2016 Legislative Session: Fifth 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 18, 2016

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 32, Number 11

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

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2016

The House met at 1:31 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. A. Wilkinson: Madame Speaker, continuing debate on the budget.

Budget Debate

(continued)

S. Simpson: I’m pleased to be back and to finish up my last ten minutes or so before my time is done. When I finished speaking this morning we had been talking about the role of budgets and talking about inequality and the challenges of inequality in this province.

We know that the inequality in British Columbia, the breadth of inequality, is probably greater than anywhere else in the country. We know that our poverty levels are extremely high. We know that child poverty is high. We know that the working poor are challenged and that we have a minimum wage that doesn’t meet their needs.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

All of these are the kinds of issues that a budget should have begun to tackle, and none of them are tackled in this budget. Not one of those things is being addressed in any way, shape or form in the budget.

What about the tools, though? We hear the government talk about the economic tools and talk about jobs and that. Well, one of the things we know…. We’ve had lots of debate here about Site C at different times in this House. We know one of the things that provincial governments do is capital projects.

Often people talk about how governments don’t create jobs, but we know the reality is that in challenging economic times, capital spending, taxpayer money for infrastructure, is in fact a big job driver and is something that is used pretty effectively.

The reality about capital spending is that it’s been a tool that has been used in this province since the days of W.A.C. Bennett by every provincial government that has existed. I will assure you that just as this government is using capital spending, the next government will use capital spending, as well, as a way to ensure and build and upgrade and improve infrastructure in the province in a whole variety of ways and as an economic incentive and an economic tool.

The difference comes in how you view that capital spending. We’ve seen the government’s view. We see it with the Site C project, where the labour model, the agreement that’s been put in place in terms of Site C, is an agreement that has no guarantees around jobs for British Columbians. It has no guarantees around apprenticeships. It does not have a working relationship with First Nations. It does not say a thing about local procurement and the need for local procurement to be a priority.

When we are spending taxpayers’ dollars, B.C. taxpayer dollars, it seems to me that while absolutely everybody gets to bid the job who wants to bid, it is entirely reasonable for us to say we are using taxpayer dollars to build infrastructure that we require, but we’re also using those taxpayer dollars as an economic tool.

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It’s a tool to build economy, to build community, to ensure that we’re meeting objectives around skills training, that we’re in fact supporting small business and local procurement and that we’re supporting local economic development. All of that, if it’s going to occur, doesn’t occur on a hope and a prayer and a wish and a dream. It occurs by putting in place agreements that accomplish that. We have used, in the past, models like project labour agreements that in fact accomplish those objectives.

Here’s the difference in terms of capital spending between what we’re seeing today with this government…. We’ve seen it with Site C. I expect we will see the same model used in other capital spending that has been referenced in the budget. We’ve seen a pretty desperate situation, when it comes to private dollars, with the project development agreement that was put in place around Pacific NorthWest LNG, which abandoned any kind of significant benefits to the province.

That’s a contrast to the discussion we’re having in regard to project labour agreements that ensure that people are working with security and good wages in projects where apprenticeships are a critical part of that; where we’re revitalizing our building trades, which require that; where we’re ensuring local businesses are getting the support that they need and are able to in fact prosper by development going on in their communities.

It’s so that we have a partnership that’s meaningful with First Nations in their territories, where these projects are occurring, so that they are getting a piece of the economic opportunity, they’re getting a piece of the jobs, they’re getting the skill training for their young members of those bands, of those nations, to ensure that they’ve got economic opportunity and a skill set that will ensure good jobs in those communities.

None of that will happen unless we put the deals in place. And what could possibly be better than modelling a project labour agreement — every one will be slightly different; there’s no doubt about it — that can be applied, where everybody knows it’s the same rules for everybody? We invite all to bid on these jobs. That’s never in question. But you bid in a set of rules that ensure a maximum benefit for British Columbia and British Columbians when we’re using taxpayer dollars to pay the cost of those projects.
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That’s something that this budget is absolutely silent on. We’re getting nothing out of that, and it begins to raise questions about how much of a waste that is in terms of taxpayer dollars going out without realized material benefit coming back to British Columbians.

There’s small reference to forestry, a critical resource. And as we see, LNG is kind of on the ropes at the moment. We know that commodity prices around mining are in some trouble. We all hope that will rebound, that it’s cyclical and it will rebound, and that copper and other products will begin to see the benefit of that. We know that forestry, the one truly renewable resource we have, is available to us today, but we have abandoned looking at forest health. We need to revitalize those forests. We need to invest in forest health.

Why aren’t we building a partnership with First Nations, territory by territory, to partner in the revitalization and development of a forest health strategy to rebuild our forests as best we can? Why aren’t we partnering around real R and D to look at the products, whether it’s in pellets, in other products? We know from talking to people now, to the industry, that there’s progress being made there, but we know we can take greater advantage of it. Why aren’t we doing a better job there? That’s not in this budget.

Why aren’t we doing a better job there? Why aren’t we saying that when it comes to raw log exports, the reality is that we’re going to ensure that mills that want to create real opportunity for jobs in communities across this province will access fibre at a fair price — they have to pay a fair price — before logs will go offshore? That’s got to be a first step, but the budget is silent about that, absolutely silent. Those are just a couple of examples of what we face.

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I come back to the comments I made at the beginning around the budget. A provincial budget is not like a corporate balance sheet. It is about people. It is about balancing resources and revenues and deciding priorities on revenues. Government has a lot of access to revenue but has to choose priorities, has to balance that with spending and, most importantly, has to balance that with people and their needs and has to balance that, particularly, with making sure we meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens.

We’re not doing that with the working poor. They are struggling. That struggle continues, and there is no sense that life is getting much better for those thousands and thousands of British Columbians who are struggling today. We need to do a better job. It needs to be about people and communities.

We know that while the economy is strong in the Lower Mainland, pretty strong in the south Island, costs of living are prohibitive. We’re not seeing support to ease those pressures on the people who live in those communities who are particularly challenged by that. The budget is silent on that issue.

In the rest of the province where, in fact, the economy is challenged, you have to ask yourself what we’re doing there. You have a handful of capital projects that have been talked about. But where is the rest of the strategy?

This is a budget that, increasingly, you hear on the street: “Yeah, it’s balanced. But what else is there?” People are happy to have a balanced budget, but they know that there are much bigger issues than a balanced budget in terms of the economy of the province, and they want to know where the government is.

Today, the government is nowhere. We’re seeing that struggle. We’re seeing the competing interests. We’re seeing the Premier and the Finance Minister taking absolutely contrary views on MSP in the press. One’s saying: “We’ll change it all next year.” The other one’s saying: “People have to be accountable.” I guess we’ll get this sorted out sometime. There’ll be one message sometime when the two of them get in the same room at the same time and talk to each other. Maybe there’ll be one message. Maybe not. We’ll see how that proceeds.

It is a budget that simply leaves people in this province wanting. It’s a budget that does not connect with the vast majority of British Columbians and their interests and concerns. It’s a budget that just leaves most people flat. They’re not angry about it. They’re not supportive of it, because it just is a budget developed by a government that clearly has run out of gas — probably good in a fossil-fuel time, to run out of gas.

That’s the reality we face. It’s unfortunate, but it is what we’re dealing with. It’s a budget that really is not worthy of this province and of the people in British Columbia, sadly. But I suppose it is probably worthy of the B.C. Liberals.

L. Throness: I want to talk about our budget, of course, but I want to begin today by giving some thanks and thanking, first of all, my constituents who elected me. It’s been a great privilege to serve them now for almost three years. I can hardly believe that I’m three years into a mandate. We’ve just got a year left.

I’ve worked very hard. I would simply note that I’ve put about 130,000 kilometres on my vehicle since the election. The reason for that is that I have a riding that’s 11,000 square kilometres. It’s a huge distance to cover. I’m very often on the road, as I know many of my colleagues are as well, on both sides of the House. So at any one time, there are many issues that are personal and pressing and long-term ones, as well, that we’re working on.

Fortunately, I have great staff. I want to pay tribute to the people who work for me. My constituency assistants, of course, are vital to my work, and we all experience that in this House. Dagmar Lucak works full-time on constituency cases, and she has taken some of the toughest cases and had success on them. She really is a patient person, and she really goes the extra mile for people. They appreciate it, and so do I.

Just an example. This week, the heat went out in our
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office, and she refused to leave. She turned on a little electric space heater and kept on working. That’s real pluck, and I want to thank her for that.

I want to also thank my scheduler, Sheila Denis. I would not make it to any events if Sheila did not order my life, and she does a great and detailed job at that. Sometimes making arrangements and juggling appointments can be tedious, can be complicated, but she works her way through all of that, and she’s cheerful in doing so. I appreciate her so much, and I also appreciate her wise advice on all sorts of matters.

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Two others fill in from time to time in my Chilliwack and Hope offices, Kathy Miki and Helen Jeschuk. I so appreciate their competence and their willingness to fill in, interrupt their schedules, even on short notice, to make sure that my office can be open on a consistent basis. So I have lots of people to thank.

People ask me what I enjoy most about my job, and I have to say it’s the people that I meet. There are great people all over B.C., and in my position, I tend to meet community leaders. They are really an extraordinary breed. They work extremely hard on a shoestring budget. Often they do it on a voluntary basis.

I think of Ron, who picks up garbage on his own time and often at his own expense in the Chilliwack River Valley. I think of Gail and her team, volunteers who run the community centre in Yale, or Dave, who coordinates a voluntary agricultural plastics recycling group in Agassiz with a bunch of farmers, or Ken and Debbie, who have volunteered with 4-H together for a total of 50 years. There are thousands of people like this, all across our great province, to whom we owe a great deal of gratitude.

There are angry people too. People don’t usually come to me because they’re happy. I can hardly blame most of them when I hear their stories, but even those, often they undergo incredible hardships, yet still are cheerful and take a positive outlook on life. So we in this House have to pay tribute to the individuals who elect us and who undergird our caring and compassionate province. It’s just one of the many things that makes B.C. a wonderful place to live.

Those are my introductory remarks. I want to talk a bit about the budget and give a few quotes of what people have said about the budget. I would quote the member for Vancouver-Hastings, who just, perhaps slightly grudgingly, gave a note of respect on our balancing the budget and diversifying the economy.

I think we get support from unlikely quarters, including the B.C. Agriculture Council, where Stan Vander Waal, the chair, said that the budget is a positive step in the right direction. He said: “We commend the provincial government for maintaining strong fiscal control and upholding a Triple-A credit rating.” At the Canada West Foundation, Janice Plumstead, a senior economist, said: “The budget should also be applauded for ensuring everyone benefits from improved circumstances, with strong new gains for families, especially those with children.”

So economists agree. Jock Finlayson and Ken Peacock in the Vancouver Sun said: “We expect the B.C. economy to grow by 2.8 percent…this year, rising to 3 percent in 2017, enough to put us at the top of the provincial rankings.” Can you imagine? We’re the top province in Canada. Finally, from the Business Council of B.C.: “We endorse today’s provincial budget and compliment the government on its careful management of the province’s finances.” Those are high compliments from people who would be critical of us. We welcome their criticism, and we appreciate their support as well.

I want to set the stage for my remarks by talking about extraordinary government. I don’t say we’ve arrived at extraordinary government, yet extraordinary government is an ideal that every member of this House would strive for. So I want to talk about it in the context of the budget that was presented this week. I want to talk for a moment about the concepts of conservativism and liberalism writ large, just to talk about the general guiding philosophy of conservatives and liberals, how they interact and how that might be reflected in this budget.

I think this topic is important because our present government, our B.C. Liberal governing party, is a coalition of liberals and conservatives. What do we actually mean when we talk about conservativism and liberalism?

Simply put, I see it that a stereotypical conservative conserves. A typical conservative is something of a historian, emphasizing respect for the past, drawing from all the best traditions and values of the past, bringing those traditions and values into the present and preserving them into the future. A conservative by nature conserves resources too, so we would expect a conservative to be also be an environmentalist.

A conservative is skeptical of the foibles of human nature and guards against its faults and failings through things like a government and an opposition, the adversarial court system and adversarial union-management relationships. A conservative would stress personal responsibility and efficiency in business and would, therefore, save more and accumulate capital and focus on spending it wisely.

That’s, I think, why conservatives tend to be successful in enterprise and tend to be supporters of free enterprise. They’re cautious and prudent by nature. They prefer to save, rather than to spend. Conservatives are often older people.

On the other hand, what is a stereotypical liberal? Again, it’s quite simple, a liberal liberates. A liberal is more of a futurist than a historian. A liberal wants to break free from the past, to cast off old traditions and the things that are no longer relevant or valuable.

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A liberal wants to try new things, to be generous and welcoming and spontaneous and open. A liberal is more trusting of human nature and government. So a liberal
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would tend to reduce the adversarial nature of parliament and courts and unions and focus on more consensus-based processes.

A liberal would tend towards larger government and believe in its possibilities. A liberal might also tend to be more visionary, be willing to risk more, spend more, take on more debt for what it sees as a great cause, to be more outward-looking and take on new ventures. A liberal might tend to be younger rather than an older person.

Of course, these are stereotypes. No one person is all conservative or all liberal. On this side of the House, we are combinations of these things. But as a matter of emphasis in our own lives, we tend to lean either towards liberalism or conservatism. Our choice of a political party often reveals that kind of focus, that kind of emphasis.

For example, I myself tend towards the conservative end of the spectrum, as do some of my colleagues on this side. Of course, these are not only strengths, but they can also be weaknesses. Both can take their principles to excess, and that’s a danger we have to guard against. As they say, there are ditches on both sides of the road.

Most governments in Canada today are either liberal or conservative. They tend to be quite partisan. They reject the viewpoints of the other side. The media said recently that our new federal government — which is a Liberal government, as we all know — has taken some policy directions not because they were good policy choices on their own merits, but because they were the opposite course of action to those of the Conservatives before them. And the Conservatives before them may have done the same thing at some time.

Wouldn’t it be ideal if we could shed the weaknesses and excesses of both perspectives and combine their strengths instead? Wouldn’t that be an opportunity for extraordinary government? I think that in our present government’s coalition — which happens to bear the name B.C. Liberal but is still a coalition of liberals and conservatives — we have the possibility of moving more and more steps towards that extraordinary government.

If there’s one great service that the NDP has done for our province, it’s to force liberals and conservatives to sit together on this side of the chamber, instead of on opposite sides, for decades — on the same side instead of opposing sides. This causes internal pressures, to be sure. But the outcome, I would submit, is out of the ordinary.

As the biblical saying goes, iron sharpens iron. People with differing viewpoints have to get along in order to retain power. So we refine each other’s ideas. We talk a lot. We pare down the sharp corners of each other’s viewpoints. We have some people who are liberals and some who are conservatives in our caucus, and we’re both welcome.

A party is just a vehicle to get us to a destination. We have, as it were, put our vehicles side by side. We’re going to continue driving together toward the goal of extraordinary government.

I see that as a strength rather than a weakness. Together we can build something that’s better and greater than if we were apart. And though there will always be tensions in a caucus, we have to remain cognizant of that better and higher goal: the goal of extraordinary government, which is bigger and more important than any one political party. It has the best interests of the province in mind.

What are some elements of an extraordinary government? Well, for sure, fiscal responsibility and discipline has to be one. Balancing the budget is an integral part of extraordinary government. I’m so pleased that we’ve been able to do that now for four years in a row. That’s something no other government in Canada has done in recent memory, and I think it’s a signal achievement. The U.S. government, for instance, last balanced its budget in 2001. That’s 15 long years ago. It’s been a string of deficits ever since.

I think an extraordinary government would keep a low burden of debt, in part to keep from saddling future generations with our debt, but partly to reduce debt-servicing costs right now, which we can then devote to other, better purposes. That’s why I appreciate our rapidly falling debt-to-GDP ratio. With a ratio of 17.4 percent, we compare favourably with other jurisdictions in Canada.

For instance, our two largest provinces — compare us with Ontario and Quebec. They’re at 40 percent and 55 percent debt-to-GDP ratio respectively. Ontario alone pays $1 billion a month on its provincial debt just for interest. That’s $12 billion a year unavailable for any social program, any infrastructure upgrade, any tax relief or anything else. And it’s rapidly getting worse in that province.

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Ottawa’s debt-to-GDP ratio is now 31 percent, almost double B.C.’s rate. It spends $26 billion every year on interest just to service its national debt. Happily, we’ve kept our triple-A credit rating, and over time, that saves us billions.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the U.S. debt. I have, every year since I began, been alerting members to this issue. America’s debt burden is now 103 percent of GDP, if you can imagine. That is a debt burden six times heavier than B.C.’s debt burden. They are approaching $19 trillion. The U.S. debt is ten times bigger than Canada’s entire economic output for an entire year.

Obviously, this situation is unsustainable, and it’s only getting worse. As someone said, if something can’t go on, it won’t. It has to stop sometime. And when it stops, it will mean a drastic downturn in the economy perhaps of the whole world. So we’re doing well in diversifying our economy away from the American economy as we have over the past decade, very wisely, and in diversifying our economy so that we’re not just dependent on a few commodities. We have a jobs plan that has about eight different sectors, like agriculture, software, film industry and all sorts of things that we’re doing in order to diversify.
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The beauty, of course, of balanced budgets is small surpluses, which we’re using to pay down our operating debt. We can use those lower interest costs to fund spending on social programs with no change to our bottom line, no risk to us. Over the next three years, $500 million that would otherwise have gone to interest payments will instead go toward program improvements.

It makes me feel very proud to be part of a government that’s fiscally responsible. Yes, it holds the line on budgets and is very responsible in spending, but it’s also a compassionate government. We’re paying attention to those most in need among us.

I want to address a few program improvements in the budget that I think my constituents would like to hear about. I’ve received a few complaints in my office about MSP premiums, particularly from middle-income people and from seniors who are on fixed incomes. I think it’s great that we’re broadening the subsidy in a number of different ways.

An example: single people won’t pay full premiums until their income hits $42,000. Last year or just before the budget, or this year, continuing until January 1, it’s $30,000. So we’re increasing that by $12,000. You can earn $12,000 more in income and still not pay full premiums. Likewise, senior couples earning less than $31,000 will pay no premium at all and will only pay full premiums when their combined income reaches $51,000.

I have a lot of seniors in my riding. I think they’re going to be very happy about that. That’s going to have a positive impact on a lot of people. It’s going to put a lot of money in their pockets, people who need it.

The news of the full exemption from the property transfer tax for purchases of newly built homes up to $750,000 for use as a purchaser’s principal residence is really great news. This will spur new home construction in Chilliwack. The vast majority of homes are well below that, and I would point out that the median price for a home in Chilliwack is something under $400,000. So, in fact, most homes in Chilliwack could profit from this new move.

A buyer will be able to save up to $13,000 on their new home. All over my riding, new homes are going to be more affordable. The $13,000 saved on the property transfer tax can make a big difference to a down payment. It will enable a first-time homebuyer to break into the housing market and take advantage of the rising home prices that are going to continue for a long time in the Fraser Valley. To be part of that market is really important now.

Disability rates are increasing by $77 a month. I think that’s a great leap forward. That’s been a long time in coming. I’m happy to see it. On a base pension of $906 a month, that’s a significant increase. It builds on other measures we’ve taken recently, in the last year, for people on disability. If you’re on a provincial disability pension, for instance, you can earn up to $9,600 a year. You can earn that money at any time of the year without taking anything away from your pension, no reduction in pension.

We exempt child support payments for families on disability assistance. We’ve increased asset levels to $100,000 from $5,000. All these measures are designed to make it easier for people with disabilities to enter the workplace, to inherit property without penalty and generally to make their lives easier and better to live.

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I was particularly happy, being from the Fraser Valley, to see $55 million for emergency preparedness and flood protection, like upgrades to dikes. There are lots of those where I live. That’s something we can always be anxious about. We’re always watching the mountains. There’s a big snowpack this year. We’re always anxious about flooding.

A couple of weeks ago, several municipalities and First Nations along the Fraser met with the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations to outline the risks of inaction. The risks of inaction, in the case of a catastrophic flood, would mean billions in costs.

I’ve since spoken with Colin Hansen, who’s the head of the Fraser Basin Council and the former Minister of Finance, regarding a large flood study they’re doing. They’ve been working at it for a long time, about a year and a half. They’re going to report out in late March or early April, and they’re going to give some learned recommendations as to what needs to be done on a system-wide basis. So that report is going to be very timely. Of course, we MLAs in the Fraser Valley are going to be following up to see that our communities are allocated their reasonable share of that good sum of $55 million.

Over the next three years, general taxation revenue will supply more than $500 million each year for health care. Demands on the system are growing every day. I get a lot of concerns about health care in my office. With the retirement of the baby boom generation…. The first baby boomer retired in 2011 and will hit 75 years of age in 2021. That’s when the real health problems will begin to mount, so we need to keep on investing in our health care system. I’m proud of a government that is putting needed money in every year — $500 million more each year for health care.

Our income tax burden continues to be one of the lowest in the country, and I’m proud of that. For a single person making $80,000, the total tax burden is the lowest in Canada. For a four-person, two-income family making $90,000, we are the second-lowest tax jurisdiction in Canada. And for a senior couple making $30,000, B.C. offers the third-lowest taxes in the country. These are all things that we can be proud of. We’re an affordable province to live in.

Of course, speaking of affordability, there is money for affordable housing — $355 million over the next three years. That’s something that is to be applauded. I would caution the government that spending too many precious dollars on affordable housing in the most expensive markets in B.C. — and some of the most expensive markets in Canada — will reduce the total number of people we
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can help. That same funding, used in a market in other less expensive areas of B.C., will help us to maximize the number of people we can assist.

I would further point out, for those with rent subsidies and so on, that commuting to work is often not an issue with affordable housing, because most people who receive subsidies are not part of the job market — people perhaps with mental illness, seniors who are long out of the job market or people with disabilities that make it difficult or even impossible for them to work.

I continue to say, as I did the other day, that our policy in this regard must not be Vancouver-centric. It must be people-centric. We have to stretch our scarce dollars to help as many people as we can. I think this is the most compassionate approach toward our affordable housing policy.

In conclusion, I’m working on issues all the time. In addition to issues in the constituency, I’m working hard in my critic role. I try to maintain a semblance of a private life as well.

I’m going to continue to urge the government to stay the course that was set in this budget, to continue our strong and sound fiscal policy but also to combine that with a sound, social policy, a compassionate social policy that meets the needs of British Columbians. I’m going to continue to serve to the best of my ability, and together we’re going to keep shooting for that ideal of extraordinary government.

K. Corrigan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s good to see a colleague from my community in the chair today, which actually happens most of the time because two of the Deputy Speakers are from the community of Burnaby. So we’re well represented in this House.

Half an hour goes by very quickly, so I’m going to get right to the thing that I think is most important for me to talk about today, and then I’ll talk about some other things a little bit later. But the area that I am most concerned about in our province, the area which I am spokesperson for, for the official opposition, is Advanced Education.

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I was surprised a couple of weeks ago, when we got the throne speech, that there was no mention of advanced education. That really concerned me, and I thought perhaps it was an omen of things to come. In fact, I’m correct, because in the budget, which we had earlier this week, there is virtually nothing for advanced education, which to me, is a very shortsighted approach.

When we talk about the importance of the development, the future prosperity of our country, we cannot, as provincial legislators — as my colleague from Vancouver-Hastings said a little bit earlier today — control everything, certainly, through the choices that we make and the priorities that we have in provincial legislation and in our budgets.

But there are some areas where I think we can make a difference. I do believe that the most important investment that we can make, not only in the citizens of our province but also in the future economic prosperity and growth of our province, is in advanced education and in the K-to-12 system.

I find it very disappointing that for several years now in the post-secondary system — our colleges, our universities and our institutes — we have not only, over the past few years, not kept up with inflation, we’ve actually cut the investment to our post-secondary institutions.

This year, there is a tiny increase, but it is not an increase that will keep up even with inflation for already-strangled colleges and universities. We have no relief from that this year. In fact, with about a 1 percent increase over each of the next two years, that does not even keep up with inflation, which is running at just under 2 percent right now.

Again, essentially what we have are further cuts to the post-secondary system, which is what we’ve had for the last few years. It seems like a very short-sighted approach to the growth of this province.

There is some in the capital budget for deferred maintenance. I’m glad to see that, but the reality is it’s long overdue. I speak to administrators, students, faculty from all across the province in the various institutions, and they’re telling me that their buildings are crumbling underneath them. We are in desperate need of money put into our infrastructure in order to protect the investment that we have made.

In this budget, not only do we not have enough in the budget to keep up with inflation, there is nothing to help students who have the highest debt loads in the country. I’m not necessarily talking just about the direct student loan program, but according to BMO in a study that was done a couple of years ago, B.C. students, when they leave university, carry the highest overall debt load of any province in the country. There’s no relief from that. There’s no relief from the B.C. Liberals, who extract the highest interest rates in the country on student loans.

There is nothing to help colleges and universities, which have suffered a long, slow drain of support from this government. The share of investment by government in our post-secondary system has steadily declined under this government. Government is contributing less and less of the share of the system, while students are contributing more and more. We are losing some of the best and brightest, particularly of our graduates, because we do not offer the scholarships that other provinces do, so we have a brain drain from our colleges and universities.

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There’s nothing in this budget to help families and students who are struggling to afford to get to university. As I said earlier, it is such a shortsighted approach to the future of this province.

Our universities, colleges and technical institutions not only add a direct economic impact on regions, but they also have an impact on human capital and tech-
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nologies. And they increase productivity, employment, purchasing, contributions to the community, student spending, visitor spending, research dollars, housing. From a strictly economic approach, our colleges and universities and other post-secondary institutions, both public and private, are literally hives of economic activity, both directly and in all the businesses that they support.

Not only do our colleges and universities have significant positive economic impacts on regions; they also improve the long-term economic fortunes of a region through the research and teaching that produce skilled workers and technological innovation. They result in improved wages for the individuals and for regions.

Instead, the approach of this government over the last several years…. The B.C. Liberal government, instead of working hard to improve the fortunes and improve the education and the post-secondary education, have instead relied on bringing in temporarily foreign workers.

Temporary foreign workers, on the one hand, versus a long-term vision of success for our province. Higher wages result from investment in our institutions. Higher wages mean increased taxes, increased consumption and higher levels of savings and investment.

I’ve met with a great many high-tech businesses in my community of Burnaby and elsewhere. Repeatedly what you find from speaking to them is that they often were businesses that were created from activities and research at our post-secondary institutions, or they’re built, developed, by individuals who graduated from our post-secondary institutions.

Organizations, businesses like Electronic Arts, Schneider Electric, D-Wave, in Burnaby — all are products of our post-secondary system, and they say what they need is skilled graduates. This is, to me, a no-brainer. This is an area that we should be investing in for the future economy and for the future of our province.

Studies repeatedly have shown significant positive impact to a region from the skills that a university or college provides its students. Start-ups, technology licences, patent applications, research — all are spinoffs of our post-secondary institutions.

I was speaking earlier today about a trip that I made, along with the Leader of the Official Opposition and a couple of colleagues, to BCIT two weeks ago. It was a very clear example of what I’m talking about — the importance and the vibrancy and the economic implications and the critical engine of innovation and creativity which can happen in our post-secondary institutions.

The tour that we went on. BCIT is in Burnaby and is B.C.’s largest post-secondary institution, with 48,000 full- and part-time students at five campuses, including the main campus at Burnaby. Of course, there’s Simon Fraser University. The original campus, and the largest campus, is also located in Burnaby.

Our tour a couple of weeks ago included two great — perhaps not huge — but small examples of innovation and creativity. Faculty members Joey Dabell and Joe Newton showed us the solar canopy demonstration project, which provides solar-powered lighting for the school’s parking lots.

[1415]

This was just fascinating. Electrical and computing engineering instructor Craig Hennessey provided a fascinating demonstration of the far-reaching implications of gaze-tracking technology, which actually computer-tracks your eyes. First of all, it calibrates your eyes on a screen, and then it tracks the gaze that you have.

It can be used for anything from interactive gaming to advertising research and security systems. Advertising research — we asked some questions about that. One of the examples was that they can put these special glasses on you, send you into, say, a supermarket and follow with video exactly how your eyes move around the shelves. It was a pretty amazing system that is being developed at BCIT by a faculty instructor and which involves working with students as well.

This particular tool has great potential for those with limited mobility, because it can allow individuals to use it to actually type using just the focus of their eyes. There’s lots and lots of medical applications, as well, that could be really exciting. Those are just two very small examples of the types of innovation and creativity that are happening at our post-secondary institutions.

As well as the economic impact of our post-secondary institutions, we also have to remember that one of the most important things that our education system, both K to 12 and post-secondary, does is that it creates the thinkers, the citizens, even the dreamers and the leaders of the future — the critical thinkers. I think we can’t forget about the importance of that role of our post-secondary institutions as well.

We’re building social capital, and we’re supporting good jobs that support both men and women. You know, when you talk about building physical infrastructure around this province — and we want to build physical infrastructure around this province — remember that in the trades, which are the jobs that are building that physical infrastructure for the most part, that still there’s a very small percentage of women who are in the trades.

One of the advantages of investing in our post-secondary institutions is that these are creating jobs for women as well as men. In fact, we know that women are doing extraordinarily well in the post-secondary system and are very well represented. It’s an issue of equity as well. Investment in our post-secondary institutions is good for the future of women. I think we want to always remember that we need to have a balance between investment in bricks and mortar and investing in social capital with education.

I want to mention a couple of concerns that I have with the direction that we’re going in post-secondary education in this province. We have the blueprint for educa-
[ Page 10506 ]
tion, which advocates a market-driven approach for our post-secondary system.

While I do believe that there should be some alignment between what we believe the future markets are going to demand in terms of training, I think there is — as I said a minute ago — an intrinsic value to our society of preparing good citizens and of those critical thinkers — the leaders, the creators, the innovators, the thinkers and the dreamers. They are all of value.

When you talk about alignment with jobs, if you want to put it in that perspective, remember that the people who become your managers are leaders in your companies, the creators of companies…. Those also are jobs that, although you may not know the direct alignment between…. Maybe you’ve got an undergraduate degree in English and a master’s degree in public policy. Those types of degrees are the ones that prepare people to be good managers, to be good leaders and to be good innovators.

College graduates are more likely to volunteer in their communities, more likely to be aware of and participate in political events, more likely to vote. They need less health care, and — I wouldn’t have known this — they smoke less.

[1420]

I do think that while we want to align our system somewhat to what the markets need, we also need to be aware that there are many other benefits from the post-secondary education system.

One of the other concerns I had about the blueprint for education was the fact that while the claim was that this was going to be an entirely evidence-based approach and that we were going to identify the top 60 jobs in the province in terms of market need, what the government then did was superimpose LNG on top of that. They superimposed one report by KPMG that assumed — had as its basic assumptions, I assume provided by government — that we were going to have five LNG plants in place within a few years.

The problem that we have is we have this whole ship of the post-secondary system — which is a huge system, billions of dollars — being turned very slowly, because it’s very difficult to do it’s so large, on the basis of one report and one government’s hope that we are going to hit the LNG jackpot.

My concern is that we are moving the ship. We are saying it’s all about LNG. We are supposedly training people — that’s what the report said — yet we have had zero LNG plants and we have no money coming from LNG. It is a real concern. When you take that kind of an approach to your post-secondary system, that’s a real issue.

Now I know this year we have a different approach. We’re talking about tech, something we’ve been talking about for a while. Apparently the government, now that the LNG golden basket hasn’t worked out so well, is talking about diversity and talking about technology. Now we’re going to put some resources from the post-secondary system into technology.

I’m very concerned that these are political directions that we’re being forced to go in, as opposed to truly evidence-based directions — particularly when you look at the fact that so many of the decisions about where we needed to put our resources were based on one report that has promised things that have not happened.

I also have concern about rural education and access to education. Last year I visited a number of colleges and universities throughout the province and continue to do so. I went to Northwest Community College, a wonderful college. It has a number of campuses — or did. One of the campuses, which was newly opened, has now closed. I went to the Northwest Community College and the College of New Caledonia and visited UNBC, the university that is located in Prince George. Here, and certainly in the Kootenays and other communities as well — Prince Rupert, throughout the north….

What is happening is that we had this fantastic college system in British Columbia that was built up through a few decades, that was a place that students could go to and often get their first two years of post-secondary education. That would give them a good chance, close to home, to get training — either diploma training, get a complete training or get the first two years of post-secondary and then transfer to a larger community like Vancouver, now Prince George, or Victoria, and go to university.

The transfer programs are constantly being cut back in our rural communities. So what is happening is that there is less and less access for individuals who live in small communities to go to our post-secondary educations. We’re creating a two-tiered world in education. We’re creating a world where if you live in an urban centre, chances are you’ll have a pretty good chance of going to college or university. But if you live in a small community, then you have less of a chance.

[1425]

Remember, also, what we were talking about earlier. What I was saying earlier is that these colleges and northern universities, rural colleges, are drivers of economic activity. They provide jobs. They increase the capital, the skills and the social capital of an area.

I’m very concerned that, for example, when you have a college campus closing in Kitimat just a few years after it opened, a brand-new college, what you are doing is you’re reducing the potential of that community. And just like when you take away….

I remember several years ago the Liberals closed hospitals in communities across the province. Hundreds of schools have been closed across the province. Every time you close those kinds of facilities that increase our social capital and provide good jobs, you take another little stab and you inflict another wound on a community and eventually can kill those communities.
[ Page 10507 ]

I was very disappointed to see the closure of the dental program at the College of New Caledonia, the dental hygienist program. Now there are promises that they’re going to bring it back in a few years, but I don’t believe that’s going to happen. Apparently, the experience at the College of New Caledonia is that even though there are promises made that programs will come back, often it does not happen. I spoke to one of the instructors of the program, actually, in the last few days, and my understanding is that that program may well not come back at all.

The financial pressures on the colleges and universities, particularly the rural colleges, are such that what is happening is that decisions about programming are being made not on the basis of whether or not that’s a good program for the area, whether or not those skills are needed, whether or not they can get jobs, but instead on the basis of whether or not it’s a program that the college has to cut because they have to balance their budget.

That dental program was a good example. One of the most expensive programs at the College of New Caledonia, it had its name all over it as a target when the college, with further cuts, had to close some programs. It’s very unfortunate, because dentists in the area, patients and businesses all said: “This is a great program.” Almost complete employment, 97 percent for one and a little bit less for one of the other ones — almost fully employed.

Dentists said, “We can employ every single dentist hygienist that comes out of that program,” yet it was closed, because it was an expensive program. The need was there. That dental program was also running a dental clinic with almost 20 chairs in it, which was providing services to the community as well. So there’s another service, dental services at low cost, which is being lost to the community of Prince George.

That’s not going to be measured. That’s not going to be noticed. That’s not going to be accounted for in any way in the books of the government, but that’s the reality of the closure of that program.

When you’re talking about access to education, as well, not only am I concerned about what’s happening in rural British Columbia, but I’m also really concerned about the cuts that have happened as a result of funding declining or being stagnant over the last several years in the areas of adult basic education and English language learning, or ESL, as some people call it.

Adult basic education. Recently government decreased the funding, got rid of the funding, for adult basic education, except there was a bit of a transition grant, which is now coming to an end for most of the post-secondary institutions. What that has meant is that there is less access. Enrolment is significantly declining as these transition grants end. Some students have access to grants, but they take a lot of energy to get the students signed up for them, and what we’re seeing is less access.

[1430]

These are, again, building social capital. These are people, usually, who went back to school to complete or upgrade their education, and not just to do that but usually because they had some career path or some training in mind and they needed to upgrade themselves, maybe take biology 12 or finish off English 11 and 12, whatever — finish or upgrade.

We’ve created this barrier to post-secondary education. For people who are trying to make their lives better and to contribute to society, it seems very shortsighted to be cutting the support. I remember that at the time…. I mean, it was this government that decided to make adult basic education courses free. Now they’re charging. It was this government that said it was in the public interest to do so. They were correct then. They are not correct now in ending free adult basic education.

This is on top of major cuts to English language learning that happened over the last couple of years. The programs at Vancouver Community College in English language learning have been decimated. Thousands of students who had one hurdle in their life — often were well qualified in other countries, had all sorts of skills and have all sorts of skills to offer the economy of British Columbia — have a barrier put in front of them. They have one hurdle, which is to improve their English. Now we are creating a barrier, and it’s much harder for refugees and immigrants to get those English language programs and far more expensive.

As the low-cost or free education is being cut off in British Columbia, we also notice that there are private colleges flourishing next door. That’s a priority, or a lack of priority, of this government, and I think it’s very unfortunate.

People come from all over this world to British Columbia, and we invite immigrants to be here. Why we would invite immigrants and then slam the door to education in their face, I do not understand. I want to say particularly that when you consider that we are inviting refugees to come to this province, why at this time would we be cutting out access to adult education and English language programs?

I see my time has almost come to an end. In summary, I am concerned about the lack of support by this government for post-secondary education and K-to-12 education. I think it’s a shortsighted approach because it is the best investment that we could make in the future economy and in the future of citizens of this province.

D. McRae: Today I want to start off my speech, like many of us do, by recognizing the individuals who allow us to do our job. First of all, I would be remiss, of course, if I didn’t talk about my wife, Deanne McRae. We’ve been married now…. This will be into our 21st year. I met her while I was in high school. She tolerated me then, and she still tolerates me now, so I’m a lucky man.

We’re joined now in our life with our two daughters, Gracie and Chloe. I had the opportunity to return home
[ Page 10508 ]
last night for a few minutes, and I was able to see them and come back to the Legislature today and give this speech. While I don’t suspect they’ll be actually listening to my speech, they’ll at least be able to pull their names up in Hansard one day.

In Comox Valley, the constituency office, I have some amazing employees. I want to say a special thanks to them as well — Dianne Lineker and Roseanne Garritsen. Dianne has been with me my entire time as MLA for the Comox Valley, like she was there for Stan Hagen before me. Roseanne Garretson has come on board in the last several years. She is both a receptionist and sort of an assistant constituency assistant and does an amazing job. Two amazing women.

In the summertime, we are joined by, in the past, Connor Gibson, but he has now left us, obviously to pursue education. He’s attending flight school in the Lower Mainland.

Probably two of the most challenging jobs in the Legislature are those who look after me when I’m actually down in Victoria. Down in the basement in now my seventh office in seven years, I am supported by my legislative assistant, Grant Hatley, and my assistant legislative assistant, Brendan Dawson, who, I might want to add, is basically from the Comox Valley.

[1435]

The man is on a streak — seven offices in seven years. To be honest, I don’t really expect to actually unpack my boxes this time, because the office I’m in is only temporary. Truly, I understand that more than almost everybody.

Interjection.

D. McRae: The member opposite is asking if I have a window. Yes, I do have a window. Actually, I have two windows. If you ever want to come down and visit government, you’re welcome to come on over. Maybe you’ll come over and join us, Member opposite.

The Comox Valley, as you all know, is one of the nicest places in British Columbia. I would argue it is probably the nicest place in British Columbia. We have 65,000 residents, and as I’ve said before, it is made up of three municipalities.

We have the village of Cumberland, with 3,400 residents. I want to recognize that, as the mayor and council move forward — they’re trying, obviously, to reinvigorate their community, as all councils do — they were really pleased in the last year to be the recipient of a Build Canada announcement. They’re going to be able to redo five of their downtown blocks, streets. They’re going to be able to do the infrastructure underneath. They’re going to be able to beautify the streets and the sidewalks above.

It’s worked because of a partnership with the province, with the federal government and, obviously, with the municipality participating. They’re able to do five city blocks, which allows them to really ramp up their plans and do a lot more, faster. I’m looking forward to seeing those improvements in the village of Cumberland in the year to come.

Just the other day I was out with the mayor of the town of Comox, with 13,000 residents. They’re really excited because they’ve been the recipient of funds from, for example, Island Coastal Economic Trust, federal government funding and, obviously, their own dollars.

They’re going to do a major upgrade of Marina Park, which is one of the most beloved parks in the Comox Valley. If you ever have a chance to visit the Comox Valley on British Columbia Day, it’s one of the most amazing places to see in the province of British Columbia. It’s pretty to be there, a fantastic view, and the infrastructure they’ll put in there to support visitors and residents alike will be amazing.

Just last Friday the city of Courtenay, 24,000 residents, was the recipient of over $3 million through some gas tax dollars. They’re working on a complete street project — six blocks in the city of Courtenay from Fitzgerald Avenue to Menzies Avenue. It’s an opportunity to increase bicycle and walking infrastructure and stormwater retention infrastructure, an opportunity just to make the entrance into the downtown area of the city of Courtenay a bit more pleasing and also a bit more accessible.

It’s a great opportunity. Oftentimes in municipalities when we build infrastructure, the stuff we built seven years ago stays there for 70 years. This is an opportunity to refresh a really important part of our community, and I know the mayor and council are rather excited about that.

Those just add on to other investments with the support of provincial government moneys that we’ve been able to bring to the Comox Valley. I know members opposite are always keen to visit our community. If you’re coming from the Campbell River area….

I know the Minister of Transportation was visiting us recently. We’re working on a north connector, a new bridge. It could be in the range of about $17 million. I know our community is excited to see the Dove Creek Bridge get rebuilt. The temporary bridge has been there for 15 years. Temporary is long enough, and now we’re going to get a more permanent structure.

As you drive by that bridge and into the city of Courtenay, you can’t help but notice the sign in front of G.P. Vanier high school, where the government of British Columbia, with the school district, is working on a $31 million seismic project to make one of the most iconic schools on Vancouver Island just that much safer for the residents, not just for this year but for years to come.

What else makes the community really vibrant? Well, good health care. Again, we’re working on a new hospital in the Comox Valley. There’s also a new hospital in Campbell River. The projects together, combined, are a $600 million investment by the province, by the residents of the areas to make sure that we actually have services for our community. I’m really excited to see those pro-
[ Page 10509 ]
jects come to fruition, and I look forward to seeing them being open in the next year or so. When you’re building projects of that size, it does take a bit of time.

As well, we’ve had another opportunity in our community. The last several years have been challenging for Mount Washington. Now, Mount Washington is a ski resort, the only major ski resort on Vancouver Island. I know there’s one on the north Island — a little smaller — but this one is obviously the largest.

It also is probably the largest private sector employer in Comox Valley, with 800 employees. The last two years have been really challenging. With climate issues, there just hasn’t been enough snow. Well, this year they have new owners, and the new owners have been blessed with an amazing amount of snow. I’ve been up there several times with my family. It’s so nice to see Mount Washington this full and vibrant with lots of snow, lots of people, lineups. It means that they’re actually having people come through the tills, which is really important.

I was talking to a hotel owner just the other day. He was saying that every weekend for the last month, his hotel has been at 100 percent capacity. He attributes that to the ski hill being a go and families coming to visit us from British Columbia and beyond.

[1440]

In fact, just the other day we were talking to some people on 5th Street. They were from Saskatchewan. Their Family Day was different than our Family Day. One of the advantages of having different holidays was that they actually have an opportunity to visit the community and not compete with British Columbia residents. They came to Comox Valley. Why? Because they wanted to take advantage of the mild weather down by sea level, but they also wanted to take advantage of some of the ski opportunities above.

The other thing I wanted to bring up as well…. I know we were talking about budget, but it’s also important to make sure we recognize what communities are doing. The city of Courtenay has actually recently just finished its 100th-year centennial. I know that other communities — Prince George — have also celebrated 100 years, and it’s been a special time for our communities.

For the last 12 months, the city of Courtenay, under the chair of a gentleman by the name of Ron Webber and committee members like Audrey Craig, Starr Winchester, Rod Hunter and Ed Grieve, and supported by city staff like Randy Wiwchar, has done an amazing job, having opportunities for people to celebrate and return home to enjoy life in the city of Courtenay but also the Comox Valley.

I think we should now turn to the budget, if I may. You know, it’s funny. When I come to this chamber…. I’ve been here now for seven budgets, and it’s like there are two worlds when you come into the chamber. You have the world of optimism and the world of pessimism. If you listen to the side opposite, one of the things I wonder is often…. You’d think we were maybe talking about different provinces sometimes. If you’d just tuned in and weren’t sure what you were watching, you’d think: “Are you talking about British Columbia, or are you talking about somewhere else?”

I always like to preface my comments on budget about comparables. British Columbia is definitely not perfect. We always are looking for ways to improve, and we try our best. Let’s look at how the rest of Canada is faring. I want to preface it by saying, as well, if I may, that when all of Canada is doing well, it is good for every province. We are definitely a Confederation. It’s not that we want to have one province suffer at the expense of others. We’re better when we’re all doing well. But look at some of the challenges we’re facing.

Alberta. Their economy has shrunk in the last year by 1 percent. It’s projected to shrink by 0.5 percent in the coming year. Their budget, arguably, has been projected at $5 billion to $6 billion in the hole coming up to the year. But you know what? That’s based on $50-a-barrel oil, and the price of oil, if you just saw it recently, is down to about $31, $32 right now. So when they bring their budget in, in the next couple of months or couple of weeks, you may see that $6 billion deficit be substantially different.

Saskatchewan. You know what? They did a great run right there. As a Prairie province, they have lots of different opportunities, whether it’s oil, whether it’s gas, potash, grain. But it’s been a challenging time for them as well, and their budget is now going to be in deficit — not something they’re very proud of, I’m sure. But one of the opportunities is…. They at least had a really strong opportunity to invest well in the last couple of years, and I’m sure they’ll be coming out of that soon.

Manitoba. A $400 million deficit last year, projected to a $300 million deficit in the year coming forward.

Ontario. Well, Ontario always does things big. Ontario is big in terms of their deficit. An $11 billion deficit is what they expect to have this year. They do talk about balancing their budget four years from now, but again, it’s always a challenge. And sadly for Ontario, as they’ve had to make some choices, they have become the largest sub-sovereign debt carrier, not just in Canada but in the world. That is an incredible challenge, because eventually someone’s children are going to have to pay for the choices we make today.

Newfoundland. I think many of us saw a recent story in Newfoundland about how they have had some struggles as well. They are projecting a $2 billion deficit — not for this year but for the next four years. This is from a population and a province that is arguably about the same size as Vancouver Island. It’ll be challenging for Confederation as we go forward.

Let’s look at B.C. How are we doing? Well, we have a diversified economy, whether it is in agriculture, whether it is in forestry, mining, tourism, clean energy. We have areas where we concentrate on — in education. We also want to make sure we don’t rely on just one market. We
[ Page 10510 ]
have tried so hard to make sure that we grow our markets in the United States, in Japan, in China. We’re now looking, as you saw in the budget but also in the throne speech, to expand and grow our economy into India as well.

We have been able to balance the budget, not once, not twice, but four times in a row for the benefit of our children and our economy. On top of that, we are going to have a surplus of $264 million projected for the coming year. We’re leading the nation in economic growth, and we’re the only province to maintain and keep a triple-A credit rating.

You know what? Have we done it by doing nothing? The answer is no. We’ve continued to actually be fiscally prudent but also make key investments. Some of the areas I wanted to highlight…. For example, we have been able to invest $2.9 billion in this budget in terms of health care projects and $3.1 billion in transportation projects. Post-secondary has seen $2.5 billion of investment. K-to-12 schools — we’re seeing $1.7 billion in investment.

[1445]

I’m also really pleased to see…. The Minister for Housing and the Premier were talking just recently about a $350 million investment for 2,000 more new or renovated units in British Columbia, which makes it the highest, most impactful investment in housing that the province has done in the history of the province as far as I am aware — unbelievable investments and, at the same time, not making our children pay back for those investments.

Now, the other thing is…. Oftentimes we want to talk about the bricks and mortar that we build. This budget doesn’t just do bricks and mortar. It also makes key investments in that social sector which I’m very proud of. I saw — if you looked through the budget, when the Finance Minister was speaking — that over the next three years, the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation and the Ministry of Children and Family Development will receive 673 million new dollars to make sure they provide services for vulnerable British Columbians. I’m incredibly proud that we have found that balance in this budget.

Let me talk about some of those areas. Starting on September 1 in 2016, the income assistance rate will rise by as much as $77 a month. Now, just for the members opposite, I know there are ways people want to spin that we haven’t done enough. But this is 170 million new dollars that are being invested in the Ministry of Social Development over the next three years.

On top of that, Community Living British Columbia…. They look after persons with developmental disabilities, some of our most vulnerable people in our society. They’re going to be receiving 36 million new dollars in the next three years, which will allow them to provide supports for up to 2,600 people — an incredibly important investment and a population that is growing. There is no doubt about it.

I was also pleased to see that in the Times Colonist today there was some commentary on this area. One of the key advocates is a lady named Faith Bodnar, who works for Inclusion B.C. and is a tireless advocate for persons with developmental disabilities. What did she have to say about the $36 million investment in CLBC? Well, according to the Times Colonist, she said: “We’re pleased to see CLBC being supported in a manner that reflects the actual needs of the community.” That’s taken right out of the document today. It’s just another example where, yes, we can actually build schools, we can build universities, we can support roads and bridges, and we can make key social investments.

I’ve noticed in question period — the last couple of days it’s been a topic — about bus passes. There is some confusion about the changes. Because the changes were only announced two days ago, I think it’s important that we, basically, understand how this impacts individuals. Now, remember this as I go forward. The bus pass is only in British Columbia. No other jurisdiction in Canada actually has a bus pass program.

It is important. The bus pass still remains. The question is: who is eligible, and how are you eligible? Well, if you are a senior on the guaranteed income supplement, you are still eligible for a bus pass. It’s still there.

If you are a person with a disability, there are some changes. I will admit this. What’s going to happen is you get to make some choices. Under the old program, you could pay $48, and you would have your bus pass for the year. Under the new program, you will get $77. How do you use those moneys? For $77, you can make the choice. Do I want to buy a monthly bus pass? If you choose to actually buy a monthly bus pass at $52, you will have 25 more dollars in your pocket. If you are a person who actually takes advantage of the special transportation subsidy — which I believe, off the top of my memory, is about $66 a month — that’s a much smaller number. You will make that choice, and you will have $11 more a month.

Under this change — the bus pass — 45,000 individuals will receive $77 more a month. Now, that’s not going to necessarily be life-altering. They’re going to have perfect lives, and every bill will be paid magically. No, I’m not saying that. But when you actually make a policy change and a financial change, when you actually are impacting the lives of 45,000 individuals, that is substantial. These are individuals who will get $77 a month times 12 months a year. The quick math is that you’re looking at about, almost, $900 in someone’s pocket. These are dollars that they can choose to spend, whether it’s on transportation, food, quality of life. This is an improvement.

I am really proud that we have made that balance between infrastructure investments and social investment. It is the right thing to do. No matter how you play it, 100,000 people will see their monthly rate increase, whether it’s $11 a month or $25 a month, or 45,000 people will see their monthly rate go up by $77.

[1450]

I’m really impressed that the Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation was there to champion that for these individuals. I’m not surprised when I say that. This is just one in a long line of improvements that this government has made in, we’ll say, the last 12 months.

Many members opposite…. Is it just the $77? No, no, it’s not. It’s much more. The single-parent initiative, I must say — incredibly well received. When it was brought in, 15,000 single parents were deemed that they would be eligible. Well, through the hard work of Work B.C. offices and individuals and advocacy groups, 2,000 single parents have taken advantage of the single-parent initiative. Whether it is to have transportation covered or tuition covered or MSP covered, it’s a chance for a parent with children to have a chance to better themselves and better their family’s life.

Two thousand have taken advantage of it. There are 13,000 who have not. We’ve got to keep working and making sure people are aware of this all the time. As I talk to more and more service agencies and communities, I hear more and more people being aware of it and doing their best to make sure those who they support are there.

I also want to compliment the minister and the government for some other changes. Some 3,200 parents have had their child support payments exempted. That is a policy that I think we’ve worked hard on in this government. We want to make sure that child support payments go where they’re most needed. Where are they going? They’re going to children and families that need them the most. I want to again compliment the Finance Minister and the Minister of SDSI.

We’ve also seen income exemptions increase. We’ve also seen annualized earning exemptions increase. So $9,600 a year is able to be earned by a person on PWD payments. They can keep the dollars, whether they earn them over 12 months or they earn them in a shorter period of time. The asset levels have also increased — from $5,000 to $100,000 for individuals.

When I see issues like what we’ve done in the past and what we’ve done in this budget, I’m confident that our work is not done. We will continue to make those key investments for vulnerable British Columbians. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do, just like it’s the right thing to do to build a new school, to build a bridge, to build a road, to make sure that post-secondary institutions are constantly being upgraded.

But wait. There’s more. One of the things I often worry about is that good news doesn’t travel fast. I know sometimes the rating for this chamber isn’t what we want it to be. But we have to remember: what else are we doing to support vulnerable British Columbians?

Many seniors are aware of the $1,000 home-renovation tax credit. But what has changed in this budget…. It’s really important that people understand this, because, again, up to 100,000 people could be eligible for this. Persons with disabilities are now eligible for this $1,000 home-renovation tax credit. Seniors, yes, but now persons with disabilities are also eligible for this.

If anybody has any experience with this, whether it’s a family member or whether in advocacy or whether you’re an MLA…. You want to make sure that when persons with disabilities are coming in and if they’re making adaptations to their home, this is an opportunity to put a few more dollars in their pockets, which is really important.

As MLAs, it is incumbent upon us…. Whether on this side of the House, which is government, or that side, which is not government, we want to make sure that those in need are aware of those programs. Again, well done. Again, we’re making those investments.

It’s not just for persons with disabilities. I know the minister for the Ministry of Children and Family Development is always working to make sure there are more supports. I am also pleased to see that over the next three years, that ministry will receive $217 million. Those dollars will, I think, be targeted in ways that are really important.

I know $152 million over the three years will be used to hire 100 new social workers across British Columbia and, I think, 30 support workers on top of that. Again, people on the ground who are supporting vulnerable people in need — really important investment. But not just there. There is $11 million going to support child care centres, $51 million to support children with special needs and $3 million to enhance adoption services.

What are we doing? We are investing in social services. We are investing in new infrastructure, and we’re balancing a budget. We are making those selective choices. Why? Because it is the right thing to do, and it’s the choice you get to make when you’ve actually balanced a budget and grown the economy.

Now, there are also some other investments that I think need to be highlighted in this budget which are really important, especially in my community. When I mentioned my three municipalities that I get to represent — Courtenay, Comox and Cumberland…. One of the things that is important is that all three of those communities are deemed smaller communities. In other words, they have less than 25,000 residents.

Well, in the budget, over the next three years, $75 million has been dedicated to small communities to strengthen and diversify their economies. This is not good just for my three communities that I get to represent in this Legislature, but it is good for a vast majority of communities on Vancouver Island and across British Columbia, as people look to try to diversify and take advantage of a changing world.

[1455]

The Canadian dollar is not at record lows, but it is incredibly low right now, which is making an opportunity for export in the resource industry that maybe hasn’t
[ Page 10512 ]
been there in the past. It’s a chance for a small community like Woss — or a larger community like, again, the city of Courtenay, which is almost 25,000 — to take advantage and to bring some more employment and more supports to our community.

As well, I think members opposite, too, will know that I also am a huge supporter and champion, if I can be, for agriculture. I was really pleased to see, in this budget, agriculture was again represented.

“How was it represented?” you ask. Well, $3 million was there in the next three years to support the Agricultural Land Commission, an incredibly important organization working across British Columbia. Where are those dollars going to go? Well, part of it is going to go towards enhancing compliance and enforcement. Some of it can go to making sure that reviews are done in, perhaps, a more timely manner and to supporting some of the regional panels with the regional panellists who understand some of the nuances.

Life in Fort St. John is far different than on Vancouver Island. I always laugh…. In Fort St. John, some of the big sky area of British Columbia, you can watch your dog run away for a few days. A big farm could be many hundreds of acres or thousands of acres, whereas in the Comox Valley, a large farm might be someone who is farming 45 acres, who may be growing vegetables or who has a dairy farm. Different farming in different parts of the province, but it’s very important to make sure that the ALC has the dollars and continues to see increases in dollars, going forward, to do the important work that they do.

As well — again, maybe not sexy at all — I think it’s really important to talk about the farmers food donation tax credit program. Farmers at the end of the year may have some extra product to deal with. What do they do with it? Well, here’s an opportunity to really incent them to do something good.

Interjection.

D. McRae: I didn’t say sexy. Farming’s hard work. If you start calling farmers sexy, it goes bad, member opposite.

But you know what? From the West End…We’ll leave it at that. Farming is not big in that area. I know Stanley Park is beautiful.

Interjection.

D. McRae: Urban farming. Well, this is what happens when you go off topic, hon. Member. You got me going here.

Now, what happens, though, is that individual farmers or corporations are able to donate their product and receive 20 percent of fair market value for qualifying agriculture products. Where do they go? Well, they go to registered charities that provide food to those in need or that go to help towards things like school meal programs. It’s a really important opportunity to take great-quality primary product and make sure it gets to the kids who need it the most, perhaps those who are in need the most.

I had the opportunity to say hello to the chair of the Vancouver Food Bank when he was in the Legislature just the other day. I’m incredibly impressed at what they’re able to do and leverage already. This kind of program will take a great organization like the Vancouver Food Bank and make them just a little bit more nimble, maybe a little bit more incenting of farmers to be supportive of what they do and who they support. I look forward to seeing that.

I’ve talked so much about all the programs. There can’t be more. But you know what? There is, and I want to just dwell on this one as well. Home-building in the Comox Valley is important. In fact, the other day I was talking to a realtor, and she was telling me we have fewer listings in the Comox Valley than we’ve had in a decade. Now, why is that? Perhaps people aren’t building homes as fast as they have in the past. Perhaps people are buying them faster.

The reality is that we want to see more homes being built. We have lots of land in the Comox Valley. You look at the city of Courtenay. I know that there are subdivisions that are ready to be built out. The opportunity here is, with the new program under the Ministry of Finance, that newly constructed houses under $750,000 will be exempted from the property transfer tax. Well, you know what? This is an opportunity for a family, whether they’re new in the market or, perhaps, they’re looking to upgrade, to save up to $13,000.

Now in the city of Courtenay, chances are you’re building a new house for far less than $750,000. It is an opportunity, I think, to incent an industry to do good work, provide more stock for people to choose from and provide employment across the community. Not only do you need the general contractor; the trades and the subtrades are important parts of our economy. This is a way you’ll benefit communities large and small across British Columbia.

Lastly, we want to talk about MSP premium relief. One of the things I was impressed to see…. I always like seeing that government can target individuals who are most in need, and vulnerable British Columbians. When you look at the budget, we’ve actually changed the thresholds for premium assistance. One of the areas that I’m really proud of…. I actually had a parent tell me this already. For 70,000 single parents — because children will no longer be charged MSP — if they have one or two children or more, they will save between $800 a year and up to $1,200 a year.

[1500]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]
[ Page 10513 ]

Money in the pocket of parents is never a bad investment, whether you make a little bit or even a bit more. These are areas where you can have supports for your children, whether it is providing a class or perhaps, if you need to, making sure that you’re having a bit better quality of food on the table.

Putting $800 to $1,200 in the pocket of a single parent is never a bad investment. We were able to do that, and 70,000 parents will benefit because of this.

Seniors as well. Obviously, many of them are on fixed income. Well, if you are a senior couple and you’re making under $47,000, how do the changes affect you? If you’re making up to $47,000, you can save up to $240 a year, and as it goes down the sliding scale, I think it could be up to $290 a year — again, targeting individuals who have the least ability to pay. An opportunity to leave a bit more dollars.

In the end, two million British Columbians will not be paying MSP premiums in the province of British Columbia. Approximately 40 percent of British Columbians are exempted from premiums for MSP. It’s an opportunity, again, to target spending, target investment to make sure those who are vulnerable are getting the best services possible. Again, I’m incredibly proud.

I know that time is coming to a close, and I’m sure the members opposite are going to be ready to leap up and see the world a little bit differently than I see it with all these good things that I did talk about. Again, I want to preface it by saying: You know what? We have made target investments. We are trying to do our best, but there is no magic solution.

We are not going to put our children in debt. My children and the children thereafter are not going to be paying for the investments that we have going forward. But we are making good investments, and at the end of the day, I think everybody on both sides of the House…. Is the life a little bit easier, a little bit better for hundreds of thousands of British Columbians after this budget? I will say, “Yes, it is,” and I’m proud to support Budget 2016.

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak to this debate, particularly after the member for Comox Valley, who classified the world in this House as one of two sides: the world of optimism on that side and, arguably, in his mind, the world of pessimism on this.

I’d like to quote Winston Churchill: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” I am an optimist. I understand what it means to be an optimist, but unfortunately, I don’t think Winston Churchill was thinking of this government when he came up with that quote.

In fact, there is another quote attributed to Winston Churchill more applicable to the statements that emanated from the opposite side, and the quote is this: “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”

What you’re going to hear from this side of the House is a truthful assessment of the Budget 2016, not one filled with rhetoric, not one filled with promises, not one filled with half-truths, but one that looks at it carefully and points out what is good and what is not good without the hyperbolic, hysterical rhetoric, so common, emanating from those on the other side.

I rise in this debate puzzled by the direction this government is heading. Frankly, it’s become clear to me that this government is really out of new ideas — completely out of new ideas, lost, lost their way, given that LNG is not playing out the way they thought it would be.

The budget speech we heard on Tuesday was high on self-praise but represents little in terms of fundamental change. We continue to chase markets we are not part of with LNG while bringing forward no clear plan to build on our strengths, let alone the challenges we face.

While it was encouraging that this government incorporated some policy changes that British Columbians have been advocating for, for the most part, they represented halfway measures that do little to attack the underlying issues that are presenting challenges for so many British Columbians.

First, let me discuss the issue of housing. To make good policy, you need good data. I was encouraged to read the government has adopted additional tools that will allow them to gather much-needed contextual information about the housing market.

The new requirement for property purchasers to identify their nationality is a step forward that I’ve been urging this government to take for two years.

[1505]

Frankly, I wonder how they’re going to do it without actually bringing the private member’s bill which is precisely the same as what is being proposed by government. I look forward to debating the private member’s bill that’s before the House as we speak.

I’m glad the government listened on this. Likewise, I was also pleased to see that bare trusts will now face more examination and that government will have the data it needs to address this. Gathering more information about bare trustees is certainly better than ignoring the problem altogether. But I’d like to stress this: this loophole still remains open — open to exploitation.

To say that we need to gather information from scratch implies we have an entirely different market to that of Ontario. Ontario’s housing market in Toronto is just as hot as that in Vancouver, with speculation running amok. Yet in Ontario, they have a mechanism to track this and actually generate revenue to limit the amount of speculation occurring.

While that may largely be true, for example, that we need to gather information from scratch for efficiency’s sake, I do think we have a promising opportunity to learn from what has happened in Ontario and to act pre-emptively to close this loophole.
[ Page 10514 ]

For example, Ontario has a similar property transfer tax system in place, but they have plugged the loophole, and they did it very simply. All they did was apply the property transfer tax upon change in beneficial ownership, not just change in title registered at the land title office.

The wealthy offshore buyers can flip houses numerous times by simply registering the first purchase as a bare trust owned by a corporation and flip the corporation shares from owner to owner to owner without ever changing land title and without ever paying a penny of property transfer tax. I know this is being done because I’ve spoken to people. I’ve spoken to developers, I’ve spoken to mortgage lenders, and I’ve spoken to those who are involved in the real estate industry.

This change could and should be done in British Columbia to ensure that everyone is treated fairly. However enlightening information may be in its own right, it’s meaningless without appropriate action. We need to get moving on these issues, and government doesn’t seem to have a plan, like so many other things.

This also seems to be the case with the government’s change to the property transfer tax. Increasing property transfer tax rates to 3 percent on homes over $2 million is another adjustment that I agree with in principle. But with affordability as top issue on the minds for so many people across the province, making it more expensive to flip luxury homes is a progressive step. There’s no question it’s a progressive step forward. Unfortunately, this too could be rendered meaningless if the loopholes in our housing markets are ignored. In fact, it may be that the government loses taxes in the short term as more sellers engage in and exploit those loopholes to avoid the increase in taxes.

Furthermore, with the $750,000 property tax break for new homes, the government is incentivizing housing development while doing nothing to dampen speculation — again, failing to close the loopholes affecting the market right now.

Contrary to the minister’s dismissive comment that this is a Point Grey issue, the housing problem is affecting communities across British Columbia, and it is greatly impacting our provincial economy. On my street alone, where I live in Gordon Head, a house sold. The sold sign came on when the house was listed. It was sold to foreign buyers. Two months later, the sold sign came on again, as the house was flipped. It was cash transactions in both cases. This is not a problem exclusive to Metro Vancouver. It’s a problem now emerging in the capital regional district and other markets in British Columbia.

The costs we are shouldering as society are not just economic; they’re social. The passionate, determined young people we need to support our communities and lead them into the future are being priced out by people who can afford to buy houses then leave them empty.

Ever wonder why there’s a traffic jam on the Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver going north? It should make no sense, because people on the North Shore work, by and large, in Vancouver. The reason is because nobody who’s working in those homes — the electricians, the plumbers, the trades — are able to live in that region, so they’re commuting from halfway across Vancouver across bridges. The government’s response — rather than dealing with the affordability problem — is to start talking about building bigger roads and bigger bridges. Again, not addressing the problem, it’s avoiding the problem being dealt with and kicking the can down the road further.

[1510]

The role of government is to take direct actions and to direct the actions of citizens. We incentivize what we like, and we discourage that which we don’t. We need to close loopholes and disincentivize the preponderance of empty houses, because as it currently stands, the government is failing to do an adequate job of either. There’s a glaring market failure. The preponderance of vacant homes in Vancouver has a social cost attached to it. That externality needs to be internalized so that vacant owners pay the true cost of that vacant home.

The government’s response, rather than recognizing the market failure and internalizing externalities, incentivizes more development and further speculation. This is a government that is completely out of control and completely at a loss or understanding of fundamental market instruments. That does not deal with the imminent problem. It kicks the can down the road further, so to speak. The imminent crisis needs to be dealt with through the implementation of market instruments available to government. Those instruments alone will correct this market failure.

Frankly, the single most effective policy that government could do would be to implement a price, put a levy or a tax on homes that are left vacant. This government is building the economy of Scottsdale in British Columbia as we speak. It’s an artificial economy, fuelled by speculation and requiring continued development and building of houses in order to sustain itself.

Government is misleading British Columbians by suggesting that we have a diversified economy. Our economy right now is being driven by wild speculation and offshore money coming into British Columbia to actually buy these homes, and developers build more — selling, flipping, buying, speculating.

There is only one end solution for that infinite growth in a finite system, and that will be a collapse, a collapse of pretty strong proportions that this government will start — as they have done with LNG — to blame on unforeseen global forces. Well, we can see it happening right now, and there’s nothing unforeseen about it. What is unforeseen is any will or any policy emanating from the government to actually address the key issues of today in British Columbia.

Putting up a levy on vacant homes will encourage more owners to lease their vacant homes, which in turn
[ Page 10515 ]
will put downward pressure on rent costs in Vancouver and elsewhere. The revenue generated from this levy would and could actually be used to pay the social costs arising from non-affordability within Metro Vancouver and emerging here in the capital regional district — the costs of the homeless, the enhanced judicial system process that is required to deal with the increasing homeless problem in our province. The reduction of services for mental health can be addressed. We can start to actually raise the living allowance, which hasn’t changed in I can’t even remember how many years.

One of the saddest moments in this House since I was elected in 2013 happened about 20 minutes ago when the member for Comox Valley stood and truly believed that somehow $11 a month is actually a great step forward, after seeing no increase in fees for years and years and years.

The people of British Columbia deserve better. They deserve a government that’s honest to them, a government that actually does not try to sell itself as something it’s not, a government that recognizes that there is a social problem out there and that $11 a month is not going to solve it. Frankly, the price of cauliflower has gone up $8, say, in about three months. Basically, what we’re saying is that you can almost meet the increase in your grocery bill but not quite, with this $11 a month. Shameful, truly shameful that this was lauded as a sign of progress.

In summary, the government’s balanced budget increasingly is relying on revenue from an artificial, overinflated housing market. They are benefiting from the issues that are causing so many affordability concerns amongst British Columbians and taking no real concrete steps to address this. The government needs to address this market failure, and the 2016 budget represents another missed opportunity to do so.

[1515]

Now to MSP. On MSP, the government has brought forward a small, half-step approach to making this fee a little bit more fair for the people of British Columbia. I commend them for taking that one small half step. It may not be much, but at least we are moving in the right direction. Making children exempt from paying MSP premiums and increasing the assistance available are both positive changes to a fundamentally unfair system.

Despite the changes to MSP premiums announced on Tuesday, we still have a system that doesn’t work, however, for most British Columbians. To use the Premier’s words, as the opposition did so well earlier today in question period, it’s a system that is “antiquated…old, and the way people pay for it generally doesn’t make a whole ton of sense.” Those are the Premier’s words. I agree. The opposition agrees. But somehow the government doesn’t agree with itself. I’m not sure what’s going on.

Hundreds of thousands of people in this province are currently behind in their MSP payments. That’s a ton of bureaucracy, needlessly employed in enforcing an antiquated, old system. That’s what the Premier said. I agree. Bureaucracy — dare I say that’s red tape?

Shame if it is, because of course we know that the government doesn’t like red tape and in fact has gone so far that we now have red-tape-reduction day, making us truly a laughingstock across Canada. Every single person that I have actually raised this with, mentioning that red-tape-reduction day is now on the same par as Terry Fox Day, Holocaust Memorial Day, Douglas Day, B.C. Day and Family Day, looks at me and says: “What?” They couldn’t believe it. This government believes it, but it says whatever it takes to get to lunchtime.

The reality is, the biggest component of red tape in the entire sector of government is the administration of the MSP premium which the Premier, through her own words, says is antiquated, old and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Okay, let’s remove some red tape. No, they create more red tape, more thresholds, more exemptions, etc. Absolutely unbelievable.

Plus, when we delve into the details of this policy change, what we see is actually a tax hike. The people of British Columbia have spoken loud and clear about how they are having trouble with this tax, yet this government has raised the amount of money they take from it — a new $111 million in taxes, a head tax. That’s what it is — a head tax, which, after the premium assistance is accounted for, makes it an increase of $77 million in revenue. That’s $77 million as a head tax, because that’s what it is — a poll tax or a head tax, nothing else.

Who is paying for this new revenue? Well, a couple that earns a combined $45,000 or more a year will see their Medical Services Plan increased by $240 a year. Whoa, hang on. That’s more — a greater MSP premium. I thought it was going down.

Senior couples with a slightly higher income face the same increase. Yet when I was at the Monterey centre, when this issue was first brought to me almost a year and a half ago, the demographic that brought it to me was the seniors who were struggling on fixed income to actually pay it. Here, the government is listening. It’s listening to its corporate funders. It’s not listening to the people of British Columbia, because the group that can least afford it — those on fixed income — are getting a $240-a-year hit. That’s hardly fair. That’s not fair at all.

A couple with two children will pay $72 more a year. These are significant increases in medical premiums. Let’s be clear that a combined income of $45,000 is not that much in Metro Vancouver or greater Victoria.

A single adult who earns less than $42,000 is eligible for premium assistance, but a couple earning $3,000 more is facing an increase of $240 a year. This is yet another example of how this government does not understand simple fundamental market instruments. You incentivize that which you like. You use your market instruments to put a tax or disincentivize that which you don’t.
[ Page 10516 ]

This introduction of the MSP program is incentivizing divorce in the province of British Columbia. It’s saying to couples: “You should not be couples, because if you get married” — this is families first — “or you become common law, we’re going to charge you $240 a year more.” Does that make sense? No, it doesn’t. But that’s what this government is putting forward.

[1520]

Let’s look at Ontario as a case example in how we could charge MSP differently. In Ontario, health care premiums are paid through personal income tax systems rather than a flat-rate levy. This approach avoids the regressive nature of the monthly premium as rates rise with income to a maximum annual level. For example, as I’ve outlined for a couple of years now, in Ontario, the current maximum annual rate is set at $900 for taxable incomes of $200,600 and higher, with those individuals earning less than $20,000 paying no premiums at all.

The argument that we need to keep this tax separate from other taxation methods so that British Columbians know that health care is not free is ridiculous. British Columbians know that health care is not free. They know that building bridges and highways is not free. They know that education is not free. To treat them as if they don’t is disrespectful. It’s disrespectful of the people of British Columbia.

They know that their taxes go towards the services that government provides. If the government still insists that British Columbians need to understand how much health care is costing our province, then there is a simple solution — a simple line on the income tax return, like that exists for EI and CPP, called health care premium, which is progressively calculated just like EI and CPP are. It would solve the problem. It would deal with the issue that unions have negotiated benefits because it would still pay for it. It would be done in a progressive instead of a regressive system, just like it was done in Ontario.

In fact, this was the method advocated for in the 2002 Senate report that recommended a federal premium to help pay for health care costs — the health care of Canadians. The federal role made a strong case that premiums constituted a visible and equitable means of supported health care spending, so long as they varied in proportion to income. It’s not me making it up. It’s Senate expert panels that are providing information in forming this policy.

Now let’s turn to new services. Another item in this budget that received considerable attention was the boost to the Ministry of Children and Family Development. Now, without a doubt, I’m encouraged to see that the government seems to finally be paying some attention to our most vulnerable — a topic that the official opposition has brought forward time and time and time again during question period.

It seems like they may have done more harm than good, unfortunately. For nine years, there’s been a freeze on the disability rate at $906 a month. At first glance, a $77 increase for disability assistance looks like a step in the right direction. If we take into consideration the loss of transportation subsidies, which in some cases amount to $66 a month — the numbers were messed up in question period, hon. Speaker, and I am assuming that tomorrow the minister will correct the numbers that she quoted out in question period — this budget represents an increase of only $11 a month — $11 a month that the member for Cowichan Valley was so proud to tout to British Columbians in solving the social woes of those most unfortunate with disabilities in our society.

That’s hardly a success. In fact, with the increases in transportation, in some areas, going up — just look at the capital regional district, dramatic increases — this is actually a net loss, or will be a net loss, and government exempts itself from having to deal with the increasing costs of transportation. I’m sure this was not their intention, but clearly this is not an outcome that will make life all that much better for the most vulnerable in B.C. In some cases, it will, down the road, make life a little more difficult.

On a more positive note, the $95 million set aside for wildfire protection, the $10 million for search and rescue plus the $55 million set aside for emergency preparedness and prevention initiatives are welcome news. Indeed, they are among the only budget items I could find, although not attributed to, that address one of the biggest threats to our province’s economy — climate change.

Let’s look at climate change. We are paying the cost of climate change in this province already. This past year, we saw record temperatures across our province. We saw drought precipitated by a lack of snowpack, and forest fires raged across our province. The January 2016 global average temperature shattered the previous record by 0.16 degrees and was more than a full degree Celsius above the 20th-century average.

In B.C., we simply stand by and watch it happen and go to Paris and say: “Look, we are leaders.” Others call you leaders; you don’t call yourself leaders. In British Columbia, we are not leaders on the mitigation of climate change. We were leaders, but that is long past.

[1525]

I brought forward a motion, for example, to discuss a matter of urgent public importance last summer. At issue was whether we as legislators were acting with sufficient urgency and demonstrating the appropriate leadership on preparing for and mitigating the escalating impacts of climate change in our province. Unfortunately, my motion went nowhere.

Directing the actions of society through the fiscal instruments available to government is one of the most powerful tools we have. But here in 2016, we have a budget that barely mentions the biggest problem we face as a global society. We heard from the minister that “Budget 2016 continues to build on B.C.’s leadership in clean technology and climate action.”
[ Page 10517 ]

“Climate change is a global issue, and the Premier has made it clear that B.C. will remain a climate action leader. And we have been able to move forward with that leadership on climate change while also growing our economy,” was another quote.

Yet in the budget itself, there is scant mention of climate change. And the funding put aside doesn’t so much build on B.C.’s leadership in clean tech, as they said, but only supports one policy: the continuation of their existing electric vehicle program. That’s it. No more. Climate leadership, to this government, means continuation of an electric vehicle incentive. Nothing more. Hardly going to help the majority of our society.

Admittedly, I did benefit from that. I did get an electric vehicle. But there are many who this will not benefit. I wonder how many in government have actually taken this incentive and got an electric vehicle. Probably a small number. Very small number. I’d guess zero.

Interjections.

A. Weaver: It’s not true. So that’s good. I’d like to have a list of all government MLAs who own an electric vehicle come my way, and I’d be happy to praise them publicly. But we’ll see.

The construction of Site C dam has put the final nail in the coffin of the clean-tech sector in British Columbia. Shocking. The Canadian Wind Energy Association has just left B.C., citing the existence of greener pastures elsewhere. Well, let me tell you. There will be greener pastures here in just a little more than a year, when this government is sitting on this side of the bench and the rest of us are sitting on that side of the bench.

A $1 billion investment on Vancouver Island involving a partnership between EDP Renewables…. This isn’t pipedream stuff. This is real investment, not of taxpayer money but of industrial money, on Vancouver Island through partnership between EDP Renewables, First Nations and TimberWest. It’s gone. They’ve walked from B.C. because of a lack of leadership by this government. Frankly, that’s reckless economics, in my view. It’s reckless mismanagement of our economic system.

British Columbians are fed up with this rhetoric. World leaders of this. World leaders of that. We’ll all be happy and wealthy and wise, blah, blah, blah. That’s what we’re hearing. But enough is enough. This government is out of ideas.

They’ve misled British Columbians about the prospects of LNG. They look out for their vested interests, and they say whatever it takes to get through lunch, whatever it takes to get to dinner, then whatever it takes to get through a day and on and on. They say whatever it is in the desperate hope that British Columbians are not paying attention. But they are.

The carbon tax remains flat, and leadership on climate change mitigation is largely absent. As I’ve heard nothing about this, I look forward to, hopefully, hearing something in the fall, where the government once more kicks another file down the road.

Government has ignored the agriculture sector until just recently, just like they ignored the tech sector until last August, when four civil servants were tasked to come up with a conference. That’s the government’s idea: “Let’s have a conference on agriculture. That’s leadership.” But we do have a leadership opportunity here in B.C. in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.

I was recently up in Prince George and saw firsthand how the tech industry could actually partner with our resource sector to take our strategic advantage and build our economy. Why is this government not investing $6 million to provide broadband redundancy to Prince George to allow Prince George to take advantage of its cooler climate to become a tech hub bringing the resource and tech sectors together, to be the home for data distribution centres like Google wants to be?

So $6 million would be the biggest economic drive for that region, with the introduction of broadband redundancy, that that region has seen for decades.

[1530]

Yet this government would rather spend $8 billion on a project for energy that’s not necessary because there’s no LNG and Alberta has said no. That’s their view of economics. What you got? My six million bucks is my view of economic prosperity.

Now let’s talk about the biggest item by far in this budget, an item with an $8.7 billion price tag. That’s kind of there in one line. The Premier recently stated that she wanted to move this project past the point of no return — another irresponsible statement by this Premier. Yet we have no LNG industry, and just today we hear from First Nations in the Peace region that they will soon be in court, as the injunction is coming to play out as B.C. Hydro tries to stop protesters.

I have so much more I could talk about, but I do see we’re on the green light. I could talk about LNG. I would love to talk about the prosperity fund. I have probably another half-hour speech, and I’m looking forward to being able to do that. Probably I should be making an amendment right now to the budget speech so I could actually talk about this stuff. But let me just say that what we should be doing in British Columbia is building on our strengths. We should be demonstrating leadership….

Some Hon. Members: More, more.

A. Weaver: If you would like more, members opposite….

Hon. Speaker, with your permission, I’ll speak for another half-hour. Would that be possible? Maybe I’ll give away too many ideas.

Finally, starting to take action, real action on the issues of affordability, directing our economy for the future
[ Page 10518 ]
prosperity rather than political talking points and making B.C. a leader on the issues of our time is what I had hoped this budget might do.

Unfortunately, in my view, while there’s a lot of populist language in this, it’s found wanting on many, many points. Probably the most cynical aspect of this budget is the prosperity fund, the $100 million prosperity fund, which, when you peel it down, is actually only a $25 million fund. And it’s a $25 million fund of taxpayer money.

Hon. M. Bernier: It’s an honour to rise in the House, especially after our friend from Oak Bay–Gordon Head, to talk about Budget 2016. It’s a real honour to be here to talk about this, the investment that we’re doing in the province of British Columbia and the importance of that investment, making sure that we have the health care, skills training, transportation needs and, of course, something near and dear to my heart, a great education system in the province of British Columbia.

But before I get going on some of that, I really want to start by thanking the constituents in my riding, Peace River South. I have one of the larger ridings in the province. I can honestly say that when we talk about four consecutive balanced budgets, that’s something near and dear to the hearts of a lot of the people in my riding. They comment right away — the amount of emails I got, the amount of information I got on social media complimenting government on our balanced budgets. It’s something really important to my riding.

I think it’s appropriate that I also thank my family for the opportunity to be here. I think every single person in this House would agree that without the support of our spouses, without the support of our families, we wouldn’t be able to be here and do this great job that we do representing the province of British Columbia and the people here.

So I want to thank my wife, Valerie, and my kids. Being one of the people furthest away from Victoria, my riding, affords me the luxury of being here a little bit more often sometimes than I’d like to be and not get to be home as often with my family. I wholeheartedly want to thank them for this amazing honour and opportunity that I have.

I also want to thank my constituency assistant, Cindy Fisher. Especially down here in session right now, all of our staff back home in our constituency offices really bear the brunt of dealing with the issues and all the hard work that needs to take place within the riding, so I thank her as well.

As I said, I have quite a large riding. One of the things that I’m very proud of is the relationship I have with local governments. I look at Pouce Coupe, Dawson Creek, Chetwynd, Tumbler Ridge and the rural district directors and the collaboration that we have collectively. We all represent the same people, and that’s why I feel very proud about the fact that we have such a great working relationship. I want to thank them, the mayors, the councils and all the elected officials for the amazing work that they do in my riding as well.

[1535]

I’ll go back to family for a second. When I looked at our budget, it made me think about my grandfather. He was quite a successful man, and one of the things he used to always talk about from the time I was born was living within your means, making sure that you don’t spend money that you don’t have. He actually, to the day he died, never had a credit card, never had a personal loan. He paid cash for everything. That was something that he instilled in me and my family: if you can’t afford to do it now, you need to save to do it later. You make sure you don’t put it on a credit card to pay for it at a later date.

I guess, on a personal note, I was very proud at 16 years old, when I actually took his message to heart and paid cash for my very first vehicle. Albeit, it was a bit of a rust-bucket, $500 Volkswagen Beetle. Nevertheless, I never had a vehicle loan, so it’s something that I was very proud of as well.

I think that’s something that we need to make sure, as government, that we’re doing — living within our means, making sure when we have our balanced budgets that we’re spending appropriately, that we’re investing in the right areas — the needs for the people in the province of British Columbia — but not burdening the children of tomorrow with what we want today.

I think what that really will do for the province of British Columbia is set the stage for a strong future. We have an amazing province here in British Columbia. We want to make sure that we stay the envy of all of the provinces, not just now but for generations to come.

I want to touch on a few things. Before I get into some comments about my ministry, I want to talk specifically on a few things within my riding.

When I look at the budget, one of the things that I was very proud to work on last year, working with this government, is a 20-year agreement that used to be called Fair Share and is now called the Peace Enhancement agreement. So $1.1 billion, over 20 years, is going to be coming to my riding, and to the member for Peace River North as well, to help local governments with the needs that they have in their areas.

This is one of the largest investments ever in the province of British Columbia to assist local governments, and that’s something I’m very proud to be a part of. I want to personally thank all of my colleagues, the Premier, everybody in government who worked so hard with me and the mayors and councillors in my area to get to this agreement.

That stability is going to help for long-term investment in the area. It’s really going to help when you look at the critical investments that are needed in the growth in my area because of the resource sector. We’re very proud of what’s happening in our area. When you look at right now….
[ Page 10519 ]

Albeit, I will humbly admit that we are seeing a bit of a slowdown in the oil and gas sector. We have people in the area who, unfortunately, are not working, which is why they constantly talk to me about the importance of LNG and the importance that the direction this government is going — to make sure that the billions of dollars that have been invested to make sure we have an LNG industry in the province of British Columbia — continues.

We know that that will mean tens of thousands of jobs. For me personally, that’s a lot of it in my riding — family jobs, family-supporting jobs. That’s why I’m a huge advocate and a huge supporter of the direction that this province is going to try to have an LNG industry in the province of British Columbia.

One of the other things I want to quickly mention is around transportation. I want to thank the Minister of Transportation and government, as well, for the investments we’re making in my corner of the province. Last year $54 million was spent on transportation and infrastructure — making sure we have safe highways, for four-laning projects for safety, and more importantly, to get our goods to market.

To put things in perspective for my riding, I have somewhere in the vicinity of 6,000 kilometres of road, just in my riding. That takes a lot of upkeep, a lot of maintenance, a lot of investment. That’s why it’s important that we continue making those investments. I’m very excited and proud — the Minister of Transportation and the work that he’s doing, getting around the province and making sure that we’re making those investments that are really important to my riding.

When you look at…. Whether it’s mining, the oil and gas industry, forestry and actually, I would say, the industry that really helped to found that corner of the province, which is agriculture, we need to have a strong network in our transportation system to be able to move those goods around the communities and move them to market.

[1540]

It’s great to see that we have had those investments. I know we’re going to have future investments in the next couple of years as well, something that I’m very honoured to be part of.

Now, I’m going to take a few moments to speak specifically to my ministry, the Ministry of Education. I want to start by thanking all of my staff. I have had the privilege of meeting so many of the Ministry of Education staff personally, going over to the office, and I want to thank them for the work they do.

When I talk to them and I listen to the excitement they have, the passion they have…. This is not a job for almost all of them. This is a passion. It’s a vocation. When they come to work every day, their job and their goal is to make the education system in the province of British Columbia the best it possibly can be. And we have an amazing education system in the province of British Columbia.

When I look specifically to the investments that we’re making…. We have record investments here in British Columbia. This year we’re going to be over $5.1 billion in the education budget. Contrary to what some people are saying — that we’ve put a freeze, that we’re not investing, that we’re not funding education — this year saw an increase just on the operation side of $110 million of additional funds going into the education system, going into classrooms and going in to help school districts around the province of British Columbia for our education. That’s $1.2 billion higher than what it was when this government took office, an increase of 32 percent.

So we’ve continued to invest in education in the province of British Columbia. We’ve gone up 42 percent in our per-student funding, from $6,200 to over $8,900 per student. One thing, again, near and dear to my heart, of course is rural British Columbia. Our per-student funding has on average about a 20 percent lift on top of that even, to help rural students and rural school districts around the province of British Columbia because of special challenges and the unique situations that they have.

When you look at capital, we’re going to be looking this year at another record — $1.7 billion in this budget that we announced over the next three years for capital investments in the province of British Columbia. I look at some of the ones that we’ve talked about, some of the announcements we’ve made and some of the great projects that are underway right now: $57.8 million to Kitsilano Secondary School; $23.8 million to Ecole Qayqayt Elementary in New Westminster; $51.6 million at Oak Bay High here in Victoria; $53.9 million to Belmont Secondary in West Shore; and $40.8 million to Royal Bay Secondary in Colwood.

Last year alone, $230 million was invested just in those projects, not to mention all of the seismic. Over the next three years, with that $1.7 billion, one of our key focuses within the ministry is obviously student safety and teacher safety. We want to ensure that when the kids go to school every single day, that when parents send their child off to school, they know that they’re getting not only the best education, but they’re getting educated in a beautiful, state-of-the-art, safe school. That $1.7 billion is going to go a long way to achieving that goal.

When you look at the seismic upgrades that we’ve announced…. We actually announced Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith School in Vancouver with the hon. Minister of Justice. I can say that when I toured the school, it was something that was greatly needed, and it was something we were proud of — to make that announcement.

These other seismic announcements all over the Lower Mainland have been announced, not to mention new schools as well that we see coming this year. We’re going to be working on the new Clayton North secondary in Surrey, the Smiling Creek elementary in Coquitlam, the brand-new Northwest elementary in Fort St. John, and
[ Page 10520 ]
the Alpha Secondary seismic project as well, which was just announced recently in Burnaby.

Those are ones we’ve already announced that we’re working on, not to mention ones with the great work that the school districts are working on, the school district staff bringing forward more projects that we can work with them on and partner with them on to make sure that we roll out not only this year but in the coming years for student safety.

I think it’s important, though, when we talk about the schools, that it’s just the steel, the bricks, the mortar. That’s not the important part to me. It’s what happens inside those schools.

[1545]

We have amazing learning outcomes, and I think what’s important is that we have opportunities to make sure that every student in British Columbia reaches their full potential.

With that, I want to thank, as well, all of the great teachers and the support staff that we have here in the province. We can build the infrastructure. That’s not the hard part. The hard part is actually what happens inside — again, the great work that the teachers do to make sure that we have this great education system that we like to talk about, that we like to brag about. I think we should be bragging about the outcomes in the education system we have. But in doing so, we should be thanking the people at the front who are actually doing that hard work. So again, I want to thank all of them.

Because we have the longest negotiated settlement in the history of this province with teachers, that’s allowed us to do a lot of other things. One of the things with that settlement was the learning improvement fund. We have, over the next few years, $300 million that will be going into the learning improvement fund. That money is dedicated specifically to ensure that we hire new teachers, make sure we have more special education assistants within the classroom and make sure we have the proper training in place for those people.

Last year, with a portion of that $300 million…. It was used to hire 312 new full-time teachers in the province and 849 part-time teachers. We had 439 new part-time support staff. Another one which was, I think, really telling was almost 3,000 support staff were increased from part time to full time to make sure that our students with special needs are getting the attention that they need.

One of the things for myself, which I’ve seen personally and I’ve been very proud of, is travelling around the province. We have 60 school districts. When you have this ministry — and I know quite a few other ones — you have an opportunity to get around the province. You get to realize, quickly, how large this province is. I’ve had the privilege and the pleasure of getting to almost half of the school districts in the province. I’ve probably visited 60 or 70 schools and been to about 30 school districts.

What’s really exciting is when you actually see what’s happening in the classrooms. That’s the fun part of my job — when I get to get out and I get to visit with those students, when I get to actually meet with them, when I got to go to Surrey and meet with some of the great trustees there and some of the schools there. The innovative work that’s taking place in the schools is truly something to treasure and to be proud of.

That brings me to the new curriculum. Shortly after taking on the role as the new Minister of Education, I was really honoured to help to roll out the new curriculum. Why did we do that? Times are changing. The world is changing. We need to make sure, as we have this great education system, that we stay up with the challenges and with the technology and with the excitement of what’s going on around the world to make sure our students continue to get the best education possible, and our curriculum has to keep up with that.

I was really honoured to be, actually, right here in this building with every single one of our education partners, from the school trustees to the principals and vice-principals to the PAC groups to the B.C. Teachers Federation to the superintendents. They all came to Victoria. We all stood, side by side, to celebrate, to acknowledge and to promise to work together to roll out this new curriculum.

That new curriculum wouldn’t have happened without the hard work of all of those people. We had over 100 teachers from the province of British Columbia who actually worked with us, within the ministry, to ensure that that new curriculum that’s rolling out is something that they can be proud of, something they can work with, something they actually helped build and something that’s going to achieve great results for our students.

Within that curriculum, obviously, we’re going to be focusing on the core competencies, the important things: reading, writing, arithmetic. Those, of course, are always there. They’re always going to be there. What was exciting was to take it to the next level. When you look at the technology that we have out there, we want to make sure our children are ready for the jobs that are actually already here, not necessarily tomorrow. When you look at the opportunities in the tech sector — tens of thousands of jobs — we want to make sure our kids have the opportunities and our students are ready for those jobs, if that’s what they want to do.

When we talk about the new curriculum, when we talk about coding, when we talk about the opportunities that students have to make sure…. I’ll give you an example. When I was in Kamloops, I went to tour one of the schools, and I can tell you. The excitement on the students’ faces when they got to explain to me how they were learning coding already in the classroom, when they were able to take what they were learning and then….

[1550]

They have a robot that they built. They create the program and then that robot actually goes around the class-
[ Page 10521 ]
room and does things that they told it to do. When you actually see a student, the excitement in their eyes that they’ve actually not only learned that but were able to use their hands and build something and watch it actually come to fruition…. It was really amazing to watch the excitement on those students’ faces.

Another humbling part, though — amazing when these students started talking to me and explaining it to me — was how much more they know than myself when it comes to some of the technology. I think, like a lot of us in this House, if you ever have an issue with technology, go talk to your kids. They’ll explain it to you. They’re so far advanced in getting the training that they need in that.

When we talk about the new curriculum, there are also the components around aboriginal education. We’ve rolled out the transition year for this year for K to 9, really to start letting people get an opportunity to look at the new curriculum. It’s going to completely come in, and all the teachers and all the schools will start using that new curriculum starting the ’16-17 school year. Then we’ll start on the transition for the 10, 11 and 12 years.

But when you look at all of the different things we’re bringing in…. Again, aboriginal education, to me, was a real important part. When you look at what happened here in British Columbia, when you look at some of the comments from the Truth and Reconciliation, through the commission, of how we need to do a better job around aboriginal education in the province of British Columbia, you’re not going to get an argument from anybody.

We do need to do a better job, which is why we made sure that we have education around the aboriginal components brought in to every grade, starting right at kindergarten.

One of the other important parts of that was what we call enhancement agreements. When you talk about aboriginal education, this is not a cookie-cutter approach around this. There are unique situations. There are unique circumstances around the province, unique experiences and unique history.

So we make sure under these enhancement agreements that the local school districts are working with local First Nations to make sure that, as we’re doing the education in the classroom, they have that relationship, making sure that that education that’s being taught in schools is relevant to the students, relevant to that area, and one that everybody can be proud of.

Another part of the new curriculum is that flexibility — the individualized learning. We talk about the core competencies, but we need to make sure that the students are getting the great outcomes. We want to make sure, as they all learn differently, that we’re helping them through all of those steps.

It reminds me of a quote from Einstein, actually — one that I found and quite like. I think it’s fitting to our new curriculum and the individualized learning and the opportunities of making sure every child has those opportunities and is not left behind. Einstein said if you judge a fish by how well that fish climbs a tree, that fish will always think it’s stupid and will never advance.

We need to look at what the strengths are that students have and make sure that in the classrooms, they have the opportunities to build on those strengths — whatever their passions are, whatever the opportunities that they want to work on in life. That’s what this new curriculum is all about.

When I talk about new curriculum, that’s all great. But what it really boils down to is the outcomes. We have, not only just in British Columbia…. [Applause.] Thank you.

My colleague always reminds me that that’s something we should be always talking about — the outcomes. We don’t do that often enough. We have amazing students in the province of British Columbia. We don’t celebrate the successes often enough for our students as well.

When you look at our outcomes, when you look at reading, writing and science…. Not just in Canada are we number one, but in the English-speaking world, we are number one when it comes to the international testing, in the province of British Columbia. Again, that’s a testament to our education system.

One of the things with our outcomes, because of that great education system, is our completion rates. When you look at the opportunities our students have and the fact that our students are staying in school, that our graduation rates are going up….

But I just want to go back again one moment. I think that it’s really important to focus on, when we talk about completion rates and successes, a couple of different areas. First of all, students with special needs. In the last about ten years, the completion rates for them — coming into school, going all the way through to grade 12 and graduating and completing grade 12 — has gone up 195 percent in the province of British Columbia.

[1555]

And again, that is because of the great work that is happening in the classrooms, the investments being made ensuring that we have special needs educators in the classroom, making sure that we’re identifying and working with the students for the specific needs that they have. We’ve seen so much success there.

I want to go back, also, to the completion rates and the successes that have grown in the aboriginal communities within our province. When you look at our completion rates in 2001, I think “deplorable” would be the proper word. So 39 percent of our aboriginal students in the province of British Columbia were actually going all the way through to graduation. We are now at 63 percent. That’s a huge jump. Is that good enough? Absolutely not. There’s a lot of work to do.

The non-aboriginal students in the province of British Columbia have also seen a great increase, to almost 85 percent. There are a lot of school districts in the province where we’ve seen aboriginal students who are at
[ Page 10522 ]
85 percent, or even more in some areas. I know that in Penticton and in the Whistler and Sea to Sky area, they’ve had some amazing success.

The success that they’ve seen — of keeping students in school longer but also helping them to succeed right through to graduation — has been because of a lot of this individualized learning. Looking at what their passions are. Helping them out. Making sure, as I mentioned with the enhancement agreements, that school is relevant, that school is exciting, that school is important to them and that they see the opportunities after school. I think that’s the most important thing.

When you look at our students…. We’re not trying to get students through an education to grade 12, wash our hands and say that our job is done. Our job is actually to get students ready for what they want to do in life, to get a job, to look at the opportunities that we have here with our skills-for-jobs blueprint in the province of British Columbia, the amazing opportunities that we have in lots of different areas. That’s going to make sure that in our education system, we’re getting our students ready for that. One of the ways, again, is making sure that they’re getting the best education.

When I talked about our First Nation students, aboriginal education, and that they’re up to 63 percent completion…. One of the things that we’re doing — which I’m very passionate about, to make sure that we have in the province here — is the proper use of what’s called the Evergreen certificate.

The Evergreen certificate is a completion certificate. That was brought in quite a few years ago, about ten or 12 years ago, to ensure that students who maybe, for whatever reason, had an individualized learning plan but maybe would not be able to graduate with a full Dogwood diploma would still be able to walk on stage with their fellow students in grade 12 — be able to walk across the stage, celebrate their successes of getting through grade 12 and have a certificate of completion to recognize their accomplishments.

But we need to make sure that those Evergreen certificates are being used exactly for that — for students who have individualized learning plans that maybe, for their unique circumstances, are unable to get a Dogwood diploma.

Every child deserves the same opportunities in the province of British Columbia, aboriginal and non-aboriginal. That is why I was very pleased to announce just a couple of weeks ago that only students with individualized learning plans are eligible to have the Evergreen certificate and that every child that does not have that is not only eligible and should not only be encouraged but is entitled to a full education here in B.C. to get that Dogwood diploma so they can graduate with pride — and graduate, more importantly, with opportunities. That’s something I’m very proud of.

I just want to end my speech. I see I’m almost out of time here.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Bernier: I appreciate the member opposite saying that I could have more time. I know that he’d be more than willing to give up some of his, if parliamentary rules allowed. Unfortunately, they don’t.

What’s really exciting, again, is not only do we need to make sure that we’re celebrating the successes within education but, I believe, within government.

We have our fourth consecutive balanced budget that we’ve put here — amazing investments right across ministries, things we should all be proud of that are going to help all of the people in British Columbia, whether you’re in a rural area, an urban area, whether you’re newly born. Actually, once you get to be the ripe old age of 6 years old, you can now qualify for a training and education savings grant.

[1600]

I should mention that while I still have a minute, because part of the budget announced that. That’s going to be $39 million that’s going to go towards students. Originally, it was going to be students that were born in 2007. It’s now 2006 — any child born in 2006 is eligible. This is something we really want to make sure all members of the House are going home and talking about for all of our students and our children, making sure that they’re saving now for their education for tomorrow, for those opportunities.

I want to thank the first banks that came on. The first group was the credit unions of British Columbia. A couple of weeks ago we announced that the Bank of Montreal has come on board, and we’re working closely at the final stages with other major financial institutions to make sure that they can offer those as well, to make sure that the RESPs for our students in British Columbia can continue to grow for their future education.

That’s just another one of the examples that’s within this budget, a budget that I am very proud of, a budget that I’m proud to stand here and support and one that I know is going to help British Columbians from my corner of the province right down to this corner of the province.

I want to thank you, hon. Speaker, for my time. Again, I’m proud to support the budget here this year.

D. Donaldson: I am happy to take my place today in the response to the budget speech. I’m going to offer a critique of that budget with some positive criticism, some room for improvement. It’s too bad I don’t have a couple of hours, because there’s a lot of material about room for improvement.

Since I’m going to be talking about the rural perspective — the northern, remote, rural perspective — I want to, first off, thank the people who help me do my job in those communities where I have offices: in Smithers, my constituency assistants, Michelle Larstone and Shelley
[ Page 10523 ]
Worthington; and in Hazelton, my constituency assistant, Julie Maitland.

I also would like to just take a moment to acknowledge the rural representation of my immediate family, who live in rural-remote communities: my wife, Anne; my sons, Dar and Kim; my daughter-in-law, Syra; and my grandchild, Ailsa.

As I said, I want to discuss a reality check on this budget for rural areas. In the particular area in Stikine where I live, we have small municipalities. We have unincorporated communities in regional districts. We have reserve communities, and we have traditional Gitxsan territories. So where I live is not unlike many northern, small communities.

We have rural properties where I live and a whole variety of housing. In the particular community where I live, everybody is on their own water and sewage system. We have trailers. We have cabins. We have houses built 50 to 60 years ago. We have some houses that have been added on to recently and some houses built just in the last few years.

Many homes are in a state of renovation. People work and renovate and live in them while they’re doing this. I know a whole bunch of people who have spent 20 or more years building and renovating their homes while they live in them. That’s the lifestyle of the communities that I represent.

Any new home that’s built is built by owners doing some of the work on their own and hiring local contractors. It’s the same in the municipalities that I represent as well. In fact, in Hazelton, there has only been one home built recently, in my memory.

The reason I talk about this variety of housing and the kinds of housing that we find in rural areas and northern and remote areas is to illustrate a point: that a break on the property transfer tax on new houses, that was outlined in this budget, means little for communities in remote, rural and northern areas.

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In fact, what I’ve read since the budget has come out is that those looking to get into home ownership…. Only about 20 percent of the market is new homes. And as I’ve already discussed, in the communities I represent, that percentage is practically nil.

If the intent — and it was the stated intent of this property transfer tax exemption increase for new homes — was to make home ownership more affordable, then what was presented doesn’t match the reality on the ground in my communities. This is important, because quite a few of the young people in the province are attracted to our area. Many of them want to purchase a home, but it won’t be more affordable, because this exemption has little impact.

Affordability is a key issue for rural and northern communities and was a key issue that I was looking for in the budget. I was looking for some relief in two important areas for northern rural communities, and I’ll talk about those two areas now. One was on B.C. Hydro rates. We know that, under this Premier, hydro rates have increased 28 percent in five years and, under the B.C. Liberal government, 74 percent overall. And there’s no end in sight, in this budget.

I’ve already discussed the type of housing that we have in the communities I represent. Many of the houses lack proper insulation. Here’s my first critical suggestion and positive suggestion. There were no home energy improvements in this budget. People wanting to address the fact that they’re paying 28 percent more on their hydro rates under this Premier would be looking for, and I would have hoped to see, some kind of energy improvement program under this budget. It was lacking.

For those who aren’t from northern communities, around the lack of insulation in many homes — you can tell by the icicles hanging off them in winter. That’s an indication of heat leakage, out of poorly insulated homes, through the roof. It melts the snow on the roof, and the icicles start to build up. Pretty soon you’ve got gigantic icicles hanging down off the roof. That is an indication of a lack of insulation in a home.

An energy savings program in this budget would have helped people in their pocketbooks, for the hydro rates. That’s because, in the communities I represent, many rely on electricity as their backup — because a lot of people use wood heat — or as the number one source of heating in their homes.

Some lucky people have even been able to purchase wood-electric forced-air furnaces. I’m not sure how many people here are familiar with those, but it’s been a relatively new advancement. It’s where, when it gets really cold, you can feed wood into the firebox and have that as part of your heat. When it’s in between, like only minus 5 or minus 10, you can have the electrical part of the furnace working. But in most houses, including my own, there are baseboards, and many people have space heaters in rooms. I’ve been to some homes where people have the oven door open and use electric ovens to keep their houses warm.

In this budget, there’s no break for, or recognition of, this way of living when it comes to home energy or hydro rates. Here’s the second suggestion that I have. There’s nothing that would give a break, like a piece of legislation that the official opposition leader introduced in 2014, called the Hydro Affordability Act. That was a private member’s bill. It allows people who have passed a test on limited income to be able to have a break on energy rates, as approved by the B.C. Utilities Commission. Now, that would be a positive suggestion in the budget. That would have been recognition of what people in remote, rural areas are facing with their electrical bills.

[1610]

We know why electrical rates are high. In the past year, B.C. Hydro debt rose by $1.3 billion. And from 2004 till
[ Page 10524 ]
now, B.C. Hydro debt has increased by at least $16.7 billion. There’s only one shareholder of B.C. Hydro, and that’s the Minister of Energy and Mines. The shareholder, therefore, I presume, agrees with this incredible increase in debt and also contractual obligations — which are on record at B.C. Hydro, as this budget points out — of $59.7 billion.

What are those? Why are we in such debt? Why are people’s hydro rates in small communities that I represent going up so high? It all has to do with the policy of the B.C. Liberal government, which led to B.C. Hydro having to buy hydro from independent producers at double and sometimes triple the rate that they can sell it.

We can see that hydro affordability was not addressed in the budget. It could have been, with some of the positive suggestions I’m giving that the official opposition has put in front of this House before — so again, affordability.

The second point on affordability and how out of touch this budget is with the way people live in remote, rural and northern communities, such as the ones that I represent, has to do with ICBC. Driving is simply a way of life where we live. Distances are huge, people have to be able to drive to get to appointments, to get to services and to have a way of life that they enjoy.

Yet the basic rates under this Premier for ICBC have gone up 30 percent. They’ve gone up 48 percent under this government since 2001. So while the rates go up, we discover in the budget that this government is taking $95 million in profits from ICBC to fund their budget. So rates going up, yet $95 million is taken. That $95 million — I want to make sure that you remember that; we’ll refer to it a bit later. But instead of ICBC rates being held as they are, again, they were just increased 5.5 percent in the fall.

People need their vehicles in the communities I represent, much more than in urban settings. ICBC rates increasing so dramatically is a real affordability hardship. I’ll give you an example. We do not, in Stikine, have an MRI machine. It’s a basic diagnostic tool that is not available in any of the hospitals in Stikine. The closest MRI is in Terrace or Prince George. Basically, you need a vehicle to get access to a basic diagnostic tool if the doctor that you see says that an MRI would make a difference in diagnosing and treating. That’s, again, a basic diagnostic tool that we don’t have anywhere in Stikine.

Now, we know that there’s no public transportation options along Highway 16. Yet the ministers on the other side have often talked about the Northern Health bus. Yes, there is a Northern Health bus. Look at the Northern Health bus schedule. Suppose a constituent of Stikine living in Smithers, let’s say, where people are advocating for an MRI machine to be located, needs to get an MRI. They have travel to Terrace. They don’t have a vehicle, so on Wednesday they get picked up. Wednesday at 2 p.m. is when the Northern Health bus arrives and gets to Terrace at 5 p.m. Basically, the MRI appointments are over for the day. So what happens? You have to stay overnight.

The next day, at ten o’clock on a Thursday, the bus leaves Terrace and heads back to Smithers by one o’clock. Hopefully the person needing an MRI can get an appointment after five — unlikely — or before ten. Otherwise, they might have to go back or stay another night.

The same in Kitwanga. If you’re in Kitwanga…. Suppose you want to get an MRI appointment in Prince George because there might be more MRI appointments available there.

[1615]

You’d leave on the Northern Health bus at 11:05 on a Thursday. You’d get into Prince George at 7 p.m. Unlikely you’ll be able to get an MRI, so you have to spend overnight. On the Friday, the bus leaves at 8 a.m. Who knows if you can get an MRI before then, and you are back in Kitwanga at 3:40. So you have at least an overnight, if not two.

I am describing this situation in relation to the budget because this points out how important ICBC rates are in the affordability of people’s way of life in the communities I represent. And that was not addressed in the budget whatsoever. In fact, $95 million was taken from ICBC in order to support this government’s budget.

We know, while we’re on the issue of health and MRIs, that MSP premiums increased 4 percent on January 1. They’ve increased 24 percent since 2011 and 108 percent since 2001 under this government. People are paying more. They still don’t have an MRI, and they’re being provided a bus that means staying overnight and out-of-pocket expenses. The MSP increase, that 4 percent, represents approximately $100 million, and you can think of that or the ICBC $95 million, and that is part of the budget and, therefore, part of the surplus.

It’s also part of a budget that was fabricating a fund called the prosperity fund. That was supposed to be all from LNG revenue — this prosperity fund. There was supposed to be a fund that was going to mean no more debt in B.C. Well, there’s no LNG revenue, so to avoid political embarrassment, the Premier and this government, in this budget, seeded it with $100 million out of taxpayers’ pockets. You can see and draw a direct line between this surplus that was on the backs of people paying increased MSP premiums to $100 million or constituents in my constituency paying excess ICBC premiums that have resulted in a $95 million grab by this government from ICBC.

Meanwhile, the top 2 percent of the wealthiest in this province have received a tax cut over the last two years amounting to almost $500 million, a half-billion dollars. That’s the choice. The choice of this government was to do that. It was to jack up MSP rates, to jack up ICBC and to cause B.C. Hydro rates to increase 28 percent over the last five years.

The rural economy also, as discussed in the budget, needs a reality check. It’s natural for the Finance Minister to listen to the Conference Board of Canada and the
[ Page 10525 ]
CIBC and BMO, but he should also get in touch with what is happening in rural B.C. We have, in the north, a natural resource economy that is tanking in forestry. We’ve had a mill close nearby in Houston, hundreds of jobs lost. We’ve had a panel plant in Smithers close. It’s only the low dollar that seems to be keeping the industry on its feet in the northwest. And we’ve heard nothing in the budget about value-added or tenure reform, which is absolutely needed.

In mining, the budget outlines a couple of initiatives extending the B.C. mining flow-through share tax credit, which is a personal tax credit and an impact to taxpayers of about $4 million next year, and extending the mining exploration tax credit, which is a corporate tax credit, and the taxpayer impact is about $10 million next year. We have, in the past, supported those initiatives.

But we also have to recognize that in the north and in the northwest we’ve had Huckleberry mine just recently close, suspend operations — 200 workers out of jobs. We’ve had the Endako mine close and suspend operations — more people out of work. There are definitely a couple of bright spots in Stikine, but around the province, we see the mining sector shedding 2,200 jobs and more mines closed down than opened under this Premier.

I put the question to this government and the Minister of Energy and Mines. If the rural economy is doing so well, then why are mines having a hard time paying their electrical bills?

[1620]

We’ve seen a deferral plan, which has some merit, proposed by the Minister of Energy and Mines, but the deferral plan is admitting that the rural economy is not doing very well.

I would certainly hope that with the plan put forth around the deferral of electrical bills for mines, we as taxpayers are at the top of the list as secured creditors in the event that some of these mining companies don’t make it. I’ve seen before in Stikine where local people were not at the top of the list for secured creditors when companies went down in the forest sector and therefore ended up getting ten cents on the dollar on their assets. I’d like to see some details from this initiative and make sure that we are protected as secured creditors under this program.

There’s nothing in this budget in mining to prepare for the future. I’ll especially refer to that around land use planning and especially with First Nations. Most First Nations, we know, that have disagreed in the past with the Premier over LNG plant development have been called ragtags. We know that there’s work to do with First Nations, and there’s work to do, when it comes to mining, around land use planning.

We have to be more nimble when opportunities arise in the future. One way of doing that is to endorse land use planning and what was outlined, especially, by the Association for Mineral Exploration B.C. in their presentation to the Finance Committee in the fall around the critical role that the Ministry of Energy and Mines once played, through the B.C. geological survey, around gathering a geological database. Much of this database mapping is over 30 years old. As AME BC presented to the Finance Committee, the evolution of science, technology and human needs has made commodities more valuable now as compared to 30 years ago.

I would suggest another positive suggestion in this budget that could have made a difference for rural areas is to see some program for that kind of mapping under the B.C. geological survey. Again, in this budget, basically, Energy and Mines flatlined, so we’re not going to see that. I fear that it will make us less nimble when the mining sector turns around in this province.

There’s a lot in the words from the Minister of Finance in this budget about a balanced budget. I wanted to just quickly touch on one aspect of that as it plays out in rural communities — again, with the Education Ministry, which was basically flatlined. In fact, $24 million in that budget is being clawed back under public school administration. That’s the government administrative savings plan.

I’ll tell you the way this plays out in a small community like mine. I was recently at a public meeting where the Lake Kathlyn Elementary School in Smithers was being proposed for closure. In that school…. It was pointed out that the school district has to come up with $380,000 in administrative savings. By closing the school, they would save $210,000 in administrative savings. That’s how balancing the budget plays out.

The decision was to award the top 2 percent of the wealthiest people in the province a tax cut last year, which was worth $236 million and is still in place for this year, and it’s not been asked for — almost half a billion dollars. Meanwhile, this government, in this budget, balances the budget by hiking MSP, by hiking ICBC rates, by giving no relief on B.C. Hydro and by closing schools. Those are the choices, indisputable, that this government has made.

I want to touch on the area that I have as a portfolio and as spokesperson for, and that’s the Ministry of Children and Family Development. I am very pleased that the government has listened to us, on behalf of families, and reinvested in the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

[1625]

By reinvesting, if that means that fewer children will die while in care, will be abused while in care and will keep more families together, then I say that that is money well worth spending. Just to put some perspective on it, though, the $72 million that is proposed to be reinvested in this coming year…. Between 2008 and 2012, 100 million in real dollars was lost at that ministry. If you look at the overall picture, in the first three years that the B.C. Liberals were in government, there was a 27 percent tax cut in this ministry. If they do reinvest the money that was promised in the budget over the next three years,
[ Page 10526 ]
that would be a 16 percent gain. So we’re still down 11 percent, from when the Liberals became government, in that ministry.

What we see now is the reinvestment. It still doesn’t replace the hole of stand-pat budgets in the past. What we also see in this budget is an investment in new social worker positions, and that’s welcome. It’s unclear at this point if this is in addition to what has already been promised in the past couple of years or additional positions.

I’ll point out that the Representative for Children and Youth pointed out that in 2014, commitments were made for 200 social workers by this government, and it only hired 86 of those, according to the Representative for Children and Youth — of that group. That leaves a differential of 114. If you add the 130 that is discussed in the budget, then the Representative for Children and Youth is looking at 244 new social workers to be added.

Interjection.

D. Donaldson: These are questions for budget estimates. I see the Minister for Children and Family is trying to enter the discussion. I look forward to actually getting some details from her during budget estimates on whether she agrees with the Representative for Children and Youth’s opinion of these details.

What was most astonishing to me in the budget for the Ministry of Children and Family Development was the children and youth mental health service area — a 0.2 percent increase in that budget for the coming year, below the inflation rate of 1.9 percent. So they’re actually losing ground in that service area.

Fifteen months ago, in November of 2014, the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth put out phase 1 of their report, where we concluded — and this was a bipartisan committee: “The committee agrees there is an urgent need for action to improve mental health services and supports for youth.” Urgent need.

What we see is a loss to that actual line item in the ministry when you look at the inflation rate. This is after a report from almost 15 months ago pointing out the exact need for this kind of funding and early intervention funding. In fact, in the document that was filed just recently by the select standing committee, the final document…. I’ll read from that: “Children, youth, young adults and their families are suffering as a result of significant weaknesses and gaps in services. Improvements to the delivery of mental health services are urgently needed.” Urgently needed.

Yet we see nothing in this budget under the children and youth mental health line item. Families and children and youth and young adults facing mental health challenges are left out of this budget.

We have a budget that the government is saying is balanced. There’s a $264 million surplus. This government has made the choice to give a $236 million tax cut to the wealthiest 2 percent and nothing for families or youth or young adults facing mental health challenges. I feel that that is a really terrible, terrible oversight in this budget.

We also have what appear to be no new dollars for children aging out of care at 19 in this budget. This is something that is very troubling to the people of B.C. A recent poll, an Insights West poll just this January, said that 75 percent of people were willing to extend the age of foster care past 19. They were happy to see the government do that if the government would do that. That is up from 2013, when only 38 percent said that.

[1630]

It’s no wonder the numbers are up. We’ve had cases — of Paige, of Alex Gervais and others. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any new money in this budget for children aging out of care at 19, and that’s a tragedy.

I’d like to conclude to say this is not a budget for rural areas in the north or remote rural areas in the province or for families and young people facing mental health challenges. I’ve given some positive suggestions, and I say yes to affordable hydro rates. I say yes to not gouging people on ICBC rates and MSP rates while giving the top 2 percent, the wealthiest in the province, a half-billion-dollar tax cut.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

I say yes to respectful relationships with First Nations, not labelling those First Nations who disagree with the Premier as ragtags, and proper land use planning on traditional territories. I say yes to investing in our schools, not closing them down to balance the budget. I say yes to supporting children and families with mental health challenges and young adults aging out of care at 19. That is why I will be saying no to this budget.

L. Reimer: You can tell a lot about a government’s priorities from the type of budget it produces. Government budgets are usually full of numbers, graphs and bars, but they actually sum up what a government stands for. This is no jiggery-pokery. If I had to choose one word to describe Budget 2016, I would say “families.” This is a budget focused on making life more affordable for middle-income families and placing an emphasis on helping those most in need. All of this is possible because of sound financial management of the public’s finances.

Before I was elected as MLA to serve my constituents of Port Moody–Coquitlam, I served in local government. When I sat on council with the city of Coquitlam, I became well acquainted with the process of reviewing a long list of wants and demands on the public purse. Inevitably, that list always exceeded what was available in the budget, so as council members, we had to make tough choices on behalf of the taxpayers who elected us. In other words, we had to establish priorities.

That’s what Budget 2016 has done. It places families at the forefront of budget priorities in making the cost of
[ Page 10527 ]
living more affordable in British Columbia. We are able to do that because, for the fourth year in a row and through sound fiscal management, the Minister of Finance has managed to do what every other government in Canada is unable to do. That is eliminate deficit spending and use the surplus to partially pay down the debt and deliver much-needed relief to taxpayers.

On this point, I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. member for Abbotsford West. As Minister of Finance, he has steered B.C. through some of the most challenging currents in the global economy and balanced the budget without raising income taxes. As a matter of fact, British Columbians pay some of the lowest personal income taxes in the country. No wonder why people want to move to British Columbia.

For the average family in British Columbia, Budget 2016 now makes it possible to exclude all children from MSP premiums. It also means we can extend the circle of low-income families and seniors in British Columbia who pay no MSP premiums at all. By making children free and expanding premium assistance, an additional 335,000 British Columbians will see their premiums reduced, including 70,000 single-parent families. An additional 45,000 people in this province will pay no premiums at all.

For families living in Port Moody, Coquitlam, Anmore and Belcarra, this will prove to be welcome news. For people who want to start a family and live in one of these communities, Budget 2016 is addressing housing affordability. The budget recognizes that home ownership is becoming more challenging, especially for our first-time buyers. Budget 2016 contains a provision to fully exempt newly built homes up to $750,000 from the property transfer tax. This represents a savings of up to $13,000 for the purchaser of a new home.

[1635]

We are also making sure that lower-income British Columbians in need are not left behind. Last week the Premier announced the largest single investment in affordable housing of $355 million over five years. This will support more than 2,000 new units for people with low to moderate incomes. Within these homes reside our most valuable asset of all, our children.

In 2013, our government announced the B.C. training and education savings program. This provides a one-time grant of $1,200 to the registered education savings plans of eligible B.C. children born on January 1, 2007, or later. Thousands of families in B.C. have already taken advantage by establishing an RESP. Registering for this program helps parents plan and save early for their child’s education after high school.

Once again, and thanks to sounds financial management, Budget 2016 will see this program extended to eligible children born on or after January 1 of 2006. This $39 million investment will ensure that an additional 40,000 children will be in a better position to follow their dreams.

Budget 2016 is also capitalizing on our triple-A credit rating and enabling us to make significant investments in infrastructure. Probably the most visible infrastructure investment in the Tri-Cities area is the construction of the Evergreen line. I was delighted to see recently that trains are currently being tested, and I can assure you that commuters are very much looking forward to using it in 2017.

Even though it’s not yet in operation, the Evergreen line is already changing the face of the community by spurring a virtual boom in spinoff construction. New neighbourhoods will welcome more families to the community. Last year Coquitlam saw $366 million worth of building permits issued, up slightly from $350 million in 2014. This includes residential, commercial, industrial and institutional construction. A great deal of construction activity and consumer interest is centred around SkyTrain stations. We are very much looking forward to having the Evergreen line open up a whole new range of options for public transit.

There are many other investments in infrastructure. I recently took part in a partnership announcement between the government of British Columbia, the city of Coquitlam and the Coquitlam school district.

Students and families in the community of Burke Mountain will soon benefit from the construction of the $20.5 million Smiling Creek elementary school. This will provide 430 student spaces, including 80 kindergarten and 350 elementary student spaces. This exciting new facility will include a neighbourhood learning centre and new park space. For students and teachers in Anmore, near Coquitlam, we are also investing $700,000 worth of minor capital funding to upgrade Gleneagle Secondary and Anmore Elementary School. These investments will also benefit the community of Anmore.

For anyone who visits my riding, you will realize that we are close to come of the most beautiful places to enjoy the outdoors. Hikers and day trippers of all kinds visit the area to enjoy the trails and open space at Rocky Point Park. This means we also have to support the highly dedicated search and rescue volunteers of the Coquitlam and Tri-Cities area.

In late January, I was pleased to announce that Coquitlam Search and Rescue would be provided with a special grant of $10,000 to purchase ten new digital radios for search and rescue volunteers. The new hand-held portable radios replace obsolete analog technology and will help improve the safety and effectiveness of search and rescue operations.

According to Coquitlam Search and Rescue president Darren Timmer: “Maintaining radio communication between field teams and our command vehicle is mission-critical. These radios will allow not only two-way communication with all existing search and rescue frequencies but will also support our transition to digital VHF communications and real-time GPS tracking of
[ Page 10528 ]
field teams.” Coquitlam Search and Rescue has been providing emergency services in both urban and wilderness settings since 1972.

As a government, we value the work done by our search and rescue volunteers. The money for the radios comes in addition to a $10 million announcement on January 27 that will benefit some of the 80 search and rescue groups throughout British Columbia with equipment upgrades, training and other supports. These are the types of investments that we are now in a position to make because we have a balanced budget.

[1640]

As I mentioned earlier, B.C. is the only jurisdiction, federal or provincial, that has a balanced budget. We are the strongest economy in Canada. I do feel for people in other provinces that are suffering because of lower commodity prices. B.C. is not alone in the global economy. We are providing supports to our mining sector to keep thousands of jobs in this sector and make it easier for companies to weather the downturn in commodity prices.

The fact is the rest of the country is counting on British Columbia to lead them out of the current downturn, and I’m proud to be part of a government that is going to do just that.

B. Routley: It may not come as a surprise to anyone in this House that this budget is something that really fails the people of the Cowichan Valley, and it may not surprise you that I want to talk about Shawnigan Lake.

I want to start off talking about Shawnigan Lake because of the impact that it has on the budgets of so many British Columbians who live in the Cowichan Valley. It impacts the budget of British Columbia in that we’re spending money on an issue that should have been resolved had there been some real listening going on and some real dialogue. Clearly, the process has failed when the majority of British Columbians in Shawnigan Lake were very clear that it made no sense whatsoever to have a contaminated soil dump right above this pristine lake.

I just want to give you some of the details of the costs so far. This is just to the Cowichan Valley regional district and the Shawnigan Residents Association. So far, we’ve had the Environmental Appeal Board hearings, which were 31 days. Think about that — 31 days. The CVRD legal cost was a total of $840,000 between the Environmental Appeal Board and the Supreme Court, which they’ve attended just between 2013 and 2015.

That’s $840,000 just for the Cowichan Valley regional district. That’s for communities all around the Cowichan Valley. That includes everybody in North Cowichan, where I live. It includes the people of Lake Cowichan, Duncan, all of the surrounding communities around the lake, everybody that is included — Youbou, Mesachie Lake, Honeymoon Bay. All of them are now going to be shelling out money for a government refusing to listen to the good people of the Cowichan Valley, who are just doing what? They’re protecting their zoning rights, of all things.

The Cowichan Valley regional district has the right to develop land in our area. Actually, not just the right; they have the responsibility, given to them by this provincial government and previous provincial governments that have enacted legislation that says: “It’s your responsibility to provide zoning for your communities.” And in that zoning, it’s pretty clear that they can have a whole lot of things, but they can’t have a contaminated soil dump. In fact, they couldn’t even have a garbage dump in this spot where they’ve decided to put a contaminated soil dump.

This CVRD land use case was supposed to last five days, but due to endless objections by the company lawyers, the hearing ended up lasting a total of 11 days. The judicial review…. They’ve already had ten days for the application and for the stay, and now we’re in the second stretch of ten days for the actual judicial review.

This is over $1½ million between the CVRD and the Shawnigan Residents Association. They tell me it’s heading towards $2 million just for those two groups trying to defend the watershed of our region.

[1645]

Just imagine how that makes the taxpayers of British Columbia feel, that we’re spending our money to try to defend our watershed from this government’s action, from not doing the proper due diligence just to listen to the people of the Cowichan Valley. It’s totally outrageous, when I think about it.

The estimated costs are reaching $2 million. That tells me — guess what — this government is spending well over $1 million, I would suggest.

I tried to ask the Minister of Environment: “Come on. Come clean. Tell us how much money you’ve spent thus far.” That was in estimates last year. We’re going to try and ask some questions about that this year as well, and I’m sure we’re going to get the same nonsense. “We can’t even give you an interim report.”

Now, imagine, British Columbians. Anybody out there listening. I want you to know that this government has no interest in providing an interim cost to the province of British Columbia for spending our tax dollars to fight the good people of the Cowichan Valley, to fight Shawnigan Lake over our water supply, of all things. I can’t find out how much this government is wasting, because they won’t tell me.

You know what they tell me? The minister was very clear: “You’ll find out at the end. You’ll have to wait. There will be a full accounting, but you’re not going to get a nickel’s worth of reporting out from this government on what’s really going on.” Now, if that isn’t jiggery-pokery, I don’t know what is. That’s the kind of jiggery-pokery that I’ve seen — hidden costs, unwilling to report out.

I asked the minister, and I’m going to say this again: “You mean to tell me that the statutory decision–maker…?” We’ve had the minister stand in this House and say:
[ Page 10529 ]
“Oh, it’s all very scientific.” Hon. Speaker, I’m sure you heard that as well. It’s all very scientific, except one problem. The statutory decision–maker didn’t go to the site, didn’t listen to the ministry’s own scientists, awarded a permit without ever driving up the Malahat to see the site.

Now we have the audacity of this government, shovelling money out the door, and there’s no accountability. I asked the question: who is accountable? Has anybody from the Ministry of Environment stepped in and looked at the reasonableness of this? “Oh no. We’ve got statutory decision–makers. It’s all very scientific.” Really? Well, how come?

I heard the government say before: “One of the beautiful things…. Oh, it’s so wonderful. We can be held accountable with professional reliance because we’ve got professionals.” They have organizations. We can call those professionals in, and they’re going to tell us exactly what’s going on.

Well, let me tell you what happened. When our community looked for some accountability and went to the Environmental Appeal Board, do you know that the scientists, Active Earth geologists, hydrologists wouldn’t…? They didn’t even take the stand.

Now, I want to know a big why. There are so many things that stink in this case. But I’ll tell you, one of the things that really bothers me…. It just stinks to high heaven. I lay awake at night thinking: what on earth has gone wrong? It’s just like one crazy thing after another. To find out that the professionals aren’t even going to sit on the stand and defend their so-called science to the community…. No, they didn’t. Now, that’s unreasonable, just plain unreasonable.

That’s one of the reasons they’re back in court again, because there was no reasonableness. Isn’t it a basic fact in law that…? If you’re going to base everything on this so-called science, shouldn’t they be able to hold them accountable, to have them on the stand to explain all this important science and how they were so careful and diligent in claiming that there were 75 metres of granite layer?

Then they did the drill hole. What did they find out? My goodness. Let’s just have a look at what they found out. It’s really quite amazing. The results from the two additional boreholes did not support Active Earth’s theory that there was a 75-metre layer of virtually impenetrable rock.

[1650]

Instead, the results show what other hydrologists had suspected — namely, that there was no confining layer. Rather than there being shallow and deep bedrock layers with different permeability, the results pointed to the bedrock all being fractured — fractured bedrock with an aquifer, a medium to which substantial groundwater could flow. This is just alarming stuff.

Imagine the community finding this out. Oh no, all that good stuff they told us. “Oh, you can trust it’ll be 10,000 years,” they told the community. They stood in our community hall and said: “10,000 years. You don’t have to worry. It’s all going to be good. It’s wonderful. It’s all very scientific.” Then when we go into it, we find out: no science whatsoever, at all. It’s totally unacceptable.

In addition, our Shawnigan…. I want you — any MLA — to think about if this was in your community. I think you’d be here just a tad bit hot too, if this happened to your community.

Now, in Shawnigan, we’ve lost three restaurants since the March 20 EAB decision. The West Arm Grill, Steeples and the pizza parlour — all closed. And the development proposed for the north end of Shawnigan has been killed by MOE delays. Developers cleaned up the old landfill so that they could build a commercial-residential site, which had huge support from their community. But MOE made it impossible for them to move forward. The developers now have given up and are putting the land up for sale.

This is a huge blow to the community. The real estate folks in the community are saying that prices are taking a real hit. One realtor reported that in one week, three sales fell through because of this contaminated landfill situation. They’re affecting people.

Imagine having a mom that comes in and says: “I made the mistake years ago….” She had a small business. We hear a lot about “Oh, we care so much about small business” over there. Well, imagine this small business person who dreamed a dream of coming over to the Cowichan Valley, having this beautiful piece of property unfortunately right next to a contaminated soil dump. It wasn’t a contaminated soil dump when they bought out. No — no contaminated soil dump. It was a beautiful site, and they were going to invest in creating two beautiful homes.

So here’s this small business lady with a dream. She worked her heart out to realize her dream, bought this property, acres and acres, moved to the Cowichan Valley, started the development. All of a sudden, this government says: “Oh no, we’ve got a better plan for you, for your neighbourhood. We’re going to put in a contaminated soil dump.”

Well, things aren’t working out. I can tell you that right now. It’s an absolute disaster for that family as well. It’s really, really quite sad.

I want to reaffirm that this government has had a way out too. After sitting through the Environmental Appeal Board…. Don’t forget. The Ministry of Environment had lawyers there, and there were government lawyers that we’re all paying for, sitting there, not just from the Ministry of Environment but also on behalf of the Environmental Appeal Board. So there are two lawyers in there. They know that under the legislation of this place, which put in place a law in British Columbia, the Environmental Management Act in section 18 states that the minister can suspend the permit if there was misrepresentation during the application.

Wait a minute. Misrepresentation during the application. Is this some kind of reason why the professionals may
[ Page 10530 ]
have not have taken the stand? What do you think, hon. Speaker? What would you think if we were having breakfast one day, and I told you that the professionals didn’t even bother to take the stand to defend their so-called professional opinion that seems to have been falling apart at the seams in the light of day, after we’ve got new scientific tests that show, no, what they said wasn’t true at all?

Now, we find out that there is an opportunity because of the legislation. It’s easy for the minister, really. It says: “a holder of a permit or an approval of the holder’s agent has made or makes a material misstatement or misrepresentation in the application for the permit or approval or in respect to information required under this Act with respect to permit or approval.”

[1655]

There you go, folks on the other side. You can help out. You can go and sit down with the minister and you can say: “Well, on reflection…. I’ve been listening to some of this. This is really a bad idea. We keep shovelling money out the door.” How much more? Really, ladies and gentlemen, how much more money do you have to watch shovelled out the door, on behalf of the people of British Columbia, fighting with the good people of Shawnigan Lake, the good people of the CVRD, which is the entire Cowichan Valley?

“Oh well, it’s just all a misunderstanding,” I’m sure some of you are saying. “Oh, you just got it wrong. You’ve just got to get to yes, MLA for Cowichan Valley. You should be thinking about yes. You should be embracing a contaminated soil dump.”

Well, let’s put that contaminated soil dump in any of your regions, and let’s see what you think. See if you wouldn’t be defending the good people in your community. Let’s try it in Kelowna. That would be a good idea.

I want to move on now. It frustrates me so much I can’t dwell on it too long. I’m going to get too excited. So I’ve got to move on.

But this upsets me as well, I must say. I have the good people of the Cowichan Valley — when I go and I’m in the office — come in. I’ve had people that are living on disabilities and that are trying to deal with the government’s new system. Oh, we’ve got a new system now. No, there are no real people in the Cowichan Valley, in Duncan anymore. You get to go home and dial the dial-up help plan. Dial up the help.

This lady came in, in her wheelchair, and told me that she ended up in her situation as a result, basically, of a birth defect. She’s in a wheelchair. She’s as bright a person as I have ever met. She is absolutely brilliant. But she told me of her anger and frustration in phoning this government’s help line for people with disabilities, to try to deal with some problems. She phoned and phoned, and every time she phoned she got a different person. There is no name.

Now, here is a suggestion for you, folks on the other side. Wouldn’t it be great if you actually treated people with the kind of dignity and respect that you talked about in your budget? About: “Oh, it is a measure of your humanity to look after those who are most in need.”

That’s true; I believe that. So why would I be told by person after person that they can’t reach a real human being on the other end of the phone? They sure as heck don’t have a name. You can’t even get assigned a government worker. You can’t get a name of somebody that says, “Well, I’m in charge for you, Dorothy,” or Betty, or whatever your name is. Shouldn’t that be the way?

The least of the things that we could sort out in the province of British Columbia is to allow somebody that’s got a disability…. It wasn’t their choice; they didn’t choose that. To have this lady in my office, in tears…. She’s telling me about — not once, not twice, not three times — ten times phoning this government’s so-called help desk, on the same file, and being told, “Oh well, we’ll get right back to you,” and nobody gets right back to her. So she phones again and gets a new worker: “Oh well, let me look into that, and I’m sure we’ll be able to cover it.” No, it just doesn’t happen.

So our MLA office helped out. And you know what’s interesting? There must be something magic about the MLA line, because we phoned, and suddenly there was some attention to the problem. But really, why would that be the case? Why would it be that the MLA…? What about all the other people that don’t have the courage to come in to the MLA’s office?

I might add, it’s strange to me that a common theme I hear over and over again is: “Please don’t use my name, because they might give me more of a problem.” Really? You’re disabled, and you’re worried about giving us your name, because if you give us your name, you could get in trouble with whatever crumbs from the table you can scratch out from this bunch right now.

[1700]

This is how this government treats people. They don’t have somebody we can phone up and say, “You know, Don,” or John, Betty — some name of some real person that’s going to look after them. No, it’s just…. Dial-a-dummy is what’s happening — Dial-a-dummy, because you get no help.

I wrote it right down here. She said to me: “Why, why, why does bureaucracy make the system so onerous?” I’m reading my notes from her discussion. “People will fall off the list.” She says: “I’m sure there are suicides and there are people living under bridges because of the way they’re treated by this system.” That’s what I heard right out of the mouth of somebody living on disability looking for a little help.

The government crows about the little help that they’ve given. They give with one hand and take away with the other, and it turns out that it’s a very, very modest change. For all the years…. Eight years with no lift for people living on disability, those most needy. Even the Finance Minister didn’t have the courage to crow about it. He said
[ Page 10531 ]
it’s not going to necessarily make life better, but maybe it’ll make it “less hard.” That was the quote for the day — maybe a little less hard.

Then I had a family come in with a son with autism who’s almost 19. This one broke my heart. Here’s the mom. She’s sick. She has actually been told: “Maybe you should put your son in a group home.”

“No,” this mom says. “No, no. That’s not right. I don’t want to put him in a group home. I want him to stay with the family.”

I said: “Well, what is the issue?” They said: “Well, again, it’s this paperwork, this onerous, crazy system that’s making my wife nuts, because she’s been phoning and phoning and going round and round.”

I’m sure I’m not alone. I’m sure there are MLAs on the other side of the House that are recognizing this. Like, I just don’t believe it’s just happening…. “Oh, a call from the Cowichan Valley. Let’s give them the runaround.” It’s got to be everybody, I’m assuming, surely. Tell me it’s not so, unless you’ve got a special phone call for the people from the Cowichan Valley so you can find a way…. I just don’t even want to go there and believe that. That’s just impossible.

But I find it totally frustrating that I’m hearing from a mom that’s absolutely sick, that wants to be able to…. She said: “I don’t want to cost the province more money and have him put in a group home. I want to take care of him.” But now here she is with her illness, and they’re putting her through all this paperwork.

You phone the government office, and they say: “Oh yeah. But when you go from this program from Social Development and Social Innovation to CLBC, oh well, it’s a whole new…. This is a whole new day, so you’ve got to fill out this in triplicate. You’ve got to talk to this, bring all these documents.” And they sent the letter to her son who has challenges. He couldn’t read the letter, and they sent the letter to him.

The mom and the dad are now wrestling with how to deal with all this, and they can’t sit down with a real person. So they come to their MLA. We do our best and try to help with the phone calls.

Good grief. Is this the best that we can do in the province of British Columbia?

I, again, wrote down some notes, because I said: “Look, I’m hearing these things. I need to make notes of what you’re saying so I can pass it along.” They’re saying: “Look, they’re not making things better for families with children with autism.” This is potentially going to end up costing the province of British Columbia more money. It’s going to cost the province of British Columbia more money if we don’t do something about this situation. Something is seriously wrong.

Here was a really moving moment for me: “We shouldn’t be punished for being disabled.” Absolutely not. They shouldn’t be punished. “I can’t get better when people are forced through a bureaucratic maze over and over until you fall through the cracks and end up sick or with mental health issues.” Those are the kinds of concerns that we hear.

[1705]

This government is a government that is there for millionaires. They remain so with this budget. There they are, their gift to the millionaires. They’ll get their $17,000 tax break, which they might not even notice this time around, but it’s there. They’re giving their 2 percent to the richest British Columbians, and that amounts to about $1 billion in just the next four years alone. We’re giving up $4 billion to the rich people. We’re giving up billions of dollars to corporations in huge taxes. Now we’ve come up with more plans.

Then we’ve got this tinkering with the MSP, which again amounts to — I’m sorry I couldn’t come up with another word — just more smoke and mirrors and jiggery-pokery, because it will actually still exceed this year’s relief by $77 million. They’ll be taking that right out of the pockets of British Columbians. British Columbians will still pay more tax every year in MSP.

What’s worse is that the MSP increases are, in effect, going into kind of a new slush fund. We’ve got this new prosperity fantasy fun. We’ve got the $100 million. Oh, it’s got some very unique rules. This isn’t at all the prosperity fund that we once heard of. Only a certain percentage of it is going to go towards debt now.

It’s not just MSP. Families are paying more for hydro rates, ICBC and ferry fares, and just last week or in the last couple of weeks, they jacked up camping fees in parks once again.

Even when the Vancouver Sun drew to the attention of the Finance Minister the gap between the tax relief and the tax increases of $147 million, the Minister of Finance apparently said the reporter just misunderstood and something about: “The math is really hard” and “I’ll give you a clarification later and get back to you.” But later, after checking the documents himself, he agreed that the Sun reporter was right, including the $101 million increase in premiums that takes effect January 1.

This year’s increases will exceed this year’s relief by $77 million. What’s really fascinating is that even the Premier agrees with us. I’ve heard others mention this. Like, I was absolutely dumbstruck by the fact that we’ve got the Premier and I agreeing on something — that there’s jiggery-pokery going on, essentially.

She’s saying the MSP system has grown up over a lot of years but hasn’t grown up into a system that is entirely fair or even logical. Now, that’s brilliant. I like it. Definitely she gets it that it’s not fair and it’s not logical. But what do we do? Oh well, we’ve got to balance the budget — everybody’s so proud over there — on the backs of the poor, those who can least afford it. It’s not logical, apparently. The Premier even agrees it’s not logical.

She is suggesting that there may be changes before the next election. My, my. Does that mean they’re going to
[ Page 10532 ]
ramp up corporate tax? Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be on the plan.

We look forward to seeing the day that that comes forward. But for now, it’s just more of the same old…. We see MSP called antiquated and old by the Premier, and that it generally doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Yet the B.C. Liberals will increase the MSP tax hike to $77 million, which is boosting the total MSP to a whopping $2.5 billion.

The surplus and debt — oh, this is fun with numbers. I really like this one. They’re really good at it. Fun with numbers and jiggery-pokery. They have pointed out…. And technically, they would be correct about focusing in on the words. But they are focusing in on what’s called direct operating debt. They want to focus like a laser beam of light on direct operating debt and ignore Crown corporation debt as well as taxpayer-supported debt for capital spending related to core government — not to mention that they’re ignoring contractual commitments.

[1710]

We have a situation where direct operating debt currently stands at $8.1 billion, while total debt is now $65.3 billion. That’s the debt. And then they ride around British Columbia with a bus that says “Debt-free B.C.” Oh, but we forgot to tell you. There’s a little technicality. It all makes perfect sense. We just want you to think about a certain kind of debt, the direct operating debt.

Again, I think that’s jiggery-pokery when they aren’t coming clean about contractual commitments. If you’ve got a family at home and you’ve got all these commitments, you’ve got to pay your debt sooner or later. Over $100 billion in that kind of money and $65 billion…. My math says it’s $165 billion owed by this government.

Hon. P. Fassbender: I appreciate this opportunity to add my comments to our budget debate. I always find it entertaining to follow the member for Cowichan Valley. I was thrilled that the Heart and Stroke Foundation was in the building today telling people what the signs are of stress and so on. I was a little worried about the member, but I see he is still in good health. I’m glad to see that. I did count five jiggery-pokerys. I like to keep track of that as well, because it’s always very entertaining to have him share.

I also want to take this opportunity, the first opportunity I have had in the House, to welcome the two new members, from Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and from Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, who have joined the ranks of the hon. members in this House. As everyone has said, and I want to add my comments, I do think it is a very memorable time that we have our First Nations women represented in this House.

I think it is a reflection of the diversity of our province, and it also reminds me of the hard work that the government has done in working with our First Nations partners throughout the province. That is exemplified by the two All Chiefs meetings that we’ve had, with the third one to come.

I know that the Premier and all of the members of this side of the House believe that our relationship with First Nations is improving at every turn — the agreements we’ve been able to sign, some of them historic, just recently. It speaks about the fact that this government is committed to developing an economy together with our First Nations that provides significant opportunities for them and their communities and for their young people as they look at their futures.

I know that it is indicative of why this balanced budget and our economic policies are so important — so that we have a positive route forward for our First Nations partners and every other citizen that chooses to live in the province of British Columbia, especially those that are choosing to come back to British Columbia because we are leading the country in economic growth and so on.

For the two new members, I think it is an absolutely great time to join the House and the members, during budget debate. As they review the budget, they will clearly see that the government has a clear vision for the future, that our fourth balanced budget is an indication of our commitment to our economic health, to the priorities that we, as government, see.

I recognize that new members are on a steep learning curve, and I’m sure that they will get their speaking notes at the appropriate time. But I do know that as they look at the budget, they will be impressed with the investments that this government is making in all of the sectors of our government responsibilities and for every single British Columbian, no matter where they live, who they are, what their background is.

[1715]

Most importantly, for the young people of this province, they will see a bright future that is bathed in economic reality and a willingness to invest. I say invest because when you look at the budget and the content of the budget, it is very clear that our economic growth is fuelling investment in health care, in special needs, in education and all of those things that are fundamental to a province that is as beautiful and as forward-moving as British Columbia is.

I want to congratulate the Finance Minister. I know, as members of the government, that is expected. But I have seen in the time that I’ve been honoured to be in this House how dedicated he and the members of the Finance department are to looking at every opportunity to ensure that we have a fiscal plan that meets the needs that have been identified in the vision that we clearly articulated as the government in the last election. I know the hours that are spent by the Finance Minister and his team.

I know that the budget speech of 2016 is a reflection of what he sees working with the team in our caucus, in our government and with the Premier to chart the course for the coming years. It is another balanced budget. That’s been said time and time again, but I think it is important
[ Page 10533 ]
to repeat that, because I think very often the public looks at that kind of discussion and has difficulty understanding what it really means to them.

There are a couple of key elements in it. The Finance Minister, when he delivered the budget, talked about our credit rating. I think there are a lot of people who say: “Well, what does that really mean? I sometimes have to borrow in my own family finances in order to do the things that my family needs” — whether it be a mortgage in a house, whether it be borrowing money to buy a car because they need transportation, whether they need to borrow to help their young people go to university.

While we borrow, we also need to have a plan to save because mortgaging our future with having no opportunity to build for the future is not wise policy, whether it is for us individually or us collectively in the province of British Columbia.

Why is our credit rating important? It’s important because we do not have to pay interest costs that will cripple our financial future. If people look around the world at countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal and see the economic policies that have resulted in those economies being almost bankrupted because of unwise decisions, because of borrowing and spending without any fallback in terms of savings — that has affected every single citizen of those countries.

But we don’t need to look internationally. We just need to look in our own country. You look at the fiscal framework that you see in Alberta, in Ontario, in Saskatchewan, in Quebec. There are challenges because of fiscal planning or the lack thereof. It’s not my place to criticize other governments. They make decisions. They’re accountable for them.

What I will say is that what the people of the province of British Columbia need to do is to look at the contrast between what we have done to protect their future and what they see in other jurisdictions around us. I believe that the people of British Columbia clearly know that this government has made tough decisions at times. But we are now at a place where the road ahead is going to lead the rest of the country, is going to build an economy that has a future for every single person, be they First Nations or from any of the other cultures that have chosen to come to Canada and to live in British Columbia.

[1720]

I happen to represent the community of Surrey. I’m proud to do that. When I look in that community and I look at the hard-working people — whether they’re truck drivers, taxi drivers, small business owners, all of the people who contribute to the health of our economy — I know they see that what we’ve done is protect their future and the future of their families.

We also work with them to ensure that as a government we are prepared to change where change is clearly identified and where change will provide a positive benefit to each and every one of them. I know that the families who live in my constituency of Surrey-Fleetwood see that this budget will make a positive difference in their lives day in and day out.

Nearly a third of all Surrey residents are under the age of 18— one-third under the age of 18. They are just starting their journey to their future, and we are creating the environment where they will have one that is positive. I know that all of the young families in Surrey are going to benefit from this budget, because starting in 2017, all children — not a select group but all children — will be exempted from paying MSP premiums in their families. That is a significant step forward, recognizing the challenges of young families.

I also know, as the Finance of Minster spoke about in his budget address, that we have extended the dates to 2016 for the education investment fund. That is giving every single family whose children were born in 2006 and past…. They will be able to invest $1,200 in their registered education savings plan, and their families — again, because of our strong economy — will have disposable income that they can put into those accounts for their future as well. They won’t have to wait until they’re students and their children go into university or post-secondary. They can start saving for that today. That, again, speaks to the plan to save money and to ensure that they will be able to do that.

I know that we are looking at a number of other initiatives. Right now in Surrey we have 800 to 1,000 people that choose to move to the city of Surrey, and that is every month. That’s not in a year. That’s in a month. I know that the provisions that the Minister of Finance announced in the budget on increasing the threshold for the transfer tax to $750,000 will have a direct benefit in my community of Surrey and in every single community in this province.

It will generate new construction, it will result in more jobs because of that construction, and it will give the opportunity where families will be able to save up to $13,000 in transfer tax. That, again, is recognizing that we are helping those that want to have their first home, whether it is a single-family home, a condominium or a townhouse. They will be able to save that money and invest that in their future.

When you look at what’s happening in the provincial economy — I’ve said it, and I think it bears repeating for the people of British Columbia — we have the strongest economy in the country, the envy of other provinces.

[1725]

That just didn’t happen in this budget. That has been a process that has been coming for many years because of the fiscal prudence of this government, the Finance Minister and previous Finance Ministers and previous caucuses of the government in the time that we have been honoured to serve the British Columbia people with sound fiscal policy.

There are key facts about the 2016 budget that bear repeating. I’m very proud, as a cabinet minister and an MLA and a British Columbian, that our province is show-
[ Page 10534 ]
ing the leadership and the prudence that I’ve spoken about. Government is on track to balance the budget with a projected surplus of $377 million.

The balanced budget forecasts modest surpluses in all three years of the fiscal plan that was presented: $264 million in 2016-17, $287 million in 2017-18 and $373 million in 2018-19. By the end of 2015-16, the direct operating debt will be reduced by $2.2 billion since the government resumed balancing the budget — $2.2 billion.

I know the members opposite say that we’re playing a shell game with the budget. Well, we’re not. Clearly, reducing your operating debt is what anyone wants to do. We do it in our families. We want to keep our expenses low, which allows us then the flexibility to borrow to build, as the Minister of Finance said in his speech — borrow to build. We do that in our families, as we look to our future. When we want to build a house, with the new threshold we will be able to save money so that we can invest that saving into our future. That is borrowing to build for individuals and individual families as well.

When you look at what the balanced budget in 2016 does, it invests $1.6 billion in new and increased spending, over the three years of that plan, on core services. As I said, we borrow to build.

The infrastructure projects that this government has committed to — the Massey replacement; working with the Metro Vancouver mayors to replace the Pattullo Bridge; to build new infrastructure for transit, which is so important to move people and to move goods and services; to widen the Trans-Canada Highway, as the Minister of Transportation has spoken about; all of these things — create jobs, create wealth and create a future that we can rely on and that the people of British Columbia can be proud of.

Some of the new and increased investments and services include $3.2 billion over three years added to the Ministry of Health. The opposition would like to characterize that we’ve cut investments in health care. We have increased them, and we continue to do that.

Then $217 million for the Ministry of Children and Family Development to support vulnerable youth and their families and other at-risk individuals. And $456 million for the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation to support those in need and to increase monthly disability income assistance rates.

I think it’s important at this point to highlight what the Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation has said a number of times in this House. If you look at the innovative programs that this ministry has put into place to meet the needs of the people of British Columbia, that is something that I, as a member of the government caucus and a fellow cabinet minister, am very proud of.

[1730]

The work that’s gone on has only begun. I know that the minister and her ministry are committed to moving that ahead in a very positive way.

We’ve invested another $143 million over three years to enhance key areas of the B.C. economy that support jobs in communities, including the new $75 million rural dividend program to help small communities, the ones that we know have greater challenges, that may not be in an area that has the same growth as other areas. We’ve recognized that, and that is why we’ve made that commitment and that investment, and we’re working with local governments to make sure that that happens.

I’ve already spoken on how we have committed to the dollars that are necessary to help to move our transportation system, not only in Metro Vancouver. The Minister of Transportation has brought forward a ten-year plan that recognizes the needs throughout the province, that recognizes the needs of B.C. Transit as we move forward. That kind of funding is going to ensure that we move ahead and provide the opportunities to people in other parts of the province.

We’re also investing in opening up new markets in India, and that was referred to by the Minister of Finance. We know — when the minister developed that plan, working with the Minister of Agriculture; the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources; with the Minister of Energy and Mines — that we have a clear plan. If we did not invest in infrastructure like Site C, we would not be able to sell clean energy to our neighbours in Alberta, who are going to need that as they try and remove themselves from their dependence on coal-fired energy plants that do not contribute a positive influence into the environment. That’s why we’re investing. That’s why we’re taking the positive approach that we are.

As we look at our budget — and the Minister of Finance spoke about this…. I’ve had the opportunity, on a number of occasions, to meet with people from other parts of the world. They look at British Columbia as a safe haven to invest. We’ve heard in the last couple of days, in discussions about real estate, where the opposition is complaining that people from outside of our jurisdiction want to invest in British Columbia. I find that absolutely ridiculous. It is that kind of investment that helps to create jobs for British Columbians, that opens up the eyes of other people around the world to why British Columbia is one of the best places in the world to live.

This government, through our policies, through our credit rating, has shown the rest of the world that British Columbia is the place to invest, and we welcome that investment. We’re going to see more of it and the work that the Minister of Natural Gas has done around the world to sell the generational opportunity for LNG, with the 20 projects that are in the planning stage. Those are not something that is a pipedream, by any stretch. They are going to happen, and it is because we’ve invested and we’ve networked. We’ve shown people around the world why British Columbia is where they should be coming to invest. As we look to building the future of our econ-
[ Page 10535 ]
omy, I’m clear that our fiscal plan is one that is built on a solid foundation.

The investments we’re making in infrastructure. I know that the Minister of Transportation will speak about a number of these things when he speaks to the budget. The infrastructure investments we’re doing will be investing over $12 billion over the economy, and we will be creating jobs out of that, good-paying jobs.

[1735]

That’s why our blueprint for skills training and educational advancement is going to be bearing fruit for those young people as they get the training, and the opportunities to get jobs as a result will be there for them.

I know, for example, we are investing $2.9 billion for health infrastructure and hospital projects. We will be investing $1.7 billion in the K-to-12 sector to build schools, $2.5 billion for post-secondary education facilities and labs throughout the province and $3.1 billion for transportation investments — all of which create jobs, opportunities.

I’ve listened to the members opposite talk about the prosperity fund, and yes, when the Premier announced that, we anticipated we might have LNG revenue flowing. But as I said, that revenue is going to flow, and it will flow into the prosperity fund.

I come back to a point that I made a few minutes ago. This budget, with the surpluses we have, allows us to put money into a savings account that we can use to further enhance the future of this province and invest in projects and opportunities for the people in British Columbia. Anyone who says that you shouldn’t put money in a savings account is living in a dream world. We should put every nickel we can in that. That’s what the prosperity fund is. It’s a fund for the future of British Columbians. The government is committed to it, and we’re going to continue to invest in it.

I look at all of the things that are in the budget, and I would challenge the members opposite — especially the two new members, as I mentioned — to go through that budget and to see that it is building a future. I would love to see the members opposite look at what’s good in the budget instead of trying to fabricate things which are not in the budget and using the wrong….

Point of Order

B. Ralston: Point of order. He attributed lying to members of the opposition.

Hon. P. Fassbender: I withdraw the comment on fabricating, Mr. Speaker.

But I can tell you….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Order. Order.

Debate Continued

Hon. P. Fassbender: It’s like the pot calling the kettle black — the “fantasy fund” terminology that’s used across the way, all of those things.

I will just simply say to the members opposite that we have a plan. We have a vision, we have a budget, we have a future, and that is because this government is focused on doing what’s right for the people of British Columbia, saying yes, while the opposite members say no to every single opportunity for growth and expansion.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

They are against Site C. They’re against LNG. They were against the Port Mann Bridge. They’re against the Massey replacement. The bottom line is: they have no plan for the future. This government does, and we’re going to deliver on it. As the budget has shown on every page, it is a plan for the future.

H. Bains: It always is a pleasure to stand up and speak in this House. In fact, it’s an honour that very few British Columbians have enjoyed over the years, as we’ve heard earlier.

It is budget time, and I will speak about the budget and what’s in the budget and what’s not in the budget. You have heard the government side painting a very rosy picture that everything is fine. But if you really look at the budget document, you will find how many people, and who, are being left behind.

Before I get into that, I want to correct the member who spoke before me, the minister for TransLink. He said that the opposition is against foreign investment coming into British Columbia. He is light-years away from the truth.

[1740]

What we are against — and the member from Point Grey has been raising this issue on a consistent basis — is the purchasers, the investors coming into British Columbia using loopholes to avoid taxes that belong to British Columbians. That’s what we are against.

They are also coming here and ripping off the sellers. The system that is in place, where these sellers get ripped off by those deals, where the real estate does not disclose who these purchasers are — that’s what the debate has been, not what the minister described here. I think that’s why I need to correct the minister.

I just want to talk in the beginning about the constituency that I represent, Surrey-Newton. I’m so proud that I represent a community that is so diverse, that is so caring and that is always engaged. I said this during the throne speech that there isn’t a day during the week when you go around in the Surrey-Newton area and see some of those banquet halls where a group or individuals are not engaged in raising funds for very, very worthy causes —
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on a weekly basis, daily basis. I always admire their efforts, their caring — and such an engaged community.

I really am fortunate to represent that particular community. If I look at so many people that make a difference in that community, it’s amazing. There are people that I will talk about later on.

Let’s talk about the budget a little bit in the beginning and give a little overview of where I stand and what I see in this budget. When you look at the budget, the tax breaks for the top 2 percent continue, to the tune of $1 billion over four years. That is the tax break that this government chose over the working class, the middle-class people who are asked to continue to pay higher taxes through B.C. Hydro rates, ICBC rates, park fees, B.C. Ferries, MSP premiums.

That’s where the difference is here. They say they made hard choices. Those are the choices they made. They decided to go and continue to give tax breaks to the top 2 percent. That clearly is in the budget, and they continue to go deeper and deeper into the pockets of working, middle-class people — and continue to deny services and benefits to those who are most vulnerable in our society. That is also in the budget document.

I see that B.C. Hydro rates continue to go up, a total of 29 percent. MSP premiums — $100 million — collected just through the increase this January. More increases are coming. B.C. ferry rates continue to go up. Park fees continue to go up. ICBC just raised 5.5 percent, and next year the rates will continue to go up. That’s the choice that this government…. They said they were hard choices, tough choices.

Those are the choices, and British Columbians feel it every day — the working class out there, the working families. People pack their lunch pails in the morning; go through the traffic lineups; go to work and spend eight, nine, ten hours; come home and take their children to games, soccer games, ice skating — you name it. They don’t see any break for them. They continue to be asked to pay more and more and more, and their lives are struggling.

[1745]

It always takes now almost two members of a family to work in order to survive. Under the reins of this government, there’s no break on affordability — none. None whatsoever, and their lives will continue to struggle.

There’s no real plan in this budget that I see to deal with our public transportation shortfalls, both in Vancouver and Surrey. We’ve been promised in Surrey for years that the extension to Surrey would take place. In fact, it was agreed that it would be concurrent with the Evergreen line. Never happened. Then finally, when we thought that there was an opportunity, the government chose to put that issue to a referendum and asked the people south of the Fraser: “How are you going to pay for the transportation promises that we made for you?”

They never asked that question when the Expo Line was built, when the Millennium Line was built, when the Evergreen line was built, when the Port Mann Bridge was built, or when the announcement to replace the Massey Tunnel was announced. None of that required a referendum, but when the time came for Surrey, then there had to be a referendum.

Just a few facts. South of the Fraser has half of the service of public transportation compared to Burnaby, Vancouver, Richmond, and their service is not adequate themselves — 1.9 hours on a per-capita basis in Burnaby, Vancouver, Richmond compared to one hour south of the Fraser. And it’s the fastest-growing community. There’s no plan here to deal with the lack of services that we have south of the Fraser, none whatsoever in this plan — nothing.

I don’t know where our ministers from Surrey are. You would hope…. I have talked to many parents out there, and I’ve talked to many of the residents. They asked me: “What does it take to convince the government to bring some investment into this area — to build schools, to have more buses where there are new subdivisions coming up, to extend the public transportation in that area?” And I said: “Well, you know, we have three ministers from Surrey. They go to the cabinet. You would think that they have some clout in the cabinet.” So far we have seen that they have no clout. Now, that is a shame.

Not only that, but we have other Liberal MLAs from that area. Those Liberal MLAs are also complaining behind the scenes that the growth is in their areas and that they don’t see any investment in education, in transportation or in crime reduction. That’s the reality, and there’s no answer in this budget to deal with those issues.

Like I said, there’s no relief in this budget for overcrowded schools in Surrey or Tri-Cities areas. And 7,000 students are in portables in Surrey alone, 7,000. That makes it about the 23rd-largest school district in the province — the portables alone. I’ll talk about that a little more — how that is hampering the ability of our school board and our teachers to deliver the education services that our children deserve. I’ll speak about that a little later.

There’s no comprehensive plan I’ve seen or investment with the resources to combat crime in many of the cities in this province, especially in Surrey — 60 shootings last year, another shooting yesterday. So it continues on — no investment. This government is completely silent. They only go there for photo-ops.

I spoke about this Monday morning. I talked about the Wrap program that we have — such a successful program — in Surrey schools. Rob Rai runs it. He was the person who created this. He runs it now.

[1750]

There is a waiting list for those that are at risk in those schools, those youths. It’s a program so popular that now they are dealing with 100 students, but there’s a wait-list of 35 to 40. No one should be on a waiting list for that
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kind of need for at-risk youth, because they need help now. You can’t tell them: “Wait a week. Wait two weeks. Wait until we get resources.” They will be gone. Now is the time to go grab them and show them the direction and work with them so that they come back on the right track.

Nothing. Nothing, Madame Speaker. And we’ll talk a little more about that. There’s no vision shown in this….

Interjection.

H. Bains: I’m on a roll.

No vision about our forest industry that built this province for the last 150 years. No vision. We continue to rely on raw log exports. No leadership to utilize those raw logs right here in British Columbia so that we can create jobs with those logs for British Columbians. That was the intent 150 years ago when we started to utilize our forests commercially.

Madame Speaker, I’m getting some looks here. Noting the hour, I adjourn the debate.

Some Hon. Members: Reserving the right.

Madame Speaker: So noted.

H. Bains moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. T. Stone moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 5:51 p.m.

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