionalizing a political culture that seeks to undermine and to tear down rather than to build up and to contribute. It's a culture that feeds on divisiveness, that erodes the trust that is so essential to cooperation across party lines. The ideal of a transparent government held to account by a constructive opposition has slipped into a reality epitomized by rhetorical questions and condescending answers.

I ran on a platform to do politics differently, to work across party lines, to represent my constituents and to move our province forward. To be sure, there are times when the most helpful thing I can do for our province is to raise my voice in opposition to bad policy. But opposing the government for the simple reason that they support something, as so often seems to happen, should never serve as our starting point. Opposing for the sake of it does nothing to rebuild trust and cooperative relationships we so desperately need in our political systems.

When I look at this budget, there is no question that it is not a budget I would have tabled. It is also clearly not a budget that the official opposition would have tabled.

Yet, as an individual MLA I must ask myself this: what is the most effective way for me to represent my constituents in this Legislature? Is there more to be gained by raising concerns about the problems and opposing the budget alongside the opposition? Or could I better address my constituents' concerns by highlighting the parts of this budget that deserve recognition and building on them? In either case, I commit to working with both government and the official opposition over the next year on the parts of this budget that are important
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to me and my constituents.

[1625]

Finally, as we reflect on these questions, let us also reflect on the message of all of those students like Tessa Owens, who visited so many of our constituency offices on February 3 of this year. They're looking to us for leadership. They're looking to us to create opportunities today that will last for generations, and as we create those opportunities, they are asking us not to burden their generation with the economic, environmental or social debt of ours. At the very least, we owe that to them. By the time their generation inherits this Legislature, many of us will be long gone from here. What I ask is that we heed their call, that we commit to leading a legacy that they, too, will be proud to build on.

Hon. T. Lake: It's an honour for me to stand in this House and speak to the budget. As minister, you don't often get the opportunity to engage in some of the debates and don't have the opportunity as much to recognize people that helped get you here. So I just wanted to take a moment, as other members have, at the beginning to just recognize people in my life that allow me to do this job, representing the people of Kamloops–North Thompson.

Of course, families are so important to us who serve in the public. Without them, we just simply wouldn't be able to do what we do. To Lisa, Shannon, Stephanie and Gemma, thank you — four strong women that have put up with me for many, many years — and really the only male in my family, my dog, Pal, who is always happy to see me when I come home late on Thursday night.

My dad in Kelowna — we do allow him to live in Kelowna, even though we have a bit of a rivalry with that city. Dad was a councillor and very much involved in politics and public life and was an inspiration to me. To my stepmom, Caroline, who looks after my dad so well, I want to say thank you.

Of course, our constituency offices are really what our constituents look to, to do much of the work on their behalf as they access government services. Many people, particularly vulnerable people, don't have the opportunity or knowledge base to access government services. It is our constituency assistants that help them access the many services, the array of services that the provincial government offers. So I want to say thank you to Kirsty Morris and Gill Yaron in my Kamloops–North Thompson constituency office.

In the ministry office here…. Of course, the ministries are very busy, and again, we have staff that make sure we know where we're going and when to be there and that we're well briefed and also that MLAs' concerns and other constituents' concerns are looked after. To my chief of staff, Sabrina Loiacono; my ministerial assistant, Mario Miniaci; my executive assistants, Marie Alaimo and Dayna Dobrowolski, I want to say thank you very much, and also to Shaina Jukes, Victoria Kline and Debbie Wade, who also are in my office and make sure that our office functions well. It seems like it takes a lot of strong women to look after the Minister of Health. I'm very grateful for all of them.

I wanted to make some general comments about the budget and then maybe switch into particularly the Health budget and where we're going in health funding and health services in the province of British Columbia.

Many people on our side of the House have spoken about the importance of a balanced budget. When we presented balanced budget 2013 in February of last year, we set out a three-year fiscal plan which showed that we would, in fact, balance the budget in each and every one of those years.

We subsequently ran a campaign on that balanced budget and on the commitment to continue to balance budgets year-over-year and a plan to develop a liquefied natural gas industry that, hopefully, when it is fully developed, will reap revenues to the province which will allow us, at some time, to retire the debt, which is a burden to future generations.

So we talked a lot about that in our campaign, and particularly, people understood that we were looking at decreasing the rising increases in health costs. People said that was the right thing to do. They said that they wanted us to live within our fiscal means.

[1630]

Balanced budget 2014 is another example of doing that, and we've heard a lot of talk about…. We should be spending more money on operations. We shouldn't be spending money on capital because that's going to increase our debt. I think it's really important. One of our speakers, from Abbotsford-Mission, talked about his experience on council, local government. I, too, have local government experience at the city of Kamloops and was proud to serve as mayor and councillor there.

Local governments do balance their operating budgets every year — they have to do that by law — but they also invest in their communities. They invest capital. So they do carry debt, because it's important to invest in your community. For local governments, whether it's a library, a community centre, a fitness centre, sewer systems or water systems, these are important investments to make in the community.

Debt is taken on in a responsible way, in a way that doesn't burden the taxpayer so that on the operating side they can still balance their budget each and every year, because the amount of debt servicing that they are requiring is manageable. That's really important.

We are taking the same approach here at the provincial government level by ensuring that our operating side is balanced, with revenue projected to increase at 2.6 percent, on average, each year over the next three years; with expenses increasing at only 2.2 percent, on average, in each of the next three years. It does allow us that ability
[ Page 1640 ]
to balance our budget with modest surpluses over each of the next three years.

Of course, that doesn't mean that we're not going to invest in health care facilities, invest in schools, invest in universities, invest in roads and bridges — the critical infrastructure that is necessary to keep our province moving forward. We do take on some debt. That is a responsible debt, because fortunately, we have the benefit of having a very advantageous interest rate to pay, thanks to a triple-A credit rating.

That means that our debt-to-GDP ratio is about 18.5 percent, which is among the lowest in any western jurisdiction. When you compare it to Canada, which is carrying a 35 percent debt-to-GDP ratio, compare it to places like Ontario, which is about 55 percent, I believe, debt-to-GDP ratio, and the United States, which is about 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio, 18.5 percent looks pretty darned good. And it is manageable.

Now, we would like to have it lower, and in fact, through the 2000s, when the economy was going very strongly throughout the world, revenues were higher, and we took our debt-to-GDP ratio from 20.2 percent to a low of 12.9 percent in 2008-2009. We know what happened at that time. The economy took a bit of a free fall around the world. No one was immune to that. Fortunately, Canada fared better than many jurisdictions around the world.

In particular, British Columbia fared well, because we had room there to make investments. We could go out to the market and make investments in our communities — about $8½ billion in health care facilities since 2001, the Port Mann Bridge, Canada Line, Sea to Sky Highway, the South Fraser Perimeter Road, hospitals, schools, universities — around the province. We were able to go out and invest in our communities and our infrastructure because we had the room to take on a responsible level of debt and still maintain our triple-A credit rating.

What did that do? Well, it poised us for the growth of the future. When we need to move goods around, we have the highways there. We have the bridges there. When we need more health care as our population ages, we have the health care facilities that are there. That also kept people working, which is very important. When you look at building roads, building hospitals, building schools, these are high-paying jobs that are spread around the province. It kept people working and kept communities vibrant.

From 2008, when we were at 12.9 percent, we arrived in the past fiscal year where we have peaked at 18.5 percent — still a very responsible level of debt-to-GDP. With the modest surpluses that we will be getting over the next three years, we will take that down from 18.5 to 17.8 percent of our GDP — which is, again, a remarkable accomplishment when you look at other jurisdictions around the western world.

[1635]

Now, everyone knows that health care is one of the largest components of our budget. About 42 percent of our budget is spent on health care. While we are trying to hold the line as much as possible on many of our ministries…. That, I should say, is because of the very hard work not just from the elected people in government but particularly from our civil service. We have a highly professional civil service that works extremely hard.

I've had the privilege of meeting many of the people who worked in my former ministry and work for our Ministry of Health. I've been around the province visiting health care facilities and met with doctors and nurses, other health care professionals and administrators. I can tell you that they are all working extremely hard, every one of them.

I'm really proud of the B.C. public service. With them, we have been able to manage the fiscally responsible method of keeping our expenditures down. The only way that we've been able to balance the budget is by cooperating with the people who work with us in the provincial government. So I want to recognize them for the terribly hard work that they do and for providing a very high level of service to the people of British Columbia.

When we get to health care, in 2014-15 we will be spending $16.9 billion, which is an amazing amount of money. In 2015-16 that will go up to $17.4 billion, followed by $17.856 billion in 2016-17. Cumulatively over those three years, we will spend an additional $2.5 billion on health care. That's on the operating side.

On top of that, another $2.2 billion of capital in new hospital construction. We've got hospitals just being completed in Surrey. We've got new hospitals planned for Vancouver, for New Westminster, additions and improvements in places like Kamloops, a new hospital patient care tower in Penticton, so a lot of continued investment in health care services around the province.

Every jurisdiction that struggles with rising costs of health care is doing the same thing we are doing. We started doing this in about 2008. At that time health care costs were going up at about 7 percent. It was a surprise to no one that that was not sustainable.

If health care costs are going up at 7 percent every year yet your population and the economy is not growing at the same rate, there are only two things that can happen. Other government services have to be cut, or taxes have to be increased to increase the size of the budget. Neither one of those is particularly attractive to any government, whether it's here in British Columbia or elsewhere in Canada.

So we started reducing the increases in health care, knowing that that was a challenge not just for our ministry but for our health authorities and for our partners, like doctors, nurses and administrators. But we worked together, and we looked at where we could save money. Did it make sense to do things together?

Health Shared Services B.C. consolidated a lot of the back office operations — in the Lower Mainland particu-
[ Page 1641 ]
larly, but across the province as well — so that we could have better buying power, so that we could reduce the inefficiencies, so that we could save money in a whole array of non-front-line services. That was very successful and has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of savings.

We looked to the PharmaCare budget and looked at what the PharmaCare budget was for generic drugs, in particular. We have reduced the expenditures on generic drugs to the point where we are going to save $110 million over the next couple of years. We're working with other provinces across Canada in the pan-Canadian generic drug initiative so that we all agree that the cost of certain identified, very commonly used generic drugs will only be at 18 percent of brand name. Again, it's millions of dollars of savings each and every year with that kind of a strategy.

[1640]

We are, I think, leading the country in the triple aim, which is increasing the health of the population; increasing and improving the patient experience, including health outcomes; and providing value for money.

This triple aim approach has been promoted for a number of years by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in the United States. It has been emulated in the National Health Service in Great Britain and in other health care providers, like Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City.

We have taken that triple aim approach, and it's working. We have been managing to bend down the increases in health care yet still provide a very high-quality health care service to the residents of British Columbia, and other provinces are taking note. If you look across the provinces, while we for the last couple of years have been at 2.6 percent — and we see that happening over the next three years — other provinces are starting to follow suit.

In Alberta last year they had a 3 percent increase, and then it's going down further in each of the subsequent years, because Alberta understands. Ontario understands that if the increased costs of health care outpace your growth of the economy and the population, it simply is not sustainable. So we are all working together across British Columbia and across the country to look for better ways of delivering health care in a way that provides value for money yet provides great outcomes.

In British Columbia we have among the very best health outcomes in all of Canada. When you look at our cardiac care, when you look at cancer diagnosis and treatment — almost all of the major indicators of health care outcomes — we are very near the top if not at the top. And yet, across the country, we spend the second-lowest per capita on health care.

Now, some in this House would say: "That's nothing to be proud of. You should be spending the most per capita on health care." But this side of the House thinks it's important to look at outcomes, not at how much you're spending, and that again is the triple aim approach. I think anyone in health care would want to get the best outcomes at the best value possible. That is our aim, and that's what we continue to strive to do.

We have trimmed our administration costs. The Canadian Institute for Health Information did a study. They looked at B.C. health authorities and found they were the second-lowest in Canada in terms of administration costs. Here in our own ministry the next increase for our administration of the ministry is 0.1 percent this coming year, and then only 1 percent after that. Again, I want to thank the people who work for the Ministry of Health, because they are working hard in order to meet those challenges of smaller increases in administration.

The challenges are ahead of us as our population ages. While some people are really concerned about the aging population and think that it may lead to the demise of the health care system as we know it, the fact is that we don't have to buy into that. Studies show that the aging population, the aging demographic that we know is coming will add only about 1 percent of costs, and there are strategies that we can take to try and mitigate those increased costs.

One of the things we're doing, and this was kind of modelled for us in an article in the Globe and Mail on the weekend, is trying to move services and people out of acute care — in other words, trying to keep people out of hospitals.

There are various ways of doing that. Building a strong primary care system is one of them. So our A GP for Me program and our nurse practitioners for B.C. program is, I think, a very successful strategy to get more physicians and nurse practitioners in communities to have a direct relationship with patients to manage their health care.

We have changed some of the billing codes that allow doctors to charge and be reimbursed for a complex patient, for someone that has more than one condition going on at the same time. This allows them to spend more time with each patient and ensure that the outcomes are better.

We have provided a billing code to allow for telephone consultations so that people can touch base with their family practitioner without having to go into the office. That allows the practitioner to consult with more people each and every day.

So keeping people out of hospital by providing primary care, and having not just physicians but an allied health care team.

[1645]

I was really proud to see the Blue Pine clinic in Prince George, which is a great example of a multidisciplinary primary health care team. You have physicians, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, counsellors and dieticians all working together to provide a full array of services to the people of Prince George. They also, through the Division of Family Practice in Prince George, will connect unattached patients to doctors. Over 4,000 unattached patients in the city of Prince George now have
[ Page 1642 ]
a family practitioner thanks to this initiative, which is a partnership between the Ministry of Health and the doctors of B.C.

In my own constituency of Kamloops–North Thompson the King Street Clinic is a great example of a multidisciplinary primary health care facility that particularly targets the vulnerable part of our population — people with mental health and substance-use issues, members of our society that have challenges in terms of health care and challenges in terms of income. I was just amazed at the services that they are providing to those vulnerable members of the Kamloops community. I want to say thank you to the nurses, the doctors and the other health professionals of the King Street Clinic.

Good primary care is one thing, but community care is another. One of the big challenges we have in our health care system is as people age. Of course, 20, 30 years ago if someone had a problem with cancer or with cardiac disease, often the outcome was not good. Today we are able to diagnose and treat cardiac disease and diagnose and treat cancers so that someone may live for 20 or 30 years with these conditions.

What that means is when they reach 70, 80, 90 years old, they have an array of complex physical conditions that need to be managed. That makes their care much more complex. As people age with those chronic conditions, they often become frail, and it doesn't take much to send a frail elderly patient into an acute situation where they're at the emergency room.

We need to shift resources. We're doing that by shifting resources into the community to support people in their own homes so that they don't become that frail complex care patient that ends up in the emergency room and possibly never comes out of the hospital after that.

We want to manage people by providing them with services like the BreatheWell program that Interior Health runs, which has respiratory therapists visiting people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in their home, giving them exercises and training to manage their condition so that they don't end up at the emergency room. We've seen a significant reduction in those patients at the emergency departments of the hospitals in Interior Health.

Those are several ways that we can keep people out of the hospital, but of course, we'll never do away with the need for acute care services.

We are investing in facilities, and I have to say that some of the facilities I've seen in the province are remarkable. Some of them are dated, and yet they are full of remarkable people. When I toured Penticton Hospital, which we have committed to replacing, despite the fact that it was built in another era where some of the washrooms aren't even large enough for a wheelchair to enter, the men and women working in that hospital were truly remarkable. Their concern for patients and their dedication to quality was unswerving. So it's not always the facility; it is the people in the facility that make a great health care system.

Having said that, we need to look at facilities — whether they're in Penticton, in Kamloops or whether they're in Vancouver — and ensure that we do have a plan for replacement and modernization of those facilities. That's what we are doing. A concept plan for St. Paul's is nearing its evaluation. We are looking at Royal Columbian Hospital, another important hospital in the Lower Mainland that badly needs to be upgraded, and that plan is moving forward as well. In my own city of Kamloops the clinical services building is underway, and then the surgical tower will be built following that.

[1650]

There are other things that we can do. Earlier in the session I introduced the laboratory services legislation, and that will strengthen our lab system here in British Columbia and allow us to reap savings while still providing the very best service to British Columbians by pulling all of our laboratory services under one piece of legislation, by allowing the taxpayers to take advantage of technological advances which will lower the costs of certain tests. To allow us to capture those savings on behalf of taxpayers is an important part of how we will meet the challenge of providing health care in a sustainable way.

I think that I will just wrap up by saying that I support this budget. I've been listening to some of the speakers here this afternoon, and I just want to make a couple of closing comments on our strategy moving forward.

When you look at this three-year fiscal plan, there isn't one dollar of revenue from liquefied natural gas. We know that that is a tremendous opportunity that is in front of us, and we are doing everything we can to capitalize on that opportunity.

In the future we will be able to reap the rewards of a liquefied natural gas industry that will allow us to put money into a prosperity fund and to do a lot of the things that we would love to do: to pay down our debt, to decrease that $2 billion in debt carrying costs that we have today — which would be $4 billion if we had the credit rating of Ontario, by the way.

That is the future ahead of us, but our budget doesn't hinge on that. Our budget is living within our means today, providing high-quality services to the people of British Columbia and living within our means.

I'm very proud to be part of this government — as I do in my household, to make sure that the amount of money that I'm spending doesn't exceed the amount of revenue coming in. That is how most people manage their households and how most British Columbians want their government to operate. They made that clear to us last May. We'll continue to do that over this three-year fiscal plan.

With that, I thank you very much.

B. Routley: I found it very interesting indeed to listen to the Minister of Health on a couple of particularly inter-
[ Page 1643 ]
esting points that I was planning on making anyway. So it's great to know that there's actually some thought from the other side of the aisle about things that are critical to encourage fiscal solutions for the issue of health care. One of them is to try to keep people out of health care, and that's an important point.

In the Cowichan Valley I recently had a man named David who came into my office. He is living on a disability pension of $906 a month. Now, I'd really like the folks on the other side of the aisle to think about that, to think about living on a disability pension of $906 a month, okay? This guy was a shipwright. He knows what it's like to carry on wonderful employment, but through no fault of his own he ended up injured and ended up with a back that was completely disabled — only 10 percent of the use of his hands.

He told me just before Christmas that he has to make the choice every month…. In the freezing cold weather, he has to make the choice of whether he's going to eat or whether he's going to have heat. He pays his pad rent for his old trailer. He's left with about 500 bucks a month, which is more than most. And he made that point — that, hey, he's not the worst of the worst.

He wanted to speak up for other folks living on a disability pension, and he wanted us as MLAs to hear from somebody that's in his situation. He wanted us to hear what it's like to go down and ask for emergency funding because he was out of oil in his furnace. Do you know that in the province of British Columbia, if you don't have 300 bucks to fill up your tank, you aren't getting any service? There isn't going to be any oil delivered.

[1655]

I tried. I got on the phone. We ended up raising money — taking a tin cup, basically, around to friends — and saying that we've got to do something about this guy, because his impassioned story really struck my heart.

To hear this guy tell me what it was like…. He actually said to me: "Why is it that I have to get so sick sitting in the freezing cold, deciding whether to eat potatoes or rice? I go to the food bank. Do you know how hard that is for a guy that's worked all his life to go to the food bank and get, basically, three days' worth of food?"

He said: "Do I have to get so sick that I end up in the hospital? You know, I can figure a few things out. I've got it figured out that me ending up in the hospital isn't a very good idea. That's not a good expenditure of the good people of British Columbia's money. Wouldn't it be better for them to come up with some kind of program to help keep me out of the hospital?" That was the brilliant point that the minister stuck on, that I'm delighted to hear him thinking about. It really is good. The fact that somebody is thinking about it — that hey, we've got to find ways to help keep people out of the hospital — is a good thing.

It was really something to hear him tell the tale of what it was like to really feel in such despair in the cold. He had that cold weather, and he had run out of oil because of other financial pressures. He says he doesn't sit around and watch TV, by the way. He can't even afford the cable bill, so there's no TV. He sits there in the cold and then takes himself for a walk.

He told me he walked down close to the bridge and took a long, hard look over. I said: "I don't even want to hear it. This is scary. Please." He said: "You do start to wonder whether anybody cares about all of us folks living on disability." I said: "Absolutely, there are people that care. I agree with you that $906 a month isn't something that people can live on." I know.

I get it that we've got all kinds of financial pressures on the good people of British Columbia — all kinds of terrible financial pressures. Maybe we should say that we should leave it up to the church or people of goodwill to look after these folks. But where are they? Are they taking care of them? No. No. There are so many of them. I see them down at the food bank. I see the lineups. I see the situation right here in British Columbia.

Meanwhile, the richest corporations in the world…. This government is proud of it. I've heard them stand up here and say: "We're proud of it. We've reduced corporate taxes from 16 percent down to 10 percent." Oh, they took a little back. They took a little bit back, but they're proud of it, of the situation where we've got people living in desperate situations in community after community after community. A lot of them are getting to be older people.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

I just wanted you to hear some of the health facts that I'm dealing with. We've got the largest First Nations band in British Columbia with the highest unemployment. Youth unemployment is 80 percent. Meanwhile, there are temporary foreign workers brought in to work at Burger King. What? That shouldn't be allowed to happen. I don't know who is responsible for that, but they should be fired. The co-op right there outside the reserve has the good sense to say, "We're right here. We're going to hire First Nations," and they have.

Shame on those people that would think of bringing in temporary foreign workers to do that kind of work when we've got people unemployed, youth unemployed — without hope, desperate — and no plan, no mentorship plan, no helpful strategy to sit down and really work out a jobs plan.

[1700]

You know, your jobs plan is laughable. I went down to the jobs plan folks there in Duncan. I sat down, and I said: "Okay, if I want to be a truck driver, let's look into that." You know how many truck drivers you've got on Vancouver Island, how many positions? You go on the computer yourself. I found one. You've got to have, like, 25 years' experience.

I had a tradesman — he had three tickets — come into my office and say: "I followed all of that jiggery-pokery
[ Page 1644 ]
on the computer program and tried to find my way. I'm a welder, a millwright. I've got all kinds of training, and I can't get a job through that stupid system." My assistant had the good sense to say, "Get in your truck and drive up there. You'll find a job in no time at all," which is what he did and which is what happened.

But try to follow that silly program. I'd like to meet the man or woman who has actually had wonderful success with a jobs centre and has been able to connect jobs. Locally, they tell me that they could actually help people connect them to jobs and job training.

I had a lady that had…. She built up the courage, because she was retiring. She was retiring from her job, one of these contracted-out jobs program folks. She actually had an inspiring and honest moment. She said: "You know, we could connect people to real jobs. I'm thinking right now of a young mom with little kids at home. She's working in a restaurant, making almost nothing, a minimum wage kind of job. They could get her into a health care kind of job if they could give her the training."

Did you know that our good province…? In the budget of the province of British Columbia, we're sending money back. The feds put some money in, and the province put some money in, but these guys haven't figured out a way to connect the dots. Instead, we end up with those young moms being told: "Oh, here's the system. If you're unemployed, you've got to go out every day and look for a job. You want to take a training program? Oh, sorry, that doesn't tick the box." If you tick that box, you're out.

That's what the employment people tell me. They say: "If only we could take people and actually train them and still give them some funding while they're taking the training, wouldn't that be great?" But apparently, you can't do that here in British Columbia — way too complicated to figure that one out. It's just way too complicated. I don't know why. But I'd sure like to talk to that fellow, too, that's responsible for that plan.

I want you to know that in the Cowichan Valley, we've got roughly 80,000 people. That's outside of the boundaries of the Cowichan Valley, for the purposes of MLAs. I'm talking about the regional district.

We've got 8,000 people, or 10 percent, that are age 65 or older. More than 6,000 of them are over age 75. Since 2001 the population in the Cowichan Valley age 75 to 84 has increased by 15 percent. There's an area where we really need health care help. The population age 85 and over has increased by a total of 43 percent. In the Cowichan Valley the aging population is increasing at a much faster rate than either the overall VIHA region or the province as a whole.

The Cowichan Valley has the province's highest per-capita ratio of people with diagnosed physical, mental, social, special needs challenges. Those are the facts. The Cowichan Valley has an established track record of being community-minded, creative and tenacious — problem-solving social, mental and physical health challenges. They come up with innovative ideas right there in the Cowichan Valley. They do.

The minister is right about another thing. We've got some fantastic people within the health care system that do outstanding work for the province of British Columbia. I join in commending those folks for the outstanding work that they give.

[1705]

However, in the Cowichan Valley right now there's a high need for additional residential beds for frail seniors. That's after they closed the Cowichan Lodge, which was a disaster. Of course, we've got the Ombudsman report on what a disaster that was. That was political shenanigans.

If you've ever seen jiggery-pokery, there it is — trying to shut down a publicly owned facility providing some of the best care you could find in British Columbia. It had rose gardens and all of these wonderful things, and they shut it all down so they could contract it out and give it to a for-profit facility. At the end, we've got all of the publicly funded residential care facilities in the Cowichan Valley full, and they have been for more than eight years now.

There is a high need for additional transitional care beds. We've got people sitting in hospital that often should be in a transitional care bed. We've got a high need for dementia and gentle care programs, for respite care beds and services, for caregiver support services and programs, and for hospice and palliative care beds for all-day adult care programs, for incontinence management clinics.

We need an effective chronic care management plan, a falls prevention plan, speech-language pathology. A lot of things like that are necessary. Whether it's heart attacks or whatever, there's always a need for some of these programs. It's becoming tougher and tougher.

There is a high need for better, faster and more locally available services for people who are on the autism spectrum disorder. As I'm sure I've said before, I have a grandson Gabriel, who is a wonderful young man, now 14, and he has autism — but very special indeed. I am appreciative of the help that he did get, but that funding has been dramatically reduced, and what's been available has changed dramatically, certainly, in schools — the ability to get the help he needs.

I want to turn now to more about the budget choices. Budgets really are about making choices. The real question in this process is: can you balance a budget for a family or a government by selling off some of your assets or by robbing Peter to pay Paul? The answer is: of course, you can. However, this government is not fooling anyone that what they are doing is not transparent, nor is it sustainable, and we all know it.

Let's just look at some of the choices that this government has made in transferring or delaying government costs and revenues by deferring B.C. debts and contractual payments, such as they have done with B.C. Hydro or the IPP, independent power projects.
[ Page 1645 ]

The government has cleverly deferred payment by using long-term contractual payments, some for 30, 40, or even 60 years — commitments British Columbian taxpayers must pay for, through annual contractual payment requirements. Often the details are unknown. We're not entitled to the details — because of confidentiality, I'm sure, is the answer. But often it's the people of British Columbia that are stuck with the bill.

Here are some of the other ways that they deal with taxes in a different way — for example, by raising fees and payments so that taxpayers can be presented the illusion of a balanced budget. For example, the MSP premiums. Jordan Bateman, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, noted that MSP premiums have risen steadily in recent years. It's invisible tax that nobody ever talks about.

One of the members was chirping about the triple-A credit rating. I thought that now is a good time to mention it. Did you know, Member, that just before the total collapse of the American financial system, Standard and Poor's and two other major credit-rating firms had ruled that these firms that had the credit default swaps were triple-A?

[1710]

Ultimately, all of it collapsed, sending the entire system into absolute decay. So if anybody thinks that just having a triple-A credit rating actually means anything anymore when it was proven by these three rating agencies claiming that it's some wonderful thing, triple-A….

I mean, they're capitalists, so they hang on to the faint hope that some rating agency comes wandering in and tells you that you've got triple-A. You go and give yourself a hug, stand at the mirror giving yourself a hug about your triple-A credit rating. My point is that it could collapse. Nothing is necessarily for sure and forever, because some of the same companies that are used today collapsed the entire financial system in North America that we're still not completely recovered from.

MSP premiums have risen steadily and are going up again as of January 15. They have effectively doubled since 2000 and increased. Larger than inflation are increases in health care spending. B.C. continues to collect as much revenue from MSP premiums as from corporate income tax. Wow. That's stunning.

The taxes outlined in the government's budget tables don't include other significant costs that depend on the government's policy, including fees from B.C. Hydro, ICBC and the ferries. The province's revenue from MSP premiums is budgeted to increase in each year of the next three years. Revenue from B.C. Hydro, which is planning a rate hike, is to go up by 6.7 percent next year, 12 percent and then 7.5 percent.

Regarding the B.C. Ferry mismanagement, on January 13 of this year the Tourism Industry Association of B.C. pointed out that tourism generates $13 billion a year in revenue in British Columbia and contributes $1.13 billion in taxes. The tourism industry also pointed out that the government will lose far more in tax revenue than it will save in these ferry cuts.

These ferry cuts are being made despite the fact that the president of B.C. Ferries and two of the senior vice-presidents of B.C. Ferries paid themselves — wait for it — $1.547 million last year for standing by and watching as they were raising ferry fares and watching the user rates drop dramatically. So you paid them more to get less service for all British Columbians and to watch the B.C. ferries launch into further decline.

This government has no plan to deal with the bloated management structure at B.C. Ferries that consumes a jaw-dropping $64 million in compensation annually. Amazingly, no economic impact study was ever undertaken before these latest service cuts were announced, and neither was any consultation made with regional tourism boards or businesses in regards to the huge financial impact on local and overseas markets to these businesses, small and otherwise.

As a result, British Columbia's reputation and reliability as a global tourism destination has taken a heavy hit. The tourism operators state that it will be very difficult to regain the confidence of our European agencies and clientele in regards to B.C.'s west coast product offering moving forward.

Despite this government's debt-free B.C. rhetoric, this government has planned to raise the B.C. debt burden by $7.1 billion — $7.1 billion — over the next three years alone to reach an unprecedented and record B.C. debt of $68.9 billion by the end of 2016-17. Yet this Premier has said during the 2013 election that B.C. would be debt-free under her leadership within 15 years. She implied that it will all be paid by the LNG windfall profits by 2028.

[1715]

This is completely unrealistic — to say that we'll have a debt-free B.C. in 2028. I would suggest that this is the biggest Liberal jiggery-pokery claim of our time — more smoke and mirrors. Since the Premier started in 2011 and began her so-called debt-free campaign, total provincial debt has taken off like a rocket. From $45.2 billion it will be rising to $68.9 billion.

In other words, while the Premier campaigned for a debt-free B.C., she alone will have booked over half of the debt accumulated since we started calling the province British Columbia, and she will do it all before the next election. That's not even counting the $100 billion or so in the additional contractual obligations they have racked up for taxpayers, much of it hidden from public view through these contractual structured deals.

The price of this balanced budget is the missed opportunity to address some of the pressing economic and social challenges that this province faces. There is no help for B.C. students who can't afford rising tuition fees to get the skills training they need or to get the chance to train for jobs of the future in British Columbia.
[ Page 1646 ]

Again, I mentioned that locally, but it's a fact that there is no mentorship program. It could be better spent, the money that is being spent on a jobs program, if there was more mentorship — if there was more, basically, taking the workers by the hand.

I have some experience in doing that. During the time that we had Fletcher Challenge announce 450 jobs lost in the Cowichan Valley, we sat down and worked through with the company and negotiated a job freeze in all of the other mills that were going to be doing some hiring. Some of them, I might add — some of the pulp mills, for example — didn't want to hire laid-off loggers or sawmill workers, but to their credit, the company said: "No, no, we're going to give the opportunity to these workers first."

Through that mentorship and through real action and the workers and the company sitting down and saying, "Okay, here are the opportunities. How do we connect those workers with those jobs…?" I still run into folks that were laid off from the forest industry, from logging or sawmilling, that are still there at the Crofton mill, so I know that it can work. But unless you have real leadership and a mentorship-type program — basically, a program that connects workers with real leadership from somebody to advocate for those workers….

We've got literally thousands of B.C. workers that are underemployed or unemployed that could be engaged in training programs. Some of those training programs could be quite short and get people working here in B.C. Instead, I see them take the shortcut route of bringing in temporary foreign workers.

There is no help for B.C. students who can't afford rising tuition fees to get skills training that they need or to get a chance to train for the jobs of the future. That's something that I was proud of in the NDP platform. We were going to put real money in that. And yes, it meant taxing the richest among us, the big corporations.

Guess what the big corporations all say. When you sit down and meet with them, they all say the biggest problem we've got in British Columbia is skills training. We don't have enough people trained and qualified here in B.C. to fill the jobs. They're actually willing to pay a little bit more. I heard them with their own mouths say: "We're willing to pay a little bit more if we can get our permits through" — whether it's mining permits or permits for the forest industry — "if we could pay to get a little bit more…."

[1720]

Again, there's where the government has fallen down on the job, could have looked for opportunities to raise fees and other costs to generate some income for the province while providing the services that these people desperately need, particularly when it comes to connecting B.C. workers with the skills opportunities of the future.

This government doesn't get a triple-A. You get a big fat F — a big fat F for "fail" — when it comes to retraining forestry workers. For evidence of that, all you have to do is look at the fact that there are now 70,000 temporary foreign workers living in British Columbia — 70,000 temporary foreign workers. That's a record. This government should definitely hang their heads in shame, knowing that things have got so bad that that's the situation here in British Columbia.

There was a Simon Fraser University…. He writes frequently for the Fraser Institute, and he told the Vancouver Sun recently that the temporary foreign worker program only helps the employer at the expense of proper business practices and at the cost of Canadian workers.

Grubel, who is this professor, described the temporary foreign worker program to the Vancouver Sun as a business subsidy that lets frequent users avoid increasing wages to attract workers or avoid investing in training and changes to productivity. Canadians and British Columbians should not "swallow this argument made by employers who would rather hire immigrants than pay higher wages."

A significant factor is the restrictive nature of the work permit and the temporary foreign worker program. They're often tied to just one job — which is one of the problems — to one employer and to one location. So if the employer wants to mistreat them, they can and get away with it. It's totally unacceptable.

I want to talk for a moment in my waning minutes here about the LNG program and how it's not going to materialize the kind of….

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member. Actually, your time is up.

B. Routley: Well, we'll save it for another time.

M. Dalton: It's a pleasure today to be able to respond to Budget 2014. Like the other members, I do want to begin by thanking my constituents in Maple Ridge and in Mission for giving me the opportunity to serve them again on a second term with a stronger mandate. I consider it to be a real privilege to be able to work for them. I know that the members on both sides of the House will agree that it's a lot of work, long days and weekends, but we enjoy it. We all enjoy making that difference.

I want to specifically thank my constituency assistants, Mark Duyns, who works for me in both my Maple Ridge and my Mission office, which I share with the member for Abbotsford-Mission. I'm happy to be working together with him. Also, Carly Fedyshen and Brenda Sieg are my constituency assistants in Maple Ridge. It's good, also, to be working with the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows who is newly elected — and we have a good relationship — to be able to serve our community.

I also want to make mention of the Victoria team — Derek Robertson, my legislative assistant; Monika Weatherly, communications assistant; and Erin Grant, re-
[ Page 1647 ]
search. And thanks to all the caucus support team, who do a great job. I know that they may be one of the few people who are watching, so thanks a lot, guys, for the great work you're doing.

Most importantly, I do want to thank my wife, Marlene. We've been married 28 years,. She's my strongest supporter, and I appreciate her, just being a team working together.

Before I get into my prepared remarks, I wanted to just respond with a few comments regarding what the member for Cowichan Valley said in his speech. I do appreciate his concerns for people in need. There's no doubt he's genuine. That's why we're all here, on both sides. We are concerned. We care. We want to make that difference. We want to see people lifted up in their lives.

[1725]

We will do more when we have more and have the means. We're doing all that we can. We're making progress, but obviously, there's more to be done — a lot more to be done.

I'd just like to make a few comments as far as housing and homelessness. We've seen a dramatic change in the level of homelessness in this province. We're proud of what we've achieved. The Minister Responsible for Housing and Deputy Premier has spearheaded the investments that we've seen — $3.6 billion in investments.

We've seen, in Vancouver alone, 24 single-room hotels. In Vancouver alone we've seen 1,500 affordable units. We have 98,000 B.C. households who benefit from provincial housing programs, and we've added 21,000 new units of affordable housing since we've been elected. That is real progress. As mentioned, we want to do more, and it will be done as the economy improves.

Rental assistance. We support thousands of working families up to $765 a month — the average payment is $410 — just to help them. That's for families earning up to about $35,000. We know that's a real challenge. We provide that extra assistance.

This is not mentioning the shelter aid for elderly seniors. It's called SAFER. We've seen about 20,000 seniors who receive about $160 extra to supplement them with their rent.

Just in Maple Ridge alone we have about 1,150 people that are receiving assistance, whether it be in emergency shelter and housing for the homeless, transitional supports, independent social housing or rental assistance. Then for seniors, it's over $500 for extra help for senior housing supports.

We are making progress. We are investing. We know that it's a challenge, but we know that it will be more of a challenge if we don't have our budget, our expenditures, under control, and that is what we're doing. That is why I strongly endorse Budget 2014, a balanced budget.

It has required a tremendous degree of financial discipline and a great deal of belt-tightening, and I commend every minister and every ministry for their part in this.

I also commend the public sector for their cooperation. We've had a great deal of labour peace with the public sector. There seems to be an understanding of the government position on its revenues. It's not government dollars; it's British Columbia's tax dollars. There seems to be an understanding. We've had very good labour negotiations, for the most part. Up to, I believe, one-third right now we've already signed agreements with.

There are 386,000 public sector employees, of which about 311,000 are unionized. We look at other jurisdictions — in the States, other places in Canada and throughout the world — where there have been significant layoffs. Many pension funds have been dissolved in some places. There've been tremendous changes, concern and belt-tightening because they've been forced to. They've waited until it was almost too late.

We don't want to come to that position. We recognize that labour costs make up 57 percent of taxpayer-funded government expenditures — over $25 billion. Every 1 percent increase in salaries for the public sector is over a quarter of a billion dollars.

Keep this in mind when we have projected surpluses, over the next number of years, of $184 million for 2014-15, $206 million for 2015-16 and $451 million for 2016-17. We want to see improvements to salary, but it has to be within our means.

Something positive we've done is that we've tied economic growth to wage increases, to bonuses. As we do better economically, the better public sector employees will be able to do. So everyone has a stake within the economy. I've never heard of this being done anywhere in the world. It may very well be the case, but I'm not aware of this being done. I think it's very innovative, and the public sector employees will certainly benefit as our economy picks up.

[1730]

We do want an agreement with the BCTF, but it has to be in line with what the public sector union agreements are currently. I must say that I'm concerned about the strike vote that is coming up, the ratcheting-up of the bargaining temperature. I can appreciate the fact that it is sometimes part of bargaining. But this sort of tension….

I hope we don't go back to the same type of tension that we've seen in the past, because that impacts student learning, it's very stressful on teachers, and it's very stressful on families.

I'm a public school teacher by profession, having taught both at the high school level and the elementary. I believe in public education. We have a great school system that British Columbians can be proud of, but this can be undermined by ongoing contract negotiations. That's why we want a long-term agreement. That's why we want to have a ten-year agreement, because everybody benefits.

In 2006 we had a five-year agreement, which was very well received among teachers. We had a significant signing bonus, we saw reductions in the number of steps to
[ Page 1648 ]
achieve the maximum salary, and we saw a 16 percent wage increase. Best of all, there wasn't labour stress during that period of time. That's one of the reasons why we want to have this long-term agreement.

The fact of the matter is that we're not in the same position as we were a number of years ago. It is tight. It is tough. When things were more flush, we made those increased investments, those expenditures. I mentioned about the wage, the contract negotiation agreement in 2006, but also all-day kindergarten. That's $80 million a year that's added on year to year. That was an investment we put in a few years back.

Also, the $75 million learning improvement fund. Now, I recognize that part of that is in response to the court ruling a couple of years back, but that has added hundreds of new teachers and special assistants throughout the province.

We're doing all we can. It doesn't mean that more can't be done. We will as we're able to.

I will make mention that I am the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Education for independent schools. Our government believes that families should have choice in education. It's been a pleasure visiting, I believe, probably about 60 independent schools from one end of the province to the other in the past couple of years. There are 78,000 students attending independent schools and about 370 schools. There is a tremendous variety in these schools.

We have a special needs school in Maple Ridge — it's called James Cameron — for people with dyslexia, hearing problems and other special needs, and there are other schools like this. There are faith-based schools. There are university prep schools.

One school here in Victoria is called Artemis. It's a school for girls that really struggle, maybe have been on the streets, have had all sorts of problems at home, maybe have been kicked out of their home. That school has been there for girls, and I've talked to different ones. I know that a couple of the girls I talked to, or at least one, said it saved her life just coming to that school.

One problem they were facing was that in the independent schools, when you reach 19 years of age, then you are cut off from any funding, unlike public school where, if you're non-graduated, you can continue with education till you graduate. Anyway, that was one thing I was able to advocate for, and the government made the difference whereby those non-graduated students can continue to receive funding.

I want to commend Peter Froese, the executive director of the Federation of Independent Schools, and president Doug Lauson for the great work that they do.

I believe that there's a misconception of those who attend these schools. It's sometimes said that this is just for the well-heeled and well-to-do. But I would say that independent schools, for the most part, are for average British Columbians, who make great financial sacrifices so that their kids can attend. They forgo vacations and take on extra work. And the teachers make significantly less money, for the most part.

[1735]

Independent schools receive 50 percent of the student funding that public schools receive per student. That's if they don't spend more than what the school district spends per capita in each school district. If they do, then they only receive 35 percent. So it's a saving of approximately $300 million each and every year, just in operating costs in the funding of students. That is covered by parents. That does not include the capital costs, where schools…. That's millions of dollars that parents have to pay for.

It's not easy. It's a sacrifice. I remember visiting one school up north. You know, the bell did not work. They had to hand-ring a bell for most of the school year — it costs about $2,000 — in fact, until they were able to get another donation to cover it. It's just because they are stretched. All their costs have to be paid for by the parents as far as the capital and many of these maintenance costs.

So for us, the B.C. Liberals, it's about student success, whether in the public or independent schools. Together, they form the B.C. education system.

We believe in living within your means, and it's not a novel idea. But we are only one of the two provinces in Canada to do so — Saskatchewan being the other, and that's iffy. In some ways it's counter-cultural. We live in a time of wanting what we want now. Delaying gratification is not something that we're as apt to follow as in years gone by.

The governor in Canada regularly states that Canadians are taking on too much debt and they're not saving enough. What it does, at a family level, is it makes families very vulnerable to job loss and illness. And that's the same for provinces, for British Columbia. If we are not careful and don't live within our means, we become vulnerable to recession and high interest.

Now, we've all heard of the miracle of compound interest, which is regular investments over time. In adding…. It balloons, and it's how one prepares for investing for retirement. The younger one starts, the better, because of compound interest. The federal government a few years back brought in the tax-free savings account, which encourages savings and shelters those savings from taxation. That's a good thing.

Now, we talk about the miracle of compound interest. There's also, I would say, maybe the curse of compound debt, which is interest added to debt. Year after year the hole gets deeper and deeper, and it can be a frightening thing at a personal level.

Credit card debt. You probably know people that have gotten deep into credit card debt. It can become a real monster. Eventually the interest becomes more than even the items that were purchased, and then they get
[ Page 1649 ]
hounded by tax collectors and not opening mail because of fear. People can get out of it, but it's difficult. It takes a lot of tough action and sacrifice, and the sooner they tackle it, the better.

Financial management should be a top priority in our schools, for kids. I believe that it will make a significant difference in their lives. When I was a teacher I sponsored a student bank with Vancity. There was a president. There were tellers. There were savings accounts. This was great because it got students into the idea and the habit of saving for the future. And even though it's smart, even though it may be small, it just helps in the long term for developing those disciplines. I believe in paying with what you save, what you can afford and what you earn.

A balanced budget is one thing. A surplus budget is another. We need not only just to make it right to the line, but we need to tackle the debt, to pay it down because we pay debt-servicing charges, and that will be there year after year until it's paid off.

Canada in the early '90s was paying 30 cents of every dollar going into debt servicing. Can you imagine that? Out of every dollar, every tax dollar — whether it be personal income tax or corporate tax — almost a third of every dollar was going just to servicing the debt. That can happen here, and we need to make sure that we don't let things balloon.

We have a principle, as far as the B.C. Liberals, to live within our means. We had a challenging time after the 2008 recession, but we're on the right track. We have two balanced budgets in a row, and we're going to continue on this track.

We also want to keep a lid on taxes. British Columbians enjoy the lowest personal income taxes in Canada up to $121,000. I know I hear from the opposition: "Well, what about all the fees — hydro and all the other tax fees?" Well, even including those extra fees, we are the second-lowest in the country.

[1740]

We especially recognize the cost of living pressures for families and young children. We have some great initiatives for them in this budget. There's the B.C. early childhood tax benefit, which is up to $55 a month, or $650 a year, per child under six. That's about $150 million a year that it will cost. That's in the budget, and 180,000 families will benefit from them. That will help. I know it for myself, raising our children when they were young and it was a one-income family, it was a challenge. I remember the extra baby bonus at the time. It did really help us at that time.

I know that we are providing a little extra here and also that with what the federal government is providing, this does help, we believe, in directly funding families. This, I know, is appreciated by families. I know when I talked to families at the door, the parents, that they really did respond positively to this and appreciate it.

Secondly, we have the B.C. training and education grant, which is $1,200 for children born in 2007 or later. With compound interest, that will grow. It is an investment. By the time they reach graduation and are going into advanced education, that will equal about $4,000. But with a bit of investment by the parents, even $10 or $50, that can balloon a lot. We not only want to help kids when they get older, when they graduate, but it's also getting parents thinking about their children's education at a young age.

Also, we have the first-time-buyer property transfer tax basic exemption, which will increase the exemption on the property transfer tax from $425,000 to $475,000 for first-time buyers. That equals up to about $7,500, and we anticipate up to 1,700 new families, first-time buyers, will get in the market. This is making home ownership more affordable and recognizing the importance of the real estate market in British Columbia. There are a lot of jobs that are tied in with this — trades, retail stores and salespeople.

The truth is that we are being disciplined in the budget, but that doesn't mean that we are not continuing to invest heavily in infrastructure. There are a lot of examples. No matter where you're from in British Columbia, you can look around and see the investments in infrastructure. Nearby, in my area, the Port Mann Bridge was the largest infrastructure project in the history of British Columbia.

It's not just the bridge. It's the Trans-Canada right from Langley into Vancouver. I know that for residents in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows and Mission — those that take the Lougheed Highway — it has significantly cut the commuting time. The Cape Horn Interchange. People could wait 20 minutes to half an hour just there alone. I believe the investment just in the Cape Horn Interchange is about $800 million, and that's made a tremendous difference in congestion. It allows individuals to be able to spend more time with their families, or if they want, they can work more. It has made a real improvement in the quality of life for many people.

Also in my area we have the Pitt River Bridge. That has been a few years. Still, it all ties in, in this ongoing investment. That's $200 million. The Golden Ears Bridge was worth $800 million. It is a toll bridge, but it has opened up Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, that area, in a very significant way. You can actually go right to the border in about half and hour now.

Maple Ridge was voted the No. 2 city to invest in, in British Columbia — I just got that, again, about an hour ago — and No. 5 in all of Canada. A lot of that has to do with the investments that have been put into the infrastructure project.

Also, there's the South Fraser Perimeter Road that was just opened, on time and on budget. That was about a $1.25 billion investment and saw a lot of jobs during the construction period. And 7,000 long-term jobs are anticipated to be created in Delta and Surrey through the industrial development. This was also the largest environ-
[ Page 1650 ]
mental and agricultural improvement plan for a highway project in all of British Columbia, with over $100 million invested in agriculture and environmental work.

[1745]

Other infrastructure projects. Trans-Canada four-laning is ongoing. This past year I drove to Alberta a couple of times, took the Trans-Canada. The drive between, say, Golden and Calgary is reduced about half an hour. Not only is it reduced time and travel, but it's a lot safer.

Massey Tunnel. We are going forward with the Massey Tunnel.

Hydro — significant investments, transmission lines up in the northwest. That will open up mining and increase revenues here in British Columbia, whether it be mining or LNG.

In my area, in Mission, we have the Ruskin dam, which is $750 million. That was built in the 1920s, so they had to go through seismic upgrading, had to tear it down. I've talked to the people in that area, and they do appreciate it. They realize that if there was an earthquake, it would mean their lives, so it's an important investment. It is increasing the production, the power output, but it's essentially just taking care. It's maintenance, upgrading and keeping on top of our hydroelectric projects. There is a light bulb there that was built in the 1920s — not built, but…. It's still working. It's an old site.

Transit — significant upgrades. The Evergreen line is going through. I know that the Speaker will appreciate that going through his community. Canada Line.

One last project I'd like to talk about is the Mission Memorial Hospital. There was a lot of angst in our community, in Mission, that it would close or be downgraded. There were protests in the area a number of years ago because of the concern by the residents in Mission. I know I was involved in many meetings with Fraser Health, with the ministry, with the community, but we turned that corner. We are not just maintaining that hospital, Mission Memorial Hospital, but we've had some major expansions — two major investments and expansions worth about $50 million.

The last one opened last July, the community health centre, which is 27,000 square feet. It's a prototype in British Columbia in the Fraser Health region, bringing all the health services that are scattered about in Mission together: public health, mental health clinics. There's a place for substance abuse, diabetes education centre, a seniors health clinic, and there is more room for more expansion. That opened last summer.

In about a month and a half, we are eagerly anticipating the Residence in Mission — that's the name of it — which will open. It's for citizens with complex care needs, dementia and acquired brain injury. It will also offer adult day programs for non-residents, a respite hotel to give caregivers in the community time away from caregiving, and an adjacent assisted-living facility at Cedar Hill. This is great news for Mission.

It's state of the art. There are 195 private suites and five double suites for couples. It's also a great economic benefit for Mission. It will have an operating budget of $14 million a year. It will employ 200 people, including 12 registered nurses and psychiatric nurses; 36 licensed practical nurses; 102 health care assistants and casual employees; 25 therapy and recreational services employees; and 30 kitchen employees, who will prepare meals for the Residence, Mission Memorial Hospital and the Cottage-Worthington Pavilion in Abbotsford. This is great news for our community, good news for the seniors and for all of the residents.

This is a good-news budget because of the disciplined choices we're making now, and it will be even better news in the near future for our families, for our children and grandchildren.

C. Trevena: I take my place in response to the budget. We always call it a debate, but it tends to be speeches.

I have a number of points that I've picked up from the member for Maple Ridge–Mission. I'd just like to give a reality check when he is talking, extolling all the virtues of the Port Mann Bridge, the South Fraser Perimeter Road and the whole road network. I had a tour of that. It's a very good road network, but I think you should acknowledge that it was highly over budget.

[1750]

The Port Mann Bridge alone was more than $1 billion over budget. He's got a nice connector for his interchange, but it has come at a huge cost. I'll carry on talking about the government's priorities and the way the government accumulates debts a little further on in my remarks.

I think it's going to come as no surprise that I am not going to be supporting this budget. I appreciate having the opportunity to explain why I believe that it is a damaging budget — damaging to the people and communities that I represent in the North Island and to the province as a whole.

As legislators, we are given a public trust, and that is to look after the province and its resources and its people. We're elected to work for the good of the people of the province. Sadly, I don't think this budget does that. Instead, it exploits that neo-liberal notion that running a government is like running a household.

Instead of looking out for the best interests of people of the province, the government plows on with its ideological, blinkered methodology that you have to balance the budget above all else. No matter what the cost to the people of the province, to the resources of the province or the environment of the province, we are going to have that hollow mantra that the budget has been balanced — no matter what the cost. And the cost is going to be great.

We hear time and again, every time we raise this in question period, every time he has the opportunity, the Minister of Finance talking about comparisons to household spending. We also hear the Premier speak on radio
[ Page 1651 ]
shows more than in this Legislature. She doesn't address the Legislature very often. She talks about how this is how she was brought up. What they don't seem to realize, in that narrow and small-minded and mean political geography in which they live, is that governing a province — what they were elected to do — is not the same as running a family home.

This type of thinking has been evolving on the right for the last 30 years. I go back to Margaret Thatcher. I'm British. She came to be Prime Minister when I turned 17. She was the Prime Minister of Britain known as the Grocer's Daughter. She was really the first person to espouse and exploit this populist view.

I have to say that our current Premier, who is no Mrs. Thatcher…. Mrs. Thatcher devastated the society she was governing, but at least she understood what she was doing and why she was doing it. She had a vision, no matter how reprehensible. Our current Premier has no vision beyond staying in power and governing through slogans and catchphrases.

One of the populist mantras of this neo-liberal, neoconservative approach is always that of low taxes. We're keeping taxes low. We've got the lowest taxes in the country, and so on and so on. It's all about taxes. There is never any discussion about what those taxes do, why we have taxes, what it's about. And we've seen over the last 12 years a dramatic shift in government revenue from progressive taxation to regressive fees and levies and charges and regressive taxes.

We had the debacle a couple of years ago over the harmonized sales tax — a highly regressive tax. On that one, the government finally had to back down because it was so opposed by everyone in B.C. That was a regressive tax, and I think it's symptomatic of this approach to government.

A progressive tax regime allows for an equitable redistribution of the province's wealth. I say it's the province's, because once you've paid the money, once you've paid your taxes, it isn't your money. It isn't taxpayers' money. It's public money that is to be spent for the public good — public money, public funds, public money for public services.

Our taxes are for our roads and for our schools and for our hospitals. Our taxes go to support those who can't look after themselves — through assistance, through disability payments. This is what we do. We pay our taxes to help hold our society together. It makes our society. The common sharing of our resources, of our wealth, is what builds and makes our society. That's what makes a civil society. I feel that under this government, the civil of our society is rapidly, rapidly eroding.

Despite, in this budget, a minor increase for income tax for the highest earners, nearly all the other taxes that year…. We've got cigarette tax; we've got other taxes. But nearly all the other tax increases in this budget are flat taxes, regressive taxes.

[1755]

I've got to note here — and it's been mentioned in the past, and it's been mentioned in question period — that the Premier has been going around the province claiming that there are no tax increases in this budget. Frankly, that is mendacious cant. We're all going to be paying more because of this budget.

I think the most telling is the increase in the medical services premiums and the medical services tax. I have to admit I never liked MSP. When I first came to Canada, I lived in Ontario and was shocked when I came to B.C. and found that we had — as well as our regular taxes, which I'll be very happy to pay — this flat tax to pay for my health care. We are one of only two provinces that have it.

I still personally believe that it should be rolled into the income tax system. But we have it. And if we're going to have it, it should be managed properly. It is a flat payment for individuals and for families and for businesses. Businesses do cover it for some communities. But what we have seen over the last decade — this decade of this gross mismanagement by this B.C. Liberal government — is the flagrant abuse of this fee.

We've seen it go up year after year after year. A few years ago we were told that we were going to see increases, but that was going to be the rate of inflation, because we needed to increase the budget for the Ministry of Health. Health costs are rising, so everybody has got to pay their bit. Well, I have to pay my bit through my tax system, not through fees.

The Premier, when she was a talk show radio host — she does enjoy radio — said of the previous Liberal government's approach to this medical tax: "Did anybody notice, by the way, that not only are MSP premiums going to be going up this year; they're going to be linked to future increases in health care? So they're going to keep going up." It's not like a one-time increase. They're going to keep whacking you for MSP premiums.

Now the government, under the Premier, the former talk show radio host, is seriously whacking the people of British Columbia through this flat medical services tax. We've seen in this budget a 4 percent increase. The Health budget is going up 2.6 percent, so clearly, this MSP is not being used to meet the health care budget. It's going up much higher. So much for keeping the promise of what was already an egregious gouging with increased costs.

MSP — the tax we pay for our health care, specifically for our health care — has doubled in the last ten years. Your income tax may have declined, but you are certainly paying more for health care. It's more than $1,700 a year for a family. That's no matter whether you're earning $60,000 or $150,000. You are paying approximately $1,700 a year.

The government talks…. And I have to say it is embarrassing to hear the government talk about the almost one million British Columbians who don't pay MSP or
[ Page 1652 ]
get assistance, because that means they're too poor to get it. The government never acknowledges the fact they are too poor to get assistance. Their income doesn't reach the threshold that you have to pay this flat tax.

Too poor after 12 years of this government — that is shocking. They should be trying…. If they're going to have this tax, if this is the way that they want to raise their income, they should at least make sure that people are earning enough, that we have a healthy enough community that people can pay for it.

I think it's really telling to read in this year's budget that the revenue into the government coffers from this medical services tax is about the same as corporate income tax. Just think about this. Western Forest Products, TimberWest, Van-Kam, Catalyst, Grieg, Marine Harvest, Quinsam coal…. These are just some of the businesses that work or operate in or come to my community. Those alone, are just a few. The massive number of corporations we have across this province pay the same as we all, as individuals, pay for MSP? There's something very wrong with that picture.

Corporations make a lot of profits. They're clearly not employing many people, because the people seem to be leaving the province. So they should be paying part of those profits, part of that, as a higher corporate income tax.

[1800]

I was also shocked to find out that this medical services tax brings in more money than the property tax and more money than the carbon tax — which, I have to say, this government has sorely neglected as an opportunity to both tackle climate change and raise revenue.

It brings in medical services tax more than the fuel tax and more than natural gas royalties. This is simply outrageous. It's the government that is trying to balance the books on the backs of, literally, the hard-working people of British Columbia — those who are working. It may be astounding, but I'm astounded by those comparisons, and I'm shocked by them. I think it really points to huge failures in this government.

I mean, I'm a mature person, and I'm a political watcher and a political animal, and I know it is a philosophy of this sort of right-wing government — not necessarily all Red Tories, but the right-wing governments that we are living with today, whether it's the B.C. Liberals or the Conservatives federally — that taxes are bad and fees are good. I get it. I don't like it, and that's why I'm up here explaining that what they are doing is really wrong for the people of B.C. and wrong for the health of the communities that I represent and for the province as a whole.

This switch from taxes and progressive taxation — the taxation that means that if you're earning $60,000, you pay a lot less than you are if you're earning $150,000, as a whole, not just in your income tax portfolio but with your hydro, your MSP and everything else — means that now, this shift, we have a $4.4 billion increase to people, to the individuals of British Columbia, in taxes and fees. Because of that, that's why we are seeing the cost of living rise for ordinary British Columbians. Lots of ordinary people are trying to make a go of it. Businesses trying to make a go of it. It's the cost of living going up.

We have a government that is horrified about the issue of taxes. They are not going to raise taxes. They don't like taxes. But they are quite happy to see an increase in ferry fares in three months of 7½ percent. I don't understand the logic. It's fine to be putting a levy on the users of the highway of 7½ percent, but we're going to boast that we don't raise taxes? They are not listening to themselves. They really are not listening to themselves. Or they assume that the people of British Columbia are so stupid that they don't get it. If that is the truth, either answer is very frightening.

Either they don't really realize what they're saying and so they are governing literally by slogan and by spin from their press office, or they expect that the people of British Columbia are so stupid that they don't get this. I'm really not sure I want the answer on this.

We have a 7½ percent increase in ferry fares in three months because of the mentality that B.C. Ferries is a user-pay service. This is the only highway in the province where the users are expected to cover both the capital and the operating costs, where the costs for the users are increasing as the service is diminishing. Costs have increased more than 100 percent on some routes. You've your 100 percent increase in MSP, 100 percent increase in ferry fares. This is not the way to be encouraging communities to thrive nor businesses to thrive.

It's not just individuals. I'm not just talking about people who live on an island and are going to work in another community and have to get the ferry. I'm not just talking about the teachers going to work in the schools. I'm not talking about the people going to the theatre or the sports games. I'm talking about businesses that are operating and trying to transport goods, businesses that are paying MSP for their employees, businesses that are using the ferries, at millions of dollars at a time, that are trying to keep their businesses alive.

This is so shortsighted it is outrageous. I've got to see government's priorities. I should be well aware of them by now. I've been watching this government for some time. We see a 2½ percent cap on increases to tolls to the Port Mann Bridge. As I mentioned, there's a roadway that is making life much easier for many people. There is a 2½ percent cap on the increase in tolls on that bridge and an acknowledgment that B.C. Ferries have reached a tipping point, but still we see a 7½ percent rise in fares.

[1805]

Where's the balance? Where's the fairness there? Where's the equitable redistribution of the wealth of the people of this province? It can't be done through these sorts of levees and fees.

Meanwhile, the government takes out $5 million from
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the funding of B.C. Ferries — $5 million out of it in this budget. B.C. Ferries is apparently — we keep hearing — a loss-making operation. That's one of the reasons we've got these vicious cuts in services, because it's making a loss. But B.C. Ferries still pays the government a $6 million dividend. What we've got here, basically, is a complete shell game in which the 20 percent of the people in B.C. who depend on B.C. Ferries and who contribute to the economy of B.C., depending on B.C. Ferries, are simply getting conned.

Of course, the government sold itself to the electorate as good fiscal managers, but they forgot the very basics of business planning when they announced that latest round of service cuts, the ones that start at the end of April. It made no study of the impact to the province's economy by withdrawing services — none.

It's done massive damage to the tourism industry through these cuts. Canadian and international tour operators are simply stunned. Millions of dollars are going to be lost to the sector across the province. The government, in its complete arrogance — 12 years' increasing arrogance — never even bothered consulting.

I've got a couple of quotes here that I'd like to read into the record, because I think they highlight this.

Powell River Chamber of Commerce — they work for business. They want small business to thrive. They said about the minister who keeps talking about sustainable…. "This is going to make everything sustainable. All is going to be sustainable." This most overused word of the 21st century. The president of the chamber of commerce says: "Calling this sustainable is a cruel way to indicate that the government is out of touch with the reality of their own economy."

A tourism operator, Jonview Canada, brings about a quarter of a million visitors to Canada. More than 100,000 come to British Columbia. Like most communities and businesses who were not consulted about the cuts, it has said that the cuts will incur significant costs in attempting to salvage existing travel itineraries for the tour operators. And it's urging the government, in all haste, to reconsider service reductions announced on these routes for 2014.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

There is still time to minimize the damage to our reputation and one of the world's great and welcoming destinations. There are desperate pleas out there for the government to reconsider, for the government to look at the economy of the coast and say: "We can do better. We can make this work. We can make sure that we can have a tourism economy up the coast." There are pleas going out for that, and yet the government ignores it.

We've got medical services tax going up. We've got ferry fares skyrocketing. And I wouldn't be a good representative of my community if I didn't mention B.C. Hydro.

I've got to say, we do hear the Premier avowing that there are going to be no tax increases. Yet people know that hydro is going to go up 28 percent — 20 percent in the next three years, 28 percent in total. That is so easily traceable, again, to this government's absolute inability to separate its political ideology from governing for the public good.

The B.C. Liberals have driven this once proud public institution into massive debt, and I say it's largely because of its private power agenda. We have a utility forced into extortion and impractical contracts with private power providers. which has left every one of us with a massively increased power bill.

Our low hydro rates used to attract investors. It used to be good for business. We were the envy of the country as our clean and very green state-owned hydro was produced so cheaply. Now we're in a position where hydro costs are going to put us at a disadvantage competitively, thanks to this government and their 12 years of complete mismanagement of our public utility.

[1810]

The combination of hydro increases, MSP increases and ferry increases are causing small businesses in my constituency huge concern. Some simply don't know whether they're going to survive. They look at the cost of hydro and what that impact is going to be. They look at the cost of transporting on the ferries the goods that they are producing or that they are working with. They're looking at the cost of making sure that their workers get the MSP coverage. They really do not know whether they'll stay in business.

This is a government that says it supports jobs. I mean, it's just so ludicrous.

My colleague from Nanaimo–North Cowichan often talks about reverse days or backward days. I'd say it's looking glass. This really is a looking-glass world. I hope the members have read Alice — Through the Looking-Glass. They'll get a sense of what is happening in their own governance through these 12 years.

I've got to say that in my response to the throne speech, I talked about the government's lack of vision and its short-term thinking. It is governance by sound bite, and I'd like to cite two areas in my constituency where it will have an impact.

Firstly, it's economic development and the whole jobs plan. The government was about jobs ahead of the election, and it was waving its rather thin jobs plan around.

Campbell River was a pilot for a prototype of this plan. Money was invested in three projects: a marketing project, mineral mapping and a biomass study. We haven't actually seen a rush of jobs into the community since we had this two years ago. We all knew, when it was happening, that it was an election ploy. It was a sort of early-on election run. Not many jobs. Some very useful information came out of it, but no jobs.
[ Page 1654 ]

In fact, provincewide we have to acknowledge that 21,000 jobs have gone from the private sector since the election. So much for managing the economy, and so much for managing jobs in the jobs plan.

What really is needed on the north Island and what would have helped create jobs, encouraged economic diversification and stabilized communities would have been investment in access to broadband, the Internet — you know, that thing in the 21st century.

We've got wait-lists on the north Island. It's 2014. Internet access is painfully slow on the north end of the Island, and it's impossible for existing businesses to operate or to attract new business or retain workers. People expect to be able to get on Netflix and things. They can't do it. "Well, I'll go work somewhere else. I'll go work in Campbell River."

That's still my constituency, but these other communities need to have workers too. Without that access, we are immediately hampered. It's vital for economic growth and economic opportunity in this century, but the government doesn't get it.

What do we see in this budget? Two million dollars. Well, $2 million is big in all our lives, but in government spending, $2 million isn't that huge —$2 million for Internet access.

Again, it's either simply shortsighted or uninformed — I would say that that's very possible — or it's a wilful rejection of rural communities. That, I feel, is more likely, for this government has no conception of how to truly grow our economic base in our rural communities — except in the old-fashioned way in B.C., as hewers of wood and drawers of water and, now, pumpers of natural gas.

LNG — can't have a speech about the budget without it, really. A year ago it was tens of thousands of new jobs and trillions of dollars to the province. This year it was a little bit more muted but still fantastical. According to the government, it's going to be the goose that lays the golden egg. It's going to be wonderful, the magic fairy dust.

We are running a little late. The tax regime which was supposed to happen last year isn't going to happen till later this year. But let's just be honest with people. I think that's the problem. Let's be honest with people.

Yes, we may have an LNG industry, and it may impact Campbell River. There is a company that hopes to have a facility in my community. But it's not going to be the one-time solution to solve all our problems in B.C. We have to do more.

So let's focus on training. A ten-year skills-training plan in the throne speech, and nothing about it in the budget. The demand for skilled people is increasing, and we've seen a drop in credentials issued by the ITA by 4 percent. Maybe that's because students simply cannot afford the training and can't afford bearing the cost themselves.

Maybe we need to get back to some traditional ways of carrying out apprenticeships, where employers work on covering the costs and unions are involved, where the government has a real commitment to true training to get people, basically, from soup to nuts — right the way through. It's not year by year. You get a full apprenticeship training, not the flat-pack version we're getting today.

[1815]

Secondly, talking of a lack of vision, in my constituency there is a lack of real commitment to health care. The health statistics on the north end of the Island are shocking. They really are very poor. And on the rest of the Island we're struggling, like everybody else.

We are lucky in some ways because we are actually going to get a new hospital. And I say we're lucky because across the province there were campaign promises made about a new hospital here, a new hospital there, a new hospital in another place. Then, at the end of the campaign, people did turn around and say: "Oh, that was just politics. That was just a campaign promise. Don't actually believe us on that."

We in Campbell River are getting a new hospital, which is good news, but there is a continued refusal to deal with the real need for our community, which is expanding the number of beds which are going to be available in that hospital.

Over the last few weeks our hospital has been bursting at the seams — 114 people in a hospital which is supposed to have no more than 80, patients transferred to Nanaimo and Duncan, surgeries cancelled. We are getting a new hospital. But bed count, 95; present count of patients, 114 — disconnect. We have a crisis now, and we are going to have a crisis when the new hospital is built if it's built with the existing bed numbers.

I have been repeatedly asking the Minister of Health to take this seriously, to ensure there'll be enough space for now and for the future. The proponent of the project still hasn't been chosen, so surely now is the time to get it right — before it is built, not waiting for the crisis, which will inevitably come. That would be a wise capital investment. But this government is anything but wise.

When it comes to debt, it's simply spendthrift. The debt is going to rise — the debt, not the deficit. We understand that. The debt is going to rise by $7.1 billion over the next three years — $68.9 billion. These are figures that people really can't comprehend — $68.9 billion by the end of 2016-2017.

Again, I suppose we should just write this off as another broken campaign promise. Really, it's no wonder we have a cynical electorate. There have been so many broken promises.

Instead of "Debt-free B.C.," what are we getting? We're getting debt-spree B.C. It's really unconscionable. Slogans drive this government. I've got to say that that's one thing they're quick on. And it's not surprising, because one of the biggest spends in this government is for communications and public engagement, with a budget of $26.2 million to come up with these slogans, to come
[ Page 1655 ]
up with the tweets that say how well the government is doing, to come up with things where, surely, the money could be better spent.

My remarks are coming to a close. My time is running out. But that money could be better spent on something as simple as a bus on Highway 16, on the Highway of Tears. Instead of spending so much money on spin and on slogans, put money where it's needed — for women who are suffering violence.

Budgets are a question of priorities. I think this government's priorities are fundamentally wrong, fundamentally flawed. The budget is a reflection of an arrogant government that ignores this Legislature. It ignores the courts. It wants to govern by fiat, and it hopes that people are neither paying attention nor caring.

We deserve better. I most sincerely will not be supporting this budget, which I think is very damaging for the people of my community and for people of the province of B.C.

Hon. N. Yamamoto: It's an honour today to rise to speak in support of our balanced budget 2014. Despite a global economy that's still fragile, that's still recovering, we actually have fulfilled our promise to balance the budget in fiscal 2014-15.

As a government, we are planning for B.C.'s future. Our message and our action are very simple. We cannot, and we will not, spend more money than we receive from taxpayers.

[1820]

As Minister of State for Tourism and Small Business, I talk with small businesses all over the province. I hear them say again and again: "We support your government's goals to balance the budget because we know what it's like to live within our means and not spend more than we have."

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, CFIB, regularly surveys its independent business members. Most of them are small businesses. These small businesses — their highest priority among all our government's current commitments is that government balance the budget.

We did just that, and that takes discipline. With this budget, we are showing that, as a government, we will continue to have discipline, just like small businesses all over British Columbia.

The economy is still fragile, and we are not going to achieve the 6 or 7 percent growth that we saw in past decades. The new normal is now in the region of about 2 percent growth. That's slow and steady, but we're building towards optimism.

The Conference Board of Canada is forecasting that B.C. will lead the provinces in economic growth in 2015. That economic optimism can be felt within the small business community in British Columbia. The small business confidence in British Columbia is high.

In fact, for the last two months, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, B.C. had the highest level of business confidence in the entire country. That's the highest level of optimism our province has shown in 2½ years.

The CFIB small business barometer also shows B.C.'s small businesses have positive hiring plans, with 23 percent of owners indicating that they are planning to hire more people. This confidence is vital to our growing economy and creating jobs. That's because small businesses make up 98 percent of all businesses in British Columbia.

In the province they employ more than a million people. They also account for 55 percent of the private sector employment in the province. As someone said to me recently: "All business is small business but for those exceptions."

That's the big reason why we've committed to meeting the needs of small business owners. And that's why we signed the B.C. small business accord almost a year ago. It's an important document because it ensures that, as the government, we put a small business lens on the work that we do. The accord is just one key part of our strategy to be the most small business–friendly jurisdiction in Canada.

We have one of the lowest small business income tax rates in Canada, at 2.5 percent. That's a reduction of almost 44 percent since 2001.

We are also leading the country in red tape reduction. We've reduced regulatory requirements by 42 percent since 2001. That's more than 154,000 regulations that are no longer on the books. We've committed to holding the line on regulatory reform right up until 2015.

Our hard work has been acknowledged. This year the Canadian Federation of Independent Business awarded B.C. an A for reducing red tape for the third year in a row. We're the only province in Canada to get an A. That's three As in a row.

Interjection.

Hon. N. Yamamoto: Oh, it's a triple-A. A triple-A budget, and we got an A from CFIB.

B.C. is a national leader in regulatory reform. We were also nominated for a golden scissors award by CFIB for our work on the mobile business licence program. It allows businesses to operate across multiple municipalities with a single licence, rather than needing one for each community that they want to do business in.

So we are working hard for small businesses, not just because they contribute to our economy and create vital jobs but because small businesses and their owners are the heart and soul of communities all across British Columbia.

Business owners are coaching our kids in hockey. They're cutting up oranges during halftime at soccer
[ Page 1656 ]
games. They are volunteering for Block Watch. They are community police volunteers, and they're keeping our neighbourhood safe.

They raise money for hospital foundations and equipment. They're Rotarians, they're Kiwanis, and they're members of the Lions Club. They volunteer and risk their lives for search and rescue teams all over the province. The bottom line is: they are always there when the community needs them.

Look at a company like Mills Basics. This is a family-owned office supply company. They've been operating in East Vancouver for more than 60 years. They've grown their business over decades with good old-fashioned hard work and treating their employees just like they would treat their family.

[1825]

Their CEO is Brad Mills. He is committed to giving back to the community through social and environmentally responsible programs. Their carbon-free delivery program is taking gas-powered vehicles off the road and replacing them with efficient, carbon-free delivery vehicles. Mills Basics also provides monetary support necessary to have this organization, which is called HAVE, which they started in late 2007. It stands for hope, action, value and ethics. Mills Basics donates office supplies, provides marketing supports, and Brad Mills sits on HAVE's board of directors.

Now, this is an innovative program in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The HAVE Culinary Training Society is a training school that provides food service, job training and work opportunities to individuals in Vancouver who are youth and adults facing mental and physical disabilities who may have addiction issues and may be homeless. The HAVE Culinary Training Society has successfully trained over 500 students. Over 75 percent of these students have now gained steady employment in the tourism and hospitality industries. That's why I love small business. This is the reason why it's important to support local businesses. Businesses like Mills Basics make or community stronger.

The Great Canadian Landscaping Co. is a North Vancouver company in my riding. This is a big small business. Chris O'Donohue is the president of the Great Canadian Landscaping Co. His wife, Laura, lost her mother to ALS. This is more commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease. They've started ALS Directive to help raise funds and awareness for those people and their families living with the disease. They've raised significant funds to help families purchase assistive equipment for those individuals who have this devastating disease.

The Great Canadian Landscaping Co. also participates in the Vancouver Coastal Health Edible Garden Project, where they focus on the Loutet Farm. This is a small urban community farm in the heart of my riding of North Vancouver–Lonsdale. Loutet Farm is a unique partnership between the North Shore Neighbourhood House, the city of North Vancouver and the University of British Columbia. It's an exciting project designed for local folks, for urban folks like myself, to become involved in and to better understand food production and to have greater access to locally grown produce.

The Great Canadian Landscaping Co. also supports Table Matters, and they work on methods to promote agricultural education for adults, including the vulnerable population in our local communities.

That's why I support small business, and here's another reason. In my riding of North Vancouver–Lonsdale Paige Larson is the owner and CEO of North Shore Sports Medicine. They were recognized at the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards for Service Excellence. They aren't just a physiotherapy, acupuncture, aquatic rehab, Pilates, bike fitting, kinesiology business.

They actually have a commitment to give back to their community. They participate in the Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life. They collect hundreds of pounds of food every year for the greater Vancouver Food Bank. They participate in Capilano University's orientation days. They're involved in Blueridge Community Days, and just this week Paige was in Toronto to receive the inaugural national Air Miles Small Business Achievement Award for social impact for their hundreds of hours of free service to the community.

It's stories like this that make us realize why it's so important to support local small businesses. We know buying local is an important economic driver in British Columbia. Not only does it keep money in our communities and jobs in B.C.; it also makes sure that our communities are strong, that they're unique and they're full of character. According to a recent BDC study, a majority of Canadians now will make an effort to buy local or buy Canadian-made products. Some of them actually are willing — I think 30 percent indicated — to pay a premium for locally made products. We should all consider buying local to support our economy or buying Buy B.C., at the very least.

It can be a successful strategy for larger companies as well. Seaspan, which is another company in my riding, has a Canadian procurement strategy. Materials and services are procured from the supply community with priority given to aboriginal-owned or joint-venture businesses as well as Canadian-owned businesses. They strive to provide the highest Canadian content value offered by Canadian companies in keeping with their industrial regional benefits obligations to Canada. It's policies like this that have a positive trickle-down effect in our economy for small business.

This is the government that has one of the lowest small business tax rates in Canada and is committed to lowering it even further. But let's not forget that B.C. small businesses told us that their priority for us is to balance our budget, and that's just what we did.
[ Page 1657 ]

[1830]

Last year the federal government announced in their 2013 budget that they would phase out over five years the preferential corporate income tax benefit it provides to credit unions, resulting in a higher tax rate for credit unions. To compound this issue, the federal government's announcement automatically triggered changes to provincial legislation, resulting in an increase to the provincial tax rate that credit unions would have to pay.

Credit unions all across British Columbia expressed concerns to our government about this tax increase. We've listened, and we've acted on their concerns. Our Minister of Finance in this budget announced that our government will amend the Income Tax Act to phase out these income tax benefits over five years, beginning in 2016 instead of this year.

Why is that important? Most credit unions aren't small businesses. As the former chair of North Shore Credit Union, which has been renamed recently to BlueShore Financial, I know that credit unions are unique in how they conduct their businesses and serve their members. At the heart of all credit unions, which are member-owned financial institutions, is the value to ensure that our communities remain vibrant and strong.

Chris Catliff is the president and CEO of BlueShore Financial, and he said: "We are pleased that the provincial government recognizes the importance of credit unions in creating jobs and contributing to economic growth in B.C." He adds: "Credit unions are subject to different rules than banks, such as a requirement to maintain a pool of retained earnings. Our industry has worked hard to explain to the provincial government that a tax hike would have had a huge impact on the communities we serve. We appreciate that they have listened to our concerns." We listened, and we delivered.

Keeping taxes low has been a priority for this government. In 2004, to encourage new port investment and secure the competitive position of our B.C. major industrial ports, the province enacted the Ports Property Tax Act to cap the municipal tax rate on port properties. We reviewed this in 2007 and decided to renew this act in 2008 for another ten years, extending it to 2018. This resulted in investments of more than $1 billion in terminal expansions, and I've seen it in my own riding.

The act also provides for compensation payments to municipalities. In our balanced budget we removed the expiry date to give port operators increased certainty about the maximum municipal tax rate they will face to enable longer-term investment decisions. We made permanent the cap on port property tax. This is fantastic news for the waterfront industry in my riding, companies like Neptune Terminals and Western Stevedoring, who are important employers and great community supporters in North Vancouver. This is great news for the estimated 4,400 people who work along the North Shore waterfront in port-related businesses.

Let me share with you some correspondence from Brad Eshelman. He's the president of Western Stevedoring, and he said:

"We thank the provincial government for your support of the Pacific Gateway and your initiatives to make this gateway competitive, including the recent removal of the sunset clause for the B.C. Ports Property Tax Act. The removal of the sunset clause will provide the marine terminal industry with the confidence to continue to invest in the gateway.

"To date, our industry has spent over $1 billion expanding capacity to handle B.C.'s and Canada's import and export commodities, creating thousands of jobs. Our company, Western Stevedoring, is very appreciative of the government's direction. With this increased certainty on municipal taxation, our company will have the confidence to invest in future terminal development, creating good-paying industrial waterfront jobs."

Jim Belsheim is the president of Neptune Terminals, and he writes: "As a key part of Canada's Pacific Gateway to Asia, this is the right thing to do for B.C.'s terminals and transportation sector. Taxation certainty allows to us have the confidence as we make long-term investment decisions, and we applaud the government for following through on their commitment." We listened, and we delivered.

Another bright light in our economy as we move forward in the coming year is the tourism sector. Unlike what we may have heard from the member for North Island, 2013 was a fantastic year for tourism in British Columbia. International visitors to British Columbia were significantly up over a year ago, especially from some of our key markets. U.S. visitors to B.C. rose 4.3 percent over the year before, visitors from China were up 26 percent, and visitors from Mexico were up 10.6 percent. Overall, international visitors to British Columbia were up 4.6 percent over the year previous.

[1835]

The tourism industry has remarkable resilience, and it's great to see the significant growth that has occurred over the past decade. In fact, between 2001 and 2012 tourism revenue in the province grew by 43 percent. That number is growing because British Columbia is recognized for the exceptional quality of visitor experiences. It really offers something for everyone, whether you are a domestic or international traveller. This is due to the development of a dynamic tourism business community, outstanding visitor experiences and excellent marketing activities.

The tourism sector is one of the most important economic drivers in this province. It's one of the eight key sectors in our jobs plan. In 2012 the revenues from the tourism sector were $13.5 billion, an increase of 2.5 percent over the year before. Tourism generated a direct contribution to B.C.'s gross domestic product of $7.1 billion. It accounts for 3.7 percent of the province's total GDP, and that's an increase of 1.5 percent over the year before. As well, the tourism sector alone contributed $1.2 billion in tax revenue to the B.C. government in 2012.

As you can see from the numbers, we are seeing posi-
[ Page 1658 ]
tive, steady growth in the tourism sector. I personally like to think of tourism as just another one of our natural resources in our province. That's why it is vitally important to protect the natural assets that underpin our tourism brand and provide so many unique nature-based tourism opportunities throughout the province.

Tourism is truly a key economic driver in every community. It creates jobs for more than 127,000 British Columbians. That's almost one in every 15 jobs in British Columbia. The industry supports businesses of all sizes with more than 18,000 tourism-related businesses in British Columbia. That's an increase of 2 percent over the year before. The majority of those tourism-related businesses — in fact, 93 percent of them — are in fact small businesses.

We want to make sure we grow those numbers. That's why last year we created Destination B.C. It's a new Crown corporation to market B.C. to the world. That's why government is actively pursuing efforts to remove barriers to the growth of the sector. We are facing fierce competition for every tourism dollar that's out there. That's why, in the context of another balanced budget, we are providing a healthy investment in the marketing of British Columbia to Destination B.C. to the tune of almost $50 million.

As small business and tourism operators move forward over the coming year, they truly are working in a province with a positive economic outlook. As we look forward to that modest but steady growth, it reminds us why a balanced budget is so important.

A balanced budget is a strong foundation for families to prosper. It contributes to job creation. It allows us to maintain that triple-A credit rating, which saves taxpayers a significant amount of money in debt-servicing costs. All of this allows us to actually invest more into education and health care and the arts.

Just like any business owner committed to spending within their means, that's just what we've done here in British Columbia. We've shown discipline, and we've stuck with our plan. That's why we are leaders in the country, one of just two provinces with a balanced budget. That's why we're building a strong economy that will allow to us have a secure tomorrow.

I've owned and operated my own small business for a couple of decades. My parents owned small businesses. My sister runs a small business. My brother works for a small business. In our family we know the importance of balancing the budget. If you're spending more money than you can bring in, then you're going into debt. The more money you put on your credit card, the harder it gets to get out from under that.

John Winter — he's the president and CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce — in response to our budget said: "Business has been clear. Government's number one priority must be to keep its fiscal house in order. Budget 2014 does just that by controlling spending while making modest investments into measures to help grow the economy."

If we don't make the tough decisions today, our kids will pay tomorrow, and they'll end up paying more. That's a burden that's unfair. That's a burden that's actually quite selfish to pass on to the next generation.

I need to thank two of my constituency assistants, Matthew Naylor and Chris Drouin. Matthew has been with me for a couple of years now, and Chris just started with us a couple of months ago. Matthew will be going back to university to do a degree in law shortly, so I wish him well in his studies.

Another big thank-you goes to my partner, Fred. He's wonderfully patient. He's funny. He's giving. He's supportive. Our jobs as MLAs take us away from our families and friends, so I really appreciate any time that I get to spend with him. He has my back, and I have his, although his is a lot bigger than mine. But I do thank him for that.

[1840]

We recently experienced a tragic loss to North Vancouver. We were deeply saddened by the loss of Tim Jones. Tim was a tireless volunteer. He spent 40 hours a week volunteering for North Shore Rescue, and that was on top of the full-time job he had as a paramedic. He was the voice and the face of North Shore Rescue. He was many things. He was a son. He was a father. He was a husband. He was a teacher and a leader. He was a fearless trail-blazer and a local hero. He died on a snowy trail on Mount Seymour after going on one of his many training sessions on our local mountains.

In 2011 our Premier recognized Tim's efforts and dedication and presented him with the Order of British Columbia. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him, but his legacy will live on in the lives that he has saved and in the team of professionals he assembled and trained. He will have had a hand in every rescue that they made and every future life they touch. Tim's accomplishments and awards are many. He dedicated his life to the search and rescue community. He was a dedicated family man and mentor to many on the team.

The best way to honour Tim, I think, is to ensure that the North Shore Rescue continues to service the community in a way that he would be proud of, so I would ask that British Columbians consider a donation in memory of Tim Jones to the North Shore Rescue legacy fund.

I'm proud that my trail running group, the North Shore Lemmings, recently donated just over $2,000 to the fund, which was generously matched by the West Vancouver charity the Charros Foundation. In fact, they didn't just match the $2,000 that the North Shore Lemmings donated; they matched the entire $118,000 that had been donated by British Columbians and the community up until about mid-February. This now brings the total donations to this fund to over $239,000.

I'd just like to let everyone know that you can go to the North Shore Rescue website, northshorerescue.com,
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to donate. We need your help to continue Tim's legacy.

I love North Vancouver. It's a wonderful place to live and to work, and I want to keep it that way. I love how we care about the environment. We care about fresh air. We care about clean air and clean water. We care about the outdoors.

I love what a caring community we have on the North Shore. We support our seniors and people with disabilities. I love how everyone volunteers their time. I love how easy it is to be active and healthy here in North Vancouver. I love the people that work here because they get things done. We have so much to be thankful for in North Vancouver.

North Vancouver is a vibrant community with waterfront industries. It's got commercial. It's got retail. It's got small businesses and large businesses, a great mix of residents that live in condos and townhouses and some single-family houses as well as rental units. This is the kind of community that I'm proud to be part of. This is the spirit of the North Shore and British Columbia. This is why I'm proud to represent the people of North Vancouver–Lonsdale and to stand here and support our government's balanced budget.

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to get an opportunity to stand and speak to the budget and to provide some comments and observations about Budget 2014.

I had an opportunity to address the throne speech. At that time I took that chance to talk about my constituency a little bit and the folks in my constituency, the challenges they have, the opportunities, and how they view their lives in terms of the decisions that get made in this place.

I do know that for many of them it's truly a working-class community. It's a community that has many people who are vulnerable as well. It's a community that was deeply affected, I believe, and will be deeply affected moving forward by this budget. They're affected in a number of ways, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to address some of that in my comments here.

When we came back to sit for this session it had been about 200 days since the last time the Legislature had sat. I think that the expectations and the hopes of many people were that the government would have spent that 200 days thinking about a vision for the future, thinking about a plan for the future, looking at how we move British Columbia forward.

[1845]

The first thing we got was a throne speech. It was a throne speech that was disappointing at best, not necessarily for a debate about whether ideas were good or bad in the throne speech, but for the reality that there were few ideas at all.

The throne speech had one notion that was somewhat new about a violence-free B.C. — another B.C. Liberal slogan. But of course, we realize now that there are no resources to support that. There's no money to support a violence-free B.C.

We know, as we've heard in question period in the last couple of days, how the missing-women task force and all of the work that Wally Oppal did in fact has largely gone for naught in terms of actually meeting those recommendations and moving them forward. Part of that, of course, is because it doesn't have leadership in that task force.

The decision…. Justice Point has gone back to the courts and stepped aside. From the person who was going to be the champion and drive that, he stepped aside. The government has been absent in terms of appointing a replacement for Steven Point so that somebody could champion this cause and move it forward. As a result of that, we really don't see any effort there.

The throne speech was disappointing. So then we thought: "Well, maybe when we see the budget, we'll see something in the budget that will tell us that in fact there is a plan here." Unfortunately, we've seen a budget that probably could be identified and noted by two things. One is that it's going to cost taxpayers a whole lot more, and it's going to deliver a whole lot less in terms of services.

That's probably the thing that will impact my constituents and the people in my community who are hard-working and the people who are struggling to make ends meet — the fact that they now are going to be giving more and more money and getting less and less services for that money to government. That's pretty problematic.

When we look at that, I guess we need to say: "So what are we looking at here, and what is the circumstance that we have?" Well, the first thing that we see, of course, is that we've seen a whole lot of costs going up for folks.

The government talks about no new taxes. We've heard that time and time again. In fact, we heard the Premier, on February 21 on CHBC News, say: "We said we weren't going to increase taxes. We didn't increase taxes." Of course, we know that's not true.

Now, we might have thought that the Premier had a moment there and misspoke, but she then came back the next day, on the 22nd of February — just to be sure that we weren't in error here — and said: "We did not do it by raising taxes, borrowing or stealing." She said that in the Okanagan on February 22.

I'm assuming that she meant what she said because she said it twice. It wasn't an error the first time, presumably.

What's the reality about costs? The reality is the government is taking 4.4 billion additional dollars out of the pockets of British Columbians over the next three years — $4.4 billion.

They're doing this in a combination of ways. It includes almost $2 billion in hydro rate hikes, about $650 million in Medical Services Plan rate hikes, $145 million from ICBC, $162 million from ferry fares, another $181 million out of the pockets of students in tuition. Then on top of that…. Those are fees.

I'm assuming the Premier didn't want to relate those
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fees to a tax increase, but be assured that the $3.2 billion or so that that all adds up to is still money out of the pockets of taxpayers. You may call it a fee and not a tax, but when they take that money out of their pocket and give it to the government, they don't much care what you called it. They still lost it out of their pocket.

Then we add to that, of course, $1.2 billion over the next three years in real taxes and tax increases. Those are the increases.

So we have this problem, of course, because we have the Premier saying one thing that just is not factually accurate. The reality is $4.4 billion over the next three years in taxes and fees coming out of the pockets of British Columbians.

[1850]

With that kind of money coming out of the pockets of British Columbians, how do you address that? Where's that money going? What's it providing?

There has been a discussion in this province for a long period of time about the need for skills training. There's the talk about LNG and where LNG will take us over the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. But we know that to get there, as well as with other development, we have a serious skills training shortage. So it's pretty inexplicable that advanced education gets their budget cut, and skills training flatlines in the budget.

Now, I will tell you that I expect we'll see something over the next period of time where there'll be a few million dollars thrown at skills training in some way, shape or form, but the bottom line is it's not getting the job done. We know that in talking to the business community, their biggest concern in this province right now — and those companies that are looking to move forward and develop LNG or develop other significant projects — is the issue of skilled workers.

Can we find those workers? Sure, we can find them. Can we find them in British Columbia? Can we find British Columbians? That's a whole other matter, and that's the problem we have. We're not seeing any effort here outside of rhetoric, and the rhetoric is pretty strong, to invest in actually improving that situation. It's not a cost; it's an investment. There is a significant difference between a cost and an investment. Skills training would be an investment, but we're not seeing that.

We also know that we continue to have challenges around the cost of living in British Columbia, challenges around housing costs, broadly around cost-of-living issues. We have dramatic levels of poverty, the highest levels of poverty, the highest levels of child poverty in the country. Those folks are struggling more than ever. I've got a lot of those people in my constituency, and I'm sure that others have them too. They're struggling more than ever.

We're not seeing a response to that in this budget. What does the government say the response is? We've heard this time and again. The response is jobs. That's a fine response — the response is jobs. But the reality is this when it comes to jobs: we have a jobs plan that has failed dismally. The budget acknowledges that unemployment is going up in this province.

We know that we have the worst job growth in the private sector. From September 2011, when the Premier came to office, to January 2014 we have had the worst job growth in Canada in the private sector. That's the reality. We lost 8,500 private sector jobs in January alone. That's the reality. We've lost over 21,000 full-time jobs since the last time this Legislature sat, back in July.

The result of that, in many ways, is reflected in other ways. It's reflected in terms of confidence. I heard the Minister for Small Business talk about business confidence, but the problem here is the confidence for people who live here and are looking for jobs. We've had nine consecutive quarters in this province where we've had an out-migration of people.

More people left British Columbia than have come to British Columbia over the last 27 months. The result of that is that over 13,000 more people left than came over the last two years. Why is that? It's because we have the highest unemployment rates in western Canada. We have the lowest employment rates west of the Maritimes and the lowest GDP growth among western provinces.

The economy has stalled. All the rhetoric and the jobs that might have been created for advertising agencies, when millions and millions of dollars were spent on advertising about the jobs plan, didn't create jobs for the people who need them. That's the problem that we have at this time.

[1855]

We face a real challenge here around the fact that costs are going up — $4.4 billion in additional costs, money out of the pockets of British Columbians — no meaningful investment in skills training that will help people get work, no investment in addressing poverty. In fact, the jobs plan has stalled, and we're falling behind. Those are supposed to be the core things that we deal with in this budget, and none of those things are being dealt with.

The claim, of course, is that LNG at some point down the road will solve all of our problems. We've met with people in the industry. Obviously, the government is very actively engaged with the industry over the future. But we know a number of things. First of all, we are falling behind on the timeline to get those projects in. This is an incredibly competitive global industry, which is going to be a challenge. We are going to build a couple of projects. I believe we will do that. It is not going to be eight or nine or ten or whatever the last claim of the Premier was.

We'll get a couple of them built, but they won't be a panacea. They won't create the level of jobs…. They're not going to create 100,000 jobs, they're not going to make us debt-free, and they're not going to end our need for a sales tax — all claims of the Premier. None of those will be dealt with.
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I look forward to continuing my comments tomorrow. I know that we're getting late here, so I'll reserve my right to continue my comments and move adjournment of the debate.

S. Simpson moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. T. Stone moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 6:56 p.m.

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