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)

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Morning Sitting

Volume 33, Number 3

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

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

The House met at 10:03 a.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

Hon. N. Letnick: Joining us in the members’ gallery this morning is the Consul-General of Turkey, Mr. Anil Bora Inan. He is accompanied by his vice-chancellor, Mr. Selçuk Çiçek. The Consul-General will be meeting with several members of the House today to discuss international trade, tourism, advanced education, mining and energy and to strengthen relations between our governments.

Would the House please make them feel very welcome.

M. Farnworth: I have a real pleasure today to introduce two people to the House, two friends of mine who I have known for 40 years. For people who sometimes wonder how I ended up in this place, this individual signed my first nomination papers when I ran for council in Port Coquitlam back in 1983.

An Hon. Member: So it’s their fault. [Laughter.]

M. Farnworth: It is their fault.

[1005]

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce Danny and Elaine Sewell, who live in Surrey but grew up in Port Coquitlam. I’d like the House to make them extremely welcome.

Hon. M. Morris: It’s my pleasure to rise in the House today and recognize Const. Steve Trevor of the Courtenay RCMP. Today he’ll be receiving a commendation award for his brave and quick response to an incident that resulted in the saving of a life. Will the House please help me in thanking Steve for his act of heroism.

K. Corrigan: In the precinct today is the UBC dean of law, Catherine Dauvergne. Along with her is the UBC executive director of government relations, Adriaan de Jager. Ms. Dauvergne has practised, been a researcher and a scholar in the area of refugee, immigration and citizenship law. She’s had an illustrious career. I hope the House will make both of them very welcome.

M. Dalton: I notice in the gallery today we have Jason Goertzen. Jason, along with Tim Schindel with Leading Influence Ministries, provides volunteer spiritual care and chaplaincy service to all members of the House. Would the members please make him feel welcome.

G. Holman: I’m very pleased to introduce to the House today some parents and representatives of the PAC from Bayside School. They brought their petition today, which is very simply entitled: “Replace the school roof at Bayside now.”

I’d like to introduce Sandra Arthur, who’s the president of the PAC; Andrea Calder, president of Canadian Parents for French; Darcy Winkel, who’s the secretary; Martina Redman, the communications officer; Amy Greenfield, who is the Bayside COPACS rep; and Andrea Nugent.

Would the House make them feel very welcome.

Hon. B. Bennett: It’s my pleasure to introduce some family members here this morning.

First and foremost, my wife, Beth, is here. It’s the second time she’s been here in 14 years to watch question period, twice in the last year. We must be doing a good job, because she seems to be quite interested in what we’re up to. I’d like to welcome her.

Also, with my wife is my brother Eric Bennett and his wife, Marlaine. They’re here from Ontario. Eric has travelled all the way from Ontario to B.C. because he heard there was a place in this country where they actually do balance budgets and where they have a triple-A credit rating and where jobs are created. So I say to him this morning: “Brother, you have reached the promised land.”

Tributes

DOROTHY BEACH

J. Darcy: I rise to pay tribute to a citizen of New Westminster who passed away recently — Dorothy Beach, 102 years old. Her memorial service was held — I was honoured to be able to attend — on the weekend.

Dorothy Beach lived a very long and very productive life. She was an environmentalist decades before the term was coined. City councillors of many decades past can recall Dorothy Beach being at council meetings on Monday night, time and time and time again, raising issues of concern — on congestion issues, environment issues, protecting our salmon. A life very, very well lived, and I would ask that this House join me in extending condolences to Dorothy Beach’s family.

Introductions by Members

Madame Speaker: Hon. Members, I’d ask you to join with me this morning to welcome June Draude. She’s a 21-year veteran of the Legislative Assembly of the province of Saskatchewan. She represents Kelvington-Wadena. Please make her welcome.
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Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

BILL 14 — FINANCE STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

Hon. M. de Jong presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2016.

[1010]

Hon. M. de Jong: I move the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. de Jong: Bill 14 amends a number of the administrative and enforcement provisions of the Carbon Tax Act, Motor Fuel Tax Act, Provincial Sales Tax Act and Tobacco Tax Act. The amendments help to ensure the provisions will be interpreted as intended and allow for fair and effective administration of the consumption tax system in British Columbia.

This bill will bring additional clarity to the current payment and remittance obligations in the Carbon Tax and Motor Fuel Tax Act. This bill will also make a number of technical changes to the Provincial Sales Tax Act to enhance the registration requirements and clarify some exemption provisions in the act.

Amendments to the Income Tax Act ensure the act remains consistent with the Income Tax Act of Canada. The Insurance Premium Tax Act and the Logging Tax Act are amended to modernize and clarify certain administrative provisions.

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

Bill 14, Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2016, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

BILL M203 — WORKERS COMPENSATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

S. Simpson presented a bill intituled Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2016.

S. Simpson: I move a bill intituled the Worker’s Compensation Amendment Act, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and read for a first time.

Motion approved.

S. Simpson: This legislation will institute a presumptive clause for first responders in British Columbia. Under this legislation, if a first responder is suffering from an incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, it will be deemed to be as a result of their occupation, unless there was evidence of contrary. This will remove hurdles and ensure timely support for those public servants who need treatment.

We know today that first responders — including police officers, firefighters, paramedics, 911 dispatchers, sheriffs and corrections officers — suffer PTSD at more than double the rate of the general population. Sadly, we have also seen more than 80 suicides among first responders in Canada since April 2014.

This serious mental health challenge first responders face is directly related to their service. We know that, every day, first responders treat those with health emergencies, ensure public safety and protect the citizens of British Columbia. In doing that work on our behalf, they too often face extreme and traumatic situations that most of us could not comprehend.

We also know PTSD is not usually the result of a single event. Rather, it is cumulative in nature. Facing these difficult situations day in and day out over a career has been shown to trigger PTSD or other mental health conditions.

Alberta and Manitoba have already adopted a presumptive clause. Ontario and New Brunswick have announced their intention to take action.

While this legislation is specific to post-traumatic stress disorder, I know that there are a number of other related mental health challenges that deserve consideration as well. I believe this legislation would set the foundation for discussions around expanding the scope of a presumptive clause in the future.

In the past, this Legislature moved unanimously to adopt legislation that put in place a presumptive clause for certain cancers that have been proven an occupational hazard for firefighters. That was the right thing to do. Today, we have the opportunity to do the right thing again and adopt a presumptive clause for British Columbia’s first responders. Let us take action to support those who save the lives of fellow British Columbians every day.

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

Bill M203, Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2016, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

ARTS AND CULTURE

S. Chandra Herbert: British Columbians love the arts and value them dearly, but how much do we, as legisla-
[ Page 10601 ]
tors? A new report by Hill Strategies tells us that in stark terms, most arts and culture organizations in B.C. receive considerably lower investments from both the federal and B.C. governments than the rest of Canada. In 2010, Stats Canada reported that B.C. supported the arts at the lowest per-capita level in all of Canada at $54, compared to an average of $90 per capita in the rest of Canada. We know the bipartisan Finance Committee has supported the arts for years.

Now, some have said: “Why should we subsidize the arts?” It’s an interesting question, as governments subsidize forestry, mining, oil and gas technology, and the list goes on. But did you know that the arts and our creative economy produce more jobs than mining, forestry, and oil and gas combined? Many do not know that. Now, if we aren’t motivated by that or by the joy, the questions and the curiosity that arts brings, let’s consider data.

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Did you know the health outcomes of seniors in care facilities improve considerably when exposed to arts and that B.C. investments in arts produce more in provincial tax returns than the amount invested and that art changes young people’s lives? As Bramwell Tovey said so well, if a student holds a musical instrument, he or she isn’t holding a knife, a gun, a needle…. The list goes on.

But maybe the great mystery of art is what perplexes those that just count beans. I’ll leave them with a quote from the great Emily Carr. Carr says: “I think that one’s art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows.” Digging up a plant to see how it grows, hon. Speaker.

I’d like to thank B.C. artists, arts lovers, cultural workers, volunteers and donors. Members, I invite us all to stop digging up a plant to see how it grows and, instead, to water and feed that plant so that it blossoms and blooms.

NORTH SHORE TOURIST ATTRACTIONS

R. Sultan: This month business in Vancouver measured the biggest tourist attractions in the Metro Vancouver area. Two of the top three, Grouse Mountain and Capilano Suspension Bridge, happen to be in my riding. They both offer spectacular nature close to a vibrant city.

Grouse Mountain, served by three gondolas, has been in business since 1926. Last year they had 1¼ million visitors, making it the most visited in the region. If you make your way to the top of Grouse by gondola or by hiking the Grind, you will find wonderful views of Vancouver, downhill skiing, snowshoeing, zip lines, views north from a huge windmill, a logging show, owls, ice skating and two grizzly bears — all topped off by gourmet dining.

Close by is the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, in business since 1889, attracting 900,000 visitors last year. After a free shuttle bus ride, visitors experience a jiggly suspension bridge 200 feet above a fast, wild river; navigate a walkway suspended high among giant fir trees; venture onto Cliffwalk, bolted to canyon walls, in response to market research indicating what visitors really enjoyed is being scared; followed by a full menu of shopping and more great dining.

On a combined basis, these two attractions account for an incredible 10 percent of the entire number of tourists visiting B.C. There is no off-season for these attractions. Managing growth is the new normal.

BURNABY SPORTS HALL OF FAME

K. Corrigan: I look forward to attending the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame banquet later this week. This year longtime Canuck and 40-year Burnaby resident Harold Snepsts will be honoured. The defenceman played 781 of his 1,033 NHL games in 12 seasons with the Canucks, scoring 35 goals and 168 assists while collecting 1,446 minutes in penalties.

Other inductees include Dave Evans of the Vancouver Burrards, who was named the Western Lacrosse Association’s top goaltender and MVP in 1973 and 1977, the year the team also won the Mann Cup. At 16, Barry Seebaran became the youngest player to make Canada’s cricket team, in 1988, and continued on with an illustrious national and professional career.

In the Builder category, Steve Govett has been the president and GM for the highly successful Colorado Mammoth, a team that attracts 17,000 spectators to its games, including taking the 2006 National Lacrosse League championship.

Doug Ross has been a pillar of the youth soccer community for three decades, despite not having a son or daughter in the system. Coach Darrell Hall led the grade 8 St. Thomas More Collegiate Knights football team to 11 grade 8 provincial high school championships. Finally, the 1997 U19 Burnaby Girls Soccer Club Blast is being honoured for winning that year’s national club championship.

Congratulations all, and thanks to Grant Granger, chair, and the members of the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame for doing such a great job year after year. In the spring, there will also be a paving-stone ceremony for each inductee at Burnaby city hall.

[1020]

2015 WORLD UNDER-17
HOCKEY CHALLENGE

P. Pimm: I have a skill-testing question for the House today. What do Joe Thornton, Vincent Lecavalier, Ilya Kovalchuk, Rick Nash, Marc-Andre Fleury, Alexander Ovechkin, Erik Johnson, Patrick Kane, John Tavares, Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid all have in common?
[ Page 10602 ]

Of course, they are all players that have played in the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge and then went on to be drafted first overall in the NHL draft. Fort St. John and Dawson Creek were the proud hosts of the 2015 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge. They only found out they were hosting two months before the tournament started after an Ontario community had to bow out at the last minute.

The two communities, along with their volunteers, combined to put on a fabulous event that was enjoyed by all. Paul van Nostrand, Barry Reynard and their crews of volunteers from Dawson Creek and Fort St. John worked tirelessly for two months prior to the event and pulled it off as if they had been working on it for a full year. You can’t really say enough about these great volunteers.

There were three teams from Canada, as well as teams from Russia, Finland, Sweden, the United States and the Czech Republic. All three Canadian teams did very well, and at the end of the day, Canada won the gold, with Russia capturing silver and Sweden winning out over Canada Red for the bronze.

There will be many future stars that have played in this tournament, but to name a few that you should watch for are Eeli Tolvanen from Finland, Scott Reedy from the USA, and Owen Tippett and Gabe Vilardi from Canada. While this was a stepping stone to the NHL for most of these young, great players, it was the fans of Fort St. John and Dawson Creek and area that were the overall winners, seeing some of the very best hockey the world has to offer.

JANET RUEST

D. Routley: I rise today to celebrate Janet Ruest, an extraordinary teacher who has given extraordinary service to public education. She teaches at Chemainus Secondary, a social studies teacher who applied to participate in the Lindblad Expedition of the National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow program. Of 2,700 applicants, four Canadian teachers and 31 Americans were chosen to embark on this fascinating ten-day voyage to the Galápagos Islands.

She won the Royal Canadian Geographical Society 2015 Innovation in Geography Teaching Award, Canada’s highest geography K-to-12 teaching award, last November.

Janet is an unassuming teacher and person. Quoted in Teacher magazine’s current issue, she says: “Although I won the awards, I want teachers to know that I am accepting them on behalf of hundreds of teachers in my district and the thousands of teachers throughout B.C. who have not been recognized.”

Herself inspired by Thelma Brooks, an excellent geography and social studies teacher, in her high school days, Janet shares her love for geography and history with her students. She says that when she teaches, she strives to share her love of the world. She says that when she would look at a world map, she thought of it as a jigsaw puzzle and wanted to know how it all fit together — the history, physical geography, social and political conditions.

Janet has just been chosen to go on a teachers study tour of Germany to learn about the history and culture of modern Germany. This is a trans-Atlantic program which will look at the country’s present goals and governance, aspects such as its green technological and energy conservation leadership, its constitutional requirements to welcome refugees, and the promise and practicalities of Germany under Ms. Angela Merkel.

It is the dedication and the service of teachers like Janet Ruest that is responsible for the outcomes for students in this province.

LEFT MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY
COMPANY IN MAPLE RIDGE

D. Bing: It is my pleasure to speak to you today about a small business in Maple Ridge that is receiving provincial recognition. Left of the Dot Media, or Left as they like to be called, is a media and technology company that has holdings in mobile and internet-based businesses.

Left was founded by Chris Jensen and John Lyotier in 2010. They initially had no permanent staff and were working out of a basement. Realizing the business potential of holding great domain names, the company grew quickly by using innovative technology and on-line marketing.

Left now has over 80 full-time employees, with their headquarters located in Maple Ridge. Left’s commercial success has been astounding, but what is truly special about this company is its dedication to its employees. Left has recently been nominated as a top-five finalist for the annual Small Business B.C. Awards in the Best Workplace category, and for good reason.

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The company offers its employees a great work-life balance. Its co-founders chose to locate their headquarters in Maple Ridge to reduce employee commuter times. The company offers flexible working hours so that employees can prioritize family. Each employee is provided unlimited community days, which can be used to take time off for volunteering. The co-owners of Left strongly believe that fostering a happier and healthier team will have a positive impact on both their business and their community.

I would like to congratulate the people at Left for their achievement and wish them the best of luck at the upcoming Small Business B.C. Awards.

Oral Questions

B.C. HYDRO
ENERGY CONSERVATION TARGETS

A. Dix: To the Minister of Energy: the Liberal government and B.C. Hydro, their Power Smart conservation
[ Page 10603 ]
plan, a plan that cost $400 million over the past three years, has repeatedly missed its target — last year, according to the minister, by over 1,300 gigawatt hours. That’s a big miss, even by Liberal standards.

Three years ago, after successfully changing the program, in the Premier’s way, and eliminating successful programs such as LiveSmart, they failed, dramatically, to miss their conservation targets. So what did they do? Why, they lowered the target — kind of a reverse high jump competition. What happened next? They missed the lower target again, by a larger margin.

So what did the minister do this year? What do you think he’s trying this year? Now, you could be forgiven for guessing “hire Gordon Wilson,” kind of a “no Liberal leader left behind” strategy. You’d be on the right track.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. Members, come to order.

Ministers, come to order.

Please proceed.

A. Dix: Well, you’d be on the right track, but wrong. Here’s what they did. They eliminated the target from their service plan. Now, I guess if there’s no goal to shoot at, even the minister can’t miss the net.

Can the minister explain why he decided not to address the failure of his Power Smart strategy, which has cost $400 million over the past three years, but instead chose to cover up the facts, so that B.C. ratepayers who pay for it can’t measure its success or failure?

Hon. B. Bennett: Actually, the member is incorrect. If the member….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. The Chair will hear the answer and the question.

Hon. B. Bennett: If the member would care to go to his big, thick binder under his desk or over behind him, he could look up the Clean Energy Act. In the Clean Energy Act, which we passed in 2010, he would find that the target of 66 percent of all incremental demand for electricity must be met by conservation.

So how are we doing? B.C. Hydro is in the process right now of filing a revenue requirements application with the BCUC. In that filing, they will show that in fact they’re not going to meet a 66 percent conservation target. They’re going to do better than that. They’re going to meet over 70 percent of all incremental new electricity.

Madame Speaker: The member for Vancouver-Kingsway on a supplemental.

A. Dix: Well, I understand. What the minister says doesn’t matter. What the service plan says doesn’t matter. What the minister said in the House doesn’t matter. What B.C. Hydro says doesn’t matter. The standard for the cabinet is the minimum required under the law.

[1030]

If I may explain just one small thing to the minister. When you spend hundreds of millions of dollars and you dramatically miss your targets again and again and again, it’s not the target’s fault. You know, the target didn’t do it. It’s innocent. It’s not some part of some mythical target of no organization that’s trying to hurt the government. It was B.C. Hydro and the minister that failed to achieve the target. You don’t conserve more energy by hiding the results and taking away the comparison.

On page 5, last Thursday, the table of B.C. Hydro’s new load resource balance estimate to the BCUC, Hydro acknowledged the missed targets but stated its intention to extend its current strategy — you know, the one that’s failing — to 2019.

Can the minister explain why he is abandoning conservation in this way, and why he is failing to take advantage of the thousands of jobs that could be created through conservation programs? Why does he prefer to cover up the failure than to address it?

Hon. B. Bennett: I don’t know why the member always has to be so negative. I don’t….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. This House will come to order.

Hon. B. Bennett: I don’t know why he always has to be so negative, other than the fact that everyone who sits around him is also negative.

I’ll repeat what I said in my first answer. We have a legislated conservation target in this province of 66 percent, and the filing that the hon. member just referred to indicates that B.C. Hydro is going to surpass the 66 percent and that we will be conserving at least 70 percent of all incremental demand.

Now, the member, I think, based on his questions, would like B.C. Hydro to just throw money at the wall regardless of how well conservation programs work. What B.C. Hydro has done is they have looked at their programs; they have analyzed their conservation programs. Those that work best — they will continue to invest ratepayer money in those programs. Those that do not work so well — they will not invest ratepayer money in those programs.

That’s the way this side of the House does business. It’s not the way that side of the House did business when they were in government, and that’s why they won’t be in government again.
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Madame Speaker: Vancouver-Kingsway on a final supplemental.

A. Dix: It is an astonishing thing that the minister…. All of those things that were put down, all of those commitments made by B.C. Hydro, failed — acknowledged, by the way, by B.C. Hydro to have failed to meet its targets — and the minister gives that response in the House.

What he’s saying is no to conserving energy and the tens of thousands of jobs associated with it. He’s saying no to accountability. He’s changing the numbers to protect his failures or cover up his failures. No to retrofitting government buildings, no to helping people reduce their electricity costs, no to LiveSmart, no to common sense, no to private sector jobs.

The minister’s idea….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Member, please take your seat.

Please continue.

A. Dix: The minister’s only idea to conserve energy is to force ratepayers to pay 28 percent rate increases to pay for Liberal Party energy failures.

Can the minister explain why his energy strategy is designed to increase costs on ratepayers and reduce the jobs that can be created in every community in B.C. with a successful conservation program?

[1035]

Hon. B. Bennett: Well, when that member was advising ministers and Premiers in the 1990s, along with the Leader of the Opposition, who was also advising Energy ministers and Premiers at the time…

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. B. Bennett: …they froze rates for ten years for political reasons, because it bought them votes. There was almost zero investment in the 1990s in B.C. Hydro infrastructure. Today — including Site C, which they oppose — B.C. Hydro is investing $2.4 billion a year in infrastructure.

The only infrastructure that the NDP invested in, in the 1990s, was located in Pakistan. I don’t know if they ever figured out how to actually connect that power plant in Pakistan with the B.C. Hydro grid. I don’t think they did. That was their one and only significant investment in the 1990s.

Even with $2.4 billion a year…

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. B. Bennett: …being invested by B.C. Hydro today, British Columbia has the third-lowest residential rates in North America.

RELEASE OF GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
TO REPORT ON YOUTH DEATH CASE

K. Conroy: Last fall we asked the Minister of Children and Family Development why she scheduled the release of her response to the Paige report at 3 p.m. on the day of the federal election. The Premier denied this was the case. She told the media: “The report was ready to be released. The children’s advocate supported that release, so that’s when it went out.”

Well, that wasn’t at all accurate. According to newly released government emails, it’s clear that political staff in government deliberately hurried the release of the report to ensure that it came out on election day.

My question is to the minister. Why did she try to bury her response to the Paige report on election day?

Hon. S. Cadieux: To reiterate what I said back in October, we had been trying to get the report out for some time. In order to do so, protocol dictated that we brief the representative. We had had briefings scheduled weeks prior to the 19th, which her office postponed.

Eventually, the representative agreed with us that we would go ahead and release our response so that it could be out in the public domain for discussion, and discussion here in this House. She even went so far as to provide a quote for the news release that said:

“‘I am buoyed to see that MCFD and government have begun to grapple with these important issues and that progress will be improved outcomes for these youth, far too many of whom are aboriginal children who have endured incredible journeys of hardship and who deserve our full attention,’ said Representative for Children and Youth Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond. ‘Government has also released details of its plan today, which is a step toward improved transparency.’”

We released the report when we did because the House was sitting and we wanted the opportunity to get this out and respond if there were questions. I held a media availability the next day to take questions about the report and the timing.

What the members opposite are asking about today is, again, the timing of a report from four months ago.

Madame Speaker: The member for Kootenay West on a supplemental.

K. Conroy: Again, the minister is just not accurate with her information. The House was not sitting on October 19, and according to government emails, the report was scheduled for release on October 21, when the House was sitting. According to government emails, staff
[ Page 10605 ]
suddenly, with no explanation, revised the plan, moved up the release date and panicked to ensure that it was out at 3 p.m. on election day.

The Premier insists that it’s all just business as usual. I guess it is business as usual for a government that has completely lost its moral compass.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members, members.

[1040]

K. Conroy: We’re talking about a report, a release about the death of an aboriginal teen.

Can the minister explain to the House why she seems more concerned with media strategies and political calculations than she does with protecting the most vulnerable children in our society?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Let’s talk about some facts. Since the release on October 19, the members have asked me exactly zero times about the response that government has made to this report. They have sent me zero pieces of correspondence asking me about government’s response to the Paige report. They have requested zero briefings about our response to the Paige report. In four months, since our response to the representative’s very thorough report on an extremely tragic death…. Four months, and there has been absolutely zero interest from that side of the House.

Still, today, I hear zero questions on the content of the report, on what we’re doing as a government — just about timing. That’s interesting, that commentary today. As the representative said on the day after the report was released: “There’s never…a bad day to come forward and accept this and start to move forward.” That was a quote from the representative on the 20th of October.

The suggestion that somehow it would have been better to release the report two days later, as originally scheduled, during the aftermath of an extremely exciting federal election when the media was preoccupied with analyzing the results of that, is an interesting theory for me to discover. Surely, it says a lot about where the opposition’s priorities are, because it certainly isn’t on the kids.

M. Farnworth: The minister is concerned about questions. The minister says she’s concerned because we’re raising questions around an issue that says that she spoke to the Ministry of Children and Families about, that they briefed her. Unfortunately, what the minister failed to tell the House is that, clearly, she didn’t share the emails and the communication that had gone on with the Premier’s office with the children and families representative. If she had done, I think she would have got a totally different response from the children and….

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: You know what’s really interesting? We’re talking about the death of a child. We’re talking about the death….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. The members will come to order.

M. Farnworth: We’re talking about the death of a child, and we’re talking about the timing of a release of a report into the death of that child and the release of it on an election day, when this House was not sitting.

Let’s go straight to the emails that were released, the ones from the Premier’s office on October 16 — Matt Gordon, ADM and GCPE — saying, the Premier’s office: “Monday is very much desired.”

The Premier’s office wanted the report dumped on election day. When they were talking about Wednesday, the original release day, that was a no go. They knew there were going to be problems. If you look at the Q and As that were even prepared, they even prepared for blowback from the media. One of the questions that is to be asked is: “So to be clear, your response to the Paige report is to remind Ministry of Children and Family Development staff and service providers of stuff they should already be doing as part of their jobs.” “Are you kidding?” was their response.

It’s clear. This report was released on election day so that it would not receive the attention that it deserved. Can the minister explain to this House how she could be so cynical as to follow the orders from the Premier’s office and table the report in the middle of an election day, when they knew that there would be no media scrutiny whatsoever and no opportunity to question it in this House on its release date?

[1045]

Hon. S. Cadieux: The opposition can spend four months ignoring an incredibly important report and response to that report. In fact, that response accepted all of the recommendations of the representative. If the opposition had bothered to ask for a briefing on how things were going or what was underway, they would know that we provided a very detailed timeline, a very detailed explanation of all of the actions that were being taken.

I’m sure that the opposition is less concerned about the timing of the release of a report that I had committed to trying to get out by the beginning of October, that was delayed not by my office but, in fact, because we were waiting to brief the representative as per protocol. However, I am sure that the opposition is much more concerned about the actions on the ground as a result of that report, the actions that we’re taking to ensure that
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children and youth in troubling circumstances — especially circumstances like those Paige found herself in — are receiving better supports today than they were.

We are getting results. The integrated service delivery model that we have established on the Downtown Eastside is increasing the capacity of workers to make consistent and repeated efforts to deliver and respond seriously to the needs of those youth. Twenty-eight youth on the Downtown Eastside are now and have now received the services they need, which may include finding a permanent fixed address, a home. It may mean they’ve got the mental health supports they needed. It may mean they got their first government-issued ID, and it may mean that they are reunited with their families in this province.

Madame Speaker: Recognizing the member for Port Coquitlam on a supplemental.

M. Farnworth: That is one of the most cynical answers I have ever heard from a minister in this House ever.

The only reason that this case ever saw the light of day, the only reason there was ever a report done was because this side of the House asked questions day after day. Each time we asked a question, the minister tried to duck, to cover, to obfuscate and to ignore the question. When the report was finally released, it was done in the most cynical of ways, by releasing it on election day. The minister knows it. Every single member on that side of the House knows it. Most importantly, the emails show it, right out of the Premier’s office.

My question to the minister is this. How can this government be so cynical about a report that didn’t deal with triple delete, didn’t deal with a quick-win scandal? It dealt with the death of a child, and they chose to bury that report on election day, in the most cynical way possible. Why, Minister, why?

Hon. S. Cadieux: All the foot-stomping, finger-pointing, chest-beating, name-calling from the opposition isn’t going to help kids one bit. If it was going to help kids, I would have started doing it a long time ago. But what is going to start helping children and youth in this province is if we get to the root of tragedies — get to the root and strengthen the system. That’s what I’m committed to. That’s why we take the reports from the representative and seriously consider them and put in place plans to implement the recommendations to make the system stronger.

[1050]

What will help us is focus. What will help us is collaboration. I commit to that every day in my work. It is surprising to me that the opposition would prefer to talk about the timing of a report than, after four months, not to ask one question about the implementation of the response.

CAPITAL FUNDING FOR BAYSIDE
MIDDLE SCHOOL ROOF REPLACEMENT

G. Holman: Last week I met with the Minister of Education to discuss the roof at Bayside Middle School, which has been leaking for years. The school district has spent almost $400,000 trying to patch the leaking roof and fix the interior damage that water leaks are causing.

For a number of years, school district 63 has been requesting the ministry to approve the capital funding to replace the roof. These requests have been repeatedly turned down. Can the minister assure the Bayside parents attending today that capital funding will finally be provided to school district 63 to replace the roof, avoid the costs of further repairs and keep their kids safe?

Hon. M. Bernier: Of all the times I’ve had the pleasure of standing up in the House during question period, this will be the first time that I say that I’d like to thank the member opposite for the question.

The member for Saanich North and the Islands did come and meet with me last week. We had a very good talk about this issue. It has been going on for years, as he mentioned.

The roof repairs are normally done by the school districts. We have what’s called annual facilities grants, where the school districts, year by year, get money from the provincial government that’s able to go into infrastructure that’s needed within their school system.

But I will agree with the member opposite and with the parents that have brought this forward that this has gone on too long. This is something that needs to be addressed. I want to thank my ministry staff who have been working behind the scenes with the school district on this issue to try to come to a resolve.

DISABILITY BENEFITS AND
BUS PASS PROGRAM CHANGES

M. Mungall: We’ve been canvassing in this House how people across B.C. are in an uproar about this government’s newly announced bus pass clawback, where they’ve raised disability rates only to take them away with a $624 annual jump in bus passes.

The minister only needs to look at her own email, her Facebook and her Twitter page to see what people are saying. Karen Fox writes: “No more trips to the library or the park. I’ll buy ten tickets and use the rest for food.” Pam Patterson…

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Continue.

M. Mungall: …in Kelowna writes that her son with a disability struggles to pay rent and that “to raise his rate
[ Page 10607 ]
and then claw it back for the only thing that gives him freedom in his life is shameful.”

Everybody in British Columbia gets what’s going on. They know what’s happening in their lives, despite the confusing doublespeak, ministry fact sheets and minister quotes and things that she’s posting. People know what’s happening in their lives. So the question to the Minister of Social Development: why doesn’t she get it?

Hon. Michelle Stilwell: Really, the one who doesn’t get it is the member opposite. It’s disappointing, and it’s disrespectful and irresponsible that she keeps twisting the changes we’ve made.

What I want to know is: where was she when there were 45,000 people in this province who weren’t receiving any support for transportation? This is a $170 million investment in the rates for people with disabilities.

It really is the height of hypocrisy. Let me quote from the vision of the province for the NDP during their 2013 election platform. “An increase of income assistance rates for all singles and couples by $20 per month within two years.” No mention of people with disabilities. Where was she then, when she wanted to help people with supports in our province?

[1055]

This is $170 million, a significant investment. If the members opposite would help us grow the economy and say yes to programs and yes to projects in this province, we would be able to be in a better position to support more.

M. Mungall: You know, on….

Interjections.

M. Mungall: I can’t even ask my question.

Madame Speaker: Order.

M. Mungall: On the one hand, it is shocking that no one in cabinet seems to understand the disability bus pass program and what this government has done with that program, especially the minister responsible. But when you consider the Premier’s statement yesterday, I guess it’s not all that shocking. When the Premier has more compassion for cats and dogs, who we all love…

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. Members.

M. Mungall: …than she does for people, it says…

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Ministers.

Please continue.

M. Mungall: …quite a lot. It does say quite a lot when the Premier has more compassion for cats and dogs than she does for people with disabilities. That’s what we saw in her comments yesterday. And this isn’t about me. This is about 100,000 people — that this government is playing a shell game with their lives. Here is what the advocates are saying.

Madame Speaker: Question, hon. Member.

M. Mungall: Jane Dyson of the Disability Alliance….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: This House will come to order.

M. Mungall: Clearly, they’re not interested in hearing the truth, Madame Speaker.

Here’s what Jane Dyson of the Disability Alliance says — after calling the ministry, getting the information and putting it out on the Internet so everybody has the clear facts that this ministry refuses to provide — about the bus pass clawback. “People are uniformly seeing it as a mean-spirited and very unkind measure.” Faith Bodnar, who did the same thing as Jane Dyson to get information, with Inclusion B.C., has 9,000 signatures on her petition and says: “It’s callous and it’s mean-spirited.”

Everyone knows the cruel shell game that this government is playing. So will she just do the right thing, stop with the rhetoric and end this bus pass clawback? Do that, Minister.

Hon. Michelle Stilwell: Madame Speaker, I’ll tell you what the right thing is. The right thing is to make a change that helps everyone. Everyone is benefiting from this increase.

Everyone is getting an increase from this benefit. The bus pass program is still available. It has not ended. It has not been taken away. The fact that the member opposite continues to put that out and say that there is misinformation is just disheartening to me, that she would make people in this province — fearmonger them — think they’re losing something when they’re actually gaining. It is only the NDP that would characterize an increase to everyone in the province as something less.

[End of question period.]

Tabling Documents

Hon. M. de Jong: In accordance with section 6 of the Balanced Budget and Ministerial Accountability Act, I’m tabling a revised schedule F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016. The revised schedule F reflects chan-
[ Page 10608 ]
ges to ministerial accountabilities resulting from two minor government reorganizations that took place on December 11 and December 16, 2015.

Petitions

G. Holman: I want to present a petition to the House today provided by the parents of Bayside Middle School. The petition simply requests: “Replace Bayside Middle School’s roof now.” There are 500 signatures on this petition.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: Continued debate on the budget.

[1100]

Budget Debate

(continued)

On the amendment (continued).

K. Corrigan: I am pleased to rise in support of the proposed amendment: “That the government recognize the cumulative effect of the increases in MSP taxes, hydro rates, ICBC premiums, and other fees and hidden taxes, on British Columbia families.”

Yesterday the member for Maple Ridge–Mission said in his budget response: does the budget “meet all the needs? Certainly, it doesn’t.” For once, I agree with the member opposite. This budget does not meet the needs of British Columbians, and that is the problem.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

They say on the other side: “We have to have fiscal discipline.” That’s what we hear. It is not the members on the other side of the House, or even our side of the House, that are feeling that fiscal discipline. It is families all across this province who are getting whacked by tax after tax, by increases to MSP, by increases to Hydro rates, by ICBC premium increases and tax after hidden tax. At the same time, their wages are failing to grow. In fact, we have the slowest wage growth in the country of any province.

It’s not so hard to balance a budget if you have a few ground rules. You must be willing to cut services. You must be willing to cut supports. You must be willing to keep children at the highest level of poverty in the country year after year after year. To balance the budget, you must be willing to ignore your responsibility for building social housing, must be willing to have homeless people on your streets, must be willing to have hundreds of mentally ill individuals wandering our streets without the resources to support them.

In order to balance the budget, you must be willing to cut the funding for post-secondary education even though it is the surest route for long-term economic prosperity in the country. You must be willing to double tuition fees, double MSP premiums. You must be willing to gouge British Columbians an extra $355 million for MSP premiums over the next three years.

In order to balance the budget, you must be willing — every single one of the members on the other side — to strip billions of dollars from B.C. Hydro and, just since the present Premier took office, must be willing to increase Hydro rates for hard-working British Columbians by 28 percent. You must be willing to increase ICBC premiums by 5.5 percent this year and more again next year.

All those taxes and fees. If you want to balance the budget, you have to be willing and able to unleash all of that on the people of B.C. If you’re willing to do all that, which every single one of the members on the other side of the House are willing to do, it is possible to balance the budget.

If you’re a B.C. Liberal, what are you not allowed to do? You are not allowed to touch the $230 million tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of British Columbians. You cannot do that no matter how dire the situation for most British Columbians. Why are all these fees and taxes going up? In order to give that $230 million tax break to the wealthiest 2 percent of British Columbians.

Before the 2013 election, in the throne speech and budgets of that year, the B.C. Liberals made lavish promises to the people of B.C. — promises based on what? On sound economic planning, careful analysis and projections? No. They were promises based on the same driving and defining force that has consistently determined the direction, priorities and actions of the B.C. Liberal government.

[1105]

That defining and driving motivation, to quote one of their own staffers, who was caught illegally deleting emails, is to do “whatever it takes to win.” Not to do what is good for all the citizens of British Columbia, not to do what is in the public interest, not to protect what our grandparents and great grandparents built in this province. The motivation is not to carefully and in a balanced way invest in our province and, most importantly, in our children and their future. No, it’s about winning at all costs.

There’s certainly, in that throne speech or subsequent speeches or in that year’s budget speech and subsequent budget speeches, no mention of the continuing imposition of and increases in what are hidden taxes like MSP, Hydro rates and ICBC premiums. That is why we have brought this amendment. These increases — these hidden taxes — are crushing British Columbians.

What were those lavish, fantastical promises motivated by a win-at-all-cost mentality in the Premier’s office? Well, we saw it on the side of the election bus: “Debt-free B.C.” — a slogan not rooted in reality but rooted in a desire to do whatever it takes to win.
[ Page 10609 ]

What were the other promises? A $100 billion LNG windfall of royalty revenues, an LNG plant in place before 2015 and three by 2020, $1 trillion in GDP. It was heady stuff — all the golden eggs in one glorious basket. That’s how the B.C. Liberals do things — great lavish promises and slogans designed for election purposes but relegated to the dust heap of history until the next election comes around.

British Columbians have yet to see a dime and won’t any time too soon. Even as the Premier cut back on environmental regulations and signed agreements and passed legislation that slashed public benefits from these projects, we are yet to see any final investment decisions.

I do believe that the LNG promises are instructive. I’m sure, within the next few months, the Liberals will come up with some new slogan for the side of the election bus. We know the Premier is in election and photo op mode each and every day of her life. But I believe that next time around the people of British Columbia will be less inclined to believe the promises. That is because they are hurting so much from all the taxes and fees that this government has increased. Things are not that great for them.

What do we get in this budget? Remember that in 2013, the B.C. Liberal throne speech…. I’m saying this in order to compare with the reality that we have in 2016 in this budget. We have a whole whack of increases to our MSP and other hidden taxes this year. But what was said in 2013, speaking about LNG, was: “This resource belongs to the people of British Columbia, both here today and those to follow. It must be spent wisely not just for the benefit of today’s citizens but also for our children and grandchildren.” It went on: “To protect this second stream of revenue for generations to come, your government is establishing the British Columbia prosperity fund.”

This fund — this fantasy fund — was supposed to be the fruits of the great LNG boon. Well, it’s turned out to be more like a boondoggle because there are no LNG plants. Not a dime has come from LNG, which was supposed to be the source of the fantasy fund.

Instead — in a move, again, consistent with the do-whatever-it-takes-to-win approach — the Liberals are creating their prosperity fund, fantasy fund, not with LNG proceeds, because there are none. Instead, this year, in order to protect embarrassment about having no money for the fund, they have made one up. They’ve created a fantasy fund.

[1110]

They put $100 million into it, which in and of itself is odd, because $50 million of what is going into that fund is for debt retirement. Basically, you’re taking a ten-minute parking space, putting the money in it and then going to debt. If you’re going to put $50 million towards debt, simply put it towards debt.

Half of the fund is illusory to start with. It’s a shell game; $25 million more of that $100 million is going into a government slush fund for pet projects. This is a fantasy fund. But the other question — and it goes to the amendment that we have brought: how do we have any money in that fund if there are no royalties from LNG?

Well, the B.C. Liberals reached right into every British Columbian’s pocket with new fees and taxes. The fantasy fund has $100 million, and you know where it came from. You know exactly where it came from: the $100 million tax hike that working British Columbians are going to pay this year for medical service premiums — extra $100 million for medical service premiums.

B.C. is the only province in the country that charges medical service premiums for health care. And this government is hiking up this cost so they can create a bogus, nonexistent fantasy fund in order to avoid embarrassment about the complete failure to meet the promises they made to the people of British Columbia.

I spoke earlier about the increases to MSP premiums, to B.C. Hydro and to ICBC premiums. This is not a one-off. This is not one year in order to pay for the fantasy fund. This is year after year after year — 28 percent in B.C. Hydro increases. MSP premiums going up $355 million. But I want to talk about one that really caught my eye, and that is park fees. Park fees have been going up year after year as well — another hidden fee.

My husband, Derek, and I have four wonderful children, all grown now. I gave up the practice of law and was home with those kids for 18 years. Partly because I gave up the practise of law, and partly because we had four children, about the only thing we could afford to do — and it was wonderful — was to go camping throughout British Columbia.

When I saw that park fees, or camp fees, had gone up again this year, I decided to check out how much it cost because I haven’t gone camping with my kids for quite some time. So I looked at three of our favourite campsites in British Columbia. It was shocking.

Rathtrevor Beach is $35 a night to camp, plus a $6-a-night reservation fee if you’re going for a long weekend or anytime. It’s $35 a night, $6 per night reservation fee plus taxes. So if you were going to try to get away on a long weekend, $41 per night plus taxes. All in all, $123 to camp for three nights.

If you decided you wanted to reserve that site, which you have to do on a long weekend, and you decided not to do it on line, where there’s a cost for that, it costs you, to phone in and reserve, another $23. I actually wanted to call and find out which taxes would apply to that camping fee, assuming it’s GST and PST, but there’s a $5 surcharge for calling the call centre.

Now, if I want to go to Rathtrevor Beach, I have to take a ferry. B.C. Ferries have risen 60 percent on major routes and doubled on some routes and are continuing and will continue to rise. To go over to Rathtrevor Beach for my long weekend — $55 for the vehicle; $17 per adult, 12 and older. If we’d had these costs when, say, my two old-
[ Page 10610 ]
est kids were teens and the two youngest were not quite teens…. It’s another $68 and $8.45 each for two younger children, another $17. And it’s more if you want to make a reservation, which you probably would, to go on the ferries for the long weekend — another $18 there.

[1115]

A total, one-way, of about $160 to take the ferry if you wanted to go over on a long weekend, or any weekend in summer, frankly. And if you’re towing a trailer, like we used to do, it would cost an extra $6.35 a foot for anything over 20 feet long. So about $320 return for the ferry; $130 for the campground, in addition to camp, gas, food, etc. So over $450 for the campground and return ferry trip for a long weekend, and it is going up, not to mention, I believe, you also have to pay for the wood now at a campsite. These are all things that were affordable 25 years ago when we were taking our kids camping.

Slightly less for another one of our family-favourite sites, Shuswap Lake, at $32 a night, and another favourite, the Kettle River campsite, $30 a night. But of course, in both of those cases, I would have had to add about $6.50 return to cross the Port Mann Bridge to get there because, unfortunately, taxpayers are paying the massive deficit of $100 million just this year for the Port Mann Bridge.

Camping doesn’t look like such a good, family-friendly activity under the B.C. Liberals, although I guess if you fit into that top 2 percent of income earners in British Columbia, you could use your portion of the $230 million tax break given to you by the B.C. Liberals to cover the extra costs of a camping trip.

In fact, under this Premier, the B.C. Liberal government has increased fees and taxes by over $1,000 for the average family, to date, and more is coming. As I said earlier, B.C., at the same time, has the worst wage growth in the country and the highest levels of household debt.

I want to turn, for a minute or two, to education. Talking about fees and taxes that are going up, tuition fees have more than doubled under the B.C. Liberals. Students are paying more, and the government is contributing an ever-shrinking proportion of the post-secondary education. Students are paying more for our system, and government is paying less as a proportion of the total funding. Student debt is highest in the country, and student loan interest rates are also highest in the country — another hidden tax, cost, fee in British Columbia.

Tuition fees are now also being applied to adult basic education. Government reneged on a promise it made in 2007 to make adult basic education courses free. Failure to fund, in addition, adult English language courses means thousands of students are no longer attending our colleges.

I want to spend just a minute talking about adult basic education. This is one of the…. Failing to continue to support it is one of the most shortsighted decisions I’ve seen by this government in the seven years that I have been in the House. I want to refer back to what Geoff Plant said in a report on post-secondary education, a report called 2020, in 2007. It says:

“Failure to complete high school limits jobs and career options and is often associated with poorer life outcomes, such as higher criminality, poorer health and a greater dependence on social services. It holds individuals back from realizing their potential. It holds back our collective economic and social progress.…

“The public interest in eliminating barriers to participation in post-secondary education requires that no tuition be charged to any adult learner seeking to upgrade their education by completing high school courses.”

[1120]

To the government’s credit, the provincial government agrees. Starting in 2008, adults in this province could take courses to finish or upgrade their high school free of tuition. And there was a great uptake. Thousands of British Columbians could access school to improve their lives. Adult basic education is where hard-working British Columbians who want to get better jobs, look after their families or their futures, take courses to finish high school or upgrade so they can go to college or university or get further technical training.

These are people who are trying to do everything that is right, often struggling with and juggling family commitments and work commitments but still striving hard to do better. These courses open up a wide range of possibilities for single parents, older workers laid off from resource industries, new immigrants and younger people who, for whatever reason, could not complete high school.

Now the B.C. Liberal government has reversed that policy. It’s turned its back on that public interest and is recreating barriers to participating in education and in life. Students are now paying around $250, generally, for courses, up to $1,500 a term. There was a transition grant that has cushioned the blow a bit for some post-secondary institutions, but already registration has gone way down. There will be another further impact. I understand hundreds of students will now be shut out of VCC as a result of these fees.

This is on top of the fact that the province is not supporting English-language-learning programs, where English language is often the only barrier between a new immigrant being successful and productive in British Columbia and not. ELL courses, English-language-learning courses…. It has meant the demise of programs, English language courses, at places like VCC.

I’m very concerned about tuition, about the fees that have been imposed at our colleges and universities. Fees have been going up. Tuition has doubled since the Liberals came into power. Fees have doubled. ABE fees are now being imposed. ELL, English language programs, are being decimated. Thousands — thousands — of students are no longer able to go to our colleges and universities.

Families first was another meaningless slogan that peppered countless Liberal speeches while it was the flavour of the month. Let me tell you that the families in
[ Page 10611 ]
my community do not feel like they are first. They don’t think this is a Premier or a government that cares about them. They feel like, for them, the B.C. Liberals are the party of no.

That’s why I rise strongly in support of this amendment. We must recognize the impact that all of these fees and taxes are having upon the people of British Columbia, who are finding it more and more difficult just to get by.

Hon. R. Coleman: I want to put in perspective a couple of things. First of all, the amendment is not something I would support. I suppose that might come as a surprise to some people, but probably not likely.

The reality…. The interesting thing is that I happened, unfortunately, to have sat in an emergency room in my riding for three hours about a week and a half ago. I was sitting there with someone that was ill. I was sitting beside a young man who looked up at the wall and said to me: “You know, it’s a good thing I pay my MSP premiums, because look at what it would charge for just one visit to the emergency room if I didn’t have MSP premiums. Basically, it’s what I pay for a year, and I’ve been here twice this year.” So we got into a conversation.

Interjection.

Hon. R. Coleman: I know the member opposite is going to try to heckle me, but don’t bother. It won’t work for you.

The conversation was about how much of health care is paid for by MSP. His perception was that MSP paid all the health care costs. When I explained to him that it was a very small percentage of health care costs, he was quite taken aback.

[1125]

He said: “You know what? I guess I shouldn’t complain about this, because I can come and get health care. Because I pay premiums, I’m saving money when I get sick.” He said that it only makes sense that somebody should pay something so that they’re aware that they have a responsibility when they’re actually spending the taxpayers’ money at 80 to 85 percent more than what it’s costing for the service, to have some understanding that it’s not a free good. It actually does cost money.

As a result of that, he basically said to me: “You know what? I think it makes sense that some of the health care premiums be paid for through MSP because it actually focuses me on when I might use it and when I might not, now that I understand this.”

As we go to the amendment to basically stop the budget, I want to just touch on a couple of quick scans, just scans of examples, for lack of a better description, of what the opposition across the House is opposed to, with regard to different portfolios in government. What I did is I just sticky-noted a couple of things here to give people an understanding not just of the global side of what happens in British Columbia with regard to things like housing, but what happens by community.

I know the member opposite is going to be shocked to see the numbers from his community in a second. But let’s take an example of the opposition’s opposition against renters who are actually supported in the marketplace — like rent assistance people, families under $35,000 a year and SAFER for seniors assistance in their rental which held them to under $30,000 a year — so they can have more affordable rental and stay in the communities, in the marketplace they want.

Let’s pick a few communities. I’ll start with A, which is Abbotsford, right? Now in Abbotsford, there are 319 people who get rent assistance cheques to support them every single month, and there are 603 people — families, seniors, couples — receiving rent assistance every month. They receive that. Plus, in that particular community, just in the last two years we’ve actually built two other additional residences, one for 30 supportive units and one for 41supportive units for women and their children who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. That’s just in the last two years. If you look at the scan, in Abbotsford alone, $6.5 million a year is spent in that city just with regards to it.

Now, the member from Burnaby spoke here a moment ago. I always find it interesting when the member from Burnaby speaks, because if there’s one community in British Columbia that hasn’t actually come to the table as a partnership with regard to helping people that are homeless, people that are on rent assistance or whatever, in their community, it’s Burnaby. They’re very clear that they don’t actually have to help. They’re clear that they want to ignore the problem, but I thought I’d like the member to know. I’d like the member to know about Burnaby.

In Burnaby, we spend $17 million a year to support people with housing in that city. In addition — get this, though — 798 families receive rent assistance every single month in Burnaby for affordability so that they can stay in that community, work in that community, raise their kids in that community. They don’t get stigmatized by being put in some project over here, some project over there. That’s 798 families in Burnaby.

Try and build 798 units in any community, with all the public hearings and stuff. People would still be waiting for housing, whereas rental assistance steps up. But get this. In addition to that, 833 seniors households in Burnaby actually receive SAFER every month — 833.

Interjection.

Hon. R. Coleman: The reality…. All they’ve got to do is apply. We’ve got room in the program, hon. Member. Maybe you should tell people, from your constituency…. First of all, tell them from your constituency office that you don’t support the program. Be honest with them, and
[ Page 10612 ]
then tell them: “This is how you apply.” In actual fact, they can apply, and they can get rent assistance in that community, as others.

Interjection.

Hon. R. Coleman: I’ll get to Coquitlam in a minute. Don’t worry. I’m going to get to you, right?

But the reality is this. The beauty of these types of programs is that they’re not just about metropolitan-type communities, like Kelowna, Coquitlam, Vancouver or the Fraser Valley. They’re about small communities too.

Go into the little community of Chase, a nice little community on the one end of the lake as you’re going into the Shuswap, not a very big community. Nobody knows in that community that there are seven families in that little community that receive rent assistance every month — seven. And there are 21 seniors households in that community that also receive assistance every month. A few hundred thousand dollars a year is spent in that community to support housing, in a little community like Chase.

[1130]

We should remember that. The beauty of rent assistance, with the many tens of thousands of families and tens of thousands of seniors across the province receiving assistance in communities, is it’s not bound by: do we have a big enough need to actually pay for a capital project? Or do we just have people who need help? That’s what this program does. It gives help to people who need help.

Now, my friends from Chilliwack will also be interested to know that the rent assistance program subsidizes and assists 286 families in that community, and SAFER helps 452. Some 452 seniors in Chilliwack receive help with their rent every month. They’re not stigmatized, and neither are the families in that community. They actually have better outcomes for food, for nutrition, outcomes for their kids, because they’re helped quicker than if you had to go and build and zone and do other things with regards to the land.

That’s what they’re opposed to. We know that. But I really did want…. Seeing as the member from Coquitlam wanted to bring it up, I thought I’d mention Coquitlam. More than 2,100 households in Coquitlam get help every single month through the Housing Ministry of British Columbia — 2,100 — with 469 families on rent assistance integrated into that community.

You don’t know who they are. You don’t stigmatize them. You don’t tell them where they want to live and how they’re going to live. They get to make those choices for their family, as someone living in Coquitlam.

There are 502 seniors households in Coquitlam also getting assistance every month from this government. When they get it, they should know this. The folks on the opposite side of this House that are opposed to both rent assistance and SAFER. They’ve continually said that they don’t like it.

They don’t like the fact that other things are taking place in Coquitlam. For instance, we recently opened 3030 Gordon, a pretty exceptional project opened in Gordon, which is run by the RainCity Housing Society, selected as a non-profit operator.

I know it really grates you, Member, that a supportive housing development with 30 emergency shelter beds and supportive housing is now in existence in your community, not with any help from you, by the way. With regards to it, these folks are getting assistance. They’re in a shelter. They can transition into transitional housing. They can go back into the marketplace, where rent assistance can actually help them in the marketplace.

Chirp all you want, hon. Member. The fact of the matter is that you don’t support this stuff in your community, and you should get over the way you want to talk about it.

Let’s talk about Invermere. Let’s pick a town. Invermere — not a very big place, right? But there are people in Invermere who could probably use some help with their rent, maybe some seniors who have been in that community, living in the Kootenays for a long period of time, maybe a few decades. They’re sitting there saying: “Gee, I’ve got a little bit of a difficulty. My fixed income is not quite what it is. I make around $30,000 a year, but maybe I could get some help.”

In Invermere, the rent assistance program has seven people. Seven families in Invermere are helped — little, tiny Invermere — and 18 seniors households with better outcomes for their family and better stability for them, because there’s a rent assistance in British Columbia that the NDP has never, ever supported. The reality is that those folks get a lot of help. That’s because it doesn’t differentiate. These programs don’t pick towns. They don’t pick ridings. They pick people who want to apply.

Let’s go mid-Island. How about mid-Island? How about we go to Nanaimo? It’s the centre of Vancouver Island, a community with lots of people, who get over $8 million to help with subsidized housing every single year from this government, for more than 2,100 households in that community — 2,100. And 339 are on rent assistance — families making under $35,000 a year who can afford to live in Nanaimo because they get supported every month.

We didn’t have to build them any housing, but we actually changed their lives, because they now have affordability. Oh, by the way, 498 seniors households, also in Nanaimo, get rent assistance every single month.

Let’s talk a little bit about Vancouver, shall we? Every year, from the province of British Columbia, Vancouver receives $148 million to support people in that community.

[1135]

More than 21,130 households in Vancouver get assistance every month. They get it in a number of forms of housing, including building over 2,000 brand-new units in the city of Vancouver for people — homeless, at
[ Page 10613 ]
risk of homelessness, mental health and addictions. In Vancouver, 24 buildings bought that have been renovated and upgraded to extend their useful life but also to have an additional supply for people in Vancouver, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

As we come through this discussion, the one thing you’ll often hear out of Vancouver is that they put up 14 sites for us to build units in the city of Vancouver. That’s true. But it was actually under the watch of the member for Vancouver–False Creek when he was the mayor of Vancouver that those sites were put up. The vision existed in the city of Vancouver for a long time to partner up with the province of British Columbia and other partners to provide housing for its citizens in the city.

That partnership had led to the leadership across the province — for places like Kelowna, Victoria, Nanaimo, Campbell River and, in the Fraser Valley, places like Abbotsford and Langley and other places — to actually put up land, forgive DCCs. The leadership had to be taken at some point in time, and it was. We’ve continued with a very good relationship with the cities of British Columbia, including Vancouver, over other projects that we’ve done.

It’s an amazing story. We actually took 900 units of housing in Vancouver whose useful life was basically done, buildings that were as old as 100 years. We bought them. Then we went in, in a 3P partnership — with the federal government, ourselves and the private sector — and we fixed these 900 units. We gave them new insides, new structure. We seismically upgraded them and gave them another 40 to 50 years of life — buildings that would have disappeared because they just were not going to be able to be functional for a population.

The remarkable story around that issue in Vancouver is this. The people at B.C. Housing, particularly one person, actually tracked and worked with all 900 clients through an entire process of renovating 900 units and connecting them back into housing with supports, and we never lost a single client. We knew exactly where they were. We helped them transition back into the housing that they wanted to be in. It was a remarkable job, a remarkable undertaking, quite frankly, that was taken.

If there are that many housing units in Vancouver, is there anybody on RAP? Anybody on SAFER? Well, yeah. There are 1,237 families in Vancouver who every month get a cheque for affordability in rent. They get assistance under rent assistance. On top of the 12,000 seniors households that we actually own, retain or work with non-profits on, there are another 2,938 units of seniors supportive housing in the city of Vancouver.

I point that out because that’s about 4,000 units in total. Remember that we built 2,000? In the same period of time that we built the 2,000 — in lesser periods of time — we actually gave 4,000 supplements to people within the marketplace. It takes time to build. It takes time to take an opportunity to turn people’s lives around and change them.

Then the question always comes up — I hear it: “Why do you bother? Why don’t you just build?” Well, I think I’ve made my argument there, but I’ll make it better than that.

In my previous comments in the House, I talked about a young lady named Savannah. Savannah was the first person who wrote me a letter after we put the rent assistance program into place. She wrote me personally, handwritten. She had a 12-year-old son. Her, a single mother. Her first, opening, line is: “Thank you for saving me and my son’s lives. You’ve changed my life. Because I’m on rent assistance, I have better outcomes with food, my son can now play sports, and we are stable. It’s made a huge difference to us, because now we can get on with our lives in comfort.”

The important piece about that is that that individual and her son could have waited on a waiting list with some society to try and get into housing somewhere in B.C., over a long period of time. It might affect where they might be working, where they might live, or they could be stabilized immediately, which is what happened here.

[1140]

Now, I suspect that given that that was about eight or nine years ago, the young fella has actually graduated from school, had better outcomes, had better integration in the community because nobody was actually stigmatizing him, saying: “That’s where you need to go live.” They got assistance within the marketplace as this went on. It’s very important that that happens. It’s very important that we recognize….

Interjection.

Hon. R. Coleman: I know the member from Coquitlam is over there chirping again, but that’s okay. I should remind her, just remind her, oh man, there are over 2,000 households in Coquitlam. And all you hear is: “We don’t like rent assistance. We don’t like SAFER. We don’t like the budget.”

But let me tell you about this budget. Just on the housing piece alone, when they vote against it again, they will vote against the opportunity to leverage $355 million to up to as much as $1.5 billion in housing as we partner up with municipalities, the federal government, the taxpayer and innovators within the housing market. We will. But they’ll vote against that.

They will also stand up and vote against SAFER. Over 10,000 families in British Columbia today get assistance every single month — every single month. They’ll vote against that. Why? Philosophically, because somebody shouldn’t be helped immediately in the marketplace, if they’re low-income in British Columbia, to live and work in a community?

They’ll vote against the fact that there are 20,000 seniors households in British Columbia that actually get assistance every month. They’ll vote against that as well, when they get an opportunity, with their amendments and with the budget.
[ Page 10614 ]

But you know what else they’ll vote against? The 101,000-plus households in British Columbia — between SAFER, rent assistance and other forms of housing assistance — that receive assistance every single month in British Columbia. That’s about turning lives around. It’s about getting the opportunity to take someone who might be homeless, connect them into a shelter with meals and support and connect them into housing and support so they can turn their lives around — and mental health and addictions. If you don’t build a foundation for it, you have nothing.

The member from Coquitlam continues, I know, to chirp over there, because it really irks her that we’re actually having success on this file. If it wasn’t for the members like the member for Port Moody–Coquitlam, we wouldn’t even have 3030 Gordon in Coquitlam. It certainly wouldn’t be because of any initiative taken by a member of the opposition, for crying out loud. They have no interest in this file other than to be critical of the fact that somebody has actually figured out that you should help people, in addition to the odd time you cut ribbons — actually concentrate on people and concentrate on spending some time on people in British Columbia to change their lives and change their issues and their outcomes, because that’s important. It’s important.

As we go through this, we’ll see some interesting things that the opposition don’t like. They don’t like anything, to be honest with you. They’re really opposed to anything. They’re opposed to pursuing a generational opportunity in LNG. They’re opposed to a lot of things in forestry. They are not mining friends. They would just tax mining out of British Columbia. They don’t believe in a diversified economy, because they just don’t do it.

They also won’t even…. This is for the member from Coquitlam again, of course, right? The K-to-12 infrastructure, including such projects as the Smiling Creek elementary school in Coquitlam…. A new school, right? I’m sure she’ll find a way to complain about that, because they do have a tendency to complain about getting it.

The Alpha Secondary seismic upgrade is going to take place in Burnaby, another NDP riding. Another project is going to take place in Vancouver, at Sir Charles Kingsford, and in Surrey and in other communities across B.C. — not just seismic upgrades but brand-new schools for growing populations of children.

How do you manage to do that? You keep your fiscal house in order, in order to get it done.

I’m sure the member for Vancouver-Kingsway is opposed the Emily Carr University and its part of the $2.5 billion in infrastructure that we’re going to invest each year for the next few years. Emily Carr University is on Great Northern Way in Vancouver. It may even be in his riding, but I don’t think he’ll show up and support it. He certainly isn’t going to stand up for a budget that says: “We’ll do that university.”

[1145]

The University of British Columbia life sciences teaching piece is important for the laboratories at UBC — additional capital going into that. As we go through that, we will also see Selkirk College, which will get an additional trades facility in an area of the province where there are young people looking for opportunities in trades and a chance to be trained over in the Kootenays.

We’ll go through all of the rest, and I know this. I know nobody from Vancouver Island wants to vote against the Admirals Road–McKenzie Avenue interchange on the Island here, because that might fix the Colwood crawl, the frustration that thousands of people go through every day just to get to work. But they’ll vote against that because it’s in the budget. They’ll actually vote against an interchange, going through a bunch of NDP ridings, that will change the quality of life for people, reduce idling and congestion and actually help those communities with their economic development. But they’ll get up and vote against the budget for that reason, if nothing else.

You know, each one of these will go along, but they will all vote against the budget. But by George, you can bet when that interchange gets built, they’ll be smiling there, wanting to cut the ribbon, and say: “Oh boy, oh boy, we did this great thing here on the McKenzie interchange. Well, I opposed it, but I didn’t really, you know.” I just opposed the budget because I didn’t like the McKenzie interchange in it? Or didn’t like the 20,000 people on SAFER or the 10,000 families on rent assistance? Or is it because you don’t support the largest single investment in children and families and social assistance in decades?

Imagine. This is really going to irk these guys, right? They had a platform in the last election. By the way, they lost the last election. Did you notice that? They had a platform in the last election. They were going to do this huge, massive investment in social assistance: 20 bucks a month over two years, ten bucks a month a year for two years. Wow. Did they mention they didn’t touch welfare rates in the entire 1990s? Did you think the people that are the purveyors of some kind of social conscience in British Columbia…?

They’ve opposed 10,000 families getting assistance in housing. They’ve opposed a project that has actually gone out and worked very hard on shelters and supportive housing and mental health and addictions. They oppose seniors.

Then they come up, and they’re upset, because somebody gives more money to people with disabilities. Then they go out, and they proffer some narrative. If they went and did their research, they’d find that people were doing their bus pass across B.C. out of their cheques in advance, and now they’ll have the opportunity to decide what to do with their $75 a month.

It’s really kind of cool, actually. I talked to a friend of mine who has MS the other day, a very disabled young man. He says to me: “Can you explain this to me?” I said to him: “Well, you’ve been paying 50-some dollars a month, plus a $45 administration fee, for a bus pass.
[ Page 10615 ]
You’ve been paying. How often do you take the bus?” “Well, less and less, because I’m more and more disabled, so I just get out in the neighbourhood in my motorized wheelchair.” I said: “So what if you had the choice if you got $75 a month, and you paid when you needed the bus? How much would you save?” He said: “Oh, about 40 or 50 bucks a month.” I said: “There you go. Now you have a choice. You can make a choice.”

Now, I know the NDP’s social engineering is, “We don’t want to let people make a choice. We don’t want them to have any independence. We don’t want to support them in things like rent assistance and the social housing and SAFER. We don’t want to support people with disabilities” — like we’ve done remarkably well over the last number of years, including the ability to make money, to actually have income while you’re on disability. Something that you never did, believe me. You never did. One hundred bucks a month you could get, and then you clawed back.

Now people with disabilities have the opportunity to be part of the economy, to be part of the jobs and opportunities.

Interjection.

Hon. R. Coleman: I know it upsets you that we’re spending $148 million on housing in your city, hon. Member, and that’s why you want to prattle on. I know you don’t like the fact there are over 4,000 families being assisted in your city on rent assistance. I know you don’t like that. That’s why you get really excited when somebody points out the facts and reality of what you’re facing today. It’s $148 million in housing in your city, and I’ve never heard you once get up in this House and say one good thing.

Ironically, the only person that ever did was the outgoing MLA for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant in her final speech to this House, right?

[1150]

As we go across the province and across the world, and people start to think about investing in a jurisdiction, they’ll look at a number of things: triple-A credit rating, balanced budgets, stable government, opportunities where their investments can be put and won’t be nationalized by some government, which can happen in some dictatorial states somewhere in the world — those types of things. In actual fact, they like to know where they can invest their moneys and have certainty in the long term so they can make an investment for jobs and opportunities for the people they employ and for the success of their investment.

That’s foreign to these guys, so don’t worry about it. Right? The reality is that they don’t support any economic activity. They don’t support any economic projects.

You know, it’s ironic. I was talking to the minister from Prince George–Valemount, the Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training earlier today. There are hundreds of people lined up at a job fair in Prince George for jobs — thousands of people lined up. Do you know where they wanted to go, hon. Speaker? They wanted to go up and work on the Site C dam. They want jobs and opportunities. They want a future for their families.

Of course, we all know that the NDP doesn’t support the Site C dam, because it’s just on the list of no — no Port Mann, no tunnel crossing, no new hospitals, no new schools, no new economic development, no support for projects, no to the Site C dam. And there’s one consistent thing all the way through with the “no” narrative of the NDP. It’s no against jobs, no against economic activity, no against a future for your children and your grandchildren.

“As long as we can come at you, do our little thing internally to us, where we just protect ourselves and ignore the rest of the economy and families in B.C….” That’s okay with them.

As a matter of fact, I actually gave the NDP the rent assistance idea back in 1996, when I first got here, with successive ministers. Do you know what? They didn’t do it, because they didn’t like it.

But today, there are tens of thousands of people quietly helped in every community in the province of British Columbia. Today, every single month, their lives are better because of what we’ve done. Do you know what? Because I thought it was important for people…. When I was in opposition, I actually thought…. I told the minister I could support them moving into a program like this, because I thought it would work. They ignored it and didn’t want to do it. Their prerogative, because that would mean they’d have to say yes to something.

Some day there’s going to be an epiphany over there, and you’re actually going to realize there are points of time in history for the future of your jurisdiction and your province that you actually come and you work together.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Maybe you should think about where that could be with you guys rather than being negative, destructive and pessimistic all the time.

Hon. R. Coleman 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 1:30 this afternoon.

The House adjourned at 11:53 a.m.

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