Orders of the Day

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

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Throne Speech Debate

(continued)

M. Morris: As I was about to quote before we broke for our noonhour, I refer to the throne speech itself. When they talk about a “sustainable, diverse economy,” it says: “Your government’s vision for a fair and inclusive society will be built from the foundation of a healthy, growing economy.” [Applause.] Yeah, that does deserve some applause on that.

So “from the foundation of a healthy, growing economy.” I think this government can thank the previous government for building that solid foundation of a healthy economy. We left them with a $2.7 billion surplus. Not too many incoming governments have the benefit of a $2.7 billion surplus in order to build their future upon.

They go on in that, so I’ll also quote further. It says: “…from a clear understanding that we must create wealth in order to share it.” One thing that was obvious in its omission from the throne speech was how they plan on creating wealth. They’ve got lots in there on how they are going to share it, but they’ve got nothing in there to describe how they are going to create it. That’s problematic for British Columbians. They don’t know what direction that they are going in.

Do we create a sustainable, diverse economy by initiating a fight with Alberta, by initiating a fight with the federal government, by putting at risk $1.5 billion worth of their ocean protection plan, by restraining federal infrastructure spending, by risking billion-dollar export opportunities to Alberta, by losing a $150 million child care funding opportunity? That doesn’t sound like a sustainable, diverse economy opportunity for us.

[1:35 p.m.]

Do we create a sustainable, diverse economy by fighting Kinder Morgan in court, by damaging Canada’s international reputation and ignoring the findings of the National Energy Board in approving the Kinder Morgan expansion, by questioning the integrity of the Constitution of Canada and, by doing so, causing significant damage to the British Columbian and Canadian reputations as a country and a province to invest in?

We’ve had a lot of companies internationally…. I host the resource forum in Prince George every year, and we’ve had a lot of companies come to that resource forum to see what British Columbia has to offer. British Columbia has a lot to offer when it comes to the diversity of the resource sector that we have in this province, the people that we have in this province who can work in that resource sector, and the opportunities that it presents for the investors. I think the message they’re getting from this current government, though, is: stay away from B.C.

Do we create a sustainable and diverse economy by unnecessarily delaying Site C, adding $1 billion to the cost of the project? According to the minister during estimates, the project was on time and on budget as of the end of June 2017, just before this government took over.

Folks, the tough decision to proceed with Site C wasn’t made by this current government. The tough decision was made by our government when we were in government in 2014, after looking at the mountains of material and the data that was collected and the studies that were undertaken over the previous 30 years prior to that to indicate that Site C was a viable project for us to move ahead with.

The Premier unnecessarily delayed Site C. It was his own making. It wasn’t a tough political decision for him to make. It was a political decision, but it wasn’t a tough decision. It was caused by his own doing. But that decision caused thousands of B.C. workers all kinds of untold stress, for them and their families, leading up to Christmastime. “Are we going to be employed after Christmas? Are we not going to be employed? What’s going to happen in this great province of ours?”

Do we create a sustainable and diverse economy by changing an environmental assessment process that’s already considered to be one of the most rigorous in the world, causing more uncertainty for potential investors looking at opportunities in the province? They don’t know where the goalposts are anymore. So what are they going to do? They might just sit back and wait for weeks or months, perhaps years, for this province to re-establish whatever goalpost they may have out there so that everybody knows what the rules are.

Let’s look at the reality of a sustainable and diverse economy in B.C., one that’s threatened by the government’s actions. Rural B.C. contributes 78 percent of B.C.’s annual exports. A recent report came out called the State of the North Report. It was produced by the Northern Development Initiative Trust’s office out of Prince George. The research was done by MNP.

There’s some good data in this report. It says that “78 percent of B.C.’s annual exports….” That equates to between $24 billion and $30 billion, annually, produced by rural B.C. in exports. So $24 billion to $30 billion — that’s new money coming into our province. That’s not encouraging B.C. wine drinkers to drink more wine and recirculate B.C. money internally within the province. This is new money coming into the province from other countries, from other provinces. It’s creating thousands of jobs provincewide. Consider this when you think about the billions of dollars in export from rural B.C.

Let’s look at rural B.C. and urban B.C. When you look at the greater Vancouver regional district and the capital regional district in British Columbia, those two combined have over 60 percent of British Columbia’s population. So 60 percent of British Columbia’s population live in the capital regional district and the GVRD, but they only live on 0.57 percent of B.C.’s land base. Less than 1 percent of B.C.’s land base has over 60 percent of B.C.’s population. I think rural B.C. is punching way above its weight when you look at the contributions that we make, in the $24 billion to $30 billion a year in exports, for this great province of ours.

[1:40 p.m.]

Just to bring it home a little bit more, the capital regional district here in the greater Victoria area has approximately 400,000 people, according to the last Stats Canada stuff. In the northern 80 percent of the province, we have 330,000 people. So 330,000 people living in rural B.C. are contributing to 75 percent, roughly, of B.C.’s exports. People wonder why voters in rural B.C. get a little bit upset when they hear talk about proportional representation and some of the other things that are going on here. That’s because of the disparity that we see between….

Let’s look at the capital regional district, which is a stronghold for the Green Party that is basically forcing the NDP to look at the referendum on proportional representation. A small, little fraction of British Columbia is trying to force electoral reform upon all of British Columbia. They use many examples. They look at examples in New Zealand, in Ireland, in Germany as good examples of what proportional representation is all about.

Proportional representation in those countries probably works because of the population densities that you have. Population densities in Germany are 300 people per square mile. In Ireland, not much bigger than Vancouver Island, population densities are between 80 and 100 people per square mile. They’ve got the same population as British Columbia. In British Columbia, we’ve got 4.5 people per square mile.

When you look at the GVRD and the capital regional district, that’s where everybody lives. Very few people reside in the rest of the province. So when you look at proportional representation and you look at the Supreme Court decisions that have come down over the years that talk about effective representation and meaningful representation, it’s based on population, yes, but it’s also based on geography, regional differences between the different areas in the country and the provinces.

That needs to be taken into consideration when we dare go down the road to electoral reform in this province. I question the validity of the referendum that the government plans on holding. I don’t know if it would stand up to a Charter argument or not.

Rural B.C. continually punches above its weight. Look at that $24 billion to $30 billion that we contribute toward our export economy.

Our government, when we were in government for the last 16 years — we hear all the time about the great 16 years that we had — signed over 500 benefits agreements with First Nations communities in British Columbia, 500 benefits agreements with First Nations communities that are contributing to better economic performances in many of those First Nations communities. It’s raising people from poverty and giving them jobs and a meaning to carry on.

It was a step in the right direction when it comes to reconciliation. I think the previous government was leaps and strides ahead of many other jurisdictions in the country when it comes to reconciliation because of those 500 economic benefits agreements that we signed with many of those other First Nations. Other than the rhetoric, the throne speech doesn’t appear to contribute towards economic well-being for our First Nations.

They’re talking about more environmental assessment processes. They’re talking about stopping Kinder Morgan. They’re talking about LNG. I think there’s a lot of discomfort across the hall from me, with the government, in supporting LNG. That’s the life bread for many of our First Nations communities: the Haisla, the Haida, the Nisga’a, the Gitxsan-Wet’suwet’en. There are a number of people that will rely upon those projects to pull their communities out of disparity.

The throne speech also talks about building B.C. through infrastructure. I’m just going to talk a little bit on this. It speaks to the Pattullo Bridge. The Pattullo Bridge is a TransLink responsibility. So here we have the province stepping in and saying: “We’re going to build this bridge for you folks down here in urban B.C. because it’s a safety issue. It’s a high priority for us. It’s a safety issue.” What about the Massey Tunnel? What about the safety issue surrounding the Massey Tunnel?

[1:45 p.m.]

Can you imagine cancelling that tunnel project, a project that had been studied for years — thousands of pages of documentation indicating the breadth and extent of the research that took place on that? But it was cancelled merely because somebody within the new government thought that it was a pet project of our previous Premier. A pet project, so cancel it. “We’re not even going to look at it.”

I find that quite juvenile. That was a very juvenile determination that I heard coming from government to cancel a project that had been studied for a number of years, with thousands of pages of documentation on it, with all kinds of safety issues that had been identified — issues that were preventing emergency vehicles from passing through that very narrow confine along that highway system. They cancelled it because it was a pet project, in lieu of another project that’s the responsibility of transit.

It’s not a level playing field when we look at transit projects like the Pattullo Bridge and other projects within the Lower Mainland and greater Vancouver regional district. Those municipalities don’t pay a hospital tax, in my understanding, in exchange for the fact that they will look after paying their transit costs.

We pay our hospital taxes in rural B.C., and the province expects us to pony up with half the cost of building a new hospital in rural B.C. How do you think that sits with my constituents and other constituents throughout rural B.C. when they see the province now saying, “Well, we’re going to help you out. We’re going to build bridges. We’re going to put hundreds of millions of dollars into rapid transit and a number of these other projects down here,” and we need a new hospital in Prince George. We need a new hospital in Terrace, which has recently been announced. We need new hospitals and new medical facilities in a number of different areas in rural B.C. I think we need to have a look at that, and that needs to be rectified.

With reference to public safety, it was nice to see that the government continues to invest in police officers and specialized units to address guns and gangs. That was one of the strategies that we had in government. It’s still a problem that will be presenting itself to British Columbians and Canadians. But what I found troubling was that there was no mention of the critical need for police resources in rural British Columbia — communities that experience extremely high persons crimes, sexual assault and domestic violence.

I go back to my policing days, and I remember looking at the statistics for the province. In the northern three-quarters of the province, the persons crimes were always significantly higher in proportion to the property crimes. Down in the southern part of the province, more populated areas, property crimes were significantly more than persons crimes. It takes a lot more resources to investigate sexual assaults, homicides and domestic violence than it does to investigate a break and enter.

A lot of the missing and murdered women were driven from their communities because of the high incidence of sexual assault and domestic violence, yet we’re not seeing any dedicated resources for that. I look at the disparity between police resources in rural B.C. and police resources in urban B.C. In urban B.C., we have a number of police departments and detachments that are in close proximity to one another. They back up each other at a moment’s notice whenever the call for help goes out, which is great. That’s exactly what should be happening.

When you have a detachment like Williams Lake with 26 members in it versus another police department here in the capital regional district with the same amount of members, the Williams Lake detachment has a criminal caseload per member of around 160 criminal files per year versus 19 for the similar-sized police department down here in south Island, which has access to multiple police resources within very close proximity to them.

Vanderhoof is another area with criminal caseloads that far exceed what a police officer should have to worry about. In my experience, and I’m sure the member opposite will probably verify this, I don’t think it’s possible for a police officer to investigate much more than about 50 criminal files in a year, considering all the other work that he or she might have to have.

[1:50 p.m.]

With the complexities associated with criminal investigations these days, the complexities that have been passed down by various court decisions over the years, there is no wiggle room for an investigator to make a mistake. You start investigating a file, and you’ve got other files to work on at the same time. You make a mistake partway through a homicide investigation, and when it comes to charge approval, you don’t get charge approval because you’ve made a mistake somewhere along the line or the evidence isn’t there. You blow $1 million on an investigation.

Police resourcing is a critical area within the province that needs to be addressed, particularly in rural B.C. It would be nice to see the federal government step up to the plate as well and start paying attention to First Nations policing, the way they should have over the years.

One of the other areas I’d like to talk on is the poverty reduction strategy. I noticed that was mentioned in the throne speech,

I previously remember the minister responsible talking about some models that he was looking at internationally and within Canada, so I had a look at those jurisdictions. This was several months ago now. The one jurisdiction that he was talking about in Canada has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios that we have — pushing 40 percent. In B.C., we’re sitting…. Well, when we were in government, I think we were sitting somewhere around 15 percent. Who knows what it might escalate to in the next year or so?

What I’m saying is that that jurisdiction has also run deficit budgets year after year after year after year to the point, I believe, that something like 60 percent of their current debt load has been the result of the last seven or eight years of deficit budgets. Is that a direction that we want to go? Is that a direction that we want to take this province in?

We’ve had very little operational debt. We were in the process of paying it down. Do we want to mortgage our grandchildren’s future and have them paying for the services that we’re getting today? I don’t want that for my grandkids, and I don’t think anybody in this room, in this House, wants it for their grandchildren as well.

On this side of the House, we believe in free enterprise. We believe in balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility. As was demonstrated in our 16 years in government, we had several consecutive balanced budgets prior to this government coming into being. We provided this government with a $2.7 billion, maybe $2.8 billion, surplus to make life easy for them, to make it easy to make that transition into making British Columbia a better place. Yet I see from the throne speech that we’re going in the direction where we will be mortgaging our grandchildren’s future and, perhaps, our great-grandchildren’s future to pay for services that they want to initiate today.

In closing, it would have been great to see a little bit more substance to the pages of rhetoric that were in the throne speech. It just pains me to see that my grandchildren are going to be paying for a lot of the services that we have here today. I’m sure that they will be reminding me of this when I sit in my rocking chair in years to come and they’re coming and telling me about all the taxes they have to pay in order to cover the costs that this generation of government has incurred upon the people of British Columbia.

L. Krog: Considering the sense in the House today, I’m thrilled that anyone even noticed I stood up to speak. I wish to offer my apologies if I ignore the heckles of some of the members in the opposition. It’s only because I have a cold, and I’m a bit stuffed. So I might not hear their brilliant wit, as I usually often do.

Having said that, I want to talk about a couple of things first before I talk about the politics. Firstly, I want to recognize that there are members on both sides of this chamber who are facing some real health challenges right now. I want to express my sympathy to them personally and to their families as they face those challenges. We sometimes forget that mere position in life does not prevent one from suffering the same pain that anyone, high or low, does. That’s to be recognized here today — and the sacrifice those members have made in their own health. We all understand the pressures that come with this position.

[1:55 p.m.]

I also want to talk a little bit about Dave Barrett. Now, I know that given his iconic stature in the history of this province, everyone wants to clothe themselves, to some extent, in their relationship with Dave Barrett. In my party, it used to be Tommy Douglas. Everybody had either met Tommy Douglas or shaken his hand or been married by Tommy Douglas or sat next to him at a dinner or was introduced by Tommy Douglas.

Forgive me if I indulge a little bit personally by mentioning that I’ve known Dave Barrett for a long time. Indeed, it was that first successful election in 1972 — yes, you can do the math — some 46 years ago. It was the first campaign I worked in formally as a member of the New Democratic Party, helping elect Bob Skelly in a constituency that was then referred to as Alberni.

I don’t think I will ever forget the excitement or the sense of optimism that existed across the province, regardless of whether you were an old Socred or a long-time CCF’er, New Democrat, or even a Conservative or a provincial Liberal. We still had them in those days — real Liberals, not the current Liberals who are that wonderful amalgam of Conservatives and Liberals. They’re never quite sure what they are, but the great thing about it is you can take a position on a much wider range of political views when you can assert yourself being a B.C. Liberal.

There was an incredible sense of optimism. There were changes that people had been waiting for, for 20 years under Social Credit — 20 long years. I must say that one has that same heady sense of excitement today in British Columbia. After 16 years of the B.C. Liberals, we go into a full-blown regular legislative session with a full-blown NDP throne speech and a full-blown NDP budget to be presented next week.

It is an exciting opportunity to make progress on issues that British Columbians have had at the forefront of their minds and on their political agendas for a very long time. In our first-past-the-post system, which the members opposite are so fond of, we’ve never had a government in British Columbia, in my lifetime, that ever got elected with more than 50 percent of the vote. Arguably, the majority of British Columbians have always chosen….

Interjection.

L. Krog: In 2001. Yeah, the member may well be right, and look what that got us.

My point is this.

Interjection.

L. Krog: Things went downhill from there, I know. We don’t have to end up with Premier Clark. We won’t finish off the long story.

If I may continue, notwithstanding the interest of the member for wherever today, all I know is they pretend to represent rural British Columbia. I just heard the member for Prince George–Mackenzie indicate that Prince George is rural B.C. I hate to have to tell him. The last time I checked it was the city of Prince George, but we’ll get to that in due course.

The fact is that we have an opportunity, as promised in the throne speech, as promised in the last campaign, to give representation in a true and fair way, if British Columbians decide to do so, by way of proportional representation. I think it is an idea and a concept that is long overdue.

When I think of some of the reforms in the throne speech…. It talks about Dave Barrett, “whose many contributions to public life are still enjoyed by British Columbians today, including the agricultural land reserve and public auto insurance.” What I think is the very fact that tomorrow, if I want, although I probably won’t, I’ll have the opportunity to go and read what I said here today. If I want, I can have a CD made of it and sent to somebody I dislike or wish to bore to tears.

All joking aside, that was one of the fundamental reforms that was made by Dave Barrett. It changed the conduct in this chamber, and it is to be admired and respected and honoured, amongst the many other achievements of that government.

The books have been written. It was one of the most productive legislatures in the history of the province of British Columbia. I suspect, no disrespect to the current Premier, we may not be able to match that record, but we certainly have been given an opportunity, with the support of the British Columbia Green Party, to make some promising changes that will meet the needs of a modern world.

Now, I listen to the members of the opposition as best I can. The member for Prince George–Mackenzie gave what I will call an admiration for rural British Columbia, which I share with him.

[2:00 p.m.]

I was raised in a community that was so small, all we had was the general store and the post office and, a little later, a gas station and then a second general store for a little while. So I understand about rural British Columbia. It’s where I spent the first 20 years of my life.

Now I live in what would hardly be described as a metropolis, but it’s the city of Nanaimo. That makes me an urbanite. Now, why am I living in the city of Nanaimo? Why does anyone live in the city of Nanaimo? Why does anyone live in the city of Prince George or in Delta or in West Van–Capilano? They live there because that is the nature of our society.

We have not been a rural nation since the First World War. More Canadians live in urban settings than live in rural settings, and that’s been the story for literally 100 years. Why is that? It is not that people don’t like rural British Columbia. Gosh knows, they’re willing to spend big bucks to go out and see it, whether it’s whale-watching or kayaking or river rafting or whatever. It is because it is in the concentrations of urban population where we find our universities. It is where we find our large employers. It is where we find people with skill sets and knowledge to impart and capital and opportunity.

In a Canada where we lived and produced on farms and were largely and often self-sufficient in so many ways…. That worked for a few hundred years, but with the Industrial Revolution, that changed. As much as I appreciate what the member has to say, I’ve never heard him recite Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Perhaps he’d be wise to read it and get some sense of that lament, written several hundred years ago, recognizing already that rural life was largely disappearing then in Great Britain. Perhaps he would take some comfort from it.

As the member suggests proportional representation won’t do, our job is not just to ensure that rural British Columbia is heard but that rural British Columbians enjoy, as much as is reasonably possible, the level of services that urban British Columbians do. But geography is a pretty big thing to overcome. As someone once said, much wiser than I, the trouble with Canada was that it had too much geography and too little history. Nothing has changed. The bulk of us are crowded in a little strip within a few miles of the American border. That’s the reality of Canada.

When I hear the member talk about rural British Columbia as if he doesn’t represent an urban area, I’m always rather surprised. The fact is that Prince George is a major city. I know the members don’t want to bring up the ’90s, but I remember with pride who built the University of Northern British Columbia. I want to assure that member that the people of Prince George did not stand with pitchforks at the entrance to the city saying: “Gosh, no, don’t bring us one of those big urban universities. That’s the last thing we want, where we could educate our children close to home.”

No, the good people of Prince George had been promised — and worked for, asked for and begged to ensure — that they could have a university in their community. It was so the citizens from central British Columbia, which Prince George is — not northern British Columbia, central British Columbia — would have an opportunity to get an education close to home, just as they do in my city at Vancouver Island University, just as they do in the university of the Okanagan, just as they do in other communities around this province.

For the member to suggest, somehow, that the anti-urban party is over here in the government benches now, ready to destroy rural British Columbia, is beyond farcical. It is beyond farcical.

I would point to the history of the previous government, 1991 to 2001, and the Dave Barrett government, which made every effort to ensure that those communities survived, even some things which were ill-advised. Investing in Ocean Falls to keep the community from dying — now, the Socreds of the day said it was a terrible thing to do. But if it wasn’t the government putting its money where its mouth was to preserve rural British Columbia…. There’s just one simple example.

[2:05 p.m.]

Now, I have to also comment on the member’s remarks about the poverty reduction plan. He moved from a poverty reduction plan to leading the province to a high GDP-deficit ratio. Basically, he was saying that we would spend this province into bankruptcy by trying to tackle poverty.

Now, I don’t mind a big one. I’ve been fishing with the boys from time to time. I know everyone talks about the big one that got away. I get that. But it was really a bit of a stretch and a whopper — there’s a lot of line being let out on that fish today — to suggest for a moment that it is bad public policy, that to address the issues of poverty in your communities is somehow a bad thing. Now, come on. Really, I’d like to see that member come in here tomorrow and repeat those remarks again.

Maybe, just maybe — I’m afraid this might be the truth — we finally heard what the Liberal Party really believes about poverty — that they’re not prepared to actually address poverty. “It’s just this little issue over on the side that the NDP gets to play with, but we don’t really want to touch it.” As long as the majority of British Columbians were doing okay and the rich were getting richer and the real estate developers in Vancouver were happy and as long as Bob Rennie could raise lots of money and pay for the campaigns, life was grand. They were okay with that.

If that’s what the member is saying — and that’s the only way I can interpret his remarks — then I’d like him to confirm that again. I’m giving him that opportunity here in this Legislature to do so, if he cares to avail himself of it.

He says we don’t know what direction we’re going. I come from a party founded by what we used to call muscular Christians. We want to get to the promised land. We know what we want. The difference is that we know the road is long and hard, and we know we’re not going to accomplish it in four years. But to suggest for a moment that what exists in British Columbia today is satisfactory to British Columbians, is okay and is a status quo that, in a modern 21st-century democracy, we should continue to support is just dead wrong. It’s just dead wrong.

There are things that need to be done. There are programs that need to be instituted. We are one of the last major liberal democracies in the world that doesn’t have some form of universal child care.

In a world where everyone expects the opportunity to work — regardless of gender or where they fit on any scale, regardless of their colour or their religion — to not have a child care program that is safe, affordable and accessible is just preposterous. Even the federal government understands that. Notwithstanding all the ki-yaying about the alleged war between the jurisdictions in this country, the federal government understands that issue. It will be one of the last major and important social programs instituted in this country, and it is long overdue. This government has made a genuine commitment to do that, and we’ll see even more details next week.

I’m proud of that commitment. There are people in my community who tell me honestly that they would love to have the opportunity to work, but they can’t because they cannot afford child care. They want to be able to develop their skills. They want to be able to move off social assistance, in some cases, or to increase their opportunities for themselves and for their children, and they can’t do that in their present situation because they can’t afford child care.

We have a societal interest, each and every one of us, in ensuring that children get every opportunity. It’s because we know the social costs of dealing with children who never had a crack at it, who never had an opportunity, are significant. We know that for the child with early-identified autism, if they’re lucky enough to get identified early…. That isn’t dealt with, and the parents don’t get the assistance they need. That child potentially is looking at a lifetime of dependence instead of independence.

When the member talked about the poverty reduction plan as if it was somehow a scheme to drive the province into deficit, I just have to ask myself: since when is the creation of opportunities for more people to work and produce more going to drive us into deficit?

[2:10 p.m.]

I appreciate that this government left behind a number of issues. I’m not going to talk about them too much. But essentially what I’ve heard from the Liberals lately is: “Gosh, why aren’t you fixing the messes we left behind much more quickly?” That’s really what the thrust of the remarks appears to be. “We made a few mistakes. We left you with — I don’t know — nearly $4 billion in a hole up in northern B.C. that you’ve got to fix and deal with. We left you with warring mayors in the Lower Mainland around a transit plan. Yeah, we left you with a balanced budget — isn’t that enough? — and a big surplus.”

Yeah, well, when you have a social deficit that outweighs your budgetary surplus, many modern-thinking economists will tell you that is not a good thing. That’s essentially what we’ve been left.

I have to make a little bit of a joke here today. Gosh knows, everyone is going to go “oh” somewhere in the building, if they’re listening to what I have to say.

Interjection.

L. Krog: Oh, no, no. I don’t wish to be careful. I’m of an age, Member, where I’m not that careful anymore because it’s not dangerous.

I know the members opposite have been given their notes and their message box, and we’ve been given our notes in our message box over here. That’s a great thing to employ all those young, thoughtful people to ensure that no politician ever says anything original in this place and sticks on message, just to ensure that we’re all on the same message box.

Well, in tribute to our folks on our side and a compliment to the folks on the other side, I’m sure each of us has been given enough material that would more than occupy half an hour. I’m going to resist going too deeply into the message box lest I get lost in the incredible number of bullet points available to me to ensure that I say nothing untoward that would upset anyone, only satisfied, as I am, that — apart from the members present and the odd person in the gallery, including some old friends who’ve returned here today — no one is actually listening.

Now, that’s a terrible thing to say, but that leads me to talk about a couple of things that are smaller that weren’t mentioned with great interest in the throne speech. That is the possibility of a government that’s actually going to use committees, just as we had a committee table a report today around modern transportation.

Maybe we’ll start to move forward to give an opportunity to the members of this chamber to make useful contributions, to take the incredible array of talents and experience, whether you be a farmer from Delta or an economist from West Vancouver or someone who comes out of theatre in the West End or people who’ve run small businesses or had careers in the RCMP. Give them a fulsome opportunity to deliver their talents.

Interjection.

L. Krog: I’m sorry. The member beside me doesn’t have one of those enormous egos. It doesn’t need to be stroked.

I could mention diversity, that the diversity of the membership of this chamber would actually be put to good use. That’s a positive thing, because those things will have long-term, positive aspects.

Reconciliation is just so important, having grown up, as I did, in this province and seen the dramatic changes. I’ve mentioned it before in other responses to the throne speech, but none of you read those either, so I’m safe in saying it again. It’s like Ronald Reagan telling another story. No one remembered them.

I concluded my first speech to the first throne speech in 1992, the year after we were elected to government, talking about how proud I was because the NDP government of the day was setting in motion the treaty process. It’s 26 years down the road. We’ve got a couple of major treaties. We still have high rates of aboriginal incarceration. Over 50 percent of the children in care by the ministry are aboriginal. Poverty is still rampant on reserves. Poverty amongst aboriginals who live off reserve is still rampant. Drug addiction. Deaths in the fentanyl overdose crisis are all much higher. We haven’t really come very far.

I’m not going to cast aspersions on the opposition. They had 16 years. They made some efforts. We made some efforts in the ’90s. But we didn’t do enough, and we haven’t done enough. That’s why it is so crucial and so important that this government not just talks the talk, as it did in throne speech, but walks the walk in a serious way.

[2:15 p.m.]

We are not going to move forward with economic development, with the kind of development that is necessary to give the fulsome opportunities that so many have enjoyed in our society but have been denied, through various means — fair, foul, through lack of attention, through lack of care — to the First Nations of this province, who occupied the land a long time before any of our ancestors showed up here.

I am optimistic. I am optimistic because the world is changing rapidly. I come back to the report we had from the committee today, the argument between those who want ride-hailing or ride-calling services and those who want to ensure that the taxi industry, where people have paid enormous amounts of money for the privilege to operate a taxi…. In behind is, many will say, the exciting and innovative and modern world of driverless vehicles.

We’re having a political discussion in British Columbia.

Interjection.

L. Krog: Ah. The member says not where he lives. Perhaps he should go and work for — what is it? — Suncor. Is it 400 jobs they’ve announced will disappear in driverless vehicles in the minesite? The province of Ontario is already moving rapidly.

I commend to the member, as I did a couple of years ago — I believe it was last year, actually — a book I’ve read called Sapiens. Well, there’s a follow-up. It’s called Homo Deus, “Man is God,” where the writer talks about the possibilities of what liberal democracies and what the world will look like with the advent of technology, bionics, all of those things. These things are coming down the pipe quite clearly and quite quickly, and more rapidly even than we think.

What our job is as government — I believe, still, idealistic as I am — is that we have to ensure that we can do as much as we can to prevent and save from the incredible dislocation that will follow, the damage that will come to the families of British Columbia and the people of British Columbia, but at the same time, ensure that we are the first in line for those economic opportunities. We talk about it, and we talk about it. It’s why the innovation cluster that’s been announced today by the minister — I believe we call it a supercluster — is such an important step.

I come back to it. If, in a prosperous…. Yes, the members will take credit, I know. I’m surprised they aren’t clapping the desks at the moment of mention of a prosperous British Columbia. If we don’t take advantage of the prosperity, the education system, the natural amenities and everything we have here, why would we expect the rest of the world to do so? We have that opportunity. We have the opportunity to allow that rural kid that the member for Prince George–Mackenzie is worried about to perhaps work from genuinely rural British Columbia, because he’s got access or she’s got access to high-speed Internet. Maybe she’s on a reserve up in the Kispiox and she’s doing work for a tech company in Vancouver. That’s all possible.

The industrial revolution took people out of their homes, women weaving in cottages, and stuck them in factories. Then the factories got more efficient, and the people lost their jobs. The world is coming full circle now. With technology, we are enabling people to produce things of value in a knowledge-based world in places far remote from those urban centres that the member for Prince George–Mackenzie worries about.

When we make the kind of announcement we did today as government, what we are saying is that we have confidence in British Columbia, we have hope for our future, and we’re looking forward with enthusiasm to those opportunities. But those opportunities will not be fulfilled if we continue to ignore the affordability crisis in British Columbia.

Now, look. I don’t think everybody deserves or is entitled to a single-family dwelling in Vancouver. All right? The day’s gone. Sorry, folks. The door’s closed. It’s over. We’re not going to tear down the high-rises and build single-family dwellings. But we can maybe ensure that families will have an opportunity, through programs that control the marketplace in a way that is reasonable, that will enable them to have a future in those urban areas where people have chosen to, or been forced to, for whatever reason, make their homes.

It’s interesting. In my own community, Vancouver Island University has a wonderful, innovative program, drawing students from around the world in its business faculty. Many of those students, as soon as they get to Nanaimo, which isn’t a big place by modern standards, choose to stay. They try to find employment, because it’s attractive, and that’s what we’re asking.

[2:20 p.m.]

If they can’t afford to live there, we’re not going to keep them. They’re going to go someplace else, and we don’t want to lose that talent, particularly after you’ve educated them. As the speech says, young families wait longer to have children or give up their dreams of home ownership because they cannot afford to pay for both. Some will make the difficult choice to move away from family, friends and communities to fill those dreams.

The B.C. Liberals sat by and watched the affordability crisis grow and grow and grow. We are making a commitment to take action and to do it in a way that does not distort the marketplace in an unfair or ridiculous way. These are good, positive choices, because we know what we want. Society has generally agreed on those things.

Notwithstanding what will be said here over the next few days as we debate the throne speech, is there any disagreement in this place about wanting to have a safe, secure home? An opportunity for education? An opportunity to experience a little green space, do a little travelling, rise in society? Do we wish to discourage social mobility? I don’t think so.

We all pretty much know what we want. We argue around the edges in this place about how much free enterprise and how much regulation. But I said this last fall, and I don’t think the members believed me. Maybe they didn’t listen. They’d still be sitting where I’m sitting if they had only listened more to British Columbians.

If they had acknowledged the growing gap between the rich and the poor, if they had acknowledged rising student debt, if they had acknowledged the affordability crisis, if they had acknowledged the wait-lists in hospitals, if they had acknowledged the lack of economic opportunities that were more fulsome than a minimum wage job, which they happily kept down year after year after year, they would probably be sitting over here, still, and I’d be giving a different kind of speech — the speech, sadly, that I got used to giving for 12 years.

It is with no small amount of delight that I get to lecture the opposition a little bit today to say I am proud of what the government has indicated is our game plan in the throne speech for the next year, of being given the opportunity to participate in moving British Columbia forward, to make priorities clear — the priorities of British Columbians, which will be first on the agenda — to make life more affordable and to ensure that this is an economy that looks after all British Columbians.

That I am proud of. That’s why I’m going to be voting in support of the throne speech, notwithstanding the protestations of the member for Prince George–Mackenzie or any of the other members over there who wish to pretend that dealing with poverty is the road to ruin.

P. Milobar: I’m glad the member opposite referenced that his response to the throne speech was a lecture. That is most certainly what it felt like. It was a very interesting perspective that we all got to hear.

I’m going to start off my comments about the throne speech by maybe addressing a few of the startling comments made by the previous speaker, especially around things to do with rural B.C. There seems to be a narrative in that last speech that would indicate that rural B.C. is deserving of a bit of token attention, and that’s really all it should get because everyone wants to live in downtown Vancouver — or that Nanaimo or Kamloops, where I am from, or Prince George should be the only centres of area that people should worry about when you’re in government.

I would like to point out to the member opposite, though, that although my riding is called Kamloops–North Thompson and, as he mentioned the member from Prince George…. It’s not just Prince George, and it’s not just Kamloops. There’s a reason it also says North Thompson. There are many hard-working men and women all up and down the North Thompson Valley, which I represent, that would be quite offended, frankly, by hearing the previous speech. They live and they work in very rural areas. They can be 15, 20 minutes out of downtown Kamloops and not have cell service and not have connectivity.

[2:25 p.m.]

I think they would consider themselves still to be very rural yet still very productive members of our B.C. provincial economy — trying to make our province grow, trying to make our province prosper, trying to provide for their families and making sure that they have good outcomes for their family as well. They deserve to have the same attention from government as someone that lives in downtown Vancouver.

I would also point out that although I live in Kamloops, if you are from one of those small rural areas, a Blue River or that, you may consider Prince George or Kamloops to be urban. But I have news for the member. If you’re from downtown Vancouver, you most certainly do not ever consider Kamloops, Prince George and, for a lot of cases, even Kelowna to be urban metropolises. You consider it to be rural. So the fact that the member opposite seems to think that anywhere outside of a population base is considered rural is a little bit troubling.

If you look at how the federal government will view the difference between rural and urban and at how it gets categorized when you are looking for grants from a federal government in terms of population cutoffs, when you look at even how the CBC defines rural versus urban, where they are going to set up radio stations or not, I would suggest that the member opposite and his colleagues might want to really brush up on what rural and urban actually means.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have hospitals, and it’s not to say that we shouldn’t have universities in these areas. Absolutely, we support that. But to suggest, as the tone of the comments were, that really we need to just give a bit of passing attention to the more rural areas of our province and really focus in on the Island and the Lower Mainland, I think, speaks volumes to the direction that this government is going. I think it speaks volumes to some of the things that are in the throne speech and, more importantly, what are missing from the throne speech. It’s very troubling when you hear that type of narrative.

I would point out that although the member opposite made sure that he stuck to his party-provided bullet points, as he referenced, I stand here with none. I stand here without speaking notes because I wasn’t directed by my party how I need to respond to a throne speech.

I notice it’s very interesting that the members opposite have free-wheeled a little bit when it comes to this throne speech. I think that also speaks to some of the confusion that maybe is out in the general public around this throne speech when we’re hearing very different messages of expectation from the government’s own members on what they think is contained in this throne speech and what their expectations in the upcoming budget are.

Now, that’s another troubling aspect to it. Although there are a lot of words in this throne speech document, it really is light on detail. It’s really light on content. A lot of times, actions do speak louder than words. Let’s hope that’s the case, because these words…. There’s not a whole lot of action in them. What there is, is a whole lot of grand statements.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Of course, people want to see people living in comfortable and safe housing, appropriate to what they’re able to afford, and be able to have safety and security for them and their family. Of course people want to see that their social supports are in place. Of course people want to see that there’s a good educational system in our province. I would point out that we routinely get referenced as having an outstanding educational system, especially in K to 12, despite previous protestations from the members opposite over the years.

I don’t think any of that type of language is really that surprising in the throne speech. But the problem is that although most throne speeches contain some types of language around that, it seems to be all this throne speech really does contain.

I guess it’s fitting — and we saw referenced in the media already — that there seem to be a lot of concerns by the members opposite in the last few days as a trade war gets generated around diluted bitumen, because in this throne speech, what I see, quite frankly, is a whole lot of diluted promises that they have made to their supporters.

I think, as time marches on here, through this throne speech, through the budget debate, I would suggest that they’re going to find a lot of their groups of support are going to be sorely disappointed when they see how little the government is able to actually enact based on their campaign promises, based on moving forward with what they said was going to be a priority.

[2:30 p.m.]

We don’t see $10-a-day child care anymore, certainly, in this throne speech. No, in fact, what we see is a government trying to distance themselves from $10-a-day child care and actually saying: “Well, that was really just a marketing slogan in our campaign. You couldn’t really have believed that we were talking about $10-a-day child care. That’s silly. We were just talking about the ideal of providing affordable child care.”

Now we go from $10 to affordable. We’re going to start seeing a government try to figure out a way to finagle what they define affordable child care to be, all the while failing to deliver on a key campaign promise, which I think will see very many people disappointed and upset with their government — that they did not see that come true.

It’s interesting that in one paragraph, under “Affordable child care,” they talk about cracking down on unlicensed providers. Yet just a few paragraphs later, they go to great detail to say how they’re going to set up a framework to let parents know if their child is in unlicensed daycare so that they can make an informed decision. “We know the person is operating without the proper permits, so we’re going to pass some legislation that says, basically, that they need to declare that to you.” That’s how I’m reading this throne speech piece.

Somehow that magically makes it okay, because the person has made an informed decision that they’re still sending their child to an unlicensed, unregulated daycare. And this seems to be the magical fix to child care: “We’re not going to actually expedite making sure everyone is brought up to standard. We’re just going to make sure everyone signs a waiver.” Somehow that waiver absolves the government of needing to worry about it.

It makes me think of how municipalities in the city of Kamloops, where I was the mayor for several years, dealt with basement suites in much the same way. “As long as you stay out of sight and out of mind, it’s okay. Go ahead and operate.” Well, that’s okay for a basement suite, I think, especially in light of the housing crisis we have and the mortgage helpers that people have.

I don’t think that out of sight, out of mind…. “Just don’t cause a fuss with the neighbourhood. Make sure the kids are quiet so they don’t disturb the neighbour, and we won’t come and investigate you.” I don’t think that’s what the public expects out of their government when it comes to making sure there’s safe child care, “safe” being the key word. Affordable is important, but so is safe. You need to have both of those, and this throne speech falls sorely short in both of those areas.

Another area in this throne speech which is very interesting to me as the Environment critic is…. We’ve seen a whole lot of discussion about the environment through the election and through their agreement with their junior partners, the Green Party. In the last throne speech, it was quite disappointing to see that, out of what I believe was an 11-page throne speech, the first throne speech, the environment was mentioned right near the very end.

This time, okay, the throne speech is double. It’s got 21 pages. They’ve added a whole lot more words in there. They’ve fluffed things up. But frankly, they’re repeating a whole lot of stuff that they said they were going to do in September. They’ve sat around for seven months and not really done any of them yet. So they thought they should probably repeat a whole lot of it. “Maybe this time we should add a little bit more language around it to make it look bigger and more impressive.”

I remember back to the estimates, when I asked the Environment Minister the very first question of the day: “Where is the importance of the Ministry of Environment on the scale of the overall government operations?” He assured me that it was of the highest priority for the government and the Green Party. Then he had trouble explaining to me why, if that was the case and when almost every other ministry saw substantial increases to their operating budget in that budget update that we saw, the Ministry of Environment saw nothing.

They saw no monetary increase. They saw $2 million, which actually came from an increase in fees generated from camping fees and the licence plate program. The government itself didn’t have to find extra dollars. The government itself didn’t have to prioritize their spending. It was actually just some found revenue that went into the Ministry of Environment.

Luckily, they had that extra $2 million because they did have to hire some extra administrative staff within the minister’s office to try to cover off some of the extra staff that they wanted to bring in at the ministerial level but certainly not at the park ranger level, certainly not at the conservation officer level and certainly not trying to address any of the other needs out there within the Environment portfolio. But we sure have a well-staffed minister’s office now. I’m sure people breathe much easier at night knowing that there’s all that extra support staff within the minister’s office. That’s certainly a high priority, I’m sure, on most average people’s minds when it comes to how to staff.

[2:35 p.m.]

I go back to this current throne speech. Under that envelope of the minister assuring myself — and, by extension, all British Columbians, as the estimates are an open and public forum — that the environment was the highest of priorities of the government…. Now, remember, this is back in estimates, and it would’ve been — what? — around November that we were doing these. The highest priority in November.

Throne speech comes out now. Where is the environment in the throne speech? It’s on page 20 of a 20½-page document. There is no mention of most things until about the third-to-last paragraph when it comes to the pipeline debacle that has been created.

One would think, given the superiority of thought that the government feels they’re at, standing with the Kinder Morgan pipeline and the blockage threat and subsequent trade war, that they would want to stand with pride and with strong language in the throne speech about how this was big, important and critical, given that it’s in real time.

I’m sure, in this day and age of computers and cut and paste, it would have taken all of a few seconds for someone to click and drag that paragraph to the front end of the document to make it more relevant to what’s going on reflecting real-time issues within British Columbia and the seriousness that we see with them.

Instead, we see it buried on page 20 of a 20½-page document. It actually carries on to page 20½. It’s very…. Actually, the language used around diluted bitumen is quite diluted itself compared to the statements we were hearing on January 30. Even in their own document, we see the government trying to backtrack their way out.

Yet during question period, it’s obvious that they’re trying to also dig their heels in the sand — not the tar sands, because I know how much you don’t like the tar sands — to make sure…. Their stubborn adherence to making sure that we can see as much impact to our economy as possible seems to be the game plan for the government.

It’s an interesting negotiating strategy. When I read the throne speech, these promises, these grand ideals, come with a very hefty price tag — all of which, generally speaking, require federal partnerships for housing, for childcare, for health care and for addictions and mental health issues. That’s interesting to then pick the pipeline project to now go toe to toe with the federal government.

Make no mistake about it. I think it would be safe to say that it would be fairly unique for a sitting Prime Minister to sit down and have a half-hour conversation with an exclusive media outlet, which, by far, is not considered to be a right-wing media source by any means, and make it very clear what his stand on Kinder Morgan is, make it very clear what his stand on pipelines is and make it very clear how wrong the Premier is when it comes to this.

It was very clear language. There was no misinterpretation possible for the language that the Prime Minister used around the stance the government is taking to harming the national carbon action plan.

That again, I think, speaks volumes to where we see things around the environment located within this throne speech. Here we have all of these programs that are going to require federal supports — long-term federal supports.

We’ve already seen the federal government coincidentally, conveniently…. Now, it was only the actual press conference part that got cancelled, but I think that sends a bit of a message to the general public that they’re not very happy with how things are going. They expect, frankly, that the province of British Columbia would actually follow the constitution of Canada that we all are under.

Let’s go back to the federal government needing to be a full participating partner with British Columbia when it comes to things around housing, health and education. You name it. The federal government is a partner with the province every time. Rapid transit. You think we’re going to do rapid transit without the federal government’s support and dollars coming in? I don’t think so.

Let’s look at this. You’re setting up a negotiating stance where you’re, essentially, picking a fight with that person you need to literally unload billions upon billions of dollars.

[2:40 p.m.]

I guess there’s another way to get those billions and billions of dollars out of the federal government, and that’s to drive our economy into the ground, turn us into a have-not province and rely on federal transfer payments. That seems to be, perhaps, the end-run goal of this government. It’s to make sure that these high, lofty ideals can be paid for but not do it in a way that most British Columbians take pride in — where they work hard and pay their taxes, and then they see their government stepping up and providing those supports to people.

No, instead what we see is a throne speech and actions by a government seeming to be intent to drive our economy into the ground so they can still get that federal cheque. But they can get that federal cheque without the pride of knowing that they’re a full-partner participant in these programs, more of a: “Please can we have a few dollars to keep running our programs?”

We see it happening in other provinces that are have-not provinces. They get billions of dollars of transfer payments. Those transfer payments, ironically enough, are actually generated, a lot of them, out of B.C. and Alberta, when it comes to being part of confederation and making sure that everyone stays whole.

That, I think, in a nutshell, is a lot of the problems that I see with this throne speech. It’s a lot of repetition from September. It’s interesting to note that most of the promises or implementation pieces that they’re very proudly talking about within this throne speech were actually all initiatives generated by the former B.C. Liberal government and, in fact, budgeted for and were already in the budget when the change in government happened.

Really what we’re seeing is a government that has done none of their own heavy lifting in the first several months. They have referred things to over 17 different committees, to this point, for study, for look, for review.

There’s a lot of talk about the need for transportation in the Lower Mainland, and we need to make sure that there’s rapid transit. I fully support that. I have always believed, even as a mayor, that each city goes through a different cycle of development and need and that each city should have that support from the province and the federal government, based on what they truly need, not just a swimming pool for each town because the first town got a swimming pool. Sometimes the town needs a swimming pool, and the other towns don’t. So we help, as a collective, to make sure that swimming pool gets built.

Other times it’s things like rapid transit and SkyTrain down in the Lower Mainland. I’ve always supported that. I would note that even the Canada Line, which this side of the House fully supported being built…. I could stand to be corrected, but if memory serves, I’m pretty sure the members in the government all opposed the Canada Line being built. So it’s interesting how projects that could move things forward to make sure that people are able to get around the Lower Mainland, the same problems we’re faced with and keep trying to build for….

The members opposite, in government, were opposed to almost every single project. They were opposed to the Coquihalla. They were opposed to the Canada Line. I think they’ve been opposed to just about every major transportation project in this province, except for the Island Highway, which wound up being 20-something percent over budget and wound up with much less design put into it because it was so over budget that they had to scrap the overpasses. Oh, that’s right. There were the fast ferries too. They didn’t oppose those, but that worked out really well for us as well.

What I find interesting, though, is that’s the approach, in the past, taken on transportation. When you see a glaring omission of something…. No mention whatsoever of a Massey Tunnel replacement in their throne speech when they’re talking about transportation. It’s like — poof! — magically, the Massey Tunnel is no longer a problem.

Now, I’m not talking that it had to be a specific bridge referenced in the throne speech. No. I think, though, that the people in Delta and the people in Richmond would have liked to have seen some recognition from their government that, in fact, the Massey Tunnel needs to be replaced and needs to be replaced quickly, that the Massey Tunney is no longer seismically sound and that the Massey Tunnel is British Columbia’s biggest bottleneck.

Instead of any recognition of that whatsoever, they just have ignored it now, which makes one wonder if the Transportation Minister has forgotten that she was even studying it. It’s not in the throne speech. It has zero importance all of a sudden.

[2:45 p.m.]

We’ve gone from, “We’re reviewing a project,” to “We’re reviewing a project, and oh, by the way, we’ve pulled the money out of the budget. But don’t worry. We haven’t forgotten about it,” to the next throne speech. Well, we don’t even know that they’re still reviewing the project, and there certainly isn’t going to be the money in the budget for the project.

Where does that leave the people of Delta? Where does that leave the people of Richmond? Where does it leave the people in the Lower Mainland trying to get back and forth for a commute? There is zero ingenuity coming from the government. There is zero thought process coming from the government on how to actually advance and move a project forward.

I can understand that, I guess. They’ve spent 16 years fighting against everything, you know, so one would understand, I guess, that their problem-solving skills need a little bit of sharpening up. But I think people expected the first seven months to be that time frame. I think that now, moving forward, people have expected that this government would come back in February ready to govern, ready to make decisions, ready to actually do something on their campaign promises.

We’re not asking them to deliver our campaign promises, which, ironically, are the only ones they’ve actually delivered on so far. What we’re asking them for, and what I think the public — certainly the special interest groups that supported the government — is expecting is to see their campaign promises actually delivered upon. I think the reason they’re not is because they’re realizing there is no way they can afford these.

There’s no way they’re going to be able to afford these when they drive every dollar of possible investment out of this province. You can’t have an Environment Minister going off on a project that’s been fully permitted, federally and provincially, in terms of approvals and working through its last things that it needs to do.

I would note that today — actually, about an hour ago — the National Energy Board granted Kinder Morgan the right to start work on the Burnaby Mountain tunnel to get their line going through there to try to make sure it times out with the migratory patterns of the birds. So the project is still moving forward, yet we have a government that’s fixed on trying to kill that project.

At the same time as you have an Environment Minister standing up trying to kill a project which has gone through years of rigour, you have a Premier in Asia trying to attract oil and gas investment into this province. The scary part is that the members opposite don’t see that as contradictory at all. The members opposite don’t understand why that would be a problem. The members opposite have almost zero acknowledgment that in a global age, in an age where the world is communicating instantaneously on electronic devices, somehow that would resonate with the investment community.

I’ve got news for the members opposite. If you’re an investment company or a large company that’s looking to do a project in the several-billion-dollar range…. Do they honestly think British Columbia is the only jurisdiction that company is looking at, at the current time?

Or do they think that company has the ability and the wherewithal to say: “You know what? Things look a little off in British Columbia right now. We’re just going to go take those investment dollars, and we’re going to go do some other projects right now. We’ll come back when British Columbia figures out what it is they really want to do — when their government figures out what it is they really want to do, when their government no longer keeps trying to change the goalposts on us after we’ve already gone through all the due process we were told we had to go through and are permitted to go through it”?

That’s the problem within the investment world. The fact that the government seems bent on ignoring the reality of how global investment works…. I shudder to think they’re actually in charge of our $52 billion budget.

Let’s look at the other language in here, around procurement processes for public works. That will drive the costs higher. Remember when I referenced the Island Highway being about 22 percent over budget? That was a lot of the same policies that were enacted then that they’re talking about now. So the fact that there’s a lack of recognition that some of these policies are going to drive the cost of these capital projects through the roof is, again, a mind-boggling, stuck-in-the-1970s way of thinking.

The apprenticeship piece — I think there’s value to that. I think we do need to make sure that our young people have a way forward and a way to keep getting trained and a way to have a viable career moving forward in the types of work that they want to do. A lot of the work, ironically enough, is centred in rural British Columbia, which the member before me seems to think really is somewhat of a side note when it comes to worrying when you’re the provincial government.

[2:50 p.m.]

Still, the key to all this is to make sure that we have projects moving forward. Well, if you take projects…. In Kamloops’ case, we have a hospital that is soon to be going out to get built. It will be in the $417 million range, currently.

If this new policy comes into place before that goes out to bid, is the province going to pick up the difference? Or are they going to rely on the local hospital board, which has already contributed $200 million of the $417 million for the project, as well as the foundation, which is going to contribute another $20 million? Is the province going to make up the difference, 100 percent, because of their policy around procurement?

Are they going to look back at the residents of Kamloops — yes, the rural areas outside of Kamloops — that are paying into that $200 million? Are they going to turn around, and are they going to say: “You need to come up with your 40 percent of this cost overrun because we decided to change our construction procurement processes”?

Does that seem right? Does that seem like we’re going to see a province moving ahead with major projects? I don’t think so. We have right now a situation where ideology which sounded great — and, I’m sure, when they were soaking in the orange Kool-Aid for 16 years in opposition, really started to make sense — doesn’t make sense in the real world, in real time.

I can’t support this throne speech. I can’t support the direction this throne speech is taking us in. I don’t see a way forward in terms of how they’re going to pay for the promises that they’re alluding to in this. Frankly, I think there’s a whole lot of watered-down, diluted promises in this from their election.

I think it’s disappointing to the members of the public in British Columbia. When a political party says they’re going to do something in an election campaign, they should follow through and actually try to deliver that, especially in their first several months. They shouldn’t just simply rely on delivering the promises of the former government when they’ve been in power for this first several months. So I won’t be supporting the speech, and I thank you for the time.

Hon. J. Sims: As Minister of Citizens’ Services and as MLA for Surrey-Panorama, I’m actually thrilled to rise today and speak in support of this throne speech, a speech that so clearly outlines a vision focused on our most valuable resource. That is British Columbians. I’m proud to be a member of a government that is focused on people, and I want to thank the people of Surrey-Panorama who elected me and sent me here on their behalf.

Now, British Columbians want a government of action that puts their needs first and helps deliver access to affordable housing and affordable services, including high-speed Internet for the new economy. The hard-working people of this province deserve a chance to thrive and not to just keep pace with rising costs or to be in the red. As the economy grows, our citizens expect and deserve to share in the bounty that our province produces.

Like this government, I, too, share a passion to make life better for the people of B.C. It is what motivates me every day, whether I’m here in Victoria or in my constituency of Surrey-Panorama or visiting the people and communities across this beautiful province. My work and the work of my ministry is to take every opportunity to ensure that all British Columbians are able live in a province that is the best it can be, not only for all of us today but for the future.

Some of you may know that I was actually born in India, grew up in England and started my teaching career in England. I was actually one of those early recruits to come and teach in Canada. For 40 years now, I have lived in beautiful British Columbia. This is where my home is, this is where my heart is, and this is where I have raised my children and where my grandchildren live and give me so much delight.

B.C. is a wonderful place to live and grow. That is why I am excited about the future of this province, a future with a government that, after 16 long, long years, puts people first. That means supporting a strong economy that works for everyone.

[2:55 p.m.]

One important way we do this is by making life more affordable: with real estate and rental markets that operate fairly, curbing speculation in the housing market and giving more people a chance to participate; by increasing training for childhood educators, giving more kids a chance to succeed; by investing in affordable child care spaces to relieve families of a very high-cost burden; and by making the largest investment in housing in our province’s history, allowing more British Columbians to be a real part of our economy instead of struggling to just find a place to live.

This is a government of action, and I am proud to support its efforts to move British Columbians back to the front of the line. These are important to the people in my riding of Surrey-Panorama. By building approximately 160 temporary modular housing units in Surrey, more people will have access to housing and the necessary services they need to support them.

With over 60 daycare centres in my riding alone, we know that this fast-growing community will need support for early childhood education along with access to affordable child care. The people of Surrey-Panorama need to know that there is a place for their children in safe, affordable child care spaces. Our government understands this and has committed funding for 372 new licensed child care spaces in Surrey already. I’m delighted to say that 114 of them are in Surrey-Panorama itself.

With the investment of $10.4 million in funding towards seismic upgrades in our schools, we are taking another step to keep our children safe. This government’s priority is to put our kids first. With that in mind, I know our government is working to build new schools and accommodate our growing, diverse communities. Sullivan Heights Secondary School, a school that’s in my riding just across the street from my constituency office, is well over capacity and, as a matter of fact, has so many portables that it’s hard to find green space where children can play. We need to get kids out of portables and into safe classrooms.

We are also looking forward to investments that will bring the LRT to Surrey, finally. This large and growing region needs affordable, accessible rapid transit. We are committed to working with the Mayors Council to bring LRT to Surrey and to improve access to the rest of Metro Vancouver.

In less than five years, the Pattullo Bridge will no longer be in use because it will no longer be safe. We need to keep people safe, so we’re going to move quickly to replace the Pattullo.

There is incredible work being done already in Surrey Memorial, but we recognize the need to bring more services to Surrey’s population as it starts to catch up with other major cities, like Vancouver. The previous government promised time and time again, for 16 long years, that they would build a new hospital in Surrey. But what they did instead was…. They didn’t build a hospital. They actually sold the piece of land that a hospital could be built on. Well, with a new government in place, we will move forward with building a new hospital in Surrey and have already begun the concept planning to help meet the needs of our rapidly growing population.

The overdose crisis, as you know, is a public health emergency that has touched every community, and we need to take more steps to fix this problem. To support the hardest hit in our communities like Surrey, our government is committed to providing more resources, such as the provincial overdose emergency response centre — there are going to be 18 of them around the province — creating a public awareness campaign to help reduce the stigma of drug use; giving police the tools they need, like more officers and anti-trafficking teams; and funding $20 million over three years to support Indigenous communities hard hit by the crisis.

[3:00 p.m.]

It is essential for us to support communities, front-line workers and volunteers in order to keep the people of our province safe.

Premier Horgan has visited Surrey many times. It was delightful when he visited Surrey Women’s Centre and announced, again, an announcement that made many in the audience shed tears. After 16 long years, they heard an announcement from a government that was going to be supporting and actually providing $5 million to women’s centres to decrease wait times and increase services for those who have experienced domestic violence. We need to continue to support women and children through these vital programs.

Government has also committed to ongoing funding for successful community programs, like the Surrey Wrap program, to keep at-risk youth out of gang life.

I could go on and on with the amazing actions that this government has taken and what the throne speech promises as it lays a blueprint for this legislative agenda. But let me talk a little bit more now about the Ministry of Citizens’ Services. As we all take steps to make life more affordable for British Columbians, I want to talk about how my ministry is working to support the people of the province.

The Ministry of Citizens’ Services is focused on the people of British Columbia. This is another source of pride for me: a ministry that is truly about its citizens. It’s the face of our government through over 62 Service B.C. offices where British Columbians all over the province access direct services. It’s the backbone of our government, with information technology infrastructure giving the people access to the government services they need. It’s the function of government, with procurement of necessary products and services, as well as real property, that manages facilities on behalf of the people of British Columbia.

That includes a strategy to green provincial buildings by reducing emissions, finding cost-saving efficiencies and protecting the environment and working with companies that can provide innovative ways to ease the impact on the environment.

The dedicated public servants at the Ministry of Citizens’ Services have been doing incredible work to help make British Columbia a province that works for all its people.

Throughout my career, as both a public servant and as a teacher, I’ve come to truly understand the value of partnerships and working in collaboration. In education, I know that achieving the best outcomes requires all kinds of partnerships between children, their peers, families, teachers and the community as a whole. Nothing worthwhile is ever achieved alone. We understand that. We know that we are stronger and more successful if we work together with the First Nation businesses and other levels of government.

When it comes to connectivity, last month we announced the results of just this kind of partnership to bring fibre optic connectivity to communities and First Nations along our coastline, to Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island. By working together — the provincial government, along with B.C. communities, First Nations and the federal government — we announced a $45.4 million investment that will help to connect 154 coastal communities, including 56 First Nations communities, with access to high-speed Internet.

This is an investment that will make a meaningful impact on the lives of our rural neighbours in coastal B.C. This will support this government’s commitment to the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

It was an absolute delight and a tear-jerker to hear the First Nations community talk about what this will mean to them, when a leader from the Haida Gwaii community said: “Having this high-speed Internet is going to allow us to keep our children at home. Having this is going to allow us to grow our economy. It’s going to allow us to keep our language and allow us to make inroads into health and education.”

[3:05 p.m.]

We will work with rural and Indigenous communities to find solutions that work for them through high-speed connections that deliver access to services and to economic opportunities. In fact, many of those remote coastal communities, including First Nations, are ones that have no Internet at all at the moment. For those of us who live in the Lower Mainland or on Vancouver Island, at least around the city, it’s hard for us to comprehend.

Investments like these are so critical to ensure British Columbians are able to participate and compete in the growing digital economy no matter what part of the province they call home. We will continue to work with our partners to increase the availability of reliable Internet connections.

This is technology that brings families closer together; gives our businesses a critical tool to be a player in the international arena; allows our tech industry to innovate and compete on the world stage, and the recent announcement on the supercluster is a prime example; gives our more traditional industries like tourism, fishing and logging a better advantage and allows them to innovate; and helps British Columbians gain easier access to services that they can count on, like health care and education. Not everyone can access a specialist with ease, and for some of our remote communities, telehealth is a lifesaver.

It also means communities like Trail, which has a tech sector that supports traditional industries, are also supporting other industries that grow because of the development of applications that provide a local solution for a local business, the smelter. This innovation is now ready for the world market.

The subsea cables that will be installed, connecting the coastal communities on Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island, from the southern tip all the way up to Alaska and then back again into the exchange, will bring state-of-the-art emergency response services to these remote communities. That will not only protect people in these areas; it will provide better early response for all of us in B.C.

My ministry is also engaged in important work to create more opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses, including those in First Nations communities, to do business with government. The purchasing power of government means we have an opportunity and a responsibility to encourage B.C. businesses to employ B.C. talent.

We can do this whenever we put a bid out for any good, service, product or project. We want to make sure that this government is giving B.C.-based companies, regardless of their size, the best possible chance to compete and win valuable government contracts, especially companies that have local supply chains that create good-paying jobs in communities right around this province, including First Nations communities.

The Ministry of Citizens’ Services and this government believe that the procurement process can do so much more to help our B.C. businesses and our skilled labour to thrive. For too many years, big companies held all the advantage when bidding on large government contracts. Smaller, innovative companies had a hard time. Many have been all too often left behind.

The time has come to review and renew procurement in a way that enables smaller and medium-sized companies to compete. Right now my ministry staff are reaching out to stakeholders in industry, government and businesses to identify ways to remove barriers and make access more transparent and straightforward.

Once again, it’s about partnerships, partnerships that build opportunities. More chances to do business with government not only helps to create jobs and opportunities for British Columbians; it allows our companies to gain experience, perfect their method and become more competitive when seeking business in other jurisdictions, and it means better services and supports for the people of this province.

I’m looking forward to what these changes will be and will provide more information in the coming months. It is another way our government is putting people first.

As a ministry, we are working hard at Citizens’ Services to improve connectivity, transparency and access to government services and contracts, looking for more ways to make life more affordable for British Columbians.

[3:10 p.m.]

As an MLA, I see programs in housing and child care that will make life better for the people in Surrey-Panorama. I’m so proud of the work being done by my minister colleagues — the Minister of Education is in the House at the moment — and the amazing job he has done to make up for the long 16 years of a drought that was faced by public education when schools were not being built and teachers weren’t being funded.

Under this government, we have hired over 3,000 new teachers. Students with special needs are getting the supports they need. Librarians are back in our schools. And what is so exciting is that in Surrey we are so looking forward to having the kids move out of portables, because every child deserves to learn in a real classroom.

As a British Columbian, I’m excited about a future that puts our kids and our people first. I am proud to support the throne speech and to work with the fantastic people at the Ministry of Citizens’ Services, and in government, to represent the good people of Surrey-Panorama, to help support our vision for a British Columbia that truly, after 16 long years, works for British Columbians, and to be a partner in this vision for the future.

A. Olsen: You’ve all been there. Whether you have a summer home on one of our Saanich relatives — Mayne, Pender, Saltspring, Galiano or Saturna — or you’ve passed through to catch a flight or a ferry back home, you’ve all been to Saanich North and the Islands. It is really an incredible place.

Saanich has always been a social, economic and environmental unit. The Saanich Peninsula and southern Gulf Islands have worked together for centuries. My roots tap deep into the soil there. For countless generations, the land and the ocean have produced great wealth in Saanich — a rich culture, abundant watersheds and forests, bays and inlets teeming with wild Pacific salmon, and sophisticated trade networks creating prosperity. This is still the case for Saanich North and the Islands. My S¸ELELW̱ÁÁN, my ancestors, believed that Saanich was the centre of the universe, and I tend to agree.

Today it has not diminished in importance. It is home to the highest-quality agricultural and industrial land in the region, world-class attractions and trade networks connecting Vancouver Island by air and sea to the Lower Mainland and, indeed, the rest of the world. We are home to innovative entrepreneurs who employ thousands of people from across greater Victoria, and diverse communities of artists and musicians who push to the edges of their craft. A mild climate, great schools, quality hospitals. The list goes on and on.

Perhaps I’m a little biased or a lot biased. There are 86 other representatives in this chamber who, I’m sure, can express equal love for their constituencies. That said, I believe Saanich North and the Islands plays a key role in the health and well-being of our region and our province.

In the few brief months that I’ve had the honour of representing Saanich in this House, I’ve been able to see below the shiny facade. I’ve seen and heard what we are doing well, and I have heard and seen what we could be doing better. We’ve had hundreds of meetings, numerous town halls, community dialogue sessions and dozens of site visits. The list of people we’ve connected with is impressive. Our community outreach and public engagement program is called the public circle. It has been a powerful exercise in participatory democracy, and it has helped us deeply understand the needs of our riding.

Last spring I ran on a hopeful vision for the future of my riding and our province, a vision where the provincial government works with our communities to improve the quality of life of people. Founded on the belief that well-supported people build a strong economy and make better choices to protect and enhance the life-sustaining ecosystems that we live in and that strengthen our society…. I made the commitment to my constituents to be bold, courageous and forward-thinking and to make decisions that not only improve our lives today but do not mortgage our future.

[3:15 p.m.]

I think of the famous quote: “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. Rather, we borrow it from our children.” This throne speech is heading in the right direction. I support the approach of this government.

My main criticism of this throne speech — indeed, many of the critiques I have heard from the public — has been that it’s heavy on rhetoric and light on details. Many of the words in this throne speech outline an encouraging direction, but these words alone do not provide us enough detail on what the government is going to do. It is the action that counts. Much of what is said in this throne speech highlights the gaps that my constituents have brought to our attention in our office. But what is needed urgently is the action on these fronts.

I will interpret this throne speech through the lens of my riding. In a number of ways, Saanich North and the Islands mirrors the challenges faced more broadly across British Columbia. I will be focused here on what I’ve heard from my constituents in the past number of months since becoming their MLA.

Government has made transformative commitments to improve Indigenous relations. We are at a critical moment in time. Bold commitments have been made across government. Every minister has been tasked with renewing their relationship with Indigenous people. We heard yesterday that some in this House don’t think it can be done, that implementation is going to be too hard, so we should just throw our hands up in the air and give up. We heard from one former chief’s view, a narrow view, offering easy solutions to complex problems. That is a dangerous mix.

In Saanich North and the Islands, we have chiefs that have a different perspective. Perhaps, this is the best indication of the complexity that we face. I’ve met with them, and they’re ready to work with a government who is willing to respect their treaty and come to the table in good faith. They were ignored by the federal government and told they were outside the national interest when the Prime Minister approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline. As interveners, they were concerned about the impact of diluted bitumen on their resource-harvesting areas. They were told: “It’s all good. Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Where was the former government when they could be standing up for the resource that made this province and my people so wealthy? Nowhere. Perhaps it is not wise to stand in this House and offer simple solutions for complex problems.

I’m thrilled to see this government’s commitment on Indigenous language learning. We are ready in Saanich North and the Islands. The W̱SÁNEĆ School in my home community, Tsartlip, is growing a SENĆOŦEN immersion program. Saanich kids can learn entirely in SENĆOŦEN to grade 4. We have skilled educators developing appropriate curriculum. It is exciting. It’s beautiful to see our children speaking in their language, their parents becoming educators and a language that was once on the endangered list reborn.

It’s not just W̱SÁNEĆ. School district 63 has also embraced SENĆOŦEN learning. Indigenous and non-Indigenous students are choosing to learn SENĆOŦEN at the local elementary, middle and secondary schools. They’re under-resourced, and they are doing it on a shoestring budget. This commitment in the throne speech is exactly what Saanich and school district 63 need to turn this into a powerful example of reconciliation.

Saanich North and the Islands is more than ready to pilot, test, learn and refine this so that other languages can be saved and children all across this province can benefit from learning from the beautiful world view that is unlocked through Indigenous languages in our province.

On housing, government made commitments to build affordable units. In Saanich North and the Islands, we’ve identified the gaps. We know the need for housing solutions for workers, low-income families and seniors. We have housing non-profits and developers ready with innovative solutions to help build non-market affordable housing. We are ready to take advantage of the investment in housing in this throne speech.

[3:20 p.m.]

I look forward to the long-awaited announcements in the budget next week on how government is going to address the speculative forces inflating our real estate market and putting housing out of reach for British Columbians just trying to get by.

On transportation, government, through this throne speech, has made a commitment to the Lower Mainland. No doubt it was needed. But I’m disappointed not to see more focus on the needs of the capital region. We have the Transit Future Plan. It is seven years old now. We need leadership from this government to bring the local governments together so that we can improve transit in this region and in my riding and on the Saanich Peninsula.

On health care, government has made a commitment to interdisciplinary team-based care. A year and a half ago, a non-profit society opened a clinic on the Saanich Peninsula. We needed to address a gap in primary care. We needed to attract new doctors. Well, we are ready to go. The society and the clinic have been successful and now need this government to align the policy to deal with the complexity of how multiple disciplines are remunerated through a single office. Saltspring is now getting going and will be in a position soon to also have a similar clinic.

We are creating and refining a model that can be replicated across the province, and we look forward to working with the minister and the ministry on this important service for all 87 constituencies in this province.

The throne speech addresses mental health and addictions. Service providers are desperate for help in tackling this crisis on the Saanich Peninsula and Gulf Islands. We are ready to work with this government. Mental health workers on the Gulf Islands are crying out for more resources and help. They know the problems and need the support of our government.

In Sidney, a youth mental health clinic was operating one evening per week and had to close its doors because of the challenges of navigating the funding to pay their professional people. These services should not be volunteer. It broke their hearts and the hearts of our youth that they could no longer offer the service.

Our youth deserve better, and when we fail to provide a stable and reliable service for vulnerable youth, it sends the message that they’re not worth it. Again, Saanich North and the Islands is ready to help address the mental health challenges in the riding, which this government inherited.

This throne speech made remarkable commitments on child care. Young families in my riding need support right now. It is important that we create a sustainable program that will provide families with support over the long term. I understand that this cannot happen overnight, that we cannot train a workforce or create spaces out of thin air. I get it. But as I have said all along, we should not have such a narrow view on this.

I was a work-from-home dad. What is missing from this throne speech is the support for parents who choose to stay at home. We must be part of the equation. This is a step that government could take right now to support families while the rest of the program is being developed, spaces created and people trained.

Finally, I believe we are better served if this program is administered through the Ministry of Education, not Children and Families. Child care should be a part of a continuum of lifelong learning.

As was just mentioned by the minister for the civil service, high-speed Internet is absolutely necessary on the Gulf Islands. We lack the connection. It’s hampering real estate, and it’s hurting the Gulf Island communities. We will continue to work with the government to provide high-speed Internet service in the remote communities in my riding on the Gulf Islands.

Frankly, I’m saddened by the lack of urgency on the wild Pacific salmon. We’re seeing a collapse of wild stocks. Yet I feel there’s a laissez faire attitude towards this. What we need is more desperation from all levels of government. For all the ranting and raving of the official opposition about economic development, I’m utterly disappointed that when you were supposed to be the stewards of this critical coastal industry, you now ignore it like it never existed.

[3:25 p.m.]

The Pacific salmon are one of the most valuable renewable resources that we have in this province. The federal government has been derelict in their responsibility to protect this resource, and our government has to do a lot more to enhance the habitat of the wild Pacific salmon. Wild salmon are not in this throne speech, and they should be.

This throne speech provides an encouraging outline in many respects — in fact, in most respects. It is founded on the principle of supporting people. We have seen what happens when a government abandons people. We inherited it — housing, transportation, health, mental health and so many other areas. Costs increase, life becomes unsustainable, society decays, the environment is ravaged, and the strong economy is built on fancy words.

I’m happy about this throne speech. I will be supporting it because I believe we are turning the corner. My message to this government is: we are prepared in Saanich North and the Islands. We have done the groundwork. My office is investing in building the relationships so that we can be in a position to connect the important government initiatives outlined in this throne speech to the amazing people working hard to make our communities even better than the incredible place I described earlier.

To this end, I am reminded of that famous quote: “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. Rather, we borrow it from our children.” Thank you. HÍSW̱ḴE.

J. Brar: I’m very pleased to rise in this House today to support the Speech from the Throne tabled by the government this week. I’ve been here for almost nine years now, and I have never seen a throne speech like this — a throne speech that is good for the people of British Columbia, a throne speech that is good for the people of Surrey. I will come back to talk about the throne speech in detail after a couple of minutes.

First, I would like to convey my sincere thanks to my people, the people of Surrey-Fleetwood, for giving me this rare opportunity to represent the people of Surrey in this House and for putting their faith in me. Thank you to the people of Surrey-Fleetwood from the bottom of my heart.

Huge thanks, also, to my three exceptional staff members. Navneet Kahlon recently joined the Surrey-Fleetwood community office, and she’s doing a great job. Deanna Fasciani also works in my Surrey-Fleetwood office part-time, and she has exceptional skills. Gurbrinder Kang is a seasoned professional who works in my Victoria office. They’re all doing an excellent job of serving the people of British Columbia and helping me every day to deliver my day-to-day duties. Thanks to all of them.

Last but not least, thanks from deep inside my heart to the love of my life, my friend and beautiful wife, Rajwant Brar, to my daughter, Noor, and to my son, Fateh, for their unconditional support to me for the last many years. I love them all.

Coming back to the throne speech, to begin with, once again let me make it absolutely clear that I feel proud to support the throne speech delivered this week by the government. I support the throne speech because making life more affordable was front and centre in this week’s throne speech and will be at the core of next week’s budget. That’s great news for the people of British Columbia.

[3:30 p.m.]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Historic investments in housing and child care are at the heart of the throne speech, which focuses on making life more affordable and creating more opportunities for people and a brighter future for British Columbia. I’m really pleased to see, finally, the real focus on making life better for the people, not for the top 2 percent of people who remained the focus of the previous administration for 16 long years.

It is absolutely clear that our Premier and our government are working for the people. We are making life more affordable, improving the services people count on and creating jobs for the people throughout the province of British Columbia.

After 16 years of bad choices and neglect by the previous administration, I have finally seen a throne speech that is dedicated to making life better for the people of British Columbia. For too long, too many people couldn’t get the services they need. It is time to fix those problems by putting people first and making life better for families everywhere in the province of British Columbia.

Our government strongly believes that a strong economy is one where everyone is doing better, no matter who they are or where they live. We will make sure every region benefits from the jobs and the opportunities our province creates. I am proud to be part of a government that is making different choices and moving B.C. in a new direction — one that is focused on people, with solutions to make life better for the people of British Columbia.

The throne speech is good news for the people of Surrey. The people of Surrey are very, very happy with the directions our government is taking. This throne speech has lots of good news for the people of Surrey.

The city of Surrey, as you know, is the fastest-growing community in the province of British Columbia. We welcome over 1,200 newcomers every month. Our great city has led the province in population growth and particularly in building new homes. Clearly, we have been paying our dues to the provincial coffer for too long.

The previous administration made bad choices and completely ignored the needs of our growing community for 16 long years. They were out of touch with our reality. As a direct result of the bad choices made by the previous government, the people of Surrey are faced with a number of crises. The housing affordability crisis became a real crisis for our people under the B.C. Liberals, because they failed to take timely actions.

Seven thousand children don’t have real classrooms because the B.C. Liberals initiated a wrong and long, illegal fight with teachers about class size and composition, which they lost in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Next, patients at Surrey Memorial Hospital suffer in pain over six long hours, but the previous administration made the decision to sell the piece of land that the previous NDP government purchased to build a new hospital.

They also failed to build a transit system to support the population growth in the city of Surrey. People were being forced to pay unfair tolls for the Port Mann Bridge and Golden Ears Bridge. They took no action to replace the old and unsafe Pattullo Bridge. The list goes on. That’s the record of the previous administration if we look back for the last 16 years.

The previous government left the city of Surrey in a big and ugly mess, and we are fixing those problems one by one. That’s what we’re trying to do. That’s why the people of Surrey are very excited about the direction and actions of our government.

[3:35 p.m.]

Affordability. Affordability, of course, is the big issue. The government’s first and most urgent priority is to make life more affordable. We cannot build a better future if British Columbians cannot afford to be part of that future. Government’s first steps to make life more affordable are already making a difference.

By cutting MSP in half, government has put up to $900 a year back into the pockets of thousands of hard-working British Columbians. We have done that. By removing unfair bridge tolls on the Port Mann Bridge and Golden Ears Bridge, daily commuters are saving up to $1,500 a year, and that has been done. By cutting student loan interest by 2½ percent, graduates can get out of debt more quickly and on the path of their chosen career. By making adult education and English language learning tuition free, tens of thousands of British Columbians can prepare for their degree and upgrade their skills for work. To keep hydro rates affordable, government has asked the B.C. Utilities Commission to freeze hydro rates for this year.

It’s just the beginning. We have taken all those actions which I just indicated. In the months and years ahead, government will take even more actions to make life more affordable and create opportunities for the people of British Columbia.

The housing crisis is a big issue. People tell me everywhere, almost every day when they come to my office, that 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 or country. Home is the place to raise a family and to feel safe and secure. Where people cannot find an affordable home, that safety and security is taken away. We become uncertain about the future and our place in it, and that’s how far too many families in British Columbia live today.

Every British Columbian has a dream to buy a dream house of their choice, and the previous administration has killed that dream because they refused to take action for too long. They were listening to a person known as Bob Rennie, who was the chairperson of the B.C. fundraising committee, and he’s known as the Condo King. They did not listen to the people of British Columbia until it was too late.

We are listening to….

Interjection.

J. Brar: Well, I’m saying it here. The member from Langley is saying: “Say it outside.” I think that was in the newspaper, Member, and he said it himself — that he knew about this whole thing for two weeks before it happened. He was the chair of the B.C. Liberal fundraising committee. He was. The reason there’s no tax on the condos is because he was the chair of the B.C. Liberal fundraising committee, and that’s the fact. That’s true. They refused to take action even as the opposition kept asking questions about the rising costs of housing. They refused because their adviser on the other side had his own personal interests in this game.

We are listening to the people of British Columbia, and that is the difference between us and them. We are going to change the way things were in the past. Our government is taking actions to help make housing more affordable. This throne speech announced the start of the largest investment in affordable housing in the history of this province. This is the first time any government has done this, including social housing, student housing, seniors housing, Indigenous housing and affordable rentals for middle-class-income families.

[3:40 p.m.]

The government will also take steps to address the effects of speculation on real estate market prices, to crack down on tax fraud and money laundering in B.C. real estate markets. That action will be taken as well. They failed to take those actions. They actually refused to take those actions for a long, long time.

Access to affordable, safe and secure housing is the top concern for the people of British Columbia. To tackle the housing crisis head-on, the government will make the largest investment in the history of the province. This is going to, for the first time, take swift and broad-ranging actions to control the skyrocketing housing crisis.

In the last budget, we took a bold first step. We invested $208 million over four years to support the construction of more than 1,700 new units of affordable rental housing in communities across the province. We have done that. We also provided $291 million over two years to construct 2,000 modular supportive housing units for people who are homeless.

Child care is another issue. We understand that housing has a major impact on the cost of living for B.C. families. So, too, does the search for quality child care in the province of British Columbia. These families work extra shifts and often drive miles out of their way to take advantage of child care they feel lucky to have found, a service that can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year per child.

Then there are the thousands of families who do not even get their chance. Instead, they wait months, even years, on waiting lists. Careers are put on pause. Family income falls because child care is not available for them. Past government has not helped parents find the child care they need to move their lives forward, getting an education, taking a new job and making the most of their opportunities. Our government has good news for the people. This year, British Columbians will turn a page.

This throne speech also focuses on making significant investments to make sure families have access to safe, quality and affordable child care. That’s the commitment made in this throne speech. Families are paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for child care or waiting months and years on wait-lists for child care.

Our government is taking the first step forward on a made-in-B.C. child care plan that will deliver — including reduced child care fees for thousands of families, increased 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. It’s all good news for young families.

When we invest in quality child care, everyone benefits. Children get the best start and the opportunity to succeed. Parents can go ahead and find work, earning more money to pay the bills and save for the future. Employers benefit from the talents of tens of thousands of skilled people, many of them women, coming back into the workforce. The people of Surrey are very happy with the announcement of safe, quality and affordable child care. It’s certainly a win-win situation for everyone.

Poverty is another issue that is very close to my heart. Poverty is an important issue that requires significant actions, and our government is in the process of developing a comprehensive poverty reduction plan.

[3:45 p.m.]

Mr. Speaker, probably you remember that on May 25, 2011, I received a letter from Raise the Rates entitled “MLA welfare challenge,” which went to every MLA. Raise the Rates — a coalition concerned about poverty, inequality and homelessness in B.C. — invited me to spend a month living on welfare.

After much consideration and support from my family, stakeholders and colleagues, I decided to accept the welfare challenge to experience firsthand what life is like for half a million families and individuals living in poverty. As a father of two young children, it is very hard for me to imagine that in a province as wealthy as ours, we had 137,000 children living in poverty at that time, under the B.C. Liberals.

It was hard for me to imagine that about 70,000 British Columbians were using a food bank every month. Almost one-third of those using a food bank were children. It was hard for me to believe that the gap between the rich and the poor under the B.C. Liberals was widening every day, that the top 10 percent of B.C. families earned considerably more than the entire half of families living in this province.

We have a wealthy family, a wealthy society, and we can do better. I’m sure that British Columbians want us to do better.

I lived on provincial income assistance for a month beginning in January 2012. Over the month, I met the people living in poverty and on welfare and listened to their painful and heartbreaking stories, and each story has a message for all of us.

We cannot afford to not take action to address the growing gap between the rich and the poor. British Columbia is at its strongest when we are all pulling in the same direction. Our government is taking actions to fight inequality and bring down the barriers holding people back. The cycle of poverty has divided people from opportunities and hurt thousands of children and families.

This year your government will deliver B.C.’s first-ever poverty reduction plan. B.C. has been the only province, under the B.C. Liberals, that did not have a poverty reduction plan, but this year we are going to change that. Your government will deliver B.C.’s first-ever poverty reduction plan.

This strategy will rely on investments across government to make life better for low-income families and the working poor — from the minimum wage to housing and child care, mental health, legal aid, post-secondary education and skills training. We are all made stronger when we give families a better start.

To erase inequality, we must create a province where everyone is welcome to contribute — no matter their ability, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression or political beliefs. That’s why I support this throne speech.

Before I move to my concluding remarks, I would like to respond to some of the comments I’ve been hearing from the other members. I hope I have some time for that.

One of the top comments coming from the other side, which I hear from almost every member because it’s part of their message, is that they left behind a $2.5 billion surplus. That was a big thing. But what they don’t tell the people of British Columbia is that they took almost $1 billion from ICBC.

[3:50 p.m.]

What they don’t tell the people of British Columbia is that they sold 100 properties of the people of British Columbia to their friends and insiders to balance the budget. They don’t tell that part. What they also don’t tell the people of British Columbia is that when they took over in 2001, the NDP gave them a $2 billion surplus as well. Somehow their surplus is something good, but the NDP surplus was not good. That’s how they define the surplus. That’s one thing I wanted to mention here that they talk about.

The other comment I hear from them is this, which I want to respond to. They made one more comment. I want to respond to that too. They talk here about the broken promises, and I laugh when they talk about that.

Let me give you the list of broken promises by the other side when they were in power. There was the time in 2013, an election day promise to the people of British Columbia for a debt-free B.C. They promised that there would be seven LNG projects in the province of British Columbia. There would be 100,000 jobs, with a $100 million prosperity fund.

The outcome of that is this. The debt of B.C. doubled under them. It’s not free. There were zero jobs created out of 100,000. There was only one job, which I don’t want to mention here, that they created. There is not even $1 of the $100 million prosperity fund. That was their promise. Zero delivery out their promises, and they won the election by saying that.

They also promised just before the election that there would be no HST in B.C. After one month, what happened? There was HST in B.C. The people of B.C. stood up to that challenge, because that was a complete lie that they made to the people of British Columbia. They had to withdraw, through the process.

They also promised to the people of British Columbia before the election that they would not sell B.C. Rail, but after the election, they sold B.C. Rail. That was their broken promise as well. During the election in 2009….

Interjections.

J. Brar: The floor is mine.

During the election in 2009, Premier Gordon Campbell and his team promised to the people of British Columbia that the total debt of B.C. — it was after 1990, by the way — would be $495 million, not a penny more. That was the promise. But the actual debt was $2.5 billion. So here, standing in this House, you talk about the broken promises. It doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t cut it.

I could go on and on about these things, but I would like to conclude because my time is probably coming up.

Interjection.

J. Brar: I could go on. I see the member for Surrey-Cloverdale is very excited to hear…. I can probably fill him in.

Let me give you the B.C. Liberal record versus the NDP record for Surrey. B.C. Liberals forced the people of Surrey to pay unfair tolls on the Port Mann Bridge and the Golden Ears Bridge. The B.C. NDP eliminated those tolls, which saves almost $1,500 for each person who works on the other side.

The B.C. Liberals refused to build a new hospital for the people of Surrey. In fact, they sold the land we bought to build a new hospital. But we are committing, once again, to build a new hospital. We have already found the money to build the concept planning for that one. That’s your record.

[3:55 p.m.]

B.C. Liberals refused to fund the 40 percent funding for transit for a long time. It was the NDP that came out and said: “We will fund 40 percent to build LRT in Surrey.” At that time, they said: “The NDP cannot afford it.” But just before the election, when they saw that it was a big issue, they also announced that and were saying that they were going to afford it.

B.C. Liberals, in Surrey, failed to build schools to accommodate the growing student population. We have committed $581 million to build new schools and to fix education. We have done that. They refused to replace the Pattullo Bridge at all. We have made the commitment now that we are going to build the Pattullo Bridge.

I could go on, on the Surrey issues, as well. I know I see the green light. I would like to conclude. British Columbians have made their priorities very clear. People are very frustrated after years of rising living costs, deteriorating services and fewer opportunities. They expect this government to take action to make life better, and that’s exactly what we are doing. Making life affordable was front and centre in this throne speech, and that will be at the fore of next week’s budget.

D. Barnett: On behalf of my constituents of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, it is an honour to provide my comments in reply to the 2018 Speech from the Throne.

Before I begin, I think it’s quite fitting to observe the work of a few individuals who have dedicated their lives to the service of British Columbians. The first person who comes to mind is the person who served as the 35th Premier of British Columbia, Christy Clark. She served for many years in this House and made history as the first female Premier in Canada to lead her party to a majority of seats in two consecutive general elections.

I would also like to recognize the hon. member for Langley East. Last fall he stepped in as interim leader of the official opposition, during which time the B.C. Liberal Party went through a period of renewal. I would also like to note the work of the hon. member for Abbotsford West, who just marked his 24th anniversary as an MLA in this House. He served in many cabinet posts and, most recently, as the most successful Finance Minister in Canada, after launching five consecutive budgets in a row.

As I mentioned earlier, the B.C. Liberal Party just went through a period of renewal, including a highly contested leadership race. Six wonderful candidates stepped forward and offered their ideas, their strength and their vision for the future. In the process, we welcomed thousands of new members to the party who are just as interested in the future of our province. This has revitalized the party, as we welcome many new faces. We feel rejuvenated by all the enthusiasm generated in the process.

As you know, we have a new leader in the hon. member for Vancouver-Quilchena. Our new leader comes with an open mind, a high degree of common sense and a willingness to work with anyone interested in making a better life in the province of British Columbia. I can safely say that on this side of the House, we have a greater sense of unity and purpose heading into the future.

My region in the Cariboo-Chilcotin is vast in size and home to a very special breed of people. My constituents are resilient, independent in spirit and harbour a deep sense of care and concern for their families, neighbours, and friends. They care for the land and for every other person, regardless of their colour, race, religion or sexuality.

[4:00 p.m.]

We are all one people, and we are talking about a group of people that had to help one another during the worst wildfires in this province’s history. They place a high premium on living in harmony and giving back to the community. They want to trust in a government, at all levels, that treats all of their citizens fairly.

Our people abhor injustice and inequality and hold their elected representatives to a very high standard. They expect their elected representatives to listen first and act accordingly. The people of the Cariboo-Chilcotin don’t want a government telling them what to do or how they should behave. They don’t want a government that caters only to a few and ignores the needs of the community as a whole.

Each region is different in this province, and government has to recognize the differences between rural British Columbia and the more populated cities in the south. And we certainly reject the government’s proposed plan to change the way people vote.

Proportional representation will reduce the voices of people living in the north and rural parts of this province. Proportional representation will instead concentrate power in the highly populated Lower Mainland. It is a system that will dictate to the rest of the province how they should live and where they should do it. This is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker, and you can bet this side of the House will fight tooth and nail against an obvious attempt by a fragile minority government to tilt the rules in their own favour.

This throne speech is characterized by highly vague platitudes and very little detail about their future plans. We will have to await the devil in the details when the provincial budget is tabled next week. But we already know that many of the promises made during the election seem to be surprisingly empty.

Where is the $400 renters rebate that the NDP promised? What about $10-a-day daycare that parents and families heard about and voted accordingly? Well, now the Premier is stepping back and saying that it was interest groups that branded the $10-a-day approach and that people shouldn’t take that promise at all seriously. This is what breeds cynicism. People vote for a party because they take them at face value, and when the NDP and the Green Party bicker over pipelines and LNG, people lose faith in their leaders.

Now, it is true the NDP did follow through on a number of tax cuts that were promised by the B.C. Liberals in the 2017 provincial budget. This included a 50 percent decrease in MSP premiums that will save British Columbians $900 million a year. The government also delivered on a B.C. Liberal promise to cut the small business tax rate from 2.5 to 2 percent to help generate more economic activity. But these are the very last tax cuts that British Columbians will see for a very long time.

As soon as the NDP delivers their first full budget next Tuesday, we know that they intend to pay for big-ticket items on the backs of the average taxpayer. This has already been signalled in their budget update last September, when they removed the revenue neutrality aspect of the carbon tax. Rather than offsetting any increase in the carbon tax by a reduction in income tax or other form of tax, the NDP is going to quietly raise the carbon tax every year for the next four years.

This government also likes to rebrand announcements made by the previous B.C. Liberal government. A case in point is a recommitment to the Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake. We certainly welcome the news, and we are ecstatic about it, but we will make sure there are going to be shovels in the ground soon.

[4:05 p.m.]

How about a recent announcement that will connect remote coastal and First Nations communities? What about all rural communities? Connectivity is a path to prosperity, and we need the north fully connected across the whole province, not just part.

Let’s take, for instance, a rural development strategy. It feels like this government is in the habit of reinventing the wheel just so they can claim credit. Under my former cabinet portfolio, the rural development strategy was a concerted effort to draw all of government’s resources under one banner and really make an impact on local communities. The objective was simple: find the best way to deliver resources that will benefit small communities the most.

The answer, in part, was a $100 million rural dividend fund. It came about as a direct result of the dialogue created by the rural advisory council. Unfortunately, the new government is dispensing with years of careful planning and opting instead for a month-long consultation that ends on February 28 — if you have a computer. I won’t discourage anybody from taking part, but it just seems to me that this is a bit of a rush job.

Even more concerning is the fact that the consultation period ends well after the NDP is expected to deliver its first full provincial budget next week. This calls into question whether existing programs will be scrapped to pay for big-ticket items the NDP campaigned on during the last election.

With over two dozen so-called public consultations already in play, I hope the new government is not simply paying lip service to rural development and leaving small communities out in the cold. To this level of government waste, I say: “Shame on you.”

What about seniors in this throne speech? Not much was mentioned about them. This despite the fact that seniors are the fastest-growing segment of our population. I pay great attention to this, because I am one. There is no mention of this in the throne speech. Seniors are the people who built this province with their hearts, their minds and their hands. They deserve better.

What is the government going to do when all the baby boomers start requiring more and more assisted care? Where is the money for that? Have you ever taken the time to ask a senior in care what would make life better? It is certainly not bedpans and lockup. The B.C. Liberals had a detailed plan for seniors care, but the new government seems to be ignoring the problem.

Following the worst wildfire on record, our province is on a very long road to recovery. I am still trying to help people who lost everything, but all I have heard from this government is a great deal of talk and not much action. People have lost their homes, their dreams, and worst of all, they have lost hope. This is a tragic situation. The people I refer to are highly resilient and very proud, but without some help, they have no hope. There was no talk about wildfire recovery in this throne speech. Why is there no mention of ranches and ranchers that have suffered so much from the wildfires?

The problem with this throne speech is that there is a long grocery list of promises to improve services but no economic plan to fund them. There is no mention of economic incentives to encourage rural resource development. Tourism, agriculture and mine exploration are all forgotten.

This is a throne speech that casts a false sense of security, with no real plan for the economy. There is no talk of encouraging private investment, and it is the private sector that creates good-paying jobs. In fact, I am very discouraged that in their first full throne speech, this government gives nothing to hard-working men and women of this province.

[4:10 p.m.]

All we see is a higher cost of living through an increased carbon tax that will push up the cost of gas at the pumps. The higher carbon tax will also place a heavy burden on the private sector and make it more costly to do business in British Columbia.

It seems that this government can regulate its way towards more affordable housing. The throne speech is an attack against the real estate industry. For consumers who profit through this market, it seems the government wants to make “prosperity” a dirty word. There will always be bad apples who will try to use the housing market to launder money and evade taxes, but they do not represent the majority of British Columbians.

As a consumer, there is a possibility you are about to lose your constitutional rights, as long as we have a government that is intent on telling British Columbians what they can and cannot do with their own property. This government may want to dictate where and how you can buy or sell real estate in this province.

What happened to the forest industry in this province? What happened to the Premier’s brave words that he would solve the softwood lumber dispute? In opposition, this Premier liked to accuse our government of doing nothing. He bragged about heading down to the United States and solving the dispute within weeks. What happened to this promise? The Premier went down to the States and quickly retreated with his tail between his legs, with nothing accomplished. The softwood lumber dispute continues on, and this Premier is now resorting to starting trade disputes with other provinces.

This Premier’s solution is to throw taxpayer money at lawyers to fight the federal government over its proper jurisdiction to regulate interprovincial pipelines. This is ridiculous. Pipelines have been serving the people of this province long before the Premier was born. Yet now his vision includes taking on the Alberta government and threatening the prosperity of the entire country.

When will this Premier stop and think about all British Columbians and not just his partners in the Third Party? As far as this throne speech goes, we see a great deal of consistency. Private investment — fail; best interests of all British Columbians — fail; making life more affordable — fail; $10-a-day daycare — fail; renters $400 rebate — fail.

I am sorry, British Columbia, but this throne speech comes as a great disappointment. So does this government.

R. Singh: I am really pleased to speak in support of the throne speech, which is focused on making life more affordable for people. People are frustrated after years of rising living costs, cuts to services and fewer opportunities. They expect this government to take action to make life better, and that’s exactly what they are doing.

Our government is making different choices and moving B.C. in a new direction. We will increase the opportunities available for people and give them relief and a life that they can afford. Government’s first steps to make life more affordable are already making a difference. I meet a lot of people in my constituency who are talking about the changes that the government is making to make their life more affordable.

One example of that is the Medical Services Plan. Starting January 1, the government cut the Medical Services premiums to half. That put up to $900 a year back into the pockets of thousands of hard-working families.

This is very significant for my riding of Surrey–Green Timbers. Most of the people working there are hard workers. Most of them are doing the jobs where the benefits are not being covered by the employer. In that sense, these premiums, this unfair tax that we were putting on the people…. Cutting that into half is making a big difference. They are taking more money, which they can invest into their families.

[4:15 p.m.]

We have also removed unfair bridge tolls on the Port Mann Bridge and Golden Ears Bridge. Daily commuters are saving up to $1,500 a year.

We have cut student loan interest by 2½ percent. Graduates can get out of debt more quickly and on the path of their chosen career. This I can say personally. My son just got into university last year. It was my first brush with the practical reality that the students face, the fees that the students have to pay to get their post-secondary education. Most of them have to take loans, and this will really help them to pursue their careers, to pursue the education they deserve and not get deep down into the debt as well.

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 for work.

Keeping hydro rates affordable. Government has asked the B.C. Utilities Commission to freeze hydro rates for the next year.

The throne speech set out government’s strategy to address the crisis in housing affordability. Housing affordability is one of the main issues that my constituents are worried about. Most of them are newcomers to Canada, and they have big hopes, big dreams, about making a better life here in Canada. But housing affordability…. The previous government failed to address the housing crisis and let costs pile up for ordinary people while cutting taxes for the wealthy. I’m really glad that our government is taking action to help make housing more affordable.

Our government will address speculation and crack down on tax fraud in B.C.’s real estate market; make the largest investment in housing in B.C. history to build homes for people, including students, seniors, Indigenous people and middle-income families; and provide security and safety for renters, including better protections for renters facing renovictions and demolitions.

It was my honour to stand with the Housing Minister, and also the mayor of Surrey, at the beginning of this year, when she made the announcement for the modular housing. We all know that homelessness is increasing all over the province, but in Surrey, 135A Street is now known as a tent city.

It was a pleasure to be standing with the minister when she made the announcement to work for the people who are the most vulnerable in our society, these people who face so many barriers, like addiction, other barriers. Our government…. To be standing there and doing partnerships — with other governments, with non-profit organizations like the Lookout agency and with the city — to create more housing options for these people…. It was such an honour to be part of this government.

Also, every day in my constituency office, I hear from so many seniors who are being evicted from the places that they are renting right now. This is a very, very serious situation. Our seniors, I think, are the foundation of any society. When they go through any crisis when they are facing such problems, our government is taking concrete steps to address that, and I’m really proud of that fact.

I’m also very proud of our government’s first steps to deliver a comprehensive child care program for B.C. families, as set out in the throne speech. It is a very, very emotional moment for me, having come to Canada just a few years ago with my two-year-old son. Finding affordable child care was a big issue for my family. I just could not afford it, and my family…. What we decided was to do split shifts. I used to work during the day, and my husband used to work during the night. That’s what our plan for child care was.

[4:20 p.m.]

I am so glad that our government is taking action to find some concrete steps towards child care. We know that families are paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for child care or waiting for months, and years, on wait-lists. Past governments have not helped parents find the child care they need to move their lives forward.

Our government is taking the first steps forward on a made-in-B.C. child care plan that will reduce child care fees for thousands of families; increase the number of licensed child care spaces; train the early childhood educators B.C. needs to provide affordable, quality child care for every family that needs it; help thousands of children and families get a better start; and grow our economy for the benefit of all British Columbians.

This, I can say, is very true for Surrey. Surrey is a growing community that gets newcomers and new immigrants every month. Most of the women I know don’t get into the workforce because they are taking care of children. I have heard from so many women who have come to our constituency office and have talked about the unaffordability of child care and the reason they cannot get into the workforce and be a productive part of our economy.

The steps that our government is taking will not only help our children get the proper child care, the better care that they want with properly trained early educators. Also, it will give parents full participation in the economy and will help in the economy of B.C.

Also, I was really glad to see, for the first time, that there was so much talk about the workers and the workers’ rights in our throne speech. We know that a lot of people are struggling. There was a lot of talk, when we were running for election…. When I was door-knocking, a lot of people were coming to me and talking about the minimum wage. Seeing that in our throne speech, the implementation of the Fair Wages Commission and taking the minimum wage up to $15 by 2021…. I think that will be received so well by so many of my constituents and, I think, people all over B.C.

There has been a myth about the minimum wage — that it is only young people who work for minimum wage. But we know the stats show that 94,000 British Columbians go to work and take home a minimum wage. They range from young people who are working their way through post-secondary education to families struggling to make ends meet and also seniors who need money to pay their bills in retirement. It was very important that…. B.C.’s lowest-paid workers deserved a raise. I’m so glad that our government is taking steps towards that direction.

Government is also taking the first steps by reviewing the province’s labour code to support fair laws for workers and business. Workers, as we know, are the backbone of our economy. Their rights, their health and their safety should be protected.

It is time to review the labour code. It is great that the government is taking the first steps towards that. Work that is fair must also be safe, and that’s why government is committed to making B.C. the safest place in Canada in which to work and will provide better protection for workers, stronger compliance and enforcement and fair and balanced treatment of workers and employers.

The throne speech talked about how we are going to grow a sustainable economy that works for everyone. For too long, working families have experienced stagnant wages, part-time and unstable work and fewer opportunities to get ahead. A strong economy is one where everyone is doing better. Our government will make sure every region benefits from the jobs and opportunity that our province creates.

Also, the throne speech announced the work government is going to do to improve the services people count on. Too many people do not have access to the health care they need.

[4:25 p.m.]

Overcrowded hospitals. One good example is Surrey Memorial Hospital. We have heard so many stories about the long wait-lists and how people have to wait hours in the emergency room to be seen by a doctor. So now the government….

It was a pleasure standing with our Minister of Health, Mr. Dix, who recognizes these issues. He made the announcement….

Deputy Speaker: Member, no names, please.

R. Singh: Oh, sorry.

Our Minister of Health made the announcement of the first steps toward building a second hospital in Surrey. Also, the government is making different choices, including team-based health care to get patients better care faster; initiatives to reduce surgical wait-times; and better supports for seniors, who deserve to live in dignity.

Another thing that our throne speech talks about is education. Education is the most important investment we can make in the future of our province. We know that Surrey is one of the fastest-growing communities, and a lot of parents were very concerned about the educational facilities and the kind of education that their kids are getting. For far too long, our kids were studying in overcrowded and underfunded classrooms.

Our government has put more resources into education. They have hired more than 3,500 teachers. They are making sure that the kids are studying in smaller classrooms in which they can get proper attention and the kind of education they deserve.

Also, with Surrey being the fastest-growing community, we had the big issue of portables. A lot of students in the community of Surrey are studying in portables, which is a huge issue. When we talk to these students, they feel alienated from the rest of the school. They feel that they are not getting the proper education that most of their peers are getting. Somehow they feel they are being left behind by the school system.

I’m really, really glad that we are fixing those problems in public education by investing in new schools and also in new school playgrounds to give kids the best start. Our government will review school funding as well.

Our government is investing in transit and infrastructure to keep people moving. We will work with the Mayors Council to realize their vision for expanded rapid transit in the Lower Mainland, like the Broadway SkyTrain and Surrey LRT. We are moving quickly to replace the Pattullo Bridge to keep commuters safe. We are committed to working with communities to make sure people have long-haul transportation options to get where they need to go. We’ll make sure infrastructure projects deliver lasting benefits to people and communities. We are reviewing the coastal ferry system to make sure it’s working as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Also, our government is doing its part to keep the community safe. One of the biggest issues that Surrey is facing is gang violence. Every day we hear news about so many kids getting killed in this gang violence that is happening. I’m really happy that not only is our government putting more investment in the front-line workers and first responders, but they are also putting funding into prevention.

We have to protect these kids who are at risk of getting into these gangs, and that’s what the wraparound program is all about. I’m so glad to see in the throne speech the continued funding that our government is going to provide for such programs. This is a very, very significant investment. This is very important for our kids. It’s our kids who are dying on the streets of Surrey.

[4:30 p.m.]

Also, our government is putting investment into transition housing. Having worked as a violence against women counsellor, I know what a crisis that has been. While working on the crisis lines, I took so many calls when women were calling in the middle of the night and they were looking for a safe place to go. Unfortunately, whenever we tried to call around, there were not enough spaces. That is the worst situation a crisis worker or a front-line worker can get into — when somebody’s crying for help and looking for help, and you don’t have the resources to give to them.

For the first time in 20 years, the government is investing in these vulnerable populations, these vulnerable women who are fleeing violence and need a safe place to go to. They are putting their resources in there, and I am so happy and so proud of my government’s commitment to do that. The throne speech recommitted that our government will work in partnership with the Indigenous peoples to achieve meaningful reconciliation. This is a cross-government priority.

We are committed to implementing the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Tsilhqot’in decision. This year we will take the next steps on that journey together. It will take time, but we are committed to making it happen.

In closing, I will just say that our government has inherited some big problems — the affordability crisis, problems at ICBC and B.C. Hydro and unequal opportunity for people. We are hard at work on solutions and actions to make life better. With the largest investments in housing and child care in B.C. history, we are taking steps to make life more affordable. We are investing in people and creating jobs and opportunity for every region.

The road ahead will take time, but we are on the path to make life better for every British Columbian. This throne speech starts us on that path to get there.

R. Coleman: I’ve listened intently to some of the so-called promises and thoughts of the members opposite in the House and some of the commitments they’re making to things like the largest commitment in housing in B.C.’s history, which will only require you to invest $2 billion in the next three years to match what was done in the last three years. As a matter of fact, as you go forward…. I’d like to see how that’s going to be managed in the budget.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

This is the first session, hon. Speaker, that I have actually represented Langley East — or Madame Speaker. Sorry. For the previous 21 years, I actually represented the riding of Fort Langley–Aldergrove and lost Aldergrove in the realignment, unfortunately, in the last election. I don’t think I plan to serve 21 years as the member for Langley East. So probably, in my vernacular forever will be Fort Langley–Aldergrove, and we’ll get through it as we go on in time.

I’m just going to speak briefly about some colleagues of mine, six people who put their name forward to run for the leadership of a political party. These people made a commitment in a very long writ period to travel this province, exchange ideas, have coffee klatches, give speeches, go to group meetings, to phone members of our party and to go out and try and help us decide who our next leader would be.

In that period of time, we doubled our membership from 30,000 to 60,000 members, all with the fact that people are engaged and want to be part of the future with the B.C. Liberal Party. Obviously, that was proven out just last night with the phenomenal numbers that Ben Stewart got up in Kelowna West. Even I, who usually runs with a pretty good margin of victory, was jealous of Ben’s percentage of victory last night.

It’s really important that we now, as a group — and we have — come together after this extensive leadership fight to now look forward to the next election and what we’re going to do for our constituents.

Yesterday in the House…. I will thank the Premier and I will thank the Leader of the Opposition for saying nice words about myself and the member for Abbotsford West. But I want you to know that was not my eulogy that was given in the House yesterday. I’m not going anywhere.

Interjection.

[4:35 p.m.]

R. Coleman: Well, you can bring that up with whoever you want to, but I do….

Interjection.

R. Coleman: That’s right. The longest-serving member is actually sitting in the chair as the Deputy Speaker. I would like to congratulate him because he’s been a friend of mine. We’ve worked together a long time.

I want to reflect for a couple of minutes, really, before I get into my comments on the throne speech. Like I said, the complimentary compliments were nice. I did have to explain to 15 people that did text me or phone me why I didn’t tell them that I might be leaving, explaining to them: “No, I’m still here.” They took it a different way from what they….

Interjection.

R. Coleman: That’s right.

Anyway, as we entered this transition to go into a fall session as a group of people, 40-some-plus members of the Legislature, I was asked to do a role. I want to reflect on that just for a minute. First, I want to reflect on the last 20-some years here and the bright minds, capable people, that have come through the various offices, both the opposition offices and the government offices on both sides of this House, who have worked hard and supported.

Some of them are legislative assistants today. Some have been in the past. Some are other staff, in communications, in research, or whatever the case may be. Reflect for a second to know that when you see these folks come through here and work here and do the job at the professional level they do, they grow individually and then move out into other successful careers. It’s really rewarding to know the class, the stamina but also the capabilities, more so, of the young people that come through this building and work with us and our constituencies.

I do want to reflect on a couple of people, though. As we came through the last election and we were coming into the situation where our leader, unfortunately, decided that she was going to move on, we had to staff up and organize the B.C. Liberal official opposition caucus, we needed people.

In 1997, I had a young lady come to work for me as a legislative assistant. She went back and forth from the building in the summers, as she went to university and got her law degree. In 2001, when I was given my first ministry, she came in as my ministerial assistant. For the next 16 years, she was my chief of staff.

She happened to be in Penticton the day that this decision took place. I knew that we had to start from scratch to find staff and budget and what have you. I asked Tobie Myers to be my chief of staff and come and help us through this period of time. In two weeks, she had this building organized. She had furniture. There were people hired. We had people in critic roles. All of that was done because of the capability of this significantly talented young lady.

She coalesced a team of people — people who had been here a long time, like Primrose Carson, who did a great job for us in our caucus for many years. Penelope Chandler is actually the person…. Anybody that’s ever had anything to do with the operation of this House, whether it be the opposition or the Third Party or the government, knows that nobody is better at running this House than Penelope, from our standpoint.

There’s Jennifer. There’s Kim. There’s Luella and many others who have all served exceptionally, in the last six months, to help us get through this period of time, keep our team together through the leadership, continue to do our jobs, do a fall session while this was all going on and get through to where we are today.

The throne speech highlighted some of the people that we lost in the last year. It always does that. I want to talk about a couple of them. I do know I’ve met most of them. Once Rafe Mair and I actually combatted on the radio, when Rafe was on CKNW and on radio years ago. Dave Barrett I knew not as an MLA across the table, but I knew him from his role as a former Premier and a very active member of the New Democratic Party.

[4:40 p.m.]

There were two that I reflected on the most. One was Leonard George, the Chief, elder and long-standing, respected First Nation leader of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation on the North Shore in Vancouver. I reflected because I hear in this House, so many times, how people want to criticize a government. They don’t do enough, or we could do better with First Nations and all the rest of it.

Leonard was a visionary. He believed in his people, their economic opportunities and the future of the life for their children and grandchildren. I’ll never forget the meeting we held on a Saturday morning, where he and other people from the Musqueam and the Squamish came to my office and told me this to start with, “This is the first time we’ve actually met together in the same room,” because for many years, it was always a competition. They wanted to seek opportunities on Crown land and lands like the Willingdon lands to build an economic opportunity for their people.

That led to a relationship with the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, who are now in control of the Jericho lands and the 33rd and Heather lands. They probably will be Vancouver and the Lower Mainland’s largest builder of housing over the next two decades because they’ve done this together, and they’ve done it because of people like Leonard.

Obviously, if you’ve ever served in policing and you see someone go down and die in the line of duty, it tears on your heartstrings. We lost Constable Davidson of the Abbotsford police department, who, in the line of duty, was shot and killed. It was a remarkable service that we went to and had the opportunity to pay respects and have the community show its love to the people that protect them every day.

We spend a lot of time in our society criticizing those people who take care of us the most. We will make a judgment of a snap decision that is made, like that, in the line of duty and criticize it for two, three, four years sometimes.

These people aren’t out there to make mistakes. They’re out there because they care about our communities. They care about the people they serve, and they’re remarkable people. They don’t get to go to work at nine and come home at five. They do shift work. They do intense work. They deal with family disputes. They deal all kinds of situations where they can never know what the outcome is when they pull over a car or walk up beside.

Where it hits me the most is…. I had two people I’ve known in law enforcement who have died. One was a guy that was in the troop not too far from me, back in the early ’70s. He went out one night, and he pulled up to the front of a car, to the window. Two men had decided they were going to go out and shoot a policeman. One had the shotgun cradled on his arm, with his hand on the steering wheel, and the other pulled the trigger. It was pretty early in my career at the time. It was a shock wave that went through Surrey, where this incident took place.

When I was at this memorial service…. If you ever get the opportunity, I think you should take it. See if you can find the remarkable speech or comments and love and leadership that was given to that community by Chief Const. Bob Rich. His comments that day started to heal the community and actually set the context of what we should respect and love of all our first responders that work for us every day.

As we go forward and you talk about things in the throne speech, about how you’re going to go after the gangs and the guns and what you want to do for law enforcement, don’t cheapen it. Don’t do with your budget what you did in the 1990s.

When I became the Solicitor General of this province, we had a complement of 1,575 officers in the provincial police force, not counting any city or municipality. What I found out, though, was that we had less than 1,475. There were people working by themselves, with no backup, across this province on a regular basis because rather than give the money to law enforcement, they just said we had this many and managed by vacancies — didn’t ask people to be trained, didn’t backfill the vacancies.

If you’re going to stand up, as you did in the throne speech, and say you’re going to do something for public safety, you better put the money, the training and the resources behind it, and do not tell the people of British Columbia anything but the truth about what you’re doing.

This province has a remarkable history in North America with regards to public safety. You may not know it, but it is the only jurisdiction — the only jurisdiction, if you can imagine — on the entire continent where every single police car and every single police officer is connected into the same platform for information management.

[4:45 p.m.]

We have police forces in this country that are operating on DOS systems that can’t even connect and talk to anybody and radio systems that can’t go from one town to the other. But not in British Columbia. We were the first people to do integrated units, the first ones to integrate a homicide unit, integrate a sexual predator observation team, guns and gangs.

As we go through this, you have to remember it takes a lot of work and commitment to fund this. Give our guys the opportunity to do their jobs, but recognize that all of society is not getting to be perfect. We have to remember that we stand behind our law enforcement, our people in fire, ambulance and other first responders as they do their jobs.

In addition to all of that, things like losing a colleague and all the trauma, can you imagine how they feel the number of times a night they have to go out and give someone a drug to save their life because of the drugs that the person has taken? Each time that happens, if they’re successful, it’s traumatic for them. If they’re not successful, it’s traumatic for them. We should recognize that to make sure that funding has been committed in a non-partisan way. I beg to tell this House, and both governments over the last few years, to make sure that we give our guys the tools to do their job.

The throne speech talks about the largest housing investment in B.C. history. You better find some money fast if you think you’re going to meet that one. First of all, you’re building 1,700 units that were funded by the previous government. Right now you haven’t built a single unit or approved one yet.

Your 2,000 modular project that you talk about…. We’ve been doing modular in this province for over a decade. We did 1,300 of them, actually, in small communities for seniors across B.C. Our modular industry is one of the best in the world, so there’s no reason not to continue to work with them on that and make sure that takes place.

I found something interesting in the comments of the throne speech. In 2005-2006, we took the SAFER program, which is Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters, and expanded it, and then we added in the rent assistance program for people of low income that are renters in B.C. For the next ten years, as the minister responsible, I heard every year how the NDP did not support rent assistance. Somewhere between getting into the minority government in July and the throne speech the other day, they’ve had a conversion. They think they should actually continue and expand the rent assistance program.

Now, I just take that as a compliment. I think it was the right program, the right time, and 20,000 families are receiving a cheque every month to help them with their rent. We should continue that program.

As you innovate in housing, think about basement suites, think about coach houses, think about lock-off suites in condominium buildings to be used for helping people pay their mortgage or take a loved one in beside them to take care of them, for their care. Think of the innovation that’s been tried to be done in this province, and continue to pursue that, because it’s the only way you’re going to be successful.

I also mention the dream of home ownership. I believe we started a program that could help with that, the B.C. homeowner’s program. But there are others that are in there — they will be in your briefing notes — that are innovative. As opportunities come along, make sure you take a shot at them.

At the same time, we do have to make sure that we have supply. Some of the processes that are taking five to seven years in some cities to just approve a condominium building better speed up. If it’s not in the pipeline and it’s not getting built, there’s no way to be able to do things that will happen for people’s affordability.

The renters rebate. I guess we wait for the budget, but it appears that’s disappeared. It wasn’t our promise. It was yours. You need to decide whether you’re going to keep it or not, like all the others you’ve broken.

My biggest concern right now is for my country, for a number of reasons. We have an argument going on with another province and a country. I’m not going to go into whether there should be a wine embargo or anything else. I just want to talk about something.

[4:50 p.m.]

I was one of the statutory decision–makers on the Kinder Morgan pipeline project. I read the thousands and thousands of pages. I read the consultation report and talked to First Nations who were involved, saying this project should go ahead. I met with First Nations as we came through this. I know what we did. In British Columbia, we had an environmental assessment program that was statutory. Certain things had to be met. They had to be done, and if they couldn’t be met, they would not be approved.

We have a national program — environmental assessment through, in this case, the National Energy Board, which had hearings and meetings for years to finally come to a decision where, with conditions, this pipeline would be approved, and it was. Now a jurisdiction has decided that they don’t like it. They’re going to go back on a legal, statutory, professional, independent assessment made by a professional public service and say: “We’re going to stop this thing.” Now, these people have invested money, a lot of money, to get to this point.

Members of this House should go back and look at the Carrier Lumber issue, where a government decided to take away somebody’s business opportunity by shadily going around and moving permits and cutblocks, to the point where they almost broke the company. Carrier Lumber sued. It was the NDP government in the ’90s that started it. We’re the ones that had to pay them the hundreds of millions of dollars and the millions of dollars of allowable cut to settle the case.

We have a National Energy Board. We have a national, constitutionally mandated program for how we approve a project. So what are we telling the world? This is what worries me. We’re telling the world, when we go on a trade mission or we sit in with a government group or a company, that we’re proud of our strength on the environment. That’s why we have this rigorous approval process, a legal approval process, but if you meet those conditions, you can build in Canada or British Columbia.

The message now is: “Don’t do it. It’s a waste of your time; it’s a waste of your money. Go pick another country.” To me, it’s a travesty because what you’re saying is this: “We don’t care about the jobs for British Columbians. We don’t care about moving Canada’s resources. We don’t care about anything other than this little petty squabble we want to go have over a legal process that was completed.”

I know this. When Pacific NorthWest LNG and its partner sat in a room last summer, in the middle of the table was a letter written by our now Premier and our now Environment Minister, telling the federal government not to give them approval with conditions for that particular project. That, plus what was going on with Kinder Morgan, tilted the scale to say: “Step back. We don’t know, if we spend $15 billion in that jurisdiction, whether we’ll actually be able to build or if we’ll ever be able to do what we need to do. So where else can we go?”

Ask the guys on the east coast of the United States where the money went. LNG is flowing from there because they feel that they can make an investment and governments will stand by their word. In this province right now, our government is not standing by our country’s word. I think it was rigorous. I think it was right. It’s a project that is needed for people.

Interjection.

R. Coleman: Thank you, Member. I’ve actually read my stuff.

Deputy Speaker: Member.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member.

Please continue.

R. Coleman: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I know that the member opposite…. I guess he wants to impugn my integrity, but that’s fine. He can go ahead and do that.

The other thing that is important that we understand, as we come to this throne speech, is that it talks about First Nations.

I want to tell you something. There are over 500 economic agreements made by the previous government with First Nations across this province. They’ve had economic development. They’ve had opportunities for training. I know these people because I did most of the government-to-government relations with many of them — ask the Carrier-Sekani; ask the Lax Kw’alaams; ask the Metlakatla; ask some of the First Nations up in treaty 8 — government-to-government relationships established through negotiations on accommodation and funding to help them be part of the future of the economy of British Columbia.

I sit in this room, and I look at what’s going on. Climate change is hardly mentioned, by the way, in the throne speech. I get a kick out of it because I remember the many meetings that I went through back in the day. I know the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head was there in those meetings when we started to look at things.

[4:55 p.m.]

I’m sure he remembers that his now partners spent an entire six to ten months campaigning across this province to axe the tax. “Axe the carbon tax. You shouldn’t have one. It’s going to hurt the economy. It’s a bad thing.” Now they want to raise it. When they raise it, they don’t want to reinvest it in opportunities to reduce taxes or investment in things that will bring us clean energy and solutions. They’re just going to put it in their pockets and blow it on something else.

Interjection.

R. Coleman: It’s the same…. The interesting thing is that the member that’s now heckling was also, smiling, at the announcement for the Site C dam. Today he’s no….

Interjection.

R. Coleman: Yeah, row 4 or 5. I remember some of his comments because I actually listened to some of the things he said back then. The interesting….

Interjection.

R. Coleman: Well, you wait. I won’t have to. I won’t have to on that one, I can tell you.

Deputy Speaker: Members, through the Chair.

R. Coleman: Let’s think about this for a second. Back then, it was a good idea to have firm power so that we could shape wind and solar and other forms of power to be able to actually build on the clean economy and climate change solutions. This changed to: “We need wind and solar, and we don’t need to shape it. So we don’t need the Site C dam.” That changed for the member.

Interjection.

R. Coleman: Evidently, it’s hitting a bit of a nerve, but that’s okay. It’s okay.

At the same time, no mention of the fact that there are a whole bunch of First Nations folks that are working on that site. There have been economic benefits to the First Nations in the area. There’s investment in other aspects of the northeast. The opportunity for us to actually have a place to be able to handle climate change together is important.

As we go through what this government is promising, the issue for many will be: “When were you going to get around to it?” There’s no $10 daycare. A child born or a two-year-old child in British Columbia today can’t expect to have $10 daycare until they get out of high school, if then. The whole issue around daycare and daycare spaces and all the things that they say in the throne speech…. It didn’t actually say one thing about space or affordability or the delivery of that.

It’s important that we recognize that throne speeches are a little bit like — theirs is, anyway — their commitment to housing in British Columbia. They were going to do 14,000 units over ten years — 14,000 units. It didn’t take long….

Interjection.

R. Coleman: Sorry. It’s 11,400 a year, 114,000 units in ten years. Ironically, it only took to the estimates of last fall for the minister to say to one of my colleagues: “The 114,000 units is only an aspirational goal.”

That’s not what they said in their platform. They didn’t say: “Our aspiration is to have 114,000 new affordable housing units.” It said: “We’re going to build 114,000 additional units in British Columbia.” I know how hard it is to find property, to connect societies, to find issues with regard to zoning and communities, when you do this.

Even when you actually are trying to solve a problem in a community where people have asked you…. B.C. Housing usually does all this work on behalf of government, a remarkable organization that does this on behalf of British Columbia. They will usually be met, even at the most benign project, with 300, 400 people at a public hearing who want you to solve a concern in the community, but they just don’t want you to do it anywhere near them.

It’s a challenge, and I recognize that. I think we need to continue to educate people that just because someone has a bit of mental illness or needs us because of mental illness and addiction, and we’re putting them in a decent place to live with supports, they’re not a threat to them. They’re a threat to our own humanity if we don’t do something about them, if we forget about them and leave them on our streets. So we continue, and we must always focus on the fact this is about humankind when we talk about housing.

You can politicize it, but I have a very proud feeling about the housing record in the last decade. I know we changed a whole bunch of things. I know we were the first government to take transition houses to 24-7 funding, and British Columbia had never done it before.

[5:00 p.m.]

I know we went out and bought buildings, renovated and saved them and gave them back to the community for supportive housing for people suffering mental health issues and addictions and other things to do with homelessness.

I know we built tens of thousands of units to actually meet the goal annually to try and build. As you do that, there’s always another issue. When I started housing stuff back in the early 2000s, in 2005, our issue was not the drugs that are hitting us today. There were other drugs, and they mixed with mental health and also gave us similar situations.

As we go and look at the future, as this throne speech comes through…. If you’re going to say it, do it. If you’re not going to do it, don’t say it. Please don’t spend the next year doing 17 more studies on stuff you said you’d do that you know you’re never going to do. The fact of the matter is, there are people out there who believe in people like Constable Davidson in Abbotsford protecting their communities. They actually rely on your promises to make sure that they can do their jobs properly. Our first responders want the backup as they deal with this crisis.

On this side of the House, we now have a new leader. We have a new MLA. We’ll be a very strong opposition, and we’ll be ready to outline the issues in front of us, support our First Nations friends, support our communities and be ready to replace you if you don’t keep your word to British Columbia.

Hon. S. Simpson: It’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to join in the debate on throne speech 2018. It’s particularly an exciting time to do this, as it will be the first full session we have here with a full budget as the new government.

I want to start, though, by acknowledging again the people of Vancouver-Hastings, my constituency, and to thank them again for the opportunity to return to this place for a fourth time. It’s always a privilege. I know, as members on both sides who have been here a while know, that when you get right down to it, all politics is local. It really is about representing your constituents and the community that sends you here to act on their behalf.

All of the other things we do — whether it’s in ministerial ways, in critic ways, other things around this House — are all critical and important for the government and for the work of this place. But at the end of the day, it really is the people who sent you here that you should pay, first and foremost, attention to.

I want to again thank my family. Cate, my partner through all these years who has put up with the challenges of being here. Again, every member knows, certainly, about the challenges that spouses face when we’re here. We spend a lot of time away from home, and when we are home, we’re sometimes distracted by the nature of the work that fills up our days. I know, certainly in the case of Cate, and I’m sure it’s true for many spouses, if not most, that they ground you and remind you where you come from. Whether you might be an MLA or not is pretty secondary to the many other important things in life.

I want to thank my staff in my constituency: Anne Vavrik, Sherrill Gullickson and Theresa Ho. Particularly in the last number of months since we were sworn in as government in July, the task has become an even bigger one for them. Being here as a minister, I’m just not in my constituency as much as I might have been in the past. They’ve taken on a greater burden for that, moving forward, and they do a great job.

I know that for any member, if you have confidence in your staff in your constituency, it makes life a whole lot easier when you know that things are taken care of in your constituency office back at home and that you can feel confident about that. Constituency assistants play such an integral role in making that happen.

[5:05 p.m.]

In my ministerial office, I’ve learned a lot about the importance of staff here. Leah and Jayne and Brenda and Val and Casey certainly make my life a whole lot easier and certainly make it come together every day. I appreciate that.

The ministry. I’ve learned a lot in the short period of time as I’ve gone through the kind of learning curve of the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. I’ve learned from a great team of people who work there every day and who are committed.

I particularly want to note my deputy, Sheila Taylor, who’s retiring. Sheila will be leaving at the end of this month. I know that without her good guidance, thoughtfulness and help, the last six months would have been a much, much bigger challenge than they were.

Sheila always is a pretty quiet sort, compared to some people, but she always had that look that I learned about a few months in. I would get that look from her, quietly, when we were talking and I was spouting off about this idea or that idea. I would stop and say: “And what do you think about that?” She would always say: “Well, that’s a great idea, Minister, but I was thinking about this.” Almost always, the advice was good.

I owe her a great debt for having got through the last six or seven months with this ministry — to understand it and grasp it and to make sure that I didn’t step in any pratfalls that were too large along the way — because of her support and the support of others in the ministry. I certainly wish her well moving forward.

In the last election and the campaign, we talked about three things. We talked about making life more affordable for British Columbians. We talked about improving and restoring services that are essential to British Columbians, and we talked about a sustainable economy that would have family-supporting jobs. That was the message throughout the campaign leading up to the election, and that is the message that we have continued to espouse since the election.

We have stayed consistent with that. We have moved forward on those initiatives, and we have taken actions in the early months of this term of government. You will see more, in substantive ways, next week when the budget is introduced. We talked about things that were important to us and then we acted on them quickly.

In my file, I was very pleased that the second thing that we did as a government…. The first thing we did was to supply supports to many of the people and the folks who were challenged in communities by wildfires. That was the first action of the government when it came to power. The next action was to increase social assistance rates, disability rates and earning exemptions and to initiate, very quickly after that, a transportation supplement for persons with disabilities.

It was a good first step. It was only a first step in the process to fulfil my mandate, which is around poverty reduction, but it was an initial step to do that. I think that as much as anything, it was about putting a few more dollars in people’s pockets. But it also was about delivering a pretty clear message about what the priorities of the new government are.

We also moved forward with the 50 percent MSP cut — again, an affordability issue that was put in place. We moved forward on looking to help people create opportunities to make their own lives better. That was the elimination of tuition around adult basic education and early English language learning — a critical piece in terms of creating opportunities for people to be able to make their own lives better by improving their skill set or by picking up essential and critical language skills to be able to go out and get into the workforce and build lives for themselves and their families.

When we eliminated that tuition, we were very interested to see what the response to that would be. It has been about a 50 percent increase in enrolment of people, who are looking forward to grab that opportunity and be able to build the skills they need in order to fulfil their dreams and dreams for their families.

[5:10 p.m.]

We eliminated bridge tolls. That was a big campaign issue. It was an issue that, obviously, was a significant cost. It isn’t a matter there of saying that we don’t all have to pay for essential transportation needs. It was about the unfairness of having tolls on these two bridges and having nobody else paying at all. So we eliminated that.

Now we’ll work closely with the Mayors Council in Metro Vancouver and with the work that they’re doing. We’ll look to find the solutions, moving forward, to ensure that we can provide the resources necessary to build out the transportation and the road systems that are necessary to move commerce and move people in Metro Vancouver — and, of course, the investments that we know will need to be made across the province around those same issues of transportation and moving people and commerce.

This spring we’re moving forward on a couple of critical areas. We have set priorities for this budget. The Premier has been absolutely clear about those priorities. There are two essential ones. It is housing, and it is child care. Those are the pieces that you’ll see moving forward in the budget next week.

We made a commitment about a universal affordable child care program, and you’re going to see what that looks like both in terms of the long-term plan and in terms of the first fundamental and significant steps to put that plan in place.

With housing, you’re going to see the path forward on the housing strategy that focuses on both affordability and on dealing with rampant speculation that has caused such challenges around affordability and, certainly, around home ownership. And not just in Metro Vancouver. It has created affordability problems across the province. Housing affordability is an issue everywhere.

I’ll speak a little bit more about the work I’m doing around poverty reduction. We’re going into 28 communities around the province. I’ll be in Prince George on Saturday. We’re travelling. We’ve done 17 communities so far in this tour. Housing and housing affordability has been the number one issue, whether we were in Smithers, Port Alberni, Nanaimo, Surrey or Richmond. It didn’t matter where we went. People talked about affordability, and mostly, they talked about affordability around rental.

There are places where housing prices for ownership have moved around, but it is the challenge for people who have modest incomes, people who are struggling, to find the housing that meets their needs and their family’s needs at a price that they can afford. I think that we will see a focus on that next week in the budget, on the housing piece of the budget, that begins to lay out our plan for getting at that issue of housing.

The other piece that has been done and completed in this period leading up to the session was to address our commitment on the minimum wage. You’ll know that we committed to a $15 minimum wage over this term and put in place a Fair Wages Commission with representation from business and labour as well as an independent chair.

That panel went out, and they talked to people across the province. They talked to business owners. They talked to workers. They talked to local leaders. They talked to people in communities. They were able to come back with what is the first of a number of pieces of their recommendations. But the first one on this question of $15…. They were able to come back with a unanimous recommendation of the panel on the path to get there, how we get to $15 an hour in an orderly way and in increments that will allow everybody that needs to be part of this, including business, to manage those increments moving forward.

At the end of the day, it will put significant dollars into people’s pockets, and that’s money that they will spend in their local communities — on local businesses, on food, on clothing and on services for their families. Those dollars will be reinvested, and we will have dealt with a challenge that people have.

[5:15 p.m.]

That’s an important challenge because, as we know, we face significant issues with the working poor here in British Columbia. There are hundreds of thousands of people who fall into that category of the working poor, and they need support to be able to make ends meet. It seems to me that if you go to work every day, and you work hard, your paycheque should at least be able to provide you with a modest standard of living for yourself and your family as you go about your everyday life.

Child care. Our commitment to child care, both in terms of increasing spaces — in terms of the infrastructure for a provincial program that is universal — and ensuring affordability for all people who need child care, but particularly for people with modest incomes, is the area of my concern, based on my file. It’s something that I’m excited about. I’ll be excited to see the release of that information in the context of the budget that will come next week.

All of this — and there was a reference to it in the throne speech — is work that links very much to the work that I have been given by the Premier. I know that when the Premier talked to me about taking on this file, we talked about the name of the ministry. The name was Social Development and Social Innovation. It was a fine name. There was no problem with that name. But we made the decision to change the name to Social Development and Poverty Reduction because, as the Premier said, that is to be a priority for us: to begin to reduce poverty in this province.

To put that in some context, at the last count, we have about 678,000 people who live in poverty in British Columbia, based on the market basket measure. That’s around 15 percent of our population that is living poor. Almost one in five are children, and we know that poor kids are in poor families. We know that over 40 percent of the people who are living in poverty have a paycheque coming into the house. They’re not on assistance or disability benefits. They have a paycheque, but that paycheque doesn’t make ends meet, and they struggle there.

We also know that if you have a disability, or if you’re an Indigenous person, you are twice as likely to be poor than if you’re not. So as we’ve approached this, and as we’ve moved forward to take on this challenge and looked at how we would deal with it, I took a number of steps. I sat down with a number of experts and sought their advice, and then I put together an advisory forum to give me advice.

I made a point of ensuring that on this forum — and it’s a significant forum; it’s 27 people — we would have a significant number of people who are living poor today. There are, on that panel, about seven or eight people who are living poor today. We have those people with lived experience directly providing advice to me and to the ministry as we develop this plan.

We also have significant Indigenous participation. We have five Indigenous representatives on the panel. We have people from the business community, labour, academia, stakeholders and the health community — a whole array of people who bring different skills to give me advice both on legislation and on the plan which will be introduced later this year.

As we do this work, moving forward, we also decided that we didn’t want this to be a Vancouver-centric approach, one that would be very easily captured by Vancouver. We asked the Social Planning and Research Council. We worked with them to set up this series of facilitated consultations across the province, consultations that…. Myself and the parliamentary secretary, the member for Vancouver-Kensington, between us have worked as hard as we can to make sure that one of us is in attendance at all of these sessions if we can do that. We’ve been pretty successful at it to this point.

[5:20 p.m.]

These sessions are now being held across the province. I think we’ve completed 17 of the 28. They will all be completed, and the consultations will be completed, by the end of March — a positive thing. We’ve had good turnouts in places like Prince Rupert and Port Alberni, where 180 or so people showed up and spent a few hours with us.

The neat thing about it is that we have, again, focused our attention on ensuring that we have people who have lived experience with poverty, and we’re probably averaging about almost 60 percent of the people in attendance at these sessions are people with lived experience. That’s a positive. We’re learning a lot about the key issues that we see from poverty.

We know affordability is a critical issue, both in terms of peoples’ incomes, to be able to afford life, and the costs of critical and essential goods and services. The trick will be to deal with matching those up in ways that give people greater support.

We know that people are looking for opportunities moving forward to change their lives. When I talk to persons with disabilities, I think the first thing I hear from people with disabilities, almost without exception, is: “I want a job.”

We have a great group. I want to acknowledge the previous government which created the presidents group, which is a group of CEOs who are working hard and continue to work very hard to try to open doors in the business community for greater acceptance of persons with disabilities and to help with those fits. It’s a great program, and I’m enjoying very much working with the leadership and the folks in the presidents group who do that work.

We’re also getting support from other areas of business and talking to other business groups and others about creating those opportunities for employment and expanding those opportunities for employment across the board, particularly for persons with disabilities, who have a lot to contribute, who want to contribute, who want to improve their quality of life, who want to engage and who see and hope for that opportunity. If we can make the fit work, I think we can make this work well.

I talked to a couple of different business owners in different places in the province and at different times. Both of them own businesses that were kind of in the 50-to-100-employee range, mid-sized businesses. They both told me the same thing in separate conversations.

They both said: “I’m a pretty responsible guy. My community is important to me, and I decided I would create an opportunity to hire somebody with a disability because I thought that was the right thing for me to do, and it was a bit of challenge making the fit work to be able to accommodate the disability. But once we got that piece sorted out and we got that done, I got this great employee. I got an employee who is smart, who is motivated, who wants to succeed, who is grateful and thankful for an opportunity and who works incredibly hard.”

They said: “It’s no longer about meeting a social responsibility. I just got a great asset for my company that really adds to the value of my company.” These are the kinds of people and these are the business leaders that we’re looking to get out to talk to their colleagues, counterparts and peers about that reality.

As we hear across the province about the shortage of workers in many sectors, we have tens of thousands of persons with disabilities who can take on many, many of those jobs and go to work and support our economy, support themselves and support the businesses that will employ them. We just simply have to make that connection for people. As we do that work, I’m confident that we’re going to be successful in putting many more folks to work in that community.

As we’ve worked through the consultation process, we also are looking very much on the poverty-reduction side. We are looking at a second track.

We all were out with Paul Lacerte on the Moose Hide Campaign today, but I remember when Paul was in his previous work, heading up the friendship centres in British Columbia, and Paul coming and talking to me about an urban Aboriginal strategy. We know that about 80 percent of Indigenous people, of First Nations people, live off reserve, mostly in our urban communities. It was about: “How do we support them?” The challenges many of those folks are facing, for a variety of reasons, are significant, and they’re complex.

We’re working with the friendship centres, with the leadership council, with the health council and others to build a strategy that’s made to meet those needs.

[5:25 p.m.]

We’ve got the friendship centres out working with us and the Métis Nation also out working with us on this work, to develop a strategy that focuses that community as well — very excited about that. As I said, this work will proceed over the coming months and will culminate in legislation, in my hope, and a plan this fall.

The other things that we’re working on around this are to deal with issues related to looking at questions around basic income and, of course, around homelessness and the issues of homelessness — a struggle that we’ve seen many people try to address. It’s a struggle that just seems to get more challenging every day and more challenging in community after community every day. Again, it’s nothing that is exclusive to larger urban centres. It seems to be a challenge in every community in our province, which we need to focus on and address.

You’ll see more work related to that coming in the future months, with myself and the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing working together around a strategy to deal with those questions and to move forward to begin to take on the challenge of homelessness.

All of these issues are issues that require resources. We’ve talked a lot about resources, and you’re going to see how we deal with some of those issues in the budget as well, as we move forward. In order to get those things done, we have challenges that we face that are difficult, and the government is dealing with those difficult challenges in ways that will, hopefully, get them under control.

The one that is in the forefront right now and we have laid out the plan for, of course, is ICBC. We were told before the election that there would be an $11 million deficit. That, of course, turned into about $1.3 billion.

We now were told about reports that…. I haven’t read it yet, but I see the Vancouver Sun or the Globe and Mail, one of them, found a copy of the 2014 report and released an unredacted copy of the report. I look forward to reading that. I haven’t read that. I believe that’s the report that a previous Finance Minister decided to tear seven pages out of, which said: “This requires immediate action, and here’s what you need to do.”

We’ll see, but that’s the challenge we have. We did have a government that told us one thing, yet the facts turned out to be something terribly different. That’s just a simple reality, and it’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate, but it is the reality. That’s one of a number of examples of the challenges that we face.

We’ve seen these challenges time and again. We have a government that will address those challenges, will take on the tough issues and that won’t be burying reports from the public so that they don’t know the real situation but will put it out in front of people and make the tough decisions, as we’ve made, moving forward on the ICBC file.

It’s an exciting time. When I talk to people around the province, and it’s great to have the opportunity to do that, I hear a lot of excitement for where we’re going as a government. Mostly, the excitement that I hear is excitement about a government that is prepared to engage the people of British Columbia in a conversation about what they envision to be the future — that is prepared to talk to British Columbians about issues and about how they feel about those issues and about what solutions they believe are necessary.

They’re not looking to say: “You have to do everything that I suggest or not that.” Instead, what they’re saying is: “Talk to me, and talk to me in a sincere conversation. Have a sincere conversation with me. Be honest with me. Be frank with me. Tell me about the challenges, and together we will work through those challenges.” That’s what the people of British Columbia are looking for, and I think that’s exactly where we’re going.

[5:30 p.m.]

We’re going to have great opportunities to do that. We’re going to see a debate that’s going to lead up to, this fall, the question of proportional representation. That’s going to be a pretty exciting debate, I think. That’s going to be a debate about how power rests in this place. It’s going to be a debate about how we move forward on those issues. It will be vigorous on both sides.

I am confident that the people of British Columbia will make the decision to try something new, to go to proportional representation. I hope that they do. I support that initiative, and I hope that we get there. But it will be a decision for British Columbians to make, as it appropriately should be.

As we move forward, heading through the throne speech into this 2018 spring session, I’m excited. I’m excited about the opportunities. I’m excited about the energy of the government. I’m excited about the future that we’re going to lay out, the vision that we have for the path forward for the province around affordability, around essential services, around an economy that works for everyone, with jobs that can support families.

That’s the plan. That’s where we’re going to go moving forward. I believe that British Columbians will be excited about it. I believe that British Columbians will embrace the vision that we lay out. I think that it’s going to be a good year for British Columbians and a good year for this Legislature and a good year for the province overall.

With that, I’ll take my seat.

J. Rustad: It’s a pleasure to rise and speak to the throne speech, 2018.

I want to start in recognizing the people in my riding — in particular, the voters that sent me here. It’s a tremendous honour to have the opportunity, once again, to represent the area of Nechako Lakes and represent my constituents.

I also want to start by saying hi to my wife. I know that — as all of us, here — we spent Valentine’s Day…. For the most part, all of us spent Valentine’s Day away from our partners. It’s always a challenge, a challenging time of year. I certainly miss my wife and want to send her my love and wish her a belated happy Valentine’s.

As many people in this Legislature have spoke before me, they’ve recognized their constituent assistants and the work that they do in the riding. I’d like to do the same. We do spend a fair bit of time away from our riding, and our constituent assistants represent us well — making sure that our constituents are looked after, bringing forward issues to me and resolving issues on my behalf for my constituents.

To Nadine Frenkel and to Lory Derksen, thank you very much for the work you’re doing back in Vanderhoof. It is much appreciated.

As well, to recognize my staff here in Victoria and to thank them for the work that they do — through the time that we’re here and, of course, when we’re not here, through the things that need to be done.

When I think about the throne speech, a couple of things come to mind. I want to start with one particular comment. It says: “Government’s first and most urgent priority is to make life more affordable.” I would add…. You could easily add: “That and to put a chicken in every pot.”

The reality is, when you look at the throne speech, there was a tremendous amount of words, but it was very silent on action — in particular, when you look at the promises that the NDP made in their platforms.

The promises like, “There will be thousands of good jobs and better wages in every corner of the province,” from the B.C. NDP platform. “ICBC and hydro rates will be frozen.” Well, we all know that that’s not the case in terms of what it’s doing. And $10-a-day child care — it’s a promise from the platform, not even mentioned. These things aren’t even mentioned in the throne speech. The $400 annual renter rebate — where’s that? None of these things are in the throne speech.

It makes me wonder if the throne speech was actually written by the Green Party as opposed to the NDP party, in the fact that it was probably closer aligned to their platform. Although, I haven’t done the analysis of it.

When you look at this, it speaks to the credibility of a government. They stand up and promise things, yet they don’t deliver. They don’t follow through. They stand up and talk about these great and lofty goals — a chicken in every pot. Yet when reality comes and when they have the opportunity, their first opportunity, to be able to have a full throne speech and lay out their platform, those things are missing.

[5:35 p.m.]

I do want to applaud the NDP government for one thing in the throne speech, and that is that they carried forward with the B.C. Liberal plan to cut the MSP premiums in half. I’m very pleased to see that. It was something that was important to do. I think it’s somewhat disingenuous to hear that the NDP are taking credit for what we’ve done and what we put in our budget, but that’s fine. It is a good step. It’s a good step for the taxpayers in the province of British Columbia.

However, the one thing I do look at was the promise of the NDP to eliminate MSP entirely. The first step is what we did. Where is it in their throne speech that they’re going to be eliminating MSP?

All of these things, as I say, lead to the credibility gap that this government has with the voters of this province. I suppose that’s why we saw the results we did the other night in West Kelowna with regards to those returns. I want to recognize and welcome Ben Stewart, soon to be sitting here in this Legislature. It will be great to have him back among our ranks.

I want to start thinking about my riding, in terms of my other comments to the throne speech, the things that are important for my riding — family, jobs, the economy, the environment and, of course, government services — and the types of things that I think most people around this province spend time thinking about.

To that point, I actually want to give credit to the Premier. There was a problem in my riding with Mount Milligan. They needed a special permit to be able to extract some water so that they could keep operating. The ministers associated, in Environment and Forest and Lands, through their ministries rejected that application and said it would take two years. Here was a mine that was operating, supporting hundreds of families directly and hundreds more families indirectly, that was going to have to shut down for months because they weren’t going to be able to have enough water until the spring runoff.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I took the issue to the Premier, and the Premier asked his deputy to run through the other two ministries and get this done. To their credit, at the end of January, they did deliver on that. It’s a shame that the other two ministers seemed to be completely missing in action with regards to it, but I do want to thank the Premier for taking the action and for making sure that those people can stay working in my riding.

When I think about those things — those commitments to family, to jobs and to the economy — I really need to think about how that is being delivered in this throne speech. When you look at the throne speech…. I mean, it spent the first two-thirds of the throne speech talking about housing, and it talked about child care. Those are issues that aren’t just unique to the Lower Mainland, but they’re important for people in my riding as well.

I do wonder. When you read the throne speech, the first thing the government said on housing was that government’s first step must be to address demand. Wait a second here. How do you address demand? I mean, the whole idea of housing is that people have demand for housing. You want people to be able to find that housing and to be able to get into housing. Is this government talking about trying to curb demand for housing? That’s just ludicrous to even say as a statement.

Then, to follow it up with the statement to say that governments must also build the homes that people need…. I mean, that’s straight out of the Soviet Union. That’s straight out of the days where government looked after and did everything. What exactly is this government talking about?

The first thing that needs to be addressed is supply. People need to be able to have access to the houses that they would like to purchase. You have to be able to expand supply. You don’t do it by government doing it, you do it by the private sector helping to build those homes that are needed.

Yes, there is a role that government needs to play through this, but this is really a head-scratcher when I think about the tone that this government has set right in the very beginning of their throne speech. They need to be able to curb demand and build homes? I’m sorry but, you know, the Soviet Union collapsed a long time ago. I don’t know if what this government is trying to do is recreate socialism in the province of British Columbia. I mean, I do get it, when you look at some of their manifestos that they’ve created over the years, but to see it in print, to see it as their first bold step in this province…. Wow. That is really quite something to see.

Carrying on. When I see the comments on child care and the components there…. I mean, it’s interesting in terms of where they’re going with it. They had a number of comments that are expanding the amount of child care spaces. That’s good. That’s something that we had in our budget and platform in terms of what we were doing.

[5:40 p.m.]

Increased training. That’s something we were doing already — some work on licensing, that side of things. But nowhere in there was the comment about getting to $10-a-day, figuring out how to address affordability. Once again, it speaks to the credibility that this government has — or the lack of credibility, I should say.

Probably one thing that’s more disturbing, though, is when you look at British Columbia — and I go back to my riding — about families, jobs, the economy, the environment and government services…. What has this government’s record already been on the economy? I mean, think about this for a second.

The first thing they have done is raise taxes. Raise taxes on businesses. Raise taxes, whether it’s on agriculture or forestry, through things like the carbon tax. That’s the first step that they have done. It’s pretty hard to imagine that that is going to help create jobs and help support the economy in this province.

They’ve made commitments to increase regulations, creating uncertainty on the land base. When you think about small businesses, they’re going to be increasing the minimum wage. Minimum wage is scheduled to go up. That’s okay, but to look at a 35 percent increase in minimum wage in just three years, that’s an incredible increase in cost to small businesses, restaurants and other small businesses. The first thing that’s happened — and you look at what happened in Ontario — is an instant reaction of a drop of the number of people and the number of jobs available. How is that improving the lives for the people in my riding?

I think about many of the small businesses, particularly the small businesses like Tim Hortons or Scott Foods or others in my riding that need to be able to hire people. They’re already struggling to try to find people to hire, and now you’ve added in this significant additional cost factor over a very short period of time.

I get the desire to want to see wages go up. Like I say, we had scheduled to increase minimum wages. But when you look at that level of increase at one time, small businesses are going to struggle under that. They just are. It’s going to be a challenge.

Moving on from small business, let’s look at forestry. The comments on forestry in the throne speech talked about — I just want to grab this here so I’ve got it — revitalizing the forest industry’s social contract and maximizing the value B.C. gets out of each log. Well, I think those are laudable in terms of it, but what does it mean? No one knows. I talked to the forest industry about it; they don’t know what it means. That kind of uncertainty is very troubling.

In a comment from the Premier in one of the media responses to the throne speech, he talked about that he wants to reassert appurtenancy. Well, what does that mean? Appurtenancy hasn’t been in place for many, many years, decades, in this province. How will the forest industry be able to react and respond in terms of that? All of this, once again, is an assault, quite frankly, on the economy of this province.

Look at transportation and the transportation issues. There are thousands of trucks lined up every day trying to get down to the U.S. and bring goods back up from the U.S. and our trade back and forth, and one bottleneck, which is the Massey Tunnel, needs to be replaced. Yet that bottleneck has now been firmly put in place for at least the next four years before anybody can even see any hope that there might be something a decade out. How is that helping our economy? All that’s doing is increasing cost and frustration and making it more difficult to be able to do business in this province.

Of course, the obvious one is the trade war that’s going on now, brought on by the NDP. It’s hurting the wine industry. It’s going to hurt the oil and gas industry in the northeast of the province. I heard from my colleagues in the Kootenays that they’re very concerned about tourism. The tourism bookings are down.

There are companies that produce goods and services to sell into Alberta, and the Albertans are responding, saying: “You know what? Given this current environment and the fact that you guys are trying to block this oil, we don’t think we can do business with you anymore in British Columbia until this is resolved.” How is that creating thousands of good-paying jobs and increasing wages in every corner of the province, which was the promise of the platform of this government?

Moving on from the oil and gas sector. In the mining sector, carbon taxes, regulations, revamping the environmental assessment process…. How do you have confidence to be able to invest in this province? You’ve got a project in this province that has gone through and received both provincial and federal environmental certificates, and the government is just playing politics trying to stop it.

[5:45 p.m.]

I can tell you that I’m going to be very interested in seeing the major project list of this government. We saw a tremendous growth in the number of companies that wanted to invest, and invest in this province — to bring in those dollars, to create those jobs and to build our economy out.

What’s happened since they’ve come into government? I can tell you, the word I’ve heard from companies around that are looking at investing in British Columbia is they are not looking any longer to invest in British Columbia. It would be a very telling statistic at some point in the future, I think, in terms of what this government’s actions have been, or the lack thereof.

That uncertainty to our economy, those costs to the business sector, the chill on the investment climate — we’ve seen this picture before. It was called the 1990s, and we are clearly on the path going down that road already.

A couple of things that I want to touch on. I’m just looking and noticing that we’re running close to the end of time, but I just want to touch on one more quick thing before I wrap up and reserve my right to continue. When you look through at the throne speech and the comments that were made through there, two-thirds of the throne speech was gone before the economy was even mentioned.

I get that the guys on the other side are all about tax and spend. That’s, obviously, what they’ve put into their throne speech. Those spending commitments — when you look at them, what they have already promised to do is more than twice the increase in spending than what we had done as a B.C. Liberal government.

They’re saying it’s needed. But the challenge is you cannot do that kind of spending increase without the associated increase in your economy and the revenues that come to be able to afford to spend it. That means at some point, you’re going to see tax increases or you’re going to see deficits. I’m pretty sure in this next budget that will come out next week, we’ll see some of those tax increases. I look forward to speaking about that in the near future as well.

That’s the reality. You cannot be spending at a 6½ to 7½ percent increase in spending without there being consequences. Those consequences are going to borne by the taxpayers and the people of this province in terms of either, at some point, a reduction in services or an increase in taxes, a reduction in the quality of life that we all love to share in this great province.

I’ll have a lot more to say about this in the future. At this point, I’d like to reserve my right to continue and move adjournment of the debate.

J. Rustad moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. S. Simpson moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday, February 19.

The House adjourned at 5:48 p.m.