2017 Legislative Session: Sixth 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 16, 2017

Morning Sitting

Volume 41, Number 7

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

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017

The House met at 10:02 a.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

C. James: We have a school group from my constituency in the precinct today having a tour of the Legislature and discussing government and democracy. They are 32 grade 11 students from Victoria High School. They’re here with their teacher Jean Campbell. I had the privilege of speaking to them at their high school last week, and they followed up with a tour to the Legislature. Would the House please make them very welcome.

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

BILL M201 — GET BIG MONEY
OUT OF POLITICS ACT, 2017

J. Horgan presented a bill intituled Get Big Money out of Politics Act, 2017.

J. Horgan: I move that a bill intituled Get Big Money out of Politics Act, 2017, of which notice has been given on the order paper in my name, be read a first time now.

Motion approved.

J. Horgan: The purpose of the Get Big Money out of Politics Act is to put democracy back in the hands of ordinary people by taking big money out of the politics here in British Columbia.

This bill will increase confidence in our political system by removing all perception that our government is dominated by special interests. It will do this by prohibiting corporate and union donations to political parties, by restricting campaign donations to individuals who reside in British Columbia and by specifically banning members of the executive council, including the Premier, from accepting salaries and stipends or other outside sources of income. The Premier and the executive council should be working first and foremost for the public and only the public. The people of British Columbia should be the ones to decide the outcomes of our elections, not donors outside our borders.

[1005]

If this bill passes, the Chief Electoral Officer will be directed to work with an election advisory committee to do a comprehensive review of campaign financing to determine limits on individual donations. The people of British Columbia deserve a government that works for them and not just the wealthy, the well-connected and corporate interests.

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

Bill M201, Get Big Money out of Politics Act, 2017, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on
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orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

BILL M202 — ELECTION FINANCE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2017

V. Huntington presented a bill intituled Election Finance Amendment Act, 2017.

V. Huntington: I move that the bill intituled Election Finance Amendment Act, 2017, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

V. Huntington: It is now widely recognized, both across Canada and internationally, that B.C.’s political process is broken and in need of an overhaul. The legislation I am now introducing, yet again, would correct a number of the more egregious problems with British Columbia’s tarnished campaign finance laws.

The Election Finance Amendment Act would level the campaign playing field with an immediate ban on corporate and union donations. To avoid loopholes that would allow large personal donations to fill that void, the bill will limit individual political contributions to $1,500 a year. It will also remove foreign money from provincial politics by limiting donations to persons resident in B.C.

Reform is also badly needed in the municipal campaign finance system, and the bill will close similar loopholes found in B.C.’s municipal election structure.

Put simply, if you change the rules of campaign finance, you change how the political game is played. You shift the focus of your political attention first and foremost to the people who matter most — the individual voter in British Columbia. This bill frees decision-makers from the influence of big money and answers the widespread public call to protect the future of our democracy by initiating immediate campaign finance reforms in British Columbia.

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

Bill M202, Election Finance Amendment Act, 2017, 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 — CASH FOR ACCESS
ELIMINATION ACT, 2017

V. Huntington presented a bill intituled Cash for Access Elimination Act, 2017.

V. Huntington: I move that the bill intituled Cash for Access Elimination Act, 2017, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

V. Huntington: A key component of campaign finance reform is the need to ban the perception of conflict of interest that is created when cash-for-access fundraisers are held with sitting cabinet ministers.

This legislation would prohibit the Premier and the executive council and any persons employed in their offices from attending political fundraising functions. Further, the bill would prohibit the executive council and staff from either personally soliciting political contributions or from inviting individuals and organizations to attend fundraising events.

There is widespread public opinion that government decision-making in British Columbia is profoundly influenced by major political contributors. I deeply believe it is incumbent on the members of this assembly to begin a process of restoring faith in our democracy. This chamber can take a significant step toward that goal by removing the appearance of conflict of interest among members of cabinet who participate in political fundraising functions.

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

Bill M203, Cash for Access Elimination Act, 2017, 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 M204 — FAMILY DAY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2017

A. Weaver presented a bill intituled Family Day Amendment Act, 2017.

A. Weaver: I move that a bill intituled the Family Day Amendment Act, 2017, of which notice has been given, be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I am very pleased to introduce a bill intituled Family Day Amendment Act, 2017. This bill amends the Family Day Act to prescribe that the third Monday in February each year is observed as Family Day. This amendment would align the date of British Columbia’s Family Day with family days and other public holidays observed across the rest of Canada and in the United States.

The purpose of Family Day is to highlight the importance of family and to bring families together. This isn’t happening in B.C. with us observing Family Day a week earlier than all other provinces. Families spread out beyond B.C. aren’t able to be together. Federal employees and many who work in business are forced to work on Family Day since it is a business day everywhere else.

[1010]

Instead of responding to corporate lobbyists in the ski industry, this government should honour the spirit of Family Day by putting families first and moving it to align with the rest of North America.

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

Bill M204, Family Day Amendment Act, 2017, 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 M205 — PROPERTY LAW
AMENDMENT ACT, 2017

A. Weaver presented a bill intituled Property Law Amendment Act, 2017.

A. Weaver: I move that a bill intituled Property Law Amendment Act, 2017, of which notice has been given, be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I’m very pleased to introduce the bill intituled Property Law Amendment Act, 2017. This bill amends the existing Property Law Act to ensure that land held within the agricultural land reserve is protected from international real estate speculation. If passed, this bill would prohibit foreign entities from purchasing ALR land over five acres in size without prior permission from the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council.

Many other provinces regulate and restrict foreign ownership of agricultural land in this way. These include Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec and Prince Edward Island. Our agricultural land reserve should have the same protection here in British Columbia.

Speculation on agricultural land is driving up prices and putting British Columbians’ future food security at risk. We have a limited amount of land in the agricultural
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land reserve, and the future of food security requires that we take immediate action to protect it.

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

Bill M205, Property Law Amendment Act, 2017, 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 M206 — RIDESHARE
ENABLING ACT, 2017

A. Weaver presented a bill intituled Rideshare Enabling Act, 2017.

A. Weaver: I move that a bill intituled Rideshare Enabling Act, 2017, of which notice has been given, be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I’m very pleased to be introducing a bill intituled the Rideshare Enabling Act, 2017. Ride-sharing is part of the new creative economy happening in B.C. Various programs exist around the world that use ride-share technology, and other jurisdictions have brought in legislation to address the application of this technology in our society. B.C., however, is falling quickly behind. Vancouver is now the largest city in North America without an operating ride-share company like Lyft, for example, or Uber.

Legislation is needed to provide provincial standards that must be followed for any ride-sharing program to exist in our province. This bill is intended to continue that conversation.

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

Bill M206, Rideshare Enabling Act, 2017, 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.

Orders of the Day

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 1 — CHANGES TO QUESTION PERIOD
AND DAILY HOUSE BUSINESS

Hon. M. de Jong: I firstly call Motion 1. Motion 1 stands on the order paper in my name. I won’t read it.

[That the Standing Orders of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia be amended as follows for the duration of the sixth session of the Fortieth Parliament, which commenced on February 14, 2017:

1. Standing Order 25 be deleted and the following substituted:

The daily routine business of the House shall be as follows:

Prayers (morning or afternoon sittings)

Introduction of Bills

Statements (Standing Order 25B) (afternoon sittings: Monday and Wednesday; morning sittings: Tuesday and Thursday)

Oral question period (30 minutes, afternoon sittings: Monday and Wednesday; 30 minutes, morning sittings: Tuesday and Thursday)

Presenting Petitions

Reading and Receiving Petitions

Presenting Reports by Committees

Motions on Notice

Written Questions on Notice

Proposed Amendments on Notice

Orders of the Day.

The order of business for consideration of the House day by day, after the above routine, shall, unless otherwise ordered, be as follows:

MONDAY

10 a.m. to 12 noon

(Private Members’ Time)

Private Members’ Statements (10 a.m.)

Public Bills in the hands of Private Members

Private Members’ Motions

Private Bills

Public Bills and Orders and Government Motions on Notice

No division, on Orders of the Day, will be taken in the House or in Committee of the Whole during Private Members’ Time, but where a division is requested, it will be deferred until thirty minutes prior to the ordinary time fixed for adjournment of the House on the Monday, unless otherwise ordered.

MONDAY (AFTERNOON), TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY

(Government Days)

Throne Speech Debate

Budget Debate including Committee of Supply

Public Bills and Orders and Government Motions on Notice

Private Bills

Public Bills in the hands of Private Members

Adjourned debate on other motions

2. Standing Order 47A be deleted and the following substituted:

There shall be a 30 minute Oral Question Period at the opening of each afternoon sitting on Monday and Wednesday and at the opening of each morning sitting on Tuesday and Thursday, which shall be subject to the following rules:

(a) only questions that are urgent and important shall be permitted;

(b) questions and answers shall be brief and precise, and stated without argument or opinion;

(c) supplementary questions may be permitted at the discretion of the Speaker. There shall be no supplementary question to a question taken on notice;

(d) debate shall not be permitted;

(e) points of order arising during Oral Question Period may, at the discretion of the Speaker, be deferred until Question Period has been completed;

(f) Oral Question Period shall not take place on the day of the Speech from the Throne.]
[ Page 13580 ]

It is the motion the effect of which the sessional order for the balance of this session would take question periods on Tuesdays and Thursdays of the week and move them from the afternoon, where they are presently contemplated in our standing orders, and reschedule them to the morning, as we have done, I think, for the last three sessions.

I don’t intend to go on at length. It is again a sessional order, and a new parliament after the election would be in a position to make decisions about a more permanent amendment to the standing orders.

M. Farnworth: We’ll be supporting the sessional order motion. This is the third time. As I said, this has not been imposed, but rather, it is a sessional order. I think, as the Government House Leader said, that after this, the third session of doing this, it’s probably time that we’re able to come to a more permanent arrangement one way or the other on this particular change. So we will be supporting this motion.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call continued debate on the throne speech.

[1015]

Throne Speech Debate

(continued)

J. Darcy: I’m honoured to rise in my place to speak to the throne speech of 2017. Let me begin by saying what a great honour and privilege it is to represent the wonderful people of New Westminster, a community that works together to support one another and comes together in so many ways every single day.

Whether it’s when there’s a fire that burns down a low-rise apartment building or a fire that affects the business community, everybody rallies together. The community comes together to press the government to get a new high school after many, many years of waiting; a community that supports actively its local business community; a city that has come together magnificently to support a rent bank to prevent homelessness; a city that a year and a half ago opened its doors and opened its hearts and its wallets to welcome refugees to our community.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Very recently when we saw, to everybody’s shock and horror, pro-Nazi posters that were anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish posted on a church in our community, we acted swiftly to bring the community together in the name of New West United. Over 250 people came together on the steps of our city hall to say: “No, not here, not in our community. We stand for equality, we stand for diversity, we stand for community, and we stand against hate and bigotry in all its forms.”

Our community has continued to come together then in the wake of the horrible shootings that happened in Quebec City, and I know we’ll continue to stand together against whatever form of racism and bigotry and hatred rears its ugly head in our community.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my constituency assistants, Laura Sunnus and Nadine Nakagawa, who just do incredible work every single day, dealing with what is a very heavy caseload — we have a very active constituency office, and they do a wonderful job on behalf of the residents of New Westminster; and also my legislative assistant, Robert Hill, who is new to the job but doing a wonderful job as legislative assistant; and my caucus services staff person, Tim Renneberg, who’s always there when we need to do research, when we need to do communications. They’re just an awesome, awesome team.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank my family, my husband of nearly 40 years, and yes…. Well, I don’t see too many raised eyebrows, but this is the time people are supposed to gasp and say: “Forty years, hon. Member?”

Interjections.

J. Darcy: Yes, it is almost 40 years. Thank you, Members opposite.

And my son, I have to say, keeps me humble. My son will leave me voice mail messages or texts in the middle of the day or night of a busy legislative session saying, “Ma, when you’re near the grocery store next time, there’s a few bulk items I could really use. Do you think you could pick them up for me?” — completely oblivious, of course, to the fact that we are in the people’s House doing the Legislature’s business. But it keeps you humble, and it keeps you reminded that while this is the centre of our work for many days of the year, for most people it’s really about getting by and dealing with daily life.

Turning to the throne speech itself, it’s the fourth throne speech I’ve had the opportunity to listen to now. I always listen to the throne speech, and I look at it and see it through the lens of my constituents.

As I’m listening to it, I’m thinking about the stories and the issues that people in my community have come to my office about or tapped me on the shoulder in the grocery store and in the coffee shop, wanting to speak about when they’re looking for help. While I understand very clearly that a throne speech is about a broad vision — it’s not about details, that more details will come in the budget — I do not see the needs of my constituents reflected in this throne speech. I don’t see the issues that are facing them every single day, struggling to make ends meet. I don’t see those reflected in the vision of this government at all.

Many of the people I represent do live paycheque to paycheque. They’re facing rising costs for everything
[ Page 13581 ]
from housing to MSP to tuition fees to child care, paying out of pocket for health services that were covered before. Frankly, we have a Premier and a government, as reflected by this throne speech, that is not listening to British Columbians.

[1020]

They can’t be in tune with what’s really happening out there in our communities if they could write a throne speech such as this, because everyday reality for folks in my community is not reflected in this throne speech. It’s one more indication — and I know I’ll hear this when I go back to New Westminster on Friday — one more reflection of a government that listens to the wealthy and the well-connected. It doesn’t listen to regular folks in my community or in similar communities across B.C.

As for this government continually bragging, doing so in the throne speech and at every opportunity, about its record of accomplishments in areas like health care and education, I have to say I don’t know what world they’re living in. It’s not the world that my constituents live in every day. This is a Premier that has spent the last six years underfunding and then sometimes cutting into vital public services yet has seen fit to see a tax break of $1 billion for the wealthiest people in our province. What kind of priorities are those?

Now, on the eve of an election of course, we’re seeing the Premier and the throne speech promising some relief for British Columbians in what I have to say very clearly is a cynical attempt to buy votes prior to an election, to buy votes with taxpayers’ own money. Services that have been desperately needed over the last four years, over the last six years, over the last eight or ten years — suddenly we’re seeing the ground beginning to be sprinkled with election promises, with commitments that, frankly, are years and years overdue. The fact that they’re years overdue means that people have suffered, and in some cases suffered in severe pain, for instance, on long health care wait-lists.

This is also a government that is attempting, and did in the throne speech, to rewrite history when it comes to things like public education. British Columbia has gone from second-best to second-worst in education for K to 12. Support in classrooms has been missing for an entire generation of children, especially special needs kids but also all kids in a classroom who don’t get the support that they need when there aren’t enough teachers, aren’t enough support staff, special education assistants. Without talking about seismic upgrades, without talking about the need for new schools.

Now we know that the Supreme Court of Canada has forced the government to go back to the table with teachers, has forced the government to reinvest in public education. But to listen to the pronouncements in the throne speech and the pronouncements of the Premier in the months since that decision came down, you would think that the Premier woke up one morning and decided the right thing to do is to invest in class size and class composition, when it took the highest court in the land and tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars to get a decision that will benefit children in our classrooms.

Sometimes what’s more telling about a throne speech is what’s not in it. What’s not in it, an issue we’ve heard about repeatedly — yesterday in the Legislature and for months and for years — is the case of vulnerable children and youth in care.

We heard from the current Representative for Children and Youth, echoing the words of one report after another after another by the previous Representative for Children and Youth about how this government has repeatedly failed children in care — most recently Alex Gervais. He cried out for help, beseeched help and was left vulnerable and alone and ultimately died. A tragedy for Alex, for his family, for everybody who knew him, but sadly, not the only occurrence.

There have been dozens of those stories. There have been hundreds of recommendations from the Representative for Children and Youth saying that these are the most vulnerable kids in our society, who have no one to care for them, and therefore, it’s government’s responsibility to care for them. Yet, this government has failed them.

Did this throne speech even have one word about the fact that the government recognizes it needs to do better when it comes to children like Alex Gervais? Not one word. This throne speech fails vulnerable children in our community.

What about seniors? Not a single word, again, about seniors in this throne speech. We have had one exposé after another by the seniors advocate in this province. We’ve had one exposé after another by families coming forward and sharing their stories, one exposé after another by members of the official opposition about what’s happening to seniors care in British Columbia.

[1025]

Not one word of recognition that we need to do better, that we have to stop failing our vulnerable, frail seniors, who have built this province and this country and deserve so much better than they have been getting from this government. Not only is there not a word, we’ve had, since we sat last, yet another report that reveals how really serious the situation is.

A year ago the seniors advocate said 82 percent of care homes in British Columbia weren’t meeting the government’s own standards of 3.36 hours of direct care per day. The government said: “Oh yes, we need to do better.” We heard that whenever we questioned. I helped question the Health Minister. My colleagues questioned members opposite. “Yes, we need to do better.”

Well, what does the most recent report from the seniors advocate say? Things have gotten worse, not better. Now it’s 91 percent of care homes that aren’t meeting that standard. What does that mean in human terms?
[ Page 13582 ]
What does that mean in my own community, in the three out of five facilities that aren’t meeting that government care standard?

It means that seniors are woken up very early in the morning and often have to just sit and wait for two or three hours before they are able to eat. Why? Because there aren’t sufficient staff to be able to stagger when they get up so they just have to sit there in their chairs. What it means is seniors not being toileted in time and suffering that incredible indignity of having to sit in soiled diapers, sometimes for hours on end.

It also means that things like bathing, which we all take for granted — it’s the first thing to go. Sometimes they don’t get the one bath a week. Sometimes, if the care aides are rushed off their feet and have to go elsewhere or are short-staffed, they don’t get it for two or even three weeks. It’s deplorable. And as far as that human connection — that care interaction, that relationship which is so critical for all of us but especially for seniors in care — it means the care staff simply don’t have the time to sit, to hold someone’s hand, to listen to their fears, their stories. It takes the care out of care. There’s not one single mention in this throne speech.

What about home support? I can’t tell you how many constituents, family members, come to me or write to me — from New Westminster but also from across the province — and how many home support workers tell the stories about what it means when they are forced to work on the clock.

They’ve got 15 minutes for a certain task, and then they’re supposed to either leave and go to another resident, another client, or maybe they have two or three tasks. They’re all on the clock. It doesn’t take into account…. You knock on the door, and it takes Mrs. Jones or Mr. Dhaliwal some time to get to the door. You need to find out what’s happening with him that day, how he’s feeling, what his life is like. No, it’s on the clock, on the clock, on the clock.

This government puts out papers that talk about relationships in care, that care should be about relational care, but they don’t put the funding into home support. They don’t put the funding into seniors care to make that a reality. There’s not one word in this throne speech about caring for our seniors.

Another critical issue is child care. Not one word, yet we have one of the worst situations in Canada when it comes to availability of child care and the costliness of child care. I hosted a community round table of parents — mainly moms; some dads came out — to talk about child care in our community. Boy, my ears were ringing.

We have spoken a lot in this House and in this province about the crisis in affordable housing. But when someone says, “Child care is my second-highest cost after housing,” other parents in the room will say, “Nuh uh. Not in my case. I have two children, and that means that I’m paying more for child care than I’m paying for housing,” in some cases. The rates ranged from $1,250…. One young mom was about to deliver her second child. She has been paying $1,250 for her first child in daycare. That will go down, because he’s going to be a toddler soon, but when she goes back into the workforce, she’ll be paying $850 for the toddler and another $1,250 for her new baby.

[1030]

These parents were saying: “We work in order to maintain, for the little bit that we make after having paid for child care, to keep our seniority, to keep our benefits — because our family can’t afford to not have those benefits — and to help to contribute to the household income.” Sometimes these women are the main breadwinners in the family, and they need to go back to work. They want to go back to work. One woman said, very powerfully: “When we don’t have an affordable, available, quality child care system, how can we talk about equality between the sexes in this province?”

Not one word about child care.

I also had people speak very eloquently at that event, parents of children with disabilities, who said that we are very, very far from properly providing the kind of special supports that are needed for children with disabilities who were in child care — not to mention cost.

Many parents spoke about that story that was in the news recently — about a child that was in inferior care, unsafe care, and died — and said: “I’ve been forced, at times, to resort to putting my child into conditions that I don’t know are safe. I hope they are.” But sometimes all you can find is unregulated care. Parents should not have to worry constantly about costs, about — as soon as they get pregnant — whether or not there will be child care available for them and whether the child care is going to be safe.

It’s critical for young families, critical for moms being able to re-enter the workforce and critical — major businesses and the B.C. Business Council says — to building our economy because it will encourage more women, especially, to go back into the workforce. Not one single word in the throne speech.

I want to just share a story that one mom shared with me. Maureen Curran says: “I’m a mother of two boys who are now teenagers. I feel anxious and upset when I recall how hard I struggled to find appropriate daycare for my boys when they were young. I had to go back to work when my first was ten months old. I cried when I came home from viewing some of the cramped, dark basements that were the offered spaces, but there was only one public care facility within ten kilometres of where I lived. The closest one was a 25-minute drive in the wrong direction from my work, and it was full with a two-year wait-list.”

She goes on to talk about many women having to put their careers on hold, many couples hardly ever seeing each other and ending up in debt, and says, very powerfully: “It’s wrong that parents and kids have so few good
[ Page 13583 ]
quality and affordable options. It’s high time we put our kids first and made preschool care a priority. For children who are at high risk, it has been shown over and over how important this is.”

For young families, she says: “It can make the difference for a marriage, a career, and it could keep them out of poverty. We need to make it happen yesterday.”

Powerful words. But not one single word in this government’s throne speech, in the vision they’ve mapped out about child care.

Also not a single word about people with disabilities. Not one single word about people with disabilities, and I can only imagine the reaction of the constituent of mine by the name of Karla Olson and of others in my community and other people with disabilities across the province — that they don’t merit one single word in the throne speech.

Karla Olson came to me a number of months ago after the government had announced that the bus pass was going to be clawed back. She spoke to the local media at a press conference that we had, and she was fighting back tears as she spoke. She still does when she speaks about describing her feelings about what the changes to the bus pass mean for people with disabilities.

Her first question is: “Is it a reasonable expectation that the $25 in additional money will cover all the increases and costs that have been occurring over nine years to our basic living requirements?” And she says very clearly: “It doesn’t. No, it absolutely doesn’t.”

She talks about having chronic conditions, both cognitive issues as well as being in physical pain daily. One of the things that helps her get through every day is the certainty and the lack of stress and pressure that goes with having a bus pass that enables her to go out and hold down a part-time job, to attend medical appointments, to volunteer in her community.

[1035]

It gives her that sense of security that she can always come home by bus if she needs to. And now she’s very, very concerned, she said. Because she can’t afford to make ends meet with disability payments that have remained so low for so many years, she’s decided she has to make the choice of cancelling her bus pass.

She’s very worried about what that means, and I fear for her as well. One of the things that bus pass enabled her and other people with disabilities to do was to overcome isolation — to get out of their homes, to get into the community, to go to school, to get part-time jobs. This is so penny-wise and pound-foolish, because if we invested more upstream in supporting vulnerable people, we would certainly bear far less cost downstream. But there certainly was not one word in the throne speech to help Karla Olson.

It also wasn’t in there to help give any sense of security to Anne Belanger, the mother of a boy of 11 years old who has severe disabilities, is not able to care for himself in any way and is wheelchair bound. She is able to care for him now. She struggles to make ends meet, and she fears for what will happen when her son Miles turns 19.

She said to me when she came to see me a few weeks ago and asked me to share her story: “Benefits haven’t gone up in years, yet we are living in the third most expensive city in the world.” She pays $75 a month in MSP. Her fees have kept going up, and she says that she could certainly use that money, as well as the money she pays in other increased fees, to help towards caregiving for Miles.

Finally, the issue of wait-lists. I can’t recall how many times in this Legislature and in other forums that I, my colleague from Coquitlam-Maillardville, the Leader of the Official Opposition and other colleagues in this House have raised serious, serious issues about wait-lists.

Did we hear anything in this throne speech about reducing wait-lists; about people who are sometimes suffering for a year and two years waiting for surgery; about people who are still waiting for MRIs, despite the government’s announcement after the fall session of November 2015, after we had raised this issue day after day, week after week, that we had the worst wait-lists for MRIs — not just in this country but some of the worst in the developed world, tied with Slovakia?

There was an announcement that we were going to have tens of thousands more MRIs, yet I heard from a constituent very recently. She wrote to me and she also wrote to the Vancouver Sun that she had surgery last June to repair a cerebrospinal fluid leak. In early August, she saw her surgeon, sent a request for an MRI to the radiology department at St. Paul’s Hospital and finally got her date: it’s April 26, 2017. That’s nine months.

She fears she could be bumped, because other people certainly have been bumped. She wrote to the Health Minister about what she should do and never heard a response. She says she remembers very clearly that the Premier and the Health Minister said that the wait times would improve at the end of 2015. Why hasn’t that happened yet?

Betty says that this is unacceptable to wait this long, and — this is the point that I want to conclude on — she does not think that people who are able to pay should be able to get an MRI more quickly. She says that as a person on disability, she’s unable to pay for the procedure.

But she knows and she hears all the time about people who make the decision to pay out of pocket — the $900 or $1,200 or whatever the procedure costs — to go to a private clinic, because they’re not willing to wait any longer and they can afford to pay. Betty says, correctly, that we shouldn’t have a system where one can afford to pay and then gets treatment more quickly and another can’t.

[1040]

We pride ourselves, in British Columbia and in Canada, on having a universal health care system, a universal accessible health care system, with one standard of care for everybody. We say we’re opposed to two-tier health care,
[ Page 13584 ]
where the quality of care you get depends on the size of your bank account. But that two-tier health care is slipping in bit by bit. Why? Because wait-lists are so long that people who can afford to pay end up going to private clinics, and therefore, they can jump the queue.

We have increasingly a two-tier health care system, where the ability to pay affects your ability to get quality health care and quality health care services because of things that have been delisted many years ago by this government — like physiotherapy, like optical exams, and so on. That does mean that for people who are well off, and especially for the wealthy and the well-connected, they can afford to get health care in a timely way, while the majority of British Columbians cannot.

This throne speech is an enormous disappointment. I come back to what I said earlier. I recall hearing ministers and members opposite saying, in their defence of the throne speech, that this isn’t supposed to get into details. This is about a vision. It’s about the big picture. It was about a big picture, but it’s a big picture that doesn’t reflect the reality that people face in my community of New Westminster every day and that the majority of British Columbians face every single day.

I know we’ll get more details in the budget, but it’s the throne speech that is supposed to map out the direction of this government. Once again, this government has failed miserably. This government has made choices that are the wrong choices. This government has set priorities that are the wrong priorities.

They’re certainly not the priorities that my constituents come and talk to me about every single day in the community. Whether they choose to ignore those voices or not, I have no doubt that MLAs on both sides of this House hear those same voices and those same issues every single day. Yet this throne speech chooses to ignore them.

In conclusion, I’m pleased to have been able to take my place this this debate. But I want to be very clear, on behalf of my constituents and the community of New Westminster and all of the folks who write to me and share their stories every single day, that this is not a throne speech that I can support.

Hon. D. Barnett: It’s a pleasure and a privilege to rise today in response to the Speech from the Throne during this sixth session of the 40th parliament. I do so on behalf of the fine people of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, some of whom I would like to take a moment to recognize.

My constituency assistants, Bev Marks and Jenny Huffman, are two young ladies who daily, on my behalf, help my constituents, make my appointments and do what they can do to improve the lives of those in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

My riding is very diverse and large, spanning over 44,000 hectares. It includes three First Nation languages in my riding: Shuswap, Tsilhqot’in and Carrier.

In sports, I would like to say the Cariboo-Chilcotin citizens are very active. Kayla Moleschi made Williams Lake proud when she brought home the bronze medal from the Rio Olympics as part of the Canadian women’s rugby sevens last summer. I was thrilled to see her recognized as senior female rising star at the 2017 Fan the Flames Awards.

Just last month Brock Hoyer, also of Williams Lake, became the first-ever winner of the gold medal for snow bike cross at the Aspen X Games.

I’d like to also recognize Dave Dickson of Williams Lake and Richard Bergen of Forest Grove. I was honoured to present the B.C. Medal of Good Citizenship to each of them last year. Their tireless work in their communities has served as an inspiration for my people. Every time I’m in my riding, I’m reminded that the kind of commitment to the community that these men show really exemplifies the spirit of the people of the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

[1045]

It’s why I’m so proud to represent them, and it’s a big part of what drives me to work hard on their behalf, making sure that my constituents come first.

It’s a pleasure to be able to work with the government that shares my priorities in this area. Our plan to put British Columbians first not only reflects the values of the Cariboo-Chilcotin; it’s helping to make our communities and our economies stronger.

The plan rests on two main pillars: controlling spending and creating jobs. Matched with the hard work of British Columbians, it’s showing great results. For our province, the statistics speak for themselves. We’re leading the country in economic growth and job creation, and because we’re controlling spending and running balanced budgets, we’re able to have the lowest taxes for middle-class families. With our finances in order, we are free to focus on the things that continue to matter to the families in our communities.

In the communities of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, that means greater freedom to invest in better health care options so we can take care of our own. Two of our communities will have more options for local seniors care, for instance, with Interior Health planning to open 70 long-term-care beds in Williams Lake and another 14 in 100 Mile House.

It also means the ability to make important investments in our infrastructure. Within the framework of B.C. on the Move, our ten-year plan to improve our province’s transportation network, the Cariboo-Chilcotin is benefiting from some significant highway upgrades.

To accommodate growth in regional industries — such as oil and gas, mining and tourism — we started the Cariboo connector project to widen Highway 97 to four lanes between Cache Creek and Prince George. We’ve seen great progress so far, with phase 2 well underway and several sections completed, opening up the highway for commercial traffic as well as making it safer and more efficient for our residents. These kinds of investments will
[ Page 13585 ]
make our area more attractive to the resource industries that are so important to our economy.

Meanwhile, investments in community infrastructure, such as the more than $148 million the hon. Premier announced this fall for the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund, will help attract investment, business and residents to our communities. Of course, these are large-scale infrastructure investments, but the benefits of the freedom to invest in infrastructure also go beyond these projects, right to the heart of our communities.

In Williams Lake, for instance, where we are able to invest $500,000 toward 55 daycare spaces at the new Kidcare Daycare facility, our funding helped what was a real community effort. The great people of the Women’s Contact Society saw a need for a new facility and rallied support for it from our provincial government; from the school district, which provided the land; the Northern Development Initiative Trust; the Cariboo regional district; the city of Williams Lake; and a host of community sponsors as well. It not only has the capacity to serve 300 families; it also created 22 new jobs in the community. It was great to see that facility open last summer.

There’s another community facility that everyone in Williams Lake is looking forward to seeing completed these days. On that, it also has been a true community effort: the long-awaited upgrades to the Sam Ketcham Pool in the Cariboo Memorial Complex. Work also continues to progress there, just as it does at the new Cariboo Fire Centre at the Williams Lake Airport, which will be a great resource for the brave men and women who fight fires in one of the most active wildfire regions in our province.

[1050]

Our government’s $5.88 million investment in this project will improve our ability to respond to and repress wildfires and make our communities and our entire region a safer place. Meanwhile, during construction, it continues to boost the local economy by providing work for Williams Lake companies.

With each of these projects, we can see just how interconnected our infrastructure investments and jobs really are. But there are also ways we’re investing specifically in helping put British Columbians first in line for jobs which are benefiting the people of the Cariboo-Chilcotin as well as some of its key industries.

The cattle industry is an important one for the Cariboo-Chilcotin. It’s a proud part of our heritage, and we are a key supplier of first-class beef to markets across Canada and around the world. So I was thrilled to be able to support the development of the applied sustainable ranching program at Thompson Rivers University in Williams Lake. This program is unique in B.C. and provides students with hands-on experience in sustainable ranching, which will help the next generation to keep the industry going strong.

Another important industry in our area is tourism. Our back country is the envy and joy of many, and with good reason. With an investment through the B.C. skills-for-jobs blueprint and the job creation partnership, we were able to give our local tourism industry a boost last year while providing employment and skills training for five people.

Participants in the program installed new amenities along the Gold Rush Snowmobile Trail on Canim Lake Band territory and at the Bridge Lake ice caves. This experience prepared them with the skills they need for good jobs, while improving the safety and the accessibility of these sites.

We know tourism is booming across B.C. In the first ten months of last year, we hosted 4.9 million international visitors, a 12.1 percent increase over the previous year. I’m excited about the contributions the Cariboo-Chilcotin can make to the continued growth of this industry.

These contributions will only increase with the introduction of the new ferry service between Port Hardy and Bella Coola. This service will mean we are able to offer a first-class tourism product to visitors from across Canada and around the world — stunning driving circuit through our province that includes our own beautiful Cariboo-Chilcotin region and the Great Bear Rainforest, one of our province’s world-renowned ecological gems.

These exciting developments in our tourism region are also signs of good things to come for our local job markets. However, there’s still work to do when it comes to job creation in our Interior. We know that in today’s uncertain global economy, many industries that have traditionally been the backbone of our economy have borne the brunt of a downturn in global commodity prices, and in many cases it is our rural communities that are most affected.

To address these issues we are developing a rural economic strategy. I am proud to have been appointed co-chair of this project, along with my colleague the hon. Minister for Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training. This strategy will be focused on supporting our valuable rural communities through such measures as ensuring the $75 million rural dividend fund is invested to the greatest benefit of our regional communities, marketing target investments to develop talent that will support local industry needs and help develop a more diversified regional economy, and encouraging continued innovation in our natural resource industries.

It’s great to be here today and talking about one of my favourite subjects: the important role of rural communities in British Columbia. I started off on the road to public service after my husband and I bought our first business, in 1969, in the Cariboo and very quickly understood the need for a free enterprise government in the 1970s.

[1055]

I have seen firsthand the importance rural communities are to the strength and the diversity of the province. In many rural communities, the only businesses around for hundreds of miles are family-run small businesses providing food, clothing, service and jobs. Everywhere
[ Page 13586 ]
small businesses are helping their communities diversify, growing the creative sectors and finding new markets for resources and services. Our small businesses are remarkably diverse, ranging from the family corner store to the self-employed computer programmer to the small lumber-milling operation.

We are committed to improving B.C.’s business-friendly climate by cutting red tape, attracting new investment, making it easier to start and grow a small business and working with aboriginal communities to ensure full access to development and growth opportunities. B.C. and industry are partnering with First Nations and aboriginal peoples to ensure full access to development and growth opportunities, which provides for greater prosperity and economic certainty in rural communities.

Overall, there are over 355,000 small businesses in this province. That’s 98 percent of all B.C. businesses providing jobs and security for nearly one million British Columbians. Clearly, small business is big business in B.C. I’m pleased to say that this government stands firmly behind the entrepreneurs and small businesses that are leaders in their communities and has worked hard to create a competitive business environment to help them succeed and prosper.

It’s the commitment and the hard work of this government that directly informed the decision to set up the Small Business Roundtable 12 years ago. We wanted to create a forum that would let us talk directly with entrepreneurs and identify key issues and opportunities.

Supporting small business is also a top priority for B.C.’s jobs plan. We developed with one goal in mind — keeping our economy diverse, strong and growing. When we launched the jobs plan five years ago, B.C. ranked third in economic growth and ninth in job creation. Right now B.C. is leading the country in job creation, with 191,500 jobs created since the launch of our jobs plan in 2011, and has the lowest unemployment rates in the country. Over 2.4 million British Columbians are working more than ever before, and our economic performance is reaching record levels.

While the jobs plan is helping support long-term economic growth and job creation, an uncertain global economy has taken its toll on commodity prices. This uncertainty is slowing economic growth in other provinces and undermining the kind of international trade that fuels B.C.’s economy. The result is that many of the province’s 140 rural communities are experiencing lower growth and unemployment rates that the province’s urban centres are not. This directly impacts small businesses, not just by slowing down sales and reducing the need for services but by creating the kind of uncertainty that makes entrepreneurs think twice about growing their businesses or creating new ones.

Last year, we responded to this global problem by launching the B.C. rural dividend $75 million program designed to help rural communities reinvigorate and diversify their economies and develop locally driven solutions. The rural dividend grew out of consultations with the rural advisory council, which government created in March 2015.

Made up of 13 members from across rural B.C., this council was designed to be a strong voice for rural citizens, to ensure that rural British Columbians have regular and meaningful input into government policy decisions. The council’s initial focus was on rural economic development, including access to capital and support for rural entrepreneurs and small business.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

The council was also asked to come up with recommendations for rural communities capacity-building, including providing advice on the rural dividend. Last October, I announced the first round of investments — over $8.62 million in grants to help rural communities diversify and strengthen their economies.

[1100]

In the first intake of the three-year $75 million B.C. rural dividend, funding is being awarded to 73 local governments, First Nations and not-for-profit organizations around the province for single and partnership projects. A total of 118 project applications — up to $100,000, and partnerships, up to $500,000 — were received in the first intake. There was a wide range of innovative, impactful community-based projects that make a real difference at the local level.

The city of Williams Lake received $64,000 to seed start-up programs to support youth and senior entrepreneurs with mentorship, monitoring, training, networking and workshops.

The province is providing $100,000 to the N’Quatqua First Nation to create a five-year comprehensive economic development strategy that will lay the foundation for more job creation.

With the recent economic challenges in Merritt, the city of Merritt was provided $100,000 to undertake business attraction and retention initiatives.

We are supporting new business and value-added opportunities for the Leq’á:mel First Nations through $72,000 under the rural dividend to establish non-timber forest resources and diversify their local economy.

The district of Summerland is receiving $100,000 to develop a long-term economic strategy, an action plan, a marketing strategy and research into developing an agritech sector, bringing more innovation to rural economies.

The district of Peachland receives $40,000 to review transportation options and alternatives to meet the current and long-term needs of the community.

Boston Bar will receive $60,130 to implement corporate management training to support tourism development.

These are investments that make an enormous local impact, building rural communities right across the province.
[ Page 13587 ]

Right now we’re getting ready to announce the next round of investments — up to $15 million to support project development, individual communities and First Nations and partnership programs.

While the rural dividend is making a difference, community leaders are telling us government needs to do more to support thriving and resilient rural communities. Government agrees. That’s why we’re working on the new rural economic development strategy.

The strategy is aimed at developing policy and investment initiatives that will make a difference. The strategy, which will be ready to go in March, is being created with input from the rural advisory council and will build on existing programs, such as investing the $75 million rural dividend fund to the greatest benefit for rural communities, making targeted trades and training investments in rural communities to develop talent that supports local industry and diversified regional economies and encouraging innovation in our natural resource industries to maintain a competitive edge.

This government recognizes the critical importance of B.C.’s rural communities. They are the lifeblood of our economy. The rural economic development strategy is part of our ongoing commitment to these communities and supports our vision of job growth and prosperity in rural communities that match the success of the province’s urban economies.

This government is working hard on behalf of British Columbians in every region and in every corner of the province so that we can help develop the locally developed solutions that will help build strong, stable and secure communities in every corner of British Columbia.

S. Robinson: I am very pleased to stand here in this Legislature to provide my comments on the throne speech here for 2017. It’s certainly my honour to represent the residents of Coquitlam-Maillardville, which I think is probably the best community in the province. I think we all get to say that about our communities.

[1105]

I don’t stand here alone when I’m here. I stand here with the support of my fabulous constituency assistants, Laura Gullickson and Linda Asgeirsson They allow me to do the work that I need to do and provide me the opportunity to hear what the constituents of Coquitlam-Maillardville are experiencing in their lives. While we heard this throne speech here earlier this week, it was a disconnect for me. It was a complete disconnect, based on what I hear in my constituency office. I suspect, as I listen to the various responses to the throne speech, that we are all hearing the same things in our offices.

I want to reflect, in my comments today, around this disconnect — that we had a throne speech that really, for the most part, said very little and didn’t reflect what British Columbians are experiencing every day. It demonstrates how we have a government that’s really not responding at all to the people in my community and to the people around British Columbia.

When I think about a throne speech and its purpose, it’s to provide a vision for what’s coming up for the government. This is a high-level commentary on what the government has planned for British Columbians. I listened very closely, and I made some comments. There was really nothing in there. We kept waiting for something that would say they were going to do X, Y and Z, that they were going to address seniors or mental health or talk about the opioid crisis. And really, for the most part, there was nothing of any substance in it. I think it’s important to always comment on what’s not in the throne speech, because there was a lot missed.

When I think about what was said, it was really a reflection backwards, not forwards. My understanding of a throne speech is to alert British Columbians to what they can expect, going forward, from the government. This government chose to just reflect back. But their backward reflection was a very interesting story, because the reflection backwards was really a re-storying of how things have changed over the last four years in terms of the messaging that we’ve heard from various throne speeches.

I actually pulled up my throne speeches from the past four years, because I thought: “Well, what were my comments over these last four years? How have my comments changed, or how are my comments going to change?” What was interesting…. I’m just going to provide one example, because I think it’s an interesting one. It’s the one around LNG.

In 2013, this government had lots to say — lots and lots to say — about LNG. In fact, in the 2013 throne speech, they said that LNG was to eliminate our debt, eliminate the PST and create 100,000 jobs and $1 trillion in economic activity. Well, of course the story changed again in 2014, when the throne speech said that LNG was a chance, actually — not a windfall but a chance. Then, in the 2015 throne speech, LNG was still a generational opportunity, but it was barely mentioned at all. It was time to talk about something else, because things had changed.

In the 2016 throne speech, the government finally admitted that their timelines would not be met. They commented that they’d done all they could but that global conditions were now creating some challenges.

This year in the throne speech, we heard that it’s global markets that are creating some challenges, with unforeseen headwinds that have resulted in LNG not actually delivering all that it promised in 2013. The government used the opportunity to re-story their vision, to tell British Columbians a different story — not the one that they said in 2013 but the one that they’re telling in 2017. They’re hoping, I believe, that British Columbians will forget the promises that this government made. They’ve done it not just with LNG; they’ve done it with other things.

They’ve certainly done it with education. In this throne speech, when they talked about education…. They told a
[ Page 13588 ]
story early this week of labour peace — the longest commitment of labour peace. They talked about how — I want to use this quote — “your government is committed to working in good faith with our teachers to put our students first.” Well, that’s an interesting story. I recall — and the parents of British Columbia recall, and certainly, the teachers of British Columbia recall — the longest protracted strike in the history of this province. It was mean and nasty.

[1110]

The things that the Premier said about teachers were so disrespectful of the hard work of teachers, and she thinks that everyone is going to forget. This throne speech thinks that we’re all going to forget what happened to our children for an entire generation when the Premier was the Minister of Education in 2001. This government thinks that an entire generation of children will just get on with their lives, that they won’t be resentful for having had their education compromised, because there’s clearly some sort of hate on for teachers from the government.

Education matters. This government pretending like the last 15 years didn’t happen is disrespectful of the memories that we have. It’s disrespectful for the teachers who sacrificed thousands of dollars in order to stand up for our children. It’s disrespectful for the parents who have had to beg for services for their children — beg, hon. Speaker. Beg for psychologist services, speech and language services. Beg for help for their children who are experiencing stress and anxiety and don’t have any resources available in the school. Beg for extra supports for their children, because they just don’t exist. Beg for educational assistants, who aren’t available, who just don’t exist in the school.

Teachers are, and have been, overwhelmed with challenging students who deserve better. This government did not deliver, refused to deliver, refused to bargain in good faith. Let’s talk about that for a second, this notion of bargaining in good faith. It wasn’t the government that said: “Well, gee, we have been faced in the wrong direction on this education thing. We should actually be doing it this way.” It wasn’t the government that made that decision; it was the courts. It was the courts that said to this government: “What you’re doing is illegal. You cannot do this, and it was done in bad faith.” Why should British Columbians believe now that somehow this government sees the error of its ways and will now bargain and continue in good faith on anything?

We’re talking about education here, but it speaks to the character of this government in terms of how it operates, how it operates when it needs to negotiate with anybody. Frankly, I don’t trust them, and there’s evidence to support that. There is evidence to support that, certainly in the way they tell the story of what life has been like for British Columbians for the last four years — in fact, what life has been like for British Columbians for the last 16 years.

Let’s move on to another area that the throne speech certainly talked about but didn’t really provide, I think, a full accounting of. I just heard the previous speaker talk about leading the country in job creation. So if British Columbia is leading the country in job creation, that has a lot of story to it that no one is saying from the government side. What does that mean? Well, there’s certainly some evidence that says that while British Columbia is leading the way in job growth, we know that it’s actually not accurate when you think about the kinds of jobs that are being created here.

In fact, B.C. actually led Canada in growth of below-average-wage work over the last number of years. When you have low-wage workers, part-time workers who can’t pay their bills, whose MSP is going up, whose ICBC is going up, then they’re falling farther and farther behind, so it’s not actually an economic rosy picture.

Interjections.

S. Robinson: The indignation from across the way is very surprising. All they need to do is to read the national online journalist Keith Baldrey explain why there’s so much difficulty here. When they talk about job growth, the kinds of jobs make a difference. They absolutely make a difference. When our children are working at three different part-time jobs because they can’t get a job that pays enough, that pays enough for rent, they are not getting further ahead.

The looks of indignation have changed. They’re actually now looking at BlackBerrys and tablets.

[1115]

We know that when people are working at very-low-paying jobs, life is not better. It does not make life better. We need high-quality jobs. Quality jobs have been disappearing for years. Using numbers to say: “Oh, look. We’re getting all these jobs….” When you don’t analyze the quality of jobs, that’s actually misleading, and I think it’s really disrespectful to British Columbians.

In fact, it reminds me of some of the conversations I’ve had with people on the doorstep. I’m on the doorstep fairly regularly. I’m in a swing riding, so it’s important for me to make sure that I stay present, and I stay focused, and I stay engaged with my constituents. I went out just this last summer on a number of days. I would just go out and say to people: “Our current government is bragging about how fabulous the economy is. What’s it been like for you?” I think people’s lived experience is important.

There were different groups of people that I talked to in my community, and it’s a very, very mixed community. There are people in Coquitlam-Maillardville who have lived there for 50 years. They moved there to raise their children when it was first developed as a suburb. Now they’re aging in place as best they can. They certainly had a way of framing their lived experience.

They talked about how much harder it was for them now that they were aging, and they were concerned about the growth in housing prices and how they were
[ Page 13589 ]
going to actually pay their property taxes, because they were on fixed incomes. While they had these homes that were worth something substantial, they weren’t ready to leave them, and they were actually finding it difficult to make ends meet.

They talked about having to pay MSP, and that just kept going up. They felt that was really a challenge for them. They were worried about their future as seniors. They were worried about what they were hearing from their friends who were caregivers and not getting the supports that they needed in order to care for their loved one at home. They were concerned about hearing about the quality of care in seniors’ homes, and I’ll certainly talk about the care that isn’t getting provided in a moment. I certainly heard from seniors saying that they were afraid, financially, for their well-being.

The other group of people that I have in my constituency are families who are committed to living what I call a traditional suburban life, where you leave the community to go to work, come back, and you are then in the car as a taxi driver, driving your children to basketball, soccer, hockey, piano lessons, art lessons, whatever it is that you might be doing.

These families are really feeling the pinch. They’re feeling the pinch in increased ICBC. In my community, there is certainly frustration about having to pay the toll over the Port Mann Bridge. They are finding that very frustrating. It certainly adds to their financial burden.

They’re also really feeling the burden in all of the school fees that they have to pay. The stories that I got and the outrage that I got were around the fact that they have to send a ream of paper with their children to school, because there’s no more budget to pay for photocopying.

Rather than make sure that we have a fair taxation system, people are getting dinged with these fees. Families who have these low wages still have to pay the same fees as families who are making $300,000 a year. They’re still getting dinged, and they’re feeling it, and they’re angry. They’re saying: “We can’t get ahead.”

As I asked the question around the government saying that the economy is great — “Is that your lived experience?” — the third group of people that I heard from was young people — young people like my children, under 30. They are making their way in the world. They’re living in basement suites, because that’s the kind of affordable housing we have in my community. Some of them are illegal. We certainly don’t know that they’re there; you just bump into people as they’re coming to their car. Some of them are substandard. But that’s all there is for affordable housing, certainly in my community. It’s very limited.

They’re saying that they’re working two and three part-time jobs to try to make ends meet, to pay outrageous rents, to try to pay for gas in their car, to try to pay off their student loans, to try to get ahead. They are leaving our communities, and this government doesn’t seem to care.

[1120]

The Conference Board of Canada and the Vancouver Board of Trade have highlighted this as a very significant issue — the affordability crisis — and there is nothing that this government talked about to address that.

They can’t afford housing, they’re getting dinged on all these fees, and they are leaving our community. I love my children, and I really want them to stay in British Columbia. I think all of us want our children to stay in British Columbia, but it’s an unaffordable place. It has become unaffordable under this government’s watch because of the choices that they have made.

When I think about some of the choices this government has made, and we talk about taxes…. How does this government make decisions about taxing? One thing that’s really interesting is that our provincial tax system, over these last 16 years under this current government…. There have been significant tax cuts to personal income taxes between 2001 and 2008, but they’ve been replaced with regressive taxes, like MSP premiums, like ICBC, like tobacco taxes — all of those other things.

When you add up all the taxes that people pay, all of it — income tax, PST, MSP, fuel, tobacco, property tax, carbon tax — the people paying the bulk of the taxes in this province are at the bottom of our income earners. That’s an unfair burden to the bottom earners of our province.

In 2016, regressive taxes made up 65 percent of the total. In 2000, that was only 56. So there has been a real shift. Who is benefiting from this? Well, it’s the wealthy. The top earners actually are paying less tax, a lower effective tax rate than everybody else. So we have a very unfair system, where the tax burden, we know, is placed on the bottom earners.

Let’s be really clear. When you call it a fee, it is a tax. It’s a regressive tax. So whether you make $400,000 a year or $40,000 a year, you are still paying the same fee. When we talk about fairness, we have a fundamental principle here that those who make more pay more. That’s a basic fundamental principle that we have here, that I believe people on both sides of the House believe in. But it’s not playing out, and that’s not fair.

People in British Columbia have a voice, and I hope that they use it, because that is part of what’s adding to the unaffordability crisis. They’re getting dinged, nickel-and-dimed, and at the end of the day, it all adds up to more money fleeing their pocket and less ability to actually take care of their families. That leaves people having to make choices. Seniors have to make choices about: “Do I pay for my medication this month? Or do I take my medication every other day because I can’t afford it, because I’m getting dinged on all these other little fees?”

There are a couple of other things I want to talk about that the throne speech brought up for me — or maybe didn’t bring up for me. I want to talk about the opioid crisis.

The Leader of the Opposition asked me to take on the spokesperson file for mental health and addictions in January. I’ve been coming up to speed on it and read-
[ Page 13590 ]
ing lots and learning all I can about what has been going on and where this government, I believe, has failed on this file.

The one line in the throne speech was that our success is measured in “500 new addiction beds.” So our success in the opioid crisis is measured in 500 new addiction beds. Well, there have been no successes in the opioid crisis. We have people dying, and 914 died last year from this fentanyl crisis. This crisis didn’t just happen upon us. It’s been coming for years.

I was a family therapist — I’ve certainly shared that in the House — but I was also an addictions counsellor. Back in 1988 I started doing addictions counselling here in this province. Now I’m coming back to it in a different role, as a policy-maker, and I have to say how appalled and disappointed I am that there is very little activity on this file in terms of making things better for British Columbians around addictions and addictions treatment.

[1125]

When I got this file, it caught a bit of attention, because in my community, the phone started to ring. I want to tell people in this House a little bit about a young man named Jesse who showed up in my office. He showed up high on fentanyl, and he said: “Maybe you can help.” He would sort of doze off for a bit. I said: “Yes. I’d like to help.”

He said he wanted to go for treatment. I said: “Okay. Let’s see if I could find you some treatment.” I got on the Internet. I got on the phone. I tried to find a treatment facility for this young man, Jesse, 21 years old. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how to find a treatment bed for him. I couldn’t find it.

I’m articulate. I’m educated. I’m somewhat familiar with the system. I could not find a treatment bed. I couldn’t get through to anybody. I had to call his mother and say: “I’m doing my best, but I’m not quite sure how to make this system work.” That, to me, told me right away that we do not have a plan. This government does not have a plan. And in this throne speech, they did not talk about a plan.

So here we are in the middle of a crisis, and there’s no system of care. We have people dying, and when somebody wants to find a treatment bed or any sort of detox facility, you can’t figure it out. To me, that’s about a government that has not done enough with this file. So that’s part of the crisis. It has contributed to the crisis.

I want to talk about Kirsten. Kirsten’s uncle called me last week. We’re old friends. He heard that I had the file. He said: “Kirsten OD’d on fentanyl.” I guess now it would be about 28 days ago. They hooked her up with a treatment facility, but it’s really not meeting her needs. She doesn’t feel safe there. She’s thinking that, rather than being in treatment, she’d rather be in an out-patient program of some kind.

I thought: “Okay.” Well, we couldn’t find an out-patient program for her. She lives in Maple Ridge. The closest we could find for her that would meet her needs was in Burnaby. When you’re 21 years old, you don’t have a car and you are looking for some help, and a day treatment program requires daily going in and being part of a group that helps you make better decisions, and the closest you can find is Burnaby, that’s a problem. That’s a very serious problem.

I want to talk about two other young girls in my community. I want to talk about Lola and Jolene. They have a different experience. Jolene’s parents — Jolene is 27 — saw that something wasn’t quite right with Jolene last year. They said: “Let’s get her some mental health support. She seems depressed.” She agreed. She was feeling depressed. They called a mental health team. And they waited, and they waited. Months they waited for a phone call. Months.

In the meantime, what they discovered was that their daughter was smoking heroin. And with the fentanyl crisis coming right up at their heels, they were terrified for their daughter. Terrified that there was going to be, in her next hit, some fentanyl, and that their daughter was going to OD. They were not getting service. They were not getting their needs met.

These are taxpayers who have been paying forever. They were not getting service that they expected from this government. And what this government didn’t even talk about in the throne speech. In the middle of a crisis. This family took out another mortgage on their house and sent their daughter to the States, because they did not find what they needed here. Their government has failed them.

Lola’s mom — I bumped into her last week at a 50th surprise party. I hadn’t seen Lola’s mom in a million years. We got to gabbing and talking about our kids, because our kids went to the same elementary school. I said: “So how’s Lola?” “Well, she’s been just out of treatment.” “Oh. Really sorry to hear that. What happened?”

[1130]

“Well, things sort of went sideways. She suffered from anxiety for a long time, discovered that drugs actually helped manage the anxiety. Things got out of control.” She, too, was smoking heroin.

When Lola came to them saying, “I have a problem, and I’m scared,” they, too, called around for supports. They’re on a fixed income. They’re both retired now. One’s a retired teacher, and one’s a retired police officer. These are Lola’s parents. They learned that it would cost them $45,000 to put Lola into treatment.

She said: “Thank God for the inheritance that we got last year. If we didn’t have this, we would be remortgaging our home that is paid off. It would certainly be impacting our quality of life.” Here again, people who have paid taxes, public servants who have worked hard…. When they need supports for their child, they just don’t exist. It’s just not there for them. And there was nothing in the throne speech to talk about that.

I don’t know how you can be a government and say: “We don’t care.” That’s what a throne speech is supposed to do. It’s to tell us, as British Columbians, what this gov-
[ Page 13591 ]
ernment cares about. And all they care about is retelling a story of things that they promised years ago that they didn’t deliver, so they’re telling us a different story about how great it’s been. That’s a problem. It’s terribly disappointing.

There was nothing in this throne speech about people living with disabilities. I think about all the people that I talk to in my office. I want to talk about Liam, because Liam’s father came to see me last week and was telling me about how Liam was diagnosed with autism as a young child. Liam is 21, I believe. So he’s been through the school system that has been decimated and has had no supports. For him, school was just a terrible, terrible exercise in futility, because there were no supports in all the years that Liam went to school.

Liam now has no place to live. He has violent outbursts. He’s been on a wait-list for an assessment for a year. When he’s violent, the police come. They take him to hospital. The hospital says he can’t be there. At home, he can’t be there. And group homes won’t take him. So where is Liam supposed to go? Where is he supposed to be? There was nothing in this throne speech for the Liams that we have in British Columbia.

I notice that I have to wrap up, but I want to talk, just for a moment, about seniors. We’ve heard platitudes from the government side of the House about how seniors have built this province, and we should be taking care of our seniors. There was not one iota, not one mention, of seniors in this throne speech at a time when the seniors advocate notices and pulls out the data that 91 percent of our care facilities don’t have proper staffing levels.

It’s gotten worse over this last year. It went from 20 percent down to 9 percent meeting staffing levels. It’s moving in the wrong direction, and there was not a single mention in this throne speech about what this government plans to do to fix that. That’s appalling.

I have so much more to say. Unfortunately, they limit our time here. I’m really pleased to have an opportunity at some later date to comment on the budget, because I believe that that will be another opportunity to demonstrate where the government is failing British Columbians.

S. Hamilton: It certainly is a privilege for me to rise in this House again in support of another throne speech. I guess this is my fourth, and hopefully, there will be more to come in the future.

It’s still a true honour, and it’s a humbling experience to take my place in this Legislature and represent the great people of Delta North. I’ve lived in Delta North — or North Delta, as we prefer to call it locally — over 30 years. I’m proud to call this wonderful community and, indeed, this wonderful province my home.

[1135]

I wish to dedicate this speech to my constituents in North Delta. My community has given me a tremendous opportunity, and they’ve put a great deal of their faith and trust in me over the last four years. I work tirelessly, as everyone in this House does, to represent my community and be a strong advocate in this House for them.

My speech wouldn’t be complete…. I wouldn’t even be standing here if it wasn’t for the love and support of my wife, Kristen, and my daughters, Paige and Lauren; and of course, the work that’s done in my constituency office every day by my constituency assistants, Kim and Debbie. Debbie will be leaving us at the end of this term to enjoy a long and well-deserved retirement. And, of course, the volunteers in my community spend countless hours helping me and helping the community at large.

It’s not just me these people volunteer for. It’s the entire community. A community survives by its volunteers. It’s the heart and soul. Volunteers are the heart and soul of every community. I don’t think communities would exist without them. I think Delta really punches above its weight when it comes to the people who come forward to help others in those types of roles — our service organizations, our moms and dads on the sports field helping their kids. It’s a countless, endless litany of folks that come forward to help, and I can’t say enough about them.

Prior to my election to the Legislature, I had the pleasure, of course, of serving on Delta council for more than 11 years. During that time, I was involved in many different aspects of the community, from the preservation of Burns Bog, which is now a Ramsar designated site, to housing initiatives and parks and recreation opportunities. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on Delta council, and I certainly commend the people that are on that council today, working hard on behalf of the people in Delta as well.

I was also fortunate enough to be able to be involved in many excellent community organizations, some of which I mentioned earlier. I’m proud to say that these relationships continue to exist and thrive in my new role as their MLA. Organizations such as Deltassist Family and Community Services. This organization is run by an incredible group of staff and volunteers who provide support services, community programs and outreach to the more vulnerable citizens in our neighbourhoods.

The North Delta Lions and the North Delta Rotary clubs — two incredible service organizations comprised of people who support our community through fundraising initiatives, giving selflessly of their time and talents to ensure that our community remains an enviable place to call home.

Of course, I’d also want to mention the Delta Chamber of Commerce, the Kennedy Seniors Centre, the North Delta Boys and Girls Club, as well as the B.C. Guide Dog Services. I can’t forget them. This is an organization that I hold dear to my heart. My wife, Kristen, and I have volunteered for many, many years with this organization now, and they do incredible things. They’ve been to this House. Many of us have met the puppies over the years, since I’ve
[ Page 13592 ]
been here, and we all know firsthand what sort of work they do on behalf of the people that need their services.

I want to thank all of those excellent organizations, as well as all the others that I’ve missed, for the work that they’ve done and they will continue to do to help make Delta a better place to live.

As you can see, I’m very proud of my community. It’s one I’ve called home, as I mentioned, for a very long time.

Since becoming an MLA and a member of this government, I’ve watched British Columbia become an economic leader in Canada, and Delta is at the heart of that economic leadership as well. We are home to many organizations, many businesses, that thrive in our community, that pay their taxes, that employ a lot of the people that I serve and will continue to serve.

I note the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville a few minutes ago mentioned, with respect to the B.C. jobs plan, that we don’t employ people in high-paying skilled jobs. Well, nothing could be further from the truth, because even in my own community of Delta, you just have to go and talk to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the pipefitters, the ITA, the Motive Power Centre.

All of these are in Delta, and these are organizations that train young people for the jobs of the future, and they are fully subscribed. They have waiting lists, and the people that come out of these programs are gainfully employed on the other end, making good wages — skilled jobs on behalf of the people of this province. I can’t say enough for those organizations. I’m so glad to represent them in my community, and the fact that they are there is just simply a testament to how great a community it is where I live.

[1140]

The other thing the member opposite mentioned in her speech is the issue of taxes. I found it a little bit bizarre, to tell you the truth, that she wanted us to amend the tobacco tax. I can hardly wait to run that one over to the Finance Minister’s office to see what he things of that. And she talked about lowering a carbon tax. She just mentioned she wanted to lower the carbon tax when just a few weeks ago her own leader talked about raising it.

While the members opposite are busy jumping from one foot to the next, we as a government are moving forward, taking British Columbia forward in ways we’ve never seen before. I’m very, very proud to be a member of the government that’s doing that.

There is a member of Delta council who’s been a long-time friend of mine. His name is Ian Paton. He often would sit back during council meetings, and he’d take pride in giving us history lessons. It’s my turn. I want to give a history lesson to the House, because the one I would like to communicate is the history lesson that takes us back to 2008-2009. That was a time that no one really wants to remember, but I think it’s important to remember the facts, remember the history that got us here today.

It was a terrible economic downturn. It was a time when the world was in an upheaval. The United States was in an economic collapse. Most of Canada was suffering from the effects of it. We were really in a very, very bad and precarious situation. I watched. I was a sideliner. I was watching this government back then. I certainly wasn’t participating in it. But what struck me then was how well this province survived that turmoil.

I know back in 2008…. I’m not sure if there are any members in this House right now, with the exception of a few opposite, that were here then. The decisions that they were making then were things that they dwelled upon. Those are things that kept people up at night. They were difficult decisions to make at the time. But the fact that we had a foundation to build upon, the fact that we were well positioned to weather that storm, is a testament to the government of the time and those tough decisions that they, in fact, made.

The fact that we were in that kind of position, to weather that storm, wasn’t by accident. It was by design because of the decisions that were made up to that point to understand that we’re always not going to be in good economic times. We have to create a foundation to build upon.

Look at where we are now as a result of the decisions that were made back then and since we’ve implemented the B.C. jobs plan. The world is seeing better times, and this province certainly is seeing better times since then in terms of our economy. B.C.’s jobs plan has seen us turn the corner and crack the clock over to 200,000 new jobs that have been created in this province under that plan alone.

It’s an incredible accomplishment. It’s one that I’m very proud of. I haven’t been here the entire time, but I’ve certainly supported the initiative, and it’s paid off in spades.

But there are always opportunities to help people that need a little more help in our communities. There are less fortunate. There are people that are stuck on a vicious treadmill. There are people that are stuck on welfare, maybe with small children. Single parents. Single fathers. Single moms. Again, I call it a treadmill because it is a treadmill. It’s impossible to get off.

Then some bright minds not long ago got together, along with the Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation and the Minister of Children and Families, and came up with the single-parent employment initiative. What did we do? We took a look at these people, and we realized the lot that we were in. We realized that this government was in a position to give them help. We can criticize it all we want from the other side, but it’s a simple truth. They were stuck, and we understood that, and we acted on it.

If you’re on welfare, you said: “Oh my gosh. I can’t take any training, because they’re going to cut my welfare cheque off. Besides, if I could take training, how am I even going to afford books? How am I going to afford to get there? I don’t have a car. I need transportation. And to top it all off, I’ve got kids. What am I going to do? I’ve got kids.”

Interjection.
[ Page 13593 ]

S. Hamilton: Well, you can heckle all you want, Member opposite. But the truth is we are in a position now where we can help these people.

[1145]

So what we said to them is: “You’re in that lot. We’re going to help you out. We’re going to let you subscribe to a training program up to a year in length, and we’re going to pay that tuition. And you know what? We’re not only going to pay the tuition; we’re going to pay for your books. Yeah. We’re not only going to pay for your books….”

Interjection.

S. Hamilton: Hey, hold on, Member opposite. “We’re not only going to pay for your books; we’re going to pay for your transportation to get to school. And while you’re there — you know what? — we’re going to look after your kids. We’re going to pay for your daycare.”

When we announced that program, we were under the impression that the uptake on that would be modest — a few hundred people, maybe, at best. The member for Chilliwack yesterday actually read out some numbers. I hate to correct one of my own members of government, but this is the type of correction that needs to be made. His numbers were a little low. We thought the uptake would be a few hundred people. Today, we have had 4,379 applications to that program.

Of those applications, 833 people are now gainfully employed in the workforce, making a living, taking home a paycheque and no longer on welfare. That is a number that was astounding to this government and should be astounding to this entire House and this province, because it was innovative. It was something that we supported from the beginning and realized that we could actually help people help themselves. If there’s a better example of a hand up as opposed to a hand out, I can’t think of one. This has been a phenomenal success, and I’m proud to say I’m a member of the government that helped that come to fruition.

These people are bringing home paycheques. They have a sense of pride. They’re instilling that sense of pride and accomplishment in their children. We all know…. It’s an unfortunate fact that if you grow up in a home like that, there’s a chance that you might actually subscribe to that. It’s a tough circle. That’s no longer going to happen. We’re going to break that. We’re going to stop that from happening.

Our jobs plan has, as I mentioned, been a raving success. I’m proud to say…. We know by the numbers; they speak for themselves.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

I know by the numbers that people are no longer fleeing from this province like they did in the 1990s. They’re flocking to it today for the good, high-paying jobs that our government is delivering. Thank you.

I am very proud of our province as a whole. Since becoming an MLA and a member of this government, I’ve watched British Columbia become an economic leader in Canada. B.C. is in a unique position. We currently lead the country, as I mentioned, in many areas. In 2011 we were third in Canada in economic growth. Now we’re number one. We’re leading the country. In 2011 we ranked ninth for job creation. We’re now number one. We’re leading the country.

In 2011 we had the fourth-lowest unemployment rate. Now we have the lowest unemployment rate in the country. In fact, December was the seventh consecutive month that B.C. had the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

We can see a trend when we look at our record since 2011. In 2011 we ranked ninth in Canada for job creation. Now B.C. has more people working than ever before. A record 2.4 million people in this province are gainfully employed, and we know that our success is because of the hard work of British Columbians. It’s really our B.C. businesses that are the ones that should be taking a lot of credit, particularly in my community in North Delta. They’re driving our economy. But our government wants to build on that success by expanding the reach of our B.C. jobs plan, so together we can create more long-term, high-paying and secure jobs for British Columbians and their families.

A core priority for the government is the goal to diversify, grow and strengthen the economies of every region in B.C. Another important aspect of our plan is to ensure that our future generations have a highly skilled and sustainable workforce. B.C. has one of the lowest youth employment rates in Canada — period. But we know we need to do more to create long-term, sustainable, high-paying jobs for our youth.

Our government’s B.C. jobs plan also says yes to both resource-based projects and innovation. We’re creating white-coat jobs and hardhat jobs. I’ve had the opportunity, over and over again, actually, to tour several training schools in my riding, and others as well, to see firsthand the results, and they’re very, very stunning.

[1150]

You see, when it comes to development and job creation in this province, British Columbians can always count on their B.C. Liberal government to say yes — yes to jobs, yes to growth, yes to economic prosperity, yes to reinvesting in British Columbians and the ones that we love the most. All of this while we lower the tax burden on middle-class families, unlike the NDP, who oppose every idea of development regardless of the form or tangible benefits for British Columbian families.

The member for Chilliwack yesterday read out a very, very long and, in my opinion, not a very distinguished list of those projects and those development opportunities.
[ Page 13594 ]
That’s why they’ve earned the reputation as the party of no. On countless occasions, they’ve said no to development, no to jobs, no to economic growth, no to lower taxes, no to letting British Columbians keep more of their hard-earned money. I, for one, am pleased to be part of a team and a government that says yes.

In fact, I’ve had the privilege to help this government deliver several major developments for my constituents in Delta — and British Columbia — living south of the Fraser. For example, in 2013, our government completed the long-needed improvements on Highway 17 and construction of the South Fraser Perimeter Road. On this project, the province invested $899 million to improve the movement of goods between people and services through Delta and beyond.

We also announced $30 million for the interchange project at Highway 91 and 72 Avenue just recently as part of the Alex Fraser Bridge cut-the-congestion plan. Once built, the interchange will be a half-diamond configuration which will eliminate the only remaining traffic light on the Highway 91 corridor.

I moved to Delta 30 years ago, and when Highway 91 opened up — I’ll never forget it — you travelled over the Alex Fraser Bridge, you got to the north end, and you hit a traffic light. I never really could quite figure out the sense of that. The east-west connector wasn’t completed so you’d go down Westminster Highway and you’d hit one traffic light after another.

This was overdue, and I’m really glad to be able to deliver it for my community. The replacement of the traffic-signalized crossing with an interchange will cut down on congestion, bringing safety and efficiency upgrades to this key corridor. All these improvements will reduce traffic queues and better serve this growing region, helping B.C. to build on its economic successes.

Another example of a massive project that I’m proud to announce and recently brought to my community is $70 million to improve capacity and reduce congestion on the Alex Fraser Bridge. It will introduce a new, seventh lane and traffic counterflow that will help the morning and afternoon rush hours, and traffic in general. This project also includes adding 13 electronic signs placed at key decision points on highways throughout the Lower Mainland. Once completed in the spring of 2018, commuters and other highway users can expect to save considerable time during the afternoon and morning rush hours.

I’d also like to make note of more than 130 jobs that are expected to be part of this project over its lifetime. Projects like these create high-paying, family-supporting jobs. With these investments in our infrastructure, we’re building a brighter future for British Columbians, together.

As our communities grow and port traffic increases, we need to plan for the future and take advantage of many opportunities in the region. I’m prepared and honoured to take on the role as special adviser to the Minister of Transportation, as the Premier has asked me to do, because there is more input that we can gather to help improve on our ten-year plan that we announced a couple of years ago.

I’m looking forward to engaging the stakeholders in my communities over the next month or two. The discussions that I’ll have will focus on traffic congestion, population growth, highway safety, cycling connections and port traffic. I’m looking forward to hearing local ideas about the province’s transportation network and bringing back opportunities and suggestions that could help shape future improvements to our infrastructure south of the Fraser River.

Once again, I’m honoured to have received this special designation to the minister. I’m looking forward to this very important role and its responsibilities, and I’m looking forward to being able to gather and report back with vital information to the minister in the coming months.

I’m excited about what the future has in store for British Columbia. There are many opportunities that lie ahead for British Columbians. B.C. is in a unique position to continue to be a shining light and an economic leader in Canada. When you combine our low unemployment rate, our highest economic growth, record investments in training and low taxes, as well as our diverse growing sectors, paired with the steady hand of our Premier and our unyielding B.C. Liberal caucus members, our government will continue to ensure that British Columbians continue to come first.

As our economy continues to grow, we’ll be there working hard and ensuring that British Columbians are first in line for our province’s future opportunities.

To draw things to a close, I want to say that I’m honoured to serve my community of North Delta. I look forward to continue serving as a member of this government, and I’m squarely focused on improving the quality of life for all British Columbians.

Noting the hour, and now that I’ve concluded my remarks, I’d like to move the House do now adjourn debate.

S. Hamilton moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. N. Letnick 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 11:55 a.m.

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