2015 Legislative Session: Fourth 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)

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 19, Number 11

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

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2015

The House met at 1:31 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

N. Simons: I’d just like to take this opportunity to say hello to a….

Interjections.

N. Simons: Hello to my colleagues in this House. But if they allow me, to also recognize a stalwart British Columbian and volunteer in our office in Powell River, which serves everyone in the community. She’s battling pneumonia right now, but Sharon Sawyer is a tough person, a sensitive and compassionate person. I’m looking forward to her coming back to my office to continue to help the constituents of Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

Orders of the Day

Hon. A. Wilkinson: Calling continued debate on the budget, please.

Budget Debate

(continued)

B. Ralston: I’d like to resume. I understand, given advice from the Chair, that the amendment that stands in my name on the order paper will not add to my time, so therefore, I would like to move it now.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

It reads as follows:

[Be it resolved that the motion “That the Speaker do now leave the Chair” for the House to go into Committee of Supply be amended by adding the following:

“That the government report in the third quarter of this fiscal year on progress towards their commitment to have one LNG plant and processing facility up and running by 2015; to open eight new mines by 2015; and their commitment to ensure every British Columbian has access to a general practitioner by 2015; and that the government maintain the personal income tax regime for individuals earning over $150,000 per year.”]

With that, if I could speak to the amendment, then.

Deputy Speaker: Proceed.

On the amendment.

B. Ralston: I want to talk a little bit further about the comments made by the former Liberal Finance Minister, Carole Taylor. I think she really sums up what a lot of people in the middle of the political spectrum, who aren’t quite as isolated from reality as perhaps members of the executive council are…. I think she really, in what she said, expressed the sentiments of a broad cross-section of public opinion in British Columbia.

[1335]

She also had a warning, I think, for the business community. She speaks with some authority on this matter. She’s now a director for some major Canadian corporations: Bell Canada Enterprises, Toronto-Dominion Bank, CP Rail, Canfor and Fairmont Hotels. I’m quoting her: “There’s a growing disconnect. People say: ‘Why should I care about business doing well? Why should I care about a strong economy if I’m not feeling any of the effects?’”

She said that without that feeling of connection and benefit from economic growth, the business people in the room would fail to win the social licence they need for the projects to move ahead. “There has to be a solid line between those two things.” So what she says is…. I’m quoting from this article but not from her: “Despite lower taxes and modest gains in disposable income, Canadians are carrying high debt loads, the cost of living is rising, job security is rife, and many are uncertain about retirement…. 'You’ve got this sense of dis-ease.’”

I think that really sums up the public mood in many respects and explains why the Liberal budget — particularly the most symbolic part of it, which is to remove the 2-percent surcharge on income earners above $150,000 — strikes people as being so wrong at this particular time. It’s in that context of concerns about retirement, concerns about job insecurity, concerns about their children’s future, concerns about their own high debt loads that many Canadians, and many British Columbians, find themselves.

In a broader context of a national debate — and, indeed, perhaps a global debate in the western world — about growing income inequality between the richest in our society and those who have a lot less, British Columbia really doesn’t have a great record there. Within Canada, B.C. and Alberta are the most unequal when comparing after-tax household income. B.C.’s inequality has outstripped Canada’s as a whole every year since 2001.

The child poverty report card, which the advocacy group First Call puts forward, found in their 2013 report that B.C. once again had the highest child poverty rate in Canada based on 2011 statistics.

We know that the federal government, federal Tories, have hampered the collection of statistics by eliminating the long-form census — decried by social analysts and business analysts. In a world where data is becoming increasingly important, they’ve managed to hamper one of the important mechanisms for determining markets, the composition of markets and many important social indices, but that’s an aside.

So 153,000 kids, based on that statistic from 2011. It’s
[ Page 5930 ]
in that context that the B.C. Liberals have put forward this budget taking off that surcharge on those earning $150,000 net taxable income. That opportunity to extend, as took place in other parts of the budget, simply was not taken.

There are others who know and have some sense of the public mood on this issue. I would travel no further than the report of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Eight government MLAs and seven opposition MLAs.

The members on the government side — the Chair, the member for Penticton; the member for Vernon-Monashee; the member for Abbotsford-Mission; the member for Delta North; the member for Surrey-Panorama; the member for Prince George–Mackenzie; the member for Fraser-Nicola; and the member for Richmond-Steveston.

Those are the government MLAs. That’s a pretty broad cross-section of the Liberal caucus. They are not in cabinet but form a part of the Liberal majority here in the Legislature.

[1340]

In their recommendations, significantly, they recommended…. I go to recommendation 37. This is a unanimous recommendation of the committee. “The Committee recommends to the Legislative Assembly that the provincial government introduce a comprehensive poverty reduction plan and review income assistance rates, the minimum wage and the clawback of child support payments.”

Now, it’s evident, perhaps, that the Minister of Finance or his officials, in preparing the budget, did listen to one small part of that recommendation, the clawback of child support payments. That is a victory for those parents who were having that child support payment clawed back from their social assistance payment. But the rest of the proposal, the poverty reduction plan — a broad cross-section of the Liberal caucus supported that — was not listened to by the Finance Minister.

He doesn’t listen to former Liberal Finance Minister Carole Taylor. He’s not prepared to listen to his own caucus, apparently. One wonders, and it’s no surprise, that this budget is being received very poorly by many, many British Columbians outside the very loyal….

There are some determined and loyal supporters of the government who will, I suppose — fortunately for them, and the government would gratefully receive that support — support the government no matter what. But I think the people in the middle, the people who are the ones who are considering their own personal economic situation, are certainly not taken with this budget. Indeed, it creates a certain amount of ire and outrage at the decision to continue to give tax relief to those earning over $150,000 net taxable.

That is, I suppose, not too surprising, but I think it shows the degree to which the Finance Minister and the executive council are out of tune — out of tune with their own members and former senior cabinet ministers, out of tune with their own caucus and yet here in the Legislature, pounding away on the desks enthusiastically in support of this budget.

Sometimes we hear — I think the Minister of Education was the most recent to mention it — “Well, back in 2013 you voted against the budget.” I would cite no less an authority in the Liberal cosmos than Gordon Campbell, who said that a vote against the budget is a matter of confidence. It’s a well-recognized parliamentary tradition, existing for hundreds of years. If a vote against the budget is a vote of a lack of confidence in the government, it’s not a vote on an individual measure within the budget.

That specious argument is often raised by members opposite, but, really, they should know better. Maybe it’s their speechwriters. If they’re listening — the 220 people in the public affairs bureau, whoever is responsible for monitoring me — perhaps they could make a note and pass this on, include this in future speech notes for other cabinet ministers. I think that would be appreciated. As I say, I am citing that oracle in the Liberal cosmos, Gordon Campbell, so I think that’s pretty good authority for someone on that side of the House.

The other area in my amendment that I want to focus upon are some of the statements — made largely by the Premier, but a supporting cast was also playing in that particular drama — about the LNG opportunity. Now we hear, particularly in the Speech from the Throne and to some degree in the budget, a real absence of any discussion of LNG.

I noticed that the Deputy Minister of Finance, in pursuit of his statutory obligation to look at prospective revenue, says clearly at the front of the budget that the budget does not include any revenue in the three-year fiscal plan from LNG. Given that discharge of his statutory duty, the Finance Minister, I suppose, was really left with no room other than to follow that direction and, I think, state the obvious in the budget, that there’s no revenue from LNG coming.

We hear the members opposite now resiling, abandoning their position. It’s a sort of selective amnesia about what was said about LNG.

[1345]

Let me refresh their memory. Let me quote the Premier. This is a speech she made May 22, 2014, so less than a year ago.

“We do know what we can do today, and that is to make sure that as a government we look at every decision we make through the lens of whether or not it furthers our purpose in creating an LNG industry here in B.C. This is our central preoccupation. So I personally chair a special cabinet”— I think it should say committee —”devoted to making sure we coordinate our decisions across government with the view to moving as nimbly as we can to create an LNG business here. LNG is what we ran on in the last election. It is what we were elected to do, it is a promise that we made to the people of British Columbia, and it is a promise I intend to keep.
[ Page 5931 ]

“Central preoccupation,” “chairs a special committee,” “we look at every decision of government through the lens of what we can do, whether or not it furthers our purposes of creating an LNG….” One has to marvel at the — how shall we say? — flexibility of government members when they now talk about a diversified economy. Certainly, as recently as ten months ago the Premier, the leader of the Liberal Party, was not talking about that at all publicly. It was the central preoccupation, the lens through which every decision of government was viewed.

One can only expect — or, I think, divine or conclude — that the B.C. Liberals were forced to recognize that talking about a diversified economy was certainly overdue in their view of the B.C. economy, and they were forced to it.

I can’t resist; I’ve got another quote from the Premier at the same time, a cabinet announcement May 14, 2013 — a little bit earlier. “We were elected in large part on the promise to build a brand-new industry here in B.C. It’s how we’re going to make B.C. debt-free in 15 years. It’s how we’re going to grow 100,000 jobs, so we’re going to give it absolute laser focus.”

A laser, as we know, is a very concentrated beam of light that hones in on a very, very small area, emphasizing the point that this is the unique focus, the central preoccupation, the lens through which every decision is viewed — not a diversified economy. Oh no, no. All of the resources of government to be poured into it.

Industry analysts, and the LNG industry itself, were never as optimistic — or, one arguably might say, unrealistic — about the prospects of creating an LNG industry here in British Columbia. It’s something that may very well happen. But the issue for those of us on this side of the House is the degree to which the laser-like focus, the central preoccupation of the Premier and her direction to the government bureaucracy wiped away any concern, any issue about a diversified economy, any input from industry stakeholders, any meetings or basically any initiatives that those who weren’t in the LNG and its ancillary support industries could bring to government.

That has changed out of necessity, but that’s the point that I think we seek to meet. Clearly, the amendment that I propose asks the government to report on having a processing facility up and running by 2015. “Up and running” is a direct quotation from the Premier. Up and running is not something by 2015. “Up and running by 2015” is a direct quote from the Premier, and, clearly, it doesn’t look like that’s going to take place by 2015.

It may come to pass. I know that the Minister of Natural Gas Development is optimistic. He never relents in his optimism. I suppose that’s a good thing for a person doing that job. But we shall see.

[1350]

The global market for LNG has taken some shocks as a result of the decline in the oil price. Even companies like BG Gas, which has put its proposal in Prince Rupert on hold, are now, I’m told, thinking…. They have other proposals in the Gulf Coast, where there are brownfield sites that have a developed port, are connected to the natural gas pipeline network in North America and are zoned for industrial development. Even those projects are being reconsidered as to whether they will go forward.

It’s a difficult economic environment for an LNG project to go forward. I don’t particularly blame the government for that fact. I’m just astonished and continue to be astonished at the Premier’s rhetoric and the way in which she distorted the economic reality of creating an LNG industry, much to the detriment of other parts of the economy.

I also want to talk a little bit more about some of the other aspects of Liberal promises that I’ve mentioned in the amendment in the time that is allocated to me. One of the singular promises of the Liberals…. This is an important promise. For most people, their contact with the health care system is through their family physician, through him or her. That’s usually their first gateway to health care.

Particularly for those women in child-bearing years, when you’re having children, as I experienced in my family, there are obvious reasons why you need a family physician if you’re giving birth and raising young children. That’s well known. And particularly as you get older, your needs for health care sometimes increase, sometimes drastically if your health is not good or if you’re particularly unfortunate.

Now, what the B.C. Liberals announced in 2010…. They announced a $132 million campaign called A GP for Me, a general practitioner for me — I suppose not everyone would know what a GP is — promising that everyone would be attached to a general physician by 2015. That was repeated in 2013. In 2013 over 600,000 British Columbians didn’t have a family doctor. The Minister of Health in 2014 said, when asked about the target: “Well, we’ll have to wait and see. We still have almost two years to achieve that.” He said that almost a year ago. So by his own calculation, he’s, I suppose, running out of time in 2015.

There are shortages of doctors, but that’s well known. I think, particularly in northern locations, recruiting physicians has been a challenge, and that’s well recognized. I think the government has taken some measures there. But we’re talking about a number of over 600,000. So that’s the case not only in remote locations or northern locations but also in metropolitan areas of the province.

The really striking thing about this promise is that it was made so casually, apparently, that the Auditor General found in the February 2014 report that the Ministry of Health has failed to monitor British Columbians’ access to physicians despite announcing the program back in 2010. The report states:

“We, therefore, expected the ministry to be actively monitoring access to physicians, facility-based and community-based. This is
[ Page 5932 ]
not happening. In 2010 the minister announced a commitment to provide by 2015 a physician for every British Columbian who wishes one — the A GP for Me initiative. However, we found that the ministry is not actively tracking its progress in meeting this goal. The ministry has only estimated the number of unattached patients prior to the initiative’s launch and plans to use the same estimation process in 2015 to look at the change.”

The Auditor General is an independent officer of the Legislature, has no political axe to grind and is simply looking at the reports, the promise, the public statements and analyzing it and coming forward with the report to the Public Accounts Committee.

[1355]

That’s really striking. If you don’t monitor your progress on a promise, can one then reasonably conclude that the government is sincere when they made that promise or that they are sincere about keeping it or that the promise has any value — other than, perhaps, some added value in some government advertising in the run-up to the election? I don’t think so.

That’s a very striking omission, and it’s, I think, a rather damning report by the Auditor General on this topic. One hopes that the government makes some progress on that. As I say, that’s the primary avenue, for many people, through which they receive health care.

One often hears complaints or concerns that people go directly to emergency wards and jam them up for relatively minor ailments — although they may be perceived as major health problems by the people concerned. Partly, that’s because they don’t have access to their own doctor. They’re not on a list. Some of the walk-in clinics run out of their numbers by the middle of the day. So they wind up at the emergency ward.

Obviously this is — as the Minister of Health, I’m sure, would say — a large and complicated problem. But if you’ve announced it now five years ago and you’re not monitoring the results of your commitment, then that’s something to be troubled by.

The other area that I want to touch on in the time that I have…. I’m not sure how much time I have left. Very little time, apparently. I do want to talk about the commitment that was made by the government on opening eight new mines. In fact, five mines have closed — four mines near Tumbler Ridge, plus Mount Polley — since 2011. Three new mines have opened, and two brownfield mines have been reopened. Almost 1,500 miners, since 2011, are out of work.

Again, that’s partly the reason why I’ve included that particular statistic. We hear rather endlessly from those opposite about the mining industry. But the mining industry hasn’t done as well as the B.C. Liberals say. It hasn’t done as well as they promised. That’s at least in part due to the fact that the “central preoccupation,” the “laser-like focus” of the “lens through which we view every decision” — I’m quoting the Premier again; that’s all about LNG — has meant that mining, an important industry — metropolitan Vancouver is a global mining hub; it’s an important industry in British Columbia — hasn’t had the attention that it deserves. And the results speak for themselves.

I moved that amendment because I really hope that we will hear back from the government on these important measures of economic success. That’s not just idle chatter. That’s because, as Carole Taylor has said, British Columbians are feeling insecure about their future. They’re worried about their pensions. They’re worried about the insecure job market. They’re worried about their debt load. They’re worried about whether they’ll have a pension, whether they can retire or not.

In that context, this budget fails absolutely and utterly. That’s why I’ve moved the amendment. That’s why, when the time comes, I will be voting against the budget as a measure of my lack of confidence in this government. I hope the Minister of Education will remember that when he quotes from this speech.

Deputy Speaker: Before we proceed, just to provide clarity to members, although the member for Surrey-Whalley has moved an amendment to the motion to move to Committee of Supply, members are welcome to speak both to the amendment and to the main motion as we continue.

R. Sultan: With respect to the motion by the member for Surrey-Whalley, I don’t believe that this would be in the best interests of British Columbians, and I won’t be supporting it.

[1400]

I would also point out that on Tuesday our Finance Minister informed the House that our British Columbia government has accomplished what, in these times, no other federal or provincial government in Canada could accomplish but has been accomplished here — balance its budget for a third consecutive time. As governments around the world flounder in red ink, they could ask, or they should ask: “How do they do that over there in British Columbia?”

Well, one thing we can say is that it wasn’t accomplished by imposing high taxes. As the minister told the House on Wednesday, British Columbia has the most competitive income tax structure in Canada for families of higher income, families of average income and, yes, families of lower income as well.

Furthermore, on the business side, KPMG, the global accounting and financial firm, in their global survey of tax rates around the world, describes us, all taxes combined, as having just about the most competitive business tax environment in the world. Among nations, they say, Canada has the lowest tax burden. Of major cities around the world, Toronto ranks lowest of all, with Vancouver a close second. For those of you contemplating a move to Paris, France, you might want to take into account that, as estimated by KPMG, their total tax burden for enjoy-
[ Page 5933 ]
ing the Champs Elysées is three times higher than ours.

This is a low-tax environment, and yet we have balanced the books. Our astonishing fiscal performance is not based on magic or accounting sleight of hand.It’s, in fact, based on disciplined expenditures, smart program choices and competent administration, year after year after year. To give credit where credit is due, this present government has performed admirably. But it benefits from a foundation of laws, values and practices created by provincial administrations here in B.C. over the past dozen years.

The budget reflects more than mere tough-minded bean-counting as well. In an evolving world it also reflects stimulus and innovations in encouraging key new areas of business.

I would like to devote most of my remarks this afternoon to one new development which an old banker like me finds particularly exciting. I refer to the budget measures which will facilitate the creation of a renminbi trading hub here on the west coast.

What is a renminbi? Well, it’s the official currency of the People’s Republic of China. We are probably more familiar with the basic unit of the renminbi, which is the yuan. Renminbi is the currency, like sterling, and yuan is the unit of measure, like pound, to use the U.K. analogy. The currency is issued by the People’s Bank of China, their monetary authority.

China is now the second-largest economy in the world, and the largest trading nation. The renminbi — or RMB, in the acronym — is now the fifth-largest global currency in terms of the value of settlement payments. When businesses trade internationally, the currencies involved must be converted to execute the transactions. Traditionally, the renminbi has not been easily or freely convertible to other currencies.

For Canadian businesses, for example, paying for imports of goods from China, Canadian dollars have been usually converted into U.S. dollars and then U.S. dollars are converted into renminbi. For exports, of course, it’s the other way around.

[1405]

Each currency transaction exacts its commission cost. One commission is cheaper than two. Thus, businesses in Canada and potentially right across North America will benefit from our new renminbi hub, the first of its kind in the Americas. The hub is a financial centre sanctioned by China and their central bank to clear and settle transactions in the Chinese currency directly, making it easier and less expensive for people here to do business with China.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimates that direct trade in renminbi could boost the value of B.C. exports by $9.4 billion over ten years. The lion’s share of those estimated export gains are expected to be in the forestry sector, because it’s an industry with highly competitive prices in which the use of the renminbi could make a significant difference in competitive bidding situations.

The government of British Columbia has declared its intention to work closely with partners such as Advantage B.C., a non-profit coalition of trade- and finance-oriented businesses in this province, which benefits from tax measures by this government. The government in this budget indicates it will contribute modest funds to ensure that B.C. businesses are equipped to understand this new tool and put it to work on behalf of their businesses and their employees.

A bit of history. I happened to be present at the birth of the antecedent organization of Advantage B.C. back in Montreal during the 1970s, if you can believe it. In those days it was called the International Financial Centre, or IFC. It operated as a federal tax–driven institution aimed at making Quebec financial institutions more competitive in the Atlantic sphere. Now, under the leadership of such British Columbia business leaders as Bruce Flexman and, now, Colin Hansen, we have seen its evolution as a west coast, provincial government tax–driven and –assisted, Pacific-oriented cooperative coalition.

Four months ago on November 8, 2014, a memorandum of understanding between the Bank of Canada and the People’s Bank of China was signed which will establish Canada as North America’s first offshore renminbi hub. The agreement has the full support of the governments of British Columbia and Ontario. The hub will offer opportunities for businesses across Canada to undertake renminbi-denominated bonds and equities from mainland China.

Exchanging one currency for another is a huge business opportunity for British Columbia. Global currency trading volume is estimated at about $5 trillion a day, iIn a world GDP of around U.S. $75 trillion, estimated in nominal terms. In other words, as a crude estimate, every 15 days, foreign exchange trading volume equals annual GDP volume. There’s a lot of trading going on out there.

China’s GDP is approaching $10 trillion. Canada is not much more than $1½ trillion. The potential trillions of trading volumes in prospect for a renminbi hub can challenge our ability to keep track of the zeros as we do the estimates.

FX, foreign exchange, can be very profitable. I refer again to my career at Canada’s largest bank in the 1970s and early 80s, when I was amazed to learn that FX, foreign exchange, trading accounted for a quarter to a third of our total earnings. I was flabbergasted.

[1410]

More recently, in 2014, first-quarter Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets earnings were half a billion dollars, about one-quarter of its total earnings and up 8 percent on the quarter, primarily due to fixed income, commodity and foreign exchange trading activities, plus higher M and A — merger and acquisition — fees.

Notice that FX trading is lumped in with a lot of other trading. The trading desks are adjacent. The days, which I
[ Page 5934 ]
recall, when FX was a separate department are long gone.

Thus our opportunity to trade profitably the renminbi from a base in Canada is tremendous. It is far bigger than our Euro trade. It is also a unique opportunity for Vancouver to put additional vigour back into a downtown corporate sector which has languished, to be perfectly blunt. Are we content to be viewed by some internationally as merely a beautiful place to park one’s capital, or do we aspire to rebuild a serious business headquarters town and financial centre?

Even setting aside the LNG opportunity, which now, it seems clear, may move along more slowly than we had hoped in these choppy energy supply-and-demand times, the British Columbia numbers are still compelling. To quote the recent IFC working group — that is to say, the old name of Advantage B.C. — report on international financial services for B.C.:” Canada exports $20 billion annually to China and imports over $50 billion.”

Seventy percent of China-Canada commodity trades and letters of credit transactions are being handled in Vancouver. Vancouver has experienced a significant expansion of Asian financial institutions, with three of the largest banks in the world — the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, and the Bank of China — as well as HSBC, the Hong Kong and Shanghai bank of Canada, being established here for many, many years.

China is B.C.’s second-largest export customer, accounting for almost 20 percent of trade, up from only 4 percent a decade ago, making British Columbia the Canadian province least reliant on the large and fast-growing American market.

While the American opportunity will always be large and appealing and, obviously, one that we are enviably positioned to benefit from, we have also learned, to our disappointment, the perils of Canadian-American trade and investment arrangements, whether that be impediments imposed on softwood lumber, the Keystone XL pipeline saga or bridges across the Detroit River.

It’s also notable that B.C. was the first foreign government in the world to issue bonds denominated in renminbi — the first foreign government in the world. And we have now issued a renminbi 3 billion note, which was quickly oversubscribed. These innovations do not go unnoticed in China or in capital markets elsewhere. Therefore, the creation of a renminbi hub in Canada is a natural step in our many ties with this huge and fast-growing country of China.

I personally would argue that Vancouver be the logical Canadian renminbi trading hub. I would refer to five factors.

Our Pacific trade traditions, stretching back in history to the CPR’s fleet of White Empress ships coming through the First Narrows plying the China trade. I actually remember those wonderful steamships.

Two, location, location, location on the Pacific Rim. Sorry, Toronto.

Language, language, language, with one of the highest concentrations of persons fluent in Chinese on the continent.

Fourthly, our large and sophisticated culture-proficient, commerce-oriented, Chinese-Canadian population, many already engaged in transpacific enterprise.

Finally, the solid groundwork already in place through the efforts of Advantage B.C.

[1415]

It is also encouraging that B.C. export and import trade itself will be a major beneficiary. A recent study by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimated the direct trade in the renminbi could save Canadian firms up to $6.2 billion over ten years, as indicated, by reducing transaction costs and increasing exports in the range of $21 billion to $32 billion. B.C. would share significantly in these productivity and volume gains.

The renminbi base of business will encompass far more than mere trade. It will also involve wealth management, where Advantage B.C. has a long history in this province. All that Asian wealth must be managed by somebody somewhere. And where better than right here in Vancouver?

However, let us also recognize some of the complications. The political dimension will be critical. We should not be so naive to think the Americans will be pleased to see British Columbians working directly with Chinese financial institutions that bypass some proportion of U.S. dollar transactions.

And then we have Toronto — the supremely dominant financial institution reality in Canada. Given Toronto’s massive position in the financial sector, it is probably inevitable that Toronto will continue to receive — again, in my personal opinion — most-favoured-nation treatment when it goes to Ottawa. The concept of Vancouver complementing Toronto sounds nice, but how would that actually work out in practice? Bowing to reality, therefore, B.C. is committed to cooperating and helping in the evolution of a pan-Canadian hub involving both Vancouver and Toronto.

Finally, let’s notice that Calgary will not be oblivious to these developments. It will try to exploit its stature as now the major western Canadian financial centre and will try to promote its head office advantages over B.C. and Vancouver. However, I believe their U.S. bias and their oil industry dependency will be a disadvantage as they compete with British Columbia in fostering closer financial ties with China.

A final complication. Regulation and transparency can also be a challenge. Canada’s federal government jealously maintains its jurisdiction of banking. They prefer bankers who are familiar to them, first-name basis, and they are; transparent — they know exactly what’s going on, and the reporting is frequent and generally accurate; and geographically convenient. In Montreal we could get
[ Page 5935 ]
in the car and be in Ottawa in a couple of hours.

Let’s not forget that not many months ago, Mark Carney — formerly head of the Bank of Canada, now head of the Bank of England — fired his chief foreign exchange trader of the Bank of England for being secretive. This gives you some idea of the value system under which bankers, particularly central bankers, like to operate.

So let us also not slip into the assumption that Vancouver’s physical proximity to Asia will guarantee a market position. That’s unlikely to be true. In today’s electronic world, a trading desk can be virtually anywhere.

There’s also a big critical mass issue. Where trading occurs is, in the main, a banking decision. It will be hard to reverse Canadian banks’ historical location choices, and in recent decades they have not particularly favoured Vancouver.

But there’s a new kid in town: the Chinese banks. This is our opportunity. We should embrace that reality. It’s a golden opportunity to re-establish our once dominant western financial presence in this country.

[1420]

To sum up. B.C. Budget 2015 sets the table for a huge opportunity, which we should choose. Working hand in hand with Advantage B.C. and Toronto, we should aim to consolidate our attractiveness to Asian financial institutions and become the logical centre of FX trading for the renminbi in all of North America, not just in Canada. Let’s do it.

S. Simpson: I’m pleased to have the opportunity to join the debate on the budget and to get a chance to talk about where this government wants to take us over the next period of time.

When we talk about budgets produced by governments, they’re more than simply sets of numbers. They’re more than a bottom line. They really are about the vision of government. They’re about government strategy. They’re about how government intends to engage that vision and that strategy and, in a programmatic way, what that starts to look like. They are about how governments decide to create strategies that will create jobs and opportunity for people — in this case, in British Columbia — and they are about how governments embrace fairness. Especially, that becomes true in tough times and in times when people are very pressured around money — times like today.

That’s what we have to look at when we look at a budget. I know that the government and the member previously, who I always appreciate listening to, and other members have been pretty single-minded in terms of trying to embrace this because of a bottom-line number and saying that it’s a successful budget because of a bottom-line number.

That’s not the way that you measure budgets in terms of how the people in this province live their lives every day and in terms of the struggles and challenges they have and in terms of the responsibility and obligation of government to help to ease that a little bit where they can; to create some opportunity where they can; to, in fact, be a partner with the people of the province when they can; to help people achieve better outcomes for themselves, for their children, for their family and their loved ones.

The question becomes: has this budget taken us down the road to accomplish that? Well, I think you look first at some of those values. You look at how some of those things are reflected in the budget. I think one of the items, and the one that probably jumps out first and foremost — it’s the one that’s become a topic across this province, and rightly so — is the decision of the government to effect, essentially, a tax cut for the top 2 percent earners in this province, to effect a tax cut for those people who earn more than $150,000 a year.

What that tax cut means…. That’s $236 million, that tax cut. As an example, for somebody who has a million dollars a year, that means $17,000 more in their pocket. The contrast to that is that the government put in place fees in excess of $700 million that people will face in this province. That’s $700 million in the next year. We’ll talk a little bit more about that as we move forward.

What that tax cut for the top 2 percent says, more than anything else, is: what are the values of the government? What is the vision of the government? How does the government view what’s good for British Columbia? I think it just speaks legions when you look at that — a tax cut for the top 2 percent earners. It just simply is not justified in any way, shape or form, particularly at this time, and it’s a cut that we know nobody has been talking about. It’s a cut that none of those earners were talking about.

Let’s talk about what the effects are and why that’s so problematic and why so many people in this province are angry at the government for making the decision to support those who can afford to pay a little bit more, could afford what they were paying. They’re not being asked to pay more. They’re just being asked to continue to pay what they were paying.

[1425]

What’s the problem here? Well, let’s look at some of these. We have a challenge with inequality in this province. We know the challenge is real. We know it’s a problem. We know from Stats Canada numbers that British Columbia has the highest level of inequality in this country among provinces: the difference, the spread, between the wealthiest 2 percent — probably the high end of the 2 percent — and the folks at the bottom end, the folks who will get a break because of the clawback. Those folks versus the folks at the other end — we know that we have the highest levels of inequality in the province when it comes to that. We also know that we have the lowest wage growth, or some of the lowest wage growth, in the province as well — again, Stats Canada numbers.

We have this situation. To put this in some kind of context, when you talk about poverty…. We’ve often
[ Page 5936 ]
in this place talked about poverty reduction. Now that Saskatchewan has adopted a poverty reduction plan, British Columbia is the only province in Canada that has not seen poverty reduction as a priority that deserves specific and direct attention, the only province in the country that has not embraced a plan that said: “We are going to put targets and timelines on this. We are going to focus some effort and initiative to drive poverty down, and we are going to look at the causes of poverty and see what we can do to drive those down.”

It’s a real problem in this province. We have about half a million people in British Columbia who live in poverty, based on Stats Canada numbers. Roughly a third of those are kids. We have continued to have the worst numbers, or bordering on the worst numbers, of poverty in this country for over a decade.

It’s challenging to get at that. It’s not easy to resolve, and it’s not cheap to resolve. But at least every other province in this country saw fit to focus on making the effort. British Columbia is the only province that has not seen fit to focus on an effort to try to address that issue — an effort that may have been successful, may not, but at least there would’ve been effort. There has been no effort here in British Columbia and no effort from this government.

What the government has said about poverty when it’s been raised here is…. It’s talked about strong economies. It’s talked about jobs. So let’s talk about jobs.

We have a jobs plan in British Columbia, a jobs plan that was adopted by this government in 2011. Now, what we’ve seen from the jobs plan is anemic performance at best. We currently have the lowest employment rate west of the Maritimes in the country. We’re doing better than folks in the Maritimes — I’ll give you that — but everybody else in the country not so much in terms of employment growth.

We’ve seen our numbers that put us at about seventh place in growth — certainly, since the plan was adopted in 2011, sitting at about seventh place overall. We’ve seen a situation where we have had minimal growth, particularly in terms of high-income jobs. That’s been a part of the problem. Most of the job creation we’ve also seen has been low-income jobs and low-income growth. That may, in some ways, be some of the biggest challenge that we face, in fact: how we grow our jobs and the value of those jobs.

When you look at Stats Canada numbers and you adjust for inflation based on Stats Canada numbers, it shows that B.C. wages between 2006 and 2012 actually fell in terms of their buying power by 2.4 percent, putting us in last place in real wage growth.

[1430]

This becomes a problem. It’s a problem not just for us, but it’s a problem that’s being recognized by business leaders across this province.

Business leaders are talking about this challenge. On January 22 in the Vancouver Sun, in response to an article about these issues of low wage growth, the following comment was made. “Income data released over several years ‘suggests our economy isn’t creating enough high-paying jobs, that there are relatively more low-paying jobs over time within the broader labour market and that policy-makers need to pay more attention to the problem of significant numbers of employed people whose job-related earnings make it hard to support a household.’”

That was a comment by Jock Finlayson from the B.C. Business Council. That was Jock Finlayson saying that policy-makers in this province need to pay more attention to job growth and wage growth in this province and that we’re not getting it done.

I had the opportunity to attend a Vancouver Board of Trade event looking at the state of the economy. One of the key speakers at that event was Tamara Vrooman, a well-known, well-respected business leader, president and CEO of Vancity Savings, past Deputy Minister of Finance here with this government. When she was asked what the most important issue facing British Columbia is today, she said low wage growth. For her it was low wage growth and the impacts of low wage growth and what that does on spending and on business stimulus.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

We know that in this province — again, you can go back to Mr. Finlayson’s work, because he’s spoken about this on numerous occasions — the key drivers in this economy tend to be residential construction and consumer spending, and low wage growth becomes a significant problem on the consumer spending side. If people don’t have money in their pockets, they don’t spend the money.

That comes back to the challenges of over $700 million of additional fees/taxes, call it what you may, this year in this budget. So we have this situation where we have the challenge around jobs, around wage growth, around anemic job growth in the province, and, as I said before, we have a significant challenge around fees.

I spoke a minute ago about the situation with the tax cut for the top 2 percent — a $236 million tax cut — and we have to contrast that with those additional fees. Revenue anticipated from tax hikes — call it fees; call it taxes; call it what you will — Hydro, $286 million in ‘15-16; MSP, $93 million; ICBC, $206 million; ferries, $61 million; tuition, $62 million; adjustments to the homeowner grant threshold, $6 million. That’s $714 million of new fees and costs, with very, very little relief in this budget. Very little relief in this budget.

How did we get here, what is the response, and how does the government deal with this? Well, we know the response up until budget day, up until this budget, to pretty much any question related to the anemic state of the economy. To be clear — I’ll echo the comments of my colleague from Surrey-Whalley here a little bit — it’s
[ Page 5937 ]
been a challenging time in the economy everywhere, and we all know that. But the response has been LNG. There has been no response other than LNG when it has come to this province’s and this government’s response and, primarily, the Premier’s response. It has certainly been echoed by her colleagues in the executive council.

You know, the Premier told us…. She called LNG her government’s central preoccupation, and her laser focus promised one LNG terminal would be on line by 2015 and three would be on line by 2020. Those numbers have bounced around a lot, but that was the claim.

[1435]

The result of the claims that the Premier made about LNG, she was pretty specific about. The Premier wasn’t vague. She was pretty specific about the value for British Columbians of LNG.

She promised a windfall from LNG that would wipe out British Columbia’s debt, would reduce or eliminate the sales tax, would fund enhanced government programs, generate $1 trillion of economic activity, fill a $100 billion prosperity fund and create as many as 100,000 jobs.

Apparently it’s not a windfall anymore. It’s aspirational now. That’s the difference. It’s now become aspirational and not a windfall. It’s a chance that we’ll get this. It wasn’t a chance when the Premier started talking about this. It wasn’t a chance when the government set everything else aside to focus on this, the central preoccupation of this government, as the Premier has said — the central preoccupation.

Well, we all know that none of that has been accomplished. None of that has been accomplished. There’s an argument today that the price of oil has exacerbated the challenge of accomplishing that, and I think there’s some truth to that. I certainly believe there’s some truth to that, but let’s be clear. We have some idea of the amount of actual work that needs to be done to get to that point where we could open the door for LNG. The Premier talked about a plant in 2015; we have to remember that. Yet none of the steps that had to be taken were taken until last fall — around taxes, around environment, around any of those issues.

If the government was that slow off the mark to accomplish those things, how on earth would it even have been possible to be talking about a 2015 plant? That’s because we mostly saw rhetoric. The government’s rhetoric is very good, and the Premier’s rhetoric is excellent, but that’s mostly what we saw.

Unfortunately, we’ve created a situation now where people are frustrated because of the promises that were never kept — the promises that were so definitive, so matter-of-fact from this Premier, and not kept. That’s a problem. That’s the situation that we face today.

How do we respond to this in this budget? Well, one of the things government has done — and governments of all stripes do this, and it is not a bad thing — is invest in capital spending, another $4½ billion. That will take us up to record levels of over $70 billion of debt, primarily on capital spending.

It’s not a bad thing on its own, by any means. You need to determine those projects — which projects make sense, and which projects don’t make sense — set the priorities for those projects, and move ahead.

Now here is the challenge, though, that we’ve seen with this government on these projects. The government has had a habit of having dramatic cost overruns. It has been the government’s habit on major capital projects.

On project after project we have seen major capital and cost overruns, cost overruns that add to those billions of dollars, hopefully some of it being well spent on things that we need, whether it’s new schools, new health care facilities, roads, infrastructure — all important. But what do we know when we look back?

Just to look at five of the major projects that this government has produced over the last number of years…. The northwest transmission line — $342 million over budget. That’s 85 percent. The South Fraser Perimeter Road — $464 million over budget, 58 percent. The Port Mann/Highway 1 — $1.8 billion over budget, 120 percent. The Vancouver Convention Centre — $341 million over budget, 68 percent. The B.C. Place roof — $149 million, or 41 percent. For five projects, $3.1 billion over budget.

Think about what we could have done with that money if the government had simply managed those projects properly. Think about what we could have done with that money — over $3 billion.

[1440]

That’s part of the problem we have here in relation to how we deal with that. What do we need to do here? Well, we would start with the need to really talk about economic development in ways that are jobs-driven and about high, good-paying jobs.

Economic development that’s about good-paying jobs. That was part of the challenge, as we know, with the LNG initiatives as it became clearer and clearer that memorandums of agreement were being signed with nations of origin or with some of the major companies that made it clear that significant numbers, if not a majority, of temporary foreign workers would be accepted as part of the mix.

We all know temporary foreign workers add little value for British Columbia. Now, workers who come to this country with a path to citizenship and the opportunity to set down roots here and make Canada and British Columbia their home — they add real value. But that’s not what we’re talking about in this instance.

We need to have a B.C.-first plan here. We’ve heard the rhetoric about B.C. first. That rhetoric has to be realized in terms of actual programs. I don’t think we’ve seen that.

We need to have real investment in education. Real investment in education doesn’t
[ Page 5938 ]
mean cutting the budget for post-secondary. Real investment in education doesn’t mean nickel-and-diming school boards once again. It means putting money in and seeing education truly as an investment and not as an expense. We need to do more of that.

And there needs to be a clear strategy about how we strengthen the middle class in this province, how we strengthen middle-class and working people. We know — all of the literature will tell you — that if you want to reduce inequality, one of the cornerstones of reducing inequality is strengthening the middle class. That’s the key to the success of reducing inequality.

We’re not doing that in British Columbia right now, and it’s a problem. We need to reinforce that and find ways to do that. This budget didn’t take us there.

It comes back, I guess, to the comment that I made at the beginning. I understand the government is pleased with the bottom line of this budget, and I get that. Everybody likes to have budgets that stay in the black.

But government budgets are about much, much more than that. They are about a plan. They are about a strategy. They are about a vision. They are about fairness and balance. They are about embracing the people that we represent and making sure they have opportunities — that we’re giving them the tools to ensure their kids have opportunities, that we’re taking care of seniors, that we’re taking care of those people who face the biggest challenges and are the most vulnerable in our society. All of that is part of where a budget has to go.

When you balance the budget, you want to balance the numbers but you have to balance those other values and other needs as well. If you can’t accomplish that, then your budget is not a success and your budget hasn’t worked and your budget has not taken us where we need to go. This budget has not accomplished those things. It hasn’t accomplished them in any way, shape or form.

I know how much this frustrates the other side, but it probably is the biggest symbol of this, of where those misplaced priorities are: top 2 percent earners, $236 million of tax cuts. Everybody else, $700 million of additional fees. That’s what we have. How that makes sense, how that’s fair, how that’s balanced and how that helps this province move forward are questions that have not been answered by that side in any way.

[1445]

What I expect we will see bear itself out over the next couple of years is that this budget has come up terribly short in terms of meeting the needs and aspirations of the vast majority of people in this province — meeting the needs and aspirations of our kids, our seniors, the people who are looking forward to some hope. If you can’t create hope, you have to ask yourself what you’re doing. If you can’t create opportunity, you have to ask yourself what you’re doing.

To the Premier, it has to be more than empty rhetoric. It has to be substantive. We have now seen, based on the evidence, years and years where this simply has not been substantive. This is another example where it’s not substantive.

J. Martin: It is a privilege to rise in this House to represent my constituents in Chilliwack and to address the 2015 budget in the fourth session of the 40th parliament. It’s not only an honour to represent the people of Chilliwack, but I also take great pride in this budget because we have delivered on a key election promise, that being another balanced budget — not once, not twice but three times, three times, three times. I very much look forward, 12 months from now, to being able to speak to a fourth consecutive budget.

British Columbia is the only province in Canada to currently post a balanced budget. We are the envy of the country. We are the envy of the international community. What we are doing in B.C. is working.

I think it’s also noteworthy that we have eliminated the deficit without reducing services to British Columbians, and we have done so without drastic cuts to public service, as was done in other eras. As a matter of fact, we have our hard-working public servants and the unions that represent them to thank for being such a big part in this process. Approximately two-thirds of the B.C. public servants have already agreed to a five-year contract. Furthermore, under the new mandate, public servants will benefit as the economy continues to grow.

Now, I know some of the opposition members question the importance of balancing the budget and paying off the public debt. The reason is simple: it makes great sense to get our financial house in order so that we can focus precious tax dollars on things that matter to British Columbians.

Things such as health care. A balanced budget means we can afford a $3 billion increase to the health care budget over the next three years.

Things like education. Because of a balanced budget, we are able to provide additional funding — $106.5 million in the next fiscal year, an additional $200 million the following year and another $257.5 million the year after that. This is very predictable funding that the school boards across the country can count on.

In total, we are spending an extra $3.7 billion on health care and education in the next three years, because we have balanced the books and have done so without raising personal income taxes. As a matter of fact, British Columbians enjoy the lowest personal income taxes in the country, and they do so because we have balanced the budget. And we are committed to continue doing so. Furthermore, we are competitive in markets internationally because we also have some of the lowest corporate income taxes.

When we talk about a balanced budget, we’re not just talking about fiscal prudence; we’re talking about a social balance too. I know the opposition members like to portray themselves as members of the only party with
[ Page 5939 ]
a social conscience, but I can assure you that is not the case. We have balanced the books, and we are now in a position to help those British Columbians most in need.

As of September 1, 2015, single parents receiving income assistance will now be able to receive child support payments from non-custodial parents without exemption from their monthly supplement. This means an additional $32 million over three years for some of the neediest children and families in British Columbia.

Now, one might expect the government to be congratulated by the opposition for taking steps to spend a portion of the very slim surplus on those most in need, but all we really hear is a clamour of confused and uncoordinated policies from the opposition that just tend to make no sense.

One of the most curious policy initiatives announced in advance of the budget is a proposal to change the provincial electoral system. Well, this is bizarre. This is the member for Saanich North and the Islands pledging that if the NDP is elected government, it would pursue some form of proportional representation. But they don’t quite know what form.

[1450]

Now, it’s not clear why the NDP feel this is a top priority in British Columbia, especially since the idea was soundly rejected by voters — not just once, in 2005, but a second time, in 2009. I can appreciate the frustration that opposition members must experience, with a record of three and 21 in elections. No doubt the Toronto Maple Leafs would probably like to see some rule changes right now too. But that’s not really the way that it should work.

What is even more curious is the apparent flip-flop on the part of the NDP on proportional representation. Speaking on the concept of the so-called single transferable vote, the hon. member for Port Coquitlam told the newspaper Coquitlam Now in a 2008 interview: “None of the surveys that I’ve sent out have come back with residents saying that this is a pressing issue. I don’t hear about it from anybody. I’ve been more focused on issues that my constituents are talking about.”

How about the Leader of the Opposition, who told the Vancouver Sun in 2008: “Could it not be argued that it’s a bit of a waste of money and resources and energy to put forward a question again with a supermajority that wasn’t achieved at the height of discussion on electoral reform?”

How about the former member for Fraser-Nicola, who told the Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal in 2009: “It’s okay for urban centres. It’s a recipe for disaster in rural B.C.”

Well, it sounds to me that maybe the opposition should consult each other about this a little bit before they take it to the province.

What are the real priorities for British Columbians? Well, we think it’s about balancing the budget, paying down the debt and addressing real-life…

Interjections.

J. Martin: Hold that thought for a moment.

…social and economic needs in this province. I just don’t think that British Columbians are staying up late at night thinking about some European theoretical model of electoral reform that really isn’t working very well.

May I suggest that the real discussion perhaps should be about things that matter to people, things like $3.7 billion in additional funding for health care and education over the next three years, things like $31 million in measures to strengthen economic growth and job creation, $150 million to make life a little easier for families and those in need.

British Columbians elected a government the old-fashioned way, in the democratic process. In doing so, they voted for a party that promised to balance the budget.

As a matter of fact, while the opposition has called the budget and the Speech from the Throne boring, I invite them to take a good, hard look at other countries around the world that are reeling from plunging oil prices and populations facing severe austerity measures as a result. You can call that boring if you want. I call it stable. In fact, British Columbia is a port of stability in a sea of uncertainty right now. We are the envy.

The truth is that members of the opposition are keenly aware that our government is following a well-conceived plan that was laid out before the last election. The NDP resents the fact that we’ve had discipline to carry it out.

During the last election, British Columbians realized the NDP was making it up on the go. They were winging it, making up policy as they went along. Their leader cast caution to the wind and began making up pronouncements on the fly that didn’t make any sense. No one in the party had a clue that any of that was coming.

It was clear the NDP had no intention of sticking to any semblance of an economic plan. Eager to grab the keys to the treasury, they forgot one basic obligation to the voting public, and that is simple respect for the taxpayer. If that’s boring, so be it.

Sometimes it all comes down to owning up to our mistakes. I’ve made my share of mine. I’m sure I’ve eaten as much crow as anybody in this House in the last couple of years. That’s really not such a bad thing. You brine it with some apple juice and a little bit of kosher salt, some 16-mesh ground pepper, and after a while, a little humility is not such a bad thing.

Well, before the last election the NDP was adamant that our budget was not going to be balanced. “It was trickery. It was a mirage. It wasn’t a balanced budget. It was creative accounting,” they said. Well, maybe I’m just too much of a Mr. Nice Guy. I’m going to give the opposition the benefit of the doubt.

[1455]

Let’s say that they actually did honestly believe that that budget was not balanced. Maybe that’s the information they got from the NDP war room. We all know that there’s a little bit maybe suspect in that particular quar-
[ Page 5940 ]
ter. But let’s say they did believe that that budget was not balanced. Fair enough.

We know how the NDP campaigned. They talked about the Liberal deficit. Nine days into the election, when they finally got around to putting out their platform, it called for four consecutive deficit budgets. I guarantee you that’s one promise the NDP would have kept if they’d formed government.

At the end of the day, though, it was balanced. Every single economic measure confirms that it was a balanced budget. So what about a little humility? What about one single member of the opposition saying, “You know what, Mr. Finance Minister? You know what, Madam Premier? You were right. You did present a balanced budget. I regret my suggestion otherwise”? Just one person. That’s all it would take. It’s not a bad thing to be wrong and to admit it. Three years later, mind you, but that would still be better than what we have right now.

Okay, let’s review the NDP track record when they’re in government — eight deficit budgets in a row, six consecutive credit downgrades, the highest income taxes in Canada. We became a have-not province. We lined up behind Quebec, cap in hand, begging for handouts from provinces that had the good fortune not to be governed by the NDP.

This government came out and said exactly what they were going to do in terms of getting our financial house in order, balancing the books and delivering a balanced budget. We did that. It behooves the question: what does the NDP believe in? We know what they’re against. They’re against balanced budgets, against triple-A credit ratings, against controlling spending, against low income taxes. What else are they against?

An Hon. Member: Unicorns. Butterflies.

J. Martin: LNG? Fracking? Site C? Northwest transmission line? Pipelines? I could go on, and noting the hour, I think I’ll do that exactly. They’re against the Port Mann Bridge, against the Trade and Convention Centre, against B.C. Place, against the South Fraser Perimeter Road.

An Hon. Member: Replacement of the Massey Tunnel.

J. Martin: Yeah.

Against the Olympics, against Expo 86. If they’d been around at the time, I’m sure they’d have been against the fur trade. I’m sure, if they were around at the time, they would have wanted to send Jacques Cartier packing because he was a temporary foreign worker.

This government committed to getting B.C.’s financial house in order. I’m very, very happy to be part of today’s discussion confirming that we have a balanced budget. We’ll be on track for another one in 2014.

J. Darcy: Could I have leave to make an introduction, please?

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

J. Darcy: I introduced this morning the first group of students from Lord Tweedsmuir school who were visiting. In the galleries now we have the second group of students who are visiting. They are smart; they are eager; they are curious. When we talked beforehand, they know what budgets are. They know what taxes are. They even know what flavoured tobacco is. Please make these students feel very, very welcome in the Legislature.

J. Shin: I also would like to seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

J. Shin: Today in the gallery, I’m also joined by two groups from a school in my riding, the Stoney Creek Community School. I would like the House to please welcome the group of young students and their teachers that are joining us in the House today.

I just want to put in a comment that we absolutely love happiness and unicorns and flowers and butterflies on this side of the House.

Debate Continued

R. Fleming: It’s a pleasure to take my place in this debate this afternoon. I certainly have enjoyed some of the views espoused by members of both sides of the House, believe it or not.

[1500]

I want to speak a little bit, in particular, about education, because I serve my caucus as spokesperson on the K-to-12 ministry.

But I think I will begin my overview of Budget 2015 where others have rightly done so as well — to look at really what was the main highlight of this budget, to look at what was the largest spend in Budget 2015. That is what, over three years, will amount to three-quarters of a billion dollars — $230 million a year — on a tax cut for the top 2 percent of income-tax-filers in British Columbia.

To the extent that British Columbians are talking about this budget at all, this is what they’re talking about. This is the big spend, the big priority revealed by this government that they’re talking about at the water coolers in British Columbia. It is a head scratcher, to be certain. It is something that nobody asked for.

There are members on both sides of the House who I would thank for their service on the Standing Committee
[ Page 5941 ]
on Finance, who travelled right across British Columbia in every region — dozens and dozens of towns — and heard from those who wished to come and testify and share ideas about creating jobs, about public services, where improvements should be, about reducing inequality, about helping vulnerable people, about working towards reconciliation with First Nations and a host of other topics.

I went through some of the transcripts of those meetings in the time that I had to prepare for this debate. I didn’t find one presenter anywhere in British Columbia that made a presentation to the Standing Committee on Finance saying: “You know what British Columbia should do to increase its prosperity and grow its economy? Give the top 2 percent of income tax–filers a whopping tax cut.” It didn’t happen. But that’s what this government’s number one priority is.

You know what? I want to thank both Liberal and New Democrat members, independent members of the Finance Committee for the work they did because they did put some thoughtfulness into the recommendations that were made to the House. That again, I think, is something that you have to look at when you analyze this budget. None of those good ideas — and some of them have not appeared for the first time but several years in a row…. They were ignored once again.

Clearly, after the throne speech that we saw a couple of weeks ago…. I think one pundit said that on this day in history — February 10, 2015 — it will mark the day that this government ran out of ideas. Clearly, this is a government in search of ideas, and they can find them from the Standing Committee on Finance in this place, our own Legislative Assembly. But it was not to be.

You know what’s interesting at this stage in debate? Though we’ve heard from several members on either side making some very good points, I have not heard one member of the government side, not even the Finance Minister at this stage of debate, stand up and explain why a $230 million tax cut for the top 2 percent is a good thing for British Columbia.

No one has linked this to an economic outcome or a plan. Nobody on the government side has said that this is a specific initiative to grow the import car dealers’ sector of our economy, or the luxury food or the five-star hotel sector of our economy. Nobody has even offered a flimsy, ridiculous excuse like that. We’ve had nothing.

There’s nothing in the government’s so-called jobs plan that says that the areas where there are serious skills gaps that are opening up and have been present in our economy for several years require to be addressed by a 2 percent tax cut for the top income filers in B.C. So it’s a very, very puzzling initiative, considering that this is the mainstay of the budget and what people are talking about in British Columbia.

Now, I’d be curious to see if the Ministry of Finance gave the Treasury Board, the cabinet, even the Liberal caucus, an analysis — a neutral perspective from economists that work hard for the people of British Columbia, information that said that this is a good idea.

[1505]

Did the Ministry of Finance provide advice to the minister and to the government that said: “You know, what we should spend three-quarters of a billion dollars over the service plan of this budget on is a tax cut for the top 2 percent.”

I would put a freedom-of-information request in about this, and I’m sure I’d get something back redacted, if there was any advice at all. That probably wouldn’t glean anything. Perhaps if there was something redacted, as I’m sure it would be, it would be filed under the “Crazy Bad Idea” section of the Ministry of Finance.

It would probably be in a manila envelope that said: “Don’t do this.” There is no progressive jurisdiction on this continent or others in the industrialized world that is saying that neoconservative fiscal policy is a good idea as a way to grow back growth rates and create employment and sharing prosperity in a period where we have recovered from the 2009 recession.

Nobody is saying that in the OECD. Even a group of millionaires in Davos, Switzerland, a month ago didn’t say that income tax cuts for the top 2 percent was the way forward. Only in British Columbia, only in that cabinet, are they saying the way forward to strengthen your economy is a tax cut for the top 2 percent. That’s how out to lunch they are.

In fact, economic experts, elected officials and leaders in other parts of the world are focusing on exactly what was missed by this budget. They are concerned about persistently low growth rates in this decade and projected into the future. They are worried about a shrinking middle class in their midst. That’s a real issue here in British Columbia when we look at the income trends, particularly B.C. compared to other parts of Canada. The income trends in British Columbia are not good — take-home pay and the rising cost of living in this province.

Other jurisdictions are focused, rightly so, on how to stop the shrinking of the middle class and how to strengthen it; how to build up a consumer base; how to have more stable employment; how to increase growth rates so that instead of a future where people are losing hope in institutions like this one and feeling that no matter how hard they work they can’t get ahead, they have a stake in an opportunity society. That’s what progressive jurisdictions are trying to figure out.

Growing inequality is not something that just the NDP in Canada talks about. We have people across the political spectrum who have recognized its detriment to Canada and provinces like British Columbia. We have a lot of examples where a shrinking middle class or a middle class that is under assault leads to well-documented problems. You lose social cohesion. You have to work longer and harder to support your family, and it begins
[ Page 5942 ]
to feel unrewarded.

This is a well-studied problem in the OECD. In fact, there was a report just last month, that I would recommend members of the government cabinet in particular read, by Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary for the United States and the president emeritus of Harvard. He put his finger on the problem of inequality and the risks to jurisdictions that ignore it — the risks of jurisdictions that do not see the need to protect a progressive element to their tax codes or create policies that focus on shared prosperity.

This is a problem around income and middle-class anxiety in British Columbia. Members of this House will know it, because they interact with their constituents all the time in the community, in their offices trying to help them with problems.

I’m sure that people even on that side of the House can well understand…. By talking to any hard-working two-income family that’s trying to raise their kids in B.C. and pay B.C.’s high housing costs — and, in many cases, who are now earning less on average than workers in other provinces make — you’ll soon see what the sources of that anxiety are.

Primary among them for many working families in B.C. is that parents don’t have enough to help their kids get the education they need beyond high school to be competitive, to be able to thrive, in the labour market. That’s because savings, in average households in Canada and B.C., are amongst the worst in the industrialized world.

[1510]

There is what the former Bank of Canada governor, Mark Carney, called a crisis of savings in our country amongst middle-class people. When parents in B.C. worry about whether they’ll be able to afford advanced education for their kids because they haven’t managed to create the kinds of savings that are needed to afford it, they look at this government. They look at a government where the cost of post-secondary education has absolutely soared in their decade in office. When they assumed office, it cost under $2,000 a year for a year of university or for a career-training program. It now costs well over $5,000 a year — in a relatively short period of time.

Those people who have those worries about the future of their kids and whether they’re going to be able to afford to get them into university will now be looking at the priorities outlined in this budget. They will see that their kids have gone from having to pay under 2 grand a year for university to over $5,000 a year. They will see that in this budget the top 2 percent are actually getting a break of $2,000 on their income taxes if they make $150,000 a year — a break that they won’t get, a break that will help the best-off 2 percent in this province afford things like advanced education that they’re increasingly feeling shut out for, for their own kids. That’s what they’ll realize.

What is being rejected in most parts of the world is the idea that flatter, more regressive tax regimes somehow work. I mean, this was ludicrous in the 1980s, when it was in vogue. It’s even sillier in the 21st century, in the here and now, in 2015, because we know that it doesn’t work. We know that, because I’ve outlined the decline in the middle class. Others have outlined that. It’s happening in British Columbia. We did go in a more regressive direction for many decades, and we’re paying the price for it now.

It’s harder to look ahead and figure out how to have broader, more shared prosperity. It takes more intentionality amongst government policy-makers to do that, because we’re dealing with a more regressive tax system in Canada and in British Columbia — especially British Columbia. Over the last decade it has become distinctly worse.

Let’s look at somebody amongst the top 2 percent who did even better. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is a millionaire’s budget, because if you make $1 million in British Columbia, you just got $17,000 back in your pocket. That’s a huge sum of money, not for a millionaire, but for a working family.

That is huge. For citizens — hundreds of thousands of them in British Columbia — who need and require and want to be assured that public services are there for them, like health care or mental health services, education, advanced education, transportation, $230 million spent on this particular regressive tax cut is huge. It is a lot of money, and that’s what people have noticed.

In contrast to the quarter-billion-dollar tax cut for the top 2 percent, middle-class British Columbians in this budget, beginning in this year, are going to be hit with $714 million in new fees, otherwise known in the real world as tax hikes. When you‘re talking about mandatory fee payment schemes like MSP, you’re talking about taxes. That’s what people call them. That’s how they feel them in their pocketbook. This government used to say there was one taxpayer. They say something different when it comes to introducing a budget that hikes MSP yet again.

B.C. Hydro ratepayers in particular, which includes just about everyone in B.C., are going to pay, in this budget year, $286 million more out of their pocket — a 6 percent increase, $286 million more for every hydro ratepayer, a 2 percent tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent in B.C. You be the judge of that. British Columbians will be.

Medical services premiums up 4 percent again. That’s $93 million out of their pocket, while the best-off 2 percent get $230 million in their pocket this year?

[1515]

Ferry fares. Could you believe it? After all of the discussion and frustration and ridiculous outcomes that we’ve seen over the ferry service over the last few years, where we actually have a curve that goes like this for ferry increases and a ridership curve that goes down like this….

We have hit a tipping point in terms of B.C. Ferries-
[ Page 5943 ]
, where affordability is driving down service. Less passengers means more inefficiency in the ferry service, and the government has done nothing about it. In fact, they’ve made it worse, because this budget includes a 3.9 percent hike to B.C. ferry fares yet again. Their own Ferry Commissioner has told them not to do this, not just this year but the year before and the year before that. Their own board of directors has said, “We are tapped out,” on going after B.C. ferry riders, and yet here’s a 3.9 percent hit in the pocket.

There is even, in a province that uniquely has serious home ownership affordability challenges, a $6 million hit to the homeowner grant threshold. That’s a hit on the middle class, not on the top 2 percent.

The Ministry of Health, interestingly enough, is going to see the lowest increase in funding in modern history, with a 2.9 percent rise.

Interjection.

R. Fleming: I’m quoting the Finance Minister. The Health Minister might have a different number, but let’s go with the Finance Minister on this one.

Now, that puts British Columbia at the bottom of all of the provinces in the country in terms of Health budgeting and the increase. Yet British Columbia has a more rapidly aging population than many parts of Canada. We have rising care costs in a way that other provinces don’t have, and that is throughout the system.

Another area of the budget that I hope will get more discussion is the Housing Ministry. We have seen a massive asset sale. The remarks of my colleague from Vancouver–Point Grey covered this, so I’ll only briefly touch upon it.

Not only was there a massive asset sale; we’ve seen a further reduction in capital spending in the Housing Ministry from previous years. Now, what’s curious about this is that…. I mentioned all of the advice that people from every region of B.C. had provided to the Standing Committee on Finance that was ignored in compiling this budget.

Another person who has, I think, on occasion been listened to by this government but whose advice was ignored is Jock Finlayson, the chief economist of the B.C. Business Council.

He argued, prior to the budget being tabled earlier this week, that this fiscal year, 2015-16, and the next fiscal year, given the signals that have been received by the Bank of Canada on interest rates, is perhaps the most opportune time in B.C.’s history, the cheapest time, to look at capital spending on assets and new infrastructure, to take advantage of these record low rates and, quite frankly, to pick up the slack in many parts of the economy where employment numbers are low, where the timelines for the LNG pipedream have not been realized and where labour is available. That advice was ignored.

Now, the problem with that is…. You know, even in the U.S. Congress they’re talking about taking advantage of these historically cheap borrowing rates to look at infrastructure spending again. They’re also looking at it in terms of the opportunity it provides to increase sluggish wage rates.

If you create good-paying public projects for infrastructure that is needed — transportation infrastructure, for example — and that makes the movement of goods and services more efficient and leads to economic outcomes, you actually create a good upward pressure on wage rates. You address the falling incomes that we’ve seen in British Columbia by creating greater employment numbers. That is an additional reason that Mr. Finlayson gave to take advantage of more borrowing.

[1520]

Yet in the Ministry of Education we actually see a reduction, a slowdown, in capital spending. The cheapest time to borrow, a great opportunity to get rid of damp portables in districts like Surrey and other parts of B.C., where they’re far too preponderant. It’s a great way to invest in some of the additions that schools will need if they are to accommodate “the plan” — and I put that in quotations — around skills-training opportunities for young people, to make those kinds of capital investments and purchases.

Yet the funding available is going to go down. Sixty districts will have to fight over fewer capital resources in the school system, not look forward to advancing the capital schedule of doing more this year and the following year.

Now, let me go to something that we canvassed a little bit this week around education that I think presents a unique challenge. We have been through an incredible period of strife, one that nobody would want to live through again, the longest period of school disruption in British Columbia’s history, not just one school year but two. Five weeks. Unbelievable. From May almost to October. Uncertainty and anxiety hanging over the families of 550,000 school kids in our province.

The settlement that was eventually reached is not fully funded in this budget. How many times, how many umpteen times do we hear from the Premier and the Education Minister that the cost of the teachers contract will be fully funded by the province. I heard it time and time again on radio, on television — the Minister of Education saying: “We recognize that we’re provincially negotiating this, and we’ll cover the costs.” There was even a reference that when support staff’s contract was settled in June, it was paid for entirely by school boards. The province said: “You know what? We’ll step up. We’ll get this one. We’ll cover the cost of teachers.”

“We realize” — the Premier said this — “that class size and composition issues are at the forefront of parents’ minds. They are a challenge in our school system.” She committed solemnly to address them. She said that was her number one priority too.
[ Page 5944 ]

Now we see that the education fund that was created, which was at the crux of achieving a settlement — $80 million — is not being fully funded by this government. At least $30 million of it this year and $80 million of it next year…. Over $100 million of cuts are going to have to be imposed by school boards to send the money back to Victoria to get it back again to partially cover the costs of that negotiated settlement.

I think every member who is familiar with the challenges of their own school district here — and I hope they are — who has faced things like school closures in the past, who has listened to parents who are concerned that their son or daughter cannot get, for example, a learning assessment for two or three years, unless they pay for it privately…. That costs thousands of dollars out of a middle-class income because that’s the kind of British Columbia we live in.

Anyone who has a concern about those kinds of issues — and there are many within public education — will know that when school districts deliberate on their budgets, having been forced to make cuts by this government in this budget, bad things are likely to happen.

We have lost thousands of teaching positions over the last decade. We are finally turning the demographic corner around enrolment in public schools. There are more students this year in the school system than there were last year. The kindergarten cohort for next year will go up again. There is more pressure on school resources, and it is falling on districts to try and find a way to finance.

The way that is going to be resolved, I fear, is that we will see a new round of school closures in places like Prince George or other communities around B.C. We will see it here on the Island. We will see it in Vancouver. We will see it in the Kootenays and those kinds of places.

School closures have been an episodic and real problem in B.C. Hundreds of them have occurred over the last six years. School districts turned the corner and said: “We’re not doing it anymore. We will not hollow out our neighbourhoods.” Yet they may have to face those kinds of difficult choices because this government broke its promise on fully funding the teachers contract. We’ll know a little more about this as the debate on the budget drags on.

Quite frankly, trustees around B.C. right now are reeling from that broken commitment from the minister. They are meeting with their school board officials to try and get a handle on what it means.

[1525]

What is causing some measure of panic amongst trustees is that the government has provided no details on that. They tabled a budget here saying, “You will find $30 million in savings this year” — and, I think, $115 million next year. On the basis of what? On the basis of a study that was done in 2012 by Deloitte, which the ministry worked with school boards on identifying? Okay. That’s fine.

Many of those recommendations have already been implemented. All of the tier 1 efficiencies in that Deloitte report have been done. Now we’re digging into the next level, which may or may not even have savings attached to them.

Now, if you are a trustee or an administrator in, say, one of the top 20 most efficient districts in the province, where you have the lowest administration overhead, you should be proud of that. You’ve made efforts to do it. What’s government’s instruction? They’ve just told you to find savings. You’ve been working on that problem for years.

What’s going to happen to the 20 districts that are struggling to find efficiencies? Is this going to be done equitably across the board? Or is it going to be done in conjunction with the ministry? Do they actually have a plan where they’re going to look at real opportunities for savings?

I think what’s going to happen is that the ministry is going to wash its hands of it and say: “You’ve got to make it. You’ve got to figure it out. It’s not our problem. It’s your problem now.” That is after government said: “We have your back on funding the teachers contract.” Now they’re saying something completely different.

It’s going to come out of classroom resources and it’s going to hurt the learning opportunities of our kids, when government said that they were going to resolve those things after causing so much strife and turmoil in people’s lives over the last two school years.

The worry, when the time for these cuts comes to be made in school districts, is…. You have to take your hat off to some of the districts where people are dedicated to public education, where they are trying to strengthen confidence in our public schools by offering more choices. They’re even trying to interpret what the government wants by offering career, trade and technical vocations in their districts.

The funding formula that we have just gives you per-pupil funding. A math class with a chalkboard and a piece of chalk is a lot cheaper per pupil than an advanced technical classroom setting or a science laboratory. Districts that want to create more choices for students are now going to have to look at, potentially, restricting them. They can’t afford the kinds of things that retain and attract students who are looking for an individualized education that suits their needs.

How does this square with the government’s own B.C. education plan, which says that it is all about moving toward 21st-century learning principles — moving to towards greater individualized learning, recognizing that the learning needs and the learning interests of students are uniquely different — and which implies there will be resources for that? That was promised specifically by the Premier — that class composition will be addressed.

Now districts are going to have to rein in their ability to have things like special education programs, like career
[ Page 5945 ]
and vocational problems, like languages that they would offer, or the perennially under-threat music programs — all of those kinds of things that we think ought to be part of a comprehensive public education.

Those are the kinds of things for the next two to three months that school districts are going to be wrestling with, because this government broke its promise to fully fund the contract that it negotiated with the province’s teachers. Those costs are uncontrollable. They are not determined by school boards, but now it’s been made their problem.

We will have, obviously, a lot more to say about that in the coming weeks. I note, in passing, just a final reference around the K-to-12 education budget. It is curious that when spending is only going up by 1.8 percent, with all of the cost pressures from the teachers contract in this ministry, with the rate of inflation, with unfunded MSP — all of those things…. Isn’t it interesting that 1.8 percent is the increase for public education, but for independent schools it will go up 10.8 percent this year. That’s not even tied to enrolment statistics.

In fact, there’s a 33 percent increase over the next three years for independent schools and nothing of the sort for public schools.

[1530]

J. Shin: I would like to seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

J. Shin: We have a lot of visitors today. Joining us in the gallery again today is an intelligent, talented and hard-working UBC School of Social Work intern in my office, Shila Avissa. She joined us last winter and has been doing some great work. With her is her partner, Anna Brisco, who is studying to become a dietitian. Would the House please make the two of them feel very welcome.

Debate Continued

Deputy Speaker: Minister of — I forgot — Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services.

Hon. A. Virk: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a mouthful to have that long title. Thank you very much for the introduction.

Colleagues, it’s indeed my pleasure to stand in this House and respond to the Speech from the Throne. Believe it or not, I have listened quite intently to the members from the opposite side in terms of the fearmongering that I have seen for several days now, the misrepresentation of the facts. Let me present the….

British Columbians are looking for a long, strong economy. They’re looking for a secure future for their children. That’s why, when the shareholders of this province gather — as they have gathered every four years for the last 14 years, almost, now — they decide they want a government that can ensure that there’s a secure future for their children, a future that is such that their children do not have to pay for the debts of their parents and their grandparents.

Budget 2015 continues to show that this government is charting the right course for that future that my children, the children of everybody in this room and the children of all those British Columbians’ grandchildren have that much more of a secure future and that much less debt as they grow.

This budget provides the services the public needs, the public wants, while maintaining that very important…. Much like a family maintaining fiscal discipline, as we expect from ourselves, as we expect from our neighbours and that we certainly expect from all levels of government.

It also shows that this government is willing to set out priorities and spend on those priorities by connecting British Columbians. Mr. Speaker, you will notice the additional $10 million for expanding rural internet service in the budget. It’s going to go a long way to our goal of providing 100 percent high-speed internet access to British Columbians, to those that choose to have it.

This budget demonstrates the policies, that we want to pursue the balance, and they’re working. They’re actually working — a surplus in excess of $800 million and a commitment to a surplus of almost $300 million in 2015-16, almost $400 million in 2016-17 and almost $400 million in 2017-18. It is a balanced budget, and, some suggest, a boring budget — a balanced budget that is consistent. It’s on track, much like a family planning their future. You know, we have to mark it piece by piece by piece.

We’ve managed to achieve this collectively and through a great deal of hard work in the face of a global economy that is fragile today. As we watch the news articles from around the world, there’s fragility. There’s fragility in all parts of the world. There’s fragility in Europe, fragilities in other continents and political uncertainty, as well, across the world. But in the face of global fragility and uncertainty, this government has been able to deliver a third balanced budget in a row.

After 26 years in the public sector before coming into the Legislature, I know the value of fiscal discipline and smart decisions. It’s so important to British Columbians. This budget is a foundation. It’s a foundation for job creation. It’s a foundation for a diversifying economy.

[1535]

While I’m on that subject, let’s talk about a diverse economy. In 2008 a recession hit that floored the discipline of governments across the country, across the globe. That didn’t deter this government from staying determined and charting a long-term course — with an eye
[ Page 5946 ]
on a long-term goal — with British Columbians to ensure that we were judicious in our expenditures, that we grew the economy and that we didn’t grow government.

Let me speak a little bit about my responsibilities as the Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services. It’s an exciting role, a role where I can foster economic development, foster job creation, foster prosperity and yet provide services not only to other ministries but to the population — to 4.61 million British Columbians.

How we can help expand B.C.’s digital infrastructure through connectivity. That’s that $10 million I spoke about. I’m very much looking forward to the extended tax credits that are in the budget. That’s going to help our booming tech sector to grow even faster.

The capital and research funding to our post-secondary institutions is going to pay dividends, absolute dividends. I know members of the opposition will smirk and mutter under their breath. One of the best educational systems in the world, and very, very adequately funded — we’re going to grow and make that even stronger. This ministry is going to live up to its name — innovation, technology, and how we manage government information systems and how we make that available to the public.

Budget 2015 also reaffirms our commitment to connectivity, as I’ve mentioned before. Right now, let me paint a picture: 93 percent, or four million British Columbians, currently have access to high-speed Internet services. That’s Netflix speed, 5-megabytes-per-second speed. The government knows that British Columbians want to share in the social, economic and educational benefits of this informational resource. That’s why the $10 million announced, in new funds, is going to allow us to upgrade, expand and improve high-speed service across the province for those areas that currently do not have it.

This is a province that has got such diverse topography and geography and mountain ranges and rivers. It makes it very challenging to provide that kind of service, but we’re committed as a government to do that for British Columbians. That’s going to go a long way. We’re going to leverage. We’re going to have to work with the private sector. We’re going to have to work with all levels of government. We’re going to have to leverage the funding to ensure that we have our goals of connecting British Columbians by 2021 — 100 percent high-speed Internet coverage by 2021.

There have been a lot of success stories. Fibre optics on Vancouver Island, upgrades along the north coast, the Interior, and all across the province. Once again, that required leveraging the private sector and leveraging other levels of government.

Let’s talk briefly on cellular coverage and 1,000…. I should repeat that: 1,000 kilometres. That’s a long way. Have you ever driven 1,000 kilometres? It takes a long time. So 1,000 kilometres of new cellular service. That’s since 2011. So 1,000 kilometres since 2011 in additional cellular coverage, and 700 more to come. That’s going to improve public safety along our highways.

Prosperity means prosperity for all. It means prosperity for rural. It means prosperity for urban. It means prosperity for the diversity of the people that represent British Columbia. It means prosperity for First Nations as well.

In my role it’s also important to share in that prosperity. We talk about connectivity to our First Nations. We continue to support First Nations to lead connectivity initiatives that provide high-speed Internet access. I’m happy to report that today 184 First Nations communities have broadband infrastructure in place. Our shared goal is to see all 203 First Nations communities with access to high-speed Internet connectivity very soon. That’s our goal as government. I think bridging that digital divide for First Nations will provide connectivity, will provide additional access to e-health and educational and economic benefits for First Nations that are so richly deserved by those communities.

[1540]

The technology sector in British Columbia in some ways is understated, yet it punches above its weight; $23 billion in annual revenue, and that’s up 3½ percent since 2012 — and over $3 billion in total exports. And 9,010 established technology companies are operating today in British Columbia, with 84,070 jobs attributed to the technology sector. It’s the third-largest contributor to B.C.’s gross domestic product. Some 7½ to 8 percent of all GDP in this province is from the technology sector.

The wages in the tech sector — up considerably, and they’re 66 percent higher than the average wage in British Columbia. It’s a sector that’s understated and, once again, overdelivers and will continue to overdeliver.

Let me break it down a little bit. Information and communication companies, 40,000 jobs and over 6,000 companies; wireless, over 10,000 jobs; clean technology, over 6,000 jobs; digital media, over 14,000 jobs. It goes on — health sciences, several hundred organizations in that area. There are small companies. There are medium companies. There are large companies.

I use the example of SweetPea toys. Has anybody heard of SweetPea toys? SweetPea toys moved from Calgary. They decided to come to British Columbia, to the Comox Valley. They’re making child-friendly media players for export, not to B.C. but around the world. And they’re doing that from the Comox Valley.

D-Pace in Nelson — construction components for the next generation of particle accelerators, in the Kootenays. That story is repeated over and over again in the north, in the northeast, in the Interior, in the Kootenays, in the Okanagan, on Vancouver Island, on the Lower Mainland — small, medium and large.

Budget 2015 also talked about tax credits and how vital they are to grow British Columbia’s technology sector. Expanding the digital animation or visual effects tax credit to post-production is going to attract more high-paying jobs for British Columbia, more jobs for digital
[ Page 5947 ]
artists, computer engineers and software developers.

The boost to the small business venture capital tax credit, more equity financing. That’s more money available to that businessman and that businesswoman that wants to set up a company in British Columbia. It’s going to spur innovation. It’s going to spur start-ups. It’s going to spur entrepreneurship. It’s going to spur innovation.

The DAVE credit, or digital animation or visual effects tax credit, is extended. That’s going to include post-production film activities. That’s drawing even a larger and a broader portion of that sector to British Columbia.

You put all that together, and you have a digital sector, a technology sector. I’m not even going to make the comparison to that other technology sector way south, in the States. This is a strong, vibrant sector that has a name of its own and is a destination location for technology, for digital companies from around the world.

This spring this government’s going to update its technology strategy. The technology field is somewhat defined by rapid change, by flexibility, being nimble, moving forward, and it it’s something that requires constant updating. We’re going to work with the tech sector through direct policy decisions and work for the British Columbia Innovation Council to help work on that tech strategy.

As a Crown agency, the British Columbia Innovation Council continues to expand the network’s accelerators. We’re at No. 13. The last one was the tech accelerator in Mission, an agri-tech sector partnering the agriculture industry with technology and finding ways to get that product more efficiently, more effectively to market.

Let’s touch on citizens’ services slightly. You know, my ministry is also responsible for providing service delivery, technology and access to information to a wide variety of British Columbians. Indeed, a large responsibility is the information technology infrastructure. It’s our responsibility collectively and a duty of responsible government to be diligent with this information.

[1545]

Cybersecurity and the protection of government data and networks is a top priority — I might emphasize that: a top priority — for this government. In a fragile world with risks, protection of that data is a…. I’ve spent most of my lifetime protecting Canadians, and now I’m protecting the data of British Columbians as well.

Our security standards in British Columbia are consistent and exceed international standards for government organizations. Our team of technical security experts today blocked 40 million attacks on our government data systems. Last year 145 million spam, phishing and malware e-mails were intercepted by our data security. Our dedicated public servants, who are on the cutting edge of technology, are incredibly dedicated to protecting British Columbians. They intercepted 153 million of these nefarious e-mails that all of us, collectively in government and across British Columbia, should know are trying to infiltrate government.

We have a strong framework that provides privacy training for every single public servant. We have robust reporting and mitigation procedures. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner noted that even those breaches or administrative errors that occur are reported in the most expeditious manner. In fact, 80 percent are reported immediately.

Yet we recognize that we must do better. We have to do better. A new privacy management policy this spring is going to consolidate all of our policies into a new privacy compliance monitoring program, and it’s going to reflect the changing world. We must stay one step ahead.

British Columbia is also well ahead of most provinces — sometimes I say all provinces — in terms of open government. It’s a responsibility that I share with the Minister of Advanced Education. Our Open Information websites contain freedom-of-information requests and routine releases of deputy ministers’ and ministers’ travel expenses. Our open data websites have information on over 3,500 subjects. And this year we’re going to begin proactively releasing government purchasing cards records quarterly.

Now, in terms of connecting government with those who have elected us into government, we’re all about helping connect people with government as well. Our government together website is a central on-line space where British Columbians can come together and discover engagement opportunities with their community.

We’re also in the midst of redesigning all those portals. We must always continually redesign to make them flexible, make them innovative, make them ever-changing to make sure that they’re easily accessible by the public.

I see almost a tale of two cities here sometimes. It’s a tale of woe, a tale of fearmongering, a tale that the world is coming to the end, that our educational systems are not funded, that we’re not planning ahead, that we should run out immediately with that surplus and find ways to spend it. It’s like a family. A father and a mother earn a little bit of extra money, and the encouragement immediately is to run out and spend that. “Don’t put it away for a rainy day. Don’t pay down that debt on that house you’ve bought. Don’t pay the debt. Don’t pay down your mortgage. Go spend it right away. Splurge immediately. Don’t pay down the debt.”

That’s what I constantly hear, but that’s not what this government stands for. It stands for sound fiscal management. It stands for planning long term. It stands for a balanced budget. It stands for a triple-A credit rating.

We’ve laid a strong foundation. I know that the members opposite will continue to mutter that we need to spend, spend, spend. If the members opposite have access to a magical money tree, certainly, I’d like to know where it is. Myself and my colleagues would like to pluck that. You know, let’s spend.

This is a government that’s going to continue to have a strong foundation. It’s going to have a strong foundation on a balanced budget and many more balanced budgets to continue as well. Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Speaker.

[1550]

M. Elmore: I’m very pleased to rise and speak, giving my response to Budget 2015.

I think that this budget can be characterized…. There are a few, I think, key snapshots or pictures that really show the contrast in terms of the priorities for this B.C. Liberal government on the one side and the realities and difficulties facing British Columbians.

The first point and, I think, the leading point that many of my colleagues have made very clearly is that the Liberals have made the decision and the choice to lead with establishing the priority of bringing in a tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent in British Columbia, a $230 million tax cut. This is a tax cut every year.

It’s interesting because the decision of the Liberal government to grant this tax cut to B.C.’s wealthiest 2 percent…. It wasn’t that they were lobbied heavily and incessantly by the top 2 percent. Apparently, of their own free volition, they identified and they declared that it was a top priority not only for the government but that it would benefit all of British Columbia. So it’s $230 million this year, $230 million next year and $230 million the following year — nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in tax cuts to B.C.’s wealthiest 2 percent.

That’s on the one side. When we look at who is paying for these tax cuts and what’s the impact to B.C. families, well, we see that it’s B.C. families who are paying for this tax cut, and it’s B.C. families who are paying more but getting less.

When families look at this budget and when they’re balancing their own budget in their household and they look at the increasing expenses and costs that are being incurred, what’s the reality facing B.C. families? Well, with Budget 2015, we’re seeing that it’s lower- and middle-income families who are paying more. They’re paying more in hidden taxes and paying more in flat taxes — flat, regressive taxes, taxes that are not progressive and impact everybody equally and disproportionately burden those with a lower income because they pay the same as those earning more income.

What are some of these costs? Well, we’re seeing that B.C. Hydro rates are increasing for families. They’re going up 6 percent in 2015. When we look at the record of this Liberal government from 2001 to 2015, so over 14 years, what has been the picture and the story and the experience for B.C. families? We’ve seen that these hidden taxes, these flat taxes, have increased. Over that 14-year period B.C. Hydro has increased by 74 percent. Since the Premier came in in 2011, it’s increased 36 percent.

We see that medical service premiums are also increasing. All families and individuals across B.C. are paying a 100 percent increase since 2001. What does that mean? For an individual, $432; $864 for a family; and since 2011, $276 for a family. The MSP for a family has reached $1,728, which is basically doubling what some middle-income families pay in income tax.

We’re going to see another increase in MSP premiums in January, which adds an additional $33 per year for an individual or $66 for a family. In fact, we’re going to be seeing that MSP premiums are going to be rising every year, supposedly, to keep pace. These are fees that are increasingly putting more burden onto families.

[1555]

We’ve seen a consistent increase and burden on families over the life of this government, 14 years, for B.C. Hydro rates, for Medical Services Plan premiums. Add that to the list.

Also ICBC premiums. Since 2001 basic rates have gone up by 41 percent and, since the Premier has come in, in 2011, by 23 percent. We saw that basic rates were up by 5.2 percent last year, November 1, 2014. We can expect that rates will continue to increase because the government has announced that rate changes are going to be within 1.5 percentage points of last year’s rate change, meaning that there’s another guaranteed rate increase in ICBC in the range of 3.7 to 6.7 percent.

There’s also the question, in terms of ICBC, not only of the increasing rates but that it’s generating more revenue for the government, that that revenue is not being invested back into ICBC and that British Columbians are not seeing the benefits from that. In fact, there are also concerns and questions with respect to the service levels that British Columbians are receiving. These are concerns that are not addressed in the budget.

We’re seeing that B.C. families are paying more for B.C. Hydro, for Medical Services Plan premiums, for ICBC. Ferry fares are also increasing. We see that it’s now 77 percent more expensive for a family of four to take a round trip between Vancouver and Victoria, and prices are continuing to increase. As well, we know that fees on public transit have increased. We’ve seen a delisting of health care services, and families are now paying out of pocket for services that were previously covered — including eye exams, physiotherapy, chiropractic care, massage therapy and non-surgical podiatry services.

PharmaCare deductibles have increased. For those under 65, it rose by $200 in 2003, and seniors pay an additional $75 deductible per year for prescription drugs. We’ve also seen British Columbians paying more for generic drugs because of the Liberals’ inability to negotiate a strong contract. We’ve seen that long-term seniors care rates have nearly doubled. Child care expenses are also increasing. A lack of commitment around rent control.

We look at the priority of this government, in Budget 2015, to grant a tax cut to the wealthiest 2 percent — $230 million in this year and each subsequent year — and we see the long list of families and individuals who are paying more for services and getting less. In addition, we
[ Page 5949 ]
have additional fees that are being charged onto parks. This is the story of this budget. This is a clear contrast, in terms of who the Liberals think needs a break in British Columbia — the wealthiest 2 percent — and making families pay for that through increased fees and services, delisting of previously covered services and underfunding of services.

One thing that I thought was very interesting in this speech was that we didn’t hear as much of an emphasis put on liquefied natural gas, LNG. It was a departure from the past number of years, where this has been all we’ve heard from budget speech to throne speech from the Premier and from this government.

I’d just like to remind folks in the House around what some of these wild promises were that we’ve heard around liquefied natural gas — how it would deliver British Columbia, would eliminate our debt, would eliminate the sales tax. We’d have a prosperity fund that would generate hundreds of millions of dollars. It would generate hundreds of thousands of jobs. Also, we would see the first LNG facility by 2015. Well, it’s 2015, and we’re still waiting.

[1600]

The focus on LNG is also in contrast to the lack of attention to, and the neglect of, other aspects of our economy that have been neglected, where we’ve had lost opportunities. I’d just like to go through some of those areas where we’ve wasted opportunities and have really missed out on supporting and promoting important aspects of our economy that have been neglected by this government.

When we look at our forest industry and the importance of our forest industry in British Columbia, we’ve seen that since 2001 we’ve lost over 25,000 jobs. I think that one of the big tragedies of our forest industry, which reflects the lack of support from this government and also the lack of vision, is that we’ve really seen a hollowing out of our value-added manufacturing in our forest industry.

B.C. is rich in natural resources, and while we are a resource-dependent economy, the strength and really being able to generate good-paying jobs comes from being able to add value to our resources. In forestry, it’s noted that our value-added sector has been really undermined, and we have not seen commitment from this government to move us in the direction of extracting more value from each tree that’s cut.

Our forests represent a quarter-trillion-dollar asset that is owned by all British Columbians, but we are getting less and less — less jobs, less revenue — out of every tree that we cut. While export is always an aspect of the forest industry, we are shipping out more raw logs. This is where we’ve seen the growth in terms of our forest sector: increasing the export of raw logs. On the other hand, even our local mills are not being able to secure the fibre that they require to keep a full production schedule.

We are losing out on that resource, and we are not seeing direction and support from the government. We’ve had value-added mills shut down, and I think the real tragedy here is that we’re not seeing a commitment to and support for our forest industry, which has provided — and can provide in the future — a strong basis of good-paying jobs.

Another aspect of our forest industry that is being neglected is we are not maintaining our forests. There has not been adequate investment in silviculture, in tree planting, to replace and renew our resource. We are not being able to maximize the value in our forest industry.

In our manufacturing sector, we don’t have a manufacturing strategy. While all the focus was on LNG projects, we’ve seen a real decline around our manufacturing sector and around a strategy to maximize value from our resources.

When we look at the mining industry, we see that this government has had a preoccupation with deregulation and cuts to staffing. We’ve seen what the outcome of that is from the Mount Polley tailings pond — the breach that was a disaster for the province and also for the mining industry.

These are important aspects of our economy that have been neglected and are not being fully utilized.

[1605]

When we look at our energy sector, we see that the decision of the government to proceed with the Site C dam was taken without oversight and without having an independent hearing, in terms of evaluating what our energy needs were and also balancing out the cost-benefit analysis and really being able to appreciate or investigate other alternatives. For example, we didn’t have an opportunity to look at the emerging opportunities in alternative energy sources.

We’re seeing that there was a recent report released from the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association looking at the potential for geothermal energy across the country and in B.C., and there are many areas of potential development in B.C. that haven’t been able to be fully investigated. Also, with the lower cost in solar panels and energy efficiency…. These are areas that are ignored because of the lack of a process around independent and transparent decision-making around going forward with the decision to move on Site C.

When we talk about the importance of not only this government focusing singularly on liquefied natural gas but looking at needing to invest and appreciate and support other aspects of our economy that are very vibrant in B.C., we see that we are also falling behind in terms of our high-tech sector.

The high-tech sector is also a strategically important sector moving forward around a growing sector and a transition to a new economy. B.C. trails in science in undergrad degrees, and we lag behind all other provinces. As well, we are not investing significantly in research
[ Page 5950 ]
and development, which is another critical indicator for success in the high-tech industry. These are missed opportunities.

When we look at not only the areas of the economy that have been neglected by the government, and when we look at the impact to British Columbians and what their experience is — the reality of their experience and the reality of families having to pay more while the top 2 percent get a tax cut — let’s look at some of the benchmarks around economic growth, around standard of living and jobs in British Columbia. This budget does not address these areas.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

Economic growth. In 2013 B.C. was sixth in real GDP growth per capita. We’re lagging in terms of standard of living. We were in third place, and there’s not a change, in terms of the commitments that were initially made, over the last 14 years.

When we look at jobs, B.C. is in seventh place in the country in terms of people who are gainfully employed, in the employment rate, and that’s the lowest rate west of the Maritimes. When we look at jobs, I think this is also another area that really contrasts the priorities of the Liberal government, looking at the approach the government has taken on temporary foreign workers.

When we look at the rise in temporary foreign workers into British Columbia and Canada since 2008, there are more folks coming in on a temporary status into B.C. than on a permanent status, and these workers have come in mainly around the low-skilled service industries. The approach of the government has really been a hands-off approach, where there is virtually no oversight, and there is no monitoring or licensing of employers, or proactive investigation or adequate services put in place for these workers.

[1610]

On the one hand, there’s been an open-door policy for the temporary foreign worker program, and that has gone hand in hand with cuts to investment in advanced education, cuts and underfunding for apprenticeship and increasing tuition fees, making it more difficult for British Columbians to access the skills that they need to avail of the opportunities.

When we look at what the reality is of the lack of direction, the lack of leadership of the B.C. Liberal government with respect to the temporary foreign worker program in British Columbia, we can look at the…. These are basically an underclass of workers that really don’t have access to rights.

I’ve heard that on paper they have the same rights as any other worker. They have the same rights on paper. In reality, how do they exercise those rights? They are held by their employer and they are under conditions that are being characterized as modern-day slavery. They often do not have access to…. They don’t know their rights and there are not services available. They are very exploited and vulnerable. Now let’s look at….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

M. Elmore: Let’s look at the reality of how it is that these workers in our communities…. How do they access justice if they have a difficulty? Well, over the holidays I was in town and I spent my holidays talking to a couple of temporary foreign workers who had been taken advantage of by an unscrupulous immigration consultant, as well as an employer that had violated their work permit. These folks had gone through and had been directed to a number of different avenues to try and access help and support.

There is very little support for these individuals to come forward and to be supported. This is the reality. On the one hand, we have this government who has no oversight on temporary foreign workers coming into our province. At the same time, tuition rates have doubled. They’ve cut funding for apprenticeships and are underfunding skills training.

This goes hand in hand with the priority of this government to really neglect opportunities to provide British Columbians to get the skills that they need, on the one hand, and on the other hand to allow workers coming in out of the temporary foreign worker program to be open to this exploitation and abuse. A complete lack of leadership.

We need a commitment towards workers coming into British Columbia, with an opportunity to become citizens and to not be exploited. That shows a real contrast in terms of jobs and opportunities in our province and a very clear picture of the priorities for this government.

We see in Budget 2015 a tax cut to the wealthiest 2 percent. We see a complete lack of leadership commitment for jobs for British Columbians. I also want to touch on…. I’ve had many constituents come to me and talk about working on the issue of access to adult basic education and individuals wanting to upgrade their skills so that they can further their education, which is important in terms of being able to secure a job in our economy. Now 80 percent of folks need some type of post-secondary or trades training to go on into our economy.

We’ve seen not only the cut of courses offered under basic adult education but also the cut now to English-language learner courses and the imposition of fees on to these individuals looking to upgrade their skills. This is moving in the wrong direction. We need to ensure that individuals are supported and have the opportunity to complete their grade 12 education and are supported to pursue and further their education beyond high school.

[1615]

Particularly for new immigrants coming into our province, it’s important that they’re supported. Many come in with bachelor’s degrees or master’s but need support in terms of being able to negotiate the language and being able to have language-specific training in their careers, to transition more fully into their areas of expertise — not only to fulfil and be able to secure a good-paying job for themselves to support their family but also to contribute to the economy of British Columbia.

These are areas, as well as a need for increased investment in literacy training, that are really the foundational bedrocks that British Columbians are being denied. British Columbians who are seeking either to increase their literacy or to upgrade their skills and fulfil their grade 12 requirement, or new immigrants who are looking to be able to speak the language and move forward and pursue further training — these are the people, the British Columbians, that are being left behind by this government and by this budget.

When we look at what are the outcomes, what are some of the consequences from this budget, we’ve seen that do not have — I don’t see — any resolve or the gap closing in terms of the inequality that we see. B.C. has the highest level of wealth inequality here in Canada, and we have the highest rate of poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty. We’re the only province without a poverty reduction plan. This budget is a real insult to individuals who are living in poverty, and it goes in the opposite direction in terms of being able to address the root causes of poverty or being able to narrow the gap in terms of the wealth inequality.

When we look, as well, at the opportunity for young people to find good jobs in Vancouver, we see that Vancouver ranks last among the ten metropolitan cities in Canada, particularly for those between the ages of 25 to 55 with a bachelor’s degree or greater. It’s most difficult to find a good-paying job.

On these indicators we see that this budget does not address the needs and concerns of British Columbians. While the budget at least ended the clawback to single parents for payments, it came about because of the courage of the parents to tell their stories and raise that injustice.

It’s really going to require the voices of British Columbians who are left out by this budget. It’s going to require communities across our province to speak up and express their concerns. I think that’s what it’s going to take for this government to hear the message that this budget, with the 2 percent tax cut to B.C.’s wealthiest — nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars over three years, and families paying more and getting less — is not a budget for B.C. families.

It’s not a budget that brings hope and optimism and provides support for families across British Columbia. It does not provide leadership for developing a robust economy, and it does not meet the needs for British Columbians.

This is a budget that flies in the face of, I think, what British Columbians would consider as fair and just when it’s the wealthiest 2 percent who are getting the biggest tax breaks — 2 percent of the most wealthy — and it’s British Columbian families who are being left paying for that.

[1620]

J. Thornthwaite: I’m very pleased to stand today in support of Budget 2015. First, before I say my remarks on the budget directly, I’d like to recognize my kids. Obviously, when we’re sitting, I don’t see them. We do communicate by text. Jeremy, Mallory and Zoey, thanks for being very patient with your mother.

I’d also like to put out a real shout-out to my friend from Richmond-Steveston, who is recovering from some surgery. We are all rooting for him. He’s increased the ratings of the parliamentary channel by 50 percent because he’s watching it, I know. So good on you. Way to go.

Then, of course, I’ve got great staff, both here in Victoria as well as in North Vancouver. In North Vancouver, my relatively new constituency assistants, Nick Hosseinzadeh and Daniel Todd — I just want to have a huge shout-out for them. They work very, very hard in North Vancouver, keeping most of my constituents very happy.

Then, of course, here in Victoria — obviously, Emily, who’s a great legislative assistant and has been just marvelous for me. I’m very pleased to have her, and hopefully, now she won’t get promoted away from me. Anyway, she does a great job. Then, of course, my new research guy, Brent, and Marc Wang, who is our communications officer, who has been stellar over the years for us. I would be very sorry if he got promoted, too, because he’s mine and I really enjoy him. So I just wanted to say thank you to all those folks for helping me out.

On December 18, I think it was, the Premier appointed me to a new parliamentary secretary position for child mental health as well as anti-bullying. I’m very, very proud to be appointed in this position because it encompasses a lot of work and a lot of ministries and a lot of working together in collaboration on a lot of different topics and projects. I’ll be talking about that in a little bit more detail in a minute.

I’m also the Chair of the Select Standing Committee for Children and Youth. Along with my colleagues from the other side, we did publish an interim report on child and youth mental health, and we’re going to be working very hard together on that project for this session in Victoria as well.

I am very pleased to rise to support this budget. There are so many items in this budget that my colleagues and I have been working on that really need strong, strong recognition — and some for several years. Contrary to the North Shore News article that was published yesterday — the editorial on the budget called it boring — I can guarantee you that the many thousands of people
[ Page 5952 ]
on the North Shore who make their living from the film industry, either directly or indirectly, do not think that this budget is boring. I’ll have more on that in a minute.

Our Minister of Finance delivered a fiscal hat trick: the third consecutive balanced budget, part of an exclusive club. Maybe we are the only province that will be in that club — maybe another, but I haven’t heard confirmation.

A triple-A credit rating. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is second to none. It’s doing very, very well in comparison to Ontario and Quebec and other provinces. We are making things easier for families having the lowest income tax rates and the most competitive tax framework in all of Canada. Employment is up — modest, but up. Unemployment is down, and we have successfully met our projected targets. So I think that in itself, in a global perspective, puts us very, very well ahead of many of our other provincial counterparts in Canada.

I alluded to it at the first. I wanted just to talk a little bit about the announcement in the budget with regards to film.

[1625]

The digital animation or visual effects (DAVE) tax credit — you’ve probably heard that acronym — was expanded in Budget 2015 to include post-production. This is significant because the industry has been lobbying us for this for years, even probably before I was elected in 2009.

Why it’s important is that we have been doing a superb job in attracting productions at the filming end of the business. The problem is that more and more films come to fruition based on the post-production — in other words, after they’ve actually stopped filming. We were losing some business to other jurisdictions in the post-production component of the entire film or television. By providing the extension of this DAVE tax credit to post-production, what will happen is that the business — all of the business, the complete business — of the film industry will stay right here in British Columbia.

I’d like to quote from the Vancouver Post Alliance group in their press release that they did on February 17. “The inclusion of picture and sound post-production into the existing DAVE tax credit is a natural fit. It encourages domestic and foreign content creators to finish post-production in British Columbia, thereby closing the loop on our competitive position and defining B.C. as a true global digital centre.”

That’s from the VPA chair Suzanne Thompson, who has been a tireless advocate for this issue ever since the beginning. I thank her for her efforts. Your efforts, Suzanne, have come to fruition.

B.C.’s post-production sector is a key contributor to the province’s proud, 40-plus-year history in film and television. We are now in a strong position to attract new digital content business and stimulate new knowledge-based jobs — an exciting development for our vibrant, creative economy.

The B.C. motion picture production sector stands among the best in the world and generates in excess of $1 billion in revenue annually as part of the province’s estimated $4 billion creative economy. I’m very proud to support this budget for that item just alone.

The other thing I wanted to mention with regards to kind of putting an exposé on the success of the film industry is the awards. This Sunday the Academy Awards are going to be on television, and I’d like to give a little bit of a shout-out to some of our local talent. Two Vancouverites working in the local special effects industry were likely beyond elated when they heard the news that they had received Academy Award nominations for the best visual effects category.

Pitt Meadows resident Cameron Waldbauer, a member of Coquitlam’s Objects Inc. Special Effects, is among a group of supervisors nominated for their digital effects in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to the original X-Men trilogy and more recent X-Men: First Class film. The other local to receive a nomination is Nicolas Aithadi, one of four people in the team nominated for their work for Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy.

While nominations have been plentiful for MPC film, the Vancouver location was responsible for bringing home the company’s first and only Oscar. MPC Vancouver’s Guillaume Rocheron won a 2013 Best Visual Effects Academy Award for his vision and leadership in creating the dramatic storm and sinking scenes in the 2012 Ang Lee film Life of Pi.

We also saw on the Super Bowl, and we heard this: “When Pigs Fly”. Over 100 million pairs of American eyes watched an advertisement made by two Metro Vancouver residents during the Sunday’s big Super Bowl matchup. Twin brothers Graham and Nelson Talbot, both 25 years old, from Maple Ridge, entered into the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest for a chance to win $1 million cash grand prize, a dream job at Universal Pictures in L.A. and having their ad aired during a 30-second Super Bowl commercial break, worth U.S. $4.5 million.

Their entry, titled “When Pigs Fly”, came in second place, which earned them a cash prize of $50,000, a seat at the University of Phoenix Stadium to watch the game and a massive boost in their film-making career. So congratulations to them.

[1630]

What are we looking forward to? Tomorrowland. B.C. shot Tomorrowland, and apparently, that release is supposed to come on Friday, May 22. That’s when George Clooney was in our area, filming that.

I’d also like to, in addition to mentioning the awards…. Despite the controversy with Fifty Shades of Grey, it was one of the key films that was filmed here. I just wanted to mention a little North Vancouver bit of trivia. According to the Vancouver Sun, in a running scene one of the stars, Ana, wore a blue hoodie while running on North Vancouver’s lower Lonsdale. Here we are in North
[ Page 5953 ]
Vancouver, profiled in Fifty Shades of Grey.

Then I wanted to put a shout-out that I’ve even met some of the stars of Once Upon a Time. Granny — I met her when I was at a North Vancouver salon getting a pedicure. I also met Captain Hook at the Trout Lake Farmers Market. He was getting some pulled pork and macaroni and cheese where my daughter was working, at Blue Smoke BBQ.

There they are. The stars are running around here in the Vancouver and North Vancouver area. Good on us for our film. I know the North Shore News had published something a couple of weeks ago saying what exactly both the city of North Vancouver and the district had. Peter Leitch was quoted as saying that 189 permits spread across 77 productions, compared to 90 film shoots in 2013. Revenues hit $714,000, compared to $511,000 the year before.

Again, the most noteworthy film shoots: Fifty Shades of Grey; Age of Adaline, starring Blake Lively and Harrison Ford; Tim Burton’s Big Eyes; and the famous — I didn’t know this — Shaw Fire Log. There you go. Go figure.

Interjection.

J. Thornthwaite: No, filmed here, on the North Shore. Obviously, I’m not in the know.

Other draws — besides our great talent, obviously — making the Lower Mainland an attractive place to shoot include its year-round warm weather, diverse locations, proximity to Los Angeles and the presence of film schools like the Bosa Centre for Film and Animation at Capilano University. I’m very, very proud to have visited them several times.

I just want to make a shout-out to a company that is actually in my riding in North Vancouver, called Thomas FX. They won best business in last fall’s North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards. They are one of the pioneers that established the film industry in B.C. They develop and manufacture and distribute their products to over 50 countries in the world.

Congratulations to John and Betty Quee for all of their work on putting Vancouver’s film industry on the map, as well as being a best-business winner for the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce.

Moving on past film, I’d like to also put a shout-out to the SPCA. As those of you that are watching at home know, I’ve been a strong advocate for animal welfare issues. I was really, really pleased to see in the budget on Tuesday that we are giving the SPCA $5 million towards the replacement or renovation of SPCA facilities in the Lower Mainland, on Vancouver Island and in the Kootenays and Okanagan region.

I’d just like to say that we really, really appreciate not only the hard work that the staff of the SPCA do but all the thousands and thousands of volunteers that are out there working to protect our furry friends, our feathered friends and even our reptilian friends — all of our four-legged and two-legged friends.

So thank you very much for the SPCA, and thank you for your persistence and your patience. Obviously, it came to fruition for you. We are definitely going to be looking forward to the grand openings of these new facilities across British Columbia for the SPCA to house our furry and friendly friends.

The other thing that’s really important in North Vancouver is transportation. I was really pleased. Something I have been working on — again, in addition to the film announcement — is the Highway 1 interchange project. We made an announcement just last fall, in November, for the first phase of a three-phase project around the Mountain Highway interchange. A special shout-out to our Minister of Transportation for bringing that forward.

[1635]

I was very, very pleased to join my colleagues in North Vancouver and on the North Shore, as well as my MP. It was a partnership between the federal government, the provincial government and the district of North Vancouver, who stepped up to make this project happen.

It’s going to help to alleviate the congestion that we all endure in North Vancouver, certainly around the Second Narrows Bridge and the east of Seymour area. Again, this is the first of a three-phase project that will be underway, I think, within the year. They’re doing the design at this point right now. I’m very, very pleased about that.

The other thing I’d like to just mention…. Given the fact that our mayor, Mayor Walton, was the chair of the Mayors Council for TransLink, I just want to support him and his work that he did in working with all of the mayors with regards to the plebiscite that’s coming up very, very soon and also to encourage my North Vancouver counterparts to vote yes and support the plebiscite, not only because of the plans to reduce congestion and increase transit throughout the region, but also specifically for additions to North Van.

This includes improving SeaBus service frequency. It’s going to be increased by 50 percent — every 10 minutes at peak times, 15 minutes at other times — which will reduce the strain on peak-hour bus routes between North Shore and downtown Vancouver.

A new B-line: Metrotown to Capilano University via Willingdon. A new B-line: Lynn Valley Centre to downtown Vancouver via 29th, Lonsdale and Marine Drive. A new B-line: Dundarave to Phibbs via 3rd Street and Marine Drive. Upgrades to the exchanges at Lonsdale Quay and Phibbs — which in my riding is really, really important because that’s where all of the buses meet and go to other places around Metro Van — and improved and expanded all-day and peak services.

Again, I encourage my people, my constituents and all across the Lower Mainland to support the plebiscite.

With regards to other transportation infrastructure-
[ Page 5954 ]
, myself and my colleague from Burnaby North launched a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the wider sidewalks opening on the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge. That was very exciting. Now we’ve extended it from 1.2 metres to 2.5 metres on the east side of the bridge, and the west sidewalk is anticipated to reopen in 2015.

The total cost of this investment to help protect not just pedestrians but also cyclists is $20 million. We got great kudos from not just the Burnaby folks but also the North Vancouver folks. Obviously, it’s a safety issue for all travellers, and we’re very pleased to be able to announce that.

Then there have been several bike announcements that have been made, but I just want to make note of the most recent ones. In February of this year we, the B.C. government, provided more than $600,000 in Bike B.C. funding to expand and build cycling lanes, trails and paths for North Shore families.

In the city of North Vancouver that includes $400,000 towards the construction of a separated, multi-use trail from the Squamish Nation Waterfront Greenway to the Bewicke section of the Spirit Trail. In the district of North Vancouver over $200,000 goes towards installing bike lanes on Lynn Valley Road from William Avenue to Mollie Nye Way. That’s in addition to the bike lanes that were constructed in other areas of Lynn Valley as well as Mount Seymour Parkway announced earlier.

As you’ll know, I’ve been definitely involved and interested and a strong advocate for education in the province, public education as well as the choices for independent. I’m really, really pleased to support the budget and the very hard work that our Minister of Education as well as the Premier did with regards to the longest negotiated settlement for teachers.

I think that is a real shout-out to the strong work that they did and working collaboratively with the BCTF. Just to ensure that there was no misunderstanding with the budget, that contract as well as the support workers’, CUPE’s, is fully funded in this budget.

[1640]

I’d like to just make a little mention about the LIF fund. There was noted in the budget there’s a 33 percent increase in the LIF. What I normally do when people ask me what the heck that means and why I care, I go back to the school districts. In the November 18 minutes for the North Vancouver school district, they actually put out very, very clearly where the money, which has come from the province and is designated for the learning improvement fund, goes to. I just want to read you out a little thing. I want to make it clear so that everybody knows that it was a collaborative process.

“The superintendent reported on the collaborative, consultative process that took place in the spring and fall, initially at the school level with school administrators, staff and chief staff representatives and then at the district level with respective executive members of the North Van Teachers Association and the Canadian Union of Public Employees having met with the senior executive committee. Support was provided for priorities identified at both the school and district levels. A small reserve of funds remains in the learning improvement fund for allocation to schools during the balance of the school year.”

I print it out for my constituents. If they’re interested, they can certainly catch it on the school district website.

Basically, what that means is that 20 schools got more learning assistants and learning support. Five schools got more services for complex needs. Four schools got additional counselling time. Two schools got additional speech and language pathology time. This is for NVTA positions. That was in elementary school.

With seven schools in the secondary, six schools got additional counselling blocks, supporting the Choices program. Five schools got additional blocks to address complex needs. One school got additional learning assistance and learning support. We’ve got counselling, learning assistance support, psychologists, speech and language pathologists and a vision resource teacher, which are all encompassed in the extra funding that comes with the learning improvement fund. It is decided where that goes at the school district level. I thank the minister for that.

Then, in addition to the operating funds that were just discussed, North Vancouver has been the recipient of tremendous capital funding. We’re waiting now for the last approval for the Argyle rebuild. We’re waiting for that. Since I got elected the first time in 2009, these schools have either got a total rebuild or a total upgrade or a seismic upgrade. Ridgeway Elementary, Lynn Valley Elementary, Windsor Secondary, Sutherland Secondary, Westview Elementary, Highlands Elementary, Canyon Heights Elementary, Carisbrooke Elementary, Carson Graham Secondary and Queen Mary Elementary all were upgraded or totally replaced, all since 2009.

The last thing I wanted to just spend a little bit of time on is my portfolio as parliamentary secretary. One of the things that I was really, really pleased to attend last month was a forum that was put on by the Ministry of Education — an ERASE forum to stamp out bullying in Prince George.

That was an amazing experience, with all of these kids coming together and talking about their experiences in the schools and their leadership to try to help their peers stamp out bullying, recognize bullying and, if they are bullied, how to deal with it — tools on how to either prevent bullying in the schools or, at least, to deal with it once it happens. It was just an amazing experience. A shout-out to Telus for helping with the funding on that.

I’d like to also reiterate the anti-cyberbullying project that I worked on in June of last year. I launched it on not just the ERASE website but also my own website, giving kids and parents the tools on how to keep their kids safe on line. We know that cyberbullying is the number one concern of parents nowadays with regard to their children in the schools. And we all know that cyberbullying can occur 24-7, not just between nine and three anymore-
[ Page 5955 ]
, when the kids are in school.

I encourage people to check out my website or the ERASE website with the Ministry of Education, to look at that. It’s only seven minutes. It’s not that long, and it’ll just give you an exposé of what we should be looking at and how parents can have the conversation with their kids to try to keep their kids safe on line.

[1645]

With regard to child and youth mental health, there are lots of things going on right now, in addition to the committee that I chair. One of the announcements I thought I would mention actually occurred a couple of weeks ago in North Vancouver at the HOpe Centre. What it was, was an interactive map, an improved patient intake process — two steps that government took to make it faster and easier for families to get child and youth mental health and substance-use services in British Columbia.

This was a good event, a joint event with the Minister of Children and Families, the Minister of Health, as well as Keli Anderson from FORCE, who has been a strong advocate. She’s from the Institute of Families, a strong advocate for helping parents and families and kids navigate the services that are available in British Columbia for children and youth who are suffering from any level of mental illness.

The Minister of Children and Families noted in her remarks, I think last week, that so far they’d had 2,800 views on that website. So check it out. It’s a map. It shows you exactly where the services are in your particular area. I was very pleased to be able to be part of that announcement.

Of course, when we were at the HOpe Centre, we were very, very happy to be in the brand-new, state-of-the-art facility. Mental health care on the North Shore has been enhanced tremendously by the Greta and Robert Ho Centre for Psychiatry and Education, the HOpe Centre. The treatment facility will help people struggling with mental health and substance-use challenges by bringing them together and bringing together clinicians and programs from across the North Shore into one single-location centre.

It represents the commitment of both our government and the community, because the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation really stepped up with regards to their fundraising campaign to help those from the North Shore get help. It provides a more integrated approach to the delivery of mental health and addiction challenges and supports the next generation of doctors and researchers.

It was a $62.2 million investment at Lions Gate Hospital — with the help of the Hos, as I said, and the Djavad Mowafaghian donation — for the UBC medical education centre and, not to be missed, the new permanent home for the B.C. Ambulance Service. I can tell you that they were very pleased about getting a brand-new home for their ambulances.

Similarly, around that time I was also honoured to be at the Vancouver General Hospital and UBC Hospital Foundation and Bell announcement. Again, a shout-out to Bell for their $1 million Let’s Talk campaign, as well as to the foundation at UBC and VGH to support the new Joseph and Rosalie Segal family health centre when it opens in spring 2017.

With 100 private rooms, the Joseph and Rosalie Segal family health centre’s mental health program will be the largest hospital-based program for people with serious mental health issues in the province and will have the largest in-patient and out-patient population of any other hospital in the region. It is anticipated that that centre will treat up to 1,900 people in the in-patient program and as many as 30,000 people in the out-patient program, annually. So I thank them again for all the work to make that happen, as well as the generous donations by the donors.

Lastly, just a shout-out to all of the kids, all of the parents and all of the stakeholder groups and professionals who came to present to us at the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth’s special project on child and youth mental health. There is more coming on that. We are working on the second phase. I just wanted to say a shout-out to those families and people that came to present, because they are helping to inform our decisions moving forward with this very, very important topic.

In summary, I am very, very pleased to be able to support this balanced budget 2015. Contrary to what has been said in this House and, certainly, as I said, in the North Shore News in an editorial, this budget is anything but boring.

[1650]

R. Austin: It’s always a privilege to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the constituents of Skeena, especially on something as important as the annual budget.

Following on the member for North Vancouver–Seymour, I would agree with her that while budgets can be dry — there’s lots of detail, and a lot of people don’t necessarily have the opportunity to dig down into all the detail — it is certainly not boring in any way, because of course, budgets more than anything else have the greatest impact on the daily lives of our citizens.

It’s a fundamental thing that governments do, which is to decide how moneys are collected, who they come from, where they come from and how they are spent. So it is a very important thing.

I’d just like to take a couple of minutes to thank some folks. Of course, I’d like to thank my family — in particular my wife, Colleen, for continuing to support me and allowing me to do this work, work that I truly enjoy.

I’d also like to thank my staff back up in the Skeena riding: Roberta Walker, in Kitimat, who has probably by now dug her car out of the driveway after the huge snowstorm that we encountered about ten days ago; and, of course, in Terrace, Denis Gagné for all of his work he
[ Page 5956 ]
does in Terrace.

Before starting my remarks, I’d also like to just recognize a couple of people who have done an awful lot in terms of public service. Of course, there was a municipal election last November, and there were changes in both Kitimat and Terrace.

I want to just take a moment to recognize somebody who I know members on the other side of the House will also have known, because she was involved in municipal politics for, I believe, 38 years. She was head, president, of the UBCM. She was president of the FCM as well as eventually becoming mayor of Kitimat. That is, of course, Joanne Monaghan.

I think it’s fair to say that for anyone to spend 38 years of their life dedicated to public service is quite an amazing achievement. On behalf of the residents of Kitimat, I would like to thank her for all of her work and wish her and Simon a wonderful retirement.

Also in Terrace, I’d like to thank Mayor Dave Pernarowski. He decided not to run again. He, again, is a fairly new resident of Terrace. I think he probably came about ten or 12 years ago to live in the northwest from Manitoba. He quickly got involved in public life in Terrace, became the mayor and did two terms, and I want to thank him for all of his work.

Lastly, I’d like to just pass on my condolences to the family of Mayor Talstra. Mayor Talstra, like Joanne Monaghan, was somebody who dedicated an awful lot of his life to public service. He was mayor of Terrace for 20 years and, very sad to say, eventually lost the fight with cancer. So I’d like to express my condolences to his wife and to his children.

I’d like to begin by just reading out the amendment that my colleague from Surrey-Whalley put towards this budget. It reads as follows.

“‘That the Speaker do now leave the Chair’ for the House to go into Committee of Supply be amended by adding the following:

"‘That the government report in the third quarter of this fiscal year on progress towards their commitment to have one LNG plant and processing facility up and running by 2015; to open eight new mines by 2015; and their commitment to ensure every British Columbian has access to a general practitioner by 2015; and that the government maintain the personal income tax regime for individuals earning over $150,000 per year.’”

As I’ve talked about, budgets are probably the most important thing that the government does here in the Legislature. Yes, it’s about numbers. It’s about percentages. But at the end of the day, it’s much more than just a series of figures on a balance sheet. It is about: what is it that we as a collective in this Legislature are going to decide on behalf of our residents as to things that are so important to them? What’s the quality of life going to be like for them? That’s what budgets are really about.

I think at the end of the day, whether you’re from the left of the political spectrum or the right of the political spectrum, people — regular citizens — simply want a government that works for the majority of people and makes their lives easier. In a sense, what they want is to see that there is fairness in a budget.

[1655]

Obviously, we are making very big decisions. We decide whether corporate taxes come down or go up. We decide the different tax brackets that people pay for their income taxes. We decide what the sales tax is. We make decisions as to where revenue comes from in a way that we hope is fair and that enables everybody to have a certain quality of life.

We also go ahead and make decisions on how that money is spent. We have to make big decisions, like: do we spend extra money on health care this year? Do we spend extra money on our public education system? What state are the roads in? Is there enough money in the justice system? All very intricate decisions that affect people’s daily lives.

I think when you look at this budget and recognize that…. We have a budget in which this government is sending a message to people. It’s saying to people: “Look.”

The minister got up the other day and said that things are still uncertain in the world. You only have to turn on the news today to see what is happening in Europe with Greece potentially about to leave the eurozone. The state of the economy in North America, the slow down in China — you only have to look at the world and realize that, yeah, there are lots of challenges around.

But for people here who live in British Columbia — when they listen to what comes out of their government at budget time — want to make sure that they are not just handling all of the sort of macro issues, but they are also taking care of the individual needs as best they can. When you have a government that says, “What we are going to do in this budget is fulfil our commitment to give a tax break with $230 million to the top 2 percent of earners in British Columbia, while increasing charges to every other citizen” — flat charges, flat taxes — I think that sends a very real message as to what the agenda is of this government.

Yes, the Finance Minister got up the other day and said: “Well, this was a commitment that was made.” Well, this government has made all kinds of commitments over the last ten years. There was a commitment that we would have, by now, up and running an LNG facility by 2015. Unfortunately, that’s not something that’s going to be held to. There are commitments being made…. We were going to have every British Columbian have access to a family physician by 2015 — another commitment that isn’t going to be made to.

We do have this government saying on this commitment, on the one to ensure that those who are the wealthiest in our community, those who make $150,000 or more: “Oh, that commitment. Don’t worry; we’ll fulfil that.”

You know, when this extra tax brought in two years ago, it was fairly argued that the world economy was in a crisis. We were reeling from what had happened in
[ Page 5957 ]
North America with the banks and large corporations here. People were losing jobs left, right and centre, and there was a huge fiscal reduction in the amount of revenue coming to the government of British Columbia.

But you know what? Two years later isn’t it fair to say that there are still many, many instances of crises in individual families where they could do with a bit of help? So if it was okay to ask those who make the most in British Columbia two years ago to chip in some extra to help their fellow citizens out, I don’t think there is anything wrong in a government turning around and saying: “You know what? We’ve still have got huge challenges here, right? We’ve still got many, many challenges.”

We have the highest poverty rate in British Columbia. We have so many children — one in five — living in poverty in this province. Maybe, just maybe, it would be okay for those who make the most amount of money to continue to chip in to help deal with some of these challenges.

Getting back to fairness, let’s talk about taxes. You have income taxes that are progressive, and you have a series of flat taxes, charges that are put upon people irrespective of their income. For example, if you make $30,001, you make the same MSP premium payment as someone who makes $50,000 or $70,000 or $100,000.

What I’ve seen, in the almost ten years that I’ve been in this chamber and certainly in the previous four years before I came here…. We’ve seen a shift in how this government generates revenue with which it’s going to then make decisions to spend on behalf of the citizens of British Columbia. That shift is a subtle one, but it makes a huge difference to the lives of British Columbians.

[1700]

Over the last 14 years we’ve seen corporate taxes reduced. We’ve seen the income taxes of a portion of the lower-income people being reduced. But we’ve seen a whole series of charges made, whether they be MSP premiums, whether they be ICBC, whether they be hydro rates. Those have all gone up.

What we’ve seen is that the proportion of revenue that comes from what I would call flat taxes has increased dramatically at the expense of corporate taxes and some of the brackets for income taxes. What does that say about the government? What it says is that we are now going to have a system in this province where those who make the most don’t necessarily pay the most percentage or the most back into society. It’s a very sad day when you think of the changes that have happened over the last 12 years.

I don’t regard taxes as a bad thing. I know we have lots of to-and-fro in this House. The members on the other side often sort of use the word “tax” as though it’s a bad thing. To me, taxes are the way we bring money together and spend things on the common good. That’s what a tax means to me.

It means that we recognize as a society that we can take care of one another, whether it be through health care or education or fixing the roads or building a hospital. We can take care of each other better by having a common pool where we bring moneys in from every citizen and every form of way of bringing it, whether it be corporate taxes or sales taxes. Then we spend that on behalf of our citizens to make a better life for everybody.

I think sometimes some of us in this chamber try to get caught up in talking about taxes as though they are evil. They are not evil. They are the means by which we have a civil society. They are the means by which we mitigate the fact that some people are born to greater privilege than others.

They are also the way in which we actually build our society. I think everybody in this House would recognize that investments in education are what build the future of this province. Long after all of us have left this chamber, this province will then have the citizens who are going through the school system today and have been going through the school system for the 14 years that this government has been in power. It is those citizens — the skills they have, the educational ability, the social capacity that is being built in them — that will create the future for this province.

I don’t think anybody here would argue that taxing somebody or bringing in revenue in order to invest in education is a bad thing. I think that these are things we can agree on.

The other day I was on CBC speaking about the budget. The person who was interviewing me said: “Well really, you talking about the wealthiest 2 percent getting tax relief. Isn’t that an old story?” Of course, the day before, the Finance Minister had been on. I want to just speak to that for a second.

We constantly have new laws and new budgets brought in here every year. It’s not good enough, I think, to say, “Oh well, that’s an old story,” because you know what? We make political decisions in real time. We make political decisions today knowing the facts that we have today. The decisions that were made two years ago were made based on the facts that the government had two years ago.

It’s not an excuse to say: “Oh well. You know, that’s an old story. This budget is based on a decision that was made two years ago.” There are people in British Columbia who want their problems solved, and they need help and assistance today. What they want is a government that’ll look through the prism of today’s activities and actually what is going on in this province and not worry about what happened in the past.

It’s very important that every time we have a budget process, every time people go around the province on committees to listen to what citizens have to say, it is current and they are giving input about the situations of their citizens. When a government comes in and brings a budget down, it should be current. It should have been based on the situations that we have today.

I want to speak for a second to the motion with regards to having an LNG plant up and running by 2015.
[ Page 5958 ]
Clearly, everyone in this House has watched aghast, I’d say, at what has been happening in the world economy with regards to the price of oil and energy in general. For those of us who live in the northwest….

[1705]

Being the MLA for Kitimat, I think it’s fair to say we pay more attention to what’s going on in the LNG industry because we are a part of British Columbia that will benefit the most from having an LNG plant either in Kitimat or, quite frankly, in Prince Rupert.

Earlier today I was meeting with executives from Rio Tinto Alcan, and we are close to coming to the end of one of the largest capital projects in British Columbia. We have had so much activity take place in Kitimat over the last three or four years as a result of that amount of money that’s being spent.

We’ve had a camp of around 1,700 men in between the Alcan plants and the town. We’ve had a ship that had 450 people living in the Port of Kitimat and working on this plant. Over the next five to six months many of these folks will be returning home. They’ll be leaving because the plant is coming to the end of its construction phase. Hopefully, in the summer they’ll be pouring first metal.

The expectation and the excitement, from people who live in the northwest, around LNG is: “Okay, if we’re losing this massive investment or it’s coming to an end and the employment will leave, it would have been very nice to see an LNG plant.” That was the expectation. After listening to this government speak for 2½, three years on almost nothing except for LNG, the expectation in the northwest was that by now we would have a final investment decision.

But I appreciate — and I think finally the Premier and the government is coming to the recognition — that you may wish it all you want, but really these decisions are made far away, and they’re made on market conditions. I just want to emphasize that it’s still very much our hope that we get a decision this year.

I want to just put on the public record that while with both the Chevron project in Kitimat as well as the Petronas project in the neighbouring community of Prince Rupert there are delays in coming to a final investment decision, people need to realize that there are still tens — if not hundreds — of millions of dollars being spent by these companies in the hope that finally, eventually they will come to fruition and actually make that final investment decision.

So we are still hopeful, in the northwest, of this happening. I think that if you speak to people, there’s still quite a buzz in the community, although people are, I guess I would say, nervous.

I want to move for a second to the commitment that the government made, the commitment to have a general practitioner for every citizen in B.C. by 2015. Clearly, we are very far behind on that commitment. Again, I say that it’s okay for the government to say yes to making their commitment to give a tax break to the wealthiest. But their commitment that they made four years ago to have access for every British Columbian to have a GP — that commitment, unfortunately, is not being kept.

Why is it so important? Well, we listened the other day to the Minister of Health getting up and referencing a report that came from the Conference Board of Canada with regards to the B.C. medical system relative to others. There was an interesting note in that, with regards to chronic diseases and the ability and the cost to society of not managing those chronic diseases.

What is so important is for people to ensure that they have access to primary care, particularly in managing chronic diseases. What am I talking about here? I’m talking about hypertension. I’m talking about diabetes. In the northwest, unfortunately, we have very, very high rates of diabetes. There are lots of factors as to why that is. One of them, notwithstanding, is that certain ethnic groups are more susceptible to having diabetes. So we have very high rates of diabetes.

It is very, very important that this government recognize that one of the things that they could have spent extra resources on is actually ensuring that British Columbians all have access to a doctor. It’s going to cost everybody — not just the lives of the individuals — a huge amount of money, as we are failing to really take care of diabetes, which in some cases, particularly in areas like the Nass Valley, is almost at an epidemic level.

I’d like to speak for a second about some individual ministries. The first one I’d like to talk about is Education. I know that the previous speaker spent a lot of time speaking about education. As a former trustee, I know that she would know a lot about it.

[1710]

I was listening the other day to the Minister of Education give his budget speech and give his report back on what is happening in the education ministry. I have some comments to make around this.

I think it’s important when we talk about the increases to the learning improvement fund to recognize some of the history as to how this learning improvement fund came about. The previous speaker listed off a whole bunch of things that are happening in her school district as a result of learning improvement fund dollars that are now coming back into her school district.

What we have to recognize is this — these funds are only coming back as a result of court cases. They are only coming back as a result of the fact that all of this money was pulled out of the school system 12 years ago.

You don’t have to take my word for it. This is not about whether this is an NDP point of view or a B.C. Liberal point of view. You can listen to the judge, an independent person.

If you go and listen to what Madam Justice Susan Griffin said in her court cases, she said a number of things. She said — and she actually used the figure — that
[ Page 5959 ]
in her estimation the amount of money that had been removed from the public education system as a result of the contracts being stripped in 2002 was $250 million per year — each and every year. That’s what the figure was from Madam Justice Susan Griffin.

To recognize and now to try and take credit for, first, the $33 million that came into the LIF, then the $66 million that came into the LIF and now, of course, the more millions that are coming now…. Let’s just understand. This is money coming back that was taken out. The government should not be taking credit for this. They should be ashamed that the money was taken away in the first place.

Here are the facts. Over those 12 years that this money had been removed, kids came into our kindergarten system and they graduated. Those kids, for 12 years, were denied the proper amount of funding required to take care of their educational needs. That’s a fact, and the judge has said that.

I also want to just mention the fact that, again, the education minister talked the other day about having concluded a successful negotiation after the longest teachers’ strike in the history of British Columbia, that all things are hunky-dory now and everyone’s happy. Obviously, I can’t speak on behalf of all the teachers, but I can speak on behalf of the general sentiment in my riding from teachers I speak to. Most teachers who went on strike in the first place were doing it to improve classroom conditions.

Yes, it’s correct to say that people use industrial action to put pressure on a government to take care of salaries and benefits. But at the end of the day, if you speak to teachers, the thing that really upset them over the last 12 years was all of the supports that have been taken out of the classroom as a result of the stripping of these contracts.

What they were fighting for was improved learning conditions for their kids. That was the main fight. And yes, improved learning conditions for their children means, of course, improved conditions for the teachers in terms of their ability to teach.

They negotiated their settlement and went back, and we have labour peace for six years. The notice that I got from the minister the other day was: “We are so thankful. We are so happy as a government to have the longest contract in place.” But the fundamental issue of whether the learning conditions are back to where they were is still something that has to be adjudicated in a court.

The fundamental problems that brought teachers out and made them go and fight for all the things they’ve been fighting about for the last 12 years — those still have to be resolved. They are still not completely resolved.

I sincerely hope, when this court case comes to a conclusion, that the government will recognize not just that it was wrong to strip those contracts, but that it had a very real effect on people’s lives. You think of the number of children who did not get assessed over the last 12 years because there wasn’t enough funding to assess them if they had a learning disability.

You think of all the kids who did get assessed, who had an IEP in place, for which there was not the funding in place to actually fulfill that IEP. So you have kids for many, many years who were supposed to get supports in place who didn’t get that.

[1715]

They can never get that back. We shortchanged these kids for a generation. For a school generation, we’ve shortchanged these kids. I think that we need to recognize that.

I also want to say this — again, going back to Madam Justice Susan Griffin. I know that the Education Minister wasn’t in this House then. I believe he was in municipal politics. The judge said something very interesting in terms of how this government dealt with teachers. She said that on the evidence that she saw, the government had actually tried to instigate a strike — but not just that. What she said was that the chief negotiator on behalf of the government, in court and under oath, admitted this. So what does that tell you?

We’re trying to…. We want the government to have a better relationship with the teachers of this province. It’s in all of our interests for that to happen. If the teachers have a better relationship with the government and have the supports in the classroom, our kids will do better. Our future as a society and as a province is going to be better. But when you have a judge looking at evidence and recognizing that the government actively tried to get a strike — and tried to get a strike to use for political purposes — you can understand why teachers are so skeptical even today.

The government has been saying: “Well, we are now, at least in this budget…. We are putting an increase into this budget, and we are going to fund the settlement that came about both for the teachers and for the CUPE members.” At the same time as they’re increasing the money in order to give to the school districts to pay for the settlement, they’re then also asking the school districts to actually give back some money — $29 million this year, $54 million next year.

What they’re saying is: “We’re going to fund this. But by the way, there’s a portion of it that we expect you to come up with money.” So it’s like giving with the one hand and taking out with the other. When you consider that our school districts have been cutting things to the bone all the way up to the classroom, when you consider that….

Interjection.

R. Austin: These are the facts. These are the facts, Mr. Minister.

When you give money and then take it away, that makes it harder for the school districts. I’m sure that if
[ Page 5960 ]
you go and speak to school trustees now, who have to figure out their budgets for this year, they are going to be really strapped to come up with these savings in order to ensure that the teacher settlement is funded.

Every time money is taken out, these school districts have to go and find other cuts. These cuts inevitably will end up in the classroom. Why? Because over the last 12 years all the low-hanging fruit was taken a long time ago — a long time ago. So now it is directly affecting the kids in our classroom.

I think that there’s a lot of work to be done to recognize both the damage done and, just on a personal level, what needs to be done to improve this relationship with the teaching profession. What I’ve seen in ten years is that….

I’ve had Minister after Minister of Education get up and say all the right things about the values of public education, etc., and say all the right things about how hard teachers work and that their work is not easy. But then their actions have made it even harder for teachers to do their jobs. The words have been nice, but the actions have not.

I hope, moving forward, that we really have a government that understands that it is in all of our interests to have a highly and well-funded public education system for all of our kids. Otherwise, all that happens is you have dissatisfied parents who then go and seek the private option.

I would note that as a result of what’s taken place in the last ten years, obviously, parents have made decisions, which is perfectly their right to do. But I would argue that a lot of those decisions to move kids to a private system, to a school of different choice, have been made as a result of some of the turmoil that’s been created in the public school system by this government.

I see my time is coming to a close. I just want to encapsulate. What we have here…. I’m looking at a wonderful graph here — I can’t hold it up — of the essential message of this government, which is: “We’re going to increase flat fees on every middle-class citizen and lower-income person, and we’re going to give away a huge amount of money to those who are fortunate enough to make over $150,000.” Let’s put this….

I have to end. Well, anyway, thank you very much.

[1720]

Hon. B. Bennett: We all give speeches publicly. I know I use the line, and I suspect that all of us use the line sometimes when we’re speaking before lunch. We say: “We’re the only thing standing between you and your lunch.” Well, I feel today, given the time, that I might be the only thing standing between people getting home and….

An Hon Member: Sit down.

Hon. B. Bennett: The member beside me says, “Sit down,” but I’m not going to do that. That’s the way they treat me over on this side. You know, it’s a terrible, terrible situation. [Laughter.]

It is an honour and I’m happy to have the opportunity here today to speak to Budget 2015-16. It’s my 15th budget speech that I’ve given since I came here in 2001. Everyone knows, and I’ll say it again: this is our third consecutive balanced budget, which we’re very proud of, obviously.

I know it bothers the other side for us to talk about it so relentlessly, but we’re proud of it because it’s an unusual accomplishment. This, in fact, is the eighth balanced budget that the B.C. Liberal government has had since we were elected in 2001. When you think about that…. We’re going into our 15th year — I guess in June of 2015 it’ll be our 15th year — and we’ve balanced eight times. That just gives you some idea as to how difficult it is to balance a provincial government budget.

An interesting stat that the Finance Minister used. He said between 1984 and 2005, with three different political parties in power, they managed to balance only four times. The fact that we’re proud of it on this side of the House, I think, is justified because it’s not an easy thing to do. We may well be the only province in the country to balance the budget this year.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

I had somebody ask me the other day — actually, a young journalist from Cranbrook — in all sincerity: “How do you do it? How does the B.C. Liberal government do this when…?” He’s not somebody that’s terribly sophisticated, but he reads, looks at the news, watches the television news, is on line and so forth, and he knows that the rest of the country is not balancing its budget. He knows all about Greece, and he knows what’s happening in the world.

I think how we do it, essentially, first of all, is leadership from the two Premiers that we’ve had, but also an overall commitment from our group on this side of the House. We do unashamedly focus on the economy on this side of the House. We get criticized for that from the other side, but we believe — certainly we’ve been supported in our belief in the last four elections — that people want us to focus on the economy, because if you have a strong economy, you are enabled to pay for the things that are important to the people in the province, like the social services, the health, the education and the investment in infrastructure.

Frankly, one of the lessons I’ve learned and I know my colleagues have learned over the years is that the easiest thing in politics is to say yes. But saying yes without a plan and without an eye on how much is left in the kitty is a sure route to deficit. Somebody, I think the member before me, mentioned Greece. Greece is finding out what happens when you say yes too often. Ultimately, you end
[ Page 5961 ]
up in bankruptcy and socioeconomic chaos.

I’m actually going to speak mostly today about the ministry that I’m responsible for. I like the ministry. In fact, I love the ministry. I’ve always wanted to be the minister of it. I’ve had it three times. I’m really pleased that I’ve got this opportunity, and I thank the Premier of the province for giving me that opportunity.

I’m going to start off by talking a little bit about the crown jewel of Crown corporations here in B.C.: B.C. Hydro. B.C. Hydro is a very positive story today. The budget just introduced shows that Hydro has big plans to invest in infrastructure. We’re looking at, this fiscal year, $2.268 billion. Next year about the same — $2.234 billion. In 2017, $2.277 billion. And in 2018, $2.718 billion. It’s an average of about $2.4 billion per year over the next ten years by B.C. Hydro. It’s necessary for them to invest in a lot of infrastructure that’s there that needs to be upgraded or maintained and, in some cases, some new infrastructure.

[1725]

B.C. Hydro just completed something called the Vancouver city central transmission project. That went into service about 11 months ago. The total cost of that project was $171 million, and it came in $30 million below budget. Well done. That project will increase the reliability of electricity throughout the city, and it’ll help meet the demand for power in areas that are growing, like False Creek and Mount Pleasant. It’s the most significant investment in Vancouver transmission in 30 years.

The second project that has been completed is of course the northwest transmission line. This is the first file that I dealt with when I was minister and took over in June of 2013. Everyone knows that it went over budget. It went into service in July of 2014. Certainly, on this side of the House, we believe it is a nation-building project. It’s going to open up or has opened up world-class mineral deposits. It’s creating new jobs, creating investment in mining.

The Red Chris mine is a prime example. The Red Chris mine will be about 400 new jobs. The Tahltan are in support of that opportunity, those 400 jobs. All of that economic opportunity, that revenue-sharing that the Tahltan will receive would not have happened except for the northwest transmission line.

A third project that just finished is the Mica gas insulated switchgear replacement project, a long name for a project that cost $200 million — again, on time, on budget. B.C. Hydro often gets criticized for the projects where it does go over budget, like the northwest transmission line, but rarely gets any sort of recognition for the many projects that it completes on budget, on time.

Ongoing projects that are being built today? The Merritt area transmission project, a $65 million project that’s being built out; the Dawson Creek–Chetwynd area transmission project taking electricity up into the gas fields so that gas companies can extract gas using electricity instead of natural gas. That’s a $296 million project.

One of the big dams on the Peace River, the G.M. Shrum — units 1 to 5 will be replaced. That’s a $272 million project. Down here at the Lower Mainland there’s a new substation being built in Surrey, $94 million. Back up to the Kootenay-Revelstoke region, units 5 and 6 at Mica: $714 million for those two units. In Burnaby the Big Bend substation, a $56 million project that’s being done.

The Ruskin dam, which I toured this summer: $748 million. They’re actually taking a 100-year-old dam and powerhouse, rebuilding the dam while it stands there and holds water back. It is quite a remarkable feat of engineering and construction. It’s well worth going and having a look.

Here on Vancouver Island the John Hart dam is being replaced, and there’s a lot of infrastructure associated with that project. It’s a $1.093 billion project. The people in Campbell River, I know, are very pleased — a lot of economic benefits, a lot of jobs and spinoffs for local businesses.

I took over the portfolio a couple of years ago. Certainly, on the northwest transmission line I had lobbied hard when I was a private member back in my first term and then as the Minister of State for Mining in my second term to see that power line built. I’ve talked a little bit about it already. What is interesting — I heard the new CEO of Hydro say this as the first person to say it — is that the cost per kilometre of the northwest transmission line is actually the same as the cost per kilometre to construct a transmission line in mostly flat Alberta. While the project was over the budget that was estimated, in fact the cost of building that project was very much in line with what it costs in other provinces.

The second thing that came along after I was sworn in a couple of years ago was the Powerex problem or situation that we had. It came up back in the late 1990s. There were several parties — the California parties, they’re referred to — that were suing B.C., and we had a choice to make in government whether we with were going to keep paying $50 million a year to the lawyers. I’m a lawyer, and I don’t begrudge my colleagues to get paid. But $50 million a year over, at that point, 13 consecutive years, and $125 million a year just for interest on the claims that had made by the California parties, money that was in trust.

[1730]

The legal advice we got was that the settlement offer that was on the table was the best that was available for the province under the circumstances, so we settled it in August of 2013. We protected B.C. from a potential $3.2 billion legal liability plus all of those annual costs that I just mentioned a minute ago.

I think what’s probably most important is we have a productive relationship with the state of California, with their utilities. We’ve sold $3½ billion worth of electricity from B.C. to California since 2003, and that’s, I think, the
[ Page 5962 ]
positive side of that story.

Smart meters came along next. I don’t know if members are aware that most of the world, at least the western world, is going to something called smart grids, and the smart meters are the foundation of a smart grid. We knew it was the right thing to do. In fact, that project actually came in considerably under budget as well, just as an aside.

One of the things that I wanted, as Energy Minister, to do was to find a way for people who didn’t want the new meters to keep their older meters — a lot of them were analog meters — and so we did that. We came up with a way for people to not have to take the smart meter, which is a digital meter with a radio, and that was all good.

What B.C. Hydro said was, yes, they could keep their old meters, but it means that we’re going to have to have a different system for tracking the electricity that’s being used. There will have to be some real people actually go out and read these meters, and there’s a cost to that. So we said: “Okay, well, there’s a cost to that. You go to the BCUC, and you ask the BCUC whether the cost you have estimated is reasonable or not.” B.C. Hydro did that, and the BCUC said that what B.C. Hydro was currently charging for keeping your old meter was reasonable.

I know that the members on the other side are great believers in the BCUC. I hear it all the time how they think we should take matters to the BCUC, so I’m sure that they all support these fees that are being charged to people for the old meters.

The next thing that came along in the ministry that I think is important to the province is something called the integrated resource plan. It was something that Hydro had been working on for a few years. It’s the 20-year look ahead for the province. They forecast how much electricity we’re going to need over the next 20 years. To do that, obviously, they need to make an assessment of economic growth, of population growth and all the things that go into determining how much electricity you’re going to need. We’ll see how that plays out. They did a lot of work on it, and they’ve got a lot of international experts involved in it, and certainly, we’re relying on it.

We had something that came along shortly after the IRP called the industrial electricity task force report. There were suggestions from this independent group to government, indicating that we should look at rate design for the industrial ratepayers. We are doing that currently.

We have decided and announced something for the thermal-mechanical pulp industry, which is probably B.C. Hydro’s biggest customer overall in the province. They buy a lot of electricity, they use a lot of electricity, so we have a program for them where they can get some help to invest in technology and equipment that will help them use less electricity, help them save on energy use. Right now that looks like about a $20 million program. There is actually $100 million for industrial energy conservation in the ten-year rates plan, so there’s more work to be done to help industry find ways to use less electricity.

The ten-year rates plan announced in the fall of 2013 or 2014…. I can’t even remember now; 2013, I’m sure. The ten-year rates plan is something that we did a lot of work on. The other side of the House will be the first people to remind us that we had to raise rates, and that is true, but we didn’t have to raise rates anywhere as much as we would have, had we not done some other things that I want to tell you about.

We felt that it was necessary to work with B.C. Hydro and, first of all, get their operating costs down. That included executive compensation. Executive compensation is actually down 20 percent at B.C. Hydro.

[1735]

Operating costs have been reduced by almost $400 million over three years. We have told B.C. Hydro that their growth and operating costs will be tied to inflation. That is a tough nut for a large Crown corporation to chew on, but they’re doing it. They have a new CEO, Jessica McDonald, who I think everyone in the House is familiar with. Jessica is doing a great job at the helm of B.C. Hydro these days.

One of the other things that we knew we needed to do with B.C. Hydro was that government had to take less money from B.C. Hydro. If we were going to raise rates for the ratepayer in the province to pay for the cost of the infrastructure investments that are necessary, we as government should take less and do our share, so we’ve done that. We’ve changed the calculation for something called net income, and we’ve tied it to inflation. That will mean that B.C. Hydro over ten years will have to take $2½ billion less from ratepayers than they would have.

We also changed the formula for the dividend that is paid to the province. After fiscal 2017-18 the dividend will actually start to go down. It’ll go down to zero by 2021, and it’ll stay there until Hydro’s debt-to-equity ratio is 60-40. The change to the dividend will mean that B.C. Hydro will keep $3 billion more over ten years to invest in the system.

The third thing that we did was that we instructed government to terminate something called tier 3 water rentals that are charged to B.C. Hydro. That sounds innocuous enough. It’s about a $50 million hit to B.C. Hydro and, actually, when it’s removed, will mean a 1 percent reduction in rates.

All of those three things made a difference in terms of the obligations or financial liabilities of Hydro to government. All of those went to reducing the pressures on ratepayers. Obviously, that’s the bottom line and what we should be doing.

I want to say a few words about Site C. We decided in this government to build the Site C project for a number of reasons. I think the central reason, clearly, is that after B.C. Hydro did its due diligence and government did its due diligence and we gave the clean energy industry a full
[ Page 5963 ]
opportunity to make their case about other ways to generate that electricity that we’re going to need, we made a determination that the electricity that would be generated by Site C was the least expensive electricity available to the ratepayer. That’s essentially the foundation upon which we made the decision.

Site C is a one-of-a-kind project. There will be no other Site Cs coming down the pike at the province. It’s an opportunity that I think is probably time-limited. It’s a third dam on the Peace River. That project will generate about 35 percent of the power that the large Bennett dam generates, with only 5 percent of the environmental footprint.

That is because the water that’s stored upstream in the Williston reservoir is like a great big battery. All the way down through the system — through the first big dam and the second big dam that are there and then at the Site C dam — Hydro will get the benefit of all that water that’s stored in the Williston reservoir.

As I say, there are no other opportunities like that. The Clean Energy Act makes it very clear we’re not going to build any other large hydroelectric developments in the province — a difficult decision because it has an impact on the people who live in the area that will be flooded. It’s certainly not something that we took lightly, but the decision was based on what’s best for the majority of the people who live in the province.

We instituted a review of the B.C. Utilities Commission. That report was released a week or two ago. We appointed a task force to review the Utilities Commission because we had complaints, not just from the utilities but also from interveners. I didn’t know what to expect. The three people who were given that task are all very capable people. They came back with 35 recommendations. We are going to accept all 35 recommendations.

It was interesting. The task force found that it is the government’s prerogative to set provincial energy policy. That’s a good thing. That certainly is in congruence with the way we look at energy policy in this government.

[1740]

They also said that the BCUC struggles. They need more full-time commissioners. Now they only have one full-time commissioner, and that’s the chair. They need greater compensation. They are not competitive with other agencies like them. They can’t…. Well, they have difficulty attracting and retaining commissioners and staff.

The panel said that the BCUC needs an executive director to manage operations. Right now the chair, who is the only full-time commissioner, is also the manager of the business, so to speak. So the recommendation is that we need an executive director, and we’ll make that happen.

They also said that internal processes at the BCUC should be “improved by better defining the scope of issues to be dealt with in hearings…vetting who has standing to appear, and reviewing the relevance of information requests.” We’ll do all of those things.

The task force, interestingly, made no recommendations about Site C. Site C was never mentioned in the report, despite pronouncements that I saw in the media to the contrary. Site C was a major energy policy decision. It was best made by government. That’s who made the decision after a great deal of due diligence.

I should say that one of the things that the BCUC could have reviewed is the forecast that was done in the integrated resource plan that gets you to the point where we know we need 1,100 megawatts of electricity out in 2024. But the BCUC had already done that. The BCUC had already reviewed the forecast methodology used by B.C. Hydro and said that it was actually state of the art.

Site C is the most reviewed and studied project in B.C. Hydro’s history and perhaps in B.C.’s history. The budget for that project was reviewed twice by KPMG. It was also vetted carefully and over a long period of time by an independent panel of contractors — people with, on average, 30 to 40 years in the construction business, very senior people from large construction companies. And I should say that the BCUC will have a role in reviewing project performance as construction proceeds.

Now, I’m also, in addition to energy, responsible for mining, and I am thankful to my colleagues and, in particular, the Finance Minister for a budget lift to the mining budget of $6 million. I am also authorized to start charging fees for major mine permitting — another $3 million in fees. So $9 million to the relatively small budget that the mines division has is going to make a big difference. It’s certainly going to help us attract more investment. It’s going to help us stay competitive here in the province.

I think one of the assets we have in this province that we either aren’t aware of or take for granted is the amount of mining expertise that exists in the city of Vancouver. The city of Vancouver has roughly 1,000 to 1,200 head offices for mining companies, and the city of Vancouver has probably the greatest concentration of expertise — in accounting, in financial, legal, environmental, technical engineering that relates to the mining industry — anywhere in the world.

When you look around and you try to find things that B.C. is the best in the world at, well, we happen to be a real centre of excellence for the mining industry, and I think we should be proud of that.

Now, I’ve heard already here today — the previous speaker, and I’ve heard other speakers from the other side of the House…. They seem to be very discouraged and down in the mouth these days, and I feel badly for them. They talk a lot about “all your eggs in one basket,” and I guess what they’re talking about is LNG, as if that was the only thing that this government cared about.

So I do want to just get it into the record that since 2011 we have actually built five new mines that are operating today. One is Copper Mountain. One, New Afton, is up by Kamloops. Copper Mountain is over by Princeton. Mount Milligan is northwest of Prince George. Bonanza Ledge and Yellow Giant. Those are five mines that are new mines since 2011.

Right now the Red Chris mine is being tested. If those tests come back and are acceptable to the provincial government and to the Tahltan, that will be another large mine. As I said a minute ago, 400 good jobs, many spinoffs. So that will be five in total.

[1745]

I’ve heard this so many times. The opposition make light of this commitment that we’re going to achieve, or try to achieve, eight new mines. That will actually get us to six new mines. The bad news for the opposition is that we have at least two more mining projects that may well get shovels in the ground and start being built in 2015.
[ Page 5964 ]
We’re very pleased about that.

Now, in addition to those six new mines and the two that we think are going to start this year, we’ve had seven major mine expansions. Of course, in the 1990s we all know that for every mine that opened there were two that closed.

I’m going to run out of time. I would like to reserve my right to continue on Monday.

Hon. B. Bennett moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Polak moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 5:46 p.m.

Access to on-line versions of the official report of debates (Hansard),
webcasts of proceedings and podcasts of Question Period is available on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television.

Copyright © 2015: British Columbia Hansard Services, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada