Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call address in reply to the throne speech.

[2:35 p.m.]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Throne Speech Debate

S. Chandra Herbert: I move, seconded by the member for Delta North, that:

[We, Her Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in Session assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious Speech which Your Honour has addressed to us at the opening of the present Session.]

I also beg leave to thank British Columbians, as it’s their money we are spending as a government. It’s their programs that we are putting together. It’s their government, after all. And I know we all, as MLAs, need to remember that, be reminded about that from time to time.

You know, it gives me incredible pleasure to support this throne speech, incredible pleasure. I’ll tell you why. Because this throne speech had hope. It talked about issues that will provide a light at the end of the tunnel.

Deputy Speaker: Member, you sought the leave — right? — of the House.

S. Chandra Herbert: Sorry. I moved, seconded by the member for Delta North.

Deputy Speaker: Is leave granted?

Leave granted.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I appreciate that I can continue my remarks now.

This throne speech had hope. It gives hope to people who have been struggling for far too long. I think it all lies in one line in the speech where the government is talking about how “we cannot build a better future if British Columbians cannot afford to be a part of that future.” You know, for too long my constituents felt that they weren’t part of that future.

They would be told that we’re “the best place on earth.” They’d say they love it. They loved this province, but they couldn’t afford to eat. They couldn’t afford their rent. They couldn’t afford the kinds of things that most families would just expect as a given.

If they did afford those things, it was often because of debt. I’ve often spoke in this House about the high level of personal debt British Columbians carry. It is a big concern, and this budget acknowledges that.

Now, as this is the first full throne speech and first full budget coming for this new Democrat government, with the support of the Green caucus, it strikes me as important to think back to previous throne speeches so that I can compare and consider how much has changed.

I started university in 2001. We had a new government at the time, with many of my colleagues now across the way as part of that government. The tuition fees went through the roof for university students. Homelessness quadrupled and then some in our province. And unfortunately, the social supports that people need to get through life started to unravel and be pulled apart. More and more people fell through the social safety net.

It got so bad at one point that the government of the day argued to folks that they should choose, if they were low income, an upper denture or a blender. They couldn’t have both if they were poor. They couldn’t eat with two dentures to actually chew some food. “No,” the government said, “You can have a blender.” I don’t know why that stuck with me, but it did. Because, to me, it was an admission, in a sense, that the government just couldn’t do the job that they needed to do for all British Columbians and were going to be focused on just the few.

That lasted a long time. I remember, as people would protest and stand up for those who were struggling…. Indeed, when I first joined this House back in 2008, I raised these issues in my first speech to the House then. The response, after throne speech after throne speech after throne speech, was no. It was: “There’s no money. The fiscal cupboard is bare. There’s no way to help.”

[2:40 p.m.]

Meanwhile, those who did very well seemed to do even better. It struck me that a Leonard Cohen song really spoke to that kind of belief — that nothing would change, nothing could get better. “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed…. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. Everybody knows that the war is lost. Everybody knows…. The poor stay poor; the rich get rich. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.”

That seemed to be the mantra for too long in this province — that the poor stayed poor, the rich got richer and those in the middle struggled and got pulled apart. Well, no more — no more. This government has, for the first time, acknowledged that we need to address the economic prosperity of every British Columbian, not just those that donate, not just those that we’re friends with, not just those who think that they are the economic masters, that they are the so-called job creators who know everything.

Well, no. There were job creators. There were business people protesting against the complete lack of care and the complete lack of consideration given to British Columbians for far too long. And you know what? I’m hearing from them now — that they’re finally happy to have a government that is more balanced, that acknowledges that, for prosperity, we all must be part of it. That’s what this throne speech speaks to.

No longer is resistance futile. “You must accept that homelessness is increasing. You must accept that children are living in poverty at rates completely unacceptable, that people can’t afford housing in their communities anymore, that you can’t get through the congestion in British Columbia and Vancouver anymore.” No. We’ve thrown that out. We’re now saying yes to prosperity, yes to addressing homelessness, yes to addressing poverty, yes to taking action on affordability so that everybody can see the benefit that our great province can provide.

How do we do that? Well, for years, I had seniors approaching me saying that they couldn’t pay medical service premiums, the costs of their pharmacy drugs that they needed to stay healthy. When they were choosing between rent and paying their hydro, they’d often cut out food. They would go without, because they just couldn’t make it.

Their Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters program, meant to help low-income seniors, became less and less over time as the costs went up and up, and they ended up having to cut more and more out of their daily budget. So poverty increased. They got sicker, and our communities got weaker.

Well, our government has decided to cut the MSP in half immediately. We also decided that we need to increase the Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters program so seniors can stay in their homes and not be forced out. That’s incredibly important.

Beyond that, we also have to realize that in order to address the yawning gap between those who have the most and those who have the least, you need a poverty reduction strategy. You need to raise the minimum wage. You need to actually take action on the housing crisis. Constituents will say to me: “Can you solve it now?” “I’m not so sure,” they will say, because there have been so many years where the government has refused to do anything about it. So you’re running from 2,000 yards behind, 200 miles behind, 2,000 miles behind to catch up.

I’m not going to say it was all the former government’s fault. Indeed, the challenge of housing affordability really began…. I think if you go back to the early ’80s, actions by governments at that time, which cancelled out rental programs, made it difficult to get the rental we need so people have choices where they live. The federal government pulled out in the ’90s from building affordable housing, and then, of course, in 2001, the government of the day here in this province stopped building affordable housing as well and stopped taking action to ensure renters had protections, and so on.

That’s changing. Not only are we getting rid of the medical service premium and increasing SAFER; we’re actually taking action on other issues that impact affordability.

I mentioned the tuition fee increases that we saw so much of. Well, unfortunately, those tuition fees came with some of the highest interest rates in Canada, so students had their debts go up and up and up. Meanwhile, we were able to give tax breaks to the super rich, but students continued to struggle.

By cutting the student loan interest rate by 2½ percent, graduates are now going to be able to get out of debt more quickly and on the path to their own chosen career and not just stuck in the debt treadmill. There’s more to do for sure, but that’s a really good first step.

[2:45 p.m.]

We also made adult basic education and English language learning tuition-free. Again, if you want to learn a language to be able to succeed and get the job, we should give you that hand up, not put a barrier in the way. But for too long, the doors were closed here in this province. The doors are open to opportunity now. So I am excited to support this throne speech.

What else? Well, I’m sure many in this House have heard from families who can’t find child care. If they do have it, they can’t afford it. Well, this upcoming budget, I’m told, and the throne speech commit to ensuring that we do make the biggest investment in child care in B.C. history. That means that we’re going to be able to cut down the cost that families who do have licensed child care now pay and also to expand the services. There are a lot of parents who can’t find that child care in this province, and we need to act. A universal child care program, I believe, is the right way to go. It’s going to help families all across this great province, this British Columbia that we call home.

When we come to housing, when I ask constituents what their top priority is, of course they say: “Housing, affordability, housing, housing. Oh, and did we mention housing?” Eighty percent are renters, and for 16 too-long years, we had to put up with a government that could barely even say the word “renter,” and if they did, it was to propose things like getting rid of rent control completely and allowing rents to skyrocket. If they were forced to acknowledge renters in my community, as we rallied year after year to get changes, they would say: “Oh, it’s just a few bad apples. We’ll get changes at some point in the future.” It never happened, but it is happening now.

The throne speech says: “Renters are afraid of eviction or unexpected rent increases that will force them to relocate when prices are sky-high and vacancies hover at record lows.” Every day in my community office, I hear this story. Every day since I was first elected — and, actually, before that, as a housing advocate — we told those stories. Every day when we did get a response, we were told: “It’s not a big deal. You’re making it up. It doesn’t really impact too many people. So we’re not going to do anything.”

Well, here in our throne speech, we’ve made a strong commitment to renters. We’ve already shown that getting rid of the fixed-term tenancy loophole and the geographic rent increase clause can happen. It did happen. It should have happened years and years ago. You know, in my community, there’s a huge sense of relief that I’m hearing from people, indeed across the province, where people are going: “I may be able to stay in my home? I’m not going to face yet another 20 percent rent increase?” That was basically legalized by the former government — rent increases which they couldn’t afford, rent increases which, in some cases, forced them out of their homes, forced them into long-term care or, in some cases, forced them into hospital because of the stress of it all.

Well, we’ve got your back, renters. That’s what we are saying in this throne speech. That’s what the government is saying. I want to thank the cabinet and thank the Premier for taking a special interest in renters and rental issues. We need more rental housing, absolutely, but we also need to support the landlords and the renters who do it right, and we need to take strong action to crack down on landlords who cheat the system to get ahead. British Columbians need our help. They really need our help on this matter, and it really gives me hope that in this throne speech it’s acknowledged loud and clear.

“Safe, decent housing is a right that is under threat by speculators, domestic and foreign, who seek windfall profits at the expense of people who work, live and pay taxes in B.C.” That’s the commitment. That’s the statement in the throne speech that acknowledges a problem, which for too long was completely invisible in this province. In the last year in Vancouver, condominium prices are up 20 percent in one year. You get a sense of why speculators are trying to come into the province. It’s because they’re making windfall profits now.

Housing should be about housing, not about somebody, somewhere else, getting rich while you can’t get ahead because you can’t afford it here in B.C. No, it should be about housing first. It should be about a roof over your head, a place to lie down and have a sleep, a place to enjoy your family, a place that you can be secure. Renters haven’t had that security for a long time. Indeed, now more and more people trying to buy housing, to have that security, can’t get it either.

Where are they going to afford housing when the speculators have been let run rampant? When the governments of the past refused to collect the information we needed to be able to inform really good policy actions? When governments refused and, in fact, looked the other way, disbanded corruption inquiry tools through the police and the casinos, and actively did nothing while prices shot through the roof?

[2:50 p.m.]

Well, now we have a government that has said: “We are going to act. We take this seriously. We are going after the speculators and those who have driven costs through the roof, and we’re also going to go after things like corruption and tax evasion, in partnership with the federal government.”

British Columbians want everybody to pay a fair share. They don’t think it’s fair that you get to profit insanely through real estate in this province and put nothing back. That’s not on. Unfortunately, this crisis has gotten so bad that folks are now unable to find housing anywhere near where they work, and businesses are struggling to find workers to do the jobs in their communities, because of the costs.

This is an economic issue. It’s an economic crisis, and it’s a social crisis. I think back to the ’30s. Of course, we had the Great Depression. There were shanty towns set up in Vancouver, set up in and around False Creek, where people would set up through small cardboard boxes. At the time, probably it was crates, not cardboard boxes. Unfortunately, we seem to see that setting up again. In similar areas in Vancouver where back in the 30s there were homeless camps, they’re there today.

In a province as rich as ours and in a country as rich as ours, there is no reason for homelessness to happen. There is no reason for mental health to spiral out of control. There is no reason why there should be homeless camps in community after community after community.

This throne speech commits to action to address that homelessness, commits to action to address the mental health crisis and addictions crisis — and the poverty crisis, which has been driving this issue. As much as you can get somebody in off the street, if you’re not addressing the root causes behind it, you’re going to continue to see the problem.

I remember in the days gone past when the then Housing Minister would say: “Well, you know, we don’t need a provincial homelessness count. I know the people out there. We’ll go, and we’ll try and find them housing. We don’t need these numbers.” Unfortunately, because there was no acknowledgment that the crisis was getting worse, those numbers increased and increased and increased.

We didn’t address those root causes that are driving homelessness, so the number of homeless folks in our communities shot through the roof. We’re seeing that impact today in our health care statistics, legal statistics, courts, and on and on it goes.

My constituents know it’s more expensive to keep people homeless. They tell me they are so glad that finally the government is acting, because it’s not only the right thing economically but it’s the right thing morally. It not only costs the province money for people to be homeless; it costs us all, I think, in our souls and in our values, to see it. We are weaker as a society when we allow that depth of deprivation to continue.

I am glad and I have hope that we are going to take concrete and real action to address the homelessness crisis, finally. It’s been an issue that’s been close to my heart a long time.

If you don’t have a roof over your head, if you are stuck sleeping in Stanley Park in the bushes, as folks, constituents, I’ve talked to have done…. They are fleeing abuse. They’ve lost their home through illegal evictions and couldn’t get help because nobody seemed to care…. You need to take this seriously, and this government is taking this seriously. So I have hope. I have hope.

I also have hope that finally we’re going to get action to focus to make the housing market more affordable for those who have been trying to get into it so they can have that security too. There are too many who have good incomes and have no chance, because folks who see this as a speculative investment have more money than them and so shut them out of that ability to get that housing. That’s wrong.

I’m excited because we’re also going to act to build more new student housing, when we talk about housing. Students have been coming to me year after year after year saying: “We want to stay on campus. We’ve got this land here.” Universities, presidents, trustees, boards of directors have been saying: “We’ve got land here. We’ve got a paying customer in terms of the students who will pay to rent in these places, but the government won’t allow us to build housing.”

This government is saying: “Yes we will. We will allow new campus housing all across B.C.” That’s going to help students, and that’s also going to help in the affordability crisis for other renters. When 99.4 percent of the housing is unavailable — no vacancy — and you’re scrambling to fight over that tiny 0.6 percent…. In many cases, landlords can set the rents at whatever they want, and you have no choice, because it’s that or no housing whatsoever. That’s completely unacceptable.

[2:55 p.m.]

I know of many landlords who would love to compete to get customers in, because, unfortunately, when folks have no choice, some bad practices grow. Action to crack down on those bad practices will help, but we also need more housing.

Our rental assistance program is going to help reduce homelessness as well. I’m glad to see we’ve had that, in addition to the Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters program, increased. I certainly think that renters need a break, and I certainly support breaks for renters. I think the renters rebate idea is a good one, and I’ll continue to advocate so that renters get a break too.

Property owners have seen large windfall breaks in years past, in tax breaks, and I think renters have struggled and not had that advocate. I’ll continue to be that advocate for their solution, for action and for affordability, so that they too are acknowledged, not just homeowners. I think renters do need that break.

Working families have not benefitted equally from the work in our province and from the economic prosperity that we have. A strong economy is where we all do well, and I’m glad that the speech acknowledged that. If you can’t invest in your own community because you have no money or if you’re on the edge or if you don’t have housing, that local economy suffers. I hear it again and again and again from small businesses that say too many people feel stretched and are not able to buy what they used to be able to.

By improving conditions for workers, improving wages and supporting small businesses to be part of the province by being able to be part of contracts and to be able to grow their business through provincial government support as well…. I’m excited at what we can do in this province.

Hon. Speaker, it won’t surprise you I was excited to see the Human Rights Commission acknowledged in the throne speech. Our government is bringing back the Human Rights Commission. You can’t get ahead together as a community if you fall behind because of racism, because of sexism, because of discrimination in many forms.

A human rights commission can help inform the fact that we all have a duty to look out for each other, not just those that look like us or sound like us but sometimes to go much farther than we have ever known, to acknowledge the beauty, the diversity and the wonderful variety we have as a province.

For too long it was used as just quick wins, just a quick win to get a vote. Diversity and respect for diversity should go much, much deeper than that — to acknowledge we all learn more and are all wealthier when we do whatever we can to bring that diversity together, to acknowledge we’re stronger in our differences but united in our province. We can learn from that.

So a human rights commission, and I want to acknowledge my colleague from Delta North for his work to help bring that out, as well, and of course your work, hon. Speaker, as a longtime supporter of the Human Rights Commission in this province.

The throne speech talked about the need that we have for family doctors as well. I talked about a human rights commission and that you have to be able to have a right to be who you are. But you can’t be that full person if you’re struggling and you can’t get a doctor, if you can’t get your health care needs met. Too many in my community still struggle to get a doctor.

I was excited to see…. I know the Health Minister has advocated for this for a long time, as has the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions: the idea of team-based approach, of getting the different specialists and skilled folks in our health care system working together and supporting each other. I’ve often gone to team-based care facilities myself and found them to be incredibly useful — efficient, smart and a better way to deliver health care.

I’m going to continue to work for urgent health care facilities in my own community that provide that sort of team-based care. Too many of my constituents can’t get a doctor, and that means they end up in the emergency room. That’s incredibly expensive and not the kind of health care that they deserve and not the kind of health care that ideally anybody should get — having to end up in an emergency room when you could have prevented the crisis to begin with if you were able to get into a clinic or an urgent care centre of some sort.

We’re also going to acknowledge that seniors who are in care need more time with their caregivers. Every year I go out to Haro Park Centre in my community and a number of the other seniors facilities in the community. One thing I know is that the staff work very hard and that the residents care about it. They really care and feel they’re cared for. But they also know that they do more with less.

Acknowledging that issue and acknowledging that those that are living in residential care deserve more attention and deserve that care — I was happy to see that. I’m going to certainly watch how that rolls outs and continue to advocate for my own community and the residents there who deserve that care.

[3:00 p.m.]

Now we move to education — education, the great equalizer, something that…. You can’t get a community to unite and grow together if they don’t have the education they need. And of course, the most marginalized in the community…. I say marginalized. We’ve got to acknowledge that it’s not them who’ve marginalized themselves; it’s sometimes society that’s made them marginal.

That’s students, sometimes, with special needs. That’s students who have different learning styles and abilities. In our school system, for far too long, they were second thoughts. They couldn’t get the counselling that they needed. They couldn’t even get their abilities diagnosed, with issues addressed, sometimes for years at a time.

Our government has acknowledged that and said that we have to do better, that those students are just as equally deserving of a great education as everyone else. I look forward to seeing greater support for those students. We’ll be working with the school board in Vancouver, the Minister of Education, to try and ensure that those students do get that extra support they need in order to learn and to be part of the community, which they are.

Of course, that’s the teaching. In my community, there are also the buildings that the teaching happens in. It won’t surprise you that I’m going to continue advocating for a new Coal Harbour elementary school, as our government is committed to addressing the school overcrowding issues and the seismic issues.

Now, Lord Roberts — good building, completely full. We need a new elementary school. Lord Roberts Annex — almost completely full. We need a new elementary school. A new elementary school in Coal Harbour is exciting. It’s a great project that I’ll continue to work for.

The idea is to have the school with child care on top — of course, another huge need that our government is trying to address — and then affordable housing above that. It’s kind of a triple win, and it shows, really, the commitment that our government has had to these issues. I’ll keep working to get that project built because we need the child care, we need the affordable housing and we need the education. I think it’s a great project, and I’ll keep advocating for that.

King George Secondary in my community — also full to bursting. You know what? The school board has put it as one of their top priorities to build within three to four years from now. I’m going to advocate for it. It’s a tight timeline. I think we can get it done. I want to get it done. I’ll keep working and get it to that line where we can get it announced, get the shovels going and get it building.

It has appeared on the timeline now, all of a sudden. There are many other projects ahead of it and have been for years. But because of the huge growth of students in my community, the huge growth of families, the number of kids and new populations moving in as development seems to grow and grow, we need that school.

We need a new King George, and we need a new West End Community Centre. I think the two could go together, working with the city, the school board and the province. It’s a project that I think is really exciting. Until recently, I didn’t have any hope that that project would ever get built in my life — well, probably in my lifetime but not in my lifetime in this House — as there was such a lack of care for the community that I live in from the previous government.

King George needs to be upgraded for seismic reasons. It also needs to be upgraded as its cafeteria can’t serve food anymore. The hot lunch program has had to end there. Unfortunately, due to seismic issues, I believe, in the school lunchroom, the place where you actually cook the food, the kitchen, has been condemned. We need a new King George high school. I’m going to keep working for that.

Now, we’ve looked at education. We’ve looked at health care. We’ve looked at affordability. We looked at housing. Another area very close to my constituents’ hearts is the environment. We live in an incredible part of the world, surrounded by the ocean, the North Shore Mountains and Stanley Park. It’s an incredible place to call home — the West End and Coal Harbour.

One of the challenges to that environment — and the entire province, of course — is climate change. To see, in a throne speech, a commitment to reinvigorate the climate change strategy for this province, to actually take fighting climate change seriously…. I don’t know how much more necessary you can get. My generation, my son’s generation and future generations we can’t even imagine are going to feel the impact of what decisions we make today. Those decisions have to acknowledge that we have to drastically reduce fossil fuel use in our province and across the globe.

There’s no other way about it. We know the impacts have already been felt in this province, and they will be felt for years to come. But we have a choice. Can they be worse, or can they be better? They’re going to hit us, but they could be much, much worse unless we act today. And every year of delay, as I said year after year while we were in opposition, is a year where it gets harder.

[3:05 p.m.]

I’m really glad that the Minister of Environment, his climate strategy group and others are bringing forward a plan that will help get us there, because we all have to do it if we’re serious about our commitment to our grandchildren and our great-great-great-grandchildren.

It’s our duty as a population to make the hard decisions now and to take the actions so that we can have a hope for that better future and not one of dystopian fire, fury, anger, war and poverty. As we know, climate change is, unfortunately, already impacting some parts of this globe in that way.

So increasing the carbon tax and giving a dividend to families so that it doesn’t disproportionally impact low- and middle-income folks is a good thing. I’m really excited to see that plan come forward.

Another area that my constituents, of course, raise with me is the protection of our waters, the protection of our oceans. To me, and I think many of my constituents…. They see it as eminently sensible that our government would actually look to ensure, if you spill diluted bitumen in the Georgia Strait, the Salish Sea, on our lands, in our rivers across B.C., that you actually know how to clean it up, that you actually know how to address that spill impact.

Until now, we haven’t had a government that’s been that serious to do that. They played a political game and they said: “Boom, go ahead. We’ll just accept it. Travel forward, Kinder Morgan.”

My constituents don’t accept that. They don’t want to see our beaches befouled by oil, by diluted bitumen, to see our coastal economies devastated. They think that it is our right, as a province, to defend those industries and to do that investigatory work, to consider that impact and to make that clear. I think it’s eminently sensible, and it should have been done a long time ago. But instead, political games were the way of the day.

A lot of this work is only possible — well, I guess I would say it’s encouraged rather than possible — because of our government’s commitment to ban big money, which we did last fall. When you ban big money, you start to shift government to be one that focuses on the people’s interests rather than the partisan lobbyist’s interests. You start to focus on communities across B.C. I think you start to, hopefully, govern more humbly because you’re relying on so many people in order to get elected — to get your party funded to do that — that you have to start considering way more interests than who gave you a $100,000 cheque or something like that.

I’ve always advocated for banning big money, and I’ll continue to advocate to ensure that citizens’ interests are put first.

Often I get asked by constituents: “So what party are you with? We’re not sure. We know you’re always fighting for us, but what are you doing?” I say: “Well, my party, first and foremost, is West End-Coal Harbour.” I’m a proud New Democrat. But my constituents know that it’s them — regardless of what their political interests might be — that I have to advocate for and I do advocate for and I’m honoured to advocate for.

Partisan differences can get in the way. Sometimes I can be partisan, I agree. Sometimes I can swing a little over-broadly. We have teams in politics, but I think we need to remember that our team is British Columbia, first and foremost.

I know it has been a pleasure and unusual for folks to see parties actually working together. I want to thank my colleagues in the Green caucus for reaching out and trying their best to make that work as well. I know members opposite in the Liberal caucus who I hope can do that as well.

I had the honour, on the opposition side, to be able to work with the government of the day to get human rights legislation passed. That’s the kind of thing we should do more of. And I know that on committees I’ve sat on so far, I’ve been encouraged by that cross-partisan spirit, and I’m hoping that that continues. It’s the kind of government that I think our people deserve.

We want to make democracy work better. That’s another commitment that our government has made. One of the things that I’m excited about this fall is this upcoming legislative referendum — a referendum on changing our electoral system so we that we can make democracy work better for us. We can move to — I would argue for — a proportional system of some sort so that people’s votes count and every vote counts. It would force us, I believe, to try and sometimes moderate our positions, listen to each other more and play less games. That’s my hope.

Of course, people can do whatever they want. But I think a government of humility that acknowledges we’re here because our citizens sent us here to do their work, to advocate for them and to find common ground — that’s the kind of politics we can see by banning big money and changing our electoral system.

[3:10 p.m.]

I think it’s the right way so we don’t create these false majorities where I get 2 percent more of the vote than you do and you’re completely shut out. I think we need to find ways to get parties to work together, to find that common ground and to negotiate in the interests of their constituents. So I’m excited for that coming up.

I started off by referencing Leonard Cohen and the idea that everybody knows that the game is fixed. Well, for many in my generation, they felt — and some still do, I know — that the politics, the system, is rigged. “The man,” and “Oh, you can’t ever get change,” and “Oh, those politicians are all the same.”

I know we’ve all heard those kinds of sentiments. But I also know that many of the conversations that I’ve had in the last number of months have been from people saying: “My government listened to me — actually changed something that I never thought they would change. They actually said they care about me and the issues that I care about. They actually are taking concrete steps to make my life better. They are doing things to make my life more affordable. I never thought I’d see the day.”

For too long government has shut out part of the population, and for too long they have felt that they had no hope. They thought that the game was rigged and they had no means to make a difference.

I’ll continue to advocate to change that kind of culture, to see one where…. I don’t know if it’s “Good day, sunshine,” or if it’s “I’m happy,” and we’re able to change everything at once. Of course, it’s not that easy. But I think that spirit of hope and optimism and change — that we can do that together when we listen, and that we’re better together than we are apart — is one we need to remember and one that we approach with great humility.

I say often to my constituents: “I don’t know everything, and maybe I don’t know the answer to that question. I’m just struggling to make sure that this works for you. Can you help me? Can we work together to get these things?” Because we’re only as strong as our community allows us to be and as our community supports us to be.

I want to thank my constituents in Coal Harbour and West End. I want to thank the government, the cabinet, the opposition leader — congratulations on your election — the opposition, the third party, for doing what they can to try and make this democracy a little better, to try to make the province that we call home a little bit better.

I’ll say it again. Our provincial motto “Splendor sine occasu” — splendor without diminishment — should be more than just a motto. It should be how we live. I think we need to think about that every day. How do we leave this place a little bit better? This throne speech does that. It leaves B.C. a little bit better and, for many, a lot, lot, better. I’m proud to support it.

R. Kahlon: I rise to second the motion by the Member of Vancouver–West End that “We, Her Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in session assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech which Your Honour has addressed to us at the opening of the present session.”

Interjection.

R. Kahlon: Hear, hear. I guess I will continue.

Well, hon. Speaker, thank you very much. I think it’s an honour to stand here today to speak in support of this throne speech. It probably will not be a surprise to many that I support this throne speech. I think it addresses many of the concerns that I heard leading up to the election and many of the concerns that I personally have.

Before I get into some of the details of the throne speech, I do want to start off by addressing two issues that were mentioned in the throne speech. Just off the top, in the throne speech there was an acknowledgment of Dave Barrett, this giant of a man who did so much in these halls and made so much change just in three years.

I’ll quote from the Speech from the Throne: “We remember former Premier Dave Barrett, whose many contributions to public life are still enjoyed by British Columbians today.”

Some of those legacies are the agricultural land reserve, PharmaCare, Canada’s first guaranteed income program for seniors, Hansard, question period. Things that are just considered normal were because of Dave Barrett in this Legislature. Full-time MLAs — I’m also grateful to Dave Barrett for having full-time MLAs so that we all can be here today.

[3:15 p.m.]

Schools were no longer allowed to use the strap on students. A horrible practice. I spent a couple of years in India when my parents struggled financially, and I was on the wrong end of that. I can tell you that it lives with me today, and I’m glad to know that my son and our children will not have to be facing that wrath from perhaps a teacher who was in the wrong. I’m not saying the teacher was in the wrong in my situation, but certainly, I felt that at the time.

I also want to acknowledge Lynn Klein, who is here today and watching. He often does watch, here at the Legislature. Lynn and I were chatting yesterday, and he reminded me that Dave Barrett also created the provincewide Ambulance Service. We know Lynn as a strong advocate for the Ambulance Service, a strong advocate for paramedics. I want to thank him for acknowledging that. Where would we be today if we didn’t have a paramedic system or an ambulance system across this province? It’s quite remarkable. I think all of us had a moment of silence in honour of the late Dave Barrett.

The other piece I want to acknowledge is the murdered and missing women and the rally, the march, that happened today. I would say almost everyone from our side — and probably many from the others, as well — would have liked to have been there to show solidarity and support for this important moment. But we’re there in spirit.

When I was part of the human rights consultations, I met with the Power of Women at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre. It was supposed to be an hour session to talk about human rights, and it went three hours. I took my seven-year-old with me. I thought that it would be a good idea for him to hear the different things that are happening.

He heard more than he’s probably heard before, but I’m grateful. He asked me questions about murdered and missing women. It was a difficult conversation on our car ride home, but I’m grateful that I got to have that conversation with him because his questions were amazing. My answers, I’m sure, were inadequate. But it’s an important moment, an important piece of our history, and I think we need to always remember. I was grateful that my son got a chance to explore that with me.

Well, again, back to the throne speech and on to some of the substantial pieces. I think it was important that the beginning of the throne speech captured some of the things that our government has accomplished. I know many would like to say that was a long time ago. Six months — man, time flies.

I think I’ll start off with the top. The cutting of the MSP by 50 percent is $900 in the pockets of families. Now, some of my respected colleagues on the other side will chuckle at that, because they say: “We would have done it too, if we were in government.” Well, perhaps. Perhaps they would have done it. We won’t know, will we? But what we do know is that in the last four years of their government, they doubled MSP premiums. That’s the history. So I appreciate the chuckling. I appreciate it, and I have good faith. I have a lot of respect for the member who chuckled. I think that her intentions would have been to do that. But we don’t know, and we won’t know, unfortunately.

Bridge tolls. Of course, I can speak at great length about bridge tolls. I’ve got bridges everywhere in my community. We’re faced by the traffic and congestion and all that’s associated with bridges. But removing that toll, saving $1,500 a year for families, has a major, major effect, not only for the families of those that take the bridge but also for those that take the Alex Fraser Bridge or the Pattullo, because we’ve seen traffic move off those bridges. We’ve seen a 5 percent decrease on the Alex Fraser and 4 percent at the Massey bridge. That’s a substantial change.

There’s still traffic congestion. I’m going to acknowledge that we have something that we need to address. But we have seen a decrease because we are actually using all of the infrastructure that we have built in this province to its maximum effect. Of course, we’ve got an additional lane which will be coming on the Alex Fraser. I think that will also help people coming from South Surrey, from parts of my community and from elsewhere. Again, I think some work to do, but I think that the savings from the bridge toll….

A woman, a few months after we announced that, told me…. Her shifts would alternate. She said that every Tuesday night and every Thursday night she would sleep at her parents’ house, away from her kids, because she couldn’t get home during that time because of the traffic. So in order to save money on the toll, she would stay there, away from her kids, and then drive at a different hour.

[3:20 p.m.]

It just shows you how this affected people. I’m grateful that government took action on a commitment that we made in the election.

Student loans. Interest rates cut by 2½ percent, so people that are pursuing their education that already have the debt incurred can start paying that debt back at a faster rate, more to the amount of the debt as opposed to interest. I think everybody in this House would support that notion. I’m grateful that our government took that action.

Something that I’m particularly proud of is the stuff that was done around adult basic education, in particular to ELL. I just saw this in the paper: since tuition was introduced to all adult basic education and English-language-learning students in 2015, charging up to $1,600 for a full course load, enrolment dropped 35 percent. Those 35 percent are people who want to get ahead for themselves and their families but could not financially do it. That was a major effect that was felt in my community, in my entire region.

I had a young woman come to my office. All of us in our constituency office…. When somebody walks in, it’s usually because they’re either not happy or they’ve got an issue that they are very frustrated with. She didn’t speak English very well, but for her to come in and say, “I just want to say thank you. I can go to school and get language training so that I can advance my career,” means a lot. You don’t get thank-yous very often in this job, and when you get somebody coming in and saying thank you on something like that, it’s a very important thing, and it stays with me.

I want to thank the minister for the work she’s doing on that file, giving people hope, giving them the tools to find hope in their lives and giving them the tools to advance in their lives. I think there are a few things that I’m very proud of in our government’s early days, and certainly the work of the minister is one of those things.

Housing, housing, housing. Everywhere you go, the topic of housing comes up. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Metro Vancouver, if you’re on the Island or if you’re in the Interior, some form of housing is a piece that comes up. I just want to quote from the throne speech. “The single greatest challenge to affordability in British Columbia is housing. Home is at the heart of belonging — to a neighbourhood, a community, a province, a country. Home is a place to hang our hat, to raise a family and feel safe and secure. When people can’t find an affordable home, that safety and security is taken away. We become uncertain about the future and our place in it.”

Everywhere I go, that is what comes up. I just recently met with some folks from the tech sector. They’ve got about 40 employees, and they have hopes to expand. They see lots of opportunities in B.C. Their number one reason for not expanding their business was housing. They said they cannot grow their company because their employees cannot find affordable places to live.

When we talk about housing, it’s an economic issue. When a tech company wants to expand and other companies want to expand and they can’t find space for their workforce to live, that is a substantial challenge for us as an economy, as a province. So I’m grateful that we’re starting to take steps to address that.

Another piece around housing that I’m quite concerned about is the rise of homelessness for seniors. The fastest rate of growth is homelessness for seniors. I had an opportunity last year where I was travelling to Williams Lake and I met with some of the folks who were advocating for more housing. They were raising the same issues there about needing housing for seniors. So it’s not in one community; it’s all over the province.

[3:25 p.m.]

In my community of Delta, we have a homeless problem. It’s hard for people in Delta to acknowledge that they do have a problem. But next weekend we’ll be walking in the Coldest Night, and we’ll be raising awareness on this issue. The fastest rise is among seniors.

Demand and supply. It was spoken about in the throne speech. I want to just touch on the piece there from the throne speech. “We see the results of speculation in all parts of this province — distorted markets, sky-high prices and empty homes. Too many British Columbians are paying the price. Your government believes that people seeking a profit in B.C. real estate must also contribute to housing solutions” — sounds very practical. “Budget 2018 will put forward new measures to address the effect of speculation” in the real estate market.

We’ve already taken some steps. You’ve seen just recently, a few weeks ago, the Minister of Finance announce a levy that would be associated with companies that do short-term leases, short-term rentals, vacation rentals. They’ll have to pay their fair share, which some of the hotels right now are paying, and that will go towards a fund to start to address challenges in our housing sector.

I think it’s fair to say that we won’t be able to solve all the problems, but I can say that as a province, as a government, we have to be part of that solution. This throne speech and the budget to come will lay out our belief in how we can become part of that solution.

Supply is another piece that came up in the throne speech. Of course, there will be more details in the budget. Again, I want to refer to the throne speech on that, because I think there was some substantial language there. “If we are to make meaningful steps to solve the crisis in housing affordability, governments must also build the homes people need.” That means a wide variety of types of homes.

One of the pieces that really jumped out at me — I’m grateful that it was included — is that starting this year, this government will begin to make the largest investment in affordable housing in B.C. history — the largest investment in B.C.’s history. That is music to the ears of advocates who have been raising this for years and years and years, who were told, “Well, suck it up; move to another area of the province” — or not acknowledging that the problem exists. So this is music to many ears. It’s music to my ears. It will include social housing, student housing, senior housing, Indigenous housing and affordable rentals for middle-income families.

You know, I spent some years in banking. The other piece that really struck me, that I appreciated in here: “We will enable local governments to plan affordable rental housing by zoning areas of their communities for this purpose.” That’s bold action — to allow communities to create rental zones, dedicated spaces for rental. I think it’s something that’s been called for by municipalities and cities throughout this province. I think it’s a great step for us in working with our municipal partners to ensure that we have the supply and in giving them the tools to ensure that we have supply.

“And working with local governments, we will plan for and build housing near transit corridors.” I think that’s an idea that everyone in this House would agree with. If we’re building transit, if we’re investing in transit, we need density around that. I can’t think of any other jurisdiction in the world that would have a SkyTrain station and then have single-family-dwelling homes. I think it’s something that we need to look at seriously, that I think municipalities and cities need to start looking at. When we build bus depots, we build density around that. We build social housing around that so people have access to it. It doesn’t increase congestion on our roadways, because people want transit.

I just look at my community of North Delta. I think the challenge we have in this province is…. If we build development and then think about the social infrastructure after, we are going to have challenges. We are going to have challenges with social licence. Even when the development is right, the public does not want it. They want to see transit solutions. They want to see us invest in community centres. They want us to invest in schools, so that the private sector can come and develop housing — social housing and other types of housing — around it. They want to see the social infrastructure first so that we can develop around it and so that the private sector can step up and do its part. We’re certainly seeing some of those challenges in my community.

[3:30 p.m.]

[L. Reid in the chair.]

I think the other piece, which the member for Vancouver–West End spoke about quite eloquently, is that…. He’s been an advocate for housing — in particular, for rental housing and renters — for a long time. I have to take my hat off to him for his advocacy, for his relentless commitment to his constituents, but also towards this concept.

The other piece I actually just noticed here in the throne speech is: “Government will ease the pressure on students by helping B.C.’s public colleges, institutes and universities build new student housing.”

I remember many, many years ago, Premier Gordon Campbell actually said that he was going to do this. He said that he was going to allow universities to borrow to build housing so they could meet this demand, and it never happened. I’m not saying…. It’s not because, probably, he didn’t intend to. I think his time as Premier ended waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.

We’re taking that step. Universities and colleges want to address housing for their students. They don’t want their students to be travelling hours just to get to school. They want to be able to build housing on campus, near the universities or colleges, so students can find an affordable place to live and focus on their studies while they’re there.

It serves no one’s purpose for kids to be travelling, or people to be travelling — I won’t say kids; education is not just for kids; it’s for everyone — long distances to get to school. It’s a barrier for people that live in my part of the area, who have to travel long distances to get to university or colleges. So again, I think this is an important piece. It’s to free up some capital space for universities and colleges to make that.

Again, one more piece on housing. I mean, I could go on, on housing for the entire throne speech, but there are so many good things in this that I want to get to them all. “Starting this year, your government will make the biggest investment in retrofits and renovations of social housing in B.C. in more than 20 years.” We have social housing that needs upgrading. I have seen some of the spaces that we have. We know the need is there. Not only will this upgrading help preserve our stock. It will also reduce greenhouse emissions. It will also reduce home heating bills for thousands of people who are living in social housing.

Not to mention…. I know many people like it to get at job, jobs, jobs. This is jobs. This is putting people to work. It’s critical that we can address…. You know, who would have believed over 16 years that you can create jobs at the same time as caring about people? But we can. We’re showing that in this throne speech, and we’re going to be showing that in the coming many, many years that are ahead of us now.

Child care. I’m very excited to see some of the initiatives that are coming forward on child care. There’s been lots of work done with community advocates who have had no one to talk to for a long time. For them to be able to get in a room and share ideas and thoughts and come together on how to address the challenges of child care is crucial.

I’ll just speak for myself and my peers. It’s a daunting task to think about child care. It’s a scary thought to think about child care. Many of my peers are paying — well, like I did — between $1,000 and $1,300 a month. When you’re paying that much, what goes through your head is…. You think: “Is it even worth working if that’s how much I’m going to be paying for child care?”

An overwhelming majority of the time it’s women who have to stay home and do the child care. So child care will allow women to get into the workforce, get back into the workforce, in a faster way. Men also, but the stats and the numbers are overwhelming towards women.

[3:35 p.m.]

The one piece from the throne speech, again, that I highlighted in my book right when it was being said was: “We begin this year by making a difference in the cost of child care for tens of thousands of families.” I’m looking forward to that in the budget. “With this investment comes a pledge to work side by side with providers, advocates, communities and parents, with the single purpose in mind: to propel the conversion of unlicensed spaces to licensed, regulated childcare so that parents can benefit from savings that the government can provide.”

There’s new legislation coming, as outlined in this throne speech. New legislation is coming to give families more information about unlawful and problem providers. I’ll tell you the scariest thing for me was when my son turned one. My wife and I were sitting down and thinking about this next day of us having to take my child to a daycare provider — the fear as a parent, the not knowing. It’s daunting.

My wife is a much stronger person than I, but I lost the draw when I had to take my son to the daycare. He was crying when I dropped him off, and then when I got in the car, I was welling up, because it’s a scary thought to take your child to a provider, to give him to someone that you don’t really know that well.

It’s a scary thing for many parents. I think everyone that’s a parent here who’s had to go through this has had that moment. It’s not the best feeling in the world. But with this new legislation, it gives families and parents more information about the child care provider that they are going to be taking their child to. It helps calm and it helps ease some of that stress of that time. I think it’s a welcome piece of legislation, and I look forward to it being introduced in the House.

A sustainable and a diverse economy. It’s something that we spoke about many times in the campaign. I’m grateful that we’ve got some things here in the throne speech. I know there’s a whole lot of things coming through in the budget, having had an opportunity to sit down with the minister and seeing some of the work that he’s working on. I think it’s quite good, and I’m grateful for his energy there.

I just quote from the throne speech: “Opportunities for people go hand in hand with economic growth. Business success must translate into progress for B.C. families and workers. A vibrant, diverse and growing economy supports the services that communities count on.”

We certainly have some challenges coming up. There’s no doubt. We have some challenges coming up with the forestry industry. I think members who represent the Interior and forest-driven communities know that very well. We’ve got the beetle infestation, we’ve got a trade battle with the U.S., and we’ve just gone through the worst fire season.

I’ll start with a fair deal. I think that it was an important step for the Premier to head to Washington as his first step when becoming the Premier of this province, to go there and advocate for our forest industry. It was an important step. It was an important gesture. It’s something that we often, in our caucus, are talking about. We’ve won so many court cases battling the U.S. I’m confident we’ll win this one as well. But there is that challenge of waiting and the unknown, and we’re working away to address that.

My father worked in the forest industry for many years. The forest industry of his time is no longer. It is now a high-tech industry. I’ve had the opportunity to visit various forest mills and so on across this province in my past work, and I’m just amazed at the amount of technology that is in the mills at this time. It’s just not that place anymore.

We need to support our forestry industry, to provide the advancements in technology so that they can compete with the world. At the same time, we need to help support them in creating new markets for the new products. I know that we’ll certainly be hearing more of that in the coming weeks and months from the minister responsible for forestry, about some of the work that’s happening but also the amount of work that’s been happening with the tech sector.

Now that I speak of the tech sector — it’s booming. I’m pleased that it’s booming. I’ve had an opportunity to meet with many people from the tech sector. The conversation, the optimism, from them is quite refreshing. They feel like they’re on the cusp of huge growth, and that’s something that we’re quite interested in supporting.

[3:40 p.m.]

Improving services that people depend on — it was a key plank, obviously, in our election, and we’ve taken considerable steps to address that.

I’ll quote from the throne speech: “Too many people do not have access to the health care they need. Overcrowded hospitals, long waits for surgeries and the endless search for family doctors have become the norm. Getting people faster, better health care is a key to getting and keeping our society healthy. Government will bring together family doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners” — professionals to offer team-based care.

I think that is critical. I had an opportunity to travel to Prince George a year ago, where they’ve got a very innovative health care piece happening in one of the clinics. I think it was an initiative by the previous government. They’ve got physiotherapists, doctors, psychologists — everyone under one shop. When somebody walks in that door, everyone is working together to take care of that person. It’s a model of the future.

I’ll give credit to the previous government for piloting that project. But I think it’s something that needs to be expanded and, I think, is certainly something that the Minister of Health is taking action on.

Seniors. My first question in question period was about a senior in my community who was left out in the sun too long and was badly sunburned. The challenge was not enough staff to keep up with the demand of work. We hear it so often.

I have so many people come into my office. It’s actually probably No. 2 behind WCB, the second most thought-about issue, where people are concerned about their parents, whether they are in a care home or whether the support is at home. It’s something that we certainly feel needs to be addressed. It’s in the throne speech. I know the Minister of Health is working diligently on it.

Hospitals. There are demands for hospitals. The Minister of Health was in Williams Lake recently talking about the work that we’ll be doing in Williams Lake to address the challenges in the hospital there. Terrace. The Minister of Health was in Terrace just recently talking about the new hospital that Terrace is getting. And finally, we’ve allotted money to start the work on developing a brand-new hospital in Surrey. It’s much needed. The demand, the population growth is so high.

Of course, we have challenges. We have to find land. We had a perfect piece of land for a hospital to be built on, but it was sold. It was sold to a developer to develop housing. Now the people in that community, who are actually pretty pro-development, are saying: “Wait a minute. We don’t have the services we need. We don’t have the health care. We don’t have the schools.”

Again, it goes back to that social infrastructure. You build social infrastructure. It creates space for the private sector to build some of the housing that we need.

Just last week the Minister of Health made an announcement around PharmaCare drug deductibles. I was very impressed with that announcement. The amount of people that came into my office just to talk about their concerns about that, and that wanted to share how this has affected them, was quite remarkable.

There was a newspaper article this morning or yesterday. It had a study that was just recently done, and it said almost one million Canadians give up food and heat to afford their prescriptions. This is happening across the province. I’m sure the hon. Speaker has had constituents that come to her office as well with concerns. But that is a sad stat across the country. The challenge we have is that B.C. is one of the worst. In this study, B.C. was one of the worst.

I think the step the Minister of Health took was a very important step. In fact, in this article, the leading researcher that led the study praised the minister. He said: “Single people and families with net household incomes under $45,000 will benefit from the changes to the Fair PharmaCare plan, starting January 1, 2019.”

I am very grateful. I’ve got the article here. There are a couple of things I wanted to highlight from the article. The researchers were from the University of B.C. and Simon Fraser University and two institutions from Ontario. They said: “In B.C., the proportion falling through the cracks in the health care system was the system was the highest.”

[3:45 p.m.]

Two major factors appear to be working against B.C. residents. First and obviously, the high deductibles in the public PharmaCare drug plan mean that people face significant front-loaded charges to access medicines. The second was the cost of living — it comes back to housing — relative to the other parts of Canada. It means that people have less available funds to spend on prescription drugs.

Law, who is one of the lead researchers, said: “Actions the B.C. government announced last week to reduce or eliminate PharmaCare drug deductibles for those with household net incomes below $45,000 will help those who have the most challenges with drug affordability.” According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal study, those who are most susceptible to be struggling with the costs are young adults, the Aboriginal community, First Nations communities and South Asian communities — which was a surprise to me. But it’s something that I was quite concerned about, so I’m thankful to the Minister of Health for taking those steps and those actions.

Education. I know there are many people entering the House now. They’re going to be delighted to hear their Leader of the Opposition give his first response to the throne speech.

Interjections.

R. Kahlon: Oh. Well, there you go. Thank you.

Interjections.

R. Kahlon: I know; I know. I’m grateful for the entire opposition for being here for my remarks.

Interjection.

R. Kahlon: That’s right. The member from Kamloops is very supportive. I had some jokes that were a little edgy, and I’m not going to say them because now they’re the only ones here supporting me.

Interjections.

R. Kahlon: Crossing the floor, hon. Speaker, is not going to happen, but they’re making a good case for it. That’s for sure.

I want to talk about education. I’m thankful to the minister for the work he’s done on this file. Again, from the throne speech: “In the past, promises to upgrade or replace unsafe schools were not followed through. Government is making up for lost time by accelerating the repair or replacement of 50 B.C. schools. Thirteen seismic projects in nine B.C. communities have already been announced, putting thousands of kids on the fast track to safer schools and giving parents peace of mind.”

I’m very grateful, because one of the schools in my community was announced, Gibson Elementary in North Delta. I’m very grateful that Delta now does not have any schools that need seismic upgrading. I understand that some of the jurisdictions have those needs. I know the Minister of Health is moving diligently, at a rapid pace, to start to address a lot of those communities, a lot of those concerns.

Minimum wage. I’m delighted to see that the Fair Wages Commission has come back with a plan to get to $15.20 by 2021. I had an opportunity to read through the report. I thought it was a thoughtful report. It lays out a predictable timetable so that business can plan. You know, we’re getting some people, a very small audience on the right, saying: “Oh, you can’t raise the rates. The sky is going to fall.” Then you have some people from the other side saying: “Well, it’s not fast enough, and it needs to be done.”

I think we’ve done it just right. I think the Fair Wages Commission hit it just right and found that nice balance.

A lot of the time when we have the discussion about fair wages and the minimum wage in particular, it gets cast as: “Oh well, it’s only going to help teenagers.” That’s not the fact. Many people living on minimum wage…. There are some numbers I found out: 82 percent are not teenagers but are actually 20 and older; 39 percent are 35 and older; 60 percent are women; 58 percent work full-time; 68 percent do not live at home with their parents; and 51 percent work for large corporations with 100-plus employees.

So this idea that it’s just these teenagers that are going to get this and that it only affects a small crowd is not correct. This affects so many people in our society, and I’m grateful for the action of the Fair Wages Commission. I think we’re going to start seeing effects of that right away. I think we’ll see increased economic activity as well, and we’ll be hearing a lot more of that.

[3:50 p.m.]

There were so many other things in the throne speech. I just want to touch on the Human Rights Commission. I’ve had the pleasure for the last 2½ months to lead a consultation around the Human Rights Commission. I’ve always been an advocate for human rights but never understood the file to the detail that I have now. I had almost 100 meetings in the 2½ months. It was an aggressive task, to say the least, finding time at lunches and on weekends to meet as many groups as possible. We tried not to say no to anyone.

In fact, the main procedure, normally, is that you’d do a written submission, and then you get a meeting. We waived that for community groups which wanted to talk about human rights but didn’t have the means to put together reports. We gave them an opportunity to be heard.

From hearing from many of the groups, my belief in the need for a human rights commission is stronger than ever before. Even in consulting the former Attorney General that was involved in the decision-making at the time, we had a very frank discussion. People might want to get partisan with a question on the commission. He made good arguments on the rationale, but I think even he would acknowledge — everyone has acknowledged — that there’s a need for education around human rights.

There is a need for education in advancing human rights. There is a need for an independent body to do a social audit of government when needed. I’m so excited for that work. But we’re not waiting. Racism came up quite often, and we’re not waiting. We starting to take a lot of action already.

My green light has gone on, so my time is limited. I know that I’ll get cheers for that from the other side for that. I look forward to hearing….

Interjection.

R. Kahlon: I think in closing, I’d just like to welcome the new Leader of the Official Opposition. It feels a little weird saying “new” because he’s been here 16 years and worn many hats.

Interjections.

R. Kahlon: But nevertheless, I think….

Interjections.

R. Kahlon: The heckling has begun.

But I welcome the new Leader of the Opposition. It’s a difficult role. I’ve had an opportunity to work for an official opposition. It takes a lot of time away from family. It takes a lot of work to keep everybody in caucus happy, and it takes a lot of work to get the team back and going. I wish him luck, and I look forward to hearing his thoughts.

A. Wilkinson: It’s a pleasure to be here today on my first week on the job as Leader of the Opposition. I’m proud to rise as a leader of an emboldened and invigorated caucus that’s ready to hold the government to account, as we will in the weeks to come, especially on their throne speech, which is a bit of exercise in wishful thinking.

Before we get there, I would like to thank my wife and my three children for adapting and adopting to this pattern of life. It’s a very different way of life, as all of us have realized. I’m forever thankful I don’t have the travel schedule that many of my colleagues have from the farther flung corners of the province, because that would keep them away from their families even more.

I count myself fortunate in that regard, and I’m also very fortunate to have a remarkable team of people to work with — 41 colleagues who are extraordinarily good at what they do. I say the number 41 advisedly, because I’m very optimistic about the outcome of tonight’s by-election tonight in Kelowna West.

Thanks go out, of course, to the good citizens of Vancouver-Quilchena, who have seen fit to elect me twice to the role of Member of the Legislative Assembly on their behalf, and to the riding association who make all of that possible.

There are also the people who were involved on behalf of the Liberal Party of British Columbia in this recent leadership selection process. That is something that I have characterized as a bit of a rugby game, and I think we’re here today to demonstrate that we have moved into the future as a very united team. There’s been a remarkable coalescence of the people who worked through that race, both the supporters of the various candidates and the candidates themselves.

[3:55 p.m.]

I want to extend special thanks to the members for Vancouver–False Creek, Vancouver-Langara, Kamloops–South Thompson and Abbotsford West for their major effort, contribution and diligence through that campaign, which was hard fought. Of course, we have united around the outcome of that, in the person of me as the leader.

I also want to thank the former mayor of Surrey, who is a former Member of Parliament, Dianne Watts and who was also a contestant in the race — which was, as I said, hard fought and prepared us for almost any eventuality dealing with the members opposite. It’ll be child’s play after our leadership race.

Tonight I am hopeful that we’ll be successful in Kelowna West in re-electing Ben Stewart as our MLA for Kelowna West and to join this caucus. We are seeking the support and the favour of the people of Kelowna West. It’s a longtime free enterprise riding. We are optimistic about that result, but we never count our chickens before they’re hatched, according to the member’s opposite.

That, of course, will make our caucus a full 42 members. That will mean that we will have more members, if we’re fortunate enough to succeed tonight, than any other party in this House. This points out, first of all, the strength of our parliamentary system that provides for minority governments and, secondly, the deep and overwhelming threat that the members opposite should feel to the length of their time in government.

It’s a great pleasure to stand here today on behalf of an optimistic, energized and very unified caucus. I think everyone can see the level of good humour in this room and that people are moving into this nice spring weather with the optimism that we as the opposition need to take on the members opposite, to hold them accountable for the government that they are operating.

We strive, like all members of this room, to make British Columbians successful in their lives and to make this a province a beacon of hope for everyone around the world. This is a place where people can be successful; a province that will generate jobs, create wealth and prosperity for our citizens and, through economic development, in a very responsible way, provide the social supports that I was so fortunate to receive when I arrived in this country as an immigrant at the age of four.

People can thrive and prosper here — in this province of ours, British Columbia. We only need to think of that 20-year-old student out there who’s wondering about their future. I have three of them living in my house. They wonder where they’re going in life, but they have that sense of purpose. They have that sense of opportunity. They’ll get the skills and training they need, work hard and be successful here in British Columbia.

What we seek to do as the B.C. Liberal Party is create an environment for those people to succeed. We can support that new young couple that’s just setting off in life looking for a place to live. We want them to keep a bit more of their earnings in their pockets so they can feel that life is affordable and they will get ahead. This is a central theme for us in the B.C. Liberal Party so that we can encourage that bright future for everyone in British Columbia.

We can make sure that older British Columbians have access to the health care they need. Whether they’re older or in need of health care at a younger age, that is a central focus of the government of British Columbia and the opposition — that we can invest in the needs of our health care system so that it can provide for people when they need access to it.

I can certainly say that my own family has had too much experience in the recent past with acute care in the medical care system, and it has been provided in an exemplary fashion at a very high level of care. We are pleased and proud to be British Columbians able to take advantage of that.

We also have to make sure that we’re addressing the issues of addiction and drug overdoses. This is a totally unacceptable state of affairs that we find ourselves in with four British Columbians dying every day, on average. Both sides of the House are committed to making this a topic that fades into the past as we address the issue. But we’ll be holding the government to account on this issue, because it is a critically important issue in British Columbia that we cannot overlook. We cannot leave it aside. We cannot accept that four people a day will die of a drug overdose here in British Columbia.

We must work assiduously toward that goal so that we can say that we’re proud of the result in the outcome. That, of course, takes a lot of hard work, a commitment that this side of the House started with the public health emergency that was declared in April of 2016. The current government is carrying on in ways that we will be critical of until this crisis has passed, until we can all proudly say that it has come to an end.

We have to ensure that children go to a school that’s in their own neighbourhood, close to their home and that is effective. I’m pleased and proud to be able to say that my own children, three of them, each went through 13 years of public education, a total of 39 years in the B.C. public school system, with really extraordinarily good results. That was because of the dedication of teachers and because of our government’s commitment to quality education.

[4:00 p.m.]

We can all talk about how to improve the K-to-12 system on an ongoing basis, but it is very, very good. We must stand by it, support it and make it even better.

We need to keep our economy humming by creating jobs that support families and build the businesses that provide all the employment in this province, particularly small businesses, because as most of us recognize, British Columbia does not have that many large employers. It is an economy that’s driven by small business. We have to provide the kind of tax environment, the kind of regulatory environment, where small business can thrive.

We, of course, will be holding the government of the day to account, because they have shown a strong tendency over time to think that business is something that needs to be contained, regulated and pushed into a corner in order to behave. We on this side of the House think, of course, that small business is an engine that needs to be developed and enhanced, not something that needs to be controlled and suppressed.

We can build world-class transportation. We can have the schools we need, the hospitals we need and the infrastructure that we all rely upon. We can do all this without raising anyone’s taxes, as we have done for the past 16 years in this House.

None of this can be said of the minority government across the aisle. They’ve already raised taxes. They’ve already caused corporations to wonder about their future here. They’ve already caused income tax increases for the higher earning brackets. This is sending a message that business, development and success in British Columbia are actually not that attractive to the NDP.

It’s actually astonishing what they didn’t say in their throne speech about what needs to be done with the province of British Columbia. They’ve inherited a large surplus due to strong fiscal management from this side of the House, and we see that they’ve already frittered it away. They inherited $2 billion or more, thanks to our responsible management of taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

We know that we have lessons to learn on this side about how to address the issues in elections. As I said many times on the road in the past six months, we, unfortunately, were preaching to people from the stratosphere about debt-to-GDP ratios and credit ratings. It was actually a tribute to the other side that they managed to talk to people’s issues in their living rooms.

This, of course, is something that we are going to have to do as a party as we work ourselves into building the platform toward the next election. It’s to make sure we’re resonating with issues in people’s living rooms, people’s pocketbook issues that motivate them as they go through their workday, thinking: “Am I going to get ahead in British Columbia?”

We, of course, take the view that the NDP’s thesis of increasing taxes whenever they can does not help people to get ahead. It actually empties out their pockets and makes them feel like they can’t get by. Whether they’re on one paycheque or two, this is a real challenge for British Columbians.

We are now moving through listening mode into learning mode and getting ready to prepare for the next election, when all of us on this side of the House will be presenting ourselves to the electorate as a party that is ready to fight for them, ready to stand up for them and ready to build a bright future in British Columbia.

We firmly believe that if government can find ways to make life easier, they should do so. That does not necessarily mean the generous spending plans of the NDP. We do not want to mislead the public with false promises and then draw out the implementation of those promises for weeks, months or years. We hear repeatedly from the other side that this — whatever “this” is — will be implemented over ten years. This presumes that the minority government on the other side will win the next three elections in order to be able to implement their plans. This has little or no credibility.

I see the member for Saanich South is pounding the table. Perhaps that’s to try to bolster her own credibility after her performance earlier today.

What we heard yesterday in the throne speech can only be described as disappointing for the many people in this province who hope to hear about solutions for their everyday worries. Instead, we heard that affordability is a theme, but precious little will be done about it. It’s a major concern in the Lower Mainland where I live because of the price of housing and access to transit. Neither of those things was dealt with in any significant way by this throne speech.

It’s a concern in the Interior. We only need to think of the ridings in the Cariboo, where the primary worry in those communities is what’s happening to the annual allowable cut. What is going to be the fibre supply in the near future? We’ve heard nothing about that in this throne speech.

Affordability means you have to have employment. That, of course, is a primary focus for this party on this side of the House — to make sure that a prosperous economy generates the kind of employment that leads to prosperity in our communities.

The NDP have promised to make our lives better. Let’s get going on the list. It’s a sad list. They committed in the election to $10-a-day daycare. In the last 24 hours, we’ve heard: “Well, they were just kidding.”

[4:05 p.m.]

Their advocates are out on the radio saying: “Well, that was actually a brand or a slogan. That was something that we never said. That was something we were just alluding to. Just kidding. So $10 doesn’t mean $10; $10 means something else.”

We have to start to question the credibility of the government of the day because they are starting to make complete nonsense of the promises they made in the election. We have the $400 renters rebate, which conveniently disappeared when they finally realized that a lot of people renting condominiums in this province are paying, perhaps, $5,000, $7,000 or $10,000 a month. Should they get a $400 cheque from the taxpayers of British Columbia when they can afford to spend $10,000 a month in rent? This is absurd. And the NDP have finally come to their senses and realized that perhaps it’s not a good idea. So they’ve buried the promise. They made it disappear.

We heard nothing about replacing the portable classrooms in Surrey. We heard only vague promises, but this was one of the key things they ran on in the election. Yet again, it has disappeared.

Not a single word about mass transit. We’ve heard so many stories about a SkyTrain to UBC and LRT through Surrey to Langley. Once again, it has disappeared from the throne speech.

And my favourite, 114,000 housing units. I will never forget being on a radio show with the Attorney General during the election when I said, “Let’s do the math on live radio.” It comes out to about $23 billion plus the land cost for this idea. His response? Well, when they cancel Site C, they’ll have $7 billion to contribute to it.

Lo and behold, Site C — a B.C. government project initiated by this side of the House, put into reality by the B.C. Liberal Party — was then stalled by the NDP for a solid six months. That drove up the cost by $1 billion, created massive uncertainty, not only in the labour market for the thousands of people employed on the site but also in the investment community. Is this a government you can rely upon? The upshot: wasted time, wasted money, and they saw the wisdom to continue a project that we began.

This is a pretty sad record, actually, that the NDP is putting forward at this point. What do we hear in the throne speech? The vaguest possible spending promises, which involve breaking more of their election promises.

We’ve had reviews, reviews and more reviews, consultations, thinking it over. We’ve now got a count of 17 different topics that are under review. And what this boils down to — sadly, we saw it today in question period — is this is a government that’s scared to make decisions. They’ve faced that uncertainty of what to do, so they just back off and study instead. After seven months in power, we’ve seen remarkably little progress on very important files, which are still out for study and consultation.

British Columbians can’t afford to provide $52 billion to a government that can’t make up its mind. They’re looking for leadership. All of us on this side of the House are determined to hold the other side to account to make sure they’re actually showing some leadership, and that has been very much lacking in the last seven months.

Sadly, as we heard in question period today, we have a Premier that shows no shame, no remorse, no humility in having triggered a totally unnecessary battle with Alberta that is now the subject of embarrassment in Ottawa. As all of this unfolds — it has been made clear in the media — Alberta has the upper hand.

Premier John Horgan, the Premier himself — I apologize, Madame Speaker, for using the name in the House — now is accountable for the performance of this government. We saw in question period today that perhaps the Minister of Environment has the upper hand on this file.

We’re not seeing any sign that the Premier is contrite or that he’s prepared to go and swallow his pride, get on a plane to Edmonton and solve this problem. That’s what it amounts to — being prepared to show some humility and get people back to work in the Okanagan producing that wine, which is now blocked by the Alberta liquor control board, to the tune of $70 million a year.

We now see a key distribution pipeline from North Montney, near Fort St. John, going to Alberta. Now the Alberta government is having second thoughts about this in front of the National Energy Board. That would affect thousands of jobs in this province, billions of dollars of infrastructure development by the private sector. And what do we get for that? Nothing but the pride of the Premier standing up to some illusory goal that will not serve the interests of British Columbians.

We have those jobs in our ski industry that are now at risk because we’re seeing bookings being cancelled throughout British Columbia as Albertans react to the fact that they have been kicked in the shins by the Premier.

[4:10 p.m.]

The net result of that? They actually have very high-quality ski resorts in Banff and Jasper where they can go instead. They don’t need to cross the border to British Columbia. If they’re in the mood to be annoyed with B.C., that will cost millions of dollars in bookings in the Kootenays and in the Okanagan, as those Albertans decide to stay home instead.

We have the jobs of trades workers in every corner of this province who have wandered into a world full of uncertainty. Whether it’s the George Massey Tunnel replacement, LNG, Kinder Morgan, everything’s left up in the air. So what happens in the international investment community? B.C. becomes a completely unpredictable and unreliable place to do business. We’re going to see that very quickly, as major projects cease to appear on the inventory in British Columbia and we see British Columbia’s reputation decline.

We have enough issues here with project approval already, without throwing in political uncertainty. We do not want to be the Bolivia of North America. We do not want to become the Mozambique of the Americas, where nobody can rely upon their capital being safely invested. Because it will dry up, and the members opposite, who are so supportive of organized labour, will see mass unemployment amongst people in the construction trades. This cannot happen simply because of the arrogant behaviour of the Premier in picking fights on major projects.

We need, of course, stable, family-sustaining jobs across this province. We deserve better than just platitudes in a throne speech. We deserve a plan for what’s going to happen in the economy, where British Columbians can plan out their future and expect to be prosperous here in B.C. This is about people’s livelihoods. It’s about the ability of people to pay their bills and to promote their children into a better way of life through education and skills training.

British Columbians are going to become increasingly worried about the performance of this minority government — their erratic behaviour, their somewhat anger-based, arrogant approach to dealing with stakeholders and outsiders. We hear they’re in endless consultations, but we rarely hear a happy ending because, at the end of the day, we have a ruling from the Premier’s office of what shall happen. So far, the results have been bad.

All it would take to solve this trade dispute with Alberta is a quick plane ride to Edmonton, a bit of humility on behalf of the Premier, and we would get British Columbia back on course. Instead, we have a Premier, as we saw here today, digging in his heels, referring to completely irrelevant internal trade agreements, when in fact the issue is constitutional.

Some members of the NDP seem to have come to the conclusion that 150 years of constitutional law in Canada really doesn’t relate to them. In fact, they seem to think they’re above the law, and that message travels very quickly as we become an unreliable jurisdiction in which to invest.

The Premier and the NDP are slowly but surely closing the doors to business opportunities in British Columbia. That will hurt this province much sooner than we think. This doesn’t stop the NDP from spending. They are very keen to look at ways to expand the role of government to make this the biggest expenditure in B.C. history, which they’re proudly proclaiming here, with no corresponding revenue.

So where will this money come from? There are few choices — run deficits, raise taxes or steal it from other programs. Which are the NDP going to come through with next Tuesday in the budget? That remains to be seen, but we can expect to see — to quote from a former member of this House — a little bit of jiggery-pokery in terms of the budget.

We hear occasionally from them that they’re going to work with the federal government. Well, let me tell you how that works, having spent two years of my life resuscitating British Columbia’s reputation in Ottawa after the NDP managed to seriously damage it in the late 1990s with this kind of erratic behaviour.

It took two years of diplomacy and numerous visits from ministers and the Premier to Ottawa and also making sure that the federal government was entirely in line with our goals and our efforts to bring in things like the Canada Line. It’s called the Canada Line for a reason. The federal government put $1 billion into it because they wanted to demonstrate that we had a good relationship between Ottawa and British Columbia. That kind of thing does not happen when you kick Ottawa in the shins.

We’re seeing that already. The media are reporting that the child care transfers from Ottawa to British Columbia are in danger of drying up. We’ll see that Ottawa will stop answering the phone on approvals of projects and cooperation agreements. This is a slow, grinding decline in British Columbia’s reputation and British Columbia’s ability to get things done.

We need to work with the federal government, and it doesn’t matter which party is in power. It is incumbent on the government of British Columbia to do the level best it can to work with Ottawa to get the maximum benefits for British Columbia from Ottawa.

[4:15 p.m.]

The NDP, of course, will start to lay the blame on Ottawa for this. The Premier has backed himself into a corner. Alberta has the upper hand. Ottawa has no other option but to call the Premier’s office and say: “Don’t you think you should try and clean this up? You’re causing a national problem.”

This expert panel that the Alberta government has put together is going to start to pump out criticisms of the behaviour, and it will have a great deal of media attention. This has all been brought on by the pride of a Premier and his Environment Minister who are unable to see that there is no way out of this corner other than to swallow their pride.

This is the kind of thing that leads to federal largesse in British Columbia, if we play our cards right. It led to a major university expansion. I was at the event, as Minister of Advanced Education, where the Prime Minister of the day announced a $135 million engineering program and new building in Surrey. I was there for the Canada Line announcements. I was there for the Kicking Horse Canyon investments, which was a joint federal-provincial project that brought $500 million to improve a major section of the Kicking Horse Canyon in the riding of Columbia River–Revelstoke.

These were major improvements that only happened through cooperation, through the kind of cooperative federalism this country is built upon. What we see today is the NDP scoffing at it, turning their nose at it and saying it doesn’t matter because British Columbia is somehow a sovereign state.

The ultimate absurdity today was from the Minister of Agriculture, saying: “We don’t need to engage in export trade. We’ll just ask British Columbians to buy another $70 million worth of alcohol to make up for the losses.”

Interjections.

A. Wilkinson: My colleagues laugh. This is absurd, because it is entirely laughable that a couple of newspapers ads and asking British Columbians to drink more liquor are going to solve a major constitutional problem. So what we have….

Interjections.

A. Wilkinson: Well, I must say that B.C. Liberals do know how to have a good time with B.C. products at the right time.

We need to make sure that we end this trade war immediately because our future depends upon being a destination for investment, for being a stable, sensible jurisdiction where British Columbians can be proud of their government and be proud of the program that’s being set to move us forward.

We know this is a government that’s afraid to govern, that behaves erratically, that keeps launching review after review. This is a party that has made false promises last May in the election and is now being called on the carpet because they’re diluting them, they’re discounting them. They’re saying “$10 doesn’t mean $10.” This is a government that’s heading into a credibility crisis.

The only workable ideas in this throne speech, in fact, came from this side of the House: the progressive elimination of MSP premiums, engineering programs at TRU and UNBC, reduction of the student loan interest rate by 2½ percent, team-based health care. This government is purporting to take credit for all of these things that were actually announced by the B.C. Liberal government last February, and they somehow claim that they’re delivering these programs which we had initiated and funded in that budget.

So it’s a rather sad day to see a Speech from the Throne that is so completely empty of the balanced approach to government that we need. To build up British Columbia, we have to have the revenue to do it. To have the revenue, we need to have the economy to do it, and, of course, it’s a central role for the government of British Columbia to make sure that we provide the environment for prosperity.

We have to be in the business of telling the world that this is a stable jurisdiction where you can get ahead as an individual, where, if you’re an investor, your investment will be honoured and respected. That’s how we build this province, to generate the prosperity that leads to our ability to pay for social programs of the sort announced in the Speech from the Throne yesterday.

Instead, we heard a wish list, a spending list, a boiled-down version of an election platform that has proven to be a complete illusion. The members on the other side are now saying: “Sorry. Just kidding.” That doesn’t cut it, and particularly with the government of Canada dealing with the constitution, “just kidding” won’t do it. It’s a matter of accepting the problems they have caused, getting British Columbia back on track. In my estimation, they’ve got about a week to do it, and then British Columbia will start to become an embarrassing jurisdiction in which to do business.

The order on the page for the Premier and the government is very steep. They’ve got to justify why they have caused a tailspin in the British Columbia economy through this totally unnecessary trade war, and they’ve got to find ways to pay for the programs that they are so keen to promote in their Speech from the Throne.

[4:20 p.m.]

We, on this side of the House, believe in responsible government based on prosperity. We don’t spend our children’s money, and we base our entire approach to government on enterprise — the ability of individuals to get ahead, to build out the kind of investment environment that is favourable to everybody, whether they’re from outside of British Columbia or not, so that people can get ahead in British Columbia. We’ve seen little or no evidence in that Speech from the Throne.

I think it’s time for us to keep this government to account so we can make sure that as an opposition, we are completely effective and get the credibility of British Columbians so that we’re ready for this next election with a full-scale program that will make the NDP look as incompetent as they are.

A. Weaver: Please let me start by congratulating the new Leader of the Official Opposition, who just spoke to the throne speech a few minutes ago. I recognize that it’s a lot of work going through a leadership campaign, particularly one that was, frankly, quite interesting and quite well contested. So congratulations to the leader. I look forward to months and years of working collectively, particularly on this day, Valentine’s Day.

I’d like to start my response to the Speech from the Throne also thanking my family, my constituents and, particularly, the hard-working staff who I am blessed to be able to work with on a day-to-day basis.

Like the Leader of the Official Opposition, I wish to congratulate now publicly whoever wins the by-election today in Kelowna West, an interesting riding made up of West Kelowna and Westbank Nation and large parts of downtown Kelowna.

You know, I spent ten days in Kelowna this last little while, knocking on doors and getting to know the Kelowna residents and the issues there. One of my first tasks was to actually go to Ben Stewart’s office and say to him: “Good luck, Ben. We’re going to make you work for this one.” So I’m excited to see what actually happens today. We know that the turnout is low. For whatever happens, I’m sure everyone on both sides of this House will welcome the new MLA with open arms and look forward to working with him or her as well in the days ahead.

I found this throne speech to be quite refreshing. I used the words “cautiously optimistic” to describe my initial response to this. There are a number of areas covered in the throne speech — many, many areas. Some of them are gone into in detail; some of them are in less such detail.

There’s no question, in my view, that people are, front and centre, the focus of this throne speech. I did particularly applaud the throne speech commemorating the good work of David Barrett. Frankly, he is one of my heroes — a man who stood for principle when he ran for politics, a man who made decisions based on evidence. Sometimes they weren’t popular decisions. But the test of time is such that meant much of his legacy still remains with us today — whether it be the agricultural land reserve; whether it be quite a number of our environmental programs and positions here in British Columbia; or whether it be our public auto insurance, which, admittedly, is under some financial stress, as we speak.

The throne speech outlines a number of areas in terms of affordability and housing; child care; economic opportunity; services for people, including health care; education; public safety; infrastructure; mental health; and, of course, a section towards the end on climate change.

Now, hon. Speaker, as you will know, the results of the last election were such that there was no clear majority of MLAs in this House. As such, the B.C. Green caucus went into negotiations with both the Liberals and the NDP to see if we could come to an agreement that would allow for confidence and supply to be given — in the throne speech and budget measures — while retaining our autonomy in terms of a minority, as opposed to a coalition, government.

[4:25 p.m.]

The key issue that our agreement ultimately came down upon was the issue of climate change, an issue where we felt that ultimately, the previous government was not really willing to take the steps necessary to deliver on the promises made, both at the time and previously, by the government led by Gordon Campbell — a government, as you know, hon. Speaker, I supported and worked with to try to develop policy measures that were systematically dismantled year after year once the leadership changed at that level.

I didn’t think it’d be easy. The last election campaign was not an easy one to be a B.C. Green. It was very personal, a lot of very partisan attacks. I honestly didn’t think it would be possible that the B.C. Greens would be able to set up a confidence and supply agreement with the B.C. NDP. There it is, in all honesty. It was a personal campaign.

Ultimately, in sitting at that table in those days in the lead-up to our final decision, it became apparent to me and to my colleague Sonia, who was at the table, that both the Premier and the now Finance Minister were people that we felt we could relate to, people who we believed ultimately wanted to put the best interests of British Colombians front and centre in decision-making — not the backroom crowd but British Columbians.

Again, people watching the media in the lead-up to the actual agreement would notice that there was some public tension between the Leader of the Official Opposition and myself in terms of some disagreements that typically got amplified far beyond what they actually were. But in those discussions, it became very clear to me that the Premier cared. He was a person who cared about the best wishes of not just his constituents but all British Colombians. And ultimately, it was clear to me that we were going to go into an agreement with the B.C. NDP. I haven’t regretted it that since that day. The proof has been in what has been delivered in our discussions, our deliberations and where we have come to today.

Now, I recognize there’s a lack of substance in some of these issues brought forward in the throne speech. I’m the first one to call out the fact that there’s a lot of rhetoric and, at times, little substance in some key areas. But my experience, our experience, over these last six or seven months has been one of collaboration, of actually being listened to, of actually trying to do what’s right, as opposed to what’s populist.

You know, we see it now in what’s going on in British Columbia, where a government essentially says, “You know what? We recognize that the product that is in a pipe, diluted bitumen….” There had never been an environmental assessment process when that product switched from synthetic crude, which used to be shipped. Diluted bitumen started getting packed in with that. There was never any assessment. Even in the NEB process, there were clear recommendations that came out and conditions that had to be met — a number of which are British Columbia conditions.

So when the government says that it’s going to do what it must do, which is look out for the interests of British Colombians by trying to develop an understanding of the science of diluted bitumen if spilled over our streams and lakes as this product comes across this province…. Simply doing what’s right, we get a knee-jerk response, not only a petty response, from Alberta. But it saddens me most the way that the B.C. Liberals are playing politics over this.

The Leader of the Official Opposition just said that British Columbia will be an embarrassing jurisdiction. British Columbia will never be an embarrassing jurisdiction. He argued that if we don’t cave in to the demands of Alberta, we will become an embarrassing jurisdiction. What sort of jurisdiction is embarrassing when we are the most beautiful place in the world to live, where we have some of the best and brightest minds in the world come here because of the quality of life we can offer? Our education system worldwide is second to none. Industry is thriving, and we’re a destination of choice for people all over the world. I’m not embarrassed about that. I’ll never be embarrassed about that.

[4:30 p.m.]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Frankly, I’m proud to say that we support the decision of the Environment Minister and the Premier in terms of doing what’s right, in terms of listening to the Royal Society of Canada expert panel report, the National Academy of Sciences in the United States expert panel report. The former says we don’t know what’s going to happen with a spill of diluted bitumen; the latter says we simply can’t clean it up.

The Premier wants to simply explore the science behind that to ensure that we are protected here in British Columbia, that our natural beauty and the risk that we’re taking is actually mitigated, that someone is willing to clean up. The response we get is that this is petty and British Columbia will be an embarrassing jurisdiction if we don’t cave. Shame on the Leader of the Official Opposition for that.

To actually have the audacity to claim that somehow Alberta is right to take it out on the B.C. wine industry just is mind-boggling. We should be united together in this Legislature — united together, standing up for the B.C. wine industry; telling all of Canada that it is not okay to put the rights of a multinational based in Texas and its shareholders against small business owners in the Okanagan and putting small business owners, putting family business, protecting the rights of British Columbians….

That’s what we were elected to do. We’re not elected to ensure profits are maximized in a multinational. We’re elected to ensure that externalities are internalized and that if there’s going to be a spill, there’s money there available to clean up that spill. But nobody talks about that.

Then just yesterday we heard Mr. Trudeau say that in fact it was a horse trade. All of this was really just a horse trade, because we wanted Notley to bring in her climate plan, and the only way we’d get her to do that was if we gave her something. But we’re not going to give her Energy East, because the mayor of Montreal was quite upset, and there are an awful lot of Liberal seats in Quebec that we might lose, and who cares about B.C. anyway? Who cares about B.C.? There’s only a few Liberal seats, and we might gain as many in Alberta and Saskatchewan as we lose in B.C.

This is the way the decision was made. It was not made because of what’s in the best interests of Canada or British Columbians.

Again, I was the only MLA in this Legislature who participated in that NEB process. I participated in two different ways. I was qualified twice: first as an expert, with background in ocean physics, and second as an MLA representing an affected area. In both those cases, we examined these documents very, very carefully.

Now, while I know members opposite and the government was very, very free and easy with approving. But did they actually know that the entire oil spill response in that process was predicated on the existence of calm conditions, with no waves, winds blowing offshore, if any, and 20 hours of sunlight? Now, there is not a latitude south of Tuktoyaktuk that has 20 hours of sunlight on any day of the year. So you would think, as a participant asking for a more realistic scenario, that I’d get a response. But no, the response I get is: “The NEB has enough information on which to make a decision.”

I could outline a litany of these. The model that was used for the ocean circulation in the region — do you know how that’s validated? How do you think a model was validated? Now, these are complex numerical models, which have thousands of lines of code, that are essentially discretizing very complex physics. The way it was validated was that a guy fell off a B.C. ferry, who drifted. The model said: kind of drifted the right way. You can’t make this stuff up.

The boundary conditions for the model were validated using tides. Well, you don’t need a complex model, looking at the mixing in the Strait of Juan de Fuca or Georgia Strait to talk about tides. Tides we’ve known about for decades. The model was incorrect. It was not the appropriate tool to be used. It was not only me who said it. It was David Farmer — Royal Society of London, a distinguished scholar who was also at the Institute of Ocean Sciences. He said the same thing, as did others who participated.

I applaud government, and I’m glad that they’re actually standing up. I’m glad that today, just moments ago, the government announced that it would take steps to promote B.C. wines. My very first response was to go out and buy three bottles of B.C. wine: one from Thornhill Creek, ironically and quite appropriately, Canada’s first carbon-neutral winery; one, somewhat humorously, from Dirty Laundry, based in Summerland — you know, joking NDP Alberta and NDP B.C., I thought it was appropriate; and the third one from Mission Hill, of course symbolic of the race that was there.

[4:35 p.m.]

That was my response. What was the B.C. Liberal response? It was blaming government. It wasn’t standing up for industry. And what’s worse…. In those ten days I spent in Kelowna, I consulted wine industry expert after wine industry expert after restaurateur. Let me tell you, the wine industry in B.C. is very, very upset at the B.C. Liberals right now. I’ll tell you why.

Despite my protestations sitting opposite, pointing out that I did not believe that those specialty wine licences would stand up to a NAFTA challenge, and despite my saying, “Don’t do this. I’m not sure you’ve got the appropriate legal advice,” government went ahead and created six new specialty wine store licences for grocery stores to sell wines in B.C.

We’re not talking about the 50 or 60 — I forget the number — that were grandfathered in prior to these trade agreements, that are owned by the B.C. Wine Institute. These are six new ones that the government decided to create. Well, we now have a WTO trade complaint launched by Australia against British Columbia wines because of these six. We have a NAFTA challenge launched by the U.S. over these six licences.

That’s the B.C. Liberal response. They have the gall and the audacity to say that we’re not protecting B.C. wine, as the government announces measures today to actually promote B.C. wine, yet their direct policy measurements have led to WTO and NAFTA challenges directly against B.C. on the international scene.

You should take a look at your own house before you start throwing stones at other people’s houses, to be honest. And that’s what is so refreshing about this throne speech. I truly believe it steps back and makes us reflect upon what’s important in British Columbia.

I’m going to go through the throne speech and give credit to now members of the opposition for some of the ideas in it that clearly were put forward by them and that have been adopted by the B.C. NDP. For example, when we talk about the actions of affordability. In the throne speech, the B.C. NDP outline the number of actions that have happened, one of which was to cut MSP premiums in half.

Now, we recognize the B.C. Liberals had already promised that. They’d already promised to do that. Again, this is an issue that we felt we could have done much more aggressively, and we campaigned on eliminating them through bringing it into a progressive health care premium much akin to what’s done in Ontario, but we recognize that this has been done. We applaud this, and we congratulate the B.C. Liberals on making sure this happened.

Another thing that happened in there is they talk about affordability measures with respect to the removal of tolls. Now, I recognize that the B.C. NDP campaigned on this. I recognize the B.C. Liberals were a little more subtle in their campaigning, and rather than eliminating the tolls, they were going to put a cap on, which, frankly, was a little more clever because it would not have allowed for the transfer of debt onto provincial debt to be taxpayer-supported.

But in the throne speech that happened this summer, the Liberals were also going to eliminate the tolls. So we really were standing alone in saying we don’t support it. We continue not to support it, but that’s the nature of a democracy. We don’t believe that’s correct, but we understand that it’s moving forward, and the B.C. NDP — and, frankly, the B.C. Liberals — will have to explain that to the voters.

We’ve told you why we don’t like it. We don’t like it because we think it’s fiscally irresponsible policy. It’s a form of vote-buying, in our view, and it actually transfers onto provincial debt — taxpayer-supported debt — $4.7 billion. It puts us in a position where we can’t deal with some of the things that we might otherwise do, like stop Site C, which honestly is something that I still don’t understand to this day, based on the fiscal outlook of what that’s going to cost.

Also, in the case of the Golden Ears and Mann bridges, outlined as a success, to date, we know that that was not done in consultation with local mayors, who opposed it. The concern over this is that there is a discussion right now happening in Metro Vancouver on mobility pricing. Whether that comes to fruition or not is not the issue. The issue is that once you pull away tolls, it’s very difficult to put them on. And there are unforeseen consequences, like people who wanted to pay those tolls because they wanted to have access in a more timely fashion to the Vancouver region.

Another action on affordability that was highlighted: cutting student loan interest by 2.5 percent so that graduates can get out of debt more quickly on their path to a chosen career — obviously, we wholeheartedly support that. Again, this is something that the B.C. Liberals had promised to do.

I’m pleased that we have an example where the B.C. NDP have adopted something the B.C. Liberals have done that we agreed to as well. Let’s focus on our successes. We have all agreement in the House that this is a good thing to do. That’s what we’re elected to do — to put forward good public policy.

[4:40 p.m.]

We hear about making adult education and language learning tuition-free so that tens of thousands of British Columbians can prepare for a degree and upgrade their skills, work. Great public policy, something we supported — glad to see that that’s a success — and something that we started to see emerge in the Liberals’ throne speech in the summer as well.

On the topics of affordability in the throne speech, the government points to its attempt to keep hydro rates affordable. They’ve asked B.C.’s commission to freeze hydro rates for the next year.

Now, I appreciate the softening in that language, because obviously, you cannot have your cake and eat it too in this area, in light of the fact that you can’t campaign on freezing B.C. Hydro rates and also campaign on the autonomy of the BCUC, because they’re mutually inconsistent. Either you agree to the autonomy of the BCUC and make a suggestion that you’d like to see it frozen, or you freeze it through order-in-council, which, historically, had been done by the B.C. Liberals.

The reality is I’m not sure BCUC will approve that. Frankly, B.C. Hydro looks pretty foolish, after having a 4 percent increase approved by the BCUC as part of a long-term plan. They look pretty foolish going to the BCUC now and saying: “We don’t really want an increase.” If I were on the BCUC, I’d be asking: “So what’s changed with your accounting?” Frankly, it doesn’t instill confidence in B.C. Hydro if they can actually suddenly justify, through different accounting, the lack of an increase.

You know, if BCUC rejects a freeze, so be it. I think the electorate are the ones who the government will have to be accountable to. We did not campaign on freezing B.C. Hydro rates, nor did the B.C. Liberals, because frankly, I don’t think it’s fiscally responsible. And honestly, it doesn’t actually deal with the issue of affordability.

Let’s take a look at a simple example that would. Right now, we have tier 1 and tier 2 rates. Now, if there were six people living in a small house, they are almost certainly going to be having six showers. They’re going to have six bedrooms that are heated. They might have an electric car that they share. But their fixed tier 1 rate is the same as somebody in a 10,000-foot mansion with one person.

The electricity usage is not normalized by the number of people it’s being applied to. It’s basically tier 1 based on your actual meter. That’s not right. That doesn’t actually address the issue. The issue would be addressed with by dealing with the rates — the tier 1, tier 2 — and focusing on providing assistance, like has been done in other provinces, particularly in cold provinces where heating bills can be outrageous in the winter.

I’m getting a $750 electricity bill. It’s kind of high for two months, but there are four people in my house. I don’t know how somebody on a low income could afford 750 bucks, particularly if they live in Dawson Creek, particularly if they’re heating their homes with electricity instead of gas. How could they afford this?

These are the measures and means and ways we deal with the affordability issue — by targeting those who need the leg up, rather than blanket hydro rate freezes for one and all.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Well, again — I’m not — I’ve never been opposed to…. Natural gas right now is a premium for heating. It’s actually quite cheap. It’s $2 and change at Chetwynd, I understand — $2.50 or something like that. Really, really cheap. You’re basically losing money taking it out of the ground in northern B.C. But the way you make money…. The reason why Fort Nelson has dried up is because there are dry gas fields, obviously. But we’ve got the liquids in the Montney which we can actually sell.

On this topic that was so astutely brought up by my friend from Peace River South, I met, in Kelowna West, a fellow in a coffee shop who had just left Fort Nelson. He’d sold his natural gas company. The reason why he left is he felt that the long-term economics of natural gas is not good in light of the fact that there is a global oversupply.

What’s his focus? Where has he moved into? He has moved into the petrochemical and value-added industry in the carbon sector. There is a future. We are going to need plastics. We can actually extract hydrogen from the methane. We can actually create hydrogen, which is a storage fuel. There is a lot of innovation potential that can and will happen in our natural gas sector, but it means we’ve got to think differently from what we’re doing.

[4:45 p.m.]

In the throne speech, another success that was mentioned was ICBC. Or rather, the throne speech states: “Years of apparent neglect and inaction have led to big problems at B.C.’s public auto insurer. This government has rejected the double-digit increase in rates for drivers and has taken decisive action to keep rates down.” That’s a success that is outlined in response to the escalating financial crisis within ICBC.

Again, we were somewhat critical of government when, after the initial report was made public, things were taken off the table prior to standing back and reflecting upon that which was actually contained and what the solutions were, but we do know that we do support a number of the measures. We do believe that the red-light cameras being enabled is a good thing. They were just turned off. We do believe that we need to take a close look at some of the soft-tissue claims. We also like the focus where we’re focusing on the patient and the care rather than on the actual litigative aspects of ICBC.

There’s an awful lot that needs to be done. In other jurisdictions that have public insurance, there’s a form of no-fault. I know that trial lawyers will be very upset about this, but it’s a discussion we need to have about keeping prices down. Other provinces that don’t have public insurance have a form of private insurance. With private insurance, you start to get rules and regulations as to why someone would actually offer you insurance, for example. They put limits on claims, or they will limit the amount that they’ll pay off in claims. Again, we believe that that’s a discussion we should have.

Obviously, our preference is to fix ICBC. As I said at the very beginning, it is a legacy — frankly, a good legacy — of Dave Barrett, who was mentioned in the beginning of the throne speech as a leader in British Columbia. We continue to look forward to see how the Attorney General, who I see has joined us here…. I do apologize, hon. Speaker; I’m not supposed to mention about the presence or absence of any member in the House. We do look forward to seeing the measures that he will continue to outline as we move forward with respect to revitalizing ICBC.

To the issue of housing. We know that the issue of affordability is fundamentally coupled with the issue of housing availability and affordability. It’s not only reducing tolls. It’s not only eliminating MSP or reducing them. It’s actually being able to find a place to live and a house to live in that you can afford. Now, the B.C. NDP, during the last election campaign, campaigned vigorously on the fact that they would be taking steps to deal with both supply and demand. I tend to agree with the Leader of the Official Opposition that the 114,000-new-unit number is wishful. I’m not so sure I understand where that number comes from, and I do resonate with the analysis that was presented.

On the other hand, I do recall — and I commend it, and continue to — the good work of the now Attorney General who was raising so many issues with respect to the demand side. We see, mentioned in the throne speech: “Government’s first step must be to address demand and stabilize B.C.’s out-of-control real estate and rental market.”

I’m very pleased to see those words there. We know that this is not a supply problem. It is a demand problem. We know that there are 7½ billion people in the world. We know that around the world there are tumultuous times. We know that real estate is a safe haven, particularly when it’s British Columbia real estate. A lot of capital is coming into B.C. That capital is being parked here as an investment, as a bank account to ensure that money is protected because of our stable democracy, our quality of life, our attractiveness and the fact that real estate, particularly in some regions, was affordable.

Hon. Speaker, I will be designate on this particular speech.

The issue of affordability is not only a Metro Vancouver issue nowadays. Perceived value is not there to the extent it was in Vancouver. But perceived value is there in Victoria, in Kelowna, in Nanaimo, in Parksville and many other places in British Columbia where we’re now seeing prices dramatically increased as people leave Vancouver and say: “I’ll sell my $300,000 bungalow, which I bought 15 years ago, for millions. Then I’ll come and drop a million bucks in Victoria — what’s that? — and I’ll pocket $2 million and do very well, as a retirement fund.”

[4:50 p.m.]

The problem here is that the disparity between income and rent, as well as housing, has grown so much that we have a crisis. Crises require dramatic steps. Tinkering around the edges will not deal with the problem.

My own property assessment value, its paper increase, went up 25 percent in one year. All that tells me is that we need a 25 percent correction in the market where I live, because that’s a completely artificial gain. It doesn’t reflect the value of my home. It reflects speculation in my part of the riding of Oak Bay–Gordon Head, which has seen out-of-control real estate prices.

We called for bold steps, mirroring what was done in New Zealand, mirroring what was done in Australia — bold steps to say we have a crisis now, and when you have a crisis, you need to deal with this in a very, very firm way. We called for a ban on offshore capital being allowed to buy property and land in British Columbia.

The stories we got, whether it be the thousands of hectares in northern B.C. that were bought up by offshore corporations to grow hay that is bubble wrapped and shipped abroad, creating an externality of rising hay prices in the region and lack of availability…. This isn’t right. We’ve heard stories about one constituent who came into my office — well, two of them, actually — how they had two friends, or friends of friends, come here on a tourist visa, and each of these business people bought five houses and then got on a plane and went home, and those five houses lie vacant.

We’ve got story after story after story flooding our in-box. Let me tell you, I have never seen so much for support for an issue as I have seen for support to take immediate steps to clamp down on the ability of offshore capital to come into British Columbia to purchase our real estate.

A number of years ago — I think it’s three years ago now, after senior homes and the issue of MSP premiums and the affordability issue there was raised — I raised it in this House. We started a campaign, a petition campaign. We started a public relations campaign to gauge public support. I think it was overwhelming that people felt it was a regressive tax, and they wanted to see it dealt with in a progressive fashion. We received thousands and thousands of emails. Our petition had tens of thousands of names on it. But that pales in comparison as to the support for taking steps now.

The most outspoken, the most passionate people speaking out, are actually first-generation immigrants to British Columbia — people who came to British Columbia, with their families in many cases, for a better life. They came to this country because of what we could offer in terms of opportunities — for jobs, for places to live and for the beautiful environment. Now they see that their children are no longer afforded the same opportunities that they were.

These are the people speaking out. These are the people who are begging government to take steps. So while I asked it again today in question period, and I got the same answer that we must wait for the budget, let me tell government that there is pent-up anxiety here on this issue, and we hope that government delivers on its promises. We certainly hope that government delivers on its promises.

We were somewhat disappointed with the response that is being done with respect to Airbnb. We recognize that it was a good first step from a taxation point of view. But Airbnb got the best advertising they could possibly have wanted here in British Columbia.

Unless you couple that with an aggressive ability to allow municipalities to actually limit, to have business licences or to tax though vacancy rates across the province, this will do little other than incentivize a particular company, a winner. The government has in essence chosen a winner. What about vrbo, vacation rentals by owner, another organization? What about the people who list on Craigslist? It’s a dangerous precedent to set when you are picking winners and losers, particularly when we’re in a zero percent, or close to zero percent, vacancy rate.

The throne speech says that government will introduce legislation to crack down on tax fraud, tax evasion and money laundering in B.C.’s real estate market. We are very excited about that. We welcome that, and again we look forward to the details that will be outlined, hopefully, in the budget coming up next week.

[4:55 p.m.]

Again in the throne speech, the budget says the government will “begin to make the largest investment in affordable housing in B.C. history, including social housing, student housing, senior housing, Indigenous housing and affordable rentals for middle-income families,” and so on, so forth.

We welcome investment in affordable housing, and we look forward to seeing what the specifics are in this regard. We were very concerned about some of the language emanating out with respect to how the rental agreements will be changed. We must protect renters and the rights of renters, but we also must protect the rights of landlords, particularly those people who didn’t have any pension — those people who put real estate as the source of their pension. If we start to clamp down on their ability to make ends meet, we don’t actually deal with the problem of affordability. We create an additional problem.

The throne speech talks about enabling local governments to plan for affordable rental housing by zoning areas of their communities for that. Again, we’re excited to see that this is coming through. It’s been asked for by both UBCM as well as the city of Vancouver. One of the things we campaigned on, which we’re pleased to see in there, is that the government plans, through the throne speech, to work with local governments to help plan for and build housing near transit corridors. It makes sense. It reduces congestion, and it maximally utilizes space.

We’re interested to learn more — details were scant — about what the government’s thoughts are on this new housing hub that’s being proposed as a division of B.C. Housing. We are unsure of what this goal is, but it seems essential that a new supply would meet the needs of the communities that are seeking new supply. We assume the housing hub will actually work to ensure government investment matches community needs in some way or another. Again, we’re looking forward to the details coming up with that.

Coming to where we’re a little concerned, and what we’re again looking for information for, is the issue of security and safety for renters, where it says: “government will introduce stronger protections for renters and owners of manufactured homes, and protections for renters facing eviction due to renovation or demolition.” Now again, clearly, there are some very high-profile cases where seniors or others are being evicted for so-called renovictions for a simple paint and shuffle so that rents can be jacked up. Clearly, we share the concern of government in that regard.

However, again, one has to be very careful in introducing legislation that one doesn’t hurt the good landlords and actually doesn’t stop them from being able to continue to rent. As we know, if you start to put more and more regulations on housing rentals, we may start to drive that stock out of the rental market — unless it’s done carefully.

There comes a point when someone says: “It’s just not worth the hassle. I’ll hold this, but I’m not going to rent it, because if I rent it, my rent is so controlled that it’s going to cost me $10K when the tenant moves out, and now I can’t reap that.” One has to be very, very careful with this.

At the same time, we do have forms of renovictions going on now. We have demovictions going on now in the heart of Burnaby, near the Kingsgate Mall, where low-lying three-story apartment buildings are being condemned left, right and centre. It’s going on as we speak, right now, in downtown Kelowna, as land assemblies are being made in downtown Kelowna. Along Cambie Street in Vancouver, it’s one big land assembly.

Now, this sounds like, “Okay, we’re going to end up building rental accommodation or condos or whatever,” but when you displace these people and you just hold these properties for land assembly, you are creating affordability issues.

The city of Burnaby is in crisis from a rental perspective. High-end condos are replacing low-lying affordable rental units with no plan in place to actually deal with the displaced people. This is a crisis.

Sure, it brings in lots of money through development fees, etc., and through taxes to municipal coffers, but it creates a social problem that we have to get a handle on. So we’re looking forward to seeing, as the government talks about introducing the housing measures, how it’s going to deal with issues like this — with issues like presales of condominiums and others offshore.

One of the things that we’re delighted to see in this throne speech is a very positive step forward. It’s a positive step forward that we tried to pressure, as did the now government, the former government to take steps to remedy.

[5:00 p.m.]

That is the inability, at present, of colleges and universities across British Columbia to build student housing on their campuses without incurring public debt. There are so many potential…. There are people waiting across British Columbia, whether it be Camosun College in my riding, University of Victoria in my riding; whether it be UBC, Simon Fraser; whether it be Kwantlen College. Capilano has no housing. The ability for these institutions to build housing on campus will take students out of the market in larger communities onto campuses, thereby easing pressure, as well, in the larger communities.

We have a captive audience on campuses. We know that if there are creative means of allowing these institutions access to capital, that capital has a clientele that will service it in perpetuity. Those are the students in the institution, and they can do so in very effective means. So we are pleased to see this.

The government also talks, in the throne speech, about making the largest investment in retrofits and the renovation of social housing in B.C. in more than 20 years. Talking about: “These upgrades will preserve much-needed housing stock, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce home heating bills.” Now again, cautiously optimistic. But I get a little worried about the amount of money being spent and where that money is going to be coming from. This is why we’re quite excited, as the throne speech mentions the emerging economy task force and the innovation commission. There is a very real move to invigorate the B.C. economy in areas where we’re leaders not only today but also tomorrow.

With that, we also recognize that retrofitting creates cottage industries of renewable energy companies, building designers, and so forth. We know the previous Premier, prior to the last government, recognized that too, through the programs that he and his government introduced that actually spurred growth in a diverse array of the building sector — the clean, green building growth.

It’s a matter of saving money. If you can actually spend 15 percent to build a little bit more, to build a building right now, you’ll amortize that in a few years based on today’s technology. It’s about giving people the ability to do that, and we look forward to seeing how that’s going to come down in the weeks ahead.

To the issue of child care. Much has been made about the lack of the word “$10-a-day” in the throne speech. To be honest, that’s a slogan. The actual $10-a day plan was a community plan. That’s what it used to be called. Didn’t have as catchy a slogan. We recognize that child care is an important component of our platform, the NDP platform and also the Liberal throne speech and that we need investments in this. But the investments must come strategically, not through a slogan but ensuring that we have quality access not only to child care but early childhood education and educators for our next generation, the future of our society.

We see a lot in the throne speech about child care. We’re a little troubled by the lack of discussion in there about early childhood education. Child care is not about building spaces. Child care is also about ensuring that we treat the profession of early childhood educators and child care providers as a valued, high-paying profession in our society.

One of the barriers to actual access to child care is the barrier of actual trained ECEs. As a society, we seem to think it’s okay to pay slightly above minimum wage to people who are looking after our next generation in the most critical years of their development. We really need to give our heads a shake, as a society, if we think and expect a child care provider to earn $15 an hour, and we’re going to get people, the best and brightest, in this profession.

They’ve got to make ends meet. They have to afford bus fare. They have to afford to eat, and it’s tough. So we’re hoping we see not only the creation of spaces but incentive programs that will actually supplement the wages of our early childhood…. Such programs did exist in B.C., and they probably still exist in some, but not to the scale that they’re needed.

[5:05 p.m.]

We have to recognize that we need to ensure that ECEs, child care providers, are viewed, like teachers, as the most important profession in our society. What sort of society are we if we don’t view as our number one priority the education of our next generation, who are the next generation that will take care of us as we age, the next generation who will discover the cure for cancer, the next generation who will find the innovation to ensure that B.C.’s economy is competitive internationally. That is why, in the last election, we campaigned on investing more than $4 billion over four years into public education, as well as early childhood education and child care.

You know, we have a present system in child care whereby access is a problem. Let’s suppose I’m a low-income person and I want to get access to a child care space. I have to pay up front, and at the end of the year when I file my tax return, I get my child care tax credit back. I don’t need the money then. I needed it to pay my fees up front.

That is why one of the innovative ways that we put in our platform was actually to change the child care tax credit into a child care taxable benefit. That is, money upfront isn’t a barrier, but if you earn below a certain amount and you access that child care, it’s viewed as a taxable benefit. Let those who pay and those who want to pay and have the ability to pay, pay.

As Karen Isaac, executive director of the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society, said: “Given the long history of Aboriginal children being forcibly removed from their families and communities to residential schools and current high numbers of Aboriginal children being taken into government care, it is no wonder that some poverty-stricken families may be ambivalent about government child care programs and see it as another type of policing over children and their families.”

We must be particularly careful as to how we implement and roll out our child care strategies in Indigenous communities in British Columbia. Our view of what appropriate child care is — when I say “our,” the majority of members in this House — is not the same view as many, many Indigenous communities across British Columbia.

Indigenous communities have a rich history. Frankly, rich is the wrong word. They have a sordid history of having their children taken from their families, of being forced to have their children taken to schools that they did not intend to go to. So we look forward to seeing how this will play out in the days and weeks ahead.

We’re also keen to see that government is looking to create more child care spaces. But there was some worry, again, in the language of the throne speech where we talk about a main focus on changing unlicensed to licensed providers. That’s important. We want our children to be looked after — licensed providers. But that’s not the only thing we need to focus on.

Obviously, this so-called Baby Mac law will be critical in terms of dealing with issues that led to the tragic death of Baby Mac in 2017. However, we must remember that it’s not only about the creation of space, and it doesn’t just mean converting unlicensed to licensed. It also means attracting new people into the profession by paying them well, by ensuring that societies value this through education and by working with employers to help facilitate employers actually building child care and early childhood education programs in their corporations and places.

There was a lack of focus on early childhood education in the throne speech. To us, our view is that child care is not only about babysitting; it’s about education. When a child is growing from those early years through to puberty and adulthood, they are very much influenced by the surroundings around them. We hope, as we discuss the child care plan moving forward, that we recognize and reflect upon not only the rights of Aboriginal people but also the importance of education in child care.

I’m very pleased that in the throne speech we hear a focus on poverty reduction. The B.C. Liberals have acknowledged that they stopped listening to British Columbians about the importance of poverty reduction; about the importance of the growing disparity between those who have and those who don’t; and about, from a purely fiscal point of view, the fact that it costs society when this disparity grows in terms of the services that have to be provided.

[5:10 p.m.]

If you were to eliminate poverty, you would eliminate the needs for a lot of social services designed to actually deal with poverty. This is why a housing-first strategy is the preferred approach by so many poverty advocates and why it has been so successful in jurisdictions in the United States where it’s been implemented.

You promote a housing-first strategy. You cannot deal with issues of mental health and substance abuse unless you get someone in a home — a safe, stable place to be. Once they’re there, these other issues can be dealt with. In doing so, you save from the judicial system, you save in the hospital system, the medical system, you save in the health care system, and you save in the welfare system. You give people housing first. We hope that we see a move towards that as this government continues to deliver on its throne speech.

We’re thrilled with the discussion of the B.C. Human Rights Commission and the fact that it’ll be rejuvenated. We’re delighted with the report that was recently released by the Fair Wages Commission, alluded to in the throne speech. Again, $15 was a slogan. How we get there is what matters. What do we do beyond that?

We strongly support the recommendations of the Fair Wages Commission to become an established entity in perpetuity in this jurisdiction in order to take politics out of this decision-making in setting a minimum wage.

We also look forward to seeing what some of these labour code changes are going to look like. We have little detail, again, and much rhetoric in the throne speech. Good words — I’m not criticizing the words — but some of the details we await to see. We look forward to exploring those with our colleagues on both sides of this House.

Now coming to the economy, I am absolutely delighted, and our caucus is delighted, with the focus in this throne speech on what B.C. can be leaders at or are leaders at. I take the example of the forest industry. This is one of our strategic strengths. We have, in British Columbia, three things that no one else in the world can compete with us with.

We are the most beautiful place in the world to live. I get nods over there from the members opposite. We have one of the best education systems in the world — I’ve got nods there from the former Minister of Education — and international assessments year after year have B.C. at the top. I also have nods over here from another minister. There’s a collegiality here. It’s Valentine’s Day. We’ve all got to get on.

It’s a strategic strength. We know that we can offer employers some of the most highly skilled and educated workers in the world. Because of our environment, we can attract and retain them here. It’s the most beautiful place to live, but we also have access to boundless forests, wood, energy in renewable forms and water. These are our strategic strengths, recognized within this throne speech, which we can build on as we move towards a sustainable, diverse economy of the 21st century.

We can actually race to the bottom and try to play that game, but we will lose that game. If I dig dirt out of the ground in B.C., there’s a cost that we internalize here. We value our social programs. We value the importance of a minimum wage. We value our environment. It costs a little more to dig the dirt out of the ground here compared to, say, some place like Indonesia, where the same environmental and social costs are not internalized as part of the cost of doing business.

We can compete by trying to do a race for the bottom and forget our values. This is what we’ve been doing with LNG — I’ll come back to that in a second — or we can recognize that the way we compete, the way we grow our GDP, is through more efficient means of doing it, by bringing our technology sector together with our resource sector.

We rely on Finnish technology in our forest sector because Finland recognized that bringing its forestry sector together with its technology sector would lead to innovation, in terms of more efficient extraction, as well as the ability to sell the knowledge and the technology associated with that efficiency.

We have, in British Columbia, some world-leading companies. One of my favourites is MineSense. MineSense is a B.C.-based company that is, at the rock face, able to determine whether or not it’s efficient to ship rock and crush it or to lay it aside. These are means and ways of extracting — mining in much more efficient ways, more clean ways, more green ways — that allow us to compete not only in the pure mineral extraction but through the technology that we’ve done.

[5:15 p.m.]

This throne speech recognizes that our strengths are not in racing to the bottom, but in the fact that we are smarter and that we can attract and retain the best and the brightest.

Let me give you another example, Structurlam. Structurlam is an incredible Penticton-based, value-added forest company that makes CrossLam and glulam, replacements for steel and concrete. An 18-storey student residence at UBC is being built from 100 percent wood, CrossLam and glulam products.

Portland has a facility being built there from B.C. products — CrossLam and glulam. Alberta, across B.C., the Harbour Air terminal. These are beautiful value-added products that actually employ hundreds of people and use B.C. wood, family-based wood. They have a partnership with the Kalesnikoff family out in Nelson to provide some of their lumber.

This is where we succeed. Why do we need to ship a raw log to Korea or to China? China and Korea don’t need raw logs. They need lumber. They need value-added products, and if we bring technology together with our resource sector, we can do so more efficiently because the shipping is minimal in terms of the overall cost.

It’s the same, coming back to the pipeline. Why are we shipping diluted bitumen? Why are we even talking about shipping diluted bitumen to Asian markets? Frankly, I don’t even know that there’s an economic case for Kinder Morgan as it stands, because the largest supplier was going to be California, which now is going to get access to its upgrading products from the Keystone XL that’s just been approved.

Nevertheless, why would we ship those jobs offshore? This isn’t good for the Canadian economy. This isn’t good for jobs. Those jobs get shipped offshore, and — what’s worse — we’re now building a construction facility in Vancouver airport to import jet fuel. Rather than making the jet fuel here in British Columbia or in Alberta, we ship those jobs off and reimport. That’s the race to the bottom that I think we need to move away from.

Coming to LNG, we’ve had four years of this race to the bottom where we’ve tried so desperately to land the impossible that we literally gave away the farm. We’re not going to earn any royalties of any value or substance from natural gas for many, many years because of the deep-well credits where there were — it’s more now — at least $3.2 billion of unclaimed tax credits against future royalties because of the deep-well credits, which were designed back in the day when it was kind of costly to get deep vertical drills going. Since then, everyone’s got horizontal drilling, costs have come down, and — what’s worse — the previous government then jacked up the credits to shallow wells as well. So we’re not going to earn any money on royalties.

Where will we earn this LNG money? Fortunately, we’re not focusing on it in this throne speech. “Well, we’d earn it in the LNG income tax.” Oh no. Capital costs are coming in there. The income tax is cut. We offer below-market electricity, ratepayer-funded Site C to deliver electricity into LNG. You know, literally, we gave away the farm.

Landed costs of LNG in Asia years from now…. It was four bucks and change a few months back. I don’t know what it is exactly — it’s gone up a bit — probably six bucks and change. It costs us four bucks to get it out of the ground here in B.C. We can sell it for $2.50 at Chetwynd. It costs us about 11 bucks landed to actually sell it in China. How is it going to happen? What business case is there that a company is going to make a major investment here in British Columbia to lose money on every Btu of natural gas they produce?

Louisiana already has the infrastructure on the coast down there, and they already are taking up any supply gaps that existed. The Isthmus of Panama was recently widened. Russia has 20 times the total reserves of all of Canada, and it’s conventional gas, not shale gas. They’ve signed contracts in and around Asia.

China is now a seller of contracts because they’re oversupplied. We’ve got Australia not bringing onshore stuff that was almost ready to go because there’s no demand — and we think that this is going to be the direction for prosperity in British Columbia. What makes me sad are the false promises that were made by this B.C. Liberal government before us to the people of British Columbia. False hope, undelivered hope, and now the continued pressure to try to deliver the impossible, while recognizing that so many other opportunities are there and that we’re missing out on them.

[5:20 p.m.]

I’d like to take us back to March 3 of 2015. March 3 of 2015 was when I sat across, again, saying — I’ve been saying this since 2012: “LNG is not going to happen, because the market is not there for it.” On March 3, 2015, the then Minister of Natural Gas said: “You didn’t do your research. You don’t know what you are talking about…. I know the status of discussions. I know when the final investment decisions are coming. I know when the companies are planning on making those. I will enjoy the meal, to watch the member opposite eat his words in the next year or two.”

This was 2015. “I will enjoy watching him eat his words as final investment decisions come, which are coming down the pike, and he sees the construction of LNG.” A couple of months later he says: “I want to be invited to the dinner when he has to eat those words. It will happen in the not too distant future, I believe.” It’s 2018, three years now, and still nothing.

The fact that the members opposite think that they have any credibility on any aspect of the economy is mind-boggling, especially since…. What Finance Minister errs to the tune of $2.8 billion in a financial outlook? That’s reckless indifference to the actual economy, as opposed to fine stewardship of the economy. We know where that money came from: an out-of-control real estate sector and the construction industry that’s supporting it. But that’s not a healthy economy. That leads to a boom-and-bust economy, which is why it’s so critical that we diversify.

We look at the place of Terrace, British Columbia, for example. Rather than saying we’re going to try to squeeze LNG, like everyone else is doing, we could be asking: “What is it that you have in Terrace that no one else in the world can compete with?” Well, let me tell you what they have. They have the first three things we talked about: beautiful place, quality of education and access to resources. But they’re also on a railway line between Prince Rupert and Chicago, the gateway to Asia and the gateway to the eastern U.S. Why is it we always focus on the raw and not the upgrade or manufacture?

Terrace has an amazing opportunity, as a jurisdiction, to try to attract manufacturing there. Why did BMW go to Washington? Why did BMW build a factory in Washington to construct carbon fibre components for their i3 electric vehicles? Because they had access to clean, renewable energy and a stable workforce that they could attract and retain. Where was B.C. in these discussions? Chasing the natural gas unicorn or pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that kept moving. That should have been in Terrace.

Let’s look at Prince George. What’s its strategic strength? Well, it’s cold in Prince George right now, and they’ve got a ton of snow. I don’t know whether the member for Cariboo North was able to make it here today, but I know that the member…. We had some difficulty in a committee meeting because it was snowed in up in the region. But that’s a strategic strength, because that means it’s cold.

Why is it that data distribution centres are being built in the U.S.? They should be built in Prince George, because we know the single biggest cost to data distribution is cooling. It’s cooling, and when it’s a cooler place, it costs less. What’s the barrier? Not the speed of light on which information is transferred. The barrier is lack of access to broadband redundancy.

In British Columbia, historically we’ve thought it’s industry’s role to build fibre and broadband capacity into communities. Now, it’s great that industry has made these investments. But it’s very difficult for a strategic global company to want to move into a community where its only access to broadband is owned through another company. That’s uncertainty.

There’s a role for government, and we’re delighted to see this in the throne speech. There’s a role for government to create highways — not only bridges and roads that we drive trucks and cars on but also highways for information that everyone has access to — and we’re delighted to see some of that appear in the throne speech.

One of the things that the throne speech mentioned with respect to the forest industry…. Again, very supportive of the issue with respect to upgrading and value-added — this is one of our key areas. I was troubled by some of the statements there about getting the most value out of affected timber, in cooperation with communities, industry and First Nations. One has to be very, very careful about how you define value. Is it short-term or long-term? The quickest way to desertify, to make into a desert large parts of the Cariboo region is to cut down all those burnt trees, which are important for, actually, the rejuvenation of the next generation of forests.

[5:25 p.m.]

Again, I would urge government to ensure that they consult not only with communities, industry and First Nations but with scientific experts who have an understanding about forest rejuvenation, particularly academics who have done studies on this and can show you examples of where, if you cut down all the burnt trees, all you leave behind is a forest, because the nutrients that were there to actually create the next generation of growth are gone. I hope government’s careful with this as it moves forward.

I’m really excited, in the throne speech, not only about the mention of the innovation commissioner and the emerging economy task force, both of which we campaigned on, but about the opportunity this brings.

I’ve met with Alan Winter, the innovation commissioner, twice now, and I can say that British Columbia is so absolutely lucky to have a man of his calibre, of his strengths, of his connections to be our champion for the innovation sector in British Columbia. I look forward to him taking the programs that exist in Ottawa and matching them with B.C. programs to ensure efficiency and delivery of support to our innovation sector. He’s concerned about the fact that what happens in British Columbia is that companies grow and then move to the States. He’s concerned about creating the environment that will allow companies to grow and remain here in British Columbia. We have examples of where we’ve tried this.

We have a very troubling example right now playing out in B.C., with Bardel Entertainment, one of British Columbia’s top digital media companies, one of the world’s top. The company set up an office in Kelowna because of regional and distance tax credits to try to bring the tech industry out of Vancouver into other parts of British Columbia, when all of a sudden $5 million was pulled retroactively, in the flick of a finger in an amendment that we didn’t debate. When I tried to raise some issues here, I was told that we have to pass it now because the Lieutenant-Governor is coming tomorrow. Five million dollars it cost that industry.

I hope that we actually start to reflect upon the importance of this sector and the diversity of the sector across British Columbia so that we nurture and then grow our innovation here in B.C. and don’t ship and export the talent as well as the jobs elsewhere.

I’m delighted…. Again, a B.C. Liberal commitment in the election campaign, supported and adopted by both the B.C. NDP and by us, was the creation of engineering programs across British Columbia. We know that if you don’t train in an area, you often get sucked into the big metro areas of Vancouver and Victoria. The expansion of the engineering program in Prince George was a great thing for the diversity of our economy across this province. And we’re thrilled to see that a total of 2,900 new tech-related spaces at colleges will be created, as part of the throne speech, over the years to come.

To the issue of reconciliation. The throne speech talks about this government beginning, across ministry framework, to meet our commitments to the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Tsilhqot’in decision. Obviously, we support this, and we support the government as we move to reconciliation in partnership with First Nations.

Let me tell you, there’s suspicion, because Indigenous communities — First Nations across our province — are sick and tired of words. I resonate with that. As a climate scientist who spent 25 years in the area, I am sick and tired of hearing governments promise that we’ll reduce emissions by some amount sometime in the future and then not delivering or taking the steps to do it. What matters to Indigenous communities is not the words; it’s the action. So let’s start to show real action sooner than later as we move towards, truly, truth and reconciliation in this province.

The throne speech also talks about services to people under the areas of health care, education, and so forth. Again, we’re excited about the focus in this throne speech, away from corporate donors and large entities but towards people and small business. And the focus on bringing together family doctors, nurse practitioners and nurses in a community-based approach is one that we think not only the medical community but certainly our caucuses across this party can come to agreement on.

I look at the Oceanside Health Centre in Parksville-Qualicum as a success story. The only problem with Oceanside Health Centre is not the way it’s set up but the growing demand. Its wait times have increased and increased, because it’s a retirement community in there. It shows a model of the future, but it requires us to think innovatively about how we have billing in the medical profession.

[5:30 p.m.]

Doctors — there are shortages, no doubt, but many of today’s doctors do not want to follow the path, particularly in light of the growing bureaucracy that exists in the health care system, of having to run their own small businesses if they’re a family practice practitioner.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Any doctor who owns a family practice will spend, they’ll tell you, at least one day of the five in a week doing administration. Doctors want to be doctors. Young doctors today value the importance of quality in life, as the whole millennial generation do. So thinking about innovative ways of delivering health care through salaried positions, through allowing nurse practitioners to actually bill through the creation of teams, is something that we strongly support — and, in fact, campaigned on — and look forward to seeing the details of as this is fleshed out in the months and years ahead.

In terms of education, again, we see the commitment to fully fund class size and composition requirements. “More than 3,500 new teachers, librarians and counsellors are in B.C. schools, helping students learn in smaller classes with more individual attention.” We see this statement in the throne speech.

It’s quite unfortunate the way this has rolled out, as we know that we shouldn’t have actually ever been in this place to begin with, frankly. If we had not taken steps to take our teachers representatives to court multiple times, all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, we wouldn’t be in a situation where suddenly we have to hire thousands of teachers in the space of a few months, creating chaos, frankly, in many, many school districts — and within the child care and early childhood education system, where schools are scrambling for spaces and trying to actually meet the legally required commitments.

The throne speech talks about building schools. It talks about removing portables. It talks about seismic upgrades. That’s fine. But let me tell you, what matters in education is not the colour of the wallpaper or the size of the ceilings. What matters is the quality of the teacher and the resources that teacher has in the classroom, as well as the ability for a child to have access to the services they need when they need them.

What we need in British Columbia is enhanced resources in the classroom. Why is it that teachers across British Columbia…? Hon. Speaker, as a former teacher, this must resonate with you too. Why is it that teachers have to spend their own money to provide the actual tools that their children have to use in the classroom? We don’t ever account for that.

Hon. J. Sims: I want to know the answer to that.

A. Weaver: One of the…. I forget which riding you’re from — Surrey….

Hon. J. Sims: Surrey-Panorama.

A. Weaver: Thank you. The member for Surrey-Panorama. There are all these ridings in Surrey, and they’re all close to each other. They keep changing, because the population’s growing so fast, and I forget who represents which riding.

The minister pointed out that she wants to know the answer to that. Why is it, as a society, we don’t recognize what northern European nations recognize, that the single most important profession in our society is education? It’s teachers, early childhood educators, child care providers. These are the people who train the next generation of citizenship. These are the people who create the innovators of tomorrow through providing them skills to actually learn and constructively think.

We seem to think, somehow, that’s it’s okay to pick on our teachers, and that culture needs to change. I’m hoping, with this new government and the direction we’re seeing, that we’ll actually do that. Not only building schools — that’s nice — but actually giving teachers the support they need in the classroom.

Frankly, one of the biggest costs to the education system, and one of the biggest costs to the society, is the fact that something towards 50 percent of teachers don’t continue on after five years, because they’re thrown into situations without the support they need, without the resources they need, to deliver the curriculum that B.C. has, and it’s just unwieldy.

So we have survival of the fittest. We’ll, some of that’s okay, but think of the investment that we have done as a society into training those teachers to get them to the position that they’re delivering in the classroom.

Look at any school district, at the number of people who are on long-term disability because of the unwieldy conditions that they have to work in — the lack of support they’re given. These are costs to society. These are costs that we pay for. If we think of prevention, creating the environment that allows teachers to thrive, we actually save money in the long term.

I’m excited about where we’re heading with teaching. I hope to continue to push the government to ensure that it’s not only about seismic upgrades, but it’s also about giving teachers the resources they need in the classroom to deliver the curriculum.

[5:35 p.m.]

We’ve done remarkably well in the international PISA assessments, but we also have one of the highest rates of independent schools. Victoria used to have the highest rate of independent schools in the province. We’ve got to value our public education, because that’s our future. Let’s hope we continue down that area.

The throne speech talks about public safety. It talks about important areas in mental health. It talks about a lot of issues in that regard. Again, my concern with the mental health focus in the throne speech is not the importance of harm prevention, but the importance of…. Where we need to actually invest is not only in stopping people from dying but also to ensure that they’re not there in the first place and that there’s a pathway to recovery at the end.

Anyone who has spoken to firefighters or first responders anywhere in British Columbia will know that it’s not an uncommon story for a first responder to resuscitate the same person multiple times in a day, whether that person be in an emergency room, be a firefighter or a paramedic. That’s a cost.

Providing more access to naloxone — sure, it will stop people from dying, but it actually doesn’t deal with the problem. Why is it that people are there in the first place? To what extent are we dealing with the social problems in this province as a direct consequence of our K-to-12 system not having the access and resources that teachers needed in the early, formative years of children to actually ensure that society didn’t have people aging out into these situations? To what extent would we have been avoiding this had we actually given children the resources they need at the first onsets of diagnosis?

Good luck in British Columbia trying to get a child psychologist in a school district for your child. Those who have will go private, but those who are less fortunate have to wait and wait and wait. In many cases, early intervention would have led to savings in terms of outcomes down the road.

What about recovery? Housing first. It’s good to see the move towards talking about enhanced recovery facilities and also prevention. But it really needs to be our focus, and we continue to hope that government will move down in that regard.

To conclude, I’d like to deal with the issue of climate. In 2012, after being asked four times and finally agreeing to run as an MLA with the B.C. Green Party…. Let me tell you — and to my colleague Robert Stupka, who is running in Kelowna West — it is not the easiest pathway to the B.C. Legislature to run with the B.C. Green Party, particularly when no one had been elected before. You’ve got to work hard.

When I ran in 2012, I ran because I had spent years in universities teaching. I spent years talking about climate. People and students would ask me: “What can I do?” I’d say: “There are three things you can do. Number one is that you can use your wallet.” Each and every one of us has a wallet, and we send a signal to the market by the way we spend. If we buy more efficient products, more locally produced products, that’s the direction the market will head.

We only have to look at the organic food sections in grocery stores. That was a direct response to societal demand. When I was a kid, you would have gone bankrupt if you had an organic food department in your grocery store, because no one would’ve wanted to pay for it. Now people are willing to pay a little bit more, such that we’re at a stage where the price difference is negligible between organic or non-organic. That’s the power of the pocketbook.

There’s also the power of voting. We live in a democracy, and we have a system in place where we need to put this issue, if it’s important to you, front and centre in decision-making.

That is why, when I talk to students, I also put up the chart showing youth turnout in elections. Historically in B.C., it was 30 to 40 percent of youth voting and 70 to 80 percent of seniors over the age of 65. Cynically, you can see why people campaign on reducing hip and knee replacement lineups, because you know you’re catering to an audience that will vote, and you can make a very real effect on their lives such that, three years later, you can point to what you’ve done and say: “Look. I listened to you. I reduced those lineups. Vote me back in.” You know that 70 to 80 percent of seniors will vote.

If you’re someone with a vision, like the former Premier of this province, Gordon Campbell, and you bring in place policy measures that you will never reap the benefits of yourself…. We know that socioeconomic inertia is such that the warming we have in store over the next couple of decades is a direct consequence of past decisions, and the decisions we make today will not actually affect those who make the decisions, but it’ll affect the next generation and after. When leaders like Gordon Campbell stand up and make that a priority, they need to be supported, and you need to vote people in who have that vision.

[5:40 p.m.]

Invariably, these students…. In public lectures, people would say: “Oh, these politicians — they’re all the same. All they want to do is line their pockets. They’re in it for power. They’re all corrupt.” Then you can say, and I did: “Well, if you don’t like it, run yourself, because this is the system we’ve got.” It’s a lot better than anarchy, frankly, although some Libertarian candidates may disagree. It’s a lot better than anarchy, and I’d say: “If you don’t like it, run yourself. Find somewhere to run.”

You can only do that for a few years before you really take a look in the mirror and say: “Really? Am I offering this advice? I’m no different from anyone else. Do as I say and not as I do.” In running with the B.C. Greens…. If anyone is interested, you can see it. We had a documentary filmmaker follow the campaign. I didn’t think I was going to win. But for me it was a matter of principle, because I could not look my students or my children or, frankly, my family in the face and continue to say one thing and then do another.

When it came to see this throne speech and when it came to our discussions after the last election, you can rest assured that the reason why I was thrilled to actually agree to a confidence and supply agreement with the B.C. NDP…. The reason why I am thrilled to see this in the throne speech is that British Columbia is now repositioning itself to take advantage of not only the challenge but the opportunities that arise from this challenge as we move towards the 21st-century new economy, in terms of diversifying it and moving to the clean, low-carbon economy.

But I’m the first to say — and my Indigenous friends have many centuries of this; I have a few decades — that I’m fed up with words. What I want to see is action.

I look forward to working with this government in the months and years ahead as we develop a pathway that actually recognizes that dealing with climate change is the greatest economic opportunity British Columbia has ever had. Because of our strategic strengths — with the most beautiful place in the world to live, one of the best education systems in the world and the ability to access boundless energy, timber, fibre and water — we can position ourselves to move ahead. So bring that in together with the innovation commission and the emerging economy task force. This is a really exciting time for British Columbia.

Now, we can be very cynical here. I get that there are political games, and people want to get in power. Or we can recognize this is what it is. It’s a minority government where, I would say, every member in this place ran because they wanted to make British Columbia a better place for all British Columbians. We can actually do that.

My commitment, my caucus’s commitment, to both sides of this House is that we genuinely want to advance good public policy. We want to work with opposition and advance good amendments. We want to be given the courtesy of actually being able to have the time to reflect upon these amendments, rather than having them spring upon us on the floor and then sending out tweets and press releases saying: “B.C. Greens Side with MLA.” That’s politics.

People in British Columbia are sick of that. They want us to work together. Whatever happens tonight in Kelowna, I look forward to working with the winner in Kelowna, whether that winner is Ben Stewart, Shelley Cook or Robert Stupka — or, wouldn’t it be interesting, that self-described pit bull, the B.C. Conservative Party candidate in that riding. We’d like to work with all of them, and this place would be much the better for it if we do.

With that, I’m delighted to stand in support of the throne speech. I look forward to fulfilling the goals met in the throne speech, and I look forward to seeing, over the weeks ahead, the details emerge as we debate a budget and then the bills that accompany it.

B. D’Eith: The throne speech outlined the continued path that this government is taking to make life more affordable for B.C.’ers, improving our public services and making sure that our strong economy is working for everyone, not just the wealthy. Included in this plan is the largest investment in housing and child care that the province has ever made. British Columbians have made their priorities clear. People are frustrated with years of rising living costs, dwindling services and fewer opportunities. They expect this government to take action and make life better. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.

[5:45 p.m.]

I’m proud to be part of a government that’s making different choices and moving B.C. in a new direction — one that’s focused on people, with solutions to make life more affordable. As far as affordability, when I ran for this office, it was clear from talking to people at their doorstep that their lives were unaffordable. Many are living paycheque to paycheque or having to go into debt to cover basic housing, food, transportation or other living costs. In B.C., the cost of living is rising faster than the incomes, and this is putting incredible pressure on individuals and families, who are anxious about their future. Many people in my riding simply can’t get ahead, so I’m very pleased to see that making life more affordable is at the forefront of our government’s priority list.

We’re making different choices for people. The steps that this government is taking to make life more affordable will do more than simply ease people’s financial burdens; it will create opportunity. With a little bit of extra money, instead of simply surviving, people may choose to upgrade their education, train for a better career or start a family. They have the opportunity to enrich their lives with activities beyond simply paying the rent or buying food.

We’ve seen this happen with our government’s move to waive tuition fees for former kids in care. Since we eliminated tuition fees for this group, the number of former youth in care getting a tuition-free education has jumped 20 percent. That’s a whole world of opportunity that has opened for these young people.

The break from parliament allowed me to spend a lot of time in my community. I met with many groups, organizations and individuals who benefited and will benefit from the policies on affordability that we are making.

One of these, of course, was the bridge tolls. The cuts to the bridge tolls — and the Golden Ears Bridge, in particular — affected Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Mission, north of the Fraser. I met with a number of businesses from Maple Ridge that really saw an amazing gain from the loss of the bridge tolls. Companies that service equipment and machinery, construction workers and tradesworkers that work south of the Fraser and live north of the Fraser have been able to save a lot of money. That impacts the bottom lines in their businesses, which means more money for their families. I’ve heard from students and commuters who work south of the Fraser that they’re already saving hundreds of dollars.

Now, we all know that this infrastructure has to be paid for, but loading that burden onto a select group of B.C.’ers on the Port Mann and the Golden Ears bridges was simply unfair. So I’m very proud of the government’s action to make the lives of my constituents more affordable by getting rid of the bridge tolls on the Port Mann and the Golden Ears bridges.

Of course, MSP premium cuts. That’s going to save up to $900 a year for many families. We’ve reduced the MSP premium by 50 percent, and we’re working towards completely eliminating that fee altogether. MSP premiums were cut by 50 percent on January 1, marking an important step towards improving fairness for all British Columbians. In addition to the 50 percent cut, the income threshold for full exemption of MSP premiums under the premium assistance program was raised by $2,000.

As of January 1, 2018, people are already enjoying the savings. One of my constituents was actually confused by her monthly bank statements. She had more than she expected. She came up to me at an event and said: “You’re not going to believe it. I had more money in my account than I expected, and it was because the MSP didn’t come out as much.” She was really excited to tell me this story. She was smiling, and I’m sure a lot of other B.C.’ers are smiling as well.

As far as ICBC rates, the B.C. Liberals made some seriously bad choices in regards to ICBC and kept those choices and their disastrous results secret from people. People in my riding were shocked by the blatant withholding of the truth and the depth of the ICBC debt that was stated before the last election, by the previous government. The actual debt in 2017 wasn’t the projected $11 million that the B.C. Liberals projected. It was actually close to $1 billion. That’s a 9,000 percent increase from what was previously communicated by the former government.

Luckily, the Attorney General has taken the necessary steps to get our provincial automobile association and corporation back under control and keep our rates under control as well. When I was running last year, people in my riding were facing double-digit rate increases under the previous government, costing them potentially thousands of dollars per driver.

Now they actually have hope that this will not get out of hand and that ICBC can get back to what Dave Barrett envisioned. We’re sad to lose him this year, and I think it’s important for our government to respect the legacy that he left us.

[5:50 p.m.]

As far as housing, the throne speech announced the start of the largest investment in affordable housing in this province’s history, including social housing, student housing, senior housing, Indigenous housing and affordable rentals for middle-class families. The government will also introduce significant new measures to address the effect of speculation on real estate prices and to crack down on tax fraud and money laundering in British Columbia’s real estate market.

With record-low vacancy rates and extremely high rental rates, many renters in B.C. are afraid of eviction and unexpected rental increases that will force them to move. There’s simply not enough good, affordable rental housing available, and this is putting incredible pressure on B.C. families.

In fact, home ownership is quickly becoming out of reach for so many young families. I mean, when I bought a house in the ’90s, our first townhouse…. We bought our house with a small down payment, and we were able to buy up and buy up and buy up until we were able to get the house in Maple Ridge that I have now. I can’t see my children or their friends having that opportunity right now with the way that housing prices are. So that’s something that we really have to look at for our children and for young families.

These housing prices are being driven up by speculation, and it’s pushing people further and further away from their jobs. We just read in the paper that there are a lot of people moving out to the valley now. Thousands and thousands of people are moving out to the valley, which is great for the valley, but it’s tough, because a lot of people work in Vancouver and would love to be able to live where they work. Of course, with people moving out, this is putting more pressure on our transportation systems and keeping people away from their families.

Of course, the other issue is that attracting new business to our province is becoming more difficult in an environment where the high cost of housing means employees can’t locate near their work. Even with competitive wages, attracting skilled workers such as teachers, nurses, construction trades and tech specialists into areas with limited housing options is becoming a huge challenge.

Another big issue is our seniors. They’re struggling, often having to stay in their family homes instead of downsizing. This is putting a lot stress on many seniors who are having to struggle on fixed incomes to pay rent, food and medication. In our province, there is more than a half a million rental households. Faced with nearly zero vacancy rates, these British Columbians often find themselves trapped in housing they can’t afford or have grown out of, yet they can’t afford to leave.

Some landlords have exploited the situation, using loopholes to force renters to pay more or leave. For too long, the rights of renters were neglected. I’m really pleased that last year our government took the first steps to help renters by closing fixed-term lease loopholes, ending geographic rental increases and increasing support to the residential tenancy branch. That will also help landlords.

This spring our government will introduce stronger protections for renters and owners of manufactured homes and protections for renters facing eviction due to renovation or demolition. The government will continue to support low-income renters by enhancing the Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters grants and rental assistance programs for families to address the gaps that have grown between those vital supports and the true cost of housing.

Starting this year, the government will be making the largest investment in retrofits and renovations of social housing in British Columbia in more than 20 years. These upgrades will preserve much-needed housing stock, reduce greenhouse gases, reduce housing bills for tens of thousands of people and, of course, will help our trades and our businesses by having employment for all those workers that are involved in those upgrades.

As far as my riding, I’ve heard a lot of stories about housing. We had a single mother come in to us about there not being enough affordable housing for wheelchair access. Her son is in a motorized wheelchair, and most of the apartments that were in her price range had little steps. They were older and had very small elevators, or the ones that could accommodate his chair had no vacancies. I’ve heard from other constituents regarding accessibility issues in low-income housing because so many of the buildings are old.

A constituent who moved into his house 45 years ago…. He really wanted to stay, but he couldn’t afford the upkeep associated with owning his home. He only has CPP and OAS, and now he’s had to sell his home to live off the money from the house by selling his house.

Another woman in my riding was renting a house with her family, and when the property was sold, they got evicted because the new owner said he was going to live in the house with his mother. Two weeks later they found out that the house had actually been rented to an entirely different family, and the man who had evicted them was, in fact, the property manager, real estate agent. They went to the residential tenancy branch and were awarded a month’s rent, but they couldn’t collect because the property manager refused to give them the contact information of the owner and told our constituents to drop the issue.

[5:55 p.m.]

These kinds of issues, where there’s dual agency and a number of issues with unscrupulous managers or real estate agents, really have to be looked at in these kinds of situations.

Our government is committed to creating more housing through partnerships with local governments, the federal government, co-ops in the private sector and other partners. We will close eviction loopholes and give renters more ways to protect themselves. We will also curtail the unhealthy real estate speculation that’s been going on.

As far as our services, one of the issues that seems to be just awful and seems to be growing is our opioid crisis. We need to deal with it. According to the B.C. Corners Service, 1,422 people died in British Columbia of illicit drug overdoses in 2017. That’s approximately seven people dying every two days. B.C.’s first-ever declared health emergency continues at an alarming rate.

These statistics are unacceptable. I’m sure everybody in this House agrees with that. Too many people are losing their lives in this overdose crisis, and it’s devastating our families and communities.

Our government took swift action. We have a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. That was created as a stand-alone ministry to provide a single point of accountability, focus and action. The ministry has announced a bold new approach to this crisis with the creation of a new overdose emergency response centre and community action teams in communities.

The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions said: “Each community action team will play a crucial role in targeting resources where they’re needed most on the ground and in their communities. This is critical to saving lives and connecting people to treatment and recovery.”

The government will actually create 18 of these regional community action teams to start to support B.C.’s hardest hit communities with expanded available naloxone, new overdose prevention sites, expanded access to drug checking and vital supports for first responders and volunteers who are responding to multiple overdoses.

The ministry will also launch a new public awareness program aimed at reducing the stigma of addiction. One of the things that we learned recently is the vast majority of overdoses are actually happening in people’s homes and apartments. Reducing the stigma of addiction should help people to get to the help they need for opioid addiction and get the help when they need it.

The government is also working with Indigenous partners and other sectors to save lives and provide better and more culturally appropriate supports. B.C. is investing $20 million over three years to support First Nations communities and Indigenous peoples to address the overdose crisis.

Of course, B.C. will also continue to give police the tools to fight fentanyl in our neighbourhoods, including more police officers and dedicated anti-trafficking teams.

The overdose crisis is a difficult and complex problem. Communities, front-line workers and first responders are working around the clock to help, and I’m pleased to see that our government is taking the steps needed so that we can tackle this tragic health emergency.

Maple Ridge was actually one of the 18 communities identified through the overdose emergency response centre’s data as having an urgent need. The CAT will intervene quickly to save lives and deliver proactive and comprehensive support to people at risk.

What will happen in all of these 18 communities is there will be a $100,000 one-time funding for the OERC community action team grants to drive this work forward. The CAT will focus on four areas of action to save lives and support people with addictions with a pathway to treatment and recovery.

First, they will expand community-based harm reduction services. They will increase the availability of naloxone. They will address unsafe drug supply through expanded drug-checking services and increasing connections to addiction treatment medications, and proactively support people at risk of overdose by intervening early to provide services like treatment and housing.

I’m very grateful to the ministry that these new resources are being delivered to my community so that we can have the tools to deal with this crisis.

Another big issue in our community is health care. We have all heard about the long waiting lists and access to family doctors. Recently I met with our local family practice professionals. In Maple Ridge in particular, we actually need 23 new family physicians, and recently a clinic was closed down because we simply do not have enough family physicians. It’s now commonplace to see the sign up in clinics at three o’clock saying there will be no more doctors available for the rest of the day.

[6:00 p.m.]

Part of this, of course, is that doctors self-limited to 50 patients a day. This was a cap that they set to be reasonable and so that there weren’t abuses to the system. But some clinics are closing their doors at 3 p.m. because there’s no doctor. Another issue is that people are lining up before 9 a.m., and then the quota fills very quickly for the day, and they just simply stop taking any new patients. This is also compounded by the competition between various cities for family doctors and doctors choosing to specialize. This is resulting in more and more shortages.

Basically, too many people don’t have access to the health care they need. We have overcrowded hospitals, long waiting lists for surgeries. And the endless search for a family doctor just continues.

Getting people faster, better health care is key to getting well and staying healthy. It’s really important for our government to really focus on the team-based approach to health care. Our government is committed to bringing family doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and other health care professionals together to offer this team-based care that will improve access to health care for patients while reducing pressure on our emergency rooms.

Long waiting lists for surgeries are frustrating for patients and prolonging their pain. Our government is taking action to reduce surgical waiting times and getting people the help they need faster.

As far as seniors, seniors deserve our respect after a lifetime of service to building our communities. How is it that under the previous government, 85 percent of our senior care homes don’t meet the minimum number of hours of care per day? Many of our seniors are left without help for getting their basic care.

Our government is committed to increasing the time caregivers spend with seniors. We’ll provide more support for family members to care for their senior loved ones, and we will train more people to meet future demands for care in our province.

It was great to hear last week the Minister of Health announce that British Columbia is also eliminating PharmaCare deductibles for working families with the lowest incomes in the province, helping to make sure that they get the prescription meds they need that they’re currently really struggling to afford.

This $105 million investment in Fair PharmaCare over three years will eliminate or reduce the deductibles for 240,000 B.C. families. All families with household net incomes under $45,000 will benefit. The Minister of Health said the biggest impact will be felt by families with net annual incomes between $15,000 and $30,000, and they will have no deductible starting January 1, 2019. That’s very exciting news.

One of the cornerstones of the throne speech was the investment in child care. It really is a trap for many parents. I know when I had three children under the age of five, and my wife and I looked at her going back to work or me going back to work — what we should do — the cost of child care was about the same as one of us working full time. So at that time, she chose to not work, which actually put a lot of pressure on our household. When she finally did go back to work, she had lost about five years of seniority.

This is a very common trap that happens with a lot of parents. They’re faced with child care payments that are close to a mortgage payment or more. So the people in my community continue to talk to me about the need for quality, affordable child care.

That’s why I’m really excited about the significant investment in child care in our province’s throne speech. The government will make the most significant impact on child care in B.C.’s history, towards implementing a comprehensive child care program. This will reduce costs for families and meet the needs of families around the province.

Our government is taking the first steps towards a made-in-B.C. child care plan that will first reduce child care fees for thousands of families, increase training for early childhood educators to create quality child care spaces, and help thousands of children and families get a better start and grow our economy to the benefit of all British Columbians. Our Premier is quoted as saying: “We know when we invest in child care, everyone benefits…. We will make significant investments to make sure families have access to safe, quality and affordable child care.”

My community is already seeing the benefits of this government’s investments in child care. In fact, the ministry announced they’ll be providing 470 new child care spaces by investing $4 million through the child care major capital fund program. With this investment in Maple Ridge, we will receive 350 new spaces through school district 42 and the Creative Cove Holistic Childcare Centre. So there are 308 through district 42 and 42 spaces through the Creative Cove Holistic Childcare Centre.

[6:05 p.m.]

This investment will allow these providers to build new child care facilities, including the cost of buying land and building — purchasing and assembling modular building and developing a site or renovating an existing building — and buying playground equipment. I’m so pleased that this local investment was a first step in this year’s announcement for British Columbia to really turn the corner on child care.

Many families, of course, work extra shifts and additional jobs just to have the privilege to pay tens of thousands of dollars per year for child care that’s often miles away from their work or their house. Other families are actually sitting on waiting lists with thousands of other families just to get the chance to have child care. These families are often putting their careers on hold and are forced to live on a reduced family income.

The previous government didn’t solve this issue, so people are not able to necessarily take that new job or get that education or pursue the opportunities that they want. So in partnership with the federal government’s child care plan, our government is committed to creating more licensed and affordable spaces in British Columbia. While the path forward is focused on licensed care, government is also taking steps to give parents who rely on unlicensed care greater security and peace of mind.

We’ll also introduce new legislation to give parents vital information about unlawful or problem providers of unlicensed child care. These new rules will give families the information they need to make sure they are making the best and safe choice for their children.

Finally, and very importantly, our government will dramatically increase training of early child care educators. We will invest in recruiting and retaining the dedicated professionals who work with our children around the province.

When we invest in child care, everyone benefits. Children get the best start and the opportunity to succeed. Parents can go back to work, earning more money to pay the bills and save for the future. Employers benefit from the talent of tens of thousands of skilled people, many of them women, coming back to the workforce.

Our government’s plan is going to change people’s lives. Safe, affordable, licensed, quality child care is a game changer. As can be seen, expanding our child care service is going to be a big job, with many, many moving parts. But I’m proud of the work that’s being done by the Minister of State for Child Care and the Minister of Children and Family Development and their incredible staff, who are going to deliver us quality, affordable child care. This work is transformative, allowing parents to work and provide for their families while increasing the labour pool for business. It’s a win-win-win in our society.

The next issue I wanted to deal with in the throne speech is public schools. In our area in Albion, in Maple Ridge, there’s going to be a new elementary school. Of course, this is ten years too late. We knew there was a need for this ten years ago. But instead of building, the former government decided to wait and wait and wait until the school board had to actually redraw the catchment around the development next to the Albion school to stop children from those houses from attending. The school was so crowded that a portable was put over the track and field, so the school couldn’t have sports day. Wow.

Instead of building the local high school to the needs that we need, the previous government cut back and built a school half the size. In Mission, cuts to school board budgets resulted in the closure of a rural school, the Stave Falls Elementary School in Mission, one of over 200 schools closed by the previous government. We’re going to build new schools in the fast-growing districts, and we’re going to get children out of portables as fast as we can.

In fact, I was really pleased to hear of the expedited seismic upgrades that have been announced in our city. Actions are being taken immediately to create safer schools for our children in Maple Ridge, Mission and Pitt Meadows. Very exciting.

Of course, more than 3,500 new teachers, librarians and counsellors have been added to B.C. schools, positions that were ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada after a decade of battles with the previous government. Of course, it’s too late for an entire generation of children in my riding, who had to suffer through overcrowded classrooms, but so many teachers in our districts have been stretched to the limit trying to balance the needs of a variety of children in their classrooms. I’m very pleased that our Minister of Education is working hard to ensure that our teachers have the supports that they need and the space that they need to deliver the kind of quality education that our children deserve.

As far as post-secondary education, a lot of post-secondary students have been under a lot of pressure with increasing tuition fees, huge student debts and challenging housing issues.

[6:10 p.m.]

As Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, with a number of different MLAs in the House, we did hear from many students and student organizations from around the province. They talked about the challenges faced by, particularly, the B.C. Liberals’ freeze on the building of student housing.

I was so very pleased to hear that our government, in this throne speech, will ease the pressures on students by helping B.C.’s public colleges, institutes and universities build new student housing. As students are able to move closer to where they study, the homes that they’ve been living in will be freed up for others. That is really going to help on our housing issue.

Also, by cutting student loan interest by 2½ percent, our graduates can get out of debt more quickly and on the career path that they chose. By making adult basic education and English language learning tuition-free, tens of thousands of British Columbians can prepare for a degree and upgrade their skills.

We’ve just started with our post-secondary promises and the things we’re going to do, but I’m really excited about the steps we’re taking.

In conclusion, making life more affordable, improving our services and making sure that our economy works for all of us is the primary goal of this government. This throne speech continues the work that was started when we formed government last summer. In particular, this throne speech announces the largest investments in housing and child care in provincial history. These are key areas of need in our society, and I’m proud of the work that’s being done to make the lives of my constituents better every day. It’s for these reasons and the reasons I set out that I speak in support of the throne speech.

E. Ross: Happy Valentine’s Day, hon. Speaker.

Under normal circumstances, a Speech from the Throne marks a new beginning for a government. It outlines a public agenda and, hopefully, plots a path to future prosperity. Unfortunately, yesterday’s Speech from the Throne is greatly overshadowed by a cloud of uncertainty which is only going to lead to anxiety for people that want a job, a future or to create a business in B.C.

In fact, this idea of spend, spend, spend the money that you have without thinking about the revenues being brought in for the future is how you characterize Indian Act bands all across Canada. I can tell you from experience, B.C. and Canadian citizens: you do not want to live like an Indian band living under the Indian Act. You do not want to do that.

So 80 percent unemployment. Poverty. That’s what happens when you just become dependent on government programming without thinking about additional revenues. You become dependent on government — not only your governments, but people as well.

The throne speech that doesn’t really plot a future in terms of prosperity or revenues is actually quite a surprise to British Columbians, if not the Premier himself, because for the past few years, B.C. has been the leading economy in Canada. No other province provided more opportunities than British Columbia.

We are a large jurisdiction, strategically located on the west coast. British Columbia is aptly described as the gateway to the Pacific. That’s because the rest of the country relies on us to ship their goods from our ports to new markets in Asia and beyond. We compete directly with other west coast ports located in the United States. In fact, we are surrounded by the United States. Most people think of Washington and Alaska when they think about our neighbours, but we also share our southern border with Idaho and Montana too.

While the United States remains our largest trading partner, they are also our economic competitors. This is something to keep in mind with this current federal administration south of the border. Our forestry industry is already under threat from the ongoing softwood lumber dispute. Just this week President Trump singled out Canadian lumber products. He also identified our dairy industry as another example of “very unfair trading.” This is the same president who is threatening to end the North American Free Trade Agreement.

[6:15 p.m.]

All of this undermines our current and future prosperity for British Columbians. In this context, we can little afford to alienate friendly trading partners within the Canadian Confederation. It makes very little sense to me. With all the economic uncertainty related to the United States, why would we pick a fight with our closest neighbour and trading partner?

In 2016, British Columbia came to the assistance of friends and family in Fort McMurray when wildfires consumed that part of Alberta. It was an overwhelming experience that drove thousands from their homes. Last year, when our firefighters in B.C. were exhausted from battling similar threats in the heart of our province, it was the people of Alberta who stepped up and helped us out during our hour of need. That’s what friends and neighbours do.

B.C. and Alberta are tied, because we share a western economy. So why has this government done its best to deliberately antagonize Alberta? We’re talking about two NDP governments. Both belong to the same political party, yet we still find ourselves in an escalating trade war with Alberta. Why?

The members opposite are very fond of demonizing the previous government over the course of 16 years, but it took this minority government little more than six months to ignite a trade dispute within our Confederation. They have turned a prosperous trade relationship between B.C. and Alberta into a dumpster fire. The B.C. wine industry is the first smoldering victim of this trade dispute. Our natural gas will be the next.

So $70 million worth of B.C. wine sales have been cut off by the government of Alberta. According to the B.C. Grape Growers Association, Alberta is the second biggest wine market for the industry. We are talking about 12,000 jobs in British Columbia that rely heavily on sales to Alberta.

Grape growers and winemakers are asking why their industry is being singled out. The answer to that is an NDP government that is desperate to hold onto the reins of a minority government, but they have lost control of the economy — and all of this to please their partners in the Green Party.

Dumpster fires, once started, are dangerous things. Once they start, it gets out of control very quickly. The same applies to trade disputes. For example, energy exports are next on the list. The government of Alberta is already into talks concerning the purchase of hydroelectric power from British Columbia. We are talking about the potential of $500 million in annual revenues that B.C. will not see because this Premier has lost control of the economy. This comes right on the heels of the decision to proceed with Site C.

Regardless of the economics, B.C. could help Alberta reduce its carbon footprint by selling clean hydroelectric power from Site C, but this proposal has also fallen under the clouds of uncertainty generated by the throne speech.

We are now at the stage where Alberta has recruited a special task force to defend itself specifically against British Columbia. The Alberta task force is comprised of the following members: former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna, former Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, former Syncrude Canada president Jim Carter and one of Canada’s best-known legal scholars, Peter Hogg. This is unprecedented.

Can you imagine what kind of a spectacle this presents to our competitors south of the border? The energy sector, and probably President Trump in the United States, probably cannot believe their good fortunate with what’s happening in B.C. and Alberta — and Canada, in general.

Our neighbours to the south want Canada’s energy resources to remain landlocked in North America, because they can buy it at below market value. Once the U.S. buys our product at discounted prices, they can then turn it around and export it from U.S. ports to the customers that we wanted to serve in Asia.

[6:20 p.m.]

The throne speech talked about jobs, but given the attack on Kinder Morgan, the threats toward the fish farm industry and now what’s happening in the wine industry, the only jobs being created here are environmental activisms that are being funded by the United States. We don’t need to fund those. They’ve already got funding coming from outside Canada.

Their sole goal is being accomplished. They don’t want Canadian oil and gas products traded to Asia, where they can fetch a higher price. In fact, the more obstacles we put in front of our resource development, the more we subsidize the American economy. In fact, if anything, if we continue down this road, we can honestly say we’re standing up for American workers and the American economy, not British Columbia’s.

Now we face the prospect of an intervention by the federal government to resolve this dispute. If this government is truly serious about standing up for British Columbia, if the NDP and the Green Party really truly care about the future of this province, then they would rally at least around one central issue, and that’s around LNG. What I’m talking about is the unfair treatment we are receiving from the Canadian International Trade Tribunal.

A little more than a year ago, this little-known federal body threw a huge hurdle in front of our emerging LNG industry. The tribunal insists that huge steel components, none of which can be produced in Canada, are being dumped into Canada and causing injury to our domestic steel industry. The fact that some of these components are the size of a football field and impossible to transport overland doesn’t seem to matter to this tribunal. Furthermore, the loss of thousands of assembly jobs that Canadian steelworkers have performed doesn’t seem to faze this tribunal.

Why isn’t this NDP government willing to stand up to fight for these jobs, fight for the 4,000 jobs to build one LNG facility in Kitimat, fight for the additional 3,000 jobs to build an LNG pipeline from the northeast to the coast? Why can’t this be a priority for the government?

According to the Green Party, LNG should in no way be a part of the future of British Columbia. As a matter of fact, the leader of the Green Party interrupted the Premier’s efforts to promote trade in Asia with a simple tweet. And I don’t even know what a tweet is.

Interjections.

E. Ross: Thank you.

The Green Party threatened to bring down the NDP minority government by drawing a line in the sand over LNG. This is not very reassuring to investors when a Premier has to interrupt a trade mission because of posting on social media. This does not promote British Columbia as a stable place to do business. Put it this way: would you deal with a company that changes its terms at the drop of a hat?

And where do First Nations fall into all of this? We’re talking about endless consultations and more studies, but there’s been no talk about talking with First Nations that have already signed on to these linear projects and who are using these projects as a possible way out of poverty, out of the issues that surround unemployment.

Now, I hear a lot of talk about the Aboriginal issues in B.C. and Canada. I truly understand that a lot of people in this House can’t speak to it because you haven’t lived it. You haven’t seen it. You haven’t experienced it. But these issues are real, and they’re affecting real people. Not one solution from any level of government over the last 40 or 50 years has provided the solution.

The only thing that has offered a glimmer of hope for First Nations is economic development on a scale that a linear project like LNG provides.

Most of the time what I see are the politicians who spend a couple hours on reserve and then go back and report on what they’ve seen in just a couple of hours. Try spending 50 years on reserve. Try spending a lot of time with a leader who’s frustrated that he’s got no other solution other than to fight, fight, fight for more funding from the federal or provincial governments.

Most of the time what I see governments doing is talking with Aboriginals that have no responsibility or no concern about the well-being of First Nations people in Canada, instead of talking to Aboriginal leaders who truly want a way out.

[6:25 p.m.]

In the throne speech, it talked about the previous government’s inaction in relation to First Nations people. I have to disagree with that. The previous government made every effort to engage First Nations in development projects in their territories. I know this for a fact because I was there ten years ago when we negotiated the first forest and range agreement with the provincial government. That forest and range agreement just got renewed again five years ago, and it’s up for renewal this year.

That was our first step into being included in the economy of B.C. and Canada, and it provided a tremendous amount of hope. It was one of the first indications that we could pull our own people out of the cycle of poverty through revenue-sharing and tenure. I know the members opposite don’t like to hear these facts, but the previous government was not inactive when trying to deal with First Nations issues.

There were almost 500 agreements signed between the government of British Columbia and First Nations. In fact, the number of agreements signed between British Columbia and First Nations is unprecedented in our common history — more than 190 agreements since the 2014 Supreme Court decision regarding the Tsilhqot’in. These agreements range from everything from clean energy agreements to mine-related revenue-sharing agreements, LNG agreements and, specifically, pipeline benefit agreements for those First Nations along the rights-of-way. All of these can make a major difference in the future of a First Nation.

When the NDP and the Green Party start telling the world that pipelines will never go through, that LNG is not part of the future, you’re basically telling the First Nations that the status quo is going to exist for a long time: “You’ll have to live with your unemployment. You’re going to have to live with your poverty.” And why? Because the NDP and the Green Party are more concerned with preserving their fragile minority government at the expense of people like Aboriginals or wine producers in this province. You have to wonder whose side this government is on.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

There was a lot of mention of the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples — UNDRIP, the acronym. I had questions in estimates in the last session, and it’s not that I oppose UNDRIP. I do not oppose this declaration that comes from the United Nations. I question the implementation. When you talk about the legislation and the statutory decision-making, how is that going to roll out?

First Nations have been in court for too long. Ever since 1982, they’ve been in court, and the defining court case, I thought, ended with the Haida court case on the duty to consult and accommodate. I thought we had the answers because the results were showing First Nations jobs, economic development, equity, training. I thought we were done with that.

To bring in UNDRIP, undefined, and not to explain what it means in the context of rights and title is setting up First Nations for failure. Even when you talk about the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples as being a human rights document…. I don’t understand that either. Are we saying that a single person that doesn’t represent First Nations interests or is not a leader or is not elected…? Can they stop resource development projects? Do they have to be consulted?

When we’re also talking about UNDRIP, I question what it means in terms of strength of claim. Given the case law around rights and title now — especially strength of claim, specifically strength of claim — does this mean that I, as an Aboriginal, can claim Vancouver Island because my ancestors used to canoe there? This is what rights and title case law says. Your claim is based on your evidence so there are no frivolous overlap disputes between First Nations.

This is my fear — that First Nations will end off fighting each other because of frivolous claims over each other’s territories that they have no right to claim. Current case law in B.C. and Canada speaks to this. If this does happen and UNDRIP does get implemented and First Nations do end up in court to dispute this, First Nations will spend all their money going to court instead of spending their time trying to build a better life for their members and their future members.

[6:30 p.m.]

Yet this government still does not want to promote the development of our natural resources, and this is the one initiative that can dramatically improve Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal lives for the better. It’s been proven in my community: a 180-degree turnaround, 92 percent in favour, in our last vote six years ago, of LNG — 92 percent in favour. The 8 percent that oppose it still stood in line for dividend cheques and for jobs that came from it. They didn’t turn it down.

If you want to talk about a good anti-poverty reduction plan, come to my community. A good anti-poverty reduction plan, the simplest one, is a job. Give them a job. Don’t make them unemployed just to prove that your poverty reduction plan works. Support resource development.

By the way, the education…. That’s a good point. Come to my reserve. Our plan for education failed, because what’s the point of educating people if there are no jobs? Come see the unemployment level in Kitimat. See how discouraged people get when you educate them and they find out that they’ve got to leave the territory. So they don’t leave the territory.

What you guys are trying to do here has been tried across reserves all across Canada: spend, spend, spend, but let’s not build an economy. Let’s not provide jobs. If you’re talking about sustainable jobs through government, that’s what the Indian Act provides. That’s only sustainable under taxes, and any government that gets in can take those taxes away. Indian Act funding is what put First Nations in the awful position that they’re in today.

You guys are speaking like you know what these issues are. Come live in a reserve for a few years. Come try to govern at the council level and see how frustrating it is.

But we will see next week in the provincial budget how the government plans to pay for all these election promises. You can either raise taxes, fall into deficit financing or reduce program spending in other areas to help pay for everything mentioned in the throne speech. Maybe it’s a combination of all three. But the most important thing is to have a plan to grow revenue as a province to pay for programs, to give people jobs. That is what was missing in the throne speech yesterday. Not a single word about growing the economy.

The NDP used to be a party that believed in resource development, but they have abandoned their commitment to grow jobs in the energy sector, all for the sake of preserving their relationship with the Green Party. We all want a greener economy, but the pathway there involves the use of our current resources, including fossil fuels. We can’t just shut down the entire province — or the entire country, for that matter.

By the way, there was a lot of talk about the surplus that was generated by the previous government. Was it $1 billion? Was it $1½ billion? Was it $2 billion? This government is doing its best to spend it, which is their right. The programs that they’re spending it on are good programs. But without replenishing that pot, without keeping a surplus in your back pocket, you could fall victim to what’s happening all around the world today.

I don’t think people realize that countries can go bankrupt if they’re not fiscally responsible. Greece went bankrupt. There are about ten major cities in the United States that went bankrupt because they were not fiscally responsible, and you know what happens to them? It’s not the government that suffers. They’ll run for re-election. They’ll get their pension. But the first people to get affected will be government workers who won’t get their pension. Inflation will rise — 20 bucks to buy a loaf of bread.

[6:35 p.m.]

The people will suffer if governments are not fiscally responsible, if they don’t bring in revenues to pay for services. Once people lose their jobs, you can’t tax them. Like a member from Nisga’a told me, you can’t tax poverty.

Canada is a confederation, and we should take advantage of all that it has to offer. We should build on it to make it a better place for ourselves, our children and our children’s children. After all, that’s why the people of B.C. elected us in the first place.

Hon. S. Robinson: As Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the minister responsible for TransLink, I’m absolutely delighted to rise today in support of this throne speech, a throne speech that outlined a clear path to improve services and make life better and more affordable for people.

Our government has made aggressive commitments to address the frustration that people have been feeling for years. It’s frustration that I certainly heard when I was sitting on the other side of this House. They’ve had years of rising living costs, dwindling services and fewer opportunities. Action on these items and these commitments that you’ve heard in this throne speech will be front and centre in next week’s budget, including historic investments in housing for British Columbians.

Preparing a comprehensive housing strategy and preparing for the largest housing investment in B.C. history was a tremendous amount of work, not just for me but certainly for a whole number of people who work in my ministry and the B.C. Housing staff. I want to express my extreme gratitude for their hard work, not only in putting together this comprehensive housing strategy but in taking very swift action when we announced it in our September 2017 budget update — able to deliver on some immediate situations right around the province. They have done the lion’s share of the work, and I want to thank all of them for their commitment.

I also want to thank my ministerial staff here in Victoria: Craig Ashbourne, Daniela Gardea, Christine White, Lisa Grant and Matt Djdonlic. They help keep things running smoothly and make sure that I have the opportunity to meet with the people I need to meet with, that I continue to hear the stories of British Columbians and that we put together this comprehensive housing strategy that addresses the needs of British Columbians for the long term.

I also want to thank, certainly, my constituency assistants, Laura Gullickson and Linda Asgeirsson, because they keep things going on the home front, making sure that my constituents are well taken care of, and they do a fabulous job.

Of course, where would any of us be without our families’ support? I want to extend gratitude to a fabulous husband, Dan Robinson; my kids, Aaron and Leya Robinson; my dad, Irv Dardick, who’s probably my biggest cheerleader; and my in-laws, Gary and Sandra Robinson. They are our support systems, and I think that everybody here in this House usually uses their throne speech to acknowledge their support systems.

Mostly, I want to thank the constituents of Coquitlam-Maillardville. They sent me here, and it’s their voices that I bring into this chamber with me every single day. It’s their voices and their stories that I heard on the doorsteps, certainly over the last four and a half years, that have propelled me to make sure that we address housing affordability in particular and affordability in general.

It’s my ministry’s job to ensure that our work supports strong, healthy communities that are full of opportunity. Communities — whether they’re large or small, urban, suburban or rural — all want to be thriving places where we can raise our families, where we can age in place and where we can have a good life, a good life that we’re all prepared to work hard for. But due to the magnitude of the problems in our housing market, my predominant focus has been on housing affordability. It is the single biggest affordability issue facing our province today.

We will not follow the path of the previous government, which failed to address the housing crisis and just let the costs pile up for people. Our government is taking action to help make housing more affordable. We will curb speculation in B.C.’s housing market. We will make the largest investment in housing in B.C. history to help build homes for people. We will provide security and safety for renters and make sure that landlords have a balanced system so that we can ensure that there’s rental stock for years to come.

[6:40 p.m.]

The Speech from the Throne commits our government to take bold steps. More details will be coming in the budget next week, but I want to take a little bit of time today to tell you and to tell this chamber and to tell British Columbians who we’re going to be helping, because those are the voices that have propelled us to this place. We will be taking action to assist more than 1.5 million renters and manufactured home owners in our province, many of whom live in fear of unexpected rent increases and unfair evictions.

We will help post-secondary institutions and students with their housing needs. I have a friend of mine, in my community, who lives on a bus route in Coquitlam. She said that for the first time in the 12 or 15 years that she’s living in this house, she’s had two different students — one came at the end of August, one came at the beginning of September — just out of nowhere, out of the blue, just knock on her door. The first one knocked on her door and said: “I’m a student up at SFU. I cannot find housing. I’ve been trying for the last four weeks. I can’t find anything. Do you have a room to rent?” And this woman, Jennifer, just was shocked. In all the years, she had never had that.

It doesn’t end there. A few weeks later, in September, she had another student, also at SFU — because we live close to the university — who said, “Would you mind? Can I rent a pad in your backyard?” — because they have lane access — “Can I park my van? I’ll sleep there, but can I park my van? I’ll pay you rental if I can sleep in my van while I go to school.”

When she told me these stories, I was horrified, because in all of the years that she had lived there, in all the years that I had lived in Coquitlam, I had never had a student, randomly, out of the blue, come and knock on a door and say: “Help.”

Our government is here to help those very people. We know that the stress that students face can be helped by doing things differently. By showing some real leadership at the provincial level, we can make things better for them. By making investments to support students’ housing needs on campus, we will be able to free up affordable rentals in communities. Imagine that — where the students can get housing wherever they’re going to school. They don’t have to scrounge around, knock on strangers’ doors hoping they can get a room. Instead, they can get housing on campus.

Think about what that means for all of that affordable rental that students do take up. Because students do find affordable housing in communities right across British Columbia, that will free up a significant amount of housing for others who need affordable homes.

We want to restore hope and opportunity for young families as well. For these young people, we have an aggressive agenda to build more affordable rental housing.

Let’s not forget about seniors. We know about seniors. We know that they need more housing options, so they can stay in their communities even when they want to downsize.

Many communities across the province have identified suitable and affordable homes for local seniors as a major gap in their local housing stock. This is a story I heard, certainly from local governments when I was at the UBCM — I’ve certainly heard it in my community — where the two choices for living are either in your traditional single family home where you’ve raised your family, or you have to downsize into a very tiny bachelor apartment. Those are the only choices. There’s nothing else that exists in terms of housing stock, not even rental stock.

So we know that there’s a serious gap, and our government will seek to fill that gap. We’re going to address the need as we deliver on our commitment to build 114,000 units of new, affordable housing for British Columbians.

We also know that rents continue to rise, and seniors are struggling to pay their household bills. We’ve certainly heard stories of seniors having to make choices between medication and rent. That’s why we’re expanding eligibility and increasing benefits for the SAFER program, the Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters program — to help low-income seniors afford their rent.

We also know that women and children fleeing violence and abuse also need more attention from the provincial government. The old government just ignored them. We will be making a significant investment into housing options for women and children fleeing abusive relationships, so that they have a safe place to stabilize and to rebuild their lives.

[6:45 p.m.]

As we work with partners to build new housing, we must recognize that the most affordable housing that exists is the housing that exists. Across the province, there are more than 51,000 units of social housing. If we don’t maintain and protect the province’s existing supply of social housing, it will deteriorate. It will shorten its useful life, and it will leave vulnerable people at risk of losing their homes. We’ll be investing in that housing to improve safety and affordability over the long term.

These investments will also lower carbon emissions and cut energy costs for non-profit providers and residents alike. Through the new housing hub, we will be building partnerships so that we can build homes, a new division of B.C. Housing.

We will actively seek out partnerships with faith organizations, non-profits and others who have available land so that together we can build the right kind of housing for British Columbians — the kind of housing that they need.

I have an example of what that would look like. In my community, we have the Hoy Creek Housing Co-op. The co-op had been struggling for many, many years. It had deteriorated. They’ve had to board up a number of the units, because it was not a sustainable program. What’s interesting about this housing is that it sits on a significant piece of land that is right by a SkyTrain station. We were at risk. We, collectively, were at risk of losing this housing because the Hoy Creek Co-op couldn’t quite figure out what to do with this asset. They couldn’t quite figure out how to turn what was a deteriorating asset into something that would be vibrant and something more — that would offer more housing.

It took a lot of stumbling and fumbling and calling people and not knowing who to call and calling council and calling me as the local MLA and trying to figure out: what’s the best path forward? There was no leadership. There was no place to turn. This housing hub is going to be the place to turn.

Now a growing partnership between the co-op, the Community Land Trust Foundation, B.C. Housing, the Co-operative Housing Federation of B.C. and VanCity Savings Credit Union…. We have partnerships that are taking flight, and those partnerships have come together to ensure that the Hoy Creek members are not displaced while they build up to 300 brand-new affordable homes for the Tri-Cities.

The idea is to add those homes to the Hoy Creek site, ensuring that they are protected forever through the Community Land Trust. That’s a perfect example of what leadership looks like and how our government will make a difference for British Columbians.

We recognize that housing affordability is having a drastic effect on business owners, whose livelihoods are being threatened because employees can’t find a place to live near where they work. We know that the B.C. Chamber of Commerce surveyed, and 63 percent of businesses have strongly agreed that housing affordability is a major problem for them. We understand that building homes builds the economy. It helps with job creation and supports businesses that need to attract and retain workers.

I want to provide the House and you, hon. Speaker, with an example. There’s a company in Kamloops, Horizon North, that was selected to build 52 homes in Kamloops as well as 600 modular homes in Vancouver as part of our government program to address homelessness. This factory, for lack of a better word, can build with such efficiency and such innovation and in such affordable ways, that there’s real opportunity to deliver real homes to real people in a really meaningful way, as well as build local jobs.

When we put this order in as government, it helped this company double the number of skilled employees that they have in British Columbia. So there’s great potential, through a comprehensive housing strategy, to tackle affordability, while at the same time strengthening economy and supporting small local businesses. Together, through partnership and innovation, we will build prosperity by solving problems that face British Columbians every day.

Speaking of innovation, I want to make note of part of what we’re also going to be looking at: how to use wood in building housing. There is a tall wood building on UBC campus, and I would encourage the Speaker or anyone in the House to take a look at it. It’s pretty impressive. The opportunity to build an 18-storey wood building is unheard of. It’s the tallest wood building in the world, and it’s pretty impressive.

[6:50 p.m.]

The opportunity for us to be innovative and creative and using B.C. wood to build homes for people is something that I think is a real golden opportunity for us. It’s an opportunity that our government is committed to exploring. The approach with tall wood not only allows us to build higher and faster, but the structures are also climate-friendly, and by using a renewable source, such as B.C. wood, we are supporting the forest sector and strengthening B.C.’s industry.

I want to take a moment to recognize the work of local governments. The province recognizes that local governments are on the front line of the housing crisis, and our government recognizes how hard they have been working to hold the pieces of their communities together as we address housing affordability.

We are well positioned when we work together with local government to advance the development of new homes in communities right across this province. We are committed to working with local governments to enable efficient planning for rental housing on pre-zoned areas for their communities and working with them to plan and build affordable housing near transit corridors.

My ministry works closely and in partnership with B.C.’s 189 local governments, and I’ve appreciated the enthusiasm that local governments have shown for working with our government on housing infrastructure opportunities and important changes to the local government Elections Campaign Finance Act before they head into their elections this fall.

Local governments are putting forward solutions and raising the profile of some of their needs that have not been met for many years, and I want to thank all the local leaders who I have met with and who’ve helped to inform our government’s work in these areas.

Now, my ministry provides key assistance to help local governments create infrastructure for a host of essential services for communities and households. These services include clean water, waste water management, roads, green energy, solid waste management, brownfield redevelopment and disaster mitigation. In other words, it’s the stuff we all depend on for our daily lives.

What’s really important is that we recognize that local governments have a critical role to play, not just in affordability and certainly in addressing the housing crisis but also in making sure that our day-to-day lives run well, that we’re resilient and that we’re able to meet the needs of our families within the communities where we live.

Our ministry supports non-profits in B.C. through our community gaming grant program. The province funds around 5,000 not-for-profit programs through $140 million in community gaming grants each year. Gaming grants are available to a broad spectrum of organizations that make life better for British Columbians, representing arts and culture groups, sport, environment, public safety, human and social services and parent advisory councils.

This is the stuff that really makes our communities thrive, and it really makes our communities the heart of our lives. I’ve personally experienced the positive impact that not-for-profit organizations have in strengthening communities, and I consider it very important that our government continues to support their great work.

As the Minister Responsible for TransLink, I’m very proud to confirm our government’s commitment to supporting the Mayors Council for the ten-year vision that will deliver new transit and transportation capacity and make sure of projects that are critical to getting people out of traffic.

I have yet to meet anyone who likes traffic. We all hate traffic, and making sure we’re supporting this mayors plan helps to deliver on what people want. What they want are safe, efficient ways to get to and from work, to get to whatever sporting event they’re interested in, to get to visit their families, to get to visit their friends. They want to do it efficiently, they want to do it safely, and they certainly don’t want it to be in traffic. From my perspective and our government’s perspective, making sure that we’re investing in transit infrastructure is a way to make sure that people have more time to spend with their families rather than traffic.

Our government is also replacing the Pattullo Bridge — and the new rapid transit projects in Surrey and Vancouver, as laid out in the mayors’ vision. As we have said before, we will fund 40 percent of the capital cost of the mayors’ vision and work with all levels of government to deliver on the transit and transportation infrastructure that people need.

We stand by our commitments to work with the Mayors Council to advance their vision. We understand the timelines involved and are working closely with the mayors to advance these important projects as quickly as possible. We are going to continue to work collaboratively with all local governments, with First Nations, with the non-profit sector, with the development sector and whoever else wants to join us as we bring affordability back to British Columbia.

With that, hon. Speaker, I want to thank you and to thank all the members of the House for their time today.

Hon. S. Robinson moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 6:55 p.m.