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)

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 42, Number 6

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

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2017

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introduction and
First Reading of Bills

BILL M228 — ENERGY AND WATER
EFFICIENCY ACT, 2017

A. Weaver presented a bill intituled Energy and Water Efficiency Act, 2017.

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

Motion approved.

A. Weaver: I’m pleased to introduce a bill intituled the Energy and Water Efficiency Act, 2017. This bill was originally tabled by the Liberal government in 2012. This is a bill that the Minister of Energy and Mines, at the time, said would reduce consumers’ energy bills and lower operating costs for B.C. businesses.

This legislation would replace the current Energy Efficiency Act. It would enable administrative penalties to ensure manufacturers, distributors and retailers comply with energy efficiency guidelines, broaden the scope of energy efficiency requirements to include commercial energy systems, industrial reporting and water efficiency and enable the minister responsible to enact regulations for technical standards.

It was a good and widely supported piece of legislation. It seems that the only reason it went to second reading and wasn’t taken to committee was the fact that the official opposition supported it.

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

Bill M228, Energy and Water Efficiency Act, 2017, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Polak: I call continued debate on the budget.

Budget Debate

(continued)

J. Tegart: I’ll continue with my comments on the budget.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

We are the only province with a triple-A credit rating, meaning that we have lower borrowing costs. Without our triple-A credit rating, if we instead had the credit rating of the other provinces, we would be paying an additional $2.23 billion in annual debt-servicing costs.

What does all of this mean? It means that we will save more than $500 million in interest costs by the end of the fiscal plan. It means that there’s an additional $500 million that can be used to fund health care, education and infrastructure. It can build schools, hospitals, hire more rural doctors and create jobs. That means that our children and our grandchildren won’t have to deal with the burden of debt run up by irresponsible government spending.

By committing to strong fiscal discipline while maintaining our high level of service in priority programs, our government has managed to have some of the highest outcomes in Canada, while providing efficient and effective programs.

[1335]

But that’s not all. As a government, we are also working hard to ensure our businesses are competitive. On October 1, 2017, we’re going to phase out the PST on electricity, starting with a reduction to 3.5 percent of the purchase price and moving to full exemption on April 1, 2019. That is half of what it was a year ago. This reduction will save small and medium businesses $50 million a year.

Small businesses are the engine of the B.C. economy. There are almost 400 small businesses in B.C., and they contribute almost a third of our total exports and our GDP. We want small businesses to benefit from our strong fiscal position, so we’re cutting $213 million in taxes for small business by reducing the small business tax rate from 2.5 percent to 2 percent. This reduction in taxation means that B.C. will have the second-lowest small business tax rate in the country.

For those of us who live in small, rural British Columbia, we know the importance of our small businesses in our downtown cores. Contrary to popular belief, often our business people are not our richest people in the community. They are often struggling, but they provide the jobs for people who live in our community. Often our high school students get their training there. It’s really important that we have a budget that supports small business.

Some of the measures include an enhancement to the buy-local program so that we can continue to have high-quality agrifoods on our tables that are grown right here in B.C.

There are also important measures in the budget for smaller rural communities across the province, like those in my riding. I’d like to highlight those investments.

Rural schools receive special consideration in the budget. We are investing $9 million over three years to
[ Page 13916 ]
the rural education enhancement fund. That will keep schools, which are often the centre of our communities, open. Of course, keeping a school open doesn’t make sense if children can’t get there, so we are investing $45 million to ensure that virtually all students can take a bus to school at no cost.

In my riding, we’ve made significant investments in school district No. 58, Nicola-Similkameen. Schools that saw funding out of that are Diamond Vale Elementary School and Collettville Elementary.Both received funding for high-efficiency boiler replacements. Merritt Secondary also saw an investment of $663,000 to upgrade their lighting and dust-collection systems.

We’re also working to help rural communities diversify their economies and working hard to support vibrant and healthy rural communities that attract businesses and individuals.

In this budget, we are adding $40 million to extend the availability of rural broadband service, $15 million for a new community gaming grants capital program and many other initiatives.

We’re also committing another $25 million to continue the rural dividend program. The B.C. rural dividend is designed to help eligible rural communities diversify and strengthen their economies and contribute to their overall wellness and sustainability. It is one of those programs that, as an MLA, I am so proud to support. It emphasizes the importance of rural British Columbia to the whole picture of British Columbia. It gives us, sometimes, that little hand up that our communities need when they’re looking at projects and how to kick-start those.

Our province relies on rural communities for a strong and diversified economy. That’s why we’re making significant investments in rural economic development through the rural dividend program. With these investments, we’re securing stable and sustainable future economic growth for these regions of the province. I’m proud of these investments.

[1340]

I’m also quite pleased to have been able to support other important initiatives and projects in my riding, like the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology.

You’ve heard me speak many times in this House about how proud I am that we host NVIT in Merritt. Nicola Valley Institute of Technology is the only aboriginal public post-secondary institute in B.C. It offers a range of education and training programs for both aboriginal and non-aboriginal students.

By 2025, B.C. is projected to have up to one million job openings, many of which will require training in the skilled trades. By supporting post-secondary education at places like NVIT that provide learning opportunities in trades and clean technology, we are ensuring that British Columbians will be first in line for those jobs.

Total government funding for NVIT is $4.79 million. Here’s a brief breakdown on how we’ve supported this fantastic organization: $2 million for the new Centre of Excellence in Sustainability; $1.8 million for a new trades training building; $450,000 for programs and activities that enhance aboriginal learners’ experiences; $207,000 for 52 critical trade seats since the launch of B.C.’s skills-for-jobs blueprint in 2014; $100,000 for new industry-standard trades equipment; $75,000 for programs to support students who face barriers to education; $50,000 for programs to support people with disabilities to access and succeed in training aligned with in-demand jobs; $75,000 to NVIT to partner with the University of the Fraser Valley to pilot innovative training and initiatives to increase the success of persons with disabilities; and $36,000 in 2015, for 15 trades discovery programs to introduce high school students and young adults to a variety of high-demand trades.

I’m so proud that NVIT is in my riding and so proud of all the work they do to improve our provincial and local economies. Providing this type of training to our youth is essential in meeting our skilled labour targets for the future. These investments ensure an even brighter future for our youth and for our province.

Our government has made other significant investments in my riding to improve services and programs. In the last year, we’ve provided over $5 million to various organizations that provide essential services for my communities. Some of those investments include $235,000 to the Merritt Youth and Family Resources Society to create 28 spaces; ten spaces at the Nicola Valley extreme weather shelter; six new support recovery beds at the ASK Wellness Society; $100,000 to the Nicola Valley Theatre Society for architectural design costs from the rural dividend fund; and another $100,000 to the city of Merritt to undertake business retention and attraction initiatives from the rural dividend fund.

I’ve also had the pleasure of making local investments in health care for my community when we announced $5.6 million for the Merritt emergency department upgrade and expansion, bringing it to five times its original size.

My region has also benefited from another $2.8 million invested in health care in order for 14 internationally trained physicians to begin practising in rural and remote communities. This included two new family doctors in Lillooet. The practice-ready assessment program assesses internationally trained physicians for practice in B.C. As part of the program, doctors undergo a rigorous assessment process, spending three months with a B.C. physician who evaluates their skills as they care for patients. Physicians successfully completing the program commit to practise for at least three years in a designated rural community in need.

[1345]

The program is funded for a total of $7.6 million through March 2018 by the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues, a collaborative committee of the Ministry
[ Page 13917 ]
of Health and the Doctors of B.C. Health initiatives like these have a clear and meaningful impact on our health care system across the province and for people in my riding. Here are a few stats that show that.

According to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C., as of February 2016 there were 6,042 family doctors registered to practise in B.C., an increase of 9 percent over the previous five years. According to the latest figures available from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, as of 2014 there were 125 family doctors per 100,000 people in B.C., compared to the national average of 114.

The provincial government has more than doubled the number of first-year undergraduate medical school spaces in B.C. from 128 to 288 between 2003 and 2011. The number of entry-level postgraduate residency positions increased from 134 in 2003 to 348 positions in 2016, almost half in family medicine. More than 500 additional family physicians have graduated from UBC as a result of the medical school expansion.

Statistics from the Canadian community health survey show that, year over year, more and more British Columbians have continued access to a regular physician, with their most recent study stating that well over four-fifths of individuals are covered.

In the latest agreement with the Doctors of B.C., the province committed $67 million in new funding toward ongoing support of the work of A GP for Me and other primary care–focused programs. More than 10,000 previously unattached patients with complex care needs are now matched with a family doctor or belong to a primary care clinic thanks to this work. A further 60,000 were matched with a new doctor when their family doctor retired or moved.

Nurse practitioners were introduced as an important part of health care teams in B.C. in 2005, helping to meet the growing need for primary and community health care. Since B.C.’s first group of nurse practitioners graduated in 2005, 397 nurse practitioners have been licensed to practise in the province.

Before I conclude, I would like to mention some of the significant infrastructure projects we’re investing in, in my riding. I’ve had the privilege of helping to deliver crucial local infrastructure investments for my communities. These investments include $4.8 million to resurface and realign a 4.8-kilometre stretch of the Douglas Lake Road. Although that sounds like a pavement announcement, I have to share the experience of the opening of that road and the First Nations that welcomed us into their community.

There were seven past chiefs there. Many talked about the 30-year process it took to get to the place where we actually laid down pavement. It was important for all of us to be there. It was important for us to hear from the chief whose grandmother stopped the B.C. surveyors from coming on reserve and said: “Never in my lifetime.” That chief talked about the struggle of looking towards the future for his band but also remembering to listen to the elders and the past. It was very interesting for all of us to hear of the struggles within, when we often think that a highway project is something you just welcome.

As we moved through the history of that process, I think all of us came away with a much better understanding that it’s much more than a road to our communities, whether you’re a First Nations community or any other rural community. There are many things to think about when we look at those kinds of infrastructure projects.

[1350]

I have to say that that was one of the most interesting processes and sharing of the difficulties of a community transitioning into 2017. All of us who were there were touched by the conversation.

I also have been able to bring forward a $2.8 million project to resurface a ten-mile stretch of Highway 5 between the Coldwater Interchange and Comstock Road. But I am most proud of the $60 million investment I was able to deliver for stabilization work on Highway 99 on the area known as the ten-mile slide.

Emergency stabilization work at the ten-mile slide on Highway 99 northeast of Lillooet is now underway, providing immediate short-term stabilization that will allow the highway to be open to two lanes, improving safety and mobility for the local communities and the travelling public. We know that this highway is an important link for commercial traffic and for the efficient transport of goods in and out of the area. This initial work to install soil anchors is the first step in stabilizing the slope and road base to eventually allow the safe passage of commercial vehicles.

The ten-mile slide is approximately 200 metres wide, 300 metres long and contains over one million cubic metres of rock and earth. Since 1988, this slow-moving slide has periodically made the road unstable and unreliable for travelers. Accelerated slide movement occurred last fall and resulted in a full closure of Highway 99 for eight days. Highway 99 has since reopened but only to single-lane, alternating traffic, with a 50 percent legal-load restriction at the slide site. Final designs for the major capital project are expected to be completed by this spring.

Our government is able to make these types of investments in our province because of our sound fiscal management and highly productive economy. Without either of these, we would not be able to make these investments. It should go without saying that I will be voting in support of balanced budget 2017.

Within our fifth consecutive balanced budget, we see almost $3 billion over three years in enhanced programs and services in addition to health care increases, reducing the tax burden for B.C. families and supporting job growth by about $3 billion over three years, and record levels of infrastructure investment. All this comes
[ Page 13918 ]
while we’re maintaining debt affordability and staying on track to eliminate our operating debt.

Truly, balanced budget 2017 is a budget for a province poised to take advantage of our opportunities — five successive balanced budgets, strong economic growth, on track to eliminate our direct operating debt, services that support citizens across the province, and a plan to enhance and continue diversifying and growing our economy to create good, family-supporting jobs.

British Columbia is in a position of economic strength, and as a government, we will continue to build on this success to create an even stronger future for B.C. Because B.C.’s economy is strong and because we controlled spending, we’re now able to make investments in the priorities of British Columbians, like health care and education, and put significantly more money back in the pockets of our citizens.

When the plan is working and we are seeing results, this is not the time to veer off course. As I have stated, the proposals and policies promoted on the other side of the House would very much take our province in the wrong direction, in my view. I am so proud of this budget, and I’m proud of the accomplishments of the government and what the decisions are on this side of the House.

On behalf of my constituents, I will be voting in support of this budget for an even stronger and more prosperous British Columbia.

[1355]

M. Mungall: Before I commence my remarks on the B.C. Liberal government’s budget, I just want to pay a few thank-yous to my staff, both here in the Legislature in Victoria and in my Nelson-Creston community office in Nelson. I am so fortunate to have the support of such amazing people, allowing me to do the work that I do every single day and serving our community.

Laurie Langille has been my constituency assistant since the very beginning. She and I have worked together since my first election in 2009 and in the nomination process to become the candidate for the New Democrats in 2008. Laurie is just absolutely amazing in her ability to serve the people in the West Kootenays and throughout B.C., really. People call from all over this province, seeking help and advice, and Laurie is always there, ready and able to help people out.

Right now in my office, covering for a mat leave, is Jesse Pineiro. He actually did his practicum as a Selkirk College human services student in my office last spring. What a talented young man; he’s just absolutely amazing. His passion and dedication to serving the public is so apparent that when my regular CA, Tessa Bendig, announced that she was going to be welcoming a new little member to their family, it was great that Jesse was available and able to start up working in my office last fall.

Of course, Tessa Bendig is just phenomenal. She is another person who’s passionate and dedicated to our region and works on behalf of the citizens every day — except right now, while she’s on a maternity leave after she and her husband, Curtis, welcomed new baby Orson — Orrie for short — into the world, back in the fall. Yeah, he’s about four months right now and just as cute as a button.

Of course, here in the Legislature there are so many people that I can thank, but I want to just point out my legislative assistant, Robert Hill. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know him and working with him in the last few months. Somebody I’ve worked with for many, many years in doing communications and research from our caucus services is Jennifer Jones. She’s now in a different part of our caucus services. I don’t get to work with her every single day anymore, but I appreciate all the time I’ve had with her in the last several years. Now I’m working with Veronica Harrison regularly, and she’s just a superstar as well.

Then, hon. Speaker, if I can beg your indulgence before I go directly on to my comments on the budget, I want to acknowledge that there are six members from this side of the House who are retiring this year. I’ve had the honour of working with them for the last eight years, and I’ve learned so much from each and every one of them. I have absolutely enjoyed getting to know them, not just as colleagues but as friends. To see the things that they do for the people of British Columbia and the communities that they represent really is amazing.

Retiring are the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke, the member for Cowichan Valley, the member for Skeena, the member for Burnaby–Deer Lake, the member for Esquimalt–Royal Roads and the member for Surrey–Green Timbers — all truly amazing people. I do want to just say that I’m really, really going to miss my sisters in the women’s caucus who are retiring. The members for Burnaby–Deer Lake, Surrey–Green Timbers and Esquimalt–Royal Roads are truly sisters. It’s been such a wonderful eight years working with all of them, and I’m going to miss them very, very much.

Moving on, though, to the topic at hand: the B.C. Liberals’ budget for 2017, which essentially is their budget of what they want to run on in this upcoming election. We do have an election right around the corner here. What’s interesting about this budget…. I’ve heard my other colleagues call it this, and I have to say it’s aptly named as the forget-everything budget: “Forget what we’ve done for the last 16 years to this province. We’re going to try and make nice.”

[1400]

The Liberal member before me who spoke said, repeating a phrase that we hear a lot every four years from the B.C. Liberals: “We have to save up so that we can spend later.” Let’s just break that down a little bit.

They say that when they deliver a budget that looks like they’re going to be spending on British Columbians. But what happens right after the election? Well, they go and they cut. They cut services. Meanwhile, they jack up fees for British Columbians.
[ Page 13919 ]

What they’ve done with health care services is just one of the best examples of that. We’ve seen a reduction in services. Nine in ten seniors residential care homes aren’t meeting minimum standards, yet MSP premiums have gone up for the last 16 years. It was this government — it was this Premier — that doubled them. That’s what their legacy actually is. But they want you to forget that, right? They want to pretend that that never happened and that’s not what they really do after an election. They want to have everybody just forget that they’ve hiked MSP.

They want to forget the fights that they’ve picked with teachers for over a decade. They want everybody to forget that the only reason why we’re seeing funding increases in this budget is because of decades-long court cases, where teachers refused to back down for our children’s well-being and the public education system that they deserve.

Because they refused to back down, we’re finally seeing an appropriate investment into public education — not because they valued it but because the courts told them that they had to do it. That’s what they want people to forget. They want everybody to just think that: “Oh, we value public education, really. Honestly, as B.C. Liberals, we value public education.”

They want everybody to think that, but the reality is that no one is going to forget because so many of them were at rallies, were at demonstrations. So many of them have taken their kids to school for the last 12 years and have known that their children weren’t getting all the supports that they needed, that they weren’t getting all the attention they needed to meet their full potential. Things in our classrooms were not the best they could possibly be. We’ve seen schools close. That’s the reality. That’s the legacy of this government.

What else have we seen in the last 16 years? I already mentioned about MSP premiums being hiked — more than doubled since 2001. We’ve seen hydro rates go up year after year after year. ICBC rates go up year after year after year. All that included — hydro, MSP, car insurance…. On average, families are paying an extra $1,000 a year for these three things than they were before the Liberals became government in 2001. People are paying more, and they just want everybody to forget about it. That’s what they want to do with their lofty promises.

Why would anybody trust them now, after 16 years? Why would anybody trust them now — people who have been on the front lines of not getting the services that they deserve, people who have been at these rallies, who have been protesting, who have been writing letters, who have been sending emails, who’ve been tweeting, who’ve been facebooking, who have been all over social media, who have been on the front steps of this building, who have been in the galleries here?

The thing is, as much as this government wants them all to forget, I don’t think they will. We have a real affordability crisis on our hands in this province, where people are struggling more and more. While many people are now struggling more and more just to pay the bills at the end of the month, some people aren’t even able to pay those bills anymore. Food bank use is way up, way up. In fact, there’s an article from CBC. The headline reads: “Food Bank Use in B.C. at an All-Time High.”

[1405]

Now, I know that the members opposite would love that this headline came from their favourite decade of the 1990s, but it actually doesn’t. It comes from November 14, 2016. Food bank use is at an all-time high in B.C. under their watch. That’s the result. That’s the legacy of this government’s budgets. That’s the legacy of how they govern this province, that 103,400 people are receiving assistance from Canada’s food banks in B.C.

Now, I think what’s important to note is there are also numerous other food programs around the province that are not captured in this count. I myself was the manager for the Nelson Food Cupboard from 2003 to 2005. We were not part of the B.C. food banks umbrella. We were serving 1,000 people every month — 1,000 people every month. The entire West Kootenay population is 55,000. We were serving 1,000 people every month, and 25 percent of them were children, when I was there.

Has that number gone down? Has that percentage gone down? No, it’s gone up. Nowadays, 32 percent of food bank users are children. That’s the legacy of these B.C. budgets. That’s what this government has delivered on. Increased food bank usage in this province, most notably by children, because poverty has gone up.

When the middle class is squeezed more and more, more of them drop off and start living in poverty and start having to use food banks. Or even worse, they lose their homes. What has happened in this province under this government? Homelessness has gone up 26 percent every year in Vancouver.

I remember that when I was working in my community as the coordinator for the Nelson Committee on Homelessness, it was a new thing. People hadn’t really understood that homelessness had existed in their part of the world. It was a new phenomenon. Most people were always able to access housing. But what was happening was that as costs were going up, people were falling through the cracks. There was more demand for social housing than there was supply.

There’s a variety of reasons for that, but one of the biggest reasons is that is this government deprioritized social housing. It focused a lot on the Lower Mainland and forgot about the rest of British Columbia. We’ve see some increases in units over the years, but not enough to actually maintain an affordable housing market, because the number of social housing units actually impacts the overall affordability of the private market too.

Sadly enough, because this government hasn’t prioritized social housing, that’s been part of the reason why we have an affordability crisis right now in housing. What
[ Page 13920 ]
is the result? More people end up homeless, and then we have these huge numbers in Vancouver.

This is about ten years ago that I was a coordinator for the Nelson Committee on Homelessness. Bring us to today. Homelessness isn’t a new phenomenon that people aren’t too sure what to do about. People know what the solutions are. They know that affordable housing is the solution, not tent cities. Yet tent cities seem to be what we have.

What has been counted in the Lower Mainland alone is 70 homeless camps — 70 camps. You’d think: “Oh, well that wouldn’t happen maybe outside the Lower Mainland. This is just an urban issue.” It’s spreading to the suburbs, and it’s been in my community for the last ten years.

We all know where people who are homeless go to camp. We all know where they are just down the railroad tracks. They didn’t used to be there; 16 years ago they weren’t there. But they’re there every year, all year long. It started off with just the summer, and now it’s all year long. That’s the reality of 16 years of this government’s budget. People are worse off.

[1410]

I thought it was really interesting. Those are the numbers that we see as homelessness is increasing. Food bank usage is way up. We’re seeing an increase of homelessness camps. While some people can’t even get their basic needs met, our Premier has public dollars for a lawyer to defend her getting a $300,000 stipend from her party for her fundraising activities. She’s got money from the public purse to pay for her lawyer, but somehow, we don’t have money for some of the basics that we need in classrooms.

We don’t have money for housing. We don’t have money to ensure that there are enough social workers on the front lines for kids like Alex Gervais, but let’s make sure that the Premier’s stipend is defended. Talk about mixed-up priorities. It shows who this government is really working for. They’re working for the wealthy and well connected. There’s no doubt about it. That’s who they’re working for.

The kids who get shut out in the cold for the last two years in Maple Ridge because Iron Horse Youth Safe House is closed, because this government wouldn’t give it a dime, are not who this government is working for. That’s just not okay.

One of the things I noted in the budget is something that I’ve been working on the last four years, and that’s all the clawbacks that people with disabilities and people on income assistance experience from this government.

What this government has been doing in each one of their budgets over several years — and they continue to do this in this budget as well — is treat people on income assistance as though they’re a revenue source. These are some of the most vulnerable people, the poorest people in our society, and somehow they’re more of a revenue source than the top 2 percent, who get a billion-dollar tax break.

But if you’re on disability, and you have a child — you’re a single parent — and you’re getting child support from the non-custodial parent, this government was taking away that child support. If it wasn’t for single parents coming forward to this place, to this building here in Victoria, and speaking up for themselves, that would never have changed.

I’ve got to say that I will thank the government for actually listening to the single moms who came here and the dads who came here and the children who came here to speak out for their rights to their child support. But that’s how things happen in this province right now. You have to fight tooth and nail with this government to keep $120-$300 a month that’s supposed to go to feeding your kid. That’s how things are going, and that’s not okay.

From there, once the single parents were able to keep their child support, we learned about a lot of different clawbacks. It was really amazing how many there were. One of the things that we brought up in this Legislature, one of those clawbacks that we brought forward in this Legislature following the end of the child support clawback, was the maternity and parental leave.

Again, this is parents calling me up, telling me what was going on in their lives and saying: “This is wrong. I’ve been working. I have a disability, and I’ve been working. I’m allowed to keep my earnings under the earnings exemption. But I’m about to have a child, and I’m not allowed to keep my maternity and parental leave right when I need it the most. I have a new little one in my life.” They require all kinds of things. They need bottles, diapers, bibs, cribs.

[1415]

I know that one little one that I was looking after loved her bouncy chair. All these things cost money. At a time when these parents, who were already struggling to make ends meet, needed money the most, this government was taking it away. It made no sense. This was an extra tax on poor, young, new parents, and they started to speak out.

One, Jessica Alford…. I just admire her so much. She knew that going to the Human Rights Tribunal was risky for her and her family. She knew that they might not even hear her case. But most importantly, she knew that even if her case did get heard and was found in favour of her, it wouldn’t impact her anyway because she already had to go back to work. Her maternity and parental leave were over. She knew that she personally wouldn’t benefit at all by speaking out, but she did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do.

She is a force to be reckoned with, because she wouldn’t back down. I’m really glad that she didn’t, because this government — I will commend them for actually listening, once again — ended the maternity and parental leave clawback as well. But this is another story of a family who’s struggling, who’s stressed out financially, and they have to fight. They have to fight for their $500 a month in EI benefits for maternity and parental leave from this government. They have to fight for it.
[ Page 13921 ]

This isn’t part of a poverty reduction plan. I mean, B.C. is the only province in the entire country that doesn’t have one, for some reason. Oh, I know that reason: because they’re too busy listening to their wealthy and well-connected friends and too busy playing partisan politics to actually do the right thing when it comes to reducing poverty.

Plans work. We’ve seen that all over the country. We’ve seen that in other jurisdictions around the world. But no, no. They put their head in the sand on that.

But I digress there, because the point of the story is that we have people coming forward. They have to fight tooth and nail with this government for a few hundred extra dollars a month — a few hundred dollars that they are entitled to, that is theirs by right. Meanwhile, the richest 2 percent get a $2 billion tax cut, and they don’t even have to ask. Well, that’s just completely the definition of injustice in this province.

Why is it like that, though? Why is this the legacy of this government’s budget? Why is that what they’ve been doing for the last 16 years?

Well, I think something that’s been said in this House kind of highlights that. We have to understand how they view the world — why people living in poverty are so deprioritized, why they’re not even an issue for this government.

You know, I hate to say this quote, but I think we have to talk about it a little bit, because it really offended a lot of people in British Columbia. It offended me as well. It’s when the Minister for Housing got up and, in a bit of a rant, dropped this sentence: “We have to remember that a single person on social assistance in British Columbia gets double the annual income of a person in the Third World.”

This statement is incredibly dismissive of the real lived experiences that happen here in British Columbia of people struggling just to feed themselves. It shows a real lack of understanding of what’s happening for people around this province.

The minister was going on about a trip that he had taken to Costa Rica and Nicaragua and, from there, seemed to have an understanding of poverty and how much worse it is there, so we should all just be grateful here in British Columbia.

Interjection.

M. Mungall: I’ll let the Minister for Housing know that I’ve read and re-read the Hansard transcript of his little rant. I’ve even gone on to the video and taken a look at it. I mean, it’s there in black and white — what he said.

[1420]

People were listening at home, and they were deeply offended by it. I was offended, because I’ve also travelled to Nicaragua. I’ve travelled to Costa Rica. I’ve backpacked through Cuba, through Peru. I lived in Zambia and worked there. I did part of my masters program in Uganda, where I did analysis of programs that were assisting development in the place where AIDS was first diagnosed on that continent, and we know that AIDS is a pandemic in Africa. I was an election observer in rural Ukraine. I have travelled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and was just recently on a volunteer project doing community economic development in northern Thailand.

I’ve seen poverty all over the world. As I mentioned, I ran a food bank in Nelson, here in British Columbia. I was the coordinator for the Nelson Committee on Homelessness. I was also a coordinator for a women’s microfinance organization in Nelson.

I’ve seen poverty all over the world, and to compare, as though we should be grateful because it’s not as bad here in B.C. as it is in other parts of the world, is absolutely atrocious.

Interjection.

M. Mungall: I will read my quote again for the minister. He seems to be confused. What he said is: “We have to remember that a single person on social assistance in British Columbia gets double the annual income of a person in the Third World.” That’s what he said. As I mentioned….

Interjection.

M. Mungall: He keeps telling me to read the rest. I mentioned that I did. I read it over and over and over again. I suggest he go back and do the same. We all have access to actual paper copies of Hansard right here in this chamber, but it’s also available on line. He’s more than welcome to go back and read the words that he said if he doesn’t remember them. But the point is….

Interjection.

M. Mungall: I did read the whole thing. I don’t know how many times I need to tell the minister that.

Deputy Speaker: Minister, the member has the floor.

Please continue.

M. Mungall: Thank you very much, hon. Speaker.

My point is that when you make these types of statements, it really is indicative of your world view and why you may not value or prioritize people living in poverty here in British Columbia or why you might not value or prioritize preventing that poverty from actually happening.

I see the green light has already gone on, and I could go on and on about this budget.

The issue around MSP, for example, and that it’s a maybe situation. “Only if you apply, maybe you’ll actually see a cut to MSP.” Do you know what I think is a
[ Page 13922 ]
better idea? Let’s just eliminate MSP right now. That’s the type of thing that British Columbians want to see. That’s the type of investment, that’s the type of money in their pocket that they actually want to see.

They want to see some justice, they want to see some fairness, and they want to see a budget that’s actually based on what British Columbians need. They want to see a budget that’s going to build this province, that’s not just going to try to make them forget everything that has gone on in the last 16 years — the 16 years of neglect by this government that has seen poverty rise in this province, that has seen food bank use rise in this province, that has seen a housing affordability crisis in this province.

That’s the legacy of the B.C. Liberals. That’s the legacy of this Premier. It’s time that British Columbians got something better from this government. They will have their chance to get something better in B.C., no doubt about it. That opportunity is right around the corner.

Point of Privilege
(Reservation of Right)

Hon. R. Coleman: Since this is my first opportunity, I would like to state a matter of personal privilege relative to the comments of the member that just spoke.

Debate Continued

Hon. T. Stone: I certainly am honoured to stand and take my place in the debate on Budget 2017.

[1425]

Listening to the members opposite, one wonders what province they’re actually talking about. It’s like a parallel universe. Then I remember their close cousins in Alberta. That might be the province that they’re talking about, all this doom and gloom.

I rise in support of British Columbia’s fifth consecutive balanced budget, and I do so on behalf of the hard-working men and women of Kamloops–South Thompson, a constituency that I have been so proud to represent for the last 3½ years. This is a budget that is focused on jobs, tax cuts and strategic investments in the services that people need. It’s a budget that reflects B.C.’s strong and diverse, growing economy. It’s a budget that builds upon the fiscal foundation we’ve built in our province and for which our province is admired across Canada.

It is a good time, a really good time, to be in British Columbia, the strongest and top-ranked economy in the country. We are a bright spot in Canada. Last year’s growth rate, at close to 3 percent, led the nation. We’re expected to continue to lead the nation in the years ahead with growth double the Canadian average. We have been a back-to-back leader in growth for several years, the first time since 1961.

During the last five years — since 2011, since our Premier launched the B.C. jobs plan — 202,000 jobs have been created for British Columbians in every corner of our province, and 81 percent of those jobs have been full-time. B.C.’s unemployment rate is the lowest in Canada, the first time since 1976. A record 2.4 million British Columbians are working. And 60,000 people have actually moved into the province of British Columbia over the last year alone.

On trade diversity, ten years ago 80 percent of our exports went to the United States. Today that number is around 55 percent, with about 40 percent of our exports going to Asia. There has been tremendous diversification of our economy, which is really important when the United States enters a downturn or when Asia enters a downturn.

I’m very proud of the fact that our government has negotiated settlements with 99 percent of the public service, including the longest period of labour peace in our schools, at six years. We have signed approximately 485 economic and reconciliation agreements with First Nations in all corners of the province. We’re poised to eliminate B.C.’s operating debt soon. This will be the first time that British Columbia has not had an operating debt since 1975. We have one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios in the country, at 16.1 percent. Contrast that with other jurisdictions. Contrast that with Ontario’s at 40.3 percent or Quebec’s at 48.1 percent or the Canadian debt-to-GDP ratio of 31.8 percent.

Let’s talk about the Alberta government. The NDP government in Alberta will soon have a higher debt-to-GDP than British Columbia will, and they had no debts only a number of years ago.

We do still borrow, but we borrow to build. And building we are: $13.7 billion over the next three years for schools, hospitals, universities, roads, bridges; an additional $10 billion if you include the self-supporting projects — the George Massey Tunnel replacement and Site C. With respect to roads and transportation, I’m very proud of the fact that we’re going to spend about $4.5 billion over the next three years on transportation projects all across our province. That $4.5 billion spend over three years is up from the $2.8 billion spend over three years that was provided for in last year’s budget.

We continue to be the most competitive tax jurisdiction in Canada as well. This is part of British Columbia’s success, with the lowest personal income taxes on the first $125,000 of income anywhere in Canada. To put this in perspective, if you were in Ontario, you would pay approximately $2,200 more in personal income tax. If you were in Quebec, you would pay over $8,000 more in personal income tax. Of course, we have amongst the most competitive corporate and small business taxes in the country as well with this budget, including our small business tax rate reduction from 2.5 percent to 2 percent. That is good for our economy.

We’re the only province to get an A grade from the CFIB for success at cutting red tape, and small business
[ Page 13923 ]
confidence is at or near the top here in British Columbia when you compare it with all other provinces.

[1430]

Of course, British Columbians are very proud of the fact that we are the only province with a triple-A credit rating. This saves British Columbians hundreds of millions of dollars in reduced interest payments, which frees up resources for services that British Columbians need. It’s about providing less money to bankers and bondholders and more investments for British Columbians.

Now, let’s contrast that with what we know we would get from the opposition. This is a group, the opposition, that was responsible for eight consecutive deficits in the 1990s. Does everyone remember the NDP’s fudge-it budget which left British Columbians with a structural deficit of $3.8 billion back in 2001? How about debt servicing. Do you remember that? It’s a terrible hangover that British Columbians have. Debt-servicing costs increased 60 percent, and the debt-to-GDP rose to 24 percent under the NDP.

There were six credit downgrades under the NDP. We had the weakest export growth of any province and the highest unemployment across western Canada under the NDP, and 50,000 people left our province in the last four years of the NDP government. In fact, the only companies that were doing well in the late 1990s were moving companies, so many British Columbians were leaving their home province.

It’s also useful to mention just how proud British Columbians were that day when the Premier of the day — NDP Premier Glen Clark, who was chased from office under a cloud of endless scandals — was awarded the distinction of Business Person of the Year from the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

The current NDP….

Interjections.

Hon. T. Stone: I’m touching some nerves on the other side, folks. I’m getting under their skin a little bit here. It must be resonating. It must be hitting home.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Interjection.

Hon. T. Stone: That’s fine, hon. Member. That’s fine.

The current NDP hasn’t changed much at all. The current NDP leader and his MLAs and those that are seeking election with the NDP continue to espouse policies which are really all about reckless spending and increasing taxes and building massive amounts of debt.

Balanced budgets. The NDP leader says: “Maybe not.” He says: “Politics is changing, and the focus on the annual budget is changing.” A balanced budget may not be part of the NDP election program. Oh, that’s a big surprise.

On how we’d pay for $10-a-day daycare or the billions of promises that the NDP have made and not costed, he says: “How’s this going to be paid for? It starts with a tax investment.” Oh, that’s a big surprise, coming from the NDP. Make no mistake about it. The NDP’s reckless spending can only be achieved by increasing taxes or running deficits. We’d probably get both if there were an NDP government, and that means more debt on the shoulders of our kids and our grandkids.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

Now, beyond the financial attributes, why is sound financial management so important? The answer is quite simple. It’s one that is completely unknown to the members opposite. The reason you balance your budget, the reason you respect the taxpayers’ dollars is because of what it enables you to do. What it enables you to do is it enables you to invest in people. It enables you to invest in the services that people need. It enables you to look after your communities, your families and your loved ones.

How do we go about doing that? The first major theme of this budget — in fact, it’s been an overriding theme of our economic policy in this province for a number of years now — is to continue to be laser-focused on creating good-paying, family-supporting jobs across the economy and in communities across British Columbia.

That’s where the B.C. tech strategy and the $85 million included in the budget comes in. That’s why the rural dividend, the $25 million investment there, is so important. That’s why it’s good news that PST on electricity for commercial customers will be phased out, 50 percent now and the balance eliminated entirely by April 2019.

There’s lots of chirping from the other side. I know that talking about jobs is a touchy subject for the members opposite. We know why they’re sensitive, and that’s because the NDP’s record on jobs is abysmal. It is abysmal. B.C. was one of the worst-performing jurisdictions when the NDP last had a chance to govern in this province.

[1435]

Where is the NDP’s job plan today? It’s kind of like looking for Waldo. Where is the NDP’s job plan? Oh, I know where it is. It’s to jack up the minimum wage faster than small business can sustain it, and it’s to say no to every single job-creating project in the province of British Columbia. All we’ve seen from the NDP in the form of a jobs plan is no to this, no to that, no to this, no to that.

Every opportunity that the members opposite have had to embrace economic development, to get behind jobs in this province — they have said no. Take Kinder Morgan as an example. The Leader of the Opposition apparently was opposed at one point, and then he was open-minded about it and willing to entertain it, and then he
[ Page 13924 ]
was opposed again. I think that’s where they are today, but who really knows.

Let’s talk about LNG, the $20 billion that’s already been invested in this industry across British Columbia, the fact that we already have a final investment decision with Woodfibre down in Squamish. Let’s talk about the fact that this industry has the potential to be a generational game changer for British Columbians. Let’s talk about the fact that the members opposite actually signed a letter opposing Pacific NorthWest LNG. They actually opposed fracking. They oppose the creation of tens of thousands of jobs in this particular industry.

Or let’s talk about Site C. The members opposite have had an opportunity to get behind a clean, affordable, reliable source of power in this province that will create thousands of jobs and provide energy security for this province for another hundred years, and what is their answer? What is their answer? No. Their answer is a resounding no — no to the project but, more importantly, no to the jobs that are created with that project.

They had said no to every major infrastructure project that we have advanced in this province, whether that’s the Port Mann Bridge, the South Fraser Perimeter Road, Sea to Sky, Evergreen, Trans-Canada. On and on and on the list goes. No, no, no from the members opposite.

On technology, they’ve made clear that they would kill our tech strategy. Not that the tech strategy isn’t working well: we now have over 100,000 jobs, 100,000 British Columbians working in the technology sector. The members opposite….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. Members.

Hon. T. Stone: Wow.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. Members.

Address it through the Chair, please.

Hon. T. Stone: They have said they would kill the strategy. The first thing that they would do to kill the strategy is to raise personal income taxes. The worst thing you could possibly do to stifle growth in the tech sector would be to increase personal income taxes, and that’s what the members opposite have said they intend on doing.

How about the forest industry. I’m proud of the fact that $13 billion of B.C. forest products were exported in 2015. That’s about 35 percent of all goods exported from British Columbia. I’m proud of the fact that this budget provides for the resources that we are going to need to continue to assist the industry in dealing with the headwinds that are coming at it, whether it’s with respect to fibre supply or whether it’s with respect to the protectionist winds coming from the United States.

The NDP sits here and lectures us day in, day out on the forest industry, but they don’t remind British Columbians that they did nothing in the ’90s to open up new markets for British Columbia’s forest industry. They did nothing, absolutely nothing. They don’t point out that big day in 1996 when the NDP Premier of the day ordered the forest industry to create 21,000 new jobs over five years or lose their timber-cutting rights. What was the result of that initiative? Hon. Speaker, 12,000 jobs were lost across British Columbia.

Or how about mining. The 30,000 direct jobs in the mining sector is really a comeback story in British Columbia after coming into government in 2001, after the policies of the members opposite. The average salary in the mining sector is $120,000. There have been five new mines that have opened since 2011, including New Afton, adjacent to my community in Kamloops. There are more mines under construction and/or permitted. There are nine others that have been approved for expansion.

[1440]

How did the mining sector fare the last time the members opposite were in office? Not very well. I believe for every mine that opened up in British Columbia in the ’90s, there were two that closed. Mineral exploration and development activity has hit an all-time low. British Columbia, under the NDP, was known worldwide for its anti-mining tax and regulatory policies.

Bottom line is you can’t say yes to workers, you can’t say yes to jobs, but say no to the work that these workers would actually do. And they say no to every project that would create those jobs.

Interjection.

Hon. T. Stone: Yes, all the demovictions that the city of Burnaby has been responsible for. That’s right.

The second theme of this budget I’m very proud of is with respect to taxes and the decision that was taken to leave more money in British Columbians’ pockets. This is a fundamental difference between our view of the world and the NDP’s view of the world. We actually happen to believe that British Columbians are better positioned to make decisions about how to spend their money, not government.

That’s why I’m proud of the fact that we have the lowest personal income taxes up to $125,000 in the country. That’s why I’m proud of the competitiveness of our small business and our corporate tax rates, which have helped fuel economic growth in this province. That’s why I’m proud that we’re going to leave almost $1 billion in the pockets of British Columbians with the 50 percent reduction in MSP premiums, as provided for in this budget.

We are resolved to eliminate MSP premiums, and this measure is an important first step. Now, prior to Budget 2017, two million British Columbians paid no MSP, including all children. With Budget 2017, an additional
[ Page 13925 ]
two million British Columbians will pay 50 percent less for their premiums.

Now, again, it’s hard to pinpoint the NDP’s view of the world on this. We know that when it comes to taxes generally, the NDP have never met a tax hike they don’t like. We saw that through the 1990s. They have hinted already, as we lead up to this next election, of their appreciation for and their interest in tax increases. The tax burden increased dramatically under the NDP. We were one of the highest-taxed jurisdictions in all of Canada under the NDP. Take-home pay dropped almost 9 percent under the NDP as a result of that.

How about the carbon tax — the carbon tax which they voted against and they campaigned against? Suddenly, now they’re in favour of it, but they want us to have one of the highest carbon taxes in the country. They want to, essentially, undermine the competitiveness of industry in British Columbia, which would cost thousands of jobs.

I’ll tell you, hon. Speaker. I’m proud of the leadership position that we have taken in British Columbia with the carbon tax. It’s one thing to be at the front of the parade; it’s another thing to be in a parade that no one else is in with you. Their plan on the carbon tax — to increase it dramatically, all the while not ensuring that in doing so, we maintain our competitiveness in British Columbia — will cost tens of thousands of jobs.

On MSP, the Leader of the Opposition and the NDP have said, apparently, that they will move MSP into British Columbians’ income tax returns. Essentially, the NDP position on the MSP is to hide it, to bury it in income tax. That’s a stark contrast to our plan to reduce premiums by 50 percent. Essentially, they’re not prepared to give people back their hard-earned money.

Of course, we know that taxes will be a battle line between our government and the NDP. We’ve heard as much from the members opposite. The member for Victoria–Swan Lake said only days ago: “We’re going to have to fight tax cuts.” So there we are. The contrast is very clear.

The third theme in this budget is the investments that we’re making in the services that people need, making sure that government is there for British Columbians, especially families and the most vulnerable. The budget includes $3.8 billion more over three years for strategic investments and services, plus an additional $800 million more for health and $147 million more for mental health.

[1445]

We are training more doctors, more nurses and more nurse practitioners than ever before in British Columbia. The budget provides for billions in investment to expand hospitals, like the $417 million expansion of the new patient care tower at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops. And British Columbia continues to have amongst the best health care outcomes in the country.

Again, where were the NDP on health care in the 1990s? The NDP did not build….

Interjections.

Hon. T. Stone: Listen for it. I know the hon. member doesn’t like to face the facts, but the NDP did not build a new hospital in ten years. They didn’t build a new hospital anywhere in British Columbia in ten years.

They eliminated 1,600 full-time nursing positions across British Columbia. The NDP closed 3,500 hospital beds in British Columbia through the 1990s. The per-capita number of long-term-care beds for seniors actually fell by 18 percent in the last four years. I can say, coming from Kamloops, that not a single new long-term-care bed was opened in Kamloops in the entire decade of the 1990s.

To compound that, there were no net new medical school spaces created under the NDP. There were 120 first-year medical training spaces in 1991. There were 120 first-year medical training spaces in 2001. Yet they stand in this House day in, day out and criticize the government of British Columbia for the investments that we have made — record levels of investment year over year in health care. I’m proud of those investments.

How about the post-secondary sector? A budget that provides for $1.8 billion, about $5 million per day. That’s up 45 percent since 2001. We’ve added 32,000 seats at institutions all across British Columbia. We’ve created numerous new universities, including Thompson Rivers University up in Kamloops. Over the next three years, we will also invest another $95 million in capital across B.C.’s post-secondary institutions — institutions like North Island College in Campbell River or the $30 million industrial training and trades building up in Kamloops.

Of course, one of the most significant challenges we had when we came into government in 2001 was to address the reality that the post-secondary system had been starved of resources under the NDP. They don’t want to talk about that. They don’t want to talk about the fact that they froze tuition, and all the while, they didn’t actually put additional resources in to make up the gap. What was the result of that? There were fewer classes. There were fewer seats. There were long wait-lists. There was outdated equipment. British Columbians don’t want to go back to those days when it comes to post-secondary education. I think they’re proud of the investments that our government has made.

How about affordable housing? We’re investing $920 million for 5,300 rental units. We have created 3½ times more affordable housing units than the NDP ever did — 3½ times and 24,000 to date versus 6,500 or so under the NDP.

It’s hard to figure out where the NDP, again, are on the issue of affordable housing. When it comes to the 15 percent foreign buyers tax, they stand in this House and they vote in favour of it, and then they go out and tell British Columbians that they oppose it. Again, talking out of both sides of their mouth.
[ Page 13926 ]

The B.C. HOME partnership program, which I’m very proud of — $703 million in loans for 42,000 first-time homebuyers. We also increased the threshold of the first-time homebuyers program exemption to $500,000 from $475,000.

I’m very proud of the fact that this budget includes an additional $800 million to increase the supports for families and the most vulnerable. We often talk about the single-parent employment initiative, saying that single parents on income assistance…. To help them get off that assistance, it covers costs like transportation, child care costs, up to 12 months funded training for in-demand jobs, health supplements, and so forth.

This very strategic investment has enabled 4,400 British Columbians to register for this program, to engage in the training. To date, over 800 have completed the training and are gainfully employed, paying taxes. They’re off assistance. They look their kids in the eyes every day now and say: “This is what it looks like when you work hard and your government gives you a hand up.”

How about the $147 million to reduce wait-lists and bolster children and youth programs contained in the budget? Or the additional 2,000 child care spaces on top of the 4,300 spaces that we’ve created since 2014?

[1450]

The budget includes $250 million more to support adults in need, $135 million for community living services, $199 million more for persons with disabilities and an overall increase in investments for B.C. Transit services across the province. This is all good stuff, and these are details that you don’t hear the opposition mention in their comments to the budget.

Now, this budget also provides for record levels of investment in infrastructure — $13.7 billion over the next three years across government. As taxpayer-supported projects, transportation will see an additional $4.5 billion invested. We will have invested in transportation, very, very soon, over $20 billion since 2001 — in every facet of transportation and in all corners of the province. Of course, we’re moving forward with the Site C project, and we’re very proud of the George Massey Tunnel replacement project as well.

This record level of infrastructure spend is enabling us to build dozens of new schools and new hospitals across B.C. It’s enabling us to move forward with capital projects at universities and colleges across B.C. It’s enabling us to move forward with critical transportation investments, like the Broadway and Surrey rapid transit lines or the George Massey Tunnel replacement. Or how about six-laning from Langley all the way out to Abbotsford?

How about the $200 million that’s being invested in interchanges to uncork the congestion in North Vancouver? How about continuing to four-lane from Kamloops to the Alberta border, like the recent $469 million investment we announced with our federal partners in Kicking Horse Canyon, phase 4, and Donald to Forde four-laning? Or the McKenzie interchange right here in greater Victoria, which was in the original scope of the Island Highway. The NDP had to take it out because they were so grossly over budget on that project. We’re getting on with that project.

We’re also getting projects done with respect to airports, with respect to cycling, with respect to ports, with respect to ferries all across British Columbia.

Now, we know what the NDP’s position is on infrastructure, at least the projects that we have advanced. I mean, they continue to say no. They said no to Site C, no to George Massey. They would drive a stake through the heart of LNG if they were given an opportunity. They’d kill mining project after mining project across British Columbia, and for the third time in their party’s history, they would essentially kill the mining industry. They would destroy the thousands of jobs that come from these projects.

Interjections.

Hon. T. Stone: I’m glad that the members opposite are laughing, because British Columbians are going to have the last laugh, and that’s not going to be elect the members opposite.

It is a great time to be British Columbian. We have the strongest economy in the country. Whether forestry, tourism, tech or construction, every single one of these jobs represents a paycheque that’s helping to provide for a family, giving them an opportunity to achieve the life they want and to look after the people they love.

Now, I go to work every day to be part of a team that’s focused on creating jobs and investing in these opportunities for British Columbians. You do that by balancing your budget, keeping taxes down and generally getting government out of your way.

That said, balancing your budgets and worrying about triple-A credit ratings are the means to the end. The end is to have that strong financial foundation because of what it enables you to do, and that’s invest in people. This budget does that. Our government continues to do that. British Columbians have worked very hard to make this happen. But there is more to do. There is more to fight for. There is more to accomplish with British Columbians.

The people of B.C. want their government to keep the momentum governing and to continue to deliver strong leadership and proven results. At the end of the day, we will continue to grow our economy, create opportunity and jobs across B.C. and help folks look after their families and achieve their dreams. This is all about putting British Columbians first.

It is my privilege to represent the people of Kamloops–South Thompson, and it is my privilege to stand today in support of Budget 2017.

J. Rice: It’s very interesting that in that elaborate and dramatic speech from the Transportation Minister that he not once mentioned B.C. Ferries in his speech.
[ Page 13927 ]

I’d like to start out by just acknowledging that it’s been a wonderful almost four years being the MLA for North Coast and representing the many communities that make up my riding. It’s been a challenge, and it’s been an honour, and it’s been so rewarding.

[1455]

I’d like to talk about the budget, the forget-everything budget. This government wants us to forget, well, their track record for the last 16 years. They want you to forget that this Premier has been working at the top while making life worse for ordinary families.

She wants families to forget that her government doubled MSP premiums. Only now, in the lead-up to this election, she is saying: “Oh, we’re going to undo all of that.” She wants people to forget that their hydro bills and their car insurance are still going up, forget about our housing costs that are skyrocketing, that there’s a crisis in child care affordability, and forget that B.C. has the worst wage growth in Canada.

She wants the people of Bella Coola and the central coast to forget that they cancelled their ferry and they starved out coastal communities. The Premier wants the municipality of Prince Rupert to forget — while they’re facing over $300 million in infrastructure deficits, including threats to our water supply — that they are not included in any of these LNG funding agreements. Nothing to buffer any increase in pressure from the industry that that would bring to our community. Is it because they actually don’t think that the industry will come to fruition?

She wants you to forget that families are paying $1,000 a year more for just Hydro, car insurance and MSP premiums since she became Premier. She wants people to forget that she took a second salary of $300,000 from her wealthy friends and gave a $1 billion tax break to the top 2 percent of income-earners. The only thing this Premier cares about is winning the next election. After years of neglect, why would anyone believe that she’s going to change now?

There’s nothing in this budget for senior citizens, nothing in the forget-everything budget; 91 percent of publicly funded residential care homes fail to meet the minimum staffing benchmarks. Last year it was 88 percent, and that was atrocious then. Now it’s worse.

We have the second-worst wait-lists for hip and knee replacement surgeries in Canada. Nothing for knees and hips in this forget-everything budget. More concerning is the lack of specific mention of long-term fixes to problems with surgery wait times, which for hip and knee replacements, like I said, are second worst.

In a pre-election budget, the lack of specifics of these funding increases…. The increase to the health budget represents 78 percent of the increases to the overall provincial budget. I’m guessing we’ll see a number of announcements in the coming weeks while the government parcels out spending increases for political gain — those of their choosing. “Why would we mention it in the budget?”

It’s worth pointing out that the word “senior” doesn’t even appear in the budget speech, nor does the word “surgery.”

The Premier is now also saying she will fix mental health and addictions that her and her team have neglected for a greater part of a decade. Weeks ahead of a provincial election she’s now going to fix it, and seven years into the B.C. Liberals’ ten-year mental health and addiction plan for the province, a plan which has left children and adults struggling with debilitating addictions and mental health problems without the immediate access to treatment that they need.

People have suffered, and now it’s election time and, oops, they suddenly care about people with mental health and addictions.

I don’t think many people are going to forget that despite many warnings, this government was very slow to react to the fentanyl overdose crisis.

Going back to the residential care standards, the minimum staffing requirement of 3.36 hours per resident per day dropped from an already-low 18 percent in 2016 to a paltry 9 percent in 2017. Despite that, there’s no mention in the budget for new funding or programs to address our seniors in long-term care facilities.

[1500]

In Acropolis Manor in Prince Rupert, the staff are burned out. Residents are waiting hours to be toileted. The seniors that built this province are being woken up early in the morning, sitting there waiting for hours before breakfast because there’s not enough time for the care aides to help them with their activities of daily living.

Seniors are most likely to be impacted by the long wait-lists for hip and knee replacements and for cataract surgeries, each of which is the second worst in Canada for their category. There is no specific mention of measures to address these shortfalls in this forget-everything budget.

A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives showed that there’s available capacity at existing operating rooms in B.C. Eighteen percent of operating rooms in B.C.’s public hospitals are not regularly staffed, and none of them have extended hours.

Let’s talk about the MSP. It’s only a promise. The Premier wants people to forget that she and her government have more than doubled the MSP premium since 2001 — doubled it. Also, this won’t be implemented until after the election. After all of the broken promises, why would anyone believe the B.C. Liberals now?

B.C. renters are facing a housing affordability crisis, but this budget doesn’t offer any help. In fact, this government is cutting funding to the residential tenancy branch by 2 percent, at a time, in my area, where renovictions and other tenant issues are skyrocketing and people desperately need help.

Justice services received a modest increase in this budget, but there’s no concerted effort to address the ongoing staff shortages and safety issues in corrections and
[ Page 13928 ]
sheriff services. The Liberals refuse to invest in the legal aid system they decimated over a decade ago or to properly resource the courts and Crown prosecution service to protect against the staying of criminal cases.

Debt. Debt is going way up. The total debt is forecast to go up by $11 billion over the three-year fiscal plan, from $66.7 billion as of March 31, 2017, to $77.7 billion as of March 31, 2020.

Total government debt has doubled under the B.C. Liberals. It rose by $32.9 billion between 2001 and 2017. In her six years as Premier, the Premier has added $21.5 billion to the debt, the biggest increase in B.C.’s history. And this is the government that prides itself on its fiscal record.

Cuts to treaty funding. Budget 2017 cuts funding to treaties by 2 percent. This funding cut, together with the Premier undermining the treaty process altogether and refusing to appoint a chief treaty commissioner for nearly two years now, shows that this government isn’t working for First Nations engaged in the treaty process.

MCFD, the Ministry of Children and Families. After ignoring child and youth mental health services for years — for example, only 0.2 percent of an increase in last year’s budget to MCFD — the government is investing $45 million now. That’s a 20 percent increase in this budget, the pre-election budget, the forget-everything budget.

The increase should not make people forget the damage done by years of government neglect. People will not forget the children that have been seriously injured or who have died because of the shortage of front-line social workers in the Ministry of Children and Families.

Child care. A one-time $20 million earmark will go to help child care providers expand their spaces. The government says this will create up to 2,000 new child care spaces. Well, B.C. has the second most expensive child care in the country. This will do nothing for affordability. This measure is only in response to our plan, the NDP’s plan, for universal $10-a-day child care.

Small business tax cuts. The B.C. Liberals are reducing the small business tax from 2½ percent to 2 percent, effective April 1.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, order in the House.

Continue.

[1505]

J. Rice: Note that this is well short of what they promised in the 2013 election, which was: “lowering the small business tax rate from 2.5 percent to 1.5 percent no later than the 2017-18 fiscal year, with at least a 0.5 reduction by 2015-2016.”

Not only did they do nothing last year in the 2015-2016 fiscal budget; they have not reached the promised 1½ percent rate that they promised in the last election. It’s another example that proves you can’t believe anything this Premier says, anything that she promises.

The elimination of the so-called direct operating debt will be slower because of this budget. As recently as September 2016, they were saying it would be gone by 2019-2020, but that has been pushed back one year to 2020-2021. The direct operating debt is the measure the government uses to try to get us to forget about their “Debt-free B.C.”

Remember the “Debt-free B.C.” bus that toured around the province? In the last election, they were telling us that B.C. would be debt-free within 15 years. But in the last four years, the total debt has gone up by $10.9 billion.

The difference between direct operating debt, taxpayer-supported debt and Crown corporation self-supported debt is somewhat arbitrary. Direct operating debt is vilified because it is incurred as a result of government maintaining social programming, such as health care and education, during economic downturns, whereas capital-related and Crown corporation debt has been incurred for such projects as the northwest transmission line, the Vancouver Convention Centre, the Port Mann Bridge, countless IT boondoggles, the Site C dam — for the energy we don’t need — and so on.

After 15 years of cuts and underfunding B.C.’s public education system, the budget finally provides desperately needed funding, but only because the Supreme Court of Canada forced the Premier to do so. We only need to look at Budget 2016 to see what this government really had planned for B.C.’s kids and classrooms.

For instance, Budget 2017 boosts public school funding to $5.4 billion for the next three years, while Budget 2016 planned to keep it flat at $4.7 billion. Furthermore, most budget areas do receive a funding boost in 2017, but this either flattens out or decreases in 2018-2019.

Lastly, Budget 2017 sets out $320 million over three years to fund the agreement with the B.C. Teachers Federation but doesn’t include figures for the costs of the final settlement.

The government says they plan to invest $2 billion over the next three years to maintain, replace, renovate or expand K-to-12 facilities. This figure includes seismic upgrading and replacing of schools. The budget fails to mention that 35 percent of B.C. schools are still waiting for seismic upgrades, including schools like the Prince Rupert Middle School, which is sinking because it sits on a former garbage dump site, a landfill.

The environment. There’s a lot of new funding for the environment in the forget-everything budget 2017, most of which is welcome news. But it comes after those very same programs were cut drastically by this government over the last 16 years.

Cuts include…. In 2009, the government made a huge, 40 percent cut to B.C. Parks auxiliary staff. During the same time period, the contingent of regular staff, legally designated as park rangers, had also been eroded, from
[ Page 13929 ]
88 positions in 2008 to 77 in 2016 — a further 11.4 percent reduction in staff. Between 2008 and 2016, the number of full-time park rangers went from ten to seven — a 30 percent reduction. The staff cuts outlined above are in addition to cuts made to B.C. Parks staff before 2008.

There are still a lot of unaddressed environmental issues, such as the village site of Namu on the central coast, in the territory of the Heiltsuk First Nations. It’s a rapidly decaying old cannery falling into the ocean.

Let’s not forget — and I don’t think the people of Bella Bella will forget — that the Premier comes to visit when royalty is in town but fails to even pick up the phone when a major oil spill is happening in the Heiltsuk territory, contaminating their clam beds and their food sources — not a phone call, not a visit then. I don’t think the people of Bella Bella will forget.

[1510]

LNG is barely mentioned in Budget 2017. It’s on page 50, but it wasn’t even included in the budget speech. And the prosperity fund? Even less so. There’s no revenue shown from LNG — no revenue. No revenue was added to the prosperity fund from LNG.

Is this Premier hoping that British Columbians will just forget her 2013 election promises? Let’s not forget that prosperity fund. The broken promises on the prosperity fund include that it would contribute to making B.C. debt-free. In fact, under this government, British Columbians’ public debt has increased 45 percent — the largest increase under any one Premier in B.C.’s history.

Let’s not forget that the prosperity fund included $100 billion that would flow directly into the prosperity fund. In fact, the Premier has taken $400 million from MSP premiums, which she took from average working people and put into her prosperity fund. And her real estate — don’t forget her real estate market to create a pre-election slush fund.

That prosperity fund could eliminate the sales tax. That was another promise. In fact, the government took $6.5 billion from PST this year.

Don’t forget that she said that the prosperity fund would accelerate the paydown of B.C. Hydro and pay for the Port Mann Bridge. In fact, B.C. Hydro’s debt has grown from $11.7 billion to $19.5 billion under this government.

The B.C. government has significantly scaled back their LNG expectations. They want us to forget that the Premier promised 100,000 jobs from LNG, a plant up and running by 2015 and five by 2020. The Premier promised a $100 billion prosperity fund from LNG revenues. This Premier and this government want us to forget that LNG was to eliminate our debt, eliminate the PST, create 100,000 jobs and $1 trillion in economic activity.

In 2014, LNG was a chance, not a windfall. In 2015, LNG was still a generational opportunity but barely mentioned otherwise, in an effort to change the channel. In 2016, the B.C. Liberals finally admitted that their timelines would not be met. But they whined that the government has done all that they can, that global conditions are posing new challenges. The Premier touted that success is not for quitters.

This year it’s: “LNG needs global markets to thrive but unforeseen headwinds have created challenging conditions” and reminding us that “world markets may go up and down.” The very best that they can do is insist that “bringing home the generational opportunity of LNG remains within reach.”

Does this government honestly think that people in my riding will forget the promises this Premier made in regards to LNG? Does she honestly think that the businesses that started or the small businesses that hung on by a thread, hoping for the LNG windfall she promised, are going to forget? Does she think that the people in my riding who had concerns about the siting of one LNG project…? They were labelled a ragtag group of people. Real people with reasonable concerns were labelled a ragtag group of people. These were hereditary and elected chiefs and matriarchs and citizens.

Let’s talk about housing. Aside from making a small change to the property transfer tax, the exemption threshold, the Premier’s government didn’t announce anything new for affordable housing in this forget-everything budget. Their desperate attempts to convince people that they care about affordability, after ignoring the housing crisis for years, were all announced prior to this election.

B.C. Housing is in the process of selling off all its social housing projects. In forget-everything budget 2017, they expect to generate a total of $344 million in revenue by 2020. The only new housing measure in Budget 2017 is an increase to the property transfer tax threshold for the first-time-homebuyers exemption.

Forget-everything budget 2017 rolls the Premier’s housing announcements together by saying that this government committed $855 million for the construction of 4,900 units of affordable housing across the province.

[1515]

In reality, much of this funding is spread out over five years. Many of the units won’t be new but rather renovated, and the earliest new-housing projects won’t be ready till 2018 — too late for the people most hurt by this housing crisis that we’re in right now.

I will acknowledge that recently, as part of some LNG agreements, we’re going to see some housing in the northwest. There’s new seniors housing in Port Edward, and two local First Nations will see provincial funding for housing. But I remind this government that this is only the tip of the iceberg in addressing the northwest’s housing needs. I would like to outline some of these issues. It’s unfortunate that the Minister for Housing has just left the House, because I would like to outline the issues in a letter I wrote to him.
[ Page 13930 ]

Deputy Speaker: Member, the absence of any member should not be mentioned in the House.

J. Rice: My apologies, hon. Speaker.

I’d like to outline some issues in a letter I wrote to the Housing Minister seven months ago, which I have yet to receive a response to.

“Dear Minister:

“I am writing today to outline a variety of the housing issues that residents in Prince Rupert are currently facing. My constituency office continues to see an increase in the number of requests for assistance in finding affordable and appropriate housing in Prince Rupert. Service providers in Prince Rupert also report an increased demand for housing support services. With the province’s financial update indicating a significant surplus, my recommendation is to immediately invest in Prince Rupert’s housing infrastructure.

“Although the much-promised LNG industry has yet to result in a single project coming to fruition, rampant speculation has created dramatic changes in the local real estate market. Unprecedented pressure has been put on the limited rental housing sector, resulting in people being put out on the street, especially those who have limited or fixed incomes.

“Prince Rupert has some of the oldest housing stock in the province. We have a large quantity of wartime homes, which used to be affordable homes for renters. Currently I am witnessing a trend where longtime tenants in these homes are being renovicted, with the homes being subsequently rented out at much higher rates, well beyond the reach of the previous renters.

“The average age of homes in Prince Rupert, compared to the rest of the province, is significantly older. Approximately 24 percent of the housing stock in Prince Rupert was built prior to 1945, with 6 percent of that being built prior to 1920 — compared to the rest of the province, where only 14 percent of the housing stock was built prior to 1945 and less than 2 percent of the housing stock was built before 1920. We have seen minimal new builds in the last few decades, and with almost half of the housing stock being half a century old or older, the options for safe, affordable and appropriate housing are limited.

“The majority of social housing stock in Prince Rupert is in a state of disrepair. In a coastal temperate rainforest with some of the highest amounts of precipitation in North America, housing maintenance is an ongoing challenge. Chronic mould and rot from the relentless damp climate are just some of the problems faced by all homeowners, as well as property managers, including those of the M’akola Housing Society, who are now responsible for managing B.C. Housing properties.

“Many social housing units are uninhabitable and sit vacant. The housing replenishment regime is inadequate and lacks sufficient funding. Service providers are unable to afford the much-needed upgrades and improvements required to properly maintain properties to a habitable state.

“Additionally, this spring, I tested selected B.C. Housing units for lead in their water pipes and discovered elevated lead levels in the drinking water. As a result, a whole section of B.C. Housing units in Prince Rupert is currently on a water-flushing regime.

“My constituency office, social service providers and poverty advocates in Prince Rupert are reporting an increase in requests for assistance with regard to tenants being renovicted or evicted for other illegal reasons. One service provider in particular reports a noticeable difference between 2015 and 2016 with regard to the number of clients who are homeless and/or have been evicted. Local service providers and the resources available to them are being stretched to the limit while they attempt to find housing solutions for people in need.

“In 2015, an entire community of mobile home owners and renters were evicted from the Port Edward trailer park because a speculator purchased the property in order to capitalize on a potential LNG boom. The initial plan was to develop housing for LNG workers at the expense of these local tenants.

[1520]

“All the tenants have left or have been removed. Some have gone to homeless shelters in other communities; others are couch-surfing. Yet the property sits undeveloped.

“There are little to no options for single occupants on social assistance. The shelter amounts provided by the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation are not sufficient to allow people to afford the rental rates in Prince Rupert. Aside from the price, the availability of single-occupant rental units is extremely limited. In 2004, 100 low-rent apartments were lost to a fire and were never replaced. While the available housing stock has shrunk significantly over the years, the wait-list for low-rent and subsidized single units grows each year.

“There is a lack of seniors housing and wheelchair-accessible units in Prince Rupert. Many seniors and persons with disabilities are living in unsafe conditions while they wait for appropriate units to become available. Many of these individuals are waiting in earnest for units that seldom become available, and often they give up before finding appropriate housing.

“There is no men’s shelter in Prince Rupert, which has long been identified as a need in this community. The pseudo–homeless shelter that does operate is limited to just eight beds and faces ongoing issues with bedbugs and violence among tenants, such that individuals avoid sleeping there.

“The North Coast Transition Society operates a transition home for women fleeing abuse. However, it has become a de facto homeless shelter for women and their children. The transition house operates 20 short-term beds, and they turn women away every day due to overcapacity.

“The housing squeeze has been steadily tightening over recent years. However, it has been further exacerbated and accelerated by the speculation resulting from the anticipated but not yet realized LNG industry. Market rental rates are now at Vancouver prices, but Prince Rupert still lacks the services, amenities and availability found in the Lower Mainland.

“The housing challenges in Prince Rupert are impacting families, single people, working professionals, aboriginal and non-aboriginal citizens, seniors and persons living with disabilities. Essentially every demographic of our population has been affected one way or another by a declining housing inventory and declining investment.

“The issues I outlined above are just a brief summary of the housing issues facing the people of Prince Rupert and the surrounding communities. These issues are varied and diverse; therefore, solutions must be as well. I draw your attention to these challenges and urgently request that you consider the needs of Prince Rupert citizens for affordable housing and housing supports.

“I look forward to your prompt response and to working with you to address the escalating problems facing Prince Rupert and other northwest communities.”

B.C. renters are facing an affordability crisis, and this budget doesn’t offer any help for that.

I see that I’m running out of time, so I’ll just conclude. I believe that after years of neglect, the recent random acts of funding displayed by this government are an attempt to make British Columbians forget everything. They want people to forget that for the last 16 years this government has dipped into the pockets of working and middle-income people while they gave their millionaire friends a tax break.

There is a clear choice between a government that works for ordinary people and a government that works for the wealthy and the well connected.
[ Page 13931 ]

J. Thornthwaite: I’m very proud to be able to stand here and support the budget on behalf of my constituents in North Vancouver–Seymour.

All of us here come to the Legislature from different walks of life and with different points of view, but the one thing that we all have in common is a desire to make a difference in our own communities. We all want to contribute to making a better life for people and to create a brighter future for our province, and that’s exactly what this budget is all about.

We want to keep our fiscal house in order by balancing the budget, but we also want to use the precious financial resources that we have to their greatest effect. We cannot be all things to all people. The demands on the public purse will always exceed what money is actually available.

We must remember that there is just one taxpayer, so we owe it to the public to spend their money wisely and, if we can, to give the taxpayer a break when the budget is balanced and the economy is doing well. That’s what’s happening with this budget.

[1525]

In the past, we have all seen the results of reckless spending by government. Governments that allow their operating budgets to exceed the money they take every year from taxpayers eventually establish a structural deficit. That’s a hard cycle to break. Year after year of consecutive deficits accumulate into a huge public debt, and before you know it, vast portions of the annual budget go just towards the interest payments.

Worse still, all of the money that goes into paying interest is no longer available to provide public services or to provide any return to the taxpayer in the form of lower taxes. The biggest consequence of government swallowing all that debt is that it removes capital from international markets. This makes money less available and more expensive for the private sector to borrow and invest.

That’s not what’s happening here in British Columbia. In 2016, Standard and Poor’s provided an independent assessment of the way British Columbia handles its finances. “We find B.C.’s financial disclosures transparent, comprehensive and timely. In our view, its financial management practices are the best among Canada’s provinces.”

It should be noted here that B.C.’s debt-to-GDP ratio, a key measure of debt affordability, is forecast to decline to 16 percent, down from 17.9 percent in 2013-2014. Compare this with other provinces, like Ontario at 40.3 percent and Quebec, which is now reaching a 48.1 percent debt-to-GDP ratio. You can see why British Columbia is seen as the most stable and well-managed jurisdiction in the country.

By controlling spending and balancing the budget, British Columbia has once again maintained its triple-A credit rating. B.C. is, in fact, the only province in Canada that enjoys the highest credit rating. Why does this matter? Well, in his budget presentation last week, the Finance Minister pointed out that if we compare ourselves to other provinces with lower credit ratings, British Columbia would be paying, on average, an additional $2.23 billion in annual debt service costs. Not being an expert in math, that would be equivalent to, say, $796 million in the budget for Children and Families, $740 million for Education and $700 million for the first-time-homebuyers program.

In my own riding, $100 million for the HOpe Centre for Psychiatry and Education, $45.7 million for Argyle Secondary, $2.5 million for the Foundry North Shore and $76.7 million for the lower Lynn interchange improvement project. That’s provincial government investment. And $147 million to reduce wait-lists and to strengthen child and youth programs; $120 million for family supports and reunification programs, which were based on the Chief Ed John report on indigenous child welfare; $20 million for new child care spaces, up to 2,000; $199 million to increase assistance rates for people with disabilities; and $175 million to provide income assistance supports for those in need.

I could go on, but you get the idea. With the debt that we are not paying, we are able to invest in these programs for British Columbians.

The Finance Minister also made note of the fact that British Columbia has the lowest personal income tax rate in the country. Any individual earning up to $120,000 a year enjoys lower taxes compared to any other province. In Ontario, you would have to pay an additional $2,819 in income tax. My friend Dan Meadowcroft from Ontario is certainly familiar with that. In Quebec, you would have to pay an additional $8,645 in tax. So it’s no wonder that investors favour British Columbia.

Greg D’Avignon of the Business Council of B.C. agrees. He said: “Delivering a balanced budget within a climate of modest economic growth and a mixed outlook for commodities sets B.C. apart and signals that the province is a stable place to invest and do business.”

Employers know that they can attract the best employees if a jurisdiction like British Columbia lets people keep more of their paycheque.

We are also making our private sector more competitive by reducing the small business tax rate to 2 percent from the current 2½ percent rate. When you consider that small business makes up 98 percent of the business community in British Columbia, this is a smart thing to do.

[1530]

Another measure is eliminating the PST on electricity for businesses. Small businesses employ over one million people in our province, and lower taxes on business make our private sector more competitive.

Val Litwin, the president and CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, had this to say: “We’re pleased the government is heeding the collective perspective of both the commission and what’s on the minds of businesses by removing the PST on electricity bills for business. This targeted tax relief will put hard-earned dollars back into
[ Page 13932 ]
the pockets of business owners, both big and small, so that they can make bolder investments and hire more British Columbians.”

We have a plan to eliminate the MSP. Today, as a result of the improvements made in last year’s budget, approximately 40 percent of B.C.’s families are paying a reduced MSP premium or no premiums at all. In fact, now that MSP premiums no longer apply to children, an estimated two million British Columbians pay no premiums whatsoever. However, Budget 2017 is going to cut MSP premiums in half. This will represent significant savings.

We were given a chart. For instance, a single individual making $60,000 would be paying $900 in MSP in 2017. Next year that will be cut to $450. For a couple with two children who make $80,000, $1,800 would be what they would be paying in 2017. In 2018, it will be $900. The MSP is cut in half. For some seniors…. I just took a chart. For those that are making $51,000 to $120,000, in 2017, they would have paid $150, but in 2018, that will be cut to $75.

In fact, Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said about the MSP announcement: “I actually did a little happy dance in the budget lockup over the news. In fact, this is my fifth budget lockup, and I’ve never seen a significant tax cut like this before. This is the biggest tax cut since Gordon Campbell cut income taxes in 2007.” Once again, British Columbia is able to do this because our province hasn’t run a deficit over the last four budget cycles.

During his budget presentation, the Finance Minister also indicated that the global economy is still fragile, and we are now facing the potential of protectionism south of the border. This should be of concern to provincial economies like Ontario, where 81 percent of the merchandise exports head to the United States. Alberta is also vulnerable at 86 percent.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

However, we in British Columbia have transformed our economy by diversifying our industries and made a concerted effort to seek out new markets for our products. In 2001, 70 percent of our exports went to the U.S. Through our efforts to assist the private sector with business-friendly practices, now 54 percent of B.C. exports head to the United States. In other words, almost half our economy is geared toward exports abroad, particularly in key markets in Asia.

Make no mistake: the United States still remains an important trading partner and probably will for the foreseeable future. This is especially true of our softwood lumber industry. In 2016, B.C. accounted for 61 percent of Canada’s $7.5 billion softwood lumber trade with the United States. That’s why the Premier recently announced the appointment of David Emerson as B.C.’s trade envoy to the United States.

Mr. Emerson is a former federal trade and foreign affairs minister and the former CEO of Canfor, one of B.C.’s largest lumber producers. In addition to serving in Washington, D.C., Mr. Emerson will be joining the new federal-provincial task force. Reaching a new softwood lumber agreement is our government’s top priority, especially for the 140 communities in B.C. that rely on our cornerstone forest industry.

British Columbia’s technology sector is another facet of our diversified economy.

Hon. A. Virk: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. A. Virk: I’ve had the pleasure of having two classes from Pacific Academy in the precinct today. One of them was just in my office today. We had 54 students, 26 parents and two teachers, Ms. Nancy Bakken and Ms. Chelsea Johannesson.

[1535]

Would the House please make these students so welcome. They asked some excellent questions in my classroom, and they’re going to learn about how we do business here. Would the House please join me in making my guests welcome.

Debate Continued

J. Thornthwaite: With regard to the technology sector — that’s what I was talking about — it is currently breaking record levels of employment with more than 101,000 British Columbians working in the booming industry.

B.C.’s tech sector, which represents more than 9,900 companies, also leads the country in terms of job growth. Today the technology sector employs approximately 4.9 percent of B.C.’s workforce — more than the mining, oil, gas and forestry sectors combined.

Last month the Premier and the Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training visited my riding to provide an update of the government efforts to support the tech industry through the B.C. jobs plan. The five-year update indicates that British Columbia has progressed from the fourth-lowest unemployment rate to the lowest unemployment rate at 5.8 percent. This is the lowest unemployment rate we have had compared to the rest of the country since 1961.

Technology is certainly playing a big part in the success of the jobs plan. DarkVision is a prime example of a tech company that is located in my riding of North Vancouver–Seymour. This company specializes in something called downhole imaging, technology that gives oil and gas operators a set of eyes inside their wells. This is a great example of how our tech sec-
[ Page 13933 ]
tor is helping other industries gain a competitive edge in British Columbia.

I should mention here that the B.C. Tech Summit is coming up March 14 to 15. The B.C. Tech Summit is the largest technology conference in British Columbia, showcasing the province’s whole technology industry.

Talking about technology, I would be remiss without mentioning an event that I was at last night celebrating the creative industries, as well as today in the front halls of the Legislature. Our government has proclaimed February 27 to March 5, 2017, as Creative Industries Week. This year’s theme is “The Next Generation of Talent.”

The creative industries are major contributors to the province’s economy, helping to keep B.C. diverse, strong and growing. B.C.’s growing creative industries include music, film, television, interactive digital media, magazine and book publishing and are responsible for more than 85,000 jobs and over $4 billion in GDP per year. In film and television, with over 60 studio facilities, B.C.’s motion picture industry can service over 45 productions at once and accommodate all sizes and types of production.

The $2 billion film and TV industry creates major economic benefits for residents and businesses. Warner Brothers’ Supernatural, filmed in British Columbia over 11 seasons, supported more than 9,600 full-time-equivalent jobs and was responsible for $509 million in direct production expenditures.

We have over 60 domestic and foreign-owned visual effects and animation studios in our province. B.C. offers highly competitive, easy-to-access and reliable provincial tax credit programs. This provides significant cost savings to domestic and international producers who do production, visual effects, animation and post-production work in British Columbia.

The basic production services tax credit rate is set at 28 percent, and the digital animation or visual effects — DAVE — tax credit is also highly competitive at 16 percent. A couple of years ago in one of our other budgets, we extended the DAVE tax credit to post-production. This is what it has done for British Columbia’s economy. Collectively, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group has invested millions in infrastructure in British Columbia and employs 500 British Columbians thanks to DAVE being expanded to post.

Doctor Strange, which is a feature film nominated this year for an Oscar in VFX, was primarily done at Method Studios in Vancouver. Lots of amazing talent. Four TV series had their posts completed at Encore Vancouver this past year — Van Helsing, Travellers, Dirk Gently, Haters Back Off, all airing on Netflix — and Lemony Snicket’s had their VFX completed by Encore post TV VFX team. Finishing these series in British Columbia is a direct result of the DAVE tax credit being expanded to post.

[1540]

With regards to Deadpool’s North American debut, the Motion Picture Association estimates that this superhero film spent $40 million of its budget in B.C. alone and employed 2,000 local cast, crew and extras through its two-month shoot last spring. Those workers brought home total wages of $19 million, or a weekly average of almost $2,000.

The production also gave a boost to workers outside the film industry. The Motion Picture Association said about $1 million was spent on location costs; $815,000 on hotels, catering and restaurants; $735,000 on construction; and $780,000 on transportation and car rentals.

We just found out today at noon, at the announcement, that according to the Motion Picture Production Industry Association economic impact report, one production in British Columbia, called Arrow, provides 7,000 jobs for British Columbia and $360 million spent in B.C. over five seasons. That’s significant. We thank the film industry for their positive contribution to B.C.’s economy and jobs.

When asked what the single most important service is that government operates or funds, the Finance Minister stated in his remarks that education is chief among them. Education is empowerment, and our government is making that a top priority. That’s why we are providing an additional $740 million over the next three years to the education budget. That translates into spending almost $9,000 per student in British Columbia.

In addition, we announced the $29.4 million student learning grant, which is to allow schools to purchase a wide range of supplies for schools and classrooms. Individual school boards will also be able to decide what types of learning supplies to purchase, giving them flexibility to meet the local needs of parents, students and teachers.

Parents and educators are welcoming these investments. In fact, the president of the School Trustees Association, Teresa Rezansoff, said: “I am pleased to see that government has recognized the need for significant further investments in public education. A robust and effective K-to-12 education system is critical to the health and prosperity of the province.”

Naturally, any education system needs to house students, and British Columbia is making the right capital investment in school infrastructure, including new buildings, renovations and seismic upgrades. One new building that we announced last year is coming to my riding — $47.7 million to replace Argyle Secondary. It’s worth noting that North Vancouver has benefited tremendously from significant capital investments in new schools, even since I became an MLA in 2009.

Brand-new schools that were built in partnership with municipalities or significant renos and seismic upgrades — I’m just going to list a few: Lynn Valley Elementary, Windsor Secondary, Westview, Carson Graham, Ridgeway, Queen Mary, Highlands and Sutherland. All happened while I’ve been an MLA.

Parents also welcome the increased accessibility to child care in this budget. A $20 million investment in
[ Page 13934 ]
2017 to 2018 will support the creation of up to 2,000 new additional child care spaces. These spaces are in addition to the government’s current goal of creating 13,000 new licensed child care spaces between 2014 and 2020, announced as part of the B.C. early-years strategy.

B.C. is placing an emphasis, also, on post-secondary. More than 426,000 students are enrolled in at least one course at one of the 25 public post-secondary institutions in British Columbia, including the one in my riding, Capilano University.

Budget 2017 is making it more affordable too. Effective August 1, the interest rate on student loans will be reduced from prime plus 2.5 percent to just prime. This will save people repaying student loans $11.3 million this year and $17 million over the next two years.

I would also like to add that parents should be taking advantage of the B.C. training and education savings grant. By opening a registered education savings plan, eligible parents and children will receive a grant of $1,200 to put toward that child’s education later on in life. Only about two-thirds of eligible children in B.C. have RESPs, so I encourage everyone to look into how a B.C. training and education savings grant could change the life of your child.

To make life more affordable for B.C. families, the provincial government has made unprecedented investments to increase the supply of new units of affordable housing. This includes committing $500 million to fund 2,900 new affordable rental units across the province.

[1545]

This comes in addition to $355 million promised in Budget 2016 to build 2,000 new units that will house people who need it most, including seniors and the disabled.

Young families who want to achieve the dream of home ownership can now take advantage of the B.C. home owner mortgage and equity partnership. This program will match the down payment of a home up to $37,500, or up to 5 percent of the purchase price.

British Columbia also has the first-time-homebuyers program, which reduces or eliminates the amount of property transfer tax that qualified purchasers pay when they buy their first home. We increased the threshold for this program to $500,000, allowing first-time buyers to save up to $8,000 in property transfer tax.

In 2016, the first-time-homebuyers program helped almost 21,000 families save an average of $4,000 on the purchase of their first home. Anne McMullin of the Urban Development Institute said: “Increasing the property transfer tax exemption threshold to $500,000…for first-time homebuyers will enable more locals and families to get onto the first rung of the property ladder.”

It should also be noted that the provincial government is also working with the Rick Hansen Foundation and contributing $9 million to make housing more accessible and reduce barriers for those with disabilities; $5 million will be used to create the Rick Hansen accessibility certification program. The accessibility certification program will provide a tiered rating system that recognizes developments, landlords and building owners who make a commitment to exceed the current accessibility standards. The other $4 million will be used to create an accessibility fund that community organizations and businesses can access to help fund projects that will help lead to a more accessible British Columbia.

Also in 2016, we introduced a newly built home exemption that fully exempted newly built homes, including condominiums, priced up to $750,000 from property transfer tax. That helped more than 9,100 families save an average of $7,400 on the purchase of their home.

We’ve been working with local governments to help make housing more affordable. The provincial government is working with municipal leaders and regional directors who are responsible for planning, zoning and development regulations to use the tools at their disposal, to support the province’s efforts and further the creation of the new housing supply. This is the kind of cooperation that people want us to do.

We had an unprecedented meeting. The North Shore MLAs, the North Shore MPs and the North Shore mayors all met a couple of weeks ago with our Minister Responsible for Housing and our Minister Responsible for TransLink to recognize the connection between transportation, public transportation and housing affordability. I’m looking more for how those meetings will progress.

Speaking of transportation, I was pleased to take part in an announcement regarding the fourth phase of the work being done along the Highway 1 lower Lynn corridor in North Vancouver, also known as The Cut.

This project is a partnership between the provincial government, federal government and the district of North Vancouver and recognizes how partnerships can make stuff happen in our communities. Work includes the construction of the westbound collector lane from Mount Seymour Parkway to Mountain Highway. It will also include a new two-lane bridge on each side of the existing Lynn Creek bridge and an eastbound on-ramp from Mountain Highway onto Highway 1.

Once complete in spring 2021, the entire project, which is four phases worth $198 million, will greatly improve traffic flow on this heavily used stretch of Highway 1 and improve the connections between east and west of North Vancouver. This was the number one reason why I ran in 2009, and I’m so happy to see this progress. I’ve been able to attend a couple of open houses on the new project. There are maps in my office, if anybody wants to see it, but people are generally quite pleased that this is moving along.

With regards to health and mental health investment, the North Shore is also benefiting extremely from health care. This month it was announced that a new acute care
[ Page 13935 ]
facility at Lions Gate Hospital is one step closer. A concept plan is being developed, and details of the new facility will be finalized over the next 18 months. During the business planning phase, the new acute care tower at Lions Gate Hospital will have 108 beds on six to eight floors, encompassing an area of approximately 200,000 square feet. The number of operating theatres will be increased from nine to 12 in comparison with the present facilities.

[1550]

This comes on the heels of the new Greta and Robert Ho HOpe Centre for psychiatry and education, where we previously announced a dedicated ten-bed unit specifically for youth aged 13 to 18 and will focus on assessment and stabilization.

As Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth, I was able to be part of a special project examining child and youth mental health in our province. Last year the committee released the final report, titled Concrete Actions for Systemic Change, which had been a project of several years of consultations with experts in the field of mental health, families and children.

In response to some of the recommendations contained in the report, I was able to announce the launch of Foundry North Shore, a new, integrated youth service centre hub in lower Lonsdale. Foundry North Shore will bring existing services under one roof so families and young people can access a one-stop shop for primary care, mental health, substance use, social services, employment services and much, much more. The centre for youth between the ages of 12 and 24 years is hosted by Vancouver Coastal Health and is expected to be fully operational and accepting clients by late spring this year.

Foundry North Shore is one of the five centres announced in June 2016 as part of a provincial network of easily accessible youth service centres hosted by local organizations. This budget just increased that to 11 sites. As a matter of fact, Jonny Morris of the Canadian Mental Health Association remarked on our efforts in this budget by saying: “I haven’t seen a budget over the past couple of years that has made such explicit mention of priorities around mental health and addiction.”

With respect to community living services, primarily operated through Community Living B.C., this budget will also see an increase of $135 million to continue to provide support for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. As Parliamentary Secretary for Child Mental Health and Anti-Bullying for the Minister of Children and Family Development, I, like most British Columbians, welcome the increase of $287 million over the next three years to the budget of MCFD.

Bernard Richard, our new B.C. Children and Youth Representative, commented: “A 9 percent increase for the ministry. A lot of it focused on prevention, early intervention, permanency planning and youth mental health. These are all issues that we’ve raised and that other voices in B.C. have raised.” This is especially true with respect to the $120 million contained in the budget to address all of the recommendations of Grand Chief Ed John in his report on indigenous child welfare.

Last but not least, I would like to put in a little plug for the investments in parks. There was an announcement at the end of last year: $23 million over five years for 1,900 new campsites, an additional $35 million over three years for more full-time park rangers and new programs, plus a $10 million endowment to the new B.C. Parks Foundation.

The SPCA is very happy with us too. They’ve got an extra $10 million over two years. Again, the announcement that I was part of yesterday proves that our government is working with responsible breeders, veterinarians as well as the SPCA on bringing forward legislation to shut down puppy mills once and for all.

With that, I’m very, very pleased to put my support for this budget.

S. Simpson: I’m happy to join in the debate about Budget 2017.

Just before I begin to make comments about the budget, I do want to again thank the people of Vancouver-Hastings, who have sent me here three times. I will be back asking them to do that again, for a fourth time here, in a couple of months.

I especially, though, want to say thanks to the people who help me to do the job that I do. Having been here for 12 years, I’ve just gone through a transition of a number of my staff who had been with me for a long time, and I have some new people with me. I’m very excited about that, having new energy and people who have a real commitment. In my Vancouver office, Anne Vavrik has joined me, and Sherrill Gullickson. Theresa Ho has been with me for quite a number of years and provides support with the Chinese community in Cantonese and Mandarin.

Of course, here in Victoria, we all have our staff and people who help us. I’m very happy to have Jared Butcher as my legislative assistant, who supports me in a wide range of ways with the work that we do here.

[1555]

The people of Vancouver-Hastings…. I’ve talked to them. We’ve been talking a lot over the last couple of months. Increasingly, as we know, as we get closer to the 9th of May, they’re starting to become more engaged in the notion of the upcoming election. I hear from the people in my constituency that they’re excited to come to an election, excited to get to vote again, and they will be voting to support provincial change. I’m pretty confident that the people of Vancouver-Hastings reflect the view of most British Columbians, who will be voting for a change.

We know, though, that the government side, the Liberal side, probably also knows that. That’s why we see in this budget a government that is trying desperately, I believe, to change the channel — a budget that has been coined by many, and I hear it more everywhere, the forget-about-
[ Page 13936 ]
everything budget. “Forget about what we’ve done for the last 15, 16 years” — especially the last five years — “and only think about what it is that we’re promising now.” Not much of it’s actually locked-in commitments, but there are a lot of promises, and we’re hearing about that.

Well, people are a little cynical, to say the least, about the forget-about-everything budget and about the promises of the Premier and the promises of the B.C. Liberals. There’s good reason for that. There’s a long, long list of challenges that British Columbians face, a long list of the shortcomings of this government in terms of how it has treated the vast majority of people who live in British Columbia. We could talk about that, and many of my colleagues have outlined many of those areas. In the forget-about-everything budget, what we see here are some very stark reminders of that.

Following the tragedy of Alex Gervais…. Sadly, that’s not an isolated incident. We have seen too many incidents of children in care who have died. The biggest challenge — and we know it’s a very difficult ministry — is the lack of effective response to that from the government side. But what did we see here? After this became such a tragic story, after the reports of Mr. Richard, laying this out in some detail, now we see money in the budget this time out to try to change the channel on this.

The thing that we also know about this is…. We hear continually from people who work in the system, from child protection workers and people in the system, who talk about how stretched they are, about the lack of resources that they’ve been facing year in and year out — not just now but year in and year out.

Workers tell us: “I worry sometimes. I go to bed, and I go to sleep. I worry that I wasn’t able to get at every one of these kids that I’m dealing with because I just didn’t have the time and there weren’t the resources there. I know there are shortcomings. We’re doing everything we can do.” But they know the challenge of that. Throwing some money at that at this point in time does not take away from the reality of what has happened over a decade and a half.

I’ve heard a number of members on the other side talk about education, talk about the support and the dollars in the budget for education. I haven’t heard many of the members over there say: “The Supreme Court of Canada kicked us around the block over this issue.” It took the Supreme Court of Canada 20 minutes to make a decision that the government was just wrong. A government that picked a fight with teachers and educators and, by doing that, picked a fight with parents and kids back in 2001-02…. I would note that the Minister of Education who led that fight now sits in the Premier’s chair — picked that fight, ripped up collective agreements and has battled teachers and educators ever since.

[1600]

Only now, with the Supreme Court of Canada — finally, an authority that says, “Enough already” — do we have a situation where this government is obliged to make an investment in education to support our children, is obliged to live up to the commitments that it turned its back on 15 years ago.

Of course, the comment that always comes up when I speak to teachers about this is about the absolute gall of the Premier, after this ruling came down, to have made a comment — I believe it was on a local radio station: “This creates a great opportunity for us to invest in education.” After 15 years of fighting tooth and nail to stop the resources that need to go into education from getting there, it was gall. I’ve got to admit that it was pretty good.

Those are areas that we’ve seen in the forget-about-everything budget, as the government tries to turn the page and hopes it can fool people the way it fooled people in 2013. We’ll see. But the government didn’t step up on all the areas, of course. We know — we’ve seen the report from the seniors advocate — that 91 percent of home care, of rest homes, of facilities are not in compliance with the government’s own guidelines and standards.

That has to raise the question: why does a government set standards that it then promptly ignores? Why is the government, which should be providing some stewardship and some protection for seniors, just absolutely ignoring the reality that 91 percent of facilities aren’t in compliance with the government’s own standards? It raises a serious question, but nothing was done about that in this budget.

The other thing that we know is that we’ve been having a debate in this House since…. I think I introduced the first private member’s bill on a poverty reduction strategy in 2007. It might have been 2007. We and subsequent critics for that area have introduced that bill time and time again. The government has ignored it and has made the choice to not deal with the poverty question, to not address the poverty question. The reality is that the challenges just get worse, and they get tougher. They get tougher all the time, yet the government has simply not seen that as a priority.

Well, for my constituents in Vancouver-Hastings, it’s very much a priority. There are a lot of people who live in my constituency who are poor, and they are struggling. They are struggling to pay the bills. They are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. They are struggling to keep food on the table for their families. They simply aren’t seeing any meaningful support from the British Columbia government, and we didn’t see anything in this budget that does anything in a significant or material way to support those people who are struggling every day with poverty. We just didn’t see it.

Now, not only have we seen those challenges…. We know there are significant affordability challenges. The government talks about tax breaks and that, but what the government doesn’t talk about are hydro increases, ICBC increases. The government was ignoring MSP until we got to the forget-about-everything budget, and we now
[ Page 13937 ]
have an initiative on MSP that will see some money go back to some people. That’s a good thing. Those employers who pay, where it’s a benefit to their workers, will see it realize a significant benefit from this as well.

[1605]

I heard one of the ministers — I can’t recall which minister it is — that was talking about: “Well, we expect that those employers will just transfer over and flow through that benefit to the workers, and they will realize the benefit on the savings. The hundreds of millions of dollars of savings that will go to employers — they will flow that through.”

Well, most workers know that unless they’ve got a collective agreement that explicitly says you’ve got to reopen that up again and do that, it’s not happening. It is not happening. So when we look at all the beneficiaries around MSP, we should look at all of the people who benefit from the approach that the government has taken here.

Now, not everybody struggles. This is a big province, and there are a lot of people here. We know that this government saw fit, over four years ago now, I guess, to say: “Oh, we have to give this tax break to the top 2 percent. We have to give it to them because we said we would.” Over $1 billion over the last four years — $1 billion into the pockets of the top 2 percent of people.

The stunning thing about it is that they didn’t even ask for it. The people who least need that support got $1 billion over the last four years. Yet this government battled and fought to not give back the $50 to people on disability for their bus passes until the forget-about-everything budget was pending and it was time to forget about everything. Then the Premier threw the 50 bucks back on the table. Quite appropriately, the people in the disabled community kind of shrugged their heads and said: “Do you believe it?” But that’s what happened.

As we look at the budget, the biggest claims, of course, for the government with this budget are around the state of expenses and jobs. I hear the Premier talk about jobs, and I hear the Premier talk about how well the government is doing. Well, let’s talk about jobs for a little bit. Let’s talk about the reality of the British Columbia economy.

The reality is that we have two economies in British Columbia. We have an economy in Metro Vancouver and in the south Island where there’s a lot of activity. There is a lot of activity, but because wages have stayed flat, because the vast majority of these jobs are not what you would call high-income jobs, people struggle. They’re struggling because of affordability issues.

There’s nothing in this budget that has done significant things to support and improve that. Rather, we have the MSP discussion. But we know that if we go back and look at the hidden taxes of government — around ICBC, around hydro, around MSP — for the last ten years or so, about $1,000 more is coming out of the pockets of British Columbia families by those hidden taxes. But the government doesn’t talk about that tax. They don’t talk about that. The people in the economy, the people working day to day and trying to get by, certainly are aware of it.

So you have two economies. You have the Lower Mainland, with a lot of activity going on but people struggling to make ends meet — and struggling pretty hard to make ends meet. And you have the rest of the province, where the economy is precarious, where jobs are precarious, where people aren’t confident about where their jobs are going and where they’re coming from. What underlies a lot of this has been flat wage rates.

What does that mean? When the government talks about a strong economy, what does that mean? What does it really mean, and what’s really going on? Well, we know two things.

First of all, we know that in terms of that job growth, the economy is not nearly as diversified as this government would like you to think. The TD Bank came out with research, which they released in December. What their research showed, when it showed where job growth is, was that more than 100 percent of all the job growth in British Columbia comes out of real estate and related construction.

[1610]

What that means, for all of the talk about job growth, is if you took out that sector, we in fact would have had a net loss of jobs in British Columbia in 2016 — a net loss of jobs but one sector.

The problem around that…. We know the windfalls that the government has realized around property purchase taxes, which is a big part of the surplus that we’ve seen in the budget. What we know is that the housing market is slowing. And the lead time it takes to build…. We have plans that were on the table five and four years ago that are creating the jobs in 2016 as things are built. But as we look forward, there are serious questions about whether we’re going to see that same kind of activity, and we haven’t seen the levels of diversification that this government likes to claim and that we in fact require.

That’s one of the challenges, that the economy is not near as diverse as we would like it to be.

Now, I guess if there’s a saving grace here, that we’ve seen in the last year, it’s that as all of the fabrication about LNG that was coming out of the government benches fell by the wayside, as none of the big projects espoused by this government came anywhere even near being realized, the government finally moved to realizing it had to talk about other things in the economy.

That’s a good thing. I’ve had a number of people in the business community — people who would never vote NDP, I know that…. They were not shy to say, “You know, I work in a sector that has thousands and thousands” — tens of thousands, in some cases — “of people working today.” Not some pie-in-the-sky idea that might be realized in ten years time; they’re working today. The problem they have is that they took a hit in 2008, with everybody else, when the economy went sideways, and
[ Page 13938 ]
they struggled to get back. But when they were looking for support from the government, unless they could find a way to connect it to LNG, they were having a terrible time getting any attention from the government.

Now the government, of course, doesn’t talk much about LNG. I would urge anybody to go back and look at the budgets right after 2013, look at the budget today and see how much is all about LNG in 2014 versus a page stuck somewhere in the back of the budget for 2017.

That’s not the only issue. The issue relates also to jobs, and it relates to the flat economy and flat wages. This is a problem that has been identified widely by experts as one of the biggest challenges that we face here in British Columbia, that’s faced by many, many jurisdictions. The reality of what that does for people is pretty serious.

The Canadian Payroll Association, a national organization that deals with these things, has looked carefully at the questions of debt, retirement savings shortfalls and the effect on people. As they said in a September 7, 2016, release: “For many working Canadians, especially those in B.C., the road to a comfortable retirement is becoming longer and more difficult.”

They went on to say that many hard-working Canadians are barely making ends meet; 53 percent in B.C. report it would be difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheque was delayed by even one week; 27 percent of them said they probably could not come up with $2,000 if an emergency arose. More than one in four people say: “If we had a family emergency and needed $2,000, I probably couldn’t come up with that money, probably couldn’t make that work.”

In B.C., 48 percent feel overwhelmed by debt, the highest levels in all of Canada, and say that their debt level has increased this year. In fact, more than one in ten say they don’t believe they will ever be debt-free in their lives.

[1615]

You can relate this back to jobs and to wages. Alec Milne — who’s the principal at Framework Partners, which is a research firm that does work in this area — says: “Survey data suggests that household income growth has stalled, as respondents reporting household income over $100,000 a year had hardly increased in five years.” In fact, what Mr. Milne said is: “In fact, real incomes have actually declined when inflation is taken into account.”

So all the talk about a strong economy — the lie gets put to that. The lie gets put to that argument when individuals are struggling and families are struggling and they don’t know how they’re going to get by from week to week and they’re worried about that.

They certainly don’t know how they’re going to retire. They have no idea how they’re going to retire.

As they said, 49 percent of B.C. employees say they spend all or more than all of their net pay all the time, and 52 percent of them save just 5 percent or less of their earnings. They save 5 percent or less of their earnings.

Well, we know that if you’re saving less than 5 percent of your earnings, that retirement down the road begins to look pretty challenging. That retirement begins to look pretty hard.

What are some of the other things this study showed us? Eighty percent have saved 25 percent or less of their retirement goal. They’re not ready to retire. They’re not ready at all, and that’s the future that we have to deal with. But the forget-about-everything budget has done nothing to support and help those people with that cause.

Over 50 percent of British Columbians live paycheque to paycheque. Over half of them, about half of them, are overwhelmed by debt, and very few of them believe the economy is going to improve. That’s the reality of wages and the challenge of wages.

Now, we know, though, that the Premier obviously saw the challenge of wages and income, because she required a $50,000 stipend from the Liberal Party until lately, when it became a distraction — mostly a distraction on the front page of the newspaper every day, and on newscasts, of British Columbians shaking their heads over the Premier getting a $50,000 stipend from donations raised by the Liberal Party. That distraction has been set aside for the moment.

I understand — it’s a little vague, but I understand — that the Premier’s only going to claim expenses now. You know, the devil is always in the details with that, and it would be great to see what that list of expenses looks like. You could create a heck of a list of expenses, I’m pretty sure, if you really wanted to.

You have a situation where the economy is not all it’s cracked up to be. Part of the challenge with that…. Of course, the government has to claim this, but the reality of things that we know is that you could probably make the case that governments don’t deserve as much credit or as much blame as they get around the economy. We create jobs. We create jobs with infrastructure investment and with the public service. Other than that, it’s the private sector that creates work and creates jobs.

The government supports that in a few different ways — with regulatory regime, market development, a trained workforce, tax policy. Those are probably the areas that mostly fall within the levers that government has to deal with the economy.

This government has talked a lot about training and the blueprint for training, which is a pretty critical issue as we look across the economy at people who are looking for new trained workers. Being able to provide trained workers is going to be critical to investment.

[1620]

Yet in many areas, there are still huge challenges. When you look at the apprenticeship area…. In the building trades and among the apprenticeable workers, we know what the situation is: the workforce is aging. A lot of people in that workforce are over 50. They’re a lot closer to retirement than they are to starting their careers, yet
[ Page 13939 ]
we can’t get those apprenticeships moved along. While foundation work can be done, the reality is that finding employers to fulfil those apprenticeships and take workers in is very difficult.

We have argued for the longest time, and we continue to argue, that it’s hard for the government to be very compelling in the case that employers should do that when the government does a miserable job with apprenticeships itself. So a piece of legislation gets passed by the Minister of Jobs, saying: “We’re going to fix that.”

Now, the problem, of course, is that the legislation passes, but the legislation has no targets, has no requirements. So, people, it’s not like, if you bid on a contract to build something for the government, you have any responsibility or obligation to actually have apprentices. They’d kind of like it — the minister says she’d kind of like it if they did — but there isn’t a requirement to do that. So that’s the challenge there. You’ve got to actually put some teeth in these things if you want them to work.

Hon. Speaker, I see I’m running out of time here. What we have is a forget-about-everything budget. This is a cynical budget. It’s a budget that was put in place for one reason: to try to get through May 9. It’s a cynical budget by a cynical government that cares only about two things: winning the next election and taking care of your friends. There really is nothing else on the government agenda.

Winning the election and taking care of your friends. That’s a remarkable situation, and that’s why 16 years is 16 years too many. With luck, it will be the end after 16 years, because people have had enough of the cynicism and opportunism of this bunch, sadly.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the budget.

M. Dalton: I’m very happy to stand here this afternoon in support of B.C.’s fifth consecutive balanced budget. It’s a record that surpasses every other province by a long shot, and based on what I’ve been hearing from the NDP bench, this would be the last one if they were elected. I don’t know how much the cost is for all their promises that we’re getting an idea of right there. This would be very problematic if they were to be elected, for British Columbians.

Before I continue any further, I’d like to thank my constituents in Maple Ridge and Mission for electing me for the past eight years. I’ve worked hard for them during this time, advocating for them, for both communities. It’s been a privilege, and it’s my hope that the majority of the residents will feel likewise and see fit to elect me for a third term come May.

I would like thank my wife Marlene. We’ve been married now coming 32 years. And I’d like to thank my constituency staff, Linda Kingsbury, Nancy Nagy and Carly Fedyshen. Also my legislative assistant, David Decolongon, and all the staff in the east annex — they actually watch this — and also the comm shop and research.

Budget 2017 is great news for British Columbia, for Maple Ridge and for Mission. Even though we are debating the 2017 budget, all of the hard work and the benefits that we are getting out of it did not just happen overnight.

I know there were comments there by the member for Vancouver-Hastings regarding this budget coming out — that it’s just trying to buy the voters. Well, the fact of the matter, the reason we’re able to have these surpluses…. It’s taken a lot of work, a lot of time, and we are prospering. This is a time that British Columbia is prospering.

[1625]

It took a long time to get to where we’re at, years of consistent planning and action, of being fiscally responsible and creating job opportunities wherever possible. When we talk about the 2017 budget, what we’re really talking about is a positive trend that we’ve been setting over the past five budgets and a lot of hard work. And it’s through the hard work, here in British Columbia, that we’ve made this province a place that is conducive to start a business and to maintain it, a sentiment that is reflected in our job creation. We saw British Columbia lead the country with 73,300 jobs — or 3.2 percent growth — created in 2016. We have the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

This year the private sector in B.C. is expected to grow by 2.1 percent in GDP. Before the 2013 election, going door to door I met people that sold their home and were just in the process of moving to Alberta. They had vivid memories of the economic disaster that the NDP had made of our province the last time they were in. They didn’t want any part of it. So they were moving out.

Well, we know what happened in the 2013 election. We have prospered as a province since that time. As for moving to Alberta to escape the NDP, turns out, unfortunately, that didn’t work out the best for them. It hasn’t been good for that province either. I know there’s been a major drop in oil prices. That province this year alone has added a $9 billion deficit — massive job losses.

This is what we see in jurisdictions under the NDP. They’re experiencing the worst economic downturn in living memory, probably since the Depression. I hope they turn things around. They will if they unite the centre right, as we’ve managed to do here in this province under the B.C. Liberals.

The growth that we’ve seen has been through economic policies that have helped to get more people in B.C. secure jobs and get them to work than ever before. When businesses are healthy it starts a cycle. Employers are able to pay their employees decent wages. That spills over from the employer to the employees to our retail sector. According to the latest figures from the budget, B.C. retail sales grew by 6.5 percent. That’s 6.5 percent compared to the last year, after growing 6 percent in 2015.

That spending is not limited to the retail sector. It spills over into housing, which in turn stimulates construction and creates economic growth. That’s why I find it hard to appreciate the NDP policy of hammering businesses and corporations. Everybody hurts when businesses start doing badly.
[ Page 13940 ]

I just met with representatives from the B.C. mining industry, and they’re going through hard times. They told me that they operate on very thin margins. They’re very important for the province, especially in our rural areas. So I know they’re very appreciative, in this budget, of the 3.5 percent reduction in the PST that they have to pay for hydro bills. That translates into jobs. It translates into being able to make it more affordable to access ore.

The NDP claims to support workers, but they don’t support work, whether it is the Kinder Morgan, Site C or mines. It’s throughout the province. That’s why public sector employees actually fare better under the B.C. Liberals, because there’s more in the coffers. We see this in Budget 2017 in education, health care and other services.

It’s been said many times before, but it’s worth repeating. British Columbia is the only province in Canada currently to receive a triple-A credit rating. What does it mean? It just means that we pay less for the debt which we’ve accumulated. If we paid the same interest rates and had the same debt-to-GDP ratio as other provinces, like Ontario, we’d be paying $2 billion more just for service charges.

[1630]

That’s about one-third of what we pay for K-to-12 education. Our credit ratings draw investments and build stronger economies.

British Columbians have worked hard over that span of time, and this side of the House has maintained controlled spending and has provided a plan that has diversified our economy to give the province the edge that it deserves. Our diversification is made evident through our exports, through the industries, where over one-third of our goods shipped are to Japan, China and other Asian countries.

Santa Ono, the president of UBC, knows the positives of diversification. He said: “The $87 million committed to the #BCTechStrategy will jump-start our efforts to diversify B.C.’s economy.”

In regard to that triple-A rating, the country’s Investment Industry Association said: “B.C.’s consistent sound management of public finances, that translates into relatively low debt-carrying costs and a triple-A credit rating, gives B.C. the scope to strengthen tax competitiveness to attract capital needed for growth and jobs and ensure social spending remains on a sound footing.” That’s not our government personnel saying these things — or the minister. This is from outside validators.

The boost in business confidence has made B.C. more attractive to people seeking opportunity, ultimately increasing the number of people who want to make B.C. their home. According to B.C. Stats, in the last year, we saw a net migration of over 50,000 people move across Canada and the Pacific to British Columbia, up from over 31,000 in 2015.

The growth, spurred on by a strong economy, is something I have seen in my own riding. We’ve seen an 8 percent growth in the population of Maple Ridge to over 82,000 people and a 7 percent growth in Mission. I was talking with the mayor, and he was telling me that last year Mission has seen more housing starts than ever before in its history. In Maple Ridge, there are new subdivisions popping up all over the place.

Members on this side of the House are working hard to ensure that those moving to new communities are supported. In my riding, our government has put $11 million towards the Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows Community Services to create affordable housing for lower-income seniors and families. Across the province, we have seen our government commit the largest single housing investment by any province in Canada, half a billion dollars, to spread and to build 2,900 affordable units.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

That’s very significant, because we recognize that a lot of people are moving to British Columbia. They’re attracted here. There’s work here, but that has put pressure on the housing stock. That’s one reason, with the extra revenues, that we have been able to make these commitments into housing.

Additionally, we’re making B.C. housing more affordable by doing our part to ensure that those looking to get their first home are able to do so. We’re partnering with first-time homebuyers to get them the help they need for their down payment by providing loans of up to $37,000 with no interest and no payment for the first five years. That’s worth thousands of dollars.

First-time buyers also benefit from the government raising the exemption of the property transfer taxes on housing up to $500,000. Homebuyers are able to save on purchases of newly constructed or subdivided homes up to $750,000 through the newly built home exemption. On top of that, British Columbians can take advantage of the property tax deferment plan.

Perhaps one of the most notable parts of B.C.’s fifth balanced budget is our initiative to work towards phasing out MSP premiums. Starting on January 1, 2018, we will take our first steps to completely eliminating MSP premiums by cutting them in half for millions of British Columbians. We’ve made a commitment to totally eliminate them.

Households with an annual net income under $120,000 will see their premiums reduced by 50 percent. Families can expect savings of up to $900 per year. Those are real dollars. Two million British Columbians can expect to see this reduction in premiums. That’s on top of the two million who pay no premiums at all.

[1635]

The majority of British Columbians will see their premiums rolled back to the levels in 1993.

How are we able to make these record investments in economic growth possible? Members on this side of the House have ensured that B.C. is business-friendly for
[ Page 13941 ]
tech, trade, aviation and tourism. We’ve started initiatives like the $100 million B.C. tech fund, which makes direct co-investments into B.C. tech companies and into B.C.-based venture capital funds.

Through the budget, this government has added $87 million to support the technology sector through multiple ministries. We have extended the scientific research and experimental tax credit by five years. The interactive digital media tax credit was expanded to include augmented reality and virtual reality products designed for entertainment purposes. These kinds of investments in tech have attracted tech giants like Microsoft, who opened the Microsoft centre of excellence in downtown Vancouver.

We have worked to increase trade by creating bilateral economic trade relations in Asia for B.C.’s aviation industry, which is an industry that is growing tremendously. We’ve eliminated the jet fuel tax for international flights, saving airlines millions and driving more traffic through B.C.

Through Creative B.C., we’ve provided tax credit certifications for 297 film projects, making B.C. more attractive to the film industry. This is Creative B.C. week. Creative industries are here. I was talking to representatives and producers last night, and they are saying that last year was a banner year for film productions. I’ve seen that in my riding, in Maple Ridge and Mission, and all throughout B.C. So things are going well in this industry.

Many of the companies that film in B.C. come because of our province’s natural beauty, and we have taken steps to safeguard that beauty. Currently, over 14 percent of B.C.’s land mass is protected in the province. B.C. Parks makes it a mission of theirs to strengthen relationships with indigenous peoples through traditional lands.

We haven’t forgotten to support our parks and tourism in this budget. The province is increasing and strengthening conservation of our world-renowned parks with new investments of $35 million over the next three years and $23 million over the next five years to add 1,900 new campsites. Over half of British Columbians use provincial parks each year, including Golden Ears Provincial Park, in my riding, Rolley Lake and Davis Lake.

Our government has a record of reducing red tape since 2001, something that we were recently recognized for this year by CFIB with a Golden Scissors Award in recognition of our commitment to cutting red tape. Red tape holds back development, and red tape impacts jobs.

This year’s balanced budget announced that the province would be eliminating provincial sales tax on electricity over the coming two years, as I mentioned earlier, supporting jobs and competitiveness by saving small, medium, large and industrial businesses across the province $164 million by 2019-2020.

We are reducing the small business tax from 2.5 percent to 2 percent. Under the NDP, it was as high as 10 percent at one time for small businesses. When you think about it, one million people either own a small business or are employed by small businesses. So if you think of $100,000…. Compare $2,000 in taxes for the first $100,000 as opposed to $10,000. That’s very significant. And the Small Business Venture Capital Act equity tax credit budget has increased by $3.4 million.

It’s not just businesses that are benefiting from tax credits. Families can afford to pay taxes, as we boast some of the lowest personal income taxes in Canada. That includes…. I know we hear from the opposition about the user fees. Even when you include that right there, B.C. is either the lowest or second-lowest province in Canada for all taxes.

A report in 2014 stated that British Columbia, in 1988, went from having the lowest marginal tax rates to among the highest through the 1990s up until 2002, during the time the NDP was in power, and then, afterwards, dropped down near the bottom again.

[1640]

Our practices stimulating the economy and strong job creation have allowed us to make record investments in B.C.’s infrastructure — from opening the Evergreen Line this last year, which was a $1.4 billion project, to the expansion of Highway 17, which connects my riding right down to the U.S. border and now takes a little over about a half an hour, to the work that was done on the South Fraser Perimeter Road.

Even the $808 million bridge, the Golden Ears Bridge from Maple Ridge to Langley, in 2009…. It’s been a few years, but that bridge and the Pitt River Bridge, which was about $200 million, have significantly transformed Maple Ridge and the North Fraser.

The Port Mann Bridge and all the changes that we’ve seen with that major project, including the Cape Horn intersection, the Trans-Canada…. That was a $3 billion cost, and it has, really, positively benefitted my communities. All of these projects have happened because we have listened to the community and continue to work on behalf of them.

In education. That’s my background. As a teacher, I know that government investments in our youth are just as important as investments in our economy. This budget adds an extra $740 million into K-to-12 schooling to account for enrolment growth that comes from increased population.

Across the province, $2 billion will go into capital projects in the K-to-12 sector for renovations, upgrades and maintenance. My riding will benefit from a $23 million investment going into the new school in the Albion area of Maple Ridge, which we announced last week. That’s an exciting project. We’ve been working with the school district. It’s a beautiful facility.

As I mentioned, as far as population growth, for years we’ve seen a decline in the number of students, but now that has changed in the past couple of years, and we’re seeing this new school put in. So this is great news.

The school will be nearly 4,700 square metres. It’s open, with modern, collaborative learning spaces, and
[ Page 13942 ]
it’s cutting edge. There are three kindergarten and 21 elementary classrooms that are planned. It will be built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — LEED — gold standards. StrongStart space for early learning programs will be in this school also. So it’s an exciting project.

Also, the city is hoping, planning, to set up a community centre right next to it. So it’s good news for the Albion area and good news for Maple Ridge. It’s anticipated that 74 direct jobs will be created as a result of the project.

Almost $62 million in capital projects have been invested in Maple Ridge in education. Last August the government announced a $14.7 million student transportation fund that has allowed children and parents to benefit from this program. We’ve made some additional funding announcements in this budget, and it’s something that I advocated for. Mission, in the last announcement, was a beneficiary of about $190,000 from this fund, for school bus transportation, and Maple Ridge, about $185,000.

As for post-secondary institutions, students in post-secondary will also benefit from lowering interest rates on student loans. From prime plus 2.5 percent, it will be dropped to prime. For someone that is, say, carrying a debt load, a student debt, out of university of $30,000, depending on how long they go on and pay it off, it could easily be in the thousands of dollars that they’ll be saving just from this one change alone. So that’s good news for our students.

There’s also been $2.6 billion in capital spending towards post-secondary institutions put forward in this budget. These funds target the key sectors that B.C. is specializing in.

British Columbia has some of the best doctors in the world, which gives us some of the best health outcomes in the world. B.C. has the best cancer survival rates in all of Canada. As a result, we have the lowest mortality rates in the country for all types of cancer.

We have the best life expectancies at birth and past 65 years compared to the rest of Canada. Our health services allow us to earn the lowest heart disease mortality rate in the country and the lowest overall heart attack rate per capita in Canada.

[1645]

As our finances have improved, we’re able to make more investments. Last year — or maybe it was the year before — we announced over $100 million, I believe it was, to help provide medication for those suffering with hep C. It was very expensive. I believe it’s $60,000 or $70,000 per person, but their lives have been transformed by this investment.

That’s been exciting. I know someone, a friend of mine, who takes his medication and has had hep C for decades. He’s totally cured. So that’s exciting.

One of my constituents approached me a year ago struggling with a type of Parkinson’s disease, where she’s been in constant motion night and day — hasn’t slept well for 15 years and has had to take medication every couple of hours. It’s been very, very challenging. She’s one of a few people with Parkinson’s that suffer with this extreme type of Parkinson’s.

Anyways, it was announced a couple of weeks ago that they would be receiving funding, or there’s been funding announced, for Duodopa medication. This is exciting news and something that I’ve been advocating for, for the past year. As we’re fiscally in a better position, we’re able to expand what we provide in every type of service — education, health…. This is great news for not only this constituent but also her husband.

We made another announcement last month, the member for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows and myself, for the Ridge Meadows Hospital — announcing a new MRI, one of four MRI machines that were announced at that time. Actually, it’s some of just 16 MRI machines that B.C. has acquired in the past ten years. This is about a $6 million investment, plus the year-to-year operating costs and increased staffing levels.

This is great news for the hospital. I know there’s a lot of excitement among the doctors and the health care professionals and actually the entire community with this new MRI.

We’ve actually increased the number of MRIs in the province by 178 percent in the past decade, and as far as the imaging also. B.C. emergency health services has also acquired a third ambulance that will benefit Maple Ridge and Tri-Cities. That was announced a number of months ago.

In Abbotsford-Mission, we have another ambulance on the road there, last year. We actually have 12 more ambulances in this past year. Big investments in emergency health services are being put into the Lower Mainland and throughout the province.

As stated in this year’s budget, our government will increase the Ministry of Health’s budget by $4.2 billion over three years. That’s a massive amount of dollars and a great investment. Over $100 million is being committed to mental health treatments throughout the province.

To give you a sense of contrast between the hon. members on this side of the House and the members on the other side, look no further than the development of health care facilities in the province. Under the NDP leadership, no hospitals were constructed. However, on this side of the House, not only are we building hospitals; we’re creating new operating rooms at VGH, new emergency rooms right across the province, including in Merritt, Penticton, Vernon — all over the province. It’s been very good news for residents of British Columbia.

I know that there was a question earlier in question period about Abbotsford — about the challenges that they’re facing in the emergency room. The Minister of Health responded that the NDP had promised this throughout their term but didn’t see anything happen,
[ Page 13943 ]
no construction. But we built that a number of years ago. That’s been happening throughout.

The opposition can criticize what we’re doing in health or education, but we’re seeing the changes, we’re seeing the investments, and British Columbians are benefiting.

Across the province, $2.7 billion has been earmarked for these health service facilities. In case it wasn’t already evident, members on this side of the House are committed to continuing B.C.’s history of great health outcomes.

[1650]

The balanced budget of this side of the House presented this year is just another layer to the mountain of accomplishments that we have worked hard to accumulate over the years. It’s been a good story that we’ve created here in B.C., one that begins with a focus on creating opportunity and growth and develops into investments in the health of our people and a growing economy.

A. Dix: It is always an honour to rise in this Legislature and represent the constituency of Vancouver-Kingsway, a constituency whose residents, in many ways, I think, define generosity, define resilience.

In some ways, what they represent and what they do every day in our community — at our schools, at our neighbourhood houses, in our small business community — is the opposite of what you see in this budget.I think what the constituency represents, in the work that’s done there every day, is a commitment to one another, a commitment to a sense of equality of opportunity. That is completely missing here.

It has been said thoughtfully, I think, by many members of the opposition that this budget is a budget that attempts to forget the 15 years of Liberal government — to forget everything and to try and tell everyone, “Well, we may have done all those things in the past, but that’s gone. This is new. This is something new. This is different” — two months before an election campaign.

A government that has, at every turn and especially in the last four years, defended the interests of the powerful — those who already have a great deal — and made it more difficult for everyone else is a government that, fundamentally, is about the past and not the present. It’s not about the potential of our province but about the past of our province and about the existing power base of our province — not about what government should do, which is help people reach their dreams and their full potential.

We see this every day in Vancouver-Kingsway. At Gladstone Secondary School in my constituency, a school with more than 1,000 people, a school with hundreds of adult learners at it as well, a school that the government and many people supporting the government wanted to see closed last year…. Recently, somebody attacked that school with graffiti that was racist.

Gladstone School has been through a lot this year. They’ve been through the struggle I talked about. This is an extraordinary place where people are generous to one another all the time. They live what the rest of the world often aspires to — people whose families have come from everywhere in the world and work together. When we were working on a campaign to save that school, young people came together from every community, and what inspired me about what they did was how generous they were with one another.

When you’re knocking on doors and getting petitions…. And yes, we got, just in the constituency alone, 14,000 petitions — 19,000 overall. You know, there are always some people who get more petition names at the end of the day, when you’ve been knocking on doors, who might even be a little better at it. But the generosity everyone expressed towards one another, the support they had, the lack of hierarchy in their thinking of who did well and who didn’t and the celebration of one another reflect everything that public education should be and everything that Gladstone is as a school.

So it’s not surprising, in response to this attack on their school — which profoundly affected people at the school because it so doesn’t represent what the school represents — the students got together, and they put up their own mural. It says, to put it simply: “Gladstone loves everyone.” That is the attitude of the school. That’s resiliency in the face of attack, and that is something that should be celebrated.

[1655]

The students at Windermere, who every year host a climate change conference and seek to bring a better world, not just through provincial politics or federal politics but in their own community, are currently campaigning because they don’t think it’s a good idea that a corporation such as Nestlé takes one million litres of water for $2.95.

They don’t think that’s a good idea, and they’re making the case for the future. They understand, from what they’ve learned and what they believe, that the opportunity of the future involves access to the critical resources we need and that they have a role to play in that. They’re not backing away from that role.

The students and parents at Graham Bruce and at Carleton and at Beaconsfield and all of the elementary schools in my riding, particularly this year at Carleton and Bruce…. They, too, were targeted by this government that is trying to pretend to forget everything — that they haven’t been cutting education, that they haven’t been involved in a 15-year war with the public education system — in this year. But last year was a different story.

The students at those schools…. Imagine the students at Carleton Elementary School — can you imagine? — and the parents, in 2005, in March…. In fact, it was the first week in March, in 2005. The Liberal Minister of Education went to Carleton Elementary School and announced a provincewide seismic safety initiative — one that they did not follow through on.

They announced that that school would be seismically upgraded in March of 2005. They brought the students
[ Page 13944 ]
out. I won’t name who the minister is. He’s no longer in this House. He’s no longer elected. They brought the students over. They treated the place like it was a movie set, two months before that general election. It’s a beautiful schoolhouse.

Have you been to Carleton Elementary School? I ask my friend from Stikine. It’s a beautiful school. The school buildings are fantastic. It’s been a school before Vancouver was Vancouver. It was South Vancouver, 1896.

The Liberals treated it like it was a movie set, two months before a general election. Then all of those students, every single student who participated in that Liberal photo op, have graduated from secondary school. The promise that was made to them that day by the Liberal government to make their school safe has still not been kept.

In 2008, at the old schoolhouse at Carleton — the most important historic building in southeast Vancouver, built in 1896 — the roof was damaged. Your school is insured. You look to your government, and you say: “This is the time.” The government insured the schoolhouse, the most important historic building in southeast Vancouver. The only thing this government would do for those children and that school was to offer $80,000 to tear the school down.

Now, I told you that our community was resilient and entrepreneurial and dynamic, and they are. They got together, they worked with the school board and they worked with Green Thumb Theatre. They rebuilt, and today that is the home and the rehearsal hall for Green Thumb Theatre, one of the great children’s theatre companies in Canada.

Then in 2011, in fact, when the Premier was a radio host, it was the last time that I had a chance to discuss the situation with her. She was arguing that that school should be closed. You know, the Education Premier was, the former Minister of Education, the author of Bill 28 — recently tossed out of the Supreme Court of Canada — that one.

Interjection.

A. Dix: In 20 minutes.

That Premier of British Columbia, that Education Premier, wanted that school closed. The students got together, and they fought for their school as they did in 2016. Now the school has been damaged again in a fire. As you know, public schools in British Columbia and public buildings in British Columbia are insured by the province. It’s like the rate of unpaid claims at ICBC.

Has the province of British Columbia paid those claims? The answer is no. That symbol of public education, that symbol of our community, sits empty today, and nothing has happened since the fire, of any significance, to rebuild. That is at the heart of what’s wrong with the government. They are disconnected from what’s going on in society.

[1700]

British Columbia has enormous potential and great things going on every day, but it also faces the highest absolute levels of inequality, both in terms of wealth and in terms of income, of any province in the country. What we have seen for the last 15 years, but especially in the last four years, is a government that responds to that by favouring not the potential of those who are striving, but the privilege of those who already have.

What did they do? What was their signature economic policy? It was trickle-down. They cut taxes by $1 billion for the wealthiest 2 percent of British Columbians. That’s what they did. And how did they pay for that?

As you know, I am the NDP critic — we sometimes say “spokesperson,” but I kind of like “critic” — for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Now, in that role, I have asked one or two or three questions of the Minister of Transportation, who’s the minister responsible for ICBC — using the term “responsible” in the loosest possible of ways.

Last week, in a moment of rare insight, after all of those questions — you know, you ask a question, and you don’t really get an answer, but you do get a response generally — the minister responsible for ICBC actually said something quite interesting. My colleagues were there, I was there, and we were listening to his response. He was trying to explain how the government had failed utterly at ICBC, and he said: “Well, you know, this is the money” — the money they scooped out of ICBC — “we used for the purpose of taxation. This is taxation for services. That is what ICBC is for.”

We came to understand. It was a moment of insight from the government, where they finally acknowledged that jacking up rates at ICBC and jacking up rates at B.C. Hydro, which is exactly what they’d been doing, were tax increases on the middle class, tax increases on low-income people and tax increases on working families. That’s precisely what they were doing, and they were using that money, essentially, to offset the consequences of the very policies we’ve been talking about, including their $1 billion gift to the wealthiest 2 percent of income earners.

What’s happened at ICBC — and it’s reflected in this budget — is a shabby story, to say the least. This government became, as you know, the first government in the history of B.C. to transform ICBC from a non-profit status, by changing the law to do so. Now, they’ve done that in two ways. They’ve changed the law so that they could scoop out the capital reserve, and then, interestingly, under the management of the Premier, they turned it into a non-profit by stopping making a profit, by losing gigantic amounts of money. They did it in two ways. It was a sort of a Liberal non-profit policy squared.

What they did in 2010 is they changed the status of ICBC. Then they proceeded immediately to take $1.2 billion out of it. Not to be outdone, in 2016 they came back to this Legislature, and they took over responsibility
[ Page 13945 ]
for what’s called the minimum capital threshold at ICBC, which allowed them to continue to scoop out even more. They changed the rules to suit themselves.

Before the last election, the government did two things at ICBC. The Premier said they were going to keep rate increases down, and the government had a review of ICBC. They accepted all of the recommendations.

Since then, since the election, we’ve gone to 30 percent rate increases in basic premiums at ICBC, on the one hand — we’re promised that — and on the other hand, we’ve gone from a situation of positive accounts to a negative one. The government talks about all the things going on about ICBC, but they have been existing for a number of years. They said at the beginning of the 2015 fiscal year, for example, that they were going to make $210 million. They said that in 2016 they were going to make $231 million. They said that in the current fiscal year we were just in they were going to make $237 million. It’s covered by this budget.

[1705]

Instead, they lost $830 million over those years. They didn’t lose it. It’s pretty clear, from the way that they’ve run ICBC, that they don’t care. It’s ratepayers that have lost that.

What’s their policy been? To scoop money out of the corporation, to reduce front-line staff, to dramatically increase the number of unpaid claims. Just to understand what that means, that $8.8 billion in unpaid claims that they’re getting to…. The job of ICBC is kind of basic. You pay the premium, you have a claim, and they pay the insurance costs off. That’s the money at the end of every year that they haven’t paid off. So it is an absolute measure of customer service.

We have a government that cut front-line workers; that used ICBC as a piggy bank, contrary to every other government in memory; that said it would hold rates down and then jacked them up to the ceiling because, as the minister responsible for ICBC made plain in the House last week, the government, the Liberals, consider those taxes to mitigate the tax increases that they give to the wealthiest people in British Columbia. That is their strategy.

You have a budget here, an ICBC-related budget, that is little short of a fiasco for the citizens and drivers of this province.

Then last December, the government was forced, unbelievably…. They must have been outraged. There must have been meetings at the government communications office that said: “How can the BCUC force us to tell the truth about our plans after the election? How can they do that?” It seems unfair, but they were forced — the BCUC forced them — to reveal what the status quo increase in ICBC rates was going to be after the election.

The answer? Well, a generous view of that answer is 42 percent — a generous view. A less generous view — because that 42 percent requires $1.7 billion to fall from the sky into basic automobile insurance — is a great deal more than that. That was their effort after all of these years. This is their management of our public auto insurance company: to soak ratepayers — to pay, as the minister suggests, taxes through their ICBC premiums to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthy; to reduce service; to dramatically increase unpaid claims, and the numbers are staggering.

That is their record: to drain $1 billion out of the capital accounts in a few years. That is what they’ve done. That is their record at ICBC. When you compare that to what happens in our constituencies, what happens in my constituency — what small businesses that have to deal with ICBC, to deal with the increasing costs, have to deal with — it shows how out of touch the government is.

People are struggling out there because in my constituency — as in most constituencies, especially in Metro Vancouver — we’re seeing dramatic increases in costs. It’s not just the increases in housing prices that we’ve seen and the increases in rents that flow from that, but also dramatic increases in costs for small businesses, like the ones along Kingsway and the ones along Joyce in my constituency, who are themselves seeing very dramatic increases in their rent and in the cost of doing business.

Then we have a government that treats the key Crown corporations, two of the most important Crown corporations — I won’t get to B.C. Ferries; my colleague from North Island has done an outstanding job on that — as if they were their personal domains. This is contrary to what people in my constituency need, this is contrary to what small businesses in my constituency need, and it’s contrary to the spirit that the people in my constituency show every single day.

That’s ICBC, and that is a record, not from what I say, but from what the budget says itself, the economic and fiscal review says itself. It tells a story of abject irresponsibility and contempt for the ratepayer. It shows a government that thinks that it’s only about these four years and that they can sell out these institutions over time.

[1710]

Now, I think the Minister of Energy must have been, when I was talking to the minister for ICBC, saying to himself: “Well, what’s wrong with my colleague the Minister of Transportation? Why doesn’t he do what I do — borrow money and pretend it’s revenue? Why doesn’t he do what I do — raise rates on low-income people? Why doesn’t he do what I do?” Of course, ICBC can’t do what the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro does.

You look in that budget, and it says the net income of B.C. Hydro is roughly the same every year. It goes up in a small way from $680 million to $685 million to $710 million, I think, in the third year of the budget. Then it goes up to $710 million in net income.

But of course, that’s not the net income of B.C. Hydro. It’s not anything like that. In fact, they use something called deferral accounts. What the government does is it
[ Page 13946 ]
sets the net income. Then it borrows money — get this — in the name of the ratepayer. It’s an asset to B.C. Hydro. This is the scheme. We won’t call it a Ponzi scheme. Maybe we’ll call it a Fonzie scheme. But like that, it may have jumped the shark some time ago.

The fact of the matter is that they have consistently…. What they do is that they don’t meet their budgetary targets. They borrow money not in their own name but in the name of the ratepayer such that everyone who is a customer of B.C. Hydro owes in the thousands of dollars. Small business customers owe even more, and industrial customers even more. Somehow, magically, it’s all going to be paid off in 2023 and 2024. That’s their plan.

In fact, of course, they have done two things at B.C. Hydro of fundamental importance. They have, unfortunately, been dramatically wrong, arguably even more wrong than the minister responsible for ICBC, and that’s a low bar. You only have to step over that bar. It’s a very low bar. But what they’ve done…. Of course they’ve raised rates, contrary to what the Premier said before the last election. Of course they’ve done that. But what they have done to B.C. Hydro is put it in a bad position for generations to come. They have deliberately….

They were wrong. They, either intentionally or unintentionally, overestimated demand for energy at B.C. Hydro and forced hydro customers to buy power either through the Site C project or through other projects that they didn’t need. The result of that, the consequence of that…. The Auditor General spoke to this today. I know the member for Saanich North and the Islands is very interested in what the Auditor General had to say.

What did the Auditor General have to say about B.C. Hydro? B.C. Hydro has more contractual obligations…. This is how this government operates. “All that matters is our re-election. We’ll do anything. We’ll push any problem forward so that we can get re-elected, because it’s about us, this government, after 15 years. We can’t imagine a world where we’re not in government. So we’ve got to just keep us here. This is all that’s important.”

B.C. Hydro has more in contractual obligations than the government of Ontario. B.C. Hydro has more in contractual obligations than the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia combined. That’s just B.C. Hydro. They have made decisions in the last eight years that will bring us forward the next 35 years to force B.C. Hydro, either through projects that we now understand we didn’t need…. They’ve missed their demand targets by dramatically more — this is how much they missed them — than the entire energy of the Site C dam. That’s how much they missed by, in just a few years. Generally speaking, it’s easier to predict the next few years than it is to predict ten, 20, 30 years out. But this is what they’ve done.

They consider themselves…. This is the selfishness of a government that always chooses its friends when it comes to priorities and always chooses itself and its interests instead of the future of the province. This is what you end up with: $58 billion in contractual obligations at B.C. Hydro, over $100 billion in contractual obligations throughout the government. Number one in Canada, yes, in that. And the consequence for the future of the province means for us, for anyone attempting to come in after this government — serious consequences in dealing with the problems that they’ve left behind.

[1715]

Finally I’d say, because we don’t have a lot of time for these speeches…. I feel almost inspired to ask the House for unanimous consent to continue, but I don’t think I’m going to do that.

I’ll say this. B.C. Hydro has had choices too. They have, at every turn, made those choices in favour of the powerful over those that don’t have power.

They spent a good part of the last year before the Utilities Commission stopping low-income people from getting a break on their hydro bills — a plan put forward by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre that would have cost $40 million. They did this at a time when they were giving a deferral to the mining industry.

So a deferral to the mining industry — which is fine; we need to support the mining industry — and nothing for low-income people, at a time when the number of people being disconnected had increased sixfold. Because when you dramatically increase hydro rates…. The minister responsible for ICBC says you dramatically increase taxes on low-income people in order to pay for a tax cut for the rich. That has consequences for people, and it’s reflected in disconnection rates for people, which have increased dramatically over time.

They fought at the Utilities Commission — my colleague from Coquitlam–Burke Mountain can’t believe it — to stop low-income people from getting a break at B.C. Hydro. At every turn, those were their choices.

A lot of members will comment on this being a pre-election budget, on how before the last election, they came in with a budget that talked about nothing but LNG. In this budget, there are some l’s, there are some n’s, and there are some g’s, because those are popular consonants, but they never appear together in this budget. Very popular consonants, those ones.

They promised, with great fanfare in this House — and campaigned on it; they didn’t put it on the side of the bus, but they told it in TV ads — that everyone was going to have a family doctor in B.C. And they broke their word on that.

They promised that they’d wrestle hydro rates and ICBC rates to the ground, that they wouldn’t count on these taxes, that they wouldn’t soak it to working people and working families and the small businesses in my community. And then they did.

A lot of people will comment on the fact that this government does this every time. Need we mention 2009 and the HST?
[ Page 13947 ]

But what is fundamental about this budget and what’s fundamental about what the government has done over four years is they have acted for the powerful against the entrepreneurial — the past against the future. They have taken away opportunity from people who government ought to be giving an opportunity to.

Their 15-year fight with the B.C. Teachers Federation hasn’t existed in a vacuum. Real children have gone to school — entered school and graduated — in that time and been harmed by the government’s action. Nothing the government says in this budget, after they were forced to act by the Supreme Court of Canada, can change the fact that they haven’t been in the corner of parents and students and families and teachers and those working for a better future in the education system. Nothing will change that.

People in Vancouver-Kingsway want and deserve change. They need a government that’s on their side, that fights for them, that makes choices for them. When it comes to a fight between powerful interests and working families, they want someone who will choose working families, and that’s a government led by the member for Juan de Fuca.

They want a government that will use B.C. Hydro for the people who own B.C. Hydro, which is all of the people of B.C., not just the government’s friends. They want a government that will speak for them.

They want a government that sees ICBC as a way to ensure safety on the roads and to ensure fair, accessible, inexpensive public auto insurance that everybody, after all, has to buy. They will have that in a government led by the member for Juan de Fuca.

We need change in this province. We have a government that is used to being in the counsel of deputy ministers and ministers and making decisions and that thinks their reality is the people’s reality. It is not.

We need a government that represents people. We need change in this province. This budget fails to address the aspirations of people, the hopes of people, the dreams of people. It attempts to force them to forget what has happened over 15 years and, particularly, over the last four — the broken promises and the bad choices. They are tired of that. People are tired of that.

[1720]

They want a government that fights for them. On May 9, they’re going to have an opportunity to get just such a government.

Hon. N. Yamamoto: It’s my pleasure today to rise and respond to Budget 2017. First of all, I really want to address the fact that members opposite have been trying to claim that somehow we want the public to forget our record. That just isn’t so.

I and the colleagues on this side of the House are immensely proud of the work we’ve done to support British Columbians — British Columbians like the young woman who I had as my guest when the Finance Minister presented our fifth consecutive balanced budget.

Her name is Jennifer Sibbald. She lives in Vancouver. She’s currently in school. She’s at BCIT and will soon be graduating with a degree in environmental studies. She’s specializing in conservation. I was proud to have Jennifer as my guest because she represents the future of this province, a young woman about to embark on an exciting profession in the sciences. She’s going to help protect the environment that we hold so dear in this province.

This year’s balanced budget, the fifth balanced budget since I was elected, reflects a continued and unwavering commitment to ensuring the means of supporting strong communities and people like Jennifer. It’s a budget that builds a better future for B.C. on the foundation of sound fiscal management.

This is the first time since the 1960s that British Columbia has led the country in economic growth in two consecutive years. We’re the only jurisdiction in this country to balance our budget this year and certainly the only one to have balanced five budgets in a row. Strong communities, stable investment in infrastructure and knowing that the government is doing more to keep British Columbians safe matters to everyone.

British Columbia is made stronger because we’re helping to make life affordable for everyday families, through housing and education costs that can be reasonably met, by offering people like Jennifer home ownership grants, property tax deferments, interest-free down payment loans for the middle-class new homebuyer and rent subsidies for lower-income earners. Jennifer knows that she’ll be able to take advantage of some of these programs and start her own life in a home of her own.

This province also has the best health and education outcomes in the country because of significant investments in child care, in classrooms, health care and addictions, seniors and even things like our beautiful B.C. parks system.

Over $1.6 billion, over and above the annual 3 percent increases, to our health care budget; $670 million in additional supports for children, families and individuals in need; and $1.8 billion in taxpayer-funded operating grants that help more than 425,000 students attend public post-secondary schools, with the fourth-lowest tuition rates in Canada. By cutting 2.5 percent from the payments on the student loan debt, Jennifer knows that she’ll be able to pay or repay her loans much faster.

With $60 million invested into B.C. Parks over the past five years, we’ve been able to increase park access and improve British Columbians’ quality of life by giving them a gateway to this incredible province and the great outdoors.

We, as a province, are made stronger because people are working in this province more than ever before. The thoughtful and measured approach to governing has fostered the nation’s lowest unemployment rate. We now
[ Page 13948 ]
boast a record 2.4 million working British Columbians. In fact, 202,000 British Columbians are working because new jobs were created since the launch of the B.C. jobs plan in 2011. Despite what you hear from across the aisle here, 81 percent of those jobs are full-time jobs.

This province is also made stronger by controlled spending that keeps taxes low. B.C. has the lowest personal provincial income taxes for British Columbians earning up to $122,000. We’re made stronger because we’re leading GDP growth in Canada, which translates into more jobs and more investment here at home.

Val Litwin is the CEO and president of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce. This is what he said about B.C.’s fifth consecutive balanced budget: “Our provincial government has been practising great business fundamentals — balancing budgets and investing in a more diversified economy — and this means they can now roll out bolder investments, laser-focused tax credits and a deeply competitive tax structure that gives businesses the choice to invest and hire more British Columbians.”

[1725]

Mr. Speaker, you know I’m a big fan of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce movement and chambers throughout British Columbia. We know that most of the businesses in British Columbia are small businesses. Small business owners have told us that this budget is good for their business.

Because B.C. boasts the highest-possible credit rating as well — the only province with a triple-A credit rating — it’s easier and less costly to borrow to pay for new infrastructure. Just think, if we had the same credit rating today as the province did under the NDP, we would be paying an additional $2.2 billion in interest payments — 2.2 billion additional dollars. That’s more than one-third of our education budget. That’s more than the entire budgets for Advanced Education or MCFD. That’s more than 75 percent of our funding of Social Development and Social Innovation.

We’ve been able to invest this this province because of our fiscal discipline. The question the public needs to begin asking themselves is: where are we willing to see cuts made if the NDP are given control of our finances?

The opposition likes to claim that there hasn’t been any investment in housing. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In my riding of North Vancouver–Lonsdale, B.C. Housing has invested more than $13 million last year, resulting in 111 spaces for our homeless, 452 transition and support housing spaces, over 1,000 spaces for low-income seniors and families and rental assistance for over 1,000 low-income seniors and families. And that’s just on the North Shore.

We’re stronger because of our investments in our communities and in our infrastructure. Transportation infrastructure investments alone have been $18 billion since 2001 — $18 billion. That infrastructure will make it easier for people just like Jennifer to get around the Lower Mainland. Investments in things like the Bike B.C. program. It has received more than $220 million since 2001 — I think I’ll check that number; that seems awfully high — and is scheduled to receive another $20 million over the next three years. It will allow all British Columbians to get moving and stay healthy while doing it.

On the North Shore, the city and the district of North Vancouver have received almost $5 million in the last ten years — over $5 million for cycling projects throughout the North Shore. Most recently the Green Necklace, which is the East Keith and Grand Boulevard area, received $1 million from the Bike B.C. program. The West Keith Road and 13th Street cycling path received $342,000. Just before that the Chesterfield Avenue bike route, a bike lane going the northbound direction on Chesterfield, received almost $300,000. That’s just to name a few of the incredible investments that this government has made in cycling on the North Shore.

It’s our transportation infrastructure that’s also bringing the world to our industry’s door — infrastructure that helps B.C. move $71.6 million in exports every year. It includes an investment — and this is what I’m very, very proud of — of $198 million to address the congestion in the lower Lynn corridor, which is part of Highway 1.

On the North Shore, transportation and traffic congestion has been a big concern. The four North Shore MLAs have been certainly supportive of finding a solution to that traffic congestion. Thanks to this government, $198 million will be invested and committed to solving this problem.

Our ability to invest — in health care, like the redevelopment of the Lions Gate Hospital, or in education, in the prosperity and safety of all families — is supported because of our fiscal discipline and ability to target strategic investments, in particular for our most vulnerable citizens. This builds a strong society of British Columbians, and that matters to everyone in this province.

Building a strong society of British Columbians is of the highest importance to me in my portfolio of emergency preparedness, as well, because a strong society is a resilient society, and resilient communities endure emergencies.

[1730]

This government values public safety and has made unparalleled investments in fostering greater preparedness. Last year we announced $65 million in initiatives to help communities keep safe, including $15 million for public safety preparedness projects, like $5 million to Ocean Networks Canada for seismic monitoring and early warning systems off our coast, and $10 million to the B.C. Search and Rescue Association to help strengthen that safety net for those enjoying B.C.’s back country — a safety net that we already spend $9 million each year to support, whether that’s search and rescue teams’ operations, other training, their fuel costs, their insurance or their compensation benefits.
[ Page 13949 ]

On the North Shore, our search and rescue team, North Shore Rescue Team, is one of the busiest in the province due to the proximity to a lot of people who live on the Lower Mainland. We see, regrettably, in the news, the number of deployments that were made by the search and rescue teams, especially over the winter months. We see the helicopters that are deployed to search for missing hikers and out-of-bounds skiers. All those expenses are covered by the province and taxpayers.

The province has also invested significantly in flood mitigation and prevention. Since 2008, we’ve committed $173 million with federal and local governments for a total of 168 flood-mitigation projects across 65 communities in British Columbia. Last year alone, we provided $50 million for 17 community projects like upgrades to dikes and flood protection.

Since 2001, we’ve committed over $17 billion in capital funding and seismic structure upgrades. This includes over $4 billion in new bridge and large highway infrastructure projects built to modern-day seismic standards; $1.2 billion to complete 155 high-risk-school seismic projects; $3.3 billion in capital projects to upgrade existing and create new facilities built to current seismic standards; and $3.9 billion in new construction and upgrades to health care facilities in high-seismic-risk areas.

The province is also providing $2.4 million to boost emergency social services teams, which provide residents with up to 72 hours of lodging, clothing and food following an emergency. These community volunteers are essential to the well-being of British Columbians in times of need. While essential emergency social services teams are equipped to respond to smaller events like apartment fires, this funding will help build the local government capacity to respond to even larger events.

To better understand and mitigate flooding hazards along the Fraser River and southern coast, we’re investing $1.3 million in two Fraser Basin Council projects. The first will help them conduct an inventory and an engineering assessment of all orphan or unmanaged dikes in the Fraser Basin. The second will help them complete comprehensive mapping and modelling of the Fraser River in order to assist local governments and teams directed by the Fraser Basin Council to deliver on floodplain mapping projects in 2018.

I am proud to stand in this House and support this budget. I am proud as a minister to be able to say that we are doing more to keep British Columbians safe. I’m proud as an MLA to say that we’re investing in my community and my region. I’m proud to say that I know people throughout this province, people like Jennifer, who will be directly benefiting from these investments in British Columbia’s future.

J. Wickens: I’m happy to stand in the House today to speak to the 2017 budget.

It was just over a year ago that I stood and gave my very first speech in the Legislature. It was in regards to the 2016 budget. In some ways, there are a lot of things that I’m going to be repeating in this speech from last year, but from a bit of a different perspective.

What an incredible year it has been for me. I feel incredibly privileged and fortunate to be the representative in this Legislature for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain. I want to thank my colleagues in this House for the past year. Getting thrown into the Legislature right after a by-election is something that there are really no words for.

I’ll never forget getting up on my very first day in this House and asking our Minister of Health a very pointed question.

[1735]

I also asked him a question today, and I have to say that I now can pretty much predict the answer that we are going to get before it’s even given.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

It’s because of the support of the people in this Legislature, the mentorship and the leadership that has been shown. It has helped me grow personally and professionally, and I’m so very thankful for that. I have had the privilege of listening, over the last week, to some retiring members give their last speech. I have to say that it has been an honour to serve alongside them.

I want to say thank you to my family and friends who have supported me. We all know in this House that we cannot do this work without a strong support system. While I am here in Victoria and in my community at various events, my husband, Brian, and my children, Troy and Adrianne, are always cheering me on. They are my rock, and they are the reason I get up every day to do this work and to fight for a better B.C. and a brighter future.

I thought long and hard about my speech in response to the budget, and I am going to respond with some criticism. I do believe that democracy needs to have a governing party and a strong opposition for the people that we were all elected to serve. I ran for office in the by-election because I fundamentally disagree with this B.C. Liberal government’s way of governing. But it’s not because of ideology. I’m not an ideologue, like this Premier and members opposite have stated. It’s because of the lived experience in the work that I have done with people in my community that I disagree. I’m going to go into details about some of those lived experiences and relate them to the budget.

First, I want to talk about some of the responses that this government and the members opposite give day in and day out to questions about their governance and valid criticisms. I’m going to start by bringing up the ’90s. When I first came into the House, I thought it was kind of funny. I actually thought it was a bit of a joke, to be honest. But what I realized is that this government’s
[ Page 13950 ]
constant obsession with talking about things from almost two decades ago is an attempt to deflect from their own record and their own governance.

So I want to put some things into perspective about the ’90s — it’s not that I think we should forget about our past — because times are so drastically different. In the ’90s, we didn’t have Wi-Fi. Something called the World Wide Web was just coming on line. We had something called floppy disks in the ’90s. Pagers were widely popular. In 1997, Apple stock was at $4. Can you imagine if we knew back then what we know now, with Apple stock at $4?

I have to mention that my husband thought the ’90s was the best time in the world because the Dallas Cowboys won three Super Bowls. That’s not to mention, above and beyond all of the differences in pop culture and technology, that it was a different time. We had different standards, and we knew things differently. When you know better, you do better. I remember my parents smoking in the car with me. I think car seats were optional.

My point is that this government, these cabinet ministers, would rather talk about a time completely different than today than address and answer for their own record and their own actions in government. They are the government, they are responsible for governing this good province, and they have been in power for almost two decades now.

There is no better example of this than when our Minister of Transportation stood up, when asked about the 2017 budget and ICBC. Instead of answering why ICBC is projected to have a loss of $697 million and an anticipated rate hike of 42 percent…. The minister and this government would rather talk about a time when we wore scrunchies than answer for their track record in the today and now.

[1740]

I think it’s actually quite disrespectful to the people of British Columbia. This government doesn’t want to talk about its own record, and it wants to pat itself on the back every time it talks about its own spending. Their deputy stood up in the House yesterday and said to our colleagues: “I didn’t get a thank-you letter for building a shelter.” Our ministers are not supposed to get thank-you letters for spending our own tax dollars.

I was actually surprised, with my new opportunity, when I’ve travelled around British Columbia with my colleagues since being elected. There has been a common theme in communities with service providers. What people have said, whether we’re in Prince George or Kamloops or Vernon or Coquitlam or Vancouver, is that there has been a complete erosion of services. People are expected to do far more with far less. Because of those challenges, we see other challenges increasing and rising. Challenges like mental health, addiction and homelessness have gotten completely out of control.

We spend far more resources in this province reacting than we do being proactive. Why? Because of the choices of this government, because the choices of this government are reactionary. Right now, before an election, we see them reacting. I don’t think it’s necessarily because it’s the right thing to do but because, I think, they’re hearing the same thing in communities that we are — that people are struggling, and they’re tired of not having the investment in the places early on.

We cannot take an ad hoc, piecemeal, reactionary approach to the challenges that we see in our society and communities today. You need a plan. Something like a poverty reduction plan would be good for British Columbia, which this government absolutely refuses to do. They continue to say: “We don’t need a poverty reduction plan. We have a jobs plan.”

Yes, good-paying, family-supportive jobs are very important, but we’re not necessarily seeing that type of job growth in British Columbia. And when I’m talking to families in my community, it’s not always necessarily a job that’s the problem for people. It’s that they can’t get ahead. It’s that they’re working and living in or close to poverty. It’s that, if they are making a decent wage, they’re living in something now that we call time poverty. Our families and our children and our seniors are suffering because of this.

This budget — we’ve said it a lot of times — is a forget-everything budget, trying to erase years of neglect. Let’s look at education for just a moment, something that I’m very passionate about. On the eve of an election, we see an incredible increase in media announcements. Many, by the way, are announcements that were announced previous to the last election.

We also see in this budget a restoration of some of the funding in education that has been taken out over the last 16 years. We need to see that restoration. Children, teachers, support staff need that funding. But let’s think about that, though, through a bit of a different lens. The government was forced, through the court of law, after fighting teachers, to restore funding to our public education system. They want us to believe that that’s an increase, but let’s be clear. I believe it’s akin to a parent being awarded backdated child support.

A whole generation of children in our public system have been going without the support they need. A good example, a really good picture of how this is happening, is the dramatic increase in our system in distributed learning. It speaks to the slow erosion of our public system. We have seen distributed learning increase in this province, since this government was elected, by 81 percent.

[1745]

Many of those students within that percentage are students with special needs, by the way. This government likes to stand up and talk about its record for students with special needs. They like to talk about completion rates for students with special needs, when over half of the students with special needs in this province are not counted in that completion rate. Students with autism spectrum disorder,
[ Page 13951 ]
students with mental health, students with chronic disabilities aren’t counted in those completion rates, and this government doesn’t even bother to track them.

They like to stand up and say, “We are doing a fantastic job with students with special needs,” when they don’t even know how those students are doing. It is completely unacceptable. All you have to do is go to any parent chat room, any parent support group of parents who have children with special needs, and they will tell you that they feel forced out of this public education system because this government continues to underfund and not provide the resources for our most vulnerable students and children.

That’s not the only issue in our public education system. There are a lot of other issues as well. There is also a need for building new schools in this province and making sure our schools are safe when we drop our children off.

Just a few months ago, our Minister of Education was talking about empty classrooms. He fired the Vancouver school board because of their budget shortfall and their unwillingness to close schools. We don’t hear much of that talk from the members opposite lately. They’re not talking about closing schools and empty classrooms anymore. They’re frantically running around, with government announcement after government announcement, building schools and making them seismically safe.

We have parents in my community, in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, waking up at four o’clock in the morning to stand in line for kindergarten registration, and that kindergarten registration was filled within five minutes. Those parents had to then go into other schools around their community, drive their children across the city, because they can’t get into the one community school anywhere near their community. Parents all over Vancouver have to put their children in lotteries and try and get their child into their neighbourhood school, but there most likely won’t be room.

The crisis we are seeing is a direct result of a couple of things: this government’s requirement, for years, for schools to be at 95 percent capacity and the fact that it has shut down over 240 schools since they’ve been in power. So now we’re in crisis and chaos. You can’t wait until there’s a problem and a crisis before you invest and address. Now we have a court order that says we need smaller classes and more resources, and there are no spaces for these children to go.

I also have a new role when it comes to child care, and it’s one that I’m incredibly excited about. I believe that when you invest in a child’s early experiences, when you provide early intervention and the supports that they need early on in life, the long-term cost benefit is enormous. We actually have the ability to change the trajectory of our children’s lives by giving them the best possible start.

What is the record of this government on that result? Let’s just talk about that for a second. In this province, we have some of the highest child vulnerability rates, and they are climbing. They have not gotten better. They have gotten worse. In my community of Coquitlam, we have seen a critical increase in childhood vulnerability. That means 43 percent of our children in our community are not ready for kindergarten.

What does that mean? We have to put more resources in the system later on because they didn’t get them early enough in life. This costs the economy, it costs the community, it costs families, and it is only getting worse under this government. Mental health rates in young children are rising rapidly. There is a reason for that.

They would love, and they prefer, to call the child care plan that experts have put together, that economists have put together, that businesses have endorsed and that parents have called for a scheme. That’s what child care is to the B.C. Liberal government. It’s a scheme. None of the other things that they do with ICBC or B.C. Hydro or any of those things…. Those aren’t schemes at all, but taking care of our most vulnerable and our youngest is a scheme to this B.C. Liberal government.

[1750]

We need child care to be a part of a comprehensive plan to address the challenges that we are seeing today in our communities, with our families and in society.

I’m going to just quickly talk about housing, because it’s another area that I’ve heard so much about in my community office and in my constituency. This government has sat back for years while housing has gotten completely out of control. There was, over the summer and over the last couple of months, so much hype from this government about what they were going to do to address housing affordability for first-time homebuyers and to keep housing in the reach of the middle class.

What this government did was they announced a new home-loan program, which still does absolutely nothing to address the affordability crisis we see today. When my parents bought a house and when many of the members opposite bought a house, it took, on average, five years to save up for a down payment. Today, on average, it takes young people 20 years to save up for a down payment — and the members opposite are going to give people a loan for five years.

In an attempt to be relatable, our Premier tweeted out pictures of her first home that she bought. But once again, they leave these things out of context. In a time of stagnant wage growth, the cost of homes has gone… The Premier’s home, when she bought it, was under $300,000. Today that same home — $1 million. Wages have not increased at that rate.

The average townhouse in Coquitlam is not in reach of young people or first-time homebuyers. Offering young people more debt, when we have the highest household debt already in this province and the lowest discretionary income amongst young people, is going to do nothing to address this affordability crisis.
[ Page 13952 ]

I believe that this government is consistently and constantly playing Whac-a-Mole. The bright picture that they want to paint for the economy and brag about is not working for everyone. All you have to do is go into a community and talk to the people who are on the front lines, working in the community, to see that.

I am proud to stand in this House as a New Democrat. For me, what that means is that you leave nobody behind. The government that I dream of is one that doesn’t just govern in four-year election cycles.

The Leader of the Official Opposition often talks about being where he is today because the people in his life have given him a hand up. He believes in paying it forward, and so do I. I’m proud of our leader; I’m proud of our team. Our leader is driven by integrity and respect, and he will work incredibly hard to build a better B.C. for everyone in our communities.

When I think about the future for my children, for my niece and nephew, for my family and for some of the other people in my community, I want better for them. I know that with the Leader of the Opposition and with this caucus, they will get that.

L. Larson: It is with pride that I rise today to speak on balanced budget 2017 — our fifth balanced budget, a legacy for this government that is unmatched in our province.

Our fiscal prudence and our spending discipline are once again paving the way for prosperity in British Columbia. Our budget shows that we are spending a total of $50.2 billion for the 2017-18 fiscal year, resulting in a $295 million surplus. Our finances are firmly placed on a solid foundation, allowing our province to weather a fragile global economy. We’ve worked hard to move British Columbia on a path for solid growth that benefits the priorities of British Columbians. That is the correct path, and we’re not the only ones who think so.

[1755]

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade gave our budget an overall grade of A, and the Business Council of B.C. said: “The Business Council of British Columbia welcomes today’s provincial budget, which managed to find room for tax relief while maintaining the government’s commitment to balance the budget.”

Within our fifth consecutive balanced budget, we are allocating, over three years, an additional $3 billion in enhanced programs and services, $3.1 billion in competitiveness and affordability measures, and record levels of investment in infrastructure, supporting more than 30,000 jobs. Our discipline in spending and our careful allocation of priorities have put B.C. in a position that is the envy of Canada. Thanks to a balanced budget, we have a surplus and are in the position to return that surplus to British Columbians.

Making these decisions and maintaining the course was not always easy. It often meant making tough choices. But in 2013, we said that we would eliminate the deficit and reduce operating debt. Our direct operating debt has been reduced by 90 percent since 2013, and now we are on a course to pay off our operating debt by 2020 for the first time in 45 years.

Currently, British Columbians pay the lowest income tax of any province in Canada. Compare that to other provinces. British Columbians pay $2,819 less income tax than in Ontario. And compared to Quebec, the taxpayer in British Columbia pays $8,645 less than the people in that province.

There is another stark difference between British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. When you look at the debt-to-GDP ratio, a key measure of debt affordability, you can see why British Columbia is favoured as a stable and secure place to do business.

For example, the debt-to-GDP ratio in Ontario is 40.3 percent and rising. In Quebec, it is 48.1 percent, nearly half the value of that province’s economic output, and their debt continues to rise at an alarming rate. Contrast that to what’s happening here in British Columbia. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is just 16 percent, and it’s falling as our economy continues to expand.

Why does that matter to the ordinary person? It means that we have the best credit rating in the country. That explains why people in Ontario pay, on average, almost $3,000 more in taxes every year and the reason why people in Quebec pay close to $9,000 more in taxes compared to British Columbia. That is a stark contrast.

This is another fact. Without a triple-A credit rating, British Columbia would be paying, on average, an extra $2.23 billion a year in interest payments. When you consider that our total budget is $50 billion, that is a lot of money. That’s why people in Ontario and Quebec pay so much more in taxes every year.

That’s a shame, because we are using that money, which would otherwise go towards interest payments, on programs and tax cuts that matter to people. That means that there’s money for health care, education, senior care, infrastructure and more. This is money that we use to build schools and hospitals and to support the private sector that creates jobs. It means our children and grandchildren won’t have to deal with the crippling burden of government debt.

The B.C. Chamber of Commerce said this about debt reduction: “B.C. businesses know that paying down the operating debt gives them more choice as to how they invest in the teams, infrastructure and, ultimately, communities that create B.C.’s nation-leading GDP growth.”

British Columbia is leading the country in economic growth and job creation. We have the strongest economy and the lowest unemployment rates since the 1960s. The plan is working. Our dedication and our focus has been on creating the strongest and most diversified economy in Canada. As a province, we are first in economic growth, with more British Columbians working than ever before. The B.C. jobs plan is a success.
[ Page 13953 ]

We have heard from many of the members opposite about the lack of jobs in rural B.C. I have 18 small communities, and each one of them has, in partnership with the province, worked on creating jobs for the local people. Princeton has Copper Mountain mines, where more than 450 people make a good living, and Princeton has a population of less than 4,000 people. They support dozens of apprenticeships every year as well.

[1800]

Okanagan Falls has several major employers. Structurlam, with 80 local employees, has created a laminating process that allows wood to be used in high-rise buildings. Unit Electrical in Okanagan Falls employs 65 people and is also involved in the apprenticeship program. They build generators that are shipped all over the world, supplying a reliable power source for large resource development projects. Okanagan Falls has less than a thousand people.

The corrections facility in Oliver, a partnership between the government and the Osoyoos Indian Band, provides 250 family-supportive jobs. Vaagen Fibre Canada in Midway, a community of 700, has 90 full-time employees, and a partnership with the community, government and industry reopened this local industry.

Grand Forks is the home of Roxul, a manufacturer of insulation, and Interfor, both employing hundreds of local people.

In the five years since we introduced the plan, we’ve become the economic leader of the country. We have moved from third in economic growth to first and from ninth in job growth to first. January marked the seventh consecutive month B.C. has had the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

We are taking further action to enhance tax and competitiveness. Because of a balanced budget, we can support our private sector by phasing out provincial sales tax on electricity purchases for businesses large and small. This will make us more competitive with other jurisdictions.

Residential electricity is already exempt from the PST, and now business owners will be able to purchase new equipment, increase wages and expand their operations. Municipalities will be able to reinvest money in infrastructure, and hospitals and schools will save money.

We’re also making our private sector more competitive by reducing the small business tax rate to 2 percent from the current 2½ percent. When you consider that small business makes up 98 percent of the business community in British Columbia, this is a smart thing to do. Small business employs over a million people in our province, and lower taxes on business make our private sector more competitive.

Agriculture has reached new heights in the past several years. B.C.’s agrifood and seafood sector is one of the most diverse in Canada, producing over 200 agricultural commodities and 100 seafood varieties. Employing almost 63,000 British Columbians, this industry is vital to our economy, particularly in my constituency. Revenues hit $13 billion in 2016, a growth of 18 percent since 2011. We have been strengthening food security in B.C. while still managing to dramatically increase agricultural exports.

The value of agrifood and seafood shipments to South Korea has risen 63 percent, from $33 million to $54 million, since the launch of the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement in January, 2015. Budget 2016 provided a budget increase of 33 percent, $1.1 million, to the Agricultural Land Commission so that they will have help to fulfil their mandate of protecting farmland, most of which is near rural communities, and deliver their services to British Columbians in a timely, efficient and accessible manner.

A few years ago, the Minister of Agriculture led the B.C. delegation, with the B.C. cherry industry representatives, on a federal trade mission to China. This led to full access for fresh cherries into China. As a direct result of that effort, the export value of fresh cherries has increased dramatically — a 56 percent increase and a value of $91.7 million, a 70 percent increase over the previous year.

Our forestry sector has been a cornerstone of our provincial economy for decades, spread through the province in communities large and small. We have continued to support our strong, sustainable and globally competitive forest industries. We have more than 52 million hectares of environmentally sustainable certified forests, which is more than anywhere else in the world. There are more than 7,000 forest sector businesses in B.C., many of them in my own constituency, and 50 percent of Canada’s total softwood lumber production comes from B.C.

In 2016, B.C. accounted for 61 percent of Canada’s softwood lumber trade with the United States. That’s why the Premier recently announced the appointment of David Emerson as B.C. trade envoy to the U.S.

[1805]

Mr. Emerson is a former federal Trade and Foreign Affairs Minister and the former CEO of Canfor, one of B.C.’s largest lumber producers. In addition to serving in Washington, D.C., Mr. Emerson will be joining the new federal-provincial task force that was announced last week.

We also have taken action to diversify our forest products and markets. Between 2003 and 2016, we have seen more than a 2,000 percent increase in lumber exports to China. Forestry also accounts for 20 percent of shipments through Port Metro Vancouver. We sent our largest shipment of mass timber to India last month, and we have become an attractive long-term supplier. In 2015, we exported $12.9 billion in wood exports, which is a total of 36 percent of B.C.’s total exports.

The Council of Forest Industries has applauded our budget measures, saying:

“Council of Forest Industries appreciates the province’s continued commitment to diversifying our export markets…. Over
[ Page 13954 ]
the last ten years, we have worked collaboratively to expand our markets in Asia. These efforts have produced results, and today Asia makes up about 30 percent of the export market for B.C.’s high-quality forest products.”

In mining today, we have more than 30,000 people working in mineral exploration, mining and related sectors — double the number employed in 2001. The average weekly earnings for the mining sector are almost 20 percent higher than in 2011. B.C. is Canada’s largest producer of copper and the largest exporter of coal.

Last year we announced a five-year electricity power rate deferral program for B.C. mines to provide financial support for mining companies during a period of low commodity prices to protect mining jobs in B.C.’s rural communities. In Princeton, Copper Mountain mine took advantage of that and was able to keep all of their people employed.

This year in our budget, we’ve extended the B.C. mining flow-through share tax credit. This tax credit, which makes the province more attractive to the exploration sector, had expired December 31, 2016. With this extension, B.C. remains one of the most attractive places in Canada to expand mining industries.

The Association for Mineral Exploration applauded this move, saying: “We thank the B.C. government for its balanced 2017 budget and for confirming the extension and expansion of important tax credits that recognize mineral exploration as the lifeblood of mining.”

The mining industry will also benefit from our lowering of the small business tax, with many smaller firms offering services to the industry. They will now be able to hire more workers and expand operations. By phasing out PST on electricity, we will save the mining industry millions of dollars each year, allowing companies to hire more workers.

Our rural communities and the economic activity they support are a huge part of what makes this province the biggest and most powerful economic engine of the country. This government works hard to support vibrant and healthy rural communities that attract businesses and individuals, and our budget adds significant initiatives to expand rural economies.

We are funding $6 million for three new international trade offices in Southeast Asia to ensure that our exports get to the market, including agriculture and forestry from my own constituency. Last week I met with a delegation from Japan, who were arranging to import wine from my community of Oliver into Japan.

Budget 2017 has one of the largest affordability initiatives ever implemented in British Columbia. We’re cutting MSP fees by 50 percent for middle-class families. This is the first step as we begin the process of completely eliminating the MSP. That gives them more freedom for spending in the economy.

Families will save $900 a year and individuals $450. That leaves nearly $1 billion in the pockets of B.C. families. In total, two million British Columbians will see their premiums reduced by half. And another two million British Columbians already don’t pay any premiums at all.

[1810]

Individuals earning up to $26,000 will pay no premiums. Couples with two children, earning up to $35,000, will pay no premiums. Seniors with two incomes are going to have their premiums cut in half. These changes come after we have already taken significant steps to improve the MSP affordability. We have eliminated MSP for children. We enhanced premium assistance for more than 300,000 adults and seniors.

The Premier and the Finance Minister have been very clear that British Columbians are better off spending their money than government is. By taking less money from families on MSP, we are enabling new horizons for British Columbians. Cutting MSP will give British Columbians more money for their education or to save for their children’s education or even to save for their grandchildren’s education, aided by our RESP program. They can save more for retirement, ensuring a prosperous and well-earned retirement. They can maybe even just visit family.

Our cut to MSP has been lauded across the board, with the B.C. Chamber of Commerce saying: “This targeted tax relief will put hard-earned dollars back into the pockets of business owners, both big and small, so that they can make bolder investments and hire more British Columbians.”

The single-parent employment initiative is working better than we ever expected. It provides up to 12 months of training for an in-demand job, child care costs, public transit costs and the ability to stay on income assistance the whole time. This allows single parents to get the training they need and a hand up into the job market. As of December, over 4,000 people have participated in the initiative, 91 percent of them female, and over 800 people have found employment since it began in September 2015.

We are including $159 million to maintain assistance levels for low-income families and seniors, to help make rent more affordable in private market rentals. In my riding, housing projects are underway in Keremeos and Okanagan Falls and in the planning stage in Christina Lake. Seniors will benefit from additional housing investments, with a total of 542 housing units — 121 units for rural seniors and 421 for non-rural seniors.

The home-renovation tax credit for seniors and persons with disabilities assists eligible individuals of 65 and over to improve accessibility or to be more functional or mobile at home. Partnership with the Rick Hansen Foundation will benefit those needing accessibility supports for home renovations.

The basic homeowner grant reduces residential property taxes payable on principal residences — between $570 and $770 — in rural areas of the province. The property tax deferral program also helps seniors stay in their homes as long as possible. The property tax deferral program is a low-interest loan program that allows
[ Page 13955 ]
qualifying homeowners, including seniors, to defer all or part of their property taxes until they sell or transfer ownership of their home.

In health care, we are building upon our nationally pre-eminent health care system to rise to the challenge of an aging population. We are recognized for the best health outcomes in the country. We have North America’s longest life expectancy and the lowest heart attack rates in Canada. We have the best cancer survival rates. We are a global leader in genomics and personalized medicine and a world leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Our government will dedicate 41 percent of the total budget to health care. This amounts to $4,050 per person each and every year. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, we have one of the most efficient health care systems of the Canadian provinces. The Ministry of Health will see a three-year increase of $4.2 billion, compared to its 2016-17 base budget.

This includes funding to support government’s $100 million three-year enhancement in services addressing mental health and substance use issues, particularly for youth. The new funding will consist of $45 million for MCFD to provide resources to allow for more mental health counselling and treatment for children.

[1815]

The Ministry of Health is also receiving $12 million to provide up to 28 highly specialized addiction treatment beds for youth. This will further expand our strategy to combat addiction by addressing mental health issues.

The government is also spending $2.7 billion on health care infrastructure over the next three years for new major construction projects. The new tower at the Penticton Hospital will benefit all of the residents of my riding of the South Okanagan and Similkameen. This build also includes upgrading medical and diagnostic equipment and health facilities and expanding and upgrading operating rooms. Additionally, we have secured $1.4 billion over the next ten years to improve home care and support mental health initiatives.

Additional spending from the budget is being dedicated to education. Some of that spending is in the form of an additional $45 million to eliminate fees for school buses, which is of huge importance in rural constituencies like mine. Children in rural areas need to arrive at school in a safe manner, and ensuring that parents don’t have to pay to send their children to school on a bus is a priority to our government.

Education opens the door to a wealth of opportunities that can lead students into a bright future. Investing in education is about providing a young person with tools for a lifetime, so they can make better decisions for themselves and their families.

In 2013, the education budget was $5.4 billion. This year, the budget is a record $5.9 billion. This is almost a 50 percent increase since 2001, with an investment of almost $9,000 per student.

Overall, we will provide an additional $740 million over three years to the education budget. We are providing $320 million over three years to improve class size and composition in schools, which will ensure that students have a positive learning environment. We are also allocating $228 million to fund enrolment growth to ensure that our fast-growing province can accept the pressures of growing enrolment.

Rural schools received almost $2 million last year to keep the doors open. This included a school in my own riding, the high school in Osoyoos. Our government listened to the people, and we made sure that schools would stay open. That’s why we’ll continue to invest in rural schools, with another $9 million to be added to the rural education enhancement fund.

I’d like to conclude my remarks today with some quotes about the budget. From the B.C. Chamber of Commerce: “Our provincial government has been practising great business fundamentals, balancing budgets and investing in a more diversified economy, and this means they can now roll out bolder investments, laser-focused tax credits and a deeply competitive tax structure that gives businesses the choice to invest and hire more British Columbians.”

From the Business Council of B.C.: “Today’s budget offers a series of tax measures which, together, will help to keep B.C. on a path towards a more productive and competitive economy, chief among them being the elimination of PST on electricity.”

From the Association of Registered Nurses: “Today’s provincial budget will have a positive impact on the health and well-being of individuals and communities throughout British Columbia.”

From the School Trustees Association: “I am pleased to see the government has recognized the need for significant further investments in public education. A robust and effective K-to-12 education system is critical to the health and prosperity of the province.”

Overall, it is obvious that the budget has been acclaimed by the business community and its stakeholders. British Columbians will enjoy new prosperity, enhanced programs and, as always, a strong economy.

It was not that long ago that the world faced fiscal chaos and economic uncertainty. Across the world, governments needed bailouts, and regional tensions reached heights not seen in decades.

B.C. has come a long way. We have managed to balance five budgets and become the economic leader in Canada. We are going to completely eliminate our operating debt and increase services for all British Columbians. We are going to continue to create jobs, reduce taxes and invest in the projects that make British Columbia a better place.

We will prepare for the future by diversifying our economy. We will continue to be a beacon of strength, wisdom and experience in a world that faces challenging new environments. We have a plan to enhance and continue
[ Page 13956 ]
diversifying and growing our economy to create good family-supporting jobs.

[1820]

British Columbia is in a position of economic strength, and our government will continue to build on that success and vision to create an even stronger future for British Columbians.

Hon. C. Oakes: I truly am proud to respond today to the budget.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

I would like to open with saying how proud I am to be the 93rd woman elected into this House. I think it’s important, with…. Madame Speaker, if you would allow me just to, perhaps, talk a little bit about that before I get into the context of the speech in the last few minutes in the House. Because of how incredibly proud…. As we move into next month, we’ve had the opportunity to recognize the work that women have done to get the vote in this House and the value and why that matters so much in this budget.

I am very proud to represent the good people of Cariboo North. It is truly a privilege to come into this House and to be their voice here.

Going back to the matriarchs of our communities and perhaps a little bit of my family, and just an opportunity for me to say thank you, what really stands out to me, when I think of the work that has happened, is hard work, grit, perseverance and optimism. I would like to pay a little respect to these values.

My grandmother, Kitty, with my grandfather, worked in some of the most rural and remote logging camps in British Columbia — from Leo Creek to Penny to Greenwood to Gold Bridge. My grandmother, at a whole 4 feet 11, would have to put wooden blocks on the pedals of the logging trucks in order to drive them. It was this true grit and determination and support for hard work and value for taxpayers’ moneys that I feel help me understand the true significance of what it means to represent small business.

My other grandma, Grandma Olive: a shout out to you. My grandmother — who just recently turned 90 in December — at 90, still leads an aerobics class on Mondays at the local seniors home.

The Oakes family and the Muffords moved to the Cariboo in 1933 and 1934. The Oakeses emigrated from Sweden to Minnesota, onto the prairies. At that time, in the early 1930s — of course, with the Dust Bowl — it was very difficult for so many families. Our family benefited from a time in the 1930s, with a railway grant that opened up the Cariboo, where people were permitted to have a cow, a tent and 160 acres. From that determination and perseverance, so much has grown within our community.

I wanted to recognize this incredible legacy — this strength, this optimism, this grit, this hard work — because for me, that is the foundation I lay when I look at the importance of having a balanced budget as we move forward.

Thank you. It is truly a pleasure to speak to our government’s fiscal plan.

Probably, noting the hour, I reserve my right to continue my comments in response to the budget at a later date.

Hon. C. Oakes moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. T. Stone moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

The House adjourned at 6:24 p.m.

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

Copyright © 2017: British Columbia Hansard Services, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada