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 23, 2017
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 42, Number 2
ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)
ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)
CONTENTS | |
Page | |
Routine Business | |
Introductions by Members | 13795 |
Introduction and First Reading of Bills | 13795 |
Bill M221 — School Amendment Act, 2017 | |
Bill M222 — University Amendment Act, 2017 | |
A. Weaver | |
Introductions by Members | 13795 |
Orders of the Day | |
Budget Debate (continued) | 13796 |
Hon. J. Rustad | |
C. Trevena | |
Moira Stilwell | |
B. Ralston | |
Hon. T. Wat | |
S. Fraser | |
L. Throness | |
L. Popham | |
S. Sullivan | |
G. Holman | |
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2017
The House met at 1:32 p.m.
[Madame Speaker in the chair.]
Routine Business
Introductions by Members
A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to introduce Dr. Michael Markwick, a professor at Capilano University, School of Communication. He was recently named a life-changing professor by the students of Capilano. He is accompanied by Ms. Nora Gambioli, a councillor from the district of West Vancouver, and 20 of his students in a communications class there. Would the House please make them feel very welcome.
Introduction and
First Reading of Bills
BILL M221 — SCHOOL
AMENDMENT ACT, 2017
A. Weaver presented a bill intituled School Amendment Act, 2017.
A. Weaver: It gives me pleasure to move that a bill intituled School Amendment Act, 2017, of which notice has been given, be introduced and read a first time now.
Motion approved.
A. Weaver: This bill amends the School Act to require that a by-election be held within one year of school board trustees being removed and an official trustee being appointed to a district board of education. This situation arises, for example, when a school board is fired.
This bill recognizes the importance of the democratic nature of school boards. It’s essential that school boards are elected so that they can be accountable to the communities they serve and so that they reflect the distinct nature of the district they represent. To this end, this bill would ensure that an appointed trustee cannot be in place for more than one year before an election is held.
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 M221, School 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 M222 — UNIVERSITY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2017
A. Weaver presented a bill intituled University Amendment Act, 2017.
A. Weaver: I move that a bill intituled University Amendment Act, 2017, of which notice has been given, be introduced and read a first time now.
Motion approved.
A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to be introducing a bill termed the University Amendment Act. Universities in the province of British Columbia serve a key role in an economy that is increasingly driven by knowledge, information and ideas. Academic freedom is a fundamental tenet for a culture of learning to succeed, and a key part of academic freedom is found in the right to participate in the university governance.
While the role of a board of governors is essential in a university, the governance of a university must also be independent. It is with this in mind that I bring this bill forward today. This bill amends the University Act to ensure that appointees from the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council cannot unilaterally set the tone and direction of a university board through having a majority of votes and that university boards cannot unilaterally appoint a chancellor for the university.
This act also amends the University Act to change the composition, not the powers, of the senate for special purpose teaching universities. The current composition of the senate in special purpose teaching universities can potentially give the administration of these universities the majority vote. This harms the ability of the senate to keep the academic autonomy of the university at arm’s length from government. This bill will bring British Columbia to the same university governance standards employed by much of the rest of Canada.
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 M222, University 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.
G. Heyman: I seek leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Introductions by Members
G. Heyman: Joining us in the gallery today is a friend of mine, Aaron Ekman, secretary-treasurer of the B.C.
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Federation of Labour. Aaron is originally from Terrace, where I knew his family well and spent many years living and working myself. Aaron is a passionate advocate for communities and workers in the interior of this province as well as in the metropolitan areas. Will the House please make him very, very welcome.
Orders of the Day
Hon. T. Lake: Continued debate on the budget.
Budget Debate
(continued)
Hon. J. Rustad: It’s an honour today to stand up and speak in favour of a balanced budget that is so important for the members of my riding.
I want to start, of course, by saying thank you to the members of the riding for electing me and putting confidence in me to fight for the issues in Nechako Lakes. It’s a tremendous honour to be here to make sure that their voice is heard in this Legislature as part of our government and part of the direction that we are trying to achieve here in British Columbia.
[R. Lee in the chair.]
I also want to take a moment to thank my constituent assistants, Nadine Frenkel and Lori Derkson. They do great work on behalf of the people of Nechako Lakes. On behalf of me and the riding, I’m very thankful to have good constituent assistants that provide that service.
Lastly, I want to start, as well, by thanking my wife, Kim Royle, as well as my family. As we all know in this Legislature, we spend a lot of time away from home doing the work that we are elected to do, fighting for our ridings and representing our ridings both here as well as around the province. That takes away from family, and I’m thankful for them and their support in the work that we do.
Budget 2017 is a balanced budget in many ways. It balances the needs of the people of the province in how we provide services, and it balances the needs of the people in terms of reducing their costs and putting more money in their pockets. It’s an approach that I think is difficult to do, and it’s one that I think we need to be proud of. When you look across Canada, we are now the only jurisdiction, the only province in Canada, with a triple-A rating.
That just doesn’t happen. It means that you have to work hard and that you have to balance the needs of both the people as well as the fiscal responsibility and the respect to taxpayers in this province. It also means that you need to work and focus very much on growing our economy, supporting jobs and supporting families. As we go through my response to the budget, we’ll touch on a few of those things in terms how they affect my riding, the Nechako Lakes. They’ll touch on how it also works within my ministry and how we work towards supporting and respecting and recognizing our First Peoples in British Columbia.
I need to start by talking a little bit about agriculture. Agriculture is important for my riding. The cattle industry is probably, I think, about the second- or the third-largest employer in importance in terms of supporting communities and families. Everybody knows that, in agriculture, in order for fields to do well, they need to be fertilized, but some of the responses we’ve been hearing from the members opposite around our budget could only be described as overfertilization.
I just want to point out a couple of interesting points — one from the member for Alberni–Pacific Rim. He started off his speech with some false information. He incorrectly said that the Legislature here sits on unceded territory. That’s not correct. We signed an agreement with the Songhees and Esquimalt, in respect of those nations, more than a decade ago around this Legislature — an agreement which was historic in recognizing their traditional rights and recognizing them as people, and in recognizing this chamber and the needs of this for all the people of British Columbia. They stepped up to the plate to sign that agreement because they recognized the importance of this for all of British Columbia.
I don’t know why he would start off with a statement that is inaccurate, but I find it interesting that he would do such a thing.
Again, when you look at some of the other things…. Many of the members opposite have claimed that, for example, there is no mention of the word “seniors” in the budget. I mean — absolutely false. Read the budget. It’s clear they obviously haven’t, if they think that is the case.
The budget mentions the word “senior” 22 times — 22 times in the budget. As a matter of fact, it talks about how we’re cutting MSP and the savings that’ll be up for seniors, as well as the additional investment in housing and other support for seniors. The budget is very clear on that. Yet the opposition spread fertilizer around, I guess, like it’s going out of style. It’s quite interesting.
The member just before me had an opportunity to get up and speak, and it was the member for Stikine. I find it interesting. He made a reference to a quote that was used by our Finance Minister, saying: “Go west, young man; go west, young woman.” He was referring to that from a perspective of people across Canada wanting to come to this province because we are the strongest economy.
We’re leading the country in all categories. We’re growing our economy. We’re working in partnership with First Nations. We’re working to create and support family jobs. And people are moving here because of that. The reference was in contrast to the 1990s, when the NDP were in power, because people were leaving and going east. That was the difference that we were talking about.
Interjections.
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Hon. J. Rustad: I see I managed to perk some chirping from the members opposite on this. The numbers speak clearly for themselves — 56,000, I think it was, that moved to British Columbia just in the last little while.
More importantly, the member for Stikine made an accusation that we are being disrespectful to First Nations. I wonder how he can stand to do that when just a year ago he was up on a traditional territory, the Tsimshian nation, signing a proclamation to ban a project from going forward in traditional territory, without asking permission, without going to the hereditary chiefs, without going to the elected chiefs and simply going up and trying to impose his will on a project up in the northwest.
The hereditary chiefs came out with a letter clearly stating their position on this, and many of the elected chiefs of the Tsimshian nations came out in condemnation of their actions, of what they’d done. How is that being respectful to the elders, to the families and to First Nations? For him to stand up and say that I think can only be defined as hypocrisy.
Another false statement made by the member opposite during his speech…. I don’t want to dwell on this, but it’s important to set the record straight.
The member talked about children in care. Well, we’re proud of the fact that there are more than 3,000 less children in care in this province than there were in 2001, when they were last in government — 3,000 less children in care. We have been expanding services. We have done a tremendous amount in terms of supporting that.
The member opposite talks about child poverty. Child poverty rates went up by 43 percent in the 1990s, and it had the largest single drop in B.C.’s history under the B.C. Liberals, to levels that have not been seen since the early 1980s.
We’re proud of the work that we are doing. We’re proud of the fact that we are able to be balanced in our approach, that we’re able to make sure that we’re respectful of taxpayers and that we provide the kinds of services that we need.
For example, our approach on MSP. I have heard from my riding, whether I was in Houston or Fort St. James, Vanderhoof, Burns Lake, Fraser Lake, even the good folks up in Granisle. They’ve all said to me — and when I’ve been talking with seniors — that MSP is an issue. They’re finding it a challenge, and they want us to do something about it.
We have listened to the people of this province, and we’ve come out and taken those steps. Not what the opposition wants to do, which is to swap one tax for another, but to commit to eliminating MSP over time, when we can afford it, and taking a significant first step by reducing MSP by 50 percent for those under $120,000.
That will make a huge difference for the people that I represent in my riding, Nechako Lakes. It’ll make a huge difference in terms of their quality of life and being able to make sure that they can get out and participate and do the things that they like to do in my riding.
On top of that, while we’re doing that — close to a billion dollars in relief for taxpayers in this province — we’re also focused on how to grow the economy. The members opposite seem to think that reducing taxes for small business — this is something they’re going to have to fight. Reducing the burdens under MSP is something they are going to fight and oppose.
Interjection.
Hon. J. Rustad: If they don’t believe me…. The member opposite seems to wonder if that was a question mark.
Let me quote, if I can find the quote here. I believe it was from the member for Victoria–Swan Lake. Just after the budget, he says that they are going to have to fight these tax reductions, these impact reductions. I mean, I don’t know what your members are doing going out and saying that when you’re standing up and trying to say that you don’t….
Anyway, the point is, the reductions that we’re doing for small business mean hiring more people. It means companies being able to invest back into their employees and into the growth of their business. What we’re doing on….
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Members, members.
Order in the House, please.
Hon. J. Rustad: What we’re doing with B.C. Hydro in the reduction of the rates, the elimination of charging PST on hydro for business, will be huge for my riding — for the mines, for the mills, for the operations in the agriculture industry. It will be huge in terms of savings for the people in my riding so that we can continue to see good, strong, family-supporting jobs for Nechako Lakes and, really, across the province.
The member opposite, in particular the member for Stikine, talked a little bit about mining in his speech. I was shocked when I heard it, considering — I think it was the last election or the election before — he stood up in his riding and said that the northwest transmission line would be a waste of time and that money would be better spent on planting trees.
He has never once — and I’ve debated with him many times in this Legislature — stood up and took the challenge of supporting a single mine that wasn’t already permitted. He refuses. Even though his riding is one of the most prosperous, one of the greatest opportunities for mining in British Columbia, he doesn’t support the industry at all.
However, he also made some accurate statements about First Nations. Let me tell you about mining in
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First Nations. The Red Chris mine is supported by the Tahltan. The Tahltan have signed on in supporting Red Chris. They’ve worked with it. They’ve made sure that they have confidence in the way it’s being done.
The folks from the TseK’hene, which is up in Kemess North, have been working very closely with the company. They’ve sent a letter in to us in support of this project going forward, because they have confidence in the way that we do mining in the province British Columbia.
The First Nations around the Blackwater project, which is another mine in the southern portion of my riding — once again, they’ve sent letters to us. They’ve come and met with us wanting us to move forward with the permitting process because they support and have confidence in the way that we do mining here in British Columbia.
Under the NDP, we were down to 6 percent investment, of the investment dollars in Canada, in exploration. We all know you need exploration if you’re going to actually have mining. Today we’re well over 20 percent. It’s phenomenal how industry now has the confidence in our province.
A big piece of that is because we’ve been able to work closely with First Nations in signing agreements, in bringing First Nations to the table, and how we do business and finding ways to make sure that we’re respectful of their rights and title.
To that end, I actually take great pride in our government, in what we’ve been able to do with nations. In the last four years, we have signed about 400 agreements with First Nations, covering everything from forestry to mining to natural gas to pipelines to social issues — right across the spectrum.
Those agreements include work on the advancement of treaties; work on the advancement of long-term reconciliation; incremental treaty agreements; clean energy and clean energy types of projects that that side of the House has opposed every single time they’ve come up; work with the economic community; groundbreaking agreements with the Ahousaht in terms of how we work together to explore development; groundbreaking new agreements with the Carrier-Sekani; even up in the member for Stikine’s riding, working with the Gitxsan on agreements around watershed and an approach to doing business in supporting forestry; groundbreaking agreements on LNG sites and on natural gas pipelines; agreements on extraction and how we work together to make sure that we address the cumulative impacts; environmental stewardship initiatives; training initiatives.
We could go on and on. I think that’s probably one of the reasons why it’s been probably close to two years since the members opposite have even bothered to ask me a question in question period about First Nations.
Interjections.
Hon. J. Rustad: I see that got a little bit of interest from the members opposite. Maybe that means I’ll get a question in the next sitting of the House, in question period.
We’re proud, also, that in the riding I represent…. Of course, it’s a very rural riding — small communities. Trying to figure out how to get to yes on a project is what they want to see. It needs to be done right. We need to make sure we respect First Nations’ interests. We need to make sure we respect the environment. But for every project that comes forward, it’s always a struggle to get it over the line and make it happen. On our side of the House, we start with: how do we figure out how to get to yes? On their side of the House, they just say no.
The members in the northwest, my colleagues across the way, I can say, clearly have not represented their people well. They have not been out representing the working family. They have not supported anything that would create jobs, that would allow people to be able to say to their children: “You have a future in our riding.”
The former chief of the Haisla First Nation, Ellis Ross, said to me just recently: “You know, I’m ashamed that my daughters had to move away, that we weren’t able to develop and bring forward the types of jobs throughout the northwest that they would want to stay and work in.” And right across that riding, whether it’s Skeena or Stikine, people out there want to see their families stay, and they want to see their communities prosper. But it doesn’t happen by saying no. You cannot say no to everything and see that kind of thing happen.
That’s why trying to figure out how you get to yes in a way that’s respectful is the important thing to do. It’s the responsible thing to do. And it’s why we’ve been so focused on it. Those jobs supporting our families, supporting our communities, are a critical component of how we, as government, go to our taxpayers and say: “We’re taking a balanced approach. That’s why we need to do the budget we’re doing, and that’s why we’re taking the steps we’re doing.”
Balanced budgets do not come easy. It is the easiest thing in the world to do what the opposition say, which is: “Just spend more.” Spend more on whatever their pet issue is of the day. But I can tell you that you can’t do that. You have seen an example — for example, in Alberta — where they’re taking a decision to do that, to just spend more. And what has it done? It has exacerbated an already challenging issue for the people in that province. In the 1990s, we saw this province go from one of the leading economies to a have-not province because of irresponsible spending on behalf of the members opposite. And I know they don’t like to hear that.
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. Members, if you have any questions, please address the Chair.
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Hon. J. Rustad: Mr. Speaker, I do apologize for the members opposite getting engaged. They’ll have their time to talk here in the Legislature shortly. I will give them that opportunity and yield the floor here in a short bit.
But it’s important to make sure that we keep the facts. As I started talking at the beginning…. I started talking about supporting agriculture and the dangers of what happens when you spread too much, because the people in this province can smell it when they know that too much has been applied. And the members opposite are clearly trying to do that for the people of this province.
I want to talk about how we’re supporting the rural economy. Like I said, getting to yes is a big part of what we need to do to support the jobs, to support my members and the people I represent in Nechako Lakes.
On top of that, in supporting our rural economy, we’re also investing $40 million to extend broadband service, because we have a growing technology sector. Technology is a key in terms of industry, in terms of development, especially in rural B.C. We are making those investments to expand broadband access throughout rural B.C.
We are also putting $6 million towards the Buy Local program of B.C. agriculture projects. As I said from the beginning, agriculture is an important component in my riding, with forestry and mining and small business. So $10 million is going towards the Island Economic Trust, which is great for helping with the work that is happening on that.
So $6 million for three new international trade offices in Southeast Asia. When you think about my riding, I’ve got folks that are trying hard to grow our exports to Asia. They’re doing it now with hay. They want to expand opportunities with cattle. We’re doing it with lumber. Of course, we’re doing it with the minerals we’re extracting. Trade with Asia and trade around the world is important.
I also find that interesting, because in order to grow the economy and support things like Rural B.C., you need to have that trade. Yet I find it interesting that the members opposite actually opposed NAFTA. Way back, they were on record opposing NAFTA. They’re on record opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP.
I find it interesting that they’re actually out supporting protectionism brought forward by Trump. I don’t know how they quite get there, but whatever it may be, the reality is that we need to be able to grow our exports. We need to be able to do trade if we want to do that, and those offices in Asia are all about making that connectivity and finding those opportunities.
So $15 million for new community grants through a capital program; $12 million to maintain our highways and improve the appropriate standards around those highways; $50 million, which goes for local infrastructure through Build Canada and a clean water initiative; another $25 million that’s going into the rural dividend. All of these are around supporting rural economies.
A big announcement that I know these guys are about to vote against when it comes up in second reading of the budget: $150 million on reforestation, not only to help our forest industry but also to help us in terms of making sure our forests are healthy, absorbing carbon and part of what we need to be doing to support our environment. That’s a $150 million investment right across rural B.C. that they will be proud, I’m sure, to stand up and vote against.
It does go to say that when you stand up, and you say that you try to support rural B.C. and you try to support our economy, you can’t do that by saying no to everything like the members opposite do.
I also find it interesting, and it may be one of the reasons why they don’t have a problem with standing up and saying no, that when it came to electoral boundary distribution, when we wanted to set up the committee and define a special region of the province, being the north, as well as the Kootenays and the Cariboo — three areas that are very rural and share in characteristics — they voted against doing it. As a matter of fact, the member for Stikine was on record saying he didn’t mind seeing rural ridings leave. I don’t know how they go out and say that and say that they actually represent their riding.
Interjection.
Hon. J. Rustad: The member opposite, the member from Sunshine Coast, just says: “What does this have to do with the budget?” I’ll tell you what it has to do with the budget. What it has to do with the budget is moving forward in a responsible way that supports jobs that they vote against. And they vote against even their own ridings in their representation. It’s a point that’s worth making.
I find it interesting, as my time approaches an end here in this, to hear the members opposite in the way they speak. How they can stand up with their approach and go to the taxpayers of this province at our shareholder meeting that we have coming up with nothing but negativity, nothing but fertilizer being spread out, no vision, no opportunity, figuring out how they can continue to be the forces of no.
On this side of the House, we are confident in building the future. We are going to fight for the people of this province. We are going to fight to make sure that softwood lumber is resolved to support our industry. We are going to fight to make sure that we continue to support communities and investments. We are going to fight to make sure that we have the best health care outcomes that we can have in this province, the best educational outcomes that we can have in this province.
Just to that point — one last little stat that I thought might be interesting when we talk about education. The members opposite probably don’t want to remember this, but under them, the graduation rate for indigenous stu-
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dents in this province was less than 37 percent. That was their record.
We have made strategic investments. We have advanced our work with First Nations, and the graduation rates now are 70 percent for indigenous populations and even higher in some areas of the province. It’s something to be proud of in how we work with First Nations and how we work respectfully in this province. As we vote on the fifth balanced budget….
Interjection.
Hon. J. Rustad: On second reading, we will have a vote. The member for North Island obviously has been here long enough that she should realize she does vote on this budget. She will have an opportunity to stand in this House — unless she decides not to, of course — and vote in favour, or not, of this budget.
Having a balanced budget is a key to being able to be successful. If you don’t have a balanced budget, you don’t have the opportunities to be able to make investments.
Interjection.
Hon. J. Rustad: You don’t have the opportunity to look after children. You don’t have the opportunity to look after seniors. You don’t have the opportunity to invest in jobs, invest in companies, to make sure you can drive the economy to have the dollars that are needed. It starts by being balanced. It starts by making sure that you can balance the needs, that you have respect for taxpayers, that you fight for the families and you fight to make sure that they get what they need.
It’s easy to be proud of this budget, because it is balanced. It’s easy to be proud of this budget, because it is the envy of most of the world. They would love to see our situation. They recognize that they have to struggle and make very hard choices ahead to be able to avoid fiscal oblivion but, more importantly, to be able to make sure that as they go forward…. Being able to support their province, being able to support the services, becomes a choice, as opposed to having to manage a decline. Those choices to be balanced are tough. It takes courage. It takes dedication.
I want to congratulate and want to thank our Premier for her vision and leadership. She has stepped up to the plate and set the tone for us as a province. The Finance Minister has come in with a strong balanced budget, the fifth in a row, even despite the fact that the members opposite refuse to believe it was even possible. I get it, because with their management of money, it would never be possible to see a balanced budget.
On this side of the House, what you will see going forward is continual good management, so that the taxpayers of this province, the voters of this province, will have a clear choice in the upcoming election between fiscal responsibility, investing in priorities and returning money to the taxpayers, versus the other side. Quite frankly, we’re not sure what they’re going to offer, other than a little bit of fertilizer — that we’re hearing — and, clearly, fiscal irresponsibility.
I’m proud to take my place in this budget debate. I’m proud of the work that we’re doing with the First Nations in being respectful, building toward reconciliation. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to do, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate that will come on the budget.
C. Trevena: I stand with, unfortunately, a smile on my face to respond to this budget, which is quite a desperate budget. The minister who spoke before…. I would like to have gotten into a debate with him, but since he was hardly talking about the budget and was talking about some very strange areas, I don’t really want to do all the rebuttals.
He said that whether or not we’d be voting for this budget…. I’m very proud. This is my third term, and I’ve got to say I’m very proud that I’ve stood and opposed every single budget of this government — and it is the same government. It has come under different guises, but it’s still a B.C. Liberal government. For 12 years, I have stood here on behalf of my constituents, the citizens of B.C. It’s not as the Finance Minister says. They are not shareholders in this province; they are residents of this province. They are citizens of this province, they are citizens of this country, and they should be respected as such. They shouldn’t be treated as shareholders.
The budget that we are faced with — that is, the pre-election handbook for this government — is really quite extraordinary. It is trying to make people forget the last 16 years. It is trying to make people forget the fact that we do have the worst child poverty, that we have had our seniors starved of care, that we have lost 30,000 jobs in the forest sector, that we have seen a growth in debt.
We heard the minister talking about balance and fiscal responsibility. I don’t know how the government continues to think people are going to buy this, when by 2019, just two years’ time, the provincial debt will be $77.7 billion. That is an extraordinary amount of money — $77.7 billion. The amount has gone up. When the NDP left office in 2001, it was about $30 billion. It has gone, from there, on an ever-increasing rate. Under this Premier alone, it’s gone up about $30 billion. It is terrifying.
Unlike the minister, I am actually going address the budget. I’m going to try and analyze the budget, how it effects my constituents and how I perceive it’s going to affect the province. Because this is the blueprint for the government going towards the election. We didn’t have a vision in the throne speech. I spoke about the throne speech. To be honest, it almost makes you miss the pre-
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vious Premier, Gordon Campbell, who at least had something he wanted to achieve and not just hold on to power. This budget will be the blueprint for the coming election. So I’m going to address how it affects my constituents in the north Island, as well as, as I say, I perceive that it affects the province.
There were lots of rumours before the budget that there was something big that was going to happen. Something dramatic was going to happen. Was it going to be a point off the PST? What was it going to be? What were they going to do? I mean, before the last election, we had the budget which talked about Debt-free B.C. “Debt free, $77.7 billion — we can get around that, I’m sure. I’ll put a bus out there.” We had it about the prosperity fund. There were lots of things there, before the last budget, which never came to fruition.
This time there was going be something big. What it was, was — I believe this is their big piece — the cut to MSP. Cut to MSP, 50 percent. When you’ve doubled MSP and then you cut it by 50 percent, you’re just, surely, admitting a big mistake — that it shouldn’t have gone up that much. We could have told the government this, and we have told the government this. We have been advocating, for a number of years, to actually get rid of the MSP. It is a regressive tax. It is a flat tax. It means that somebody who earns $50,000 or $500,000 a year pays the same. By cutting it in half, it’s still going to be a regressive, flat tax.
We already know that the government is starting to get a bit worried about how they are going to implement this cut, because it is cut in half for people who earn less than $125,000 a year. We know that. But it is the fact that it is a bad tax. We are the only province in this country that charges extra for medical service premiums. It is not — the government has clearly shown this, because the Ministry of Health’s budget has gone up — directly linked to the Health Ministry. It is, effectively, a tax grab.
The cynicism, I have to say, of saying: “Oh, we are going to halve the MSP. Yeah, it did just go up last month. But don’t worry, if you elect us. In January, if you earn this amount of money, we’re going to halve it. And then sometime, somewhere, if you keep on electing us” — which one can only hope the people of B.C. do not do, for everybody’s interest, whether it’s the interests of the communities, people, education, our environment; they don’t keep on re-electing them — “somewhere we will get rid of the MSP.”
I mean, it is a cynical manipulation. It is trying to make people forget that they have doubled the MSP over the last 12 years by coming and saying: “Oh, it’s okay. We’re going to halve it.” Luckily, from people I’ve been talking to…. I mean, it’s now Thursday. The budget was introduced on Tuesday. I’ve obviously been talking to a lot of people since then — calling people in my constituency and having conversations with people. They’re not buying it.
Likewise, they aren’t buying the minister’s, I’ve got to say, damascene epiphany about public education. Suddenly, we have the Minister of Finance…. And I have to read this. I usually like keeping my own words in the record, but I have to read the Finance Minister’s statement here, during the budget speech. He says: “I’ve occasionally been asked what I think is the single most important service government operates or funds.” Then I pick up a sentence later: “If I had to pick one, it would be education, because education is about empowering the individual.”
After 16 years of cuts and cuts and cuts to the public education system, started by the Premier when she was the Education Minister, it was taken to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court forced them to reinvest in education. The reason that they have this Damascene epiphany is because the Supreme Court has said: “You’ve got to put the money back in the system.”
I mean, it is incredible, absolutely incredible that the government….
Interjection.
C. Trevena: The Minister of Education says I don’t understand. I have to say: how can…?
Interjection.
C. Trevena: I’m not going to get into a debate with him, but the very fact that we put a dollar figure on our students is wrong. The fact that we start saying: “Oh, this student is worth X number of dollars.” We should be funding public education because it’s for the good of our kids and it is for the good of our province.
If we do not fund public education, we do not have a civil society. I feel so sorry for those children, those students who have gone through the whole of their education career, from kindergarten to grade 12, and now into higher education…
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Minister.
C. Trevena: …if they’ve been lucky enough to get a place, or into a training system, into an apprenticeship, if they’ve been lucky enough to get one under this government where the cuts have starved the system.
If this system was so well funded up until now, why would the Supreme Court have ruled as it did? Why would we have PACs — parent advisory committees that are supposed to be helping the school system, the boards of education — come up with ideas? Why would they be fundraising for playgrounds — for paper, for goodness sake? Why would teachers be buying supplies for the school system? Why would kids be lucky to be sharing a textbook if this was the best-funded education system?
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If we do not fund public education, we are cheating not just those children, but we are cheating our whole province. It undermines what we can do. It undermines our civil society, and by undermining our civil society, it undermines our democracy. It is a dangerous thing to do — absolutely dangerous.
Interjection.
C. Trevena: The other area, which we had some back and forth on….
I’m happy to carry on talking about education and may come back to it. In my constituency, I have a number of high schools because I have three different school districts. If I went to any of those three school districts, all of them would come back to me and say: “We don’t have enough money.”
They’re not looking for the world. They’re just looking for enough to make sure that they can keep up. Not with just inflation, not just with making sure that they can educate the children the right way, but there has been an increase in MSP. There has been a massive increase in hydro bills. They have to meet carbon-neutral commitments.
There are so many demands and so much downloading on the system that there is no way that any of the three school districts have been able to keep up without affecting what goes on in the classroom. They do not want to do that. None of the school boards in my constituency or, I’d say, around the province want to see any cuts to public education. Yet this government since 2001, when the Premier was Education Minister, has been absolutely attacking it.
The minister before obviously did a word count. He went through the budget speech — if he’s got it up on Word. I think maybe he can do it on Adobe Acrobat. You know, you count how many words, and with Word find, he found the word “seniors” did appear a few times in the budget. But there was nothing actually which does anything for seniors in this budget.
We have an aging demographic. We know this, yet there was nothing in this budget which is going to help seniors. I mean, again, is this going to be…?
Interjections.
C. Trevena: Well, the ministers don’t need to pay hydro bills.
The minister represents a rural riding, as I do. I don’t know whether the minister has actually talked to any seniors in his rural riding. Go to the seniors centre in Campbell River, sit down over lunch and talk to seniors who go to have lunch there because that’s the only hot meal they are going to get. They are making a choice between their food, their hydro bills and their drug costs.
Seniors cannot afford to live in B.C. — and that’s in Campbell River. We’re not talking about downtown Vancouver. We are talking about people who worked hard for their lives, and they are not able to make ends meet, thanks to this government.
We are talking about…. They have this budget. They Twitter around, saying: “We’ve got this. We’ve got that.” They are expecting that people will look at this budget and say: “All is forgiven. We’re okay.”
Nine out of ten of our publicly funded seniors homes do not meet the benchmark standard for care hours. You can even talk to…. I mean, I’ve talked to them in my constituency, and they know they don’t meet those benchmark standards. I’ve talked to the Ministry of Health about this.
There is one case in the constituency where we have had a care worker talking about the poor conditions that seniors have found themselves in. She has catalogued a very nasty list, which is very public, about what has happened there. I’ve had other people who have family at that care home talk about dental hygiene.
I’ve also talked to the care home. The care home, itself, says: “We don’t have the funding to give the standardized hours.” They do 3.1 hours of care for a senior. The benchmark is a massive 3.6 hours. I mean, 3.6 hours, in itself, is low.
When we are dealing with seniors, who have different levels of need, it is extraordinary. You’re looking after health needs. You’re looking after bathing needs. You’re looking after helping people get out of bed. You’re looking after people dressing. You’re looking after the sociability. You’re looking after meals for some of them. It is extraordinary that we can expect that 3.6 hours is okay and 3.1 is…. We should be doing more for our seniors.
Yesterday I asked the Minister of Health about bathing of seniors who are being cared for at home, where we’re trying to keep them because we want to make sure they can stay at home as long as possible. If they don’t get the baths that they need, if they don’t get the help that they need, that’s not going be possible.
I mean, this system is broken. It is grossly underfunded. The workers are doing their best. The health care workers, the workers in these seniors homes, are doing their very best. But it is not funded.
Interjection.
C. Trevena: While the Minister of Health is continuing his conversation…. He’s going to like this one, because in the budget, under the capital investment, Campbell River Hospital is mentioned.
Campbell River Hospital — we are very lucky — has been mentioned again. I think this is four budgets that the government has announced Campbell River Hospital. We’re all extraordinarily pleased that it’s happening. It opens this year. I’m very much looking forward to when
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the NDP’s Health Minister goes to the official opening of this hospital.
But I have to say that if the stories I’m hearing about the construction of that hospital are true, it will underline every fear that people have had about the 3P construction process. By the time that hospital hands over to the health authority, and therefore the government, with the standards that I have been hearing from people who have been working…
Interjection.
Deputy Speaker: Minister.
Continue.
C. Trevena: …there are going be serious costs for repair.
There is also the other problem with the privatization of our health care system, which is coming, very subtly, for some cases. It’s the fact that….
We are going to have a new hospital. We are all looking forward to this new hospital. I’ve got to say it is something that the community has needed for a long time. We are very pleased that the minister finally listened to myself and to other advocates in the community and we got a hospital in Campbell River, not down in Dove Creek.
But with the privatization of the system, we are losing the housekeeping staff. We’re losing the kitchen staff.
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Members.
Please proceed.
C. Trevena: The people who have been working hard on behalf of everyone in the community in that hospital are going to lose their jobs or have to come back at a lower rate of pay. That is absolutely unconscionable.
Interjection.
C. Trevena: The Minister of Advanced Education says it’s fiction. He should come and talk to some of the people who I’ve talked to who work in the hospital who say: “I’m not going to have a job.” People say to me, because I am their representative, that….
Interjections.
C. Trevena: The ministers over there who are twittering obviously don’t ever talk to their constituents. Otherwise, they, too, would say about people who are saying things to them…. If they talked to their constituents, they, too, would have stories from their constituents to bring here, instead of the alternate facts we’ve heard for the last 16 years.
I would like to talk about Monica from Sayward, who came into my office because she is on income assistance. Now, this government might have forgotten that the income assistance rates haven’t been raised for 11 years. The people who are going to be going to vote and who look at this budget have not forgotten that. This government may try and forget it.
She came into my office because there was a problem with her receiving assistance. There was a glitch in the CPP system. Now, CPP admitted it was a glitch. My staff went to help her at the social services office, and they wouldn’t accept there was a glitch. So Monica hadn’t been getting any money since November.
Finally, it was sorted out. Finally, she was going to get her cheque. Finally, she was going to get her money. The Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation would not accept that CPP had made a mistake. They wouldn’t accept that even CPP was saying: “We made a mistake. Please give this woman her money.” They wouldn’t accept that. Finally, that was sorted.
Monica lives in Sayward. It’s cheaper to live in Sayward. It’s 75 kilometres. She’s got a beater car. She needed to get home. She went to the ministry for a crisis grant — $20, get gas, get home. She was refused. She was told that she was not going to get food, and therefore, she could not get this crisis grant.
When we asked her what she did — she got back in touch with us later — Monica said: “I had to go outside to get that money.” That woman — read into it what you will — had to go outside to get gas money to get home. This is what 16 years of this government has done. It is heartless, absolutely heartless.
She eventually got her social assistance, which is a pittance. She eventually got it. She was told a few days later: “Oh, you can have a crisis grant, but you’ve got to come back into the office to pick it up.” So another 150 kilometre round trip. She didn’t. It is unconscionable, as I say, what this government has done.
I mentioned Sayward, 75 kilometres from Campbell River. I mention in my response to the throne and mention every time that I stand up here how proud I am to represent the North Island. It is a wonderful constituency. I know we all talk about our own constituencies as the best place. North Island is stunning, and it’s a microcosm of the province. Campbell River is the biggest community. Lots of smaller communities. Quite a number of First Nations communities — about 21 First Nations in the constituency. And lots of small communities.
So very much rural. It’s sometimes described as remote. In fact, quite a lot of the communities are remote. Looking at this budget, when we’ve been talking about investment in rural areas, I’ve got to say there is a big hole. Last night one of the mayors…. We had a reception with mayors across the province. One of my mayors — in fact, he was the mayor of Sayward…. I said to him: “What do
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you think of this budget? What do you think of the rural approach?” He just looked at me and said: “Give me the money, honey. It’s not there.”
It isn’t there. There is nothing. We have the rural dividend. That’s about it — the rural dividend, which you’ve got to apply for. It’s really rigorous and very hard to get. There’s that.
We need to have a fair share system so that the wealth from our communities — whether it’s a Port McNeill, a Port Hardy, a Sayward — which produce the wealth of this province, goes back to those communities. That would be a healthy way of approaching it, rather than each community having to desperately apply for yet another grant for basic infrastructure or sewage or whatever it is. We need to make sure that that money that has come from — whether it’s the stumpage, whether it’s from minerals — whatever it is can get back into those communities.
Instead, what we have is, effectively…. As I say, we’ve got the rural dividend, and I think there’s some reference to B.C. Lotteries. So we can also do B.C. Lotteries. That will really help the rural communities.
Also, we’ve had the Premier going up and down the Island talking about how this time she’s going to have a vision for Vancouver Island. She has been Premier for a number of years. She’s been in the government for a number of years. Vancouver Island is where the…. I know she doesn’t like coming here. She has made it very clear. She doesn’t like coming here. But Vancouver Island is a large entity that she’s suddenly discovered. Again, maybe it’s another revelation.
She’s discovered the Island as a place. She’s clearly not discovered that it’s largely rural and needs rural investment. Nor has she discovered that we have a marine highway that links us to the mainland. Highway 1 is from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo. Highway 17 — Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay, a provincial highway. Highways across from Swartz Bay to Saltspring, from Saltspring to Crofton, from Campbell River to Quadra, from Buckley Bay to Denman. We have highways all over the place.
The Premier and the Minister of Finance seem to have forgotten that. But it is their responsibility, quite clearly. You look in the budget, and under the Minister of Transportation’s budget is coastal ferries. It is the minister’s responsibility. He has a duty to respond to that — and not respond to it just as a tourism opportunity but as part of our highway system.
I’m thinking that when we have the Premier talking about some vision for the Island, she actually, like her vision for B.C., is more about the spin to get re-elected than anything about what our Island needs. Because what our Island needs…. Our Island does not need the Coastal Ferry Act. It does not help our ferry system. In fact, it’s not just the people who live on the Island. Our whole economy needs a substantial reduction in the fares so we can have a freer flow of people and of goods around our province.
At the moment, with the increasing fares — 164 percent on some routes…. It’s stifling. It’s stifling development. It is forcing people from their homes. It is seriously affecting the tourism industry. It’s something that really needs to be dealt with, but it’s not in this budget.
Ferries, as I say, are part of the Minister of Transportation’s responsibility. It’s interesting to see that while that isn’t part of the pavement politics…. There is no money going into ensuring that ferry fares are affordable and that we can use our marine highway. We are already seeing some of the pavement politics.
I’ve got to say that I was rather amused that, for my constituency, there was a big government announcement for effectively patching part of the inland Island highway coming into Campbell River. I mean, it’s work that needs doing. But to have an announcement of all this money that’s going into this…. These are regular repairs that need doing. This is the infrastructure of our province, and we have to hold it together.
I acknowledge that we now have money going into part of the four-laning of the Trans-Canada Highway. We need to see a lot more. We need to see actual, specific timelines on that, which has not been happening. Instead, every election cycle we see billboards going up.
Likewise, we see billboards going up around for the other major infrastructure project — $3½ billion so far for the replacement of the Massey Tunnel, a replacement when we still haven’t had a reasonable explanation of the cost, how that $3½ billion is reached.
When we see one of the previous Ministers of Transportation…. I find myself in the invidious position of defending Kevin Falcon and quoting him. When he was Minister of Transportation, the tunnel was seismically upgraded and that was going to last another 50 years.
If you put in bus lanes and you put in high-speed transit, you have to deal…. We all accept that there is major congestion at the Massey Tunnel. We have to do something about it. But we would like to see a very clear explanation of why, where this money is coming from, how you get to $3½ billion, and whether there are better alternatives.
I would posit that there are definitely better alternatives than a ten-lane mega-bridge, which is going to lead in back into four lanes, which is going to lead into more congestion. There is no way…. I mean, I’ve had it explained to me in several ways. It makes no sense to myself, and it makes no sense to nearly all the mayors in the Lower Mainland. All but one have a different vision for how they want to move people around their region, yet this government pigheadedly moves along with that bridge.
[R. Chouhan in the chair.]
We should learn from past experience. Port Mann was the last, effectively, big boondoggle for this government
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when it comes to bridges. It had an estimated cost of about $1.6 billion. It ended up being $3½ billion. It lost…. It’s continually losing money. This year it’s forecast to lose another $90 million. This is public money. This is a reckless use of public money. The number of vehicles for 2016 was 112,274. That is still less than the previous bridge.
Yet this government is moving hell for leather with another $3½ billion investment — I say $3½ billion; who knows what it’s going to be at the end — without being transparent about how they got to that figure. Without realistically listening to the demand of the communities, which is, “Give us transit; don’t give us a mega-bridge,” without listening to the demands of Richmond, which is saying, “We don’t want this,” and without looking at serious alternatives, which could include keeping the tunnel.
I see that my time is almost at a close. I find, once again, that I had a lot more to say. But I’ve got to say that this is a budget designed to make people try and forget the last 16 years. I think it’s going to fail on that.
People are going to remember that the Premier puts herself and her rich friends first. They’re going to remember that she’s taken a second salary. They’re going to remember that there was a $1 billion tax cut for billionaires. They’re going to remember, and they see it already, the increase in using the public service for political advertising. They’re going to remember the fact that it is all about politics and not about public policy.
Moira Stilwell: It’s a bittersweet honour and privilege to stand today to speak in support of the budget — bittersweet because this will be my last speech on the floor of this Legislature as the MLA for Vancouver-Langara. As members may know, I am not running for re-election in May, instead returning once again to my career in medicine.
To say that the last eight years have flown by would be an understatement. As a member of the Legislature class of 2009, I have had the opportunity to serve my constituents of Vancouver-Langara alongside two Premiers who, while having their own distinct personalities, have both demonstrated a shared commitment to our province and to B.C. families.
I have sat and listened to many budgets, and while each reflects the uniqueness of a particular moment in time and the circumstances we face at the time of writing, they have two underlying characteristics. First, they take a certain pride in what this province has accomplished, which by any measure is more than impressive. Second, perhaps even more important, they demonstrate an unambiguous pride in what this province can be in the future.
As I think of all of the debates I have sat through in this House in eight years and all of the debates that came before us in this chamber, it’s hard not to be reminded that this province’s story will never be finished. Instead, there will always be chapters yet to be written.
As for me, I am pleased and honoured to have played some small part in the pages that have made up the past eight years, years that have included the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games; the rebuilding of the economies at home and abroad after the 2008 economic meltdown; the opening of major infrastructure projects, such as the new Port Mann Bridge and Canada Line; the incredible diversification of our provincial economy; successive balanced budgets; and, year after year, record investments in health, education and social services.
But these are not the only milestones and memories for me. You see, before being elected, I was like most British Columbians. I was always too busy with my own career and family to pay much attention to politics, and like most people, I was often cynical about politics and those who venture into that arena. But like virtually everyone in this chamber, there came a time when the call to serve our province in a capacity beyond our everyday jobs arrived.
For me, it started as the chair of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Not only did I meet a board that was full of people with a deep and long-term interest in politics, but I also learned the value and importance of the art of advocacy. Standing up and speaking out felt natural, and to be heard was even better. And then I had the chance to make a difference, and I was hooked. I realized then and there that politics was a way of making a real difference, so I like to think I jumped in with both feet, and I hung up my stethoscope and started campaigning.
And I loved it. I loved every part of it — the door-knocking, the canvassing, the candidate debates, the never-ending stream of community events, the election night count, the constituents, the often raucous to-and-fro of life in this chamber and the camaraderie of meeting men and women on both sides of this House, who share a common purpose if not always the same political stripe. And that is their strong belief that public service is both worthwhile and a necessity for any democracy that wants to thrive and be relevant. If you ever doubt the wisdom in that sentiment, just look to our neighbours to the south and the angst, concern and confusion that comes when ego trumps every virtue. With such a daily display of disarray, who knows how it will play out for them and for us?
After all, democracy is a fragile commodity. It counts on a certain civility and a sense of common purpose. It counts on a free and unfettered press, even when we don’t always like what we read or hear. And it counts on people like those of you in this Legislature, men and women who are prepared to stand up and say that you’ll put aside your day jobs and, on many days, ignore your families just so you can help steer this incredible province of ours in the right direction. It’s a belief that we all do well when we all do well and that no one, particularly the most vulnerable among us, should be left behind.
These days, having the right people sitting in the Legislature is more important than ever. If I have learned anything over my eight years in politics, it’s that most
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people don’t think about politics or budgets 24-7. That probably sounds awful to those of us who spend every waking moment on politics, but the truth is that most people want government to be invisible — not intrusive, but there when it’s needed.
As a physician, you make life-and-death decisions almost every day, and because we are human, we sometimes make mistakes. Government and politicians are no different, sometimes no matter how well-intentioned we might be. When we do make a mistake, the best thing we can do is acknowledge our shortcomings, our mistakes, and count on British Columbians to understand, forgive and give us another chance to make it right.
Showing our humanity, in my opinion, is not a weakness. Instead, I like to think it’s a strength and an understanding that British Columbians know we are not infallible. That belief in the decency of the average British Columbian reinforces something else I learned after winning in 2009. I campaigned as a B.C. Liberal and won as a B.C. Liberal…
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Members.
Moira Stilwell: …but understood that I was the MLA for all of my constituents, not just those who voted for me.
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Members, could you keep your voices low, please. Thank you.
Moira Stilwell: Campaigning and governing are two different worlds, as everyone in this House knows.
The other lesson I’ve learned along the way is that our province’s best leaders are the ones with the big ideas and the ability to bring the rest of us along. I’ve had the advantage of sitting with two Premiers, each with their own personality and different in many ways. But each has brought a dedication to this province that is unchallenged, and both of them have had the capacity to see the big picture, a picture that is, on its best days, all about our future.
In fact, when Premier Gordon Campbell asked me to consider running, I knew I would regret it if I said no. The truth is that after being in medicine for nearly 30 years, where I met all sorts of brilliant men and women, he was the first really great leader I had ever worked for. It was an eye-opener.
As I get ready to go back to medicine, I know that my time in politics gave me a chance to stand on the shoulders of giants and gave me a chance to see more of this province and understand more of this province than I could ever do in medicine alone. I’ve had the chance to visit every corner of this province — a place the size of Western Europe, a place with a rural and urban divide that remains a very real challenge for our government and governments in the future.
I’ve also had the chance to be Minister of Advanced Education and, later, Social Development. So I’ve seen our province’s genius up close, and I know what B.C. is capable of as we task ourselves with helping to solve problems and help build a new future for British Columbia families.
I’ve experienced this Legislature and cabinet in person, and I know the challenges of doing the much-needed day-to-day tasks that keep government functioning while trying to keep one eye on the big picture for the future. As politicians, we are often too diverted by the needs of the immediate, the here and now.
Like everyone in this House, I’ve heard the old political truth that our first job when we get elected is to stay elected. It’s a reality, of course, but the key is to get the important and much-needed things done, sometimes in spite of politics. All of us know that is no small feat.
On the rare occasions when I doubted or questioned or felt inadequate to the tasks of my constituents, I was always bolstered by the simple fact that the human condition is to hope. I saw it in my constituents, even when I wasn’t able to give them the answer they were looking for or the result they hoped for. For some reason, they always left me with a thank-you, even just for trying on their behalf.
You see, my constituents, like yours, are down-to-earth, pragmatic, realistic and willing to take responsibility for themselves and their families. They are, by almost any measure, community-minded and willing to reach out and make life easier for those in need and our province’s most vulnerable, whether they be our seniors, our children or those who have found themselves in need. Most of them will never make a headline or win the Order of B.C., but they are, each and every one of them, everyday heroes in their own way.
They raise families and pay their taxes. Some run businesses. Some care for elderly parents or children with special needs. Frankly, they look to government for very little, but they count on government when there is a real need. Most of all, they look to us to ensure there is a level playing field and that everyone has opportunities and no one is left behind.
When I look at this session’s budget, I look for the things that will help make life easier and better for my constituents and yours. It’s why I’m proud of our government’s record as number one in Canada in terms of economic growth; as the home of the lowest taxes for middle-class families; as a province with the best health outcomes in the country, including cancer survival rates; our investments in health, education and social services; having the longest life expectancy in North America and the lowest heart attack rates.
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And $1,200 to families with new children so they can start saving for post-secondary education. Record investments in adoptions so that more children have been placed in forever families. All these things and more help to make this province what it is today.
As a province, we have worked hard to get our fiscal house in order, something families have to do each and every day. But together we have put our province in a position to take steps to ease the financial burden on our citizens.
Did I get to do everything I wanted in the past eight years? No. And there’s always the worry about the things that you left on the table, the things that are still undone. As a story with many more chapters still to be written, I know that in this business, sometimes progress is measured in inches and not miles.
I know that on May 9, someone else will fill this seat. They will come to this chamber just as each of us arrived: full of hope and enthusiasm and a work ethic to get things done for their constituents and province. Time and processes may ultimately dull their enthusiasm a little, but I have yet to meet a former MLA who did not ultimately relish every day in office. While there are days that you definitely feel weary, there are great days when you know you have truly accomplished something for the people who sent you to this House to be their voice.
With that, I want to leave you with one parting shot and a reminder that in politics, some days you’re the pigeon and other days you’re the statue.
A B.C. Liberal MLA, an NDP MLA and a Green Party MLA are on a flight together from Victoria. The Liberal says: “I’m going to throw a $100 bill out the window and make a British Columbian really happy.” The NDPer doesn’t want to be outdone, so she says: “Well, I’m going to throw two $50 bills out the window and make two British Columbians really happy.” The Green Party MLA decides to go with the flow and says: “Well, then I’m going to throw these 100 loonies out of the window of the plane and make 100 British Columbians really happy.”
At this point, the pilot hears all the commotion, comes through the door and says: “If you don’t shut up, I will throw all three of you out the window and make 4½ million British Columbians really happy.”
That’s just a gentle reminder to all of us that we should take our work seriously but not ourselves. We are here at the pleasure of our fellow British Columbians.
There’s much to do, and there always will be. Those of us who are leaving have done our best to leave a mark, not just to say we’ve been here but to give those who will come after us some direction that keeps B.C. moving forward. That is ultimately the B.C. story, each chapter better than the last — the kind of page-turner that you can’t put down and that makes all of us want to keep reading.
B. Ralston: It’s a pleasure to take my place in the debate.
I want to begin just by acknowledging the voters and the citizens of Surrey-Whalley who elected me last time and who have always been warm, welcoming and open to everyone in British Columbia, despite what we sometimes might hear about my community elsewhere. It’s a wonderful place to live, to raise a family, to have a business, to attend university or college, and just a great community that is growing. It’s thriving, it’s lively, and it’s a great place to live.
I do want to talk about the budget, because pre-election budgets are a special form of the art of budget-making. It’s useful, I think, to think about what the government hopes to achieve in this budget and hopes to achieve with the throne speech accompanying it.
There is a clinical medical term called amnesia, which is a cognitive disorder where the memory is disturbed or lost. It involves the loss of memories previously held. What the government is attempting to do is to induce collective amnesia in the citizens of British Columbia, to forget what they’ve done over the last number of years and to focus entirely on the promises that they’ve made this time as they approach the election. It’s only a few months away; May 9 is the date of the election.
In pursuit of that effort to ward off amnesia, let me turn to the Speech from the Throne of February 2013. This is not something that I’m saying. This is the voice of the government from that chair over there, spoken by the Lieutenant-Governor in February 2013.
Of course, there was discussion of natural gas. Let me just read a few passages from the Speech from the Throne. “An estimated 39,000 new full-time jobs, on average, will be created during the nine-year construction period. Once all facilities reach full production, there could be over 75,000 new annual full-time jobs.”
There’s discussion of a stream of revenue: “The second stream of revenue comes from new royalty revenues directly for the province, British Columbia’s share of resource profits. This could exceed $100 billion over the next 30 years.” This is not me saying that. This is the government; this is the B.C. Liberals before the last election. “To protect this second stream of revenue for generations to come, your government is establishing the British Columbia prosperity fund.” And the prosperity fund will have certain measures.
A key focus of the B.C. prosperity fund will be to reduce the provincial debt. “We have an obligation to make good on this debt, rather than ask our children to pay it for us.” It goes on to offer some more assurances and blandishments, and it goes on to say: “Whether it is eliminating the provincial sales tax or making long-term investments in areas like education or vital infrastructure that strengthen communities, these are the kinds of opportunities that the B.C. prosperity fund can provide.”
Now, this is the Speech from the Throne. Those statements were manipulated and worked upon and, in a ser-
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ies of government ads, came out in a much more direct way, but the figures are the same: $100 billion in revenue, eliminating the sales tax, 100,000 jobs. That was before the last election.
Now, if the Premier is successful in inducing collective amnesia, people will forget about that. They won’t remember that. They’ll focus on what the government is attempting to have people focus on: some of the statements that they’ve made in the last little while.
The effort of the government in this budget is to really make the citizens of B.C., as best they can…. Certainly, there’s an effort. There is a wish on behalf of the government, and this will be reinforced. The Minister for Advanced Education, who is responsible for government advertising, says there will be another couple of million dollars spent on advertising the budget — a couple of million dollars spent on advertising the budget — to induce that amnesia.
The Premier wants you to forget a number of things. She wants you to forget about the $300,000 in salary that she took from her wealthy donors: $50,000 a year. I represent people in Surrey-Whalley. The average income in Surrey-Whalley is $46,000 a year — a family income for an entire year. This is the Premier getting, from her wealthy donors, a top-up more than the average annual income of a family in my riding.
What do you think they think about that? Do you think they’re going to forget that? They’re not.
The Premier now, apparently, says she’s not taking it. She’s taken those cheques and put them in the desk drawer. The only reason she did that was because the New York Times wrote a story about it. The New York Times wrote a story about it, and those who do lending in the financial markets read the New York Times. Those bond agencies, those analysts at bond agencies in New York, read the New York Times. It was only when it came to a story in the New York Times that the Premier was prepared to take the cheques and put them in the desk drawer and wait to see what happens.
She also, in previous budgets, gave a tax break to the top 2 percent of tax-filers. So not the bottom 98 percent; the top 2 percent. So $250 million a year over a four-year cycle, rolled up, in the way that governments like to roll up their numbers in their three-year, four-year and five-year plans. A billion-dollar tax break — $1 billion less in tax revenue taken in — and there’s no public record of this tax break being asked for.
One can only assume that that might be the subject of discussion in private discussions, perhaps at some of the private dinners, where participants were paying $25,000 or $50,000 to have dinner with the Premier.
The Premier wants you to forget that more than half of British Columbians are living paycheque to paycheque. Many people are buried by household debt and are barely making ends meet with low pay and the worst wage growth in Canada. People in my riding are hard-working. They’re not lazy. They’re out there looking for jobs. I’ve had people come to my office asking me to help them. They’re desperate. They’re looking for work.
Sometimes they don’t have the range of skills that are necessary. Sometimes they can only find part-time work, and the growth in part-time jobs is much more rapid than the growth in full-time jobs. Sometimes people will piece together two part-time jobs in order to have something approaching an income, if they can find two part-time jobs with compatible schedules and work in child care, work in transportation.
Often the hours for some of these jobs are graveyard shifts — cleaning jobs, security jobs, fast-food jobs, those kinds of jobs. They are work, and there is a nobility to doing a job and to doing that work, so I’m not casting any aspersions on the work or the people that do it, but it is tough. It is tough. If the Premier thinks that people are going to forget about that by some of the manoeuvres that are contained in this budget, she is wrong. She is wrong, wrong, wrong.
The Premier has suddenly had a conversion on medical services premiums. A year ago she said that it was important to have medical services premiums because it was important to remind people that health care costs money. Apparently, the argument was that by paying MSP premiums, people therefore realized that health care costs money.
I think that’s the argument. It’s not a very compelling one. The measure of how weak an argument it is, is that the Premier has completely abandoned that. She now says that she hates that tax. She always did, apparently, but she just wasn’t able to express it until right now. She wants you to forget about her previous answer. She wants you to forget about her previous position. Under the B.C. Liberals, medical services premiums have doubled. Now, on the eve of an election, she wants you to forget that. In the budget, the Premier is going to lower MSP premiums by half.
She wants working families in ridings like mine and throughout the province who pay hydro bills to forget the steady increases of hydro rates. In fact, before the last election, a promise was made, which she hopes you’ll forget, that hydro rates weren’t going to go up at all. Of course, since the election, since 2013, they’ve gone steadily upwards.
She wants you to forget about the crisis and the difficulty for working women and men in finding affordable child care. The recognition that child care is important is recognized by a whole host of people, agencies and companies across the province.
I remember when the Finance Committee toured Prince George. The Prince George Chamber of Commerce, in the heartland of British Columbia — a credible chamber of commerce, of course — said that they supported a child care program because they were
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having employers and small businesses in Prince George who were having trouble recruiting labour, people to work in their businesses — particularly women. For better or for worse, the burden of child care falls more to women than to men, generally, and women weren’t able to find affordable, safe, reliable child care and, therefore, couldn’t go out and work. The Prince George Chamber of Commerce recognized that.
The Premier wants you to forget about that. She doesn’t want to discuss that. There’s some mention in the budget of several thousand more child care spaces, but in a province as big as ours, with a labour force of 2.6 million people employed both full-time and part-time, that number of spaces, while it’s an advance, is a very, very small advance. It doesn’t go very far towards addressing the real need in the province.
Progressive countries, whether they’re Nordic countries or elsewhere, recognize the importance of the early years for children and the importance of child care for a whole host of reasons. Yet this important social program is something that has not been the focus of the attention of the government — certainly not in the years that I’ve been here. The government wants you to forget about that. They want you to forget all about that.
The Premier also, in putting forward the budget…. We heard from the Minister of Finance, talking about the importance of education. If he had to pick one benefit of government, he said it was education — kind of a moment from the Abe Lincoln of Matsqui Prairie. What he said was that public education was an important opportunity. But that’s not something that has been reflected in the actions of this government.
The Supreme Court of Canada had to intervene. The government spent years and millions of dollars in litigation, fighting the case all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, where they unceremoniously dumped the case out in about 25 minutes. Typically, in a case of that importance, one expects the court to wrestle with the problem, to take some time to write a decision. The evidence and the arguments were so compelling against the government that they threw the case out very, very quickly.
That’s a measure of something that the government also wants you to forget, the way in which, — notwithstanding the affirmation of the Finance Minister, they’ve treated public education — the teachers and the students in public education — over the entire lifetime of their government.
The Premier also hopes people will forget that nine in ten seniors care homes are understaffed. They’re leaving our frail elderly, those who have worked hard and contributed to society, near the end of their lives…. She hopes that will be forgotten that the care standards set by the government itself are not being met in nine of ten care facilities.
It’s clear that this government, this budget, doesn’t work for everyday people. It doesn’t work for working people here in the province. We’ve shifted in many parts of British Columbia — this is certainly the experience that I have in my city of Surrey — to an economy of low-wage jobs. Yes, there are some high-wage jobs, but increasingly, there are low-wage jobs, and many of those jobs are part-time. Good-paying forestry jobs — 30,000 have disappeared over the lifetime of this government. The Premier wants you to forget about that.
There are other things that the Premier wants you to forget about. I mentioned seniors care. In my riding, a recent story by CBC television, which ultimately became a national story, was about Lana Turner. The member for New Westminster has raised this issue in question period. This is a woman who is a quadriplegic. She moved from Campbell River, on Vancouver Island, to be closer to her 22-year-old son. He works in construction and is unable to help in the day with her care, according to the news report.
She was left without a bath for a month. She said that her home support provider simply ignored her complaints and that the service left her feeling hungry, disgusting and depressed. She was told she could receive a caregiver visit at 6 p.m. and that would mean that they couldn’t come any later. That would mean that 6 p.m. was her bedtime because that’s when a support worker would change her into pyjamas and put her to bed. She’s unable to socialize, unable to go to evening events. She became increasingly depressed.
Now, given the publicity attached to this story, Fraser Health intervened, and there are some changes being made. But it’s, I think, symptomatic and disappointing — that would maybe be a mild word to use — that this kind of public intervention in the media was necessary for this person, Lana Turner, to get attention to her case.
I think there are other MLAs here who have had the same experience with their constituents, where one goes to the media as an MLA. It’s usually a last resort. Once one goes to the media, then sometimes there is intervention by the agency or ministry involved. That is a symptom more of a government that wants to manage public impressions of its work than provide the service to others.
For every Lana Turner who speaks out, who has the assistance of others to speak out and get to the media, there are others who don’t and who continue to suffer, perhaps in silence, or simply are ignored even though they may raise the issue with the relevant agency or caregiver.
This kind of treatment, this kind of a policy…. It seems to be — certainly in that region, in my region, in the Fraser Health region, and I’m sure that Fraser Health will correct me if I’m wrong — something that the Premier and the government want people to forget before the election.
The other area, in my city of Surrey, my riding of Surrey-Whalley…. Surrey-Whalley is not a rapid-growth
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area, except in certain parts of the city centre, but unlike the very rapidly growing parts of the city, there is a deficit in school construction.
We saw the Surrey school board…. It is not a particularly partisan board. If they are partisan, they’re certainly not a pro-NDP board. They’re, I think, a less partisan board. They felt so besieged by the circumstance in which Surrey schools found themselves that they called, by resolution, for a moratorium on residential construction in Surrey — a very drastic step.
It’s not one that I support, but it is a measure of the degree to which they felt capital spending in Surrey had fallen behind — so far that they didn’t see themselves being able to support new residential construction in Surrey. That is a big step, because residential construction is an important constituent, an important part of the local economy in Surrey.
If the Minister for Housing or the Minister of Finance is to be believed, one of the solutions to the housing crisis in the Lower Mainland is more supply. So for them, knowing all of that, to take that position was a major step, a very drastic step, and it’s a measure of the degree to which they felt, and they continue to feel, that the capital needs of the Surrey school district aren’t being addressed.
The government — again, wanting to make you forget about all of that — had an announcement recently, I think, presided over by the Minister of Education and made some announcements and partial re-announcements of the capital spending that projects out over the next four years.
But the rate of growth, the number of new children coming into the system, is such that that will not reduce the number of portables in Surrey by any appreciable amount. There are 7,500 students in portable classrooms in Surrey. It will make a little bit of a dent, but it will not reduce them given the projected growth. It’s welcomed. The projected growth is welcomed if we’re going to tackle the supply of housing in the region.
But part of being effective in tackling that supply and building those houses is to build the public schools for the children who are going to live in those houses when they’re constructed and occupied. The B.C. Liberals want you to forget about their failure to keep pace with residential construction in providing public schools and public education.
Surrey school district is the biggest public school district by pupils in the province — over 75,000 students. It’s run on one of the leanest administrative bases. Less than 1 percent of their budget goes to pure administration.
Obviously, there are certain economies of scale in having a district that large. It’s effectively and well run. I don’t think there’s any dispute by anyone about the efficacy of the school administration in that district.
It’s not that money is being wasted. In fact, Laurae McNally, who’s the former chair of the school board, a long-time trustee — I think well regarded by everyone involved — in reference to some suggestions by some people that there might be low-hanging fruit to pick in terms of cost savings, said: “Those trees were cut down. Those trees bearing the low-hanging fruit were cut down a long time ago.”
Surrey has run a very tightly organized, disciplined, well-managed school district, yet they have not had the support that’s necessary to keep pace with the pace of development in Surrey at all. That’s something that the B.C. Liberals and the Premier want you to forget.
Another commitment that was made by the government and directly affects post-secondary education in my riding is that in 2006, the then Minister of Advanced Education made a commitment that SFU Surrey would be funded for 5,000 full-time spaces. I followed up on that as the member for that particular area of Surrey. I repeatedly asked Advanced Education ministers…. I see a few former Advanced Education ministers here. Until a few years ago, they used to answer me by saying: “We’re working on it. It’s coming. We’re working on it.”
More recently, the current Minister of Advanced Education has even refused to answer the question. I think it’s probably a tactic that’s made necessary by the fact that after ten years, there are only 2,800 full-time spaces in SFU Surrey, despite the commitment having been made ten years before.
Surrey. The administration…. Whether it was President Michael Stevenson before him or now President Petter, both made a compelling case for building spaces in Surrey. Generally, attendance at post-secondary education institutions is more effective, is higher, the closer the institution is to where people live.
In terms of the conversion rate — that is, the number of students who go from secondary school to university — it’s one of the lowest in the South Fraser region, partly because of the absence of spaces immediately adjacent to where people live. So there’s a demonstrated need by both President Stevenson and President Petter and their respective boards for those spaces.
Surrey is booming and growing. As I’ve said, you have the biggest public school district. Eventually most of those students, and increasing numbers in these recent years, graduate and go on to post-secondary institutions.
That promise has not been kept. That promise has been broken. It’s something that I’m sure the Premier would wish we forget about — that those parents and those students who have aspirations for higher education will find it increasingly difficult to enter Simon Fraser University.
There are other universities. They similarly are jammed with students. Whether it’s Kwantlen Polytechnic University in the Newton area, with a campus in Langley and a campus in Richmond…. There is a huge demand.
We’ve heard, as I’ve have said, the Minister of Finance speak very eloquently about the power of education, the transformative effects of education, the lift that it gives
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to individual lives and the importance to our collective achievement here in British Columbia.
Again, again, a failure. So it’s sad. It’s sad that the government is engaging in this budget, the forget-about-it budget, trying to induce a collective amnesia in the population, but it’s not going to work. It is just not going to work.
People know, people remember, and people are fed up. Ordinary working people, people in my riding, people in Surrey are going to reject this government with full force come May 9, and that’s a good thing.
Hon. T. Wat: It is my privilege and my honour to rise today to speak in support of balanced budget 2017. This budget, our government’s fifth consecutive balanced budget, delivers the dividends of a strong and diversified economy and prudent fiscal management. Budget 2017 cuts costs on middle-class B.C. families, invests in priority services and programs, and promotes a competitive, job-creating economy.
When I first came to British Columbia almost three decades ago with my husband and my daughter, what appealed to me then were the same things that appeal to me today: a stable economy, a diverse society and many opportunities to succeed. Today I’m so proud to be part of a government with a strong focus and a strong record on all those fronts.
For the second year in a row, B.C.’s economic growth is leading the country. Our economic outlook remains steady as a result of diversified industries, continued balanced budgets and prudent fiscal planning.
British Columbia is fortunate to have a number of competitive advantages — our abundant natural resources and our proximity to Asia, to name just two of the many. But it is our approach, government’s fiscal discipline, that is the backbone of B.C.’s strong and thriving economy. It is this backbone that allows the province to weather the storm of all the outside forces, forces such as changing commodity prices and global politics. As we see in this budget, our government’s fifth consecutive balanced budget, fiscal discipline and a strong economy are paying dividends.
I’m proud of the work my ministry has done to contribute to B.C.’s strong and diverse economy. The Ministry of International Trade is full of smart and talented public servants who work hard every day to promote trade and attract investment to British Columbia. Their work has a real impact on the growth of good jobs that B.C. families can depend on.
As part of my ministry’s mandate, we are committed to expanding and diversifying B.C.’s markets by growing our trade and investment network, supporting provincial trade missions and working on new strategic partnership agreements and memorandums of understanding. Those MOUs have leveraged opportunities for B.C. companies in key sectors, including agrifoods, clean technology and natural resources.
Budget 2017 clearly prioritizes B.C.’s vibrant tech sector, with an additional $87 million for B.C.’s tech strategy. This strategy is a key component of the B.C. jobs plan to support the sector’s growth and to strengthen B.C.’s diverse knowledge-based economy. The ten-year strategy includes a $100 million B.C. tech fund and initiatives to increase talent development and market assets for tech companies that will drive innovation and productivity throughout the province.
As the Finance Minister looked at in his speech, there’s a tremendous amount of potential to attract investment around the globe. Since the B.C. jobs plan was released in September 2011, we have more than doubled B.C.’s international network from fewer than 30 people to more than 60, who are based in priority markets across Asia, Europe and the United States.
Around the world, we have 13 trade and investment offices, including two new offices in the Philippines and Indonesia, and we’ll be opening another one in Malaysia in 2017, bringing our total number of trade and investment officers to 14 all over the world.
Budget 2017 provides $1.7 million annually to support the operation of these new offices and our Asia trade strategy. This strategy builds on the B.C. jobs plan with a strategic approach of growing trade and investment with Asia. This approach involves, first, increasing the number of B.C. companies that export to Asia; second, increasing investments that make B.C.’s sectors more competitive; and third, reducing barriers that impede the flow of goods, services, investment and people between B.C. and Asia.
Our international network helps promote B.C. as a stable and attractive place to invest, and it connects B.C. businesses with new markets and trade opportunities overseas. In Budget 2017, the ministry also received an increase of $800,000 to support international trade and investment. We are working on the details and will release more information at the B.C. Tech Summit in March.
Our trade and investment representatives are on the ground, supporting provincial trade missions as well as inbound and outbound business delegations. As I speak, we have a small group of B.C. aerospace companies in Malaysia and Vietnam. They are there to showcase our aerospace capabilities in this rapidly expanding market, where B.C.’s skills are in high demand.
These companies are part of B.C.’s growing aerospace sector, which generates about $2.5 billion in revenue per year and employs almost 9,000 British Columbians directly. By connecting these companies with investors in emerging markets, we aim to build a large aerospace industry here at home and to create more jobs in the industry for British Columbians. The investment and business
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agreements that come out of this kind of a connection allow B.C. companies to grow. This, in turn, allows them to create new jobs and supports vibrant communities throughout B.C.
In 2015-16, our trade and investment representatives facilitated and supported over 480 inbound and outbound trips involving B.C. companies and organizations. Since 2013, my ministry has also supported seven major Premier-led trade missions to Asia to deepen relations and to generate new business. Trade missions support targeted sectors of the B.C. jobs plan as well as key priority markets in Southeast Asia, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Europe and the United States.
The total value of foreign direct investment influenced by ministry programs is over $1.4 billion, well exceeding our target. That is really incredible. And the total number of international business agreements facilitated by ministry programs reached 250, more than double our target. These numbers reflect real people growing real business in communities around our province.
Take Fuggles and Warlock Craftworks, for example. This company makes craft beer in Richmond. Our trade and investment team in South Korea helped the company gain access to the South Korean market by supporting their participation at a major trade show in Seoul and introducing the distribution partner to major retailers. Now the company’s beer can be found in South Korean hypermarkets, on store shelves and on tap at select pubs.
It helps that B.C. has outstanding trade agreements that allow B.C. goods to move more freely to international markets. This includes the Canada–South Korea free trade agreement, the first ever trade agreement signed by Canada with an Asian country, which came into effect in January 2015.
We also welcomed the European Parliament’s recent signing of the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA. We commend the Canadian government for moving this 21st century trade agreement towards royal assent. We look forward to CETA being ratified. The sooner it is ratified, the sooner businesses, workers and investors in both jurisdictions will benefit.
Through my ministry’s Asia trade strategy, government is committed to expanding B.C.’s export capability. We are doing that by improving access to export-related services for B.C. companies, no matter where they are located. This includes the launch of B.C.’s export navigator last October.
This 12-month pilot project provides on-the-ground export advisers in four rural communities around B.C.: Prince George, Vernon, Port Alberni and Comox. In just a few short months, solid progress has been made, with 31 B.C. companies accepted into the pilot in the first quarter. Through this pilot, businesses that are interested in exporting can contact their local adviser and get personalized, step-by-step help with exporting.
Exports provide a vital source of economic growth and job creation in communities around British Columbia. The more we export and expand our trade relationships, the faster we can grow B.C.’s economy and provide quality opportunities for British Columbians. I am happy to report that exports from B.C. to international markets as of December 2016 total $39.4 billion, an increase of 9.8 percent, close to 10 percent, over 2015.
B.C. has also diversified our export market over the last decade, with just 54 percent of our exports going to the United States last year, compared to 61 percent ten years ago. We will continue to diversify B.C.’s markets. In fact, the B.C. jobs plan’s five-year update set a target for British Columbia to be the most diversified economy in Canada by 2022.
The importance of diversifying the economy is underscored in balanced budget 2017. There are additional resources for expanding our markets in Asia and India for B.C.’s forest products. That will help ensure the continued success of the B.C. forest industry for generations to come. In 2017-18, funding will increase by $750,000, and a further increase of half a million in 2018-19 is expected. The total commitment over three years is an increase of $5 million.
This funding will help Forestry Innovation Investment to work with industry partners to advance a strong B.C. wood brand in India by attending trade events, increasing the number of educational events and seminars and expanding FII’s geographical presence. FII now has two new offices in the Delhi and Bangalore B.C. trade and investment offices.
Expand product trials or demonstration activities with Indian companies to put B.C. wood in the hands of Indian architects, engineers and builders. FII used a similar and successful approach to increase B.C. wood exports into China when we needed to diversify from a reliance on U.S. exports and achieved great success.
For the third year in a row, the budget provides funding for the Vancouver International Maritime Centre. By supporting the VIMC, we are helping to further diversify and strengthen our economy while creating jobs for British Columbians. Our investment of up to $3 million over three years is already helping to revitalize the province’s shipping industry. This funding for VIMC fits well with my ministry’s efforts to attract head offices to B.C. through our public–private sector partnership, HQ Vancouver.
HQ Vancouver aimed to attract five head offices to B.C. by 2020. I am pleased to say that we are well ahead of schedule. So far, eight companies have opened new head offices in Vancouver, and two more are committed to do so. When head offices are located here, they generate economic benefits, create jobs and raise the profile of B.C. to international investors.
British Columbia has always been a trading province. We depend on our international relationships, and this
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can often hinge on personal connections. That is why having Canada’s most ethnically diverse society is a competitive advantage for B.C. It is important that we protect and promote diversity. We maintain a social responsibility to promote inclusiveness in our schools, in our workplaces, in our homes and throughout our society.
The B.C. government has taken a number of positive steps to combat racism, such as: develop community-led programs such as Organizing Against Racism and Hate, provide public education programs to help school students understand and challenge racism, provide the funding for community groups to address racism in their communities and deliver the Chinese historical wrongs apology in the B.C. Legislature in May 2014. The legacy projects commemorate the apology in the Legislature and celebrate the contribution of Chinese Canadians to the history, culture and economic prosperity of our province. I’m proud to say that we are making significant progress on all of our legacy projects.
A few highlights of the progress include the curriculum supplement Bamboo Shoots: Chinese Canadian Legacies in B.C.; a digital inventory of Chinese artifacts housed in local museums across B.C.; and the recent unveiling of commemorative monuments in two communities, Kelowna and Cumberland, to express the positive contribution of Chinese Canadians to B.C.’s history, culture and prosperity. You can expect more announcements in the coming weeks.
Every year B.C. welcomes nearly 40,000 new immigrants. Our role in government is to ensure these new British Columbians and all British Columbians can fully participate in our society. This is vitally important to weaving a strong social fabric and to B.C.’s economic future.
During his speech, the Finance Minister said: “I know British Columbians have worked hard to make this province as successful as it is today.” I fully agree. It has taken hard work and many hands. Our province is proof that people from all walks of life, from all corners of the globe can work together to build successful businesses, thriving communities and a robust economy. Our diversity in our people and our economy is B.C.’s greatest strength.
I’m also very proud of my riding, Richmond Centre. Richmond Centre is an ethnically diverse, growing and dynamic urban centre. Thanks to our strong economy, we are able to put money back into the pockets of British Columbians. We are able to invest in programs and services that bring benefits to families in my riding of Richmond Centre.
Thanks to the strong economy, we are able to contribute $20 million to create the GoodLife Fitness Autism Family Hub, a state-of-the-art facility which opened last November for people with autism, the first in North America. The $28 million centre will support the roughly 69,000 people of all ages in B.C. that have autism spectrum disorder. The hub is slated to be a one-stop shop for families looking for support with autism and related disorders. It will include clinics, labs, classrooms, observation rooms and research spaces.
We should be proud of Richmond Hospital, a vital part of our community. It is a large community hospital, serving the needs of residents in Richmond and Delta as well as travellers using Vancouver International Airport and B.C. Ferries. We are committed to continue working with government and our partners at the Richmond Hospital Foundation to further develop plans for a new acute care tower at Richmond Hospital.
[R. Lee in the chair.]
I’m also proud of the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Aerospace Technology campus. This campus offers programs to more than 1,000 students each year. Students can choose training programs for all areas of aircraft maintenance engineering and flight training. Richmond’s aerospace and aviation sector is made up of small family-run businesses to global publicly traded corporations.
On the retail front, the SmartCentres, along Garden City Road and Alderbridge, has already opened in Richmond. Many megastores, such as Walmart, will continue to strengthen their expansion in British Columbia.
British Columbia’s first luxury outlet mall, the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet, was also opened — at a 30-acre site on Sea Island, near Vancouver International Airport — last year. Phase 2, planned to open this year, will expand the mall to 400,000 square feet and up to 150 retailers. This mall has created 600 jobs in phase 1, with another 400 jobs in phase 2.
The investment in transportation and infrastructure has brought benefits to Richmond. The Canada Line, which opened its doors to the public in 2009, has connected many to various parts of the greater Vancouver area. A trip from the core of Richmond to downtown Vancouver takes less than half an hour. As of June 2016, average weekday ridership is in excess of 120,000, far exceeding the original forecast of 100,000 by 2013.
Budget 2017 builds on this strength. It is a plan to enhance and continue diversifying and growing B.C.’s economy and to create good, family-supporting jobs that British Columbians can depend upon now and for future generations. I’m so proud to support balanced budget 2017.
S. Fraser: It’s always an honour to stand in this place. I want to acknowledge that we’re on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen people, the Songhees and Esquimalt, in this beautiful city on this beautiful day.
We are in the midst of a discussion, a debate, on Budget 2017.
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I’d also like to mention that I’ve been doing this job…. This is my 12th year as the elected representative for Alberni–Pacific Rim. Actually, prior to that, it was Alberni-Qualicum in 2005 to 2009. The name has changed, and it will change again after the next election.
It’s been an honour, and is an honour, to stand in this place and represent the views and values of the people of Alberni–Pacific Rim. I know that none of us take that for granted for our own constituencies.
I’ve been through a few of these. It’s my 12th year, my third term as MLA, so this is my third pre-election budget that I have seen. And there’s a pattern that I see pops up every time just before an election. We see a budget that has, I think, a motive of sort of deflecting from what’s really happening in the real world to most people. It seems to be a pattern for the Liberal government to do that.
I’ll digress for a moment. As a child, there was a period in my life, a couple of years, where I was quite taken by magic tricks. I saw a magician at a school that I was attending, in public school. I actually saved up my allowance and bought a small magic kit which had a guide on how to use dexterity. Essentially, you’re talking about sleight of hand and doing some tricks, which I learned as best I could.
I was never very good at it, but the magician at the school was very good, and he taught a few things. He would have everybody look at his hand. This is akin to Budget 2017. While everyone is looking at the hand, it’s the other hand that’s down here that’s doing something else. It’s a metaphor, I believe, for Budget 2017, because the budget, as proposed, doesn’t reflect the real world.
It does not reflect the past 15 years, where most British Columbians have felt abandoned. For most British Columbians, life has got harder and harder under this government.
We get the glitz of a budget speech which actually didn’t capture that much glitz this time, because I really do believe the people of British Columbia have seen this pattern, as I have. They are understanding that what they see is not what they’re getting.
I’ll reflect on the last budget. In our last budget, we had — what was the term that was used? — LNG. That was it. It was to be — the Premier put a hardhat on — 100,000 new jobs in this province. I think it was $100 billion in a prosperity fund. We were going to do away with the sales tax in this province. We were going to pay out the debt.
I guess there’s a certain logic. If you’re going to say this stuff to win an election, even though there’s absolutely no basis in truth, make it as big as possible. Make it a whopper. Go for it. Make it the polar opposite of what you’re suggesting in your budget — like paying down the debt, for instance.
Now, the Liberal government inherited a debt built up over the entire history of this place by all governments, no matter what their political stripes, from the very beginning of the first sitting of the Legislative Assembly in a much smaller building than this and many, many, many years ago — well over 100 years ago, 150 years ago. The debt combined, by all governments….
This government took that debt, and they doubled it. One government — this government — doubled it. The Premier, who’s been the Premier for about six years now, accelerated that faster than any other Premier in the history of the province. In Budget 2017, it’s scheduled to go up another $11 billion in a three-year cycle. So no sign…. It’s not slowing down; it’s accelerating.
What do you do about that? In Budget 2013, you had: “We’ll pay down the debt. We’ll pay it off.” It was written on the bus. While this government and, especially, this current Premier have been in office, the debt has increased faster than ever before in the history — and astronomical. In the entire history of the province, that debt has been doubled under this government, and it’s accelerating under this Premier.
So tell the people: “We’re going to pay down the debt. We’ve got this gas in the ground that’s going to pay off the debt and do away with the sales tax and create 100,000 new jobs and have a $100 billion prosperity fund.” No bearing on truth — it’s about winning. That’s what it’s about.
I guess one of the key promises in this particular Budget 2017 is dealing with MSP payments. Now, we’re the only province in the country that has such a thing. It’s purported to pay towards medical. It’s a medical services premium. That’s what it stands for: MSP. We have a government, a Premier, that has made an art form over just bumping that up all the time — doubling it and saying: “It’s necessary. It’s the price we have to pay for health care.”
So we have Budget 2017 saying: “We will cut it in half. Well, not right now. No, no. Maybe next year. But trust us that we’re going to do that.” It’s just like the LNG. LNG promises, MSP promises. It’s a kind of a flow there.
The promise, such as it is — maybe not that believable after history shows what happens with a budget from this government…. The big news is that they’re saying that sometime next year, maybe, they will drop it in half for some British Columbians. That’s the half that she increased it by. So it’s like: “Look, we’re going to cut your MSP payments next year, but don’t remember that we doubled it on you.” It’s like we should be in the streets celebrating that they may, if they live up to this promise, next year sometime, return some of that money.
Of course, never returning it, because it’s already done damage to so many people in this province. MSP is a flat tax. I’m not an economist and not a tax expert, but there are progressive taxes and regressive taxes. A progressive tax is based on your ability to pay. It’s an equalization, if you will, to ensure that we have some equality in this great province. But it turns out that British Columbia is the most unequal of provinces. Part of that is engineered by this government.
By dealing with regressive taxes — using them instead of progressive taxes like income taxes, for instance — a family, say, that makes $40,000 to $50,000 a year pays the same as somebody that makes $100 million a year. They pay the same. The impact of such a tax is so detrimental to those that aren’t the millionaires.
That’s again, “Look what we’re doing here,” but in reality, this is what’s happening here. So the “forget-everything budget” is a very appropriate term. It is an accurate term. To be fair, it wasn’t just this budget. We saw that in the budget before.
Actually, the budget before that was…. What was the promise there? It was: “Oh, we will not bring in a harmonized sales tax.” Oh, yeah. That was in writing, actually. I think it was to the real estate people. Yeah.
That was through the budget then, just prior to the election in 2009. That was then-Premier Gordon Campbell. As soon as the election was over: “Well, let’s bring in an HST.” And they did it, like, immediately. It obviously had been a planned thing. But the idea is: what do you say to win an election? If you’re the Liberal government, you say whatever you think you have to say to win an election.
You say it like this, and you do this. That’s the misdirection, sleight of hand techniques that I, in a primitive way, was trying to learn when I was just a boy. I would have never thought it could have grown into something that would affect so many people adversely.
Sleight of hand by government — what a thought. How could that ever happen? One of the key platform pieces, one of the key pieces of the Budget 2017, is to do away with something that they invoked, that they brought in.
Actually, it’s even better. You really couldn’t write this stuff. In the Vancouver Sun in January of 2016 — again, talking about MSP payments that are, sort of, the highlight of this Budget 2017…. Back then, when the Premier was defending her hikes to MSP…. This is just over a year ago in the Vancouver Sun.
Here’s the quote from the Premier, defending her never-ending hikes on this horrible, regressive tax — so unfair to most British Columbians, unless you’re the millionaires. We’ll get to the millionaires. I’ll touch on that. But here is what she said defending these hikes: “One of the reasons B.C. has an MSP system, and it’s had it for a long, long time, has been to remind people that health care isn’t a free service in our province.”
The Premier has been making an art form over raising a regressive tax over and over again, and not calling it a tax, and purporting that it’s for health care, and then saying that it’s actually to remind people that health care isn’t free. Well, British Columbians know that health care isn’t free. British Columbians work hard. They pay taxes. That’s what is supposed to pay for health care. That’s what everybody else does in the country.
The Premier makes this pretty telling statement that she’s ever raising this regressive tax that does so much harm to so many people in this province, unless you’re a millionaire. Then it’s pretty good for you. You get a pretty free ride. It’s a very small percentage of your income. But for most people, it’s a big hit.
She’s doing it to remind British Columbians that health care isn’t free. What a patronizing thing to say. She said this in the Vancouver Sun. This is the Premier saying this. Fast-forward to yesterday, addressing the board of trade. Now she’s addressing cutting MSP payments. Here’s what she said. Trust me. I’m not making this up. Here is what the Premier said yesterday: “Everybody knows MSP premiums don’t go to pay for health care.”
Wow. There’s a statement. She’s justifying cutting the MSP, or saying that she will, or cutting it by the amount that she’s just raised it in recent years, by saying: “But it doesn’t go into health care anyways.”
Then, a year ago, she said it’s to remind people that health care isn’t a free service in our province. This is the Premier of a province in this country saying these things. It’s a scary thought, in my mind. I know people in my constituency, Alberni–Pacific Rim, that are struggling like they are all over the province with these kinds of regressive taxes.
While she’s promising to reduce MSP sometime next year — reduce it by the amount that she took in — and the reasons for taking in the MSP payments are changing year to year, British Columbians are facing a raft of other regressive taxes that hurt the people of the province. Not the millionaires. I get that.
Like hydro. That was another election promise. I think it was before the last election. Specifically, the promise in the budget then was that hydro rates weren’t going to go up. We all remember. “Oh, what a relief.” Then the election happens — 28 percent increase in hydro rates. This didn’t come out of the ether. “No increase in hydro,” while an increase is already being planned for deployment immediately after the election. Say anything to win an election.
I’m going to say people are catching on to this. The press have been writing about this stuff. They’re questioning the veracity of this government’s statements when it comes to Budget 2017, how many people are being left out of Budget 2017.
It’s like: “Here’s some candy. We’re going to have an election and then take the candy away after the election. Here’s some candy now so that you won’t forget that I’ve starved you of candy before.” It is truly the sleight of hand that I tried to learn in a simple way as a child, when I got my first magic kit. They’ve seen this act before.
I mentioned the LNG promises of before. In Budget 2017, there’s really no mention of LNG. It’s just a fleeting mention of LNG. The public, the people of British Columbia, are expected to believe: “Okay. That was then. Now forget it. We didn’t do anything. It didn’t happen.” That’s a bit of a hard swallow, even for this Liberal government — to think that people will forget, with Budget 2017, what was promised in Budget 2013.
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Again, how do you use sleight of hand, misdirection, to accommodate for that? One of the promises with LNG, as I mentioned before, was the $100 billion prosperity fund. Here’s another one where you go with the whopper instead of just the misdirection. You go with: “We’re adding $400 million to the LNG prosperity fund.” And there is no LNG.
So now we’ve got a half-billion dollars in a prosperity fund, highlighted in Budget 2017. The fund is supposed to reflect the windfall profits that all British Columbians will see from LNG, which were promised in the last pre-election budget. The prosperity fund, the half-billion dollars — not a dime of it comes from LNG. How do you do that? How do you square that with the public?
It is really bordering on, or going way over the border of, the absurd. It’s hard to believe that you’re going to take half a billion dollars out of the economy, out of people’s pockets, and sell them that you’ve….
“See? Our LNG promises are true. We have an LNG prosperity fund with half a billion dollars in it.” That’s the “Watch this”. And this is: “Well, we just stole it from the economy, and none of it comes from LNG.” You got to hand it to them. It’s a pretty gutsy thing to do in Budget 2017.
I mean, I had to laugh. I like laughing. I think we all take ourselves too seriously sometimes in this place. The issues are serious, but we have to be able to laugh at ourselves and the collective selves too. That’s a pretty good one, if it wasn’t for the fact that half a billion dollars could save children’s lives — children in care.
This is a government that has starved the ministry. It’s another similar pattern but much more tragic. The government came in, and they stripped away fully a quarter of the budget for children and families, for dealing with the most vulnerable children — the children in care, under the care of this government. They took away one-quarter of the budget, and it led to such tragic effects on so many children, many who’ve lost their lives in this province. I won’t name them because there are too many. We’ve talked about them in this House for years, and the government has done nothing.
But it’s not just the opposition that has talked about this for years. It’s report after report after report about tragedy, like the most recent one that was highlighted by the report on Alex Gervais. Every time we get one of these, one of the dozen reports that have happened over the last number of years since I’ve been here…. Every time, the government has been chastised by independent investigators, by the Children and Youth Representative’s office, by whomever, for failing to take care of the most vulnerable kids. We were told to wait for the LNG boom before we take care of children in care, or until we have a surplus because we have a massive housing increase and the property transfer tax has provided a surplus in the budget. And because it’s right before an election, make another promise that may or may not be kept, but it’s so little, too late, compared to what they took away in the beginning.
I’m so thankful for the front-line workers that have been able to stay, that haven’t had mental health problems of their own in trying to deal with stress-related problems, trying to deal with a ministry, a minister, a Premier, that don’t put any priority on protecting those most vulnerable kids in this province.
We see a bump in Budget 2017, yes. We do. And it’s a pre-election budget. It should not take a gratuitous pre-election period to commit to taking care of the kids that are the responsibility of the province of British Columbia to take care of. These issues are the most tragic that we have to deal with in this House. I’m proud to be a member of the opposition who has tried to highlight these and tried to get the government to change and make priorities where priorities should go.
I’ve told you I would refer to those that are wealthy, are doing quite well, that they do just fine by the regressive taxation policies of this government. It’s the people of British Columbia that pay for that. The billion-dollar tax cut to the top 2 percent — the millionaires, the billionaires — is unconscionable when you’ve got children in care that are being starved of the services they need to stay alive. I don’t want to understate the importance of that, as I stand in this House, because there is nothing more important than that.
I see that agriculture was mentioned in Budget 2017. I would note that I was listening to the Minister of Aboriginal Relations earlier in his time in this office. He was talking a bit about agriculture. And you know, it’s funny. I was just at the Islands Agriculture Show in Port Alberni this year. I did a two-minute statement earlier today. Despite what the government says in their budget and in the budget speeches of 2017 — what the government members are saying, what the ministers are saying — government policy is the problem for many farmers, especially small and medium-sized farmers in this province.
I guess that the big guys do okay, just like the big guys do okay with this government all the time, but everybody else has to pay for it. The small and medium-sized farmer — changes were made in 2004 by this government. Meat regulations changed.
Good to see…. I’m glad that we’re going to have an audience for this.
These changes, made in 2004, meant that local abattoirs — places where farmers can slaughter their animals and provide fresh farm-gate products…. Like the 100-mile diet idea that everybody loves so much — local food, by local producers, provided for the local community. In my case, it’s the Alberni Valley. Now, this government, in 2004 legislation, took away the ability of small and medium-sized farmers to be able to actually process their goods and sell them in their communities.
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It’s a huge economic hit to the small farmer. The rationale, if I recall, back then was that there was a necessity for…. It was a safety issue. However, all of the meat-tainting scandals that have happened in this country have been with the big players. So the government, in a very specific and purposeful way, targets the small and medium-sized farmers — really, to the benefit of the big players, who have been the problem when it comes to the meat-tainting scandals that have happened probably all across this country.
When I was at the agricultural show this year…. I know the minister was due to be there. The weather wasn’t too good. There was some snow happening, but I’m used to the highway. I showed up. I know the member for Parksville-Qualicum was hoping to be there, too, but it was a sketchy weather day. We were getting our snowfall time there.
I went there, and I heard from everybody that there was a big problem. We were celebrating agriculture in the Alberni Valley, but the undercurrent was that we have a government that has made policy changes that are hindering the ability of local farmers to do what they do — and we want more young people to get into this industry. In the Alberni Valley, technically we have the ability there to provide food security for the whole region. It’s a very fertile area. We need government policy that will reflect the needs of those small and medium-sized farmers.
The Minister of Aboriginal Relations was speaking earlier today. I was watching and listening, and I want to just re-introduce something that happened. He was talking about aboriginal relations and how great things are and 400-plus agreements that have been had.
If you go to a leadership council meeting and the minister says that, everyone rolls their eyes. We’re talking about road access agreements. We’re talking about forestry agreements that don’t work for so many First Nations because they’re set up on a five-year term. No one can get investment. The economy of scale doesn’t work. The government doesn’t listen. The minister doesn’t listen.
We’ve got the Blueberry River First Nation in the north, near Fort St. John. They’ve been negotiating for 12 years to get land that’s been due to them for over 100 years. They actually signed a memorandum of understanding with this minister, with his ministry, with the land selection as would benefit them and the whole region for their growth. It’s about true reconciliation.
The Blueberry River First Nation spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a negotiation, in good faith, with this minister. Two weeks ago he pulled the most key portions of those land selections out without saying a word to the Blueberry River First Nation. It completely undermines a 12-year process. I hope he’s refunding the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it required for — in good faith — the Blueberry River First Nations to spend to come to the table and arrive at that.
On the eve of what should be a celebration of finally…. This is a Treaty 8 Nation. They signed that treaty over 100 years ago, and they’re trying to get reparation for that right now.
I will not be supporting Budget 2017, in case anyone thought I was.
L. Throness: Well, it’s been almost four years. About five years ago, I ran in a by-election and lost in 2012. Then I waited a year and ran again in the general election in 2013 and won. It’s been five years since I’ve been involved in B.C. politics, and it’s really been amazing. It has gone by so quickly, and now another election is coming.
I’ve met thousands of interesting and wonderful people. I did a search of my calendar. I’ve attended 4,400 meetings in the last four years. I’ve travelled at least 120,000 kilometres in my vehicle. It’s been tiring, but it’s also been rewarding. I’ll be working hard in the next few months to once again earn that privilege. I, in no way, regard it as a right; it is a privilege.
I want, for a moment, to pay tribute to the areas of my riding that I’m going to lose in the upcoming election because of the decision of the Electoral Boundaries Commission which changed the boundaries of my riding. I will get a new name. My riding will be called Chilliwack-Kent because it will have a north-south orientation rather than an east-west one, given that Hope and the Fraser Canyon will now be a part of the Fraser-Nicola riding.
I have really enjoyed serving the people of that area. It includes Sunshine Valley near Manning Park. It includes Hope, the Dogwood Valley, Yale, Boston Bar, North Bend and all parts in between. I have sat at Barry’s kitchen table in North Bend and listened to him rail against the government. I’ve attended celebrations at the community centre in Yale. I’ve gone door to door in Hope. I’ve walked the land in the Sunshine Valley. Everywhere I have found good people, down-to-earth people, salt-of-the-earth people, genuine people, people who are passionate about their community and their province, and I want to pay tribute to them today and thank them for the privilege of serving them.
I want to move on to thank my staff. Of course, I have to thank my staff who help me. Without them it would be, of course, impossible for me to do my job, and they do a great job. I want to thank Dagmar Lucak, Sheila Denis and Kathy Miki in my constituency office. In addition to keeping my schedule and keeping things in order around the office, they really do struggle for those who are less fortunate in my constituency — and that I regard as a really important function of my job. That’s what my office is all about.
I want also to thank Jacqueline Monty, a new employee, who helps to clean my office every week. We hired her through the Chilliwack Society for Community Living.
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I want to put in a plug for the services of the CSCL here. They helped us to find Jackie and even coached her on-site until she became familiar with her job. I learned that it’s a good business decision to hire someone who has limited abilities in some areas, and I want to be a model employer in that regard. Jackie comes on time every time, every week. She has a wonderful attitude, and she does a good job for us. It was a good hire.
I also want to thank Simran Sahota and David Decolongon, who have been my legislative assistants over the past year. They’ve done a great job as well, here in Victoria.
Then I move on to volunteers. Volunteers are what makes our democracy function. There are many volunteers who are helping me in the upcoming election. I think especially of Susan Mathies, my ever-present constituency president. I think of my constituency executive, my central campaign team and the many others who have already volunteered to get involved in the coming months. There are way too many to name. Again, I could not be elected without their help, and I want to pay tribute to them today. Volunteers make our democracy work.
As you can see, being a MLA is not a lone-wolf kind of occupation. From caucus to our offices to our party volunteers, government is a big team effort, and that’s the way it should be in a democracy.
I also want to thank my colleagues in this House who have helped me to make a difference in my riding over the past four years. I want to go over a few of the projects that we have been successful at getting in the past few years in my riding. It has been a very busy time.
Chilliwack is growing fast, and our schools are crowded, so just last week, we announced $4.8 million in funding to add eight classrooms to Promontory Heights Elementary School. We’re looking for land to build a new elementary school.
A few months ago we addressed the affordable housing and homelessness issue by announcing $17 million in two new affordable housing projects, as well as more winter shelter beds and a lot of health supports for homeless people.
We’ve announced large infrastructure projects. Perhaps the biggest one is the new Vedder River bridge in my riding. It’s worth $13 million, and it’s now being built. It’ll be done in September. We had our Transportation Minister in town to announce the Lickman Road overpass upgrade. That’s worth almost $7 million. We recently announced Agassiz Avenue improvements for $1 million. And there are more announcements to come.
We’ve worked on flood protection by installing a new flood pump in Harrison and an upgraded Collison pump station in Chilliwack. There have been a plethora of smaller gaming and other grants to help search and rescue, small water systems in the Chilliwack River Valley, grants for trails and bike lanes. We have a new fast-charge station for electric vehicles at the regional district office in Chilliwack, thanks to the provincial government.
We opened a new community rec centre in Agassiz. We passed legislation making Cultus Lake Park Board accountable to Cultus Lake residents, and that has transformed government at Cultus Lake. It’s a whole new administration that is serving the people of Cultus Lake very well. It’s amazing what a little bit of accountability will do.
For many years, there has been a desire for better bus service in the valley. In my term, we announced the Fraser Valley Express, a daily bus from Harrison Hot Springs that goes through Chilliwack and right through to Horseshoe Bay. It is very popular. It is being very well used.
We’ve paid close attention to our university by providing new degree offerings for UFV and funds for trades training and equipment. We opened a new centre of excellence in agriculture at the University of the Fraser Valley. Here, I must thank John Les, a former MLA for the area, who on his last day in office wrestled $1 million out of the government. He did a great job.
There are so many more things we have done that I can’t name them all, yet there is more work to be done. My job is not yet finished. That’s why I’m going to present my record to the people of Chilliwack-Kent in hope that they will afford me another chance to get to work on future projects that our fast-growing area needs — more in the way of schools, low-income housing and a lot of other things.
I want to move on now to the direct topic of our day, the budget, and talk about B.C.’s economic performance. Our budget showed us that, overall, the economy of B.C. is running on all eight cylinders. It is in great health. Let me give you just a few indications of the health of our economy.
Our unemployment rate in January was 5.6 percent, the lowest in the country. Usually, unemployment goes up in January, in the winter months. Our unemployment rate fell 0.2 percent in January, which is a very strange thing. In 2016, we created 73,000 jobs. That’s a huge number of jobs.
Retail sales are up right across our province. People have confidence. They’re buying things in all sectors, all sorts of things.
For a long time, housing starts have averaged 29,000 per year, but last year alone there were almost 42,000 housing starts. That’s almost a one-third increase over the historical average in 2016. That’s amazing.
We exported almost $4 billion worth of goods. In 2009, it was almost half that.
I want to provide now an insight into our provincial debt, because we have people who complain about our debt. Indeed, our debt will rise to $77 billion in three years, but I want to place that in context by referring to our debt-to-GDP ratio.
B.C.’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 16 percent. By analogy, if I had an income of $100,000 a year, I would have a mort-
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gage of $16,000. Would I be able to handle that? You bet. That would be no problem. Even if you take our debt as a proportion of our provincial tax revenue alone — again, assuming an income of $100,000 — we would have a mortgage of $93,000. Can people handle that? Lots of people today have a mortgage of $93,000 or way more than that, with an income of $100,000. It’s not considered unusual or burdensome at all. We’re in good shape.
Compare our debt-to-GDP ratio with that of other jurisdictions. As a percentage of GDP, Ontario’s debt is 40 percent. Quebec’s is 48 percent. Canada, nationally, has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 32 percent, double that of B.C.
Internationally, we compare well as well. The United States has a ratio of 104 percent; Greece, 175 percent. Our debt burden is 1/10 that of Greece and 1/7 that of the U.S., the richest nation in the world. B.C.’s debt is entirely manageable.
When you combine all these things — low debt burden, reduced taxes, high employment, rising retail sales, rising exports — they are all great signs of economic life. These are just some indications of a stellar performance of an economy that is B.C.
I want to remind my constituents that while government does not create jobs, it does create a climate in which jobs are created.
I had a construction contractor recently sit down across from me and tell me that his business fell dramatically when the NDP came in, in the ’90s. It stayed low for a decade. As soon as the NDP were cast out in 2001, as soon as we got a free enterprise government back again, his business began immediately to rise and has stayed high ever since.
Why? It’s because of confidence in the government. An economy moves in part on simple trust — trust that there will be a predictable regime of low taxes, trust that we won’t fetter free enterprise with overbearing regulation, trust that we won’t burden the economy with needless environmental opposition and trust that government will encourage business. Business creates the jobs that not only provide for families but provide all the government programs that we depend on and value so much.
Now on to the budget. What did we do in this budget? Well, basically, we had a surplus of $2.1 billion, so we decided to divide it in half. We decided to place half toward tax reduction, and half toward program spending on programs that are very important to the people of B.C. I want to add that the lion’s share of our increased revenue in our surplus came from more people working, from tax revenue that was generated by jobs. That’s the best, most reliable kind of revenue.
I want to point out that even though we’re going to spend half of that surplus on programs, we are still being prudent in the future. We’re forecasting, over the next three years, surpluses of about $250 million each year, but we’ve also built into the budget, for each year, contingencies of about $600 million every year, so that we are ready to weather any economic storm that may come along. We are well insulated.
Now, what are some highlights of the budget? The big highlight of the budget is, of course, the reduction in MSP premiums. This was the biggest complaint in my riding. It was an ongoing irritant to get that monthly bill, month after month. So I’m happy and relieved that premiums will eventually be eliminated altogether, provided our economy continues on the path that it is now. As it is, we are slashing MSP premiums next January 1 by half, for everyone making less than $120,000 per year. That’s just about everybody in B.C. That will save families up to $900 per year. There are literally thousands of people in my riding who will benefit directly and significantly from this reduction next year.
This reduction in taxes is going to cost about $1 billion each year. We’re giving the people’s money back to them, and we’re not going to take it anymore. This has the dual benefit of stimulating the economy, while making life more affordable for the average British Columbian.
The other half of our surplus we’re going to use for spending on programs that are important to British Columbians. I want to point out just a few of them that my own constituents will be interested in and that are of special interest to me.
The first priority is health care, on which we will be spending $875 million more in this year alone. Now, I sometimes receive people in my office who are waiting for surgery or some other treatment. They’re very dissatisfied, and I can understand why. I know that the vast majority of people are very well served by our health system, but there are always a few who are not. We need to work on fixing that. Some of this money, $25 million in the first year alone, will go toward reducing wait-lists. I fully approve of and support this.
I want to speak for a moment about a thing which is a special concern of mine. As Parliamentary Secretary for Corrections, I want to speak for a moment about addictions and current policy, because addictions in B.C. drive crime. It’s a very important element of crime. It also drives a lot of other ills in our society. We have had such a tragedy over the past year. Almost 1,000 people succumbed to the scourge of fentanyl and the scourge of addiction. It’s an awful thing, and we’ve been attacking that problem with vigour.
I want to commend our Health Minister for working very hard to attack that problem, but I think we need a new goal for our health system. Right now our goal is to help addicts live productive lives. I asked about that during the Public Accounts Committee when we were meeting with Health officials, and that’s what they told me. Yet the consequences of addiction are profound and devastating: ill health, poverty, family breakup, gangs, violence and crime.
We are the healthiest, wealthiest, safest and happiest when we are free from all addiction. In my view,
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that should be the goal of our health system. I think we should treat addiction to drugs and alcohol like addiction to cigarettes. Our message to smokers is: “Stop smoking.” It’s very simple. It’s not, “Smoke shorter cigarettes” or: “Smoke fewer cigarettes.” We should urge people on drugs to quit and help them do so with energy equal to that we devote, and the expense that we devote, to our stop-smoking campaigns.
For example, opioid blockers like naltrexone can be used as regular treatment, not just in emergencies. They often reduce cravings for opioids and alcohol and help addicts quit, just like nicotine replacements help smokers. I’m glad to see that money has been allocated in this budget to research in this area. Rather than give people drugs that keep them addicted, I would rather give them drugs that free them.
Most importantly, addictions are deep-seated, which requires long-term treatment to get well. We need a patient policy. We need to make the solution equal to the problem: long-term treatment leading to freedom from addiction. Now, we’ve done a lot in the past four years to provide more long-term treatment, and I want to commend the government for that. We’ve provided about 560 treatment beds. This budget provides more treatment options, including $12 million for 28 specialized treatment beds for youth. I, of course, approve of that. But there’s more that we can do. Harm reduction alone is not enough.
I think of harm reduction in terms of an analogy. If you have a heart attack, the emergency department reduces the harm of that heart attack and keeps you alive. But then it sends you along to the hospital for treatment to get well. Harm reduction for addicts is like an emergency department, but it’s only a start. It’s just the beginning. We need more long-term treatment leading to freedom from addiction, which reduces harm to zero. We don’t just need the emergency department. We need the hospital, and that hospital is long-term treatment leading to freedom from addiction.
It seems to me that scales have tipped too far toward the acute response of harm reduction rather than a more holistic approach embracing long-term recovery. We’re putting the lion’s share of our addictions treatment funding towards harm reduction. So I will advocate and will continue to advocate for a readjustment toward recovery-based treatment, which also reduces harm and takes the optimistic long-term view that addicts can break free to enjoy the best health outcomes and the most productive lives.
Addicts are precious British Columbians who deserve more than harm reduction. They deserve freedom from addiction through long-term, recovery-based treatment. I want the people of Chilliwack-Kent to send me back to this Legislature so I can keep working on this problem — to bring more balance to our system, to keep on calling for more long-term treatment leading to freedom from addiction.
There are so many other things in the budget that I can’t list them all. I like the reduced rate of interest on student loans. I think the additional funding for Community Living B.C. is great. The disability pension amount increase by $50 per month is a good thing. We did much the same thing a year ago. That’s more than a 10 percent increase in one year. That’s a small amount for one person, but it’s still significant to them, as is the provincewide cost for 100,000 people that receive disability pensions: $199 million.
Housing is always an issue. I was happy to see more help for first-time homebuyers. Our program will spend $700 million on loans to 42,000 families to help them get into their first home. We’ve increased the threshold for that. You can qualify for a home that’s $500,000 now, not just $475,000. Since this is about the average price for a starter home in Chilliwack, we might expect that in our region and in our area, we might benefit more than people in higher-priced areas like Vancouver. So I want to encourage my constituents to take advantage of this program.
I also want to point out the newly built home exemption. This program allows families to save up to $13,000 of property purchase tax when buying a newly constructed or subdivided home valued at up to $750,000. I hope my people will take advantage of that one as well.
I want to end my speech today by saying that I’ve been involved in politics for a long time. I first became involved in politics when I started to work for Harvey Schroeder. I want to say hello to Harvey today. He’s still doing well. He retired in 1986 because he thought he was going to die of a heart attack. But 35 years later, he’s still going strong. I became involved as his assistant, once a Speaker of this House and Minister of Agriculture. Then, in 1986, I became an assistant to Grace McCarthy. I worked right here in these buildings, just a few feet away. That legendary Social Credit politician — it was a privilege to work for her.
I ran for office in Vancouver, for the Vancouver school board, under the banner of the NPA. I lost that election in 1993. I then went to Ottawa. I was employed for 12 years in the House of Commons for an MP from B.C., Chuck Strahl. I saw political parties come and go. I saw leaders come and go. I saw governments come and go.
I’ve watched politics all my life across Canada and elsewhere, and I’ve compared this government for the past four years to other governments I have known and watched. I can tell you that when I compare our government to other governments, other leaders, other caucus members and other ministers I have observed and known, I am darned proud of our government, which has used its resources wisely. We have been diligent and responsible in balancing the budget five times. No other government in Canada has done that.
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We’ve been wise in diversifying our trade. Ontario and Alberta, for instance, depend on more than 80 percent of their trade with the States. Over the last ten years or so, we have diversified our trade so that we are only 54 percent dependent on our trade with the States. We are ready for any economic shock that might come from that direction.
We have been visionary. We are builders. We’re building the Site C dam. We’re building the Massey Tunnel replacement. We’ve built the Port Mann Bridge. We’re spending, over the next three years, $13.7 billion in capital spending. That’s visionary.
We have created an industry, the LNG industry, from scratch. We’ve had a start already. We have our first project. It is on the way. [Laughter.] There’s laughter over on the other side, but for the first project, the final investment decision has come. I believe that we will see more in the next year.
We have been compassionate, from dealing with the fentanyl crisis to helping disabled people to more spending and generous spending on health care. We have done our best for the weakest among us, and that is a mark of good government.
Governments often fall on ethical problems. I think of the government of Alberta that fell under a mess of ethical problems. Although our government has not been perfect — no government is ever perfect — we have run a clean government, not an ethical circus, and I am proud of it.
When I go to my constituents on May 9, I will ask for a new mandate because I really believe that we have earned it. Moreover, given the political alternatives, given the spectre of an NDP government across the way…. B.C. needs and must have a continuing free enterprise government. In the coming months, I will bend all my efforts to make sure that comes about.
L. Popham: I am happy to stand and take my place in this chamber to participate in the Budget 2017 debate. I’ve been so proud to represent the constituency of Saanich South for the last eight years. I have worked very hard to represent the views of my constituents, take their lead and work on issues that matter to them.
Saanich South is a diverse constituency, consisting of urban and rural areas. The priorities of my constituents vary depending on where they reside, from Quadra and McKenzie to Royal Oak, from Glanford to Strawberry Vale, from Broadmead to Cordova Bay, from rural Saanich to Willis Point.
The geography may not be as vast as it may be for my colleagues who represent more rural constituencies. In fact, I can ride my bike from one end of my constituency to the other in a few hours, compared to my colleagues, who need a few days in a vehicle to cover theirs. But regardless of the size, the issues are vast, and the concerns are varied.
For example, over the past eight years, I’ve helped small- and medium-sized businesses grapple with the recycling regulations like MMBC. I’ve organized a rally to protect our island honeybees. I’ve fought for fairness for our cycling community because of an unfair tax regime. I’ve advocated for the protection of Maltby Lake, Elk and Beaver Lakes. I’ve organized events to bring the Royal B.C. Museum into Saanich South for our students and our residents.
I’ve hosted a community event commemorating the Komagata Maru anniversary. I’ve mobilized huge public support for the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory. I’ve assisted and promoted the Wounded Warriors of British Columbia. I’ve spearheaded effective safety improvements to the intersection at the Pat Bay Highway and Sayward Road.
I’ve never been afraid to work on controversial issues. I’ve advocated for community safety when the difficult issue of inadequate restrictions on sex offenders arose, I’ve educated our seniors on legal access to medical cannabis, and I’ve advocated for medical assistance in dying.
All of these activities and constituency advocacy allow me to work hard to maintain our quality of life in Saanich South. This is one part of the job as an MLA.
The other part is operating a constituency office. This is a place where constituents can walk through the door with any problem they wish to present. I have incredible staff that are my front line in Saanich South. Samuel Godfrey and Maureen Rogers are the welcoming faces that my constituents see in my office when I’m not there. They handle the day-to-day workings of a community office, and they handle my casework. They do an incredible job.
[R. Chouhan in the chair.]
But over the past eight years, we’ve noticed something change. We’ve seen the traffic in my community office increase substantially.
Why is this the case? It’s my view that the priorities of the current government have decreased the quality of life for so many of my constituents that they are forced to come into my office and ask for help. The casework in my office has skyrocketed, especially in the last two years.
I always wonder what the traffic looks like in a government MLA’s office. They must also be noticing the increase in the workload and the seriousness of our cases that we all need to deal with. This, to me, is a valuable indicator that people are struggling and life is actually getting harder.
I have been listening to this debate on the budget for a couple days, and I hear such different opinions between this side of the House and the government side. What I hear from the government side is that all is well and everything is amazing. The amount of back-patting that the gov-
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ernment is giving itself is difficult to hear when I know the reality on the ground and see it with my own constituents.
The majority of the casework in my constituency office is related to poverty and affordability; social assistance, including homelessness, lack of affordable housing, inability to pay for food and other essentials; and economic challenges due to long-term disabilities. People are finding it harder to make ends meet in B.C., and that is reflected in my community office.
Almost two million people in British Columbia can barely make it to their next paycheque. They are within $200 at the end of each month of not being able to pay their bills. These members across the way pat themselves on the back and choose to ignore this reality, when in fact they have caused this reality.
The election is rolling around pretty fast. In under three months, people will have a choice to let this B.C. Liberal government continue or to elect a new government. This government is hoping that my constituents who can’t make ends meet will forget that it’s because of the B.C. Liberals’ choices that they’ve been living the life they’ve been living.
Housing costs, child care, ICBC, hydro and MSP. The increased costs of life and fees have cost my constituents more and more, and it has affected their quality of life. The government is hoping that my constituents will forget. The government is standing in the back of a pickup truck, with a shovel, filling in unaffordability potholes with shovels full of cash, hoping to smooth things over by election day. The stress that my constituents have felt under the reign of this government and this Premier wasn’t necessary, but it was done by the choice of this current government.
The second most common reason someone visits my office revolves around health care, and this is steadily increasing. This includes surgery wait times, long-term care, complex care, hospital visits, MSP problems, drug costs, mental illness, hospital treatment and access to family doctors and specialists.
One of the areas that we see more and more is people struggling with our health care system, as 50,000 people on southern Vancouver Island don’t have a family doctor — 50,000. People come into my office and ask how they can get one, but the reality is that there are just not enough to go around.
People are being filtered into medical drop-in clinics. The rule that we play by is that you visit three times, and you’re in with a doctor there as a drop-in client.
People come into my office in pain and often in tears because they’ve been waiting unacceptable amounts of time for knee or hip surgery. The pain they endure is excruciating. It has stopped them from participating in life, and these bright, smart, enthusiastic seniors are becoming dependents whose zest for life is debilitated by painkillers and exhaustion due to pain.
We have the second-worst wait-lists for these types of surgeries in Canada. The government will want my constituents to forget the pain they’ve been in and the quality of life they’ve lost because of the poor choices that the Premier has made.
My constituents sit across from me and tell me how active they used to be. They tell me how much volunteering they used to do, how they used to participate in child care in their families. They can’t do any of that anymore because they’re waiting on a wait-list with no end in sight. Just the other day we heard about a gentleman who has waited 903 days, and he’s still waiting to have knee surgery and hip surgery.
I get many visits from seniors who are faced with a very difficult decision to admit their loved ones — their life partner, their family — into residential care due to not being able to keep them at home anymore. That decision is a devastating one to make. When you make a decision to put a loved one into a care home, the emotional weight is huge. There is grief as you say goodbye to a life that you have led together. There is guilt because this type of decision is often met by an unwilling participant.
The day a loved one moves into a residential care home is traumatic and often devastating to everyone. You lose a big part of someone that you love, but the decision is made because there isn’t a choice left that works.
The wait-list to get into a care home often takes so much time that the stress on the caregiver creates health problems on its own. So many caregiving senior spouses have broken down in my office, and they’ve told us they just can’t manage any longer.
I know personally how hard a decision like that is to make. My mom is in a care home. She was diagnosed in her early 60s with dementia. My brother and I managed as long as we could by managing her so she could stay in her home. Many of us have family members who are affected by dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. My mom has an unusual form of dementia called frontal-temporal dementia, which is more rare, and it tends to occur at an early age.
My brother and I tried to get daily home support, but we were unable to, so we had to make that difficult decision to admit my mom into a care home at age 67. Up until that point, we were bringing her meals. We were making sure that her clothes were clean. We were making sure her fridge door was closed and that she was able to eat the food in her fridge without it spoiling.
We were trying to get caregivers to come in to do personal care, but there just weren’t any resources available. When we put her into her home that she lives in now, she was one of the youngest in the home, and it’s been very difficult to watch her decline in such a debilitating way.
So far, our society hasn’t really been able to solve the puzzle of dementia and Alzheimer’s, but I think we should certainly support our seniors and allow them to live with dignity, in residential care homes, with these diseases. I
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know that my constituents whose hearts ache when they see their loved ones not getting the basic care they need won’t forgive this government at election time, because the government chose not to make them a priority.
You can imagine how awful it is when you have finally moved a loved one into a facility only to realize that 91 percent of all publicly funded residential care homes don’t meet minimum staffing benchmarks and how devastating it is when you realize that your loved one won’t be getting the personal care they need or might be left in their room by themselves all day or parked in front of a television for hours because the government doesn’t consider these British Columbians a priority.
The B.C. Liberals have chosen to forget these folks, but the family members won’t forget.
This government has failed to plan for our ever-increasing number of seniors that need health care and support. This government has looked the other way for 16 years and now acts as if we didn’t know this was coming.
The short-term view that this government has is reflected in the way they govern by election cycles. They try and sprinkle solutions over problems right before an election, hoping we can all forget the suffering that they have caused. I know my family and other families like mine won’t forget the suffering, because we see it in the pain of our loved ones, in the faces of our loved ones.
We know that if issues of seniors get addressed in a timely fashion, like hip replacements and knee surgeries, they’re able to participate and contribute for a much longer time. They work longer, they volunteer, and they add to our quality of life as well.
I know that if we had been able to keep my mom in her home, we would have been able to enjoy her longer in our family. Because there wasn’t room in a home on Vancouver Island, my mom now lives in Tsawwassen, and I don’t get to see her as much as I can. And because of her disease, she barely recognizes me at this point.
My mom, like so many other seniors, deserved to get the care that she needed to stay in her home longer. Many seniors do, because it’s not just about them; it’s about them being part of our families. Not addressing this is about showing disrespect and, in my view, economic incompetence, and that’s what this government has done.
That part of the budget…. We just have to look at the last 16 years, and now this government is making noises about possibly putting more money into the budget as we get closer to the election. The disrespect that this shows people, a huge part of British Columbia, is hard for me to even think about and talk about. These are the people that are walking into my office. It’s not just my family; it’s many, many families like mine.
The problem with this government, in my mind, and this budget…. There’s an enormous amount of problems, but the main problem is that it’s almost like they think that the voters are stupid, that the voters will forget what’s happened over the last 16 years. My critic role, the Ministry of Agriculture…. I am the critic for agriculture and foods and small business, but I’m going to just talk a little bit about agriculture and food.
While I’ve been an MLA for eight years here, I’ve been the critic for that ministry. What I’ve seen is the ministry having a piecemeal plan regarding agriculture because they don’t really think it’s a priority, and they don’t really think it’s a voting issue. Over the last little while, because the topic of food security has been so prevalent and is becoming mainstream, the minister has decided that he needs to kick it up a notch. So this year we saw, in the current budget, some money for a food security conference up in the Okanagan.
Of course, you know, I’m going to admit I went to it, and I saw that it was well attended. It wasn’t massive, but people are interested in it, and that’s a reflection of what people are feeling in our province about food security and the importance of agriculture and local food. We saw for years a decrease in the budget for agriculture, and then generally after that, it stayed about the same. I didn’t hear mention of it in the throne speech, really, and it certainly wasn’t in the budget speech, because it’s really not important. But they’ll throw those words out there when they need to.
Four or five years ago — I’ve lost track of time in here — we saw a government that claims they believe agriculture is important start to tear apart one of the main land use tools that we have to make sure we have our food-producing lands intact: the agricultural land reserve. This government tore it into two different pieces. They created two zones out of the agricultural land reserve, and they did that at that point because they knew they were going to spend a lot of political capital on that.
The majority of people support the agricultural land reserve in this province. At that point — I think it was in second reading — I said that this government knows that it has spent political capital on this bill, and they don’t care because they’ve got three years to recover. It’s a typical political manoeuvre.
That’s what it was. There were a lot of people in British Columbia who were concerned about it. I think it caused chaos across the province. I had more emails on that than almost any other topic while I’ve been an MLA. The interesting thing is that people haven’t really forgotten.
They think that they’ve had enough time for people to forget, but they’re not going to forget, and I’ll tell you one of the reasons why. I kept every single email that was sent to me about that topic. People were devastated that this government thought that, just because they had power, they could destroy one of our best land use tools this province has ever seen. They thought they could do that.
I’ve kept every email, and there were thousands of them. I’m going to remind those people who took the
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time to write to me — and I know they probably took the time to write to the minister as well — that it was only a short time ago that this government didn’t care about agriculture, and they’re going to try to tell you that they do by reading out statistics of how well we’ve done this year.
It’s all statistics and numbers, but it doesn’t mean anything, and I’m going to tell you an example of why it doesn’t. I was at the agriculture gala last month. The Minister of Agriculture stood up and made his speech to a huge crowd.
It’s one of the biggest agricultural gatherings that we see annually. It’s a celebration. It’s an awards dinner. It’s acknowledgment of the agriculture sector. Everybody in agriculture attends. It’s a wonderful event. B.C. food is served that evening. We have displays from our B.C. dairy industry, special B.C. cheeses, fruits. It’s a wonderful celebration of agriculture.
The Minister of Agriculture got up, and he made a speech. He rattled off a bunch of statistics about how well we’re doing in British Columbia with agriculture. Then he asked people: “Raise your hand if you feel like you’ve made more of a profit this year.”
I’m not kidding you. There was a room of 450 people, and not one person raised their hand. It went over like a lead balloon, because that’s what’s happening on the ground. The government and their piecemeal plan for agriculture isn’t being reflected across the whole province as a plan for a long-term, sustainable agriculture plan. So that’s the actual reality of it. I think farmers in British Columbia have come to terms with the fact that there is not tons of support for agriculture.
They do what they need to do. They make announcements about local products. They’ll put $7,000 in here, $20,000 in here, highlight themselves, make sure there’s a photo opportunity. But if you look at the actual plan for agriculture, there’s nothing there that I think is substantial enough to address the challenges that we face and the need that we’re going to have, because of climate change, in our food supply.
When the government took it upon themselves to destroy the agricultural land reserve as much as they could in this term, a lot of it had to do with the budget around the Agricultural Land Commission and the independence of the Agricultural Land Commission. In this budget, what we see is a slight increase, but it’s not replacing what needs to be there and what has been eroded.
The independence of the Agricultural Land Commission has been completely eroded under this government. You take a commission whose mandate is to protect agricultural land and to encourage farming. We have that mandate going on at the exact same time that the agricultural land reserve is being ripped apart and the government has made a choice to change the way that the Agricultural Land Commission is structured.
It’s supposed to be an independent administrative tribunal, but the government made the choice to allow the minister to meddle in the Agricultural Land Commission. He can now meddle. The commission has to report to the minister. They have to be accountable to the minister because he has rules that they have to live by now. For example, they have to report out to the minister how many applications have gone through. If you don’t do it in 60 days, the people that applied have to get their money back. It’s basically become an administration machine that has nothing to do with the mandate of the agricultural land reserve.
In my view, what should happen is that we should change the way the minister has designed the Agricultural Land Commission. What’s been designed over the last four years is a way to have the most political interference in an independent commission. That’s what has been designed.
You start to pick away at the land base. You don’t have the Minister of Agriculture standing up. When we talk about housing affordability, I don’t think the minister has said very much on building mansions on agricultural land. That’s an affordability issue. Guess who it’s for? It’s for young farmers who will never be able to afford that farmland again. I don’t think the minister has said very much about that.
You look at the budget for agriculture. I think that there’s been an increase of maybe $2 million or $3 million over four years. This is a ministry that should have such high importance in this budget. There should be an absolute focus on food security, but this government is not committed to that, and there’s not.
If I was the Minister of Agriculture, I would certainly put an emphasis on making sure that we were growing a sustainable agriculture plan for the entire province. Instead, we’re flooding the Peace River Valley.
It’s funny. A new abattoir opened up in B.C. this year. The government patted themselves on the back: “Yay. We’re doing so well that an abattoir opened up.” Then the people involved said: “Well, you didn’t stand in our way, but don’t give yourselves too much credit, because we did it on our own. We got some advice from the ministry, but it really wasn’t because of you that this happened. We did it in spite of you.”
That’s the way it works for agriculture. There’s always room for a photo op, but there’s never really substantial room in the budget to increase it. We have so much opportunity for growing every region in this province. You never see it reflected in the budget in B.C.
I don’t support the budget. I feel like this government is trying to pull the wool over voters’ eyes. It’s our job, in opposition, to remind people of what’s happened over the last 16 years. We’re lucky, because a lot of the mess that this government has made has been done recently. People are going to remember from their own experiences, but we’re going to remind them of what’s happened over the last 16 years.
On the education file…. I can tell you that the Premier’s war on public education has affected my life greatly. My son went to school through the whole, entire time the minister was declaring war on public education. I saw things that were in the school system at the beginning, when he started in kindergarten, be taken away all the way through until he graduated in grade 12. He’s got a lot of friends whose parents feel the same way. Parents are not going to forget what happened in public education under this government.
Now, their messaging is: “Oh, this is a wonderful opportunity.” Well, the courts told you. You have no choice. You have to replace the money into the education system.
This government is all about marketing themselves, so they’re acting like it was their idea, and it’s a great opportunity for them. They don’t understand how many students over the last decade have lost opportunities because of them, but I think parents are going to remember.
I’m going to wrap up now. Just to put it on the record, I don’t support this budget. I don’t think this government deserves another chance to govern. We do not need parties that believe that governing on election cycles is the way to run this province. When you do that, you start to run out of chances, and this government has run out of their chances.
S. Sullivan: I’m very pleased to be able to speak in support of Budget 2017.
First of all, I’d like to commend the Minister of Finance for his beautifully written speech. I have, for fun, looked at some speeches from previous years, budget speeches, and most of them are extremely boring, extremely dry. Our minister has really crafted a beautiful narrative arc, and it was a pleasure to listen to, as well as to understand the exact meaning of it.
I would like to thank some people who have been critical in my life, enabling me to serve in the role that I serve as MLA for Vancouver–False Creek. I’d like to make a shout-out to my constituency assistant, Cris Garvey, who does a tremendous job. She knows where all the resources in the community are, and so many people who come into the office benefit from her expertise and long experience of public service.
My legislative assistant, Shala Robins, who is an outstanding legislative assistant and provides me so much support. My assistant legislative assistant, Zach Millward, as well goes above and beyond the call of duty, helping me be effective in my role.
I’d also like to acknowledge so many volunteers that support me in my riding, the chair of my riding association, Farhan Lalani, and his very capable board.
Most of all, I’d like to acknowledge Lynn, who has been such an incredible support to me, and I would not be here without her. Lynn and I met when she was ten and I was nine, so she’s the older woman. I always adored her, and she always tolerated me. She continues to tolerate me, which baffles me sometimes, I must admit, but I’m very, very grateful to her.
She is at home right now. She usually accompanies me every trip to Victoria. She injured her knee recently and has been doing a lot of therapy. But while I’m here, I have two wonderful people, Bashir and Nona — nurses who support me — and I really am grateful to them for their support.
Most of all, of course, the Vancouver–False Creek citizens who voted for me and enabled me to be the MLA.
I call Vancouver–False Creek downtown British Columbia. It has such an amazing and major commercial sector. I like to tell my rural colleagues that I have a riding that is very much a mining and a natural resource riding in downtown Vancouver — over 1,000 mining companies in my riding. Lots of resource work. The many people who occupy the downtown core who work in the downtown offices, whether they be accountants, lawyers, people in finance and investment, they actually are working in the resource sector.
It’s often incorrectly thought that downtown Vancouver has this different economy that’s separated from the rest of the province. In fact, it is very much a part of the resource sector of this province.
Lots of very interesting developments are happening in Vancouver–False Creek. We have the only brand-new school in Vancouver being opened this year in the International Village. What we’re seeing is a real resurgence in families living in the downtown, so we are going to need this new school, almost 500 students. Recently, we also have initiated an upgrade to Lord Strathcona School, and the first stage of that is in process. That will do a very nice heritage renovation and provide a wonderful school for so many young people.
An interesting development with B.C. Hydro. They are looking at creating substations in the downtown. They want to rebuild the Lord Roberts Annex, and there is some talk that they could actually expand the number of students in this school from almost 200, possibly up to 500. That’s still in the discussion stage, but it’s a possibility.
There is also a discussion that they might be able to relocate some of these students, when the redevelopment is in process, to a new school, a Coal Harbour school. Lots of discussions need to take place, but there are so many exciting opportunities for new schools in downtown Vancouver.
I will make a few comments about Emily Carr University, a brand-new university just outside my riding. Also, St. Paul’s Hospital will be moved from one side of my riding to the other side, with an amazing campus of care that will be developed there. I’ll also make some comments about the arts and culture scene in Vancouver, which is thriving, and also the technology sector, which employs so many people in downtown Vancouver.
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Of course, one of the most important features of balanced budget 2017 is the MSP premiums reduced by 50 percent for two million British Columbians. The Medical Services Plan premiums will be cut in half for British Columbians with an annual family net income up to $120,000, effective January 1, 2018.
This is very good news for so many British Columbian families. The changes mean annual savings of up to $900 for families paying full premiums and up to $450 for individuals paying full premiums. As a result, two million British Columbians will see their premiums reduced by half, in addition to the two million British Columbians who currently don’t pay premiums at all. Changes to the MSP premiums will leave almost $1 billion in the pockets of British Columbians.
Another important highlight I’d like to make is the phasing out of the provincial sales tax on electricity purchases, as recommended by the Commission on Tax Competitiveness. Many think that this is only of value to the rural areas, but in fact, it is invaluable to the entire province.
Eliminating the PST on businesses costs like electricity could significantly improve B.C.’s overall economic performance. The Commission on Tax Competitiveness, in its report, specifically pointed to PST on electricity as hindering competitiveness for B.C. businesses, noting that no other North American jurisdiction levies a similar retail sales tax. This will have a great impact on our economy.
I think it’s important to note that in 2016, the GDP of British Columbia was 3 percent. This is incredible when you look at other parts of the world. You think of the U.S. with 1.6 percent GDP; Europe, 1.7 percent. And we’re talking about a 3 percent increase in GDP.
I’ll also note that we created 73,000 new jobs — an increase of 3.2 percent. Another statistic that stands out to me is the increase in B.C. retail sales — 6.5 percent growth. It’s incredible.
A 33 percent growth in housing starts. There were 42,000 housing starts last year. Keep in mind that the historical average is 30,000. So British Columbia’s economy is doing very well, by any measurement.
Real business investment grew by almost 7 percent, and we’ve had an almost 10 percent increase in value of exports. Our exports to the U.S. were an almost 13 percent increase.
A few other points about the budget, noting that our nominal B.C. GDP is now $260 billion. For provincial debt, we’re now at $66 billion. Taxpayer-supported debt is $42 billion, and self-supported debt is $24 billion, and that is very reasonable in terms of comparing other provinces and other jurisdictions around the world.
A revenue of $50 billion now — we’ve achieved that level.
On expenses, the biggest line items, by far, are health at $18 billion, education at almost $6 billion and advanced education at $2 billion — so health for $18 billion, and education for $8 billion in total.
We’re also investing nearly $3 billion in priority areas. A total of $4.2 billion was added to the Ministry of Health budget compared to its 2016-2017 base.
We’re investing $3 billion in other priority programs and services over the next three years, compared to Budget 2016. They include almost $800 million for children, families and those in need; $740 million for the K-to-12 sector, including $320 million to address the recent interim agreement with the BCTF; more than $700 million for first-time homebuyers, building on $920 million for housing affordability and assistance; $250 million for communities and economic development; $150 million for parks and environmental protection; and $280 million for a host of other programs and services. So I’m very, very pleased, very proud, to be supporting this budget.
I want to talk, briefly, about one of the health investments that will be made — the St. Paul’s Hospital redevelopment. I first want to note that St. Paul’s, in its current form, has served our community well for over a century. It’s become a landmark, a symbol of health care, to those living in Vancouver’s downtown as well as people from across the province. Many people go to St. Paul’s Hospital for their expertise in a number of areas.
The hospital’s dedicated staff has been at the forefront of health care delivery, often leading the way with new models of care and research. I would point out Dr. Julio Montaner and how he has led the world in HIV/AIDS treatment. The important work and leadership will continue as the hospital is redeveloped into a world-class campus of care at a new home on the Station Street site.
When first proposed, we looked closely at the idea of a campus-of-care model and decided that the model of care aligned with the Ministry of Health’s strategic priorities and, along with a new site, would best meet the needs of British Columbians both now and in the long term. The new campus of care will have a variety of services, including primary care and a full range of hospital services, including mental health services and beds.
I note that this hospital, the new site, will be just adjacent to the Downtown Eastside, which has so many key health needs.
The government has committed to contributing $500 million towards the cost of the new St. Paul’s Hospital. Providence Health Care and the St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation, which has got a very, very active program and some very wonderful people working for it — they will raise the rest of the required funding. The preliminary estimate to complete the project is $1.2 billion. It is truly going to be a world-class campus of integrated care, focusing on the needs of the most vulnerable, such as frail seniors and those with mental illness and substance dependence.
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The new hospital will be connected to a network of community and primary care services across the entire region that will help ensure that people are receiving the right care in the right place at the right time. This reflects the Ministry of Health’s strategic priorities.
In March of 2016, KPMG completed a clinical services plan, which is helping determine the scope of services for the new hospital and health care campus. I note that many of the staff at St. Paul’s Hospital have taken an active role in this survey, and they are very excited about the new campus of care.
I want to talk briefly about our tech industry. The Yaletown area, the downtown of Vancouver, has so many new tech jobs, so many companies moving to Vancouver, so many local companies that are expanding. Budget 2017 provides an additional $87 million in funding over three years to enhance government’s technology strategy. Funding is allocated between the Ministries of Advanced Education; Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services; Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training; and International Trade.
Budget 2017 extends and enhances sector tax credits for the tech sector, scientific research and economic development, venture capital to support innovation and commercialization. And $2.6 billion in capital spending over the next three years by post-secondary institutions provincewide will support priority projects that advance the goals of B.C.’s skills-for-jobs blueprint, the B.C. jobs plan and the B.C. tech strategy.
Budget 2017 provides $40 million in additional funding in 2017 and 2018 for the connecting British Columbia program. This supports economic growth by extending high-speed Internet access to rural and remote B.C. communities. I might note that not all of the tech sector is in downtown Vancouver — not all by far. There are many centres throughout the province that are benefiting from this vibrant sector.
The 2016 budget included a $5 million tax credit increase to the Small Business Venture Capital Act for a total of $35 million. This increases the total amount of equity that can be raised annually from $110 million to $116.6 million.
To ensure that new degree programs, including those in tech-related fields, have co-ops, $1.3 million was invested in co-op education in March.
The B.C. tech strategy is a multi-year strategy that will support growth in British Columbia’s vibrant technology sector and strengthen B.C.’s diverse innovation economy. It focuses on three key pillars: access to capital for promising companies, talent development and market access. It includes a $100 million B.C. tech fund for promising companies and also coding and new curriculum initiatives from K to 12 and opportunities for post-secondary students to gain skills and experience. Over $2.5 billion has been committed since 2001 to research and innovation in B.C.
Government announced a new technology stream of the Canada-B.C. job grant at the 2016 B.C. Tech Summit. This represents up to $4.5 million over five years to support employers and organizations in the tech sector to provide skill training to their employees.
The sector’s accomplishments are very diverse and are represented by five sectors. We’ve got the clean-tech sector, the digital media, the engineering, the information and communications technology, and the life sciences. All of these sectors, I can tell you, are booming in Vancouver–False Creek. The 2016 British Columbia Technology Report Card indicates that B.C.’s tech sector is one of the largest drivers of the B.C. economy, with companies gaining global recognition, creating jobs and contributing significantly to the province’s GDP.
I’d like to make a few comments about Emily Carr University. In addition to the $27 million over three years for the second economic stability dividend, Budget 2017 provides a three-year total of $14 million to the Ministry of Advanced Education for increased operation funding for the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
It is scheduled to open its new Vancouver campus at Great Northern Way in September 2017. Anybody who drives by that campus will be very impressed with the work that is going on, with the construction that is happening. A provincial contribution of up to $101 million for the new $122 million Emily Carr University of Art and Design redevelopment project. The construction began in the summer of 2015, with completion in the summer of 2018.
The Great Northern Way Campus is a seven-hectare, or 18-acre, site on the False Creek Flats. It is owned and developed jointly by the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, B.C. Institute of Technology and the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. It used to be owned by the Finning Co. With that redevelopment and their move, it is now becoming an incredible opportunity for students to increase their knowledge.
The new Emily Carr University campus will continue and accelerate the growth of the Great Northern Way Campus into a high-profile district for the digital and creative sectors in Vancouver, and $75,000 of one-time funding for 20 public post-secondary institutions, including Emily Carr University, will increase access to post-secondary institutions for students who face barriers, such as physical or learning disabilities. I’d like to acknowledge the ministry for their support of this.
Emily Carr University of Art and Design school was founded as the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts in 1925. The university is the only specialized public post-secondary institution in B.C. offering programs in visual arts, media arts and design exclusively, one of only four such institutions in Canada. It is recognized nationally and internationally for the excellence of its faculty, students and alumni.
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I’d like to acknowledge the leadership of Ron Burnett and the board of the university. They’ve done incredible work at developing this new campus.
I’d like to talk a bit about arts and culture, which is so important to Vancouver–False Creek. Vancouver–False Creek, my riding, has such things as the Orpheum, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Playhouse Theatre, the Scotiabank Dance Centre, Science World and Granville Island. There are so many things that go on in Vancouver–False Creek and that are supportive of the arts and culture of our province.
Budget 2017 raises the maximum amount of a child arts credit for children eligible for the disability tax credit from $500 to $1,000 — really, truly a wonderful move for many of these children. And $40,000 was recently committed for the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Society as part of the 2016-2017 collaborative spaces program.
It encourages cooperation between arts organizations through the sharing of space and specialized equipment. I note that the Roundhouse Community Centre is, I believe, the only community centre that is focused on arts.
The collaborative spaces program is investing almost $500,000 in 13 arts organizations, many of which are in Vancouver–False Creek. The collaborative spaces pilot project invested $436,000 in 11 arts organizations the year before.
So $1.5 million, announced by the province and Creative B.C. to support the new careers of B.C. artists, is designed to stimulate economic growth from within the music industry by funding marketing initiatives that build audiences for artists, albums and live performances. The province of B.C. provided a $15 million grant for the creation of a B.C. music fund to help support various activities in B.C.’s music industry. It was launched in February.
The government of British Columbia’s three-year creative economy strategy is supporting and growing the creative sector. This strategy focuses on four key areas: leveraging talent and creative clusters, accessing new markets, maximizing investment and enriching communities.
As part of the creative economy strategy, the B.C. government is targeting $1.5 million over three years toward collaborative spaces. It’s providing almost $500,000 to raise the international presence of B.C. artists. I note that they raise the flag of British Columbia as they travel the world, highlighting and showcasing our artists.
Investing a further $300,000 over two years in Arts Fest B.C. It’s a training program designed to spark new business sponsorship of arts and culture programming. There are so many opportunities for private sponsorship in the arts and culture. It’s not only the government that needs to be doing this, and I’m very, very grateful that we are investing this money to help spark new business sponsorships.
The B.C. government supported a successful four-year Arts Fest program, and each provincially funded dollar is matched by federal funding, generating an average of $3.75 in additional business sponsorship that is added to B.C.’s economy. Through leveraging the provincial outlay, it has generated more than $1.1 million, or a 475 percent rate of return on investment.
We’ve identified the creative economy as one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world for income generation, job creation and export earnings. This was identified by the United Nations in their recent report. B.C.’s culture GDP was $6.7 billion, representing 3 percent of the provincial economy.
The province benefited from 81,000 culture jobs, representing over 3 percent of total jobs in British Columbia. With 24,000 — almost 25,000 — artists, B.C. has more artists per capita than any other province. And I must say that Vancouver–False Creek has a lot of the artists in our province. The number of artists in B.C. grew by 74 percent between 1990 and 2014.
Many internationally renowned artists hail from British Columbia, and they have made us so proud on the international stage. I note that a finding from a Hill Strategies report shows: “Arts and culture organizations bring a range of benefits to their communities, including fostering creativity, stimulating thought, artistic inspiration, as well as supporting education.”
The government of British Columbia is providing $60 million in funding for arts and cultural organizations, as well as for individual artists in 2016-2017. This includes $24 million for the B.C. Arts Council, which includes $2.1 million from the BC150 cultural fund.
It’s about $17.5 million in arts and culture community gaming grants; about $12 million for the Royal B.C. Museum; $2.2 million for Creative B.C., via the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training; and $2.2 million for the arts branch operations, with $2 million for arts and culture programs, and $350,000 for the arts legacy fund portion of the B.C. arts and culture endowment.
As of 2016, the B.C. Arts Council has been responsible for distributing about $283 million since 2001. The Arts Council draws upon the expertise of British Columbia’s arts and culture community to provide an independent, peer-reviewed adjudication process.
In conclusion, I’d like this say that I am very proud to be supporting Budget 2017.
G. Holman: I’m very pleased to rise today to speak to the 2017 forget-about-it budget. I do want to say that I’m very honoured. I’ve been working in this place for four years, and I’m very honoured to represent my constituents. I want to thank my family, my staff and my colleagues for all of their support during that four years.
I do want to challenge whether, in fact, these budgets over the last few years have actually been balanced. Now,
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I’m an economist, with a master’s degree in economics. I realize that there are other folks on the other side of the House who are much more learned in such things. But my sense of it is that in fact, these budgets are “balanced” on the backs of ratepayers for B.C. Hydro, ICBC, Medical Services premiums…. Just those three things alone, over the last number of years, have cost each family in this province $1,000 a year. That’s how they balanced this budget.
Of course, those rate increases support dividends being stripped by government out of these Crown corporations — billions of dollars over the last several years. If you compare the dividends that have been stripped from ICBC and B.C. Hydro to the so-called budget surpluses over that period of time, I think those surpluses would come down substantially.
Who am I to criticize these great fiscal managers on the other side of the House? But really, it does seem to me that these budgets have been essentially created by a shell game — by moving dollars from our Crown corporations — and these transfers, in fact, supported eventually by ratepayers.
We shouldn’t also forget the fire sale of assets that has been happening over the past few years. Hundreds of millions of dollars in the sale of public property in British Columbia, some of it at fire sale prices, to what appear to be friends of the Liberals, donors — being sold at a fraction of their market value.
We can remember examples in Coquitlam, in particular, where the difference between the assessed value of the property, the appraised value, and what government actually got is pretty disconcerting. Let’s not forget that: the one-time sale of public assets, again, to promote this notion that somehow we’re balancing the budget.
There are other fees as well. Of course, everyone living in the real world…. I realize some of the members opposite don’t necessarily live in the real world, but certainly many of my constituents do. I think all of my constituents do.
You look at the huge increases over time, over the past 15 years, in things like tuition rates for post-secondary education. Doubled.
Ferry fares. Just in my constituency, the Swartz Bay to Fulford Harbour run, an increase of 110 percent in ferry fares. Those percentage increases have been much larger in other areas on the coast, particularly the midcoast and the north coast, which not only suffered huge increases in ferry fares but have had their services cut considerably — communities that depend on ferries.
That’s how they balance these budgets — on the basis of a whole range of fee increases, rate increases, premium increases. But no, they’re not taxes. We never want to admit that they’re taxes. No, they’re fees. They’re rates. They’re premiums.
Yesterday it was stunning to hear the Minister of Transportation. When challenged about the sorry state of ICBC affairs — which has transferred $1.2 billion since 2008, I believe, to this government, which had to change the law in order to enable that $1.2 billion — the minister stands up and says: “We are doing everything we can to put downward pressure on rates.” It’s unbelievable.
What’s even more unbelievable is the minister actually said — and challenged us on this side of the House: “Well, which of the services that those transfers from ICBC…?” In other words, driver insurance rates. “Which of those transfers would you cut back? What services would you cut back?” That’s unbelievable. A clear admission by the minister that ICBC rates, driver insurance rates, are funding social programs in British Columbia.
[R. Lee in the chair.]
Isn’t that a tax? It seems like a tax to me. But no. That word will never come from the Liberals’ mouths. In fact, they’re accusing us of planning to raise taxes after billions of dollars of increases in this whole range of fees over 15 years, which hammer lower- to modest-income families the most. And they’re pointing the finger at us for raising taxes? It’s pretty astonishing.
I come back to my original contention. I think if you really looked at the numbers carefully, these budgets are being balanced on the backs of ratepayers and everyday families in this province. That’s how they balance their budget: by raising taxes — and regressive taxes, at that, taxes that harm lower- to modest-income families the most. That’s how they’ve done it — and a fire sale of assets.
Running up debt in B.C. Hydro. The unbelievable rates of the so-called deferral accounts, now in the order of $4 billion, $5 billion, $6 billion — I’ve lost count — I think among the highest in utilities in North America. That’s how they’ve balanced the budget — by running up the debt in Crown corporations.
ICBC experiencing budget deficits year after year, and the minister is saying: “Well gee, that’s because….” He blamed it on drivers, essentially. He didn’t blame it on the $1.2 billion that they’ve transferred from ICBC. Crown corporations awash in debt and deficits, yet somehow this Liberal government claims they’re balancing the budget? It doesn’t wash. It doesn’t wash at all.
I think another concern with this budget…. I mentioned the fire sale of assets before. It’s like selling the furniture in the house to make the mortgage payments, essentially.
The same concern, I think, applies to the property transfer tax, revenues from which have been skyrocketing in recent years because of another issue that the Liberals have been hoping would go away. That is skyrocketing housing prices driven by speculative investment in British Columbia, and not just non-resident investment — resident as well.
Their property tax does not deal with that, whereas the proposal that our critic for Housing has put forward
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would deal with that. So there’s been a huge increase, a short-term increase, in property transfer taxes that’s not going to last. It simply won’t last.
Again, it’s balancing the budget on the basis of short-term fluctuations and hoping they’re going to continue through time. They’re not going to continue through time.
Another concern about this so-called balanced budget is: how long, really, is that going to last? Well, it just needs to last for a few months, until we get through the election, I suppose.
I’d like to speak a little bit about debt. I want to make the modest suggestion that the slogan on the Liberal bus is…. We’re going to have to think of something different there. “Debt-free B.C.” doesn’t quite seem to ring true. Perhaps my colleagues could offer some alternative suggestions — or perhaps members from the other side of the floor.
Debt-free B.C. Again, it’s this Orwellian double-speak that I just find so stunning. Debt-free B.C. Yet this Premier, just in the few years she’s been in power — five years; five glorious years, don’t get me wrong — has run up the debt in this province at a record level, more than any Premier in the history of this province.
Boy, you are going to have to think of new slogan for that bus. Perhaps the members opposite have some suggestions. I’ll try to think of something, and I’ll make a constructive proposal later.
Just in the term of this Premier, in five years, debt has been run up by $22 billion. In the 90s…. I do want to speak a little bit about the 90s a little bit later, because I know how much the members opposite love to hear us speak about the 90s. In the 1990s, public debt in this province was increased from $17 billion to $34 billion.
That’s a $17 billion increase in ten years, investing in things like schools, roads, hospitals and all of those things that you do with appropriate and prudent spending, which is another issue I want to raise — about whether the debt spending by this provincial government has been prudent. It’s been far from prudent. In the space of five years, this Premier has run up debt by about $5 billion more than the NDP did in the entire 1990s. Debt-free B.C. indeed.
As far as the total Liberal debt, the NDP…. During the 90s, debt went from $17 billion to $34 billion. Under this Liberal regime, at the end of the forecast period, the debt level is estimated at $78 billion, more than doubling. Look at the absolute increase. What’s the difference between 78 and 34? It’s 44 — $44 billion in 15 years. Debt-free B.C. indeed.
That, of course, doesn’t…. We haven’t got to Site C yet. There’s a white elephant coming down the road. There is, indeed, light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, it’s attached to a train in the form of Site C.
So $9 billion and counting. That assumes no cost overruns, and my understanding is that Site C has already probably run up most of its contingencies. Perhaps the Minister of Energy knows better, but my understanding is the contingencies for Site C have already been exhausted. There is no question that it’s going to cost more than $9 billion.
Even if it was $9 billion….
Interjections.
G. Holman: It’s interesting to hear the comments from the other side. You know you’re getting to them when they’re heckling you during your budget speech.
Even if it is $9 billion, this is for a project that B.C. Hydro itself has estimated will lose $800 million in the first four years of operation, and there have been estimates that the capital won’t be paid off for 70 years.
I wonder: what’s the rate of return on that — on a $9 billion investment — and you pay it off over 70 years? A pretty low rate of return, which gets back to the point about prudent investments.
The chair of the joint review panel which looked at Site C recommended strongly that that project be reviewed by the B.C. Utilities Commission, which of course this government was afraid to do because they knew the Utilities Commission, like they did back in the Bennett years, were very likely to turn the project down. That’s why this government has also precluded all of those IPP investments. The Utilities Commission started to turn them down, so they precluded them from even reviewing them. This is fiscal prudence, Liberal style.
Site C will be selling power into export markets because we’ve actually got a huge surplus of power. Demand in British Columbia has been flat for ten years. It’s actually starting to decline. Our critic for B.C. Hydro has been pointing this out. Demand is actually declining in B.C.
In the face of that, they want to spend $9 billion on Site C, which will submerge thousands of hectares of productive agricultural land and First Nations traditional territory for power that we don’t need and that we’re going to be exporting and selling into export markets at a fraction of the cost of producing the power. This is prudent investment, Liberal style. The same story on the IPP side.
In terms of debt, the Auditor General has…. Again, I’m sure the members opposite feel that the Auditor General really doesn’t know what she’s talking about either. The Auditor General’s view was that the fixed-price long-term contractual obligations of B.C. Hydro to those private power producers in effect constitutes debt. It’s something in the order of $50 billion or $60 billion in additional debt, over and above the $78 billion, and that’s debt right now.
B.C. Hydro is required to purchase this power. It’s called take-or-pay. If B.C. Hydro doesn’t need the power, they still have to pay for it at that contractual price.
After 40 years, guess who gets the asset. Unlike a P3 for a hospital, for example — and there are arguments for and against — at the end of the 40 years, after B.C. Hydro — i.e., ratepayers, i.e., taxpayers — has paid off
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that facility, guess who it reverts to. Not to Hydro, not to the public who own the resource upon which those projects depend. It reverts to the proponent — unbelievable. Fiscal prudence, Liberal style.
Interjections.
G. Holman: Well, there is that aspect as well. Many of those IPP projects — the proponents are donors to the Liberal Party. That theme runs throughout all of this. In terms of fiscal prudence…. It’s crony capitalism at work, crony capitalism at its best.
Now, the other aspect of debt…. You know, debt for schools, hospitals, roads, public facilities is not a bad thing if it’s done prudently. It’s not a bad thing at all. Some of our debt, including by this Liberal government, is invested in good, solid projects that offer services over a long period of time.
That’s not the problem. The problem is projects like these IPPs and B.C. Hydro where, in fact, we don’t need to build them at all.
But there’s another problem, and that’s the cost overruns — a litany of cost overruns, again by this fiscally prudent government — for things like the northwest transmission line, $340 million over budget; the Vancouver Convention Centre, $341 million over budget; the Port Mann Bridge, $1.8 billion over budget. My understanding is the current ongoing liability, what we have to pay the operator…. It’s losing about $90 million a year, so it’s $1.8 billion and counting.
Countless IT boondoggles. How many IT systems have we invested literally billions of dollars in, in this province, which have then been shelved — completely shelved? It makes the fast ferries look like kindergarten. And that’s just a few projects that I’ve mentioned here.
Debt can be good: supporting good projects, prudently built, with appropriate fiscal management, project management. But we’ve had huge, huge cost overruns in these projects, many of them undertaken by Liberal friends, so that’s added quite unnecessarily to our debt levels in British Columbia.
The proposed Massey bridge is another one, another train that’s coming through the tunnel. Aside from the merits, the basic point is that the valuation of the merits of that bridge seems to have gone missing. We can’t really seem to find the business case for that proposal.
In fact, the former Transportation Minister for this government, Kevin Falcon, estimated that the Massey Tunnel had a number of years of useful life and that the most cost-effective way of increasing capacity or upgrading the facility or replacing it would be to simply add other tunnels to the Massey Tunnel.
You know, that’s the kind of basic prudent evaluation of huge capital expenditures that these guys just ignore. And what they do then is say to the NDP: “Well, you’re opposed to the Massey bridge. How dare you be opposed to the Massey bridge? How dare you be opposed to Site C?”
What we’re opposed to is stupid investments. That’s what we’re opposed to. Do your homework. Do your bloody homework. Excuse me. I retract that comment. Do your homework. Taxpayers deserve that, especially from the party that fancies itself as the financial gurus. It’s far from it.
Just quickly, I am noting the hour. I want to reserve my right to continue my comments next week. I do want to speak briefly about the ’90s, because this government has been crowing about its economic record.
[Madame Speaker in the chair.]
If you look at the record and compare the record in the 1990s to the Liberal term, to the Liberal tenure, our GDP, our economic growth, our employment and our population all grew more quickly than under this Liberal regime. We did it by doubling the parks system in British Columbia, and we still had an environmental review system that had a modicum of integrity, Mr. Speaker. Much better balance, I would say, of economic and social and environmental goals.
Sorry, Madame Speaker, I’ve been referring to you as Mr. Speaker because I didn’t have my glasses on.
But noting the hour, I reserve my right to continue my comments at the next session and move adjournment of the debate.
G. Holman moved adjournment of debate.
Motion approved.
Hon. T. Lake moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday morning.
The House adjourned at 5:48 p.m.
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