Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued debate on the budget speech. For the information of members, we will be adjourning today at 5:30.

Budget Debate

(continued)

L. Throness: I continue my theme on the budget today, speaking to Budget 2018. I want to note that for every budget in every year, I’ve called attention in my budget speech to the American debt and deficit. I think it’s a risk factor that is not taken into account among the risk factors in the budget.

Donald Trump’s new tax cuts are going to add $1 trillion to the American debt. I looked at my budget speech from 2015. I noted with horror that the American debt would rise to $20 trillion by 2025.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Well, on December 7, the American debt limit was raised by Congress to $20.5 trillion, seven years ahead of earlier projections. That is very scary. It can’t continue forever, which means that at some point, it all has to end. The question is: what would this look like? What does it mean in practical terms for B.C.?

[1:35 p.m.]

I would encourage the government to study that question. I would encourage the government to insulate us as much as possible from economic shock — for example, to do what we’ve been doing for the past 16 years and diversify our trading; diversify our markets so that we’re not so dependent on the United States, as other Canadian provinces are; and also, of course, to be more fiscally disciplined.

Now, let me turn to some elements of the budget. I thought I would approach it in Chilliwack terms and what it will mean for Chilliwack on the ground, in my places in the riding. Well, the government is spending a huge amount of money, and we hope that some of that will come to Chilliwack. How might we get our fair share?

There is no mention of Chilliwack in the budget, nor of the other place names in my riding. My constituents will be interested to know that there are no funds to widen the No. 1 Highway. Instead, we’re doing the Pattullo Bridge. Why is that?

Could it be that the Massey Tunnel, leading south of Vancouver, and the No. 1 Highway into the Fraser Valley, leading east of Vancouver, lead into areas that are not particularly friendly NDP territory? Could it be that the NDP is actually punishing them for that and, instead, building the Pattullo because people in those areas voted NDP? I wouldn’t put it past the highly partisan NDP to do that.

We B.C. Liberals would have done the Pattullo Bridge in addition to the Massey Tunnel and the No. 1. I think the NDP is playing some games here, and I think that’s sad.

Now, the new school for south Chilliwack that we need was not listed in the budget. It could be hidden in the fine print of the budget. We certainly hope it’s there, but it’s not on the list in the main document.

There is no money in this budget for supporting foster parents or recruiting new foster parents. There was a story not long ago in the Chilliwack Progress about a critical shortage of foster homes throughout the province, particularly in Chilliwack. There was nothing for that.

There’s no mention of adoption in the budget. Although we have 1,000 children in B.C. waiting for adoption, the Representative for Children and Youth produced a report in December expressing his concern at the lapse in this government’s activity on adoption.

There’s a new payroll tax starting next January, bringing in $1.9 billion in its first year. That will hit some businesses in Chilliwack.

Minimum wage will rise by a third over the next four years. For some workers in Chilliwack, that will be helpful, although some young workers may lose their jobs. I think, in general, it will hurt the bottom line of employers and reduce the number of available jobs.

The carbon tax will increase by $5 on April 1. That’s going to affect fuel and natural gas prices. My constituents are always happy when gas taxes go up, and they’re always happy when they see their natural gas bill, where the carbon tax is often more than the cost of gas itself.

I would also point out that the carbon tax will no longer be revenue-neutral. This marks an effective $1.2 billion increase. Any tax-relief programs that were funded by the carbon tax earlier are now in jeopardy. One of those is the 80 percent relief of carbon tax that greenhouse operators in my riding get. I’m not sure about the fate of that program.

A new speculation tax on housing will cover the Fraser Valley. Initially half a percent of assessed value, that will rise to 2 percent of assessed value in January. That will hit all property sellers and buyers in Chilliwack. Of course, the NDP wants to brand ordinary folks who own homes as speculators, even if they’re selling to move elsewhere or to downsize. We think it’s wrong. It’s just a cash grab. We have to add to that the foreign buyers and domestic sellers will be disappointed. Real estate agents locally will see a downturn in the market.

I see that the government is going to review the homeowner’s grant. To me, that’s an ominous sign. Its reduction or elimination would mean an effective property tax increase of hundreds of dollars, annually, for every property owner in B.C. I would point out that many of our seniors on fixed incomes are also property owners. Something like this could really work hardship on them. But to the NDP, anyone who owns a home is rich and therefore bad, and we have to punish them. I think they are fixing to do that in this budget.

There are also possible opportunities for Chilliwack in this budget, and I want to point them out. The building of courthouses in the valley was begun by the last government. It was confirmed in this budget, and I think this will include Chilliwack’s planned courthouse expansion.

The expansion of B.C. parks was confirmed. No doubt this will include the 25 new spots at Maple Bay, which are already underway.

The government will build 2,500 new units of housing for the homeless. Although this might be inadequate, we have yet to find out if any of this will come to Chilliwack, where the need is great. We will certainly lobby for more in Chilliwack.

We do have preliminary approval for two projects: community services and the Salvation Army, which have yet to begin. Hopefully, these will go ahead, and we will get even more under this funding.

The budget promises $15.8 billion for infrastructure over the next three years, and I’m hoping that we will get some infrastructure projects in my riding. I think especially of Cultus Lake, which has an infrastructure proposal in for its wastewater treatment facility. I’ll be looking to Victoria for that.

UFV may benefit from $450 million for student housing. There is $50 million in the budget for Indigenous languages, and UFV students may benefit from that.

[1:40 p.m.]

There are some good things for seniors in this budget. They will once again enjoy free rides on ferries from Monday to Thursday. There are commitments to build affordable housing for seniors and Indigenous people.

Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters will increase, on average, by $930 a year. We have many seniors in Chilliwack on that program. That’s welcome news. There’s more for PharmaCare as well. In general, funding for more hours of care for seniors in residential care is a good and welcome thing.

Of course, MSP premiums will be phased out completely, although not for two years, not till January 1, 2020. This, of course, was our idea. The NDP are borrowing many good B.C. Liberal Party policies, and I can’t criticize them for that.

I want to move on to the area that I criticize, Children and Family Development, and I will pick out a few things about child care that I want to talk about. It’s one of the two big-ticket items in the government’s budget.

First, I want to talk about the $10-a-day daycare. That’s almost all we heard about in the last election. The NDP mentioned it a dozen times in its platform alone. Allow me to quote from it. This is what the platform said. The NDP was offering “full-day care for $10 and part-time care for $7 a day, with no fee for families with annual incomes below $40,000 a year.”

Well, the final product, of course, didn’t appear like that. We found out from the Premier, speaking on Global News, that this was just a brand anyway, a slogan designed to attract votes. To the NDP, the actual words don’t seem to mean anything. I find that to be troubling for people with their fingers on $160 billion of taxpayers’ money over the next three years. They keep their promises if it’s convenient and if it’s expedient to do so.

Now, we don’t oppose the general direction to provide more child care. In fact, we promised a lot of help ourselves on child care last summer. The B.C. Liberals promised 13,000 new child care spaces by 2020, and 5,000 of them would have been created in 2017 alone. We would have kept that promise. In fact, the NDP has now been government for seven months, and they’ve provided no new child care spaces since they took government. Any money for child care that they announced was already announced in the B.C. Liberal budget of February 2017.

Let’s get on to the government’s goal. The goal of the government is to create 22,000 new child care spaces in a new, universal child care system. What does the Finance Minister mean by the word “universal”? I can tell you how many child care spaces we have right now in B.C. We have one full-time, 24-hour-a-day space for every child in B.C. By law, child care is now, and always has been, universal and 24-7. The question that the NDP wants to answer is: who takes care of the child?

By universal care, the NDP means universal public care, resorting to a standard, big-government institutional model. In its drive for universal public child care in the province, the NDP is offering an inflexible, big-government solution. This is their strategy. In describing their universal public system, they use words like “accessibility,” “affordability,” “quality,” “public administration” — the same concepts on which our health care system is based.

The NDP appeals to these ideas because they want British Columbians to think of daycare like they think of universal health care, to draw an analogy in their minds with health care, to associate child care with health care, because, of course, British Columbians support government-provided health care.

However, just think of our health care system for a moment. One of its principles is accessibility. I wonder if any of my viewers or readers or people in this House have experienced waiting lists in the health care system. Of course they have. In theory, it’s perfectly accessible, but far too many people experience something radically different in practice. Do we really want that kind of system for child care? Do we want more waiting lists than the ones we have now?

I ask this because all public-only, big-government programs are plagued with the same problems: rising costs, heavy bureaucracy, a regulatory burden and waiting lists. I predict it will be the same for our new universal child care system. There will be rising costs due to unionization. I would note that a total of 49 unions supported the call for $10-a-day daycare. They are keenly anticipating a whole new crop of thousands of quasi public servants to organize for higher wages and better benefits at the cost of the taxpayer. That will cause the cost of daycare to rise.

The new universal public system will be cast as an extension to the K-to-12 education system. Class size will therefore become an issue in child care, just as it is in the education system. There will be a constant struggle over worker-child ratios. The ideal of the family home, where there is a one-to-one ratio, will be the driver behind continuous calls for ever smaller worker-to-child ratios and attending higher costs.

[1:45 p.m.]

There will be a new bureaucracy to take care of this new system, as a small army of public servants will be hired to inspect and regulate existing and newly licensed providers and to ferret out those unlicensed providers who are caring for more than two children at once, contrary to government rules. They will be ready to impose a high regulatory burden on new providers, who will be enticed into the system through financial inducements, which I’ll describe in a moment.

First, I’d like to say a few words about the regulatory burden. It is a heavy one. The child care licensing regulation is a long and comprehensive law. There are significant costs to licensing. These costs include fees but also modifications to the family home and yard, programming requirements for children in care, detailed recordkeeping, requirements to notify authorities in various situations, special insurance for home and vehicles, training requirements for the provider and much, much more.

All these providers are subject to intrusive inspection by the Ministry of Health, who can disturb their privacy, enter any time and go through their daycare. If that daycare happens to be in the family home, this will be an issue for many people.

Now, how will the government create its universal plan? Well, there’s a place for every child right now, as we know. Some of them are in licensed care, but most of them are not. The government wants to pull those providers into the public sphere, so it will have to get unlicensed providers — that is, people who are caring for one or two children now, usually in their own home — into the public system. It wants them to get licensed.

This is how the government will do it. I think it’s a very ingenious plan. It’s also quite coercive, in my view. The government will offer a grant to an unlicensed provider to join the state system. It’s a financial carrot for the provider. It will help defray the costs of initial licensing. That’s the positive side. That’s the carrot, although I would point out that the government will not help with the ongoing costs of compliance.

However, there’s a financial stick too. The government will wield the financial stick against parents, withholding benefits under the new child care benefit to parents who use unlicensed care. They will only get the child care benefit if their providers are licensed, so parents will be pushing their unlicensed providers to become licensed.

I think this is quite coercive, as I said, because it removes choice from parents. They will effectively have no other choice but to go to a licensed provider to get the benefit. This, I think, is the intention of the government.

Will unlicensed providers take that step to go through the licensing process? Let’s explore that question for a moment. What’s in it for the provider? The child care provider won’t benefit in any way except from the start-up grant to become licensed. For the rest of time, they will have to comply with a truckload of regulations on their own, and I mean a truckload. I’ve gone through them. I’ve looked through the regulations, and they are formidable obstacles, particularly for a one- or two-person provider.

Providers who get licensed will receive so-called fee reductions from the government for every space every month, but those reductions are supposed to be passed along to the parent in reduced fees. Nor will the provider who licenses get any more from the parents, who paid from their own pocket before licensing and will pay roughly the same amount using the new child care benefit after licensing.

What’s in it for the provider — say, a person taking care of one extra child in their family home — to license with the government? Very little, I would say, except a boatload of government compliance and oversight headaches. I would venture to guess that many, rather than undertaking the time, the effort, the cost and the intrusion into the privacy of the family home, will just stop offering the service, and the parents will go looking for a licensed provider so that they can get the child care benefit. But then we will have fewer child care spaces, not more.

Here I want to note something very important. The NDP are boasting that they will create 22,000 new spaces, but to me it’s unclear — maybe purposefully so — whether unlicensed spaces that convert to licensed spaces will be counted among the new spaces the NDP wants to create. If so, these new spaces will not be new, because they will not be spaces where there was not one before. They will be existing spaces that just change their label from unlicensed to licensed spaces. It’s about conversion, not creation.

I suspect, having worked with large public service organizations in the past, the public servants will simply not ask what a new licensee was doing before, because they don’t want to know. They will simply assume that those old private spaces are new public ones. But the bottom line is that there may be no incremental child care spaces created and, in practical terms, no greater access for child care to payments. The growth will all be on paper.

[1:50 p.m.]

In their budget documents, the NDP refer repeatedly to the phrase “new licensed spaces.” That carefully chosen phrase suggests to me that they are hoping for a certain number of unlicensed spaces to license, and they will claim that those are new spaces. If they do that, it will be a political fraud. It will be fake spaces, a sham, and we will call them on it.

There’s something more about the big-government child care plan I want to address. It’s not explicitly stated. It’s not an outright accusation. It is a soft, subtle insinuation, an implication, but it is there. In its child care plan, the NDP is calling into question the safety of unlicensed caregivers, many of whom are ordinary people — moms and dads giving care in their family homes. The government wants them to license to ensure quality, which to them means safety.

Why this push to license caregivers, who are your neighbours and mine, if the parent is happy with the care provided? It must be because the NDP thinks that these people are a safety concern, and in this the NDP could not be more wrong. Unlicensed providers only caring for one or two kids are mostly parents themselves, who provide excellent care to their own children. They are good, loving, competent people providing a good service at a reasonable price. The government should not be driving them into the licensing system.

Now, I want to address something else that was contained in the throne speech, although it was absent in the budget. The Speech from the Throne said the following: “Government will introduce new legislation to give parents vital information about unlawful or problem providers of unlicensed child care. These new rules will give families the information they need to make sure they are making the best and safest choice for their child.”

What exactly does this mean? To me it’s unclear. Are we talking about a public registry for caregivers? Does it mean more intrusive inspections? Does it mean that unlicensed caregivers will have to, by law, give their private information to the government, even if they don’t want to license? Will there be reporting requirements for anyone providing child care? Will unlicensed providers effectively be forced into a licensing system in all but name? This has the potential to be intrusive, and we will be watching carefully for this legislation.

I want to move on to another weakness of the NDP universal plan. That is a critical shortage of early childhood educators. The budget documents say that there are about 11,000 in service right now and that we’ll need 12,000 more. The documents acknowledge the shortage, but I was astounded to see nothing whatsoever in the budget for increased wages for them, just another of the NDP’s many commitments to study the matter.

We can be sure that the shortage will persist, and the government may be unable to deliver new spaces without new workers. Child care providers will get a new fee reduction of up to $350 per space, but if they pass that reduction along to parents, as they’re supposed to, early childhood educators won’t get that money in higher wages. Higher education requirements for early childhood educators, as the NDP have been talking about for years, will only increase the worker shortage.

What is likely to happen? I think what will happen is this: given all the new money floating around, and given that there is no new money for early childhood educators, providers will have to increase the wages for child care workers and pass it along to the parents in higher fees. Just as we see the new subsidies kick in, we may also see the cost of child care rise across B.C., and child care will be inaccessible.

The NDP universal, public plan could be anything but universal in practice, although they will still claim to have created 22,000 new spaces. Mark my words, and give it a year or two. We will see. Honestly, I want the best for children and parents in B.C. I sincerely hope that the NDP will be successful in creating at least 22,000 new spaces. We on the opposition side will be watching very closely to make sure that it’s done.

Now, I’ve spoken in a negative fashion about NDP child care policy. I want to speak for a moment in a more positive way about what I think the policy should be. First of all, parents need and want choices. No one loves the child as much as their own parent. That’s why we have to respect their choices. The mode of child care should be up to the parent, and the state should be neutral with respect to the mode of care parents choose. We should not be offering financial inducements to drive all parents and providers into one system, as the NDP are doing today.

In other words, we should help lower-income families take care of their kids no matter how the parents want to do it. We need a flexible system. I would point that lower-income parents who prefer informal care — for example, with family members — get nothing extra in this budget. It’s unclear just what they will get, but the budget infers that it will be a lower amount. It’s like they’re second-class citizens. I think this is unfair. In addition, lower-income parents who prefer to care for their own children at home get nothing from this budget.

[1:55 p.m.]

To me, this is not only unfair; it doesn’t make any practical sense. If a low-income parent prefers to care for a child at home rather than work outside the home, why would we pay a professional, instead, to do the child care? Why not help the parent directly? If we offered this as an option to all low-income parents, it could also relieve early childhood educator shortages by several thousand people and free up spaces for others who would prefer to work outside the home.

B.C. Liberals would continue to support publicly subsidized care for families who need help, but this is only a part of the child care picture. Parents need a variety of options in a mixed public-private system that will meet the unique needs of each family. Remember, some children deal well in a large daycare with 20 kids in it, but some don’t thrive there. A family setting with one caregiver is a much better option for some children, and we need to have that available for parents to meet the unique needs of their children.

The NDP decried, in their budget documents, the so-called patchwork of child care that currently exists. They want to push everyone into the same mould, but every child is different, and every family is unique. Using the NDP analogy, which they use in a negative sense, a patchwork quilt of many colours and fabrics can even be stronger and warmer and more beautiful than a quilt that is of a monotone colour and a single fabric. I would venture to say that a diversity of child care options, both public and private, makes a more accessible, more efficient, less expensive system that is just as safe and of equal quality to government care.

Instead of increased subsidies to public institutions, B.C. Liberals would increase subsidies to parents. Daycares would thus respond more to the needs of parents, improving quality of care and giving more choice to parents. I would like to see a child-centred approach driven by data, which says that attachment to parents develops most in the earliest years. I would not follow Sweden’s public-only child care model, in which 92 percent of children are in public care, at a tremendous cost to the state of around $20,000 per year per child. This is closest, I think, to the NDP model.

Instead, we in B.C. should follow the highly praised Finnish model and provide financial support, as Finland does, to lower-income parents in the form of a home care allowance so that parents could keep the option of licensed or unlicensed child care or keep their child at home for the first three years. It would be the parent’s choice.

Now, moving onto kindergarten, B.C. Liberals introduced optional full-day kindergarten for children five years of age in 2010. I would like to see B.C. Liberals extend that to optional all-day, play-oriented preschool or playschool for all children of age four. It would be optional, but it would be available, just as it is for all five-year-olds in B.C. I would point on that almost all five-year-olds do take advantage of it. Instead of incenting at-risk families to take their children to government daycare, B.C. Liberals should beef up StrongStart, where parents attend at no cost, together with their children, to make families stronger.

To close, although child care must always be universal, we don’t believe in one big public system, which will suffer from the flaws of all big public systems. We believe in a mixed public and private system, where the unique needs of children and families are served by the individual choice of each parent, assisted by the government. When we have the good fortune to become government again, we will make that happen.

B. Ma: It is my honour and privilege to be able to speak to the budget speech today and express my support for the direction that this government is headed in and, really, the progress it has been able to make in many areas in such a short period of time.

I’d like to also thank the member for Chilliwack-Kent for his interesting comments. I won’t attempt to respond to every comment that the member has made, although I will note that he had asked earlier why the government seemed so intent on ensuring that child care is safe, licensed and affordable and why we believe that non-licensed child care is not necessarily always the best way forward. I’d like to bring up the story of Baby Mac. I won’t go further into that, because I would like to talk about child care a little bit later on.

[2:00 p.m.]

I do want to let the member know that although I don’t agree with most of his comments, I do definitely agree that our universal child care program will indeed produce many, many long-term, well-paid jobs that support families. I appreciate the member acknowledging that earlier.

I would like to take a moment to make a few acknowledgements. Firstly, I would like to congratulate the Squamish Nation councillors in my riding of North Vancouver–Lonsdale who were elected to serve their community in December. Their recent elections were the result of a renewal campaign that the community pursued. I would like to say that they were successful at that.

Eight out of 16 Squamish Nation councillors are brand new, and they are all under the age of 35. Given the age of our representatives in this House, I don’t think I need to elaborate on how incredible that is.

The Squamish Nation councillors, and I would like to acknowledge them by name, are: Dustin Rivers, Wilson Williams, Christopher Lewis, Jacob Lewis, Marcus Wooden, Alroy Baker, Carla George, Joshua Joseph, Richard Baker, Deborah Baker, Deanna Lewis, Kristen Rivers, Chief Ian Campbell, Brandon Darbyshire-Joseph, Joyce Williams and Orene Askew.

They’re an army of young people fighting for their community, fighting for the revitalization of Indigenous culture and the revitalization of Indigenous languages. I truly do hope that our budget’s commitment of $50 million to support Indigenous language revitalization is able to serve them very well. I’d like to congratulate them all, and I look forward to working with them to build better communities.

I would also like to note that on November 12, while we were away from the Legislature, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit the Kermanshah province of Iran. It was the deadliest earthquake of the year, and it created tremors that were felt as far away as Pakistan, Lebanon, Kuwait and Turkey.

The Iranian-Canadian community is an extremely important part of the North Shore community. I know many members of that community in my constituency continue to mourn the tragedy that took place.

Last night hundreds of people gathered at the Music Gives Philanthropic Foundation’s event at Centennial Theatre to raise funds to support the victims of that terrible earthquake. I’d like to extend my deepest thanks and warmest regards for all of the people who gathered in that theatre last night to support these victims.

Finally, I’d like once again to thank the people of North Vancouver–Lonsdale for putting their faith in me by electing me to be their MLA. It is a diverse, beautiful riding that is full of compassionate, kind people who care about each other.

It is also a constituency that few people believed would elect an NDP representative and that, I might say, many people underestimated in that regard. But I also think that’s perhaps something that members opposite did. They underestimated the resolve that people have to fight for change and fight for a better B.C.

The people of North Vancouver–Lonsdale inspire me. I’ve met with dozens of people from across the constituency over the last — how many months has it been? — maybe seven months, eight months that I’ve been elected. They’ve shown me how much that we care about each other and how they care about each other.

We’ve had community members who chipped in to buy a new bed set for a struggling elder. We’ve had tenants who help out their neighbours understand their rights against, unfortunately, some bad landlords who were pushing illegal and unfair evictions. We have an incredible number of not-for-profit service providers who help our most vulnerable neighbours to access services and resources they need — services and resources that I believe this budget will improve.

[2:05 p.m.]

The goodness of these people amazes me every day. Often when community members come into our office to share their experiences or advocate for the people they love — maybe it’s about seniors care; maybe it’s about child care; maybe it’s about public education; maybe it’s about the needs of low-income renters or the needs of housing in the community — quite frequently, they say the same thing to me: “Don’t worry about me. This already happened to me. This bad thing has already happened to me. I’m here to tell you about it so that you can make sure that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

It’s been an extremely touching experience. It’s a beautiful sentiment of selfless service, and that’s how I strive to perform my work as their MLA. Every day I’m working with my colleagues to put people first. I believe that we can make a B.C. that works for everyone, and I believe that this budget demonstrates that very, very well.

Over and over, I hear from my constituents that after 16 years of the B.C. Liberals, it’s like a breath of fresh air after being trapped in a dungeon. I hear from not-for-profit agencies and municipal councillors that the change in government has been like a weight lifted off their backs.

Interjections.

B. Ma: The members might not agree, but these are the messages that I have been hearing from my community members.

Projects and issues that have been stalled out for years suddenly resolved. Conversations stuck in limbo suddenly moving again. In reaching out to members in my community, I hear over and over again: “This is the first time we’ve ever had an opportunity to engage with the government like this. This is the first time we’ve heard from our MLA to actually listen to us. Thank you.”

I want to share with you a tweet that I received recently. It said: “This feeling of being proud of my government is new and weird, but I like it.” I think that that’s a sentiment that I also share. I think a lot of people in B.C. do have a lot to be proud of with this government.

Even before we managed to get to this budget, already so much has been done. Let’s take a look at the short list of a few of my favourite ones from just the first 100 days of this new government.

Less than 72 hours after being sworn in, our government increased income assistance rates and disability payments by $100 a month. Earnings exemptions for people on income and disability assistance was increased by $200 a month. In December, an additional $52-a-month transportation supplement was added. I’ve had constituents in my office in tears over this. I’ve had constituents tell me: “Because of you, I can afford a little bit more food every month.” I can’t tell you how much that touches me that they would share that with me.

Tuition fees on adult basic education and English-language-learning programs were also eliminated, removing financial roadblocks for those upgrading their education.

For a community like mine where there are many immigrants from countries where their first language is not English, but they’re also very, very highly educated and very skilled professionals, I meet a lot of people who come into my office to tell me that they have trouble finding work in part because of their English language skills or lack thereof. The ability for them to access English-language-learning programs for free now gives them a new sense of hope. I’ve had many community members tell me that they’ve gone back to learn English, and that they’re optimistic that this will improve their chances of finding work in the future.

For former youth in care, the post-secondary education tuition fee waiver program was extremely meaningful to them. Former youth in care are 200 times more likely to experience homelessness than their peers — 200 times more. It’s an order of magnitude that’s almost unimaginable for someone like me.

I’ve had the privilege of having parents who maybe I didn’t always agree with but who certainly do care for me. They’re still around. I know that if I ever truly needed their help, they would be there for me. It was certainly shown during my election campaign. My mother was right there by my side. My sister was there. I have a wonderful family and support network. There are so many youth who were formerly in care who find themselves entering adulthood with absolutely nobody. I cannot imagine how hard that must be.

[2:10 p.m.]

The small act of being able to provide them with free post-secondary education is life changing. This program could very well literally save people’s lives, so expanding that program to all 25 of B.C.’s post-secondary education institutions is equally as meaningful. That means that youth are able to stay closer to their communities. They’re able to access the schools that are closer to their home where they have connections — albeit potentially limited but very valuable connections, nevertheless. The list goes on and on.

Of course, we’re not here to talk, necessarily, about the first 100 days, though I love a lot of these. I mean, bringing back the Buy B.C. program. Amazing. The increased funding to kindergarten-to-grade-12 education. I’m definitely all for that. I also love that we ended the grizzly bear hunt too. I know a lot of my community members were happy with that.

Interjection.

B. Ma: There you go. That’s right.

Having said all that, that was the success of the government in the first 100 days. Now we have this new budget to look forward to, and oh boy, it is a pretty amazing budget. I have to admit it was better than I expected. I recognized that choices always have to be made when you’re in government, that you can’t always do everything it is that you hope to do in the first seven months. But the amount of success that the Minister of State for Child Care, the Minister of Children and Family Development, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Minister of Finance, the Attorney General and all of the other ministers who have contributed to this budget have made, in such a short period of time, absolutely astounds me.

This budget has been described by…. It’s easily the best budget in a generation. In my local community, the top three issues that I hear about are normally housing, transportation and child care, so I’ll focus my comments around those areas.

I want to start with housing. Housing affordability — I think it would be fair to say — is the number one issue across the province. There are, of course, many other extremely important issues, but housing affordability seems to be at the crux of it all. In my community, over and over, I hear from renters who tell me that if they lose their home in their current rent-controlled apartment, they will end up on the street. In my community, there are 750 members of the population who are homeless.

We also have, of course, a lot of families who are seeing their young adult children leave the communities because they can’t find a place to live on the North Shore. This is heartbreaking to families who want to stay together but can’t afford to do so. This is heartbreaking to grandparents who find their grandchildren leaving the North Shore. Perhaps they’re going out to Maple Ridge or Chilliwack, and although the physical distance is quite short, traffic congestion is really terrible out on the North Shore, so the commute and time that it takes to visit…. Of course, everyone is very, very busy. It makes it very difficult for them to actually see their families.

We have a lot of seniors who are becoming more and more isolated because members of their family and their community are moving away to find more affordable housing. I also hear from seniors who…. They themselves are forced to leave the communities that they have spent their entire life in because they can no longer afford housing.

That’s why I am so incredibly grateful to know that our government is making the single largest investment in affordable housing in the province’s entire history. I can’t tell you how much that will mean to everyday people who are struggling. Housing affordability affects us all, and I do believe that, for too long, B.C.’s housing crisis was absolutely ignored.

[2:15 p.m.]

In this comprehensive housing plan, we’re able to tackle speculation. We’re going to be curbing demand. We are increasing housing supply and, of course, improving security for renters. I want to thank the member for Vancouver–West End for his advocacy for renters for all of these last many years.

For a long time, I felt like there were no voices in government who actually cared about renters and the challenges facing renters. But the member for Vancouver–West End has been absolutely diligent, has been absolutely passionate in his advocacy for renters, and it really inspired me as well. It made me feel as though there was hope. When I was a renter, I would look at the work that he did, and I would start fighting for my rights.

Now, as MLA for North Vancouver–Lonsdale, I’m able to help other renters fight for their rights. I’m really proud, as well, that we were able to close the rental loopholes late last year. The fixed-term-lease loophole was actively hurting people in my community, and certainly the geographic area rent increase provision was being used by some, unfortunately, unscrupulous landlords to threaten renters into actually accepting new leases that they didn’t necessarily have to accept.

I’d like to talk a little more about the housing plan, of course. We produced a 30-point plan for housing affordability in British Columbia, and having read it, I think it is a fantastic plan. Again, I have to give kudos to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, for working with the Minister of Finance, and the Attorney General for putting this together.

Under stabilizing the market, we’re going to be taxing speculators who are driving up our housing costs. I think that this is a fantastic measure, and a lot of members of my community are absolutely thrilled to see that this is happening. If you own a home and you are not living in it, it’s not your primary residence, you’re not renting it and you’re not paying income taxes, you’re going to be taxed a speculation tax.

We’re also increasing the foreign buyers rate to 20 percent from 15 percent, but unlike what the B.C. Liberals did when they first introduced it, we’re actually going to be including grandfathering clauses so that we’re not interrupting contracts midway.

We’ll also be expanding the foreign buyer tax to areas outside of Metro Vancouver, and I think that that’s a very good thing, because we’ve heard from a lot of community members that housing in areas that the foreign buyer tax was not applied to started to increase. Basically, all the speculation was moving outwards. The increasing of property transfer tax on homes over $3 million is, I think, a progressive measure as well.

We’re also cracking down on tax fraud and closing loopholes, so taking action to end hidden ownership, including a new beneficial ownership registry. We don’t actually know who owns and who benefits from a lot of portions of our real estate market. This makes it very difficult for us to know how to actually manage the market and how to crack down on speculation and fraud when we don’t know who’s actually benefiting and who’s actually owning these properties. That is also a really fantastic measure.

Of course, we’re making a $6-billion-plus investment in affordable housing — the single largest investment in affordable housing in the province’s history, building rental units for middle-class income earners. We’re providing housing for women and children who are affected by violence, and we’re going to be working with universities to actually build university student housing.

I know I’ve mentioned to the House before that Capilano University in North Vancouver has recently opened student residences, and the positive impact it has had on their students has been absolutely incredible. Prior to the availability of student residences, there were many students who were living in their cars, living in tents behind campus and couch-surfing who were having to make the decision as to whether or not they would continue school or not because they couldn’t actually afford housing.

[2:20 p.m.]

I think that’s a terrible situation, and I’m so glad that we’re going to be able to make it much better. Of course, we’re building 2,500 new supportive homes for people struggling with homelessness.

We’re also adding security for renters by increasing benefits to seniors who are living independently, so the SAFER grants are going up. The RAP, the rental assistance program, is going up. Of course, we’re working with partners to build and preserve affordable housing.

Now, when it comes to the next major issue that my community faces, child care, I have to tell you that when the Minister of Finance was reading out the B.C. budget for this year, I was choking back tears, not very successfully. A few of them definitely flowed.

The whole time she was talking about the new child care program that we’re rolling out, I was thinking about the community members — my family, my friends, my neighbours — who have been talking to me about how difficult it is to make ends meet, particularly when you have young children.

The city of North Vancouver has one of the highest rates of families led by single parents in the province. Almost one in five families in the city of North Vancouver are led by only one parent. To have a young child and try to work during the day…. Frankly, I don’t know how many of these families do it.

I’ve got single mothers who are working three jobs a day, and they can’t afford child care. They’re shuttling their children off to friends. If they have family, maybe their families are chipping in. But it’s all in all an extremely stressful situation.

My own godchildren, four of them, live with their parents, of course. They are parents of low income. Their total combined family income this time last year was $40,000 a year, for two adults and four children. They actually live in Burnaby. They don’t live in North Vancouver, but the challenges are very, very similar, of course.

My beautiful friend, the mother of these four children, had her first child when she was in high school, so she wasn’t able to finish her high school diploma. She spent a lot of her life struggling and wondering what to do about the future. Before long, she and her family…. She had a family of four children. I’m sorry. I’ve seen how these families struggle, and I’m so grateful that our government is able to…. I’m sorry. This doesn’t happen normally.

I’m so grateful our government was able to put together a child care plan, the biggest investment in affordable child care in the province’s history. It’s going to allow families like my friend’s — who, unfortunately, no longer need child care because their children are a little bit older…. But it’s going to help families who make less than $45,000 a year actually make ends meet. I don’t think the members opposite really understand what this really means to people.

The first portion of the program that will be rolled out will be in April, where child care providers will be able to receive a $350 per month per child fee reduction. Families across B.C. will be able to see that in April. And that will be supported by an additional affordable child care benefit of up to $1,250 per year per child for those families making less than $45,000.

[2:25 p.m.]

Even families that make up to $111,000 a year will continue to be able to benefit. I have many friends. Of course, as an engineer, I have many engineering families — they have very good jobs, professional incomes — who recognize that this portion of the plan might not benefit them to the extent that it benefits those lower-income families. But they also know that this is just the first part of the universal child care plan rollout. It’s just the first stage.

Our plan is to eventually create a universal child care program in B.C., but it takes time to roll out. We’re focusing on the families who need help the most right now, but there’s a lot more to come.

There is so much more in this budget, but I’m a little worried that I’m going to continue to sob here, so I’m going to take my seat now. I thank the House very much for allowing me to speak to this budget.

P. Milobar: It’s always a pleasure to be able to rise in this House and speak to matters. Certainly, the riding of Kamloops–North Thompson looks to myself to make sure that their voices are heard in this House. That’s what I think we strive to do, all of us, every day — to make sure our constituents are well heard and well listened to in this House.

I just want to assure the member opposite who finished up before me that in fact, on this side of the House, we do equally love our friends and family and do understand the struggles in life that they go through from time to time, and we can sympathize with her emotion around a close personal friend that had struggles in life.

I want to address the budget and some of the problems I see with it. Now, over the last couple of days since the budget has been introduced, I’ve been walking around Victoria, back and forth from the accommodations that I’m staying at, and a couple of people have noticed that I’m walking around with both hands in my pockets.

The simple answer to that is I want to make sure that at least I know when the government is reaching into my pocket to take money out of my pocket. In this budget, that’s very clearly what they’re doing — but not in an upfront, very blatant way. No. They’re characterizing a $5½ billion taxation budget as affordable. They’ve tabled a budget that has probably the single largest increase in taxation as affordable. Their marketing strategy is to tell you that in the seven months since they’ve taken office, adding a cumulative $8 billion in taxation is affordable. I would suggest to you that it’s not.

There are a few examples I want to touch on in the budget document. It’s very troubling. I likened it in an earlier conversation to watching a live-action game of three-card monte happening in front of our eyes, where there are very real-world consequences.

As we’ve heard in question period, the members opposite seem to think it’s quite funny when we ask questions about possible layoffs and job reductions and decreases in hours worked and people still having the ability to have a viable business and be able to provide for their families and make sure that the workers within their companies have good-paying, family-supporting jobs. It seems to get met with laughter, as if it’s not serious or that there are not real-world ramifications.

The ideology piece is one thing. But when you ask questions about what’s really happening on the ground, and when you’re conveying back to a government what your own constituents are raising to you as concerns, one would hope that the government, regardless of political stripe, would take those concerns seriously and not, essentially, laugh back in the faces of our own constituents as we’re voicing those concerns in this House. But that’s what we’ve been seeing over the past couple of days.

We will continue to advocate for our constituents to the government. We hope that some day the government will actually take those concerns seriously and not just turn everything into a laughing matter.

[2:30 p.m.]

Now, I would point out, within housing…. It’s a small piece of it, but again, it comes down to marketing. It’s so small one wonders why it even got any mention of any significance whatsoever in the budget document, let alone in the speech by the minister.

However, the hotel tax, the vaunted hotel tax that is going to save affordable housing options for people in municipalities and give municipalities this wonderful tool to be able to provide housing for all…. Well, here’s a little background.

I have a unique perspective on this because not only am I a former mayor who is very familiar with the municipal side of the municipal hotel tax act; I’m a former hotelier, whose family was actually one of the leading people that brought the hotel tax into fruition in Kamloops. In fact, our family fought against the first implementation of it because it needed to be adjusted to better reflect industry. Once that adjustment was made, we fully supported and got on board to make sure it was implemented.

I think I can offer a bit of a unique perspective, which it seems the government is totally unaware of, when it comes to this tax. First off, this tax only exists if the majority of hoteliers, representing the majority of value as well as the majority of rooms in a municipality, agree to allow the tax to exist. Now, the reason that clause is in there is because, as the current legislation stands, it’s supposed to be used for tourism marketing. It’s supposed to be used for things to help with tourism in the area.

The government’s grand scheme to try to funnel more money into housing with local governments is to change those rules so that that tax that’s been collected by hoteliers can now be used to provide housing in communities.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Now, that’s an laudable goal. However, here’s the other kicker to that piece. It gets renewed every five years. Guess what. If the hoteliers suddenly say, “We don’t want to keep collecting this tax on behalf of government so that it can go pay for housing and not provide any marketing support to us whatsoever,” there’s no more tax to provide housing. That’s the first problem.

The second problem is, even if they agree to do that, you then have no more marketing dollars left for the tourism industry within that area. I can tell you in every jurisdiction where this tax has been implemented — and this tax has been successfully rolled out in terms of leveraging advertising opportunities, partnering with the regional tourism marketing boards and partnering with the provincial marketing boards — there’s been a spike in tourism activity. That’s not accidental. That’s what happens when you market properly.

If you take those marketing dollars away, you are going to impact the livelihood of thousands of people that work in the tourism industry. But as we have seen with Family Day discussions, this government doesn’t seem to want to support the tourism industry. We are not sure what industry they want to support. Apparently, they don’t want to support resource industries. Now they are taking an all-out assault on the tourism industry in various different forms and creating these internal conflicts within municipalities and tourism marketing boards, somehow turning a tourist marketing dollar into affordable housing units managed by a municipality.

Municipalities don’t have the taxing authority and the ability for transfers of wealth like a provincial government does, which is why, for the most part, they don’t provide day-in, day-out housing options. They try to scramble…. They try to come up with land assemblies so government can build on those and still hold on to the land value. But they don’t have the operational dollars to provide day-in, day-out housing options.

This government seems to think that taking some marketing dollars and removing them from marketing, hurting our economy and the tourism sector, and putting it over to housing to let municipalities start taking over housing options is a good idea. I call that a blatant download to municipalities and property taxpayers, and it certainly isn’t going to make life more affordable for people that are property taxpayers.

The last point on this I would point out is we also have to consider the order and magnitude of dollars. In Kamloops’s case, it’s approximately $1 million a year that they collect on this tax. A million dollars. That’s a far cry from trying to build a proper, affordable housing continuum within a municipality.

In Salmon Arm’s case, they just started this. The heart of tourism country in the Shuswap. They collect $180,000 a year, it’s projected, on this tax, yet somehow this tax is being held up as some magical thing that’s going to help solve affordable housing without damaging tourism and without creating a lot of conflict within municipalities.

[2:35 p.m.]

Now, when you look at other tax increases…. There are plenty of them. We heard the Finance Minister today rattle off a list of taxes that was so long, I started to lose count. There are other ones that are a little bit troubling to me.

A tobacco tax increase. I’m not standing here advocating for tobacco use. I think tobacco use is horrible. I’ve never been a smoker. However, there is a fine line between raising tobacco…. It’s well documented in all jurisdictions that when you keep raising tobacco tax, you drive up the black-market consumption of tobacco. Anyone in law enforcement knows this to be true. It is a documented fact.

Although it seems like a good idea on the front side to try to restrict tobacco use, to try to drive that use down, it’s no different than the conversation we’re hearing about the legalization of pot, where if it gets priced too high, if it’s taxed too high, the black market will still exist.

To try to pretend that doesn’t already exist with tobacco…. People are kidding themselves. You can’t openly talk about the impacts on one style of combustible enjoyment, shall we say, and not acknowledge that it’s a very real-world consequence with tobacco. I’m not confident that was thoroughly thought-out. It’s small dollars in the grand theme of things, but I think it just speaks to the broader issue.

Now, when we look at other things within the budget that are troubling to me, I would note that buried deep in the bowels…. It’s a normal process of documentation, so it’s not like this government has done anything any different than how the budget books are laid out regularly. But I’ve always found that when you go farther back into these documents, some of what seem to be very convoluted charts reveal some very interesting facts.

I came upon a page. Being newer to this House, I thought I would check with a couple of colleagues that have been around and are much more experienced that I was actually reading it correctly. It essentially shows delayed capital spending. What it shows — based on the timeline, as I can ascertain within this book — is that since this government has taken office, in seven short months, they have delayed $850 million worth of capital spending.

So $850 million of capital spending has been delayed, one can only assume, because of mismanagement. Now, there is certainly an understanding around a transition time, but we’re talking two quarters’ worth of time now — two quarters’ worth of time where these projects that were already pre-planned, that were supposed to be moving ahead, have sat and waited, for whatever reason, because government cannot manage their capital properly.

I would note, as a special interest to our area, that $330 million, over one-third of these delayed dollars, are transportation. So $330 million of transportation projects that have already been approved, that had already gone through Treasury Board, are sitting awaiting the Minister of Transportation to do her job and get them moving. But what do we get? We get press release after press release, in the Interior, talking about accelerated projects. “We’re making the Trans-Canada widening move faster, and we’re going to get things done quicker than ever before.” In seven months, $330 million of projects has been delayed.

Since this government took office, $105 million of — here’s the kicker — social housing projects…. So $105 million of social housing capital is sitting in limbo, doing nothing, waiting for this government to actually do their job and deliver projects, instead of study upon study upon study.

There is delayed capital in there for schools, for K-to-12. There’s delayed capital in there for post-secondary institutions. There’s delayed capital for health care. All of these are delayed — all delayed, for who knows how long, to the tune of almost $1 billion. But we don’t hear talk about that, and when we try raising that in the House, we get laughed at yet again by the government — laughed at.

[2:40 p.m.]

I would point out that when the government sits and laughs when you are raising concerns from your constituents…. They’re not laughing at me. I can take it. I don’t mind it. I’ve been told I’m a big boy. I can live with that.

They’re laughing, through me, at my constituents. Every single one of our members that raises constituents’ concerns in this House, that hears laughter from the other side…. That’s what they’re doing. They are directly laughing at every constituent I represent who has valid concerns about timing of much-needed highway projects.

Instead of getting told by a Highways Minister that they’re being accelerated, when I look in the budget book, I see $330 million worth of delayed capital spending on transportation. That’s not humorous to me. That makes me question if they understand their budgets within their own ministry, if they know how to get projects moving and if they know how to keep projects on time — and certainly a concern around keeping projects on budget.

Now, I’ve said this is kind of like a three-card monte game. I would also note, when we’re talking about the ability to manage projects and budgets, in the seven months…. It’s actually not even seven months. In this last quarter, in the last update since the previous update, the surplus has decreased by another $39 million. Another $39 million — poof! — gone. It was budgeted to be to the good. It’s gone.

The surplus has been dropping monthly since this government took office. For them to be projecting a $220 million surplus a little over a year from now…. Frankly, I find that a little hard. They started with $2.7 billion seven months ago, and we’re down to about $110 million or something like that, off the top of my head.

It seems pretty hard-stretched to think that over the next 16, 17, 18 months before the next fiscal year-end, they’re going to keep a $220 million surplus pure. That would indicate to me that, even in their best wishes, we’re going into deficit territory. It will be interesting to see the ministers of the Crown react when they don’t get their wage holdback because we’ve gone into deficit.

I would point out that that $220 million surplus seems to be a very interesting number to me. I would note that with the Medical Services Plan double tax that we see in the budget, a double tax that is going to generate $450 million in revenue while they’re still collecting medical services premiums…. Without that $450 million of a double tax, you have approximately a $230 million deficit.

No wonder the Minister of Finance is so adamant that we need to have this payroll double tax happening a year in advance of MSP being transferred into the payroll tax. The government needs the money to be able to balance the books, or the ministers of the Crown will face the financial penalty of not getting their full salary.

I think that’s shameful. It’s absolutely shameful that we’re double-taxing businesses in our communities just so the ministers of the Crown can make sure they get their full salary, instead of managing the budgets properly and making sure that we don’t go into a deficit — absolutely shameful.

I’ve talked a little bit about those issues. I’m obviously the critic for the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, and I want to touch on some of these issues too. Frankly, I’m absolutely stunned that the Green Party is supporting this budget. It floors me that they have been caught up by the marketing of this budget.

When you actually look and you actually read into the numbers of the appropriations for the Minister of Environment…. Despite what the minister said during estimates in October, November that it was a high priority for this government — the Minister of Environment and their budget…. “Just wait until the budget in February. Just wait and see how much more we get to do with the Ministry of Environment come February.” It’s all there in Hansard, from estimates. I was trying to be as fair as possible during estimates.

[2:45 p.m.]

The budget for the Ministry of Environment, with the budget update, was the same budget that the B.C. Liberals had tabled. I recognize that. Myself and the Minister of Environment had established that very early on in estimates. It was the same budget, so it wouldn’t be fair to hold and start asking questions — “Where is this? Where is that?” — especially when he gave assurances that come February: “Wow, the world is going to change when it comes to the Ministry of Environment and their budget.”

Let’s look a little harder into that budget, those line items, and then we’ll let the public decide. We’ll let the public decide if the Green Party has truly sold their soul and their core supporters decide if they’re comfortable with what their MLAs are doing right now in terms of clinging to power in this House.

Let’s look at these numbers. The environmental assessment office. There’s been lots of talk about revamping the environmental assessment office, lots of talk about revamping it, lots of talk about making things new and reinvigorating it. One would think that’s going to require some funds. But in fact, when you look at the appropriation, the budget for the environmental assessment office is flat. No new money.

Climate action. With an increase in carbon tax, with everything else going on, surely the climate action department line item is going to see a nice boost to the Ministry of Environment’s budget. But in fact what we see is a million-dollar drop. They actually took $1 million out of the climate action line item in the Ministry of Environment, and the Greens are supporting this.

Environmental protection. We’ve heard lots about how they’re going to ramp up environmental protection. It was promised, actually, in estimates. “Wait till February. Wait till February. Environmental protection. High on our list.” Well, that’s flat too. There’s no new money for environmental protection.

Environmental sustainability. Surely there must be money for environmental sustainability. Alas, nope. No new money. Same money as the year before for environmental sustainability.

I find it interesting that after years of both the NDP and the Green Party railing against the B.C. Liberals for lack of environmental assessment, for lack of climate action, for lack of environmental protection and for lack of environmental sustainability, their budget in February, which we had already established back in estimates was the same budget number as ours last February, actually sees a $1 million drop for those four items. Those four items that they said we didn’t put enough into, they’ve actually cut $1 million from. It’s right there in black and white.

It’s shocking the Green Party would support that. It’s not so shocking most members of the NDP probably haven’t read that line in the budget, but shocking nonetheless.

Let’s look at a couple of other interesting tidbits out of the Ministry of Environment budget, shall we? First, we hear — big feature moment — $5 million for 1,900 camping spaces. That sounds like a wonderful program. We’ve been advocating for stuff like that for years, so it’s great to see. It’s absolutely great to see. Let’s look at where that $5 million is coming from, shall we?

There’s a term called “statutory appropriations” which means there are certain parts within the Ministry of Environment that you have to spend the money on certain things. One of those is park enhancement. One of those, park enhancement, derives the revenue from things like licence plate sales, campground reservations and that like. Guess what budget has actually gone up on the revenue side by around $5 million or $6 million. Oh, the statutory one. So guess where the money for all the park enhancements, where it should come from, is coming from. The park enhancement fund.

Why is that interesting to me? Because the B.C. Parks budget, which isn’t the statutory piece of this…. I want to make sure the members opposite are paying attention to this one, because this is the kicker.

[2:50 p.m.]

We’ve increased $6 million on the statutory side because our campgrounds are generating a lot of revenue, and the B.C. Parks licence plates are generating a lot of revenue. That’s all good stuff.

The B.C. Parks budget in this budget has dropped, not by $6 million. It’s dropped by $9 million. So $9 million has been removed from the B.C. Parks budget, yet we had a government promoting a $5 million expenditure for campground spaces, making it sound like they were doing a wonderful thing in B.C. Parks. They’ve net cut out $3 million from B.C. Parks. It’s absolutely shameful how they’re trying to move the funds around to demonstrate that they’re doing something good.

We also heard about the conservation officers. Conservation officers, I would add, used to be promised conservation officers and park rangers. But no. Instead, we have a watered-down delivery of 20 conservation officers to try to cover this entire province. Much needed. It’s an increase. I’m happy with that.

That $3 million and the $6 million out of the statutory fund make up the $9 million cut to B.C. Parks. No net gain for B.C. Parks whatsoever.

Now, there are a couple of other interesting things in here. This is why I’m shocked that the Green Party, frankly, has just taken this budget and run with it. They’re in opposition. They should actually be pointing this stuff out. They’re supposed to be the environment party, but they’re not pointing any of this stuff out. It’s shameful.

Let’s look at where the spending in the Environment Ministry is. Well, we know that it’s actually up $6 million total. There’s a total of $6 million of new money into the Ministry of Environment. But I would point out that salaries in the Ministry of Environment…. Do you know how much they’ve gone up this year?

Do you know what the salary line item for the Ministry of Environment has gone up by, even though they only have $6 million more to work with? The salaries have gone up a shameful $7 million. That would mean that they have basically said: “We’re taking $1 million out of the Ministry of Environment because we need an extra $1 million away from services and programs to pay for the same staff we currently have.”

Now let’s go to their capital spending. Surely there must be some good news in the capital spending. It’s up $5 million, after all, for the Ministry of Environment, so one thinks they’re going to do some pretty great work. Obviously, the Greens haven’t read this part of the budget, because I can’t believe that their leader wouldn’t be up in arms about this.

Capital spending up $5 million for the Ministry of Environment. That would be a great headline. Unless you say: capital spending is up $5 million for executive and support services in the Ministry of Environment. It seems like there are going to be some nice renovations to executive offices, but there’s not going to be a whole lot going on out in the real world where the environment actually is.

What we basically have is a budget increase in the Ministry of Environment of $6 million. We have marketing where they’re spending an extra $5 million on campground sites. The average person would look at that. They would connect those two and say: “Oh, perfect.” But what we’re actually seeing is program cut after program cut, reduction after reduction in the Ministry of Environment, and that is absolutely shameful.

It’s shameful that the Third Party, which is supposed to be all about the environment, will not even at least address or talk about this. The fact that they just shake their head when we try raising it is shocking. The fact that they think that actually less money for the same programs which they used to accuse the B.C. Liberals of not putting enough money into is okay is shocking. It’s just unbelievable that this is what we’re faced with in a budget.

All in all, when you take everything into account, what we have is a budget where the ideals are great. But I would just ask everybody that’s watching, the six or eight, to go back, all the way back to not even a year ago, to when we were all running in the election. Don’t take my word for any of this. Don’t take the B.C. Liberals’ word for any of this. Read the platform from the NDP.

[2:55 p.m.]

At every election forum, in front of every crowd, their candidate stood up and said, “This has been fully costed against the B.C. Liberal numbers” — B.C. Liberal numbers that had $8 billion less of taxation than this current budget does.

Every one of their promises…. The members of the government told the public in the election: “Trust us. Every cent has been accounted for. Every one of our promises can be delivered, and it’s all in the existing funding envelope.” Instead, what do we have? Watered-down, broken promises, the shelling of the Ministry of Environment and $8 billion more in taxation.

People out there don’t need to take our word for it. People out there have to really start seriously asking the government: why are they not keeping their word? Why were they such poor fiscal managers that they were able to promise they could deliver everything and now, $8 billion of taxation later, they’ve barely touched anything that they said they were going to do.

They have a lot of questions to answer. They have a lot of explaining to do. They wanted to be government. They’re government now. Maybe they should take some time and, instead of laughing at our constituents for having serious concerns, actually get down to the business of governing and figure out how to make sure a budget doesn’t run over.

S. Chandra Herbert: Well, it gives me incredible pleasure to speak in support of this budget and to share why I think it’s the right budget at the right time for British Columbia and my constituents.

First, I want to say thank you to my friends in Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour. The neighbourhood of Coal Harbour and the West End have been so good to me, and I do my best to be so good to it, because those people are my neighbours. They deserve the very best from their MLA, me.

They ask me sometimes: “What party are you with?” I sometimes say: “Well, I’m with the West End, Coal Harbour Party, made up of all sorts of folks from all sorts of political backgrounds trying to get the very best for our community.”

Today, with this budget, I’m also very proud to say I’m part of the New Democratic Party. It’s a vision — of course, with support from the Greens — that I think unites the best in British Columbia in a lot of ways. I think it’s the kind of document, the kind of planning, that brings people together — independents, folks with no political affiliation. Heck, I’ve even heard from some Conservatives and some Liberals — dyed-in-the-wool Liberals, they tell me — who really support this budget as well because it’s the right kind of vision. Why is it the right kind of vision for B.C. at this time?

Well, one second. I first have to say a special, special thank you before I get into why it’s the right vision. I couldn’t do this work without the support of my constituents, without the support of my incredible constituency office staff, community office staff Murray and Alex, and of course, my family, most notably my husband, Romi, and my son, Dev, who’s a little over a year old now. They put up with a lot. They support me at all get-out and inspire me every day. Thank you to them. And, of course, the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish peoples, whose unceded traditional territory I call home in Vancouver’s West End.

Why is this the right budget, the right time? Well, I’d say it’s balanced. Now, some would say: “Balanced? Well, you know, you sound like a Conservative. You sound like somebody who’s just focused on the fiscal.”

As I’ve been coming into this House and speaking on just about every budget that’s come through the time that I’ve been here, I always look at the balance. Does it balance fiscally? Does it balance socially? Does it balance environmentally? Does it meet that test? Of course, you could balance on the budget side and have poverty shoot through the roof, homelessness increase, climate crisis get worse. That’s not balance, but that’s what the former B.C. Liberal government called balance. It clearly was not.

Clearly, we are now in the place where we have to respond to the fact that so many of the things that we call important — values, community, health, equality, the liberty to do what you want in a safe environment, to follow your dreams, all those sorts of things — got pulled apart.

Some people did incredibly well. They got the best luxury cars, the best luxury mansions, the best luxury whatever you want, a private school education. The list goes on. They did very well in our province. Unfortunately, most British Columbians did not. The gap between those with the very most and the rest got wider and wider and wider. More and more people started to fall through that gap and ended up on the street, ended up in health care crisis, mental health crisis, addiction crisis.

[3:00 p.m.]

I think the word of the day in B.C. seems to be crisis. There are so many crises — ICBC, Hydro, and the list goes on — because of the complete lack of attention to the need for a real balance in British Columbia when it comes to budgeting. With this budget, we’ve got that balance right.

What does that look like when we talk about achieving that balance? One, I’ll talk about the fiscal side. It’s important, because you can’t do anything unless you’ve got the money and the budget to back that up and the strong economy to do that as well. Right now we’re continuing to outperform economic expectations for this province — the lowest unemployment rate in Canada, some of the highest numbers of jobs and employed people in B.C. history, a triple-A credit rating. That’s a good thing. It means we can borrow at a lower cost. That is important.

It’s exciting to see that we’re also…. I think the former leader of my friends in the opposition used to have on her bus “Debt-free B.C.” When we pointed out the debt had shot through the roof, they changed that to “operating-debt-free B.C.” Two years earlier than the B.C. Liberals were going to get there, we have actually, with this budget, achieved eliminating the operating debt as well.

This is a strong fiscal framework that allows us to do so much more. I’m very proud that it balances in each and every year. It also achieves that balance on the social and the environmental side.

It probably won’t surprise you that constituents of mine, for their top priority issue…. The top priority issue I’ve been raising in this House since I first joined it back in 2008 has been housing — housing, housing and then housing. Rental housing primarily but homelessness, purchase housing, homes, condos, house, home — anything that gets a roof over your head where you’ve got some stability.

That’s been a concern of my constituents. Unfortunately, year in and year out, they were ignored by the former Liberal government. They’re not getting ignored anymore, and that is incredibly clear with this budget with the record investments in housing, action on the Residential Tenancy Act, security, speculation, foreign buyers, and so on. The list goes on, and that’s incredibly important.

I’ll go into some of the detail. The 30-point action plan on housing affordability that the government has addressed? I think we couldn’t even barely get one point out of the former government for action on housing. So 30 points are pretty good. There’s clearly more that we’ve got to do. But 30 points versus what? Housing — move to Fort St. John, I think, was the Liberals’ answer for years. But I digress.

It also includes record investments in child care. In the West End and Coal Harbour that I represent, we have a lot of kids jammed into a really small area. We’re probably one of the smallest ridings in B.C. but one of the densest. Parent after parent after parent has come to my office since I was first elected pleading for more child care spaces and more affordable child care spaces.

Whenever we would go to the government of the day to say, “We need this action because these people can’t work” or “They’re going to lose their housing because they can’t afford the child care,” and the list…. The affordability challenges they face are so vast, and they’ve only gotten worse. The answer would be, “No, no and no” and “Oh, maybe we’ll do a couple hundred” — when the problem was vastly underrepresented and you need thousands.

Well, we’re doing that with this budget. We are finally responding to the child care crisis with the first universal access social program in a generation at least. You can probably jump back to universal health care before you saw something quite as vast, all-encompassing and beneficial as this program — a program so beneficial that it’s united people from all walks of life, from boards of trade to chambers of commerce, labour unions, city councils from wealthy communities and city councils from communities struggling with poverty challenges.

The need is so vast and so real, you couldn’t help but respond. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. It was ignored, and it has gotten worse. But you know, we’re going to lower costs for parents, increase the number of child care spaces, and make sure those spaces actually meet the highest standards of care.

I want to thank the advocates. Again, we are all MLAs. We represent our communities. But in the end, it’s the advocates, the people who push to get the changes they need to support our communities, that we have to thank. In the end, we are only doing what our communities allow us to do, support us to do through their own money, investments, taxes, belief and voices.

[3:05 p.m.]

In my own community, I can think of a few. I think of Rita Chudnovsky. She’s been at my door just about every year, a couple times a year, working on this file. I think of Don Hann, who was, I think, the first gay child care worker probably in Canada and has been advocating on these issues since the ’70s.

I think of Pooh Corner Daycare and other child care centres in my community whose parents have come to me, whose board of directors have come to me, calling for action. And I think of all those parents who couldn’t get into child care and are struggling right now still trying to find a way to do it. They’ve told me that this budget gives them hope. They know that it’s going to take time, but it’s the right action, and it’s something that should’ve been done a long time ago.

Well, we’re getting there. The creation of more than 22,000 new licensed child care spaces through the province is going to be possible because of this budget. A new child care fee reduction program will benefit up to 50,000 families in licensed care with fee reductions of up to $350 a month. That’s going to help my constituents. A new child care benefit provides up to 86,000 families with up to $1,250 per month in child care cost relief by 2020. That will help my constituents, and if they are able to have their children in care, they can work.

That’s the other challenge I’ve heard from business — getting skilled workers. When you meet skilled workers, and they can’t do the jobs they want to do because they can’t get the child care they need, and you talk to the child care facilities, and they can’t get the skilled workers to work in the child care facilities, you’ve got a problem. This clearly is being addressed in this budget. So I want to thank our Minister for Child Care, our Minster of Children and Family Development and the Finance Minister for acknowledging this problem and, most importantly, providing solutions.

Housing. Housing, housing, housing. Well, what’s there to say about what we can do? Well, there’s a heck of a lot. I’ve worked on the rental housing file for a long, long time. The number of stories, the number of people that I’ve seen harmed because of the inaction, who’ve lost their communities because of government inaction, who’ve been pushed into long-term care when they weren’t ready for it, who’ve gotten ill and ended up in emergency rooms and hospitals because of the lack of attention and lack of care for housing, because the government could barely even say the word “renter”….

The list is long of those stories. Each one of those people deserved so much better. Some of them we were able to help. Some of them we were able to keep in their homes, we were able to defend, and I want to thank all those advocates out there who work on behalf of renters to try and do that. I want to thank the good landlords who’ve worked and reached out to me to support tenants in struggle as well, because we need more of them — good renters, good landlords, good rental housing. This budget is going to help do that.

Why don’t I take us through some of the big steps, some of the 30 steps? My friends in the opposition, I’ve heard them say: “Oh, there’s nothing in the budget. What are they going to do for renters? There’s nothing. There’s nothing for housing. What are they going to do?” Lots of sturm und drang, I think is the phrase. Or sound and fury, but we won’t finish that quote.

I would say that we’ve got action on speculators. Now, I think some of the folks who’ve been working on trying to get us to address speculation as a province for many years told me that they couldn’t believe we actually said the word “speculator” in a provincial budget, but we did.

You know why we did? Because housing prices have shot through the roof. People in the international financial markets have seen housing in B.C. as a great thing to buy because the value to you, as the buyer, goes through the roof, and you don’t have to pay anything. You pay almost nothing, and you get huge, huge returns on that housing — meanwhile, pricing the locals out of the market and creating an international commodity that, in many, many cases, sits empty.

In my community, in Coal Harbour, you have about 25 percent, arguably — give or take, here and there — of the housing sitting empty. That’s housing that was built so that people could live there, not sit empty, and that’s hurt local businesses. I’ve had folks tell me they’d set up their local businesses in Coal Harbour, expecting this number of people, but when it’s actually this number, they can’t make the numbers work.

Taxing speculators who are driving up costs will help push them to provide that housing on the market and reduce that speculative drive for increased costs. It should be about housing first for British Columbians, homes for people, not homes to hoard your cash. It should be about housing, so I’m really glad that tax measure was included.

Increasing the foreign buyer tax — again, people have been trying to game the system — and expanding it to other markets that have also been hit by the drive around speculation is the right thing. There are other things around the fact that millionaires with $3 million homes have been paying really relatively similar tax rates to the person who owns a $300,000 condo.

[3:10 p.m.]

Well, when I’ve gone out in my community, I’ve heard from people who will tell me, “I own a $3 million condo” or “I make $300,000 a year. I want more of my tax money to go into supporting education, supporting addressing the homelessness crisis we see in the community, supporting addiction treatments, supporting mental health support.” Up until this budget, the B.C. government had largely not done that kind of thing, but this is a progressive budget and realizes that those who have more can give more. It’s the right thing to do. It’s progress. It’s progressive, and it will help in so many other ways.

Another challenge in my community was, and continues to be, the issue of Airbnb and short-term rentals. You can make a lot of money doing short-term rentals. Hotels would have to pay the hotel tax, the tourism industry would pay these taxes, but the short-term rental operator could charge less, fly under the radar, take that housing out of the local rental market and just turn it into tourist housing.

Well, again, we should be focused on, if you want, the locals. A friend of mine used to always say: “Well, if it’s good for the locals, it’s good for tourism.” I think that’s true. I think we need to be focusing on the locals. Ensuring that things like Airbnb actually pay the taxes to put them on the same level as the tourism industry is a good thing. That’s part of this plan — but also making sure that condos and stratas, which don’t want those short-term rentals in their properties, can actually go after them with fines.

They don’t like that kind of taking it out of the housing market. They want a neighbour there permanently, not somebody treating their home as a resort. Giving them an increased fine power will help as well. That’s been an issue in my community that I’ve heard a lot about.

Some other things out of the 30-point plan that I think will be really useful. You know, if you try to learn who owned much of the housing in my constituency in Vancouver, British Columbia, you wouldn’t be able to find out. Why? It’s because governments of before seemed to prefer keeping that information hidden, as a good thing.

Some people say X percent of housing is owned by people from this country and not living locally. Well, you can’t actually test that for a lot of housing because they’re hidden with numbered companies, corporate registries, and so on that are not up to date. So, then, tax fraud and evasion and those kinds of things can run rampant. When you can’t actually find out who owns a place, it’s really difficult to be able to track who’s paying taxes and who’s not, and that includes presales.

I had a fellow stop me the other day. He said he was getting rich. I said: “Well, jeez, that’s nice. How did that happen?” He said he was playing the presale game. He was buying presales, watching the property shoot up, flipping them, assigning them on and on.

Unfortunately, when you talk to the tax collectors, when you talk to people who study this stuff…. A lot of people got away with making lots of profits and paying no taxes on those profits. Well, that ends because we’ll know who has flipped, who has changed. It’s so you can actually ensure that people who are trying to game the system can’t game it anymore. They have to pay their fair share of taxes. I think that will help reduce that speculative urge to make as much money as you can without paying your fair share.

Nothing really gets people more than thinking that they’re paying taxes and other people are getting rich and laughing at them while not paying taxes. I think that’s been a challenge in B.C. The rich have gotten very rich in B.C. Meanwhile, others have seen fees go up, like the MSP and so on, which I’ll address a little bit later. It’s a flat tax that I’m so proud to be seeing ended.

We’ve got to strengthen provincial auditing and enforcement powers. It’s not sexy stuff, but it’s the right thing. Again, people have said: “Well, how is it that fentanyl dealers have been running their money and laundering their money through our housing market?” Well, it’s because nobody was asking questions. Of those that were asking questions, there were very few of them, with massive caseloads, and a government that didn’t seem willing to actually take the problem seriously.

Well, thank you to my colleagues the Attorney General and the Finance Minister for recognizing this as the problem it is, so that we can actually do more to make sure, again, that housing is for locals — and locals that are following the law, not cheating the system.

Close property tax loopholes on the ALR, the agricultural land reserve. Jeez, farmland should be for farming rather than for mega-mansions — what an idea. Working with the federal government as well, to prevent tax evasion — again, something that should have been done years ago. Permanent provincial-federal action to combat money laundering, tax evasion and avoidance — again, things that I’m proud to see in a budget.

Now, here’s another one: making the largest investment in B.C. history in affordable housing — $6 billion and more — because, unfortunately, we just don’t have enough affordable housing. Why is that? Well, we can go through the history.

[3:15 p.m.]

The federal government stopped getting involved. The B.C. Liberals, when they took power in 2001, stopped building affordable housing. After huge community outcries, action from the New Democrat opposition, we started to get community buy-in. We started to get some housing built — clearly, not enough to catch up to the backlog, with homelessness now rampant in community after community. But when you work with local governments, you work with the private sector, you work with non-profits and you work with the co-op sector, you can start building affordable housing again — housing that will be there for the long term.

Now, I know that in my community when you say “affordable housing,” people want to know what that is. Some people have sold affordable housing and said it’s affordable when, clearly, it’s not for most people. Well, we’re looking at rent-geared-to-income. We’re looking at how you ensure that low-income people can get housing. How do you make sure that middle-income people can continue to call our community home — across Vancouver, across Metro Vancouver, across B.C.? It’s got to be a B.C.-wide and, indeed, a Canada-wide solution.

The 14,000 more rental units, again, are clearly needed. The supply of rental housing is incredibly, incredibly low. The vacancy rate is near zero. It’s not just building more than 14,000 more units but also allowing zoning for rental housing. In Vancouver, what we’ve found is they’ve rezoned areas to say: “This is going to be great for affordable housing.” But due to the out-of-control speculative market that the Liberals let get out of control, the land value is so high that if you sold it as a condo, it might be a $1 million condo.

If we’re going to do more mass transit like the Broadway line and other things, we need to zone those areas for rental so that you can actually maintain affordable housing there and have it not just become yet another penthouse pad for the rich. Average British Columbians need to be able to afford to live close to where they work. Rental-only zoning is going to be a huge, huge win, I think, in many parts of B.C. but, I know, in Vancouver specifically.

Student housing — what an idea. Some of these things I say — “We’re going to allow colleges and universities to build student housing so that students can live close to where they go to school” — are somehow a revolutionary step, something that should be included in the 30-point plan on housing. It seems kind of farcical. You’d think: “Building student housing? Well, surely the government has been doing that for years.” You know what? I’ve met with so many students, so many colleges and universities, desperate to build student housing. They know that it will get paid for through rent. They know it will prove a positive return. But the Liberal government of the day said no, no, no and no.

We’re not saying no. We’re saying yes to student housing. We’re saying yes to those construction jobs, yes to affordable student housing, yes to student housing. If those students who are living in many places across Metro Vancouver can move into the student housing, that housing that they’re in right now becomes available to everybody else as well. So we’re getting an increased supply, which should help on the rental side, which should help people to increase the vacancy rate. We should make it so that landlords have to compete for tenants, as opposed to tenants having to compete for landlords, which is the current problem we’ve got in rental housing today.

Oh, I’m excited. There are so many things, whether it’s housing for Indigenous people or working to build 2,500 new supportive homes for people struggling with homelessness. I’ve spoken about that commitment before in this House. You can’t help somebody to change their life, and you can’t assure them that they have a hope for the future if they have no conceivable way to get into housing. For too long, that was the case.

Homelessness has been one of the pervasive social problems — one of the reasons I got into politics, I think. It’s an old, hackneyed phrase for me but maybe new to someone else: homeless people are tired of being stepped over, and people are tired of stepping over homeless people. It’s a mutual challenge that has pulled apart communities and, in some cases, has led to real division, when it shouldn’t.

We all should be there for each other when we’re falling through the cracks. We all should be there be there to ensure that you’re not freezing outside, you’re not burning to death as, unfortunately, homeless folks have done in B.C. in the last number of years. You’re not dying from preventable illnesses because you’ve been outside in the cold for so long. This is a great, great step. Clearly, we’ve got to take action. Provincewide, federal-wide, a homelessness action plan is coming up. Again, there’s just so much to recommend this.

Now, something that seniors in my community would come to talk to me a lot about is the Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters program. It’s a program which provides a subsidy to support seniors who are on fixed incomes to deal with their rental costs.

[3:20 p.m.]

Year after year after year I’d bring this forward at budget time. I’d bring this forward in the fall, the winter, the spring, the summer, to say that we need increases in this, because seniors are falling further and further behind. More of their food budget is going to their housing budget, and they just can’t eat.

You go to the food banks, and you see them in the lineups. Now, when they’re not in the lineups, in some cases, it’s because they feel such a sense of personal shame that they cannot feed themselves properly, so they hole up in their homes. In cases, we’ve had to go in and find them to bring them food to their homes because they just are not making it.

We shouldn’t do that to our elders. The Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters program is seeing a real increase — an increase which is $116 million over three years, for both the Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters program and the rental assistance program. Both of these programs are vital. For seniors, that means an extra $930 per year.

When you have been talking to seniors and they are saying concerns about a cost increase to them that might cost them $2 extra a month, $930 a year is a big deal. Because trust me when I tell you, they will bring their budgets in. They will bring how much they’ve been working to save. They weren’t able to make it for years, and they were ignored.

We are not ignoring seniors in this budget. We are ensuring that they have some greater security and dignity in terms of their housing with this program, and I’m so glad. I want to thank the West End Seniors Network. I want to thank seniors advocates, the West End Seniors Planning Table and so many more — Isobel Mackenzie and others — who have advocated for this over the years.

I would like to see it become a program similar to the old age security program at the federal level, the GIS program, where you don’t have to apply every year. You turn 65. If you are at that income level, you get the resources. Because I’ve found, too many times, seniors were not aware of the program and were even in worse shape. We’ve had to work hard to try and prevent those seniors from being evicted because they weren’t able to make their rents. And thankfully, many landlords have been willing to work with my office to do that.

Clearly, this will help. Making it just something that happens as a matter of course, I think, is the next step, and I’m pleased to say that I’ve met with Finance officials, and they encouraged me to continue on that path. It’s the right thing to do.

Now, we come to protections for renters, part of a 30-point plan in this budget. Increasing the resources of the residential tenancy office, as we did in the last budget, was the right thing to do, and we’ve continued to do with this budget.

You also need to do things like we’ve done — getting rid of the fixed-term tenancy loophole, getting rid of the geographic area increase clause. Incredibly important, because people have lost their homes. People have been forced into homelessness because of these loopholes that the Liberals put into the law when they took over government and wouldn’t change.

Even though we could point to them…. They were being abused by a few landlords who decided that profit was better than being good to somebody. Profit was better than the law. Greed ruled. Well, hon. Speaker, greed rules no more. Community rules. I think acting on the Residential Tenancy Act, renovictions, demovictions and those kinds of issues needs to come. I’m glad that the government has acknowledged that. Clearly, we need more action for renters.

This government has acknowledged that the Residential Tenancy Act needs work and that renters need a hand up. I’m going to keep working around the question of a renters rebate, because I think, again, when homeowners who have the security of their home get a tax rebate, renters don’t. I’ll continue to work that. I’ll continue to reach out to my colleagues in the Green Party to try and find a way to make that happen, as well as my colleagues on all sides. I know my friends in the Liberal caucus would never do that when they were in government but now seem focused on the renters rebate. I’m hoping that they themselves will push for a renters rebate, as well, and support it.

So far, they haven’t. They have said it was a stupid idea, but they also continue to say that it should have happened. I’m a little confused by that. But there you go. They don’t support it, but they want it. Anyways, I’m hoping we can find a way to get that done, because I think renters need that kind of help as well.

We need to invest in the quality and affordability of the existing housing. Unfortunately, too much of the housing that counts as affordable housing in B.C. has been let to go to rot. Investing in maintaining that housing is also incredibly important. I’m glad this budget does that.

I look at the Coal Harbour Co-op in my community. They’ve maintained it very well and, I think, have been able to keep it relatively affordable because of that. We need to support that kind of leadership.

Now, I see the lights have gone green, hon. Speaker. I still have probably two to three to four to five hours of speech-making to do here on the budget. I’m so excited about it. But I’m not the designated speaker, so I don’t get to speak for two hours on it.

Suffice to say, this budget does more for progressive action to build community, to create a unity, to create a shared prosperity and a better vision for B.C. than 16 years of the previous government. It’s an incredible forward-looking document.

[3:25 p.m.]

I haven’t even talked about action on climate change. I’m so proud to say that we’re going to start to see an increasing price on pollution again so we can invest in fighting climate change as we should have been doing for years.

There’s more to do on a number of fronts, but that’s the great thing about government. When you work with your community, when you work with your partners, when you develop a common vision, you can do those things.

I’m hearing from people around my age who said: “Well, I grew up under a B.C. Liberal government, and I started to believe change was not possible. I started to believe that you couldn’t make things better, that government was just a problem.” But they’re not thinking that anymore. I’m hearing from people saying they have a new hope that you can make change if you work hard, if you’re persistent and if you’re a strong advocate.

I haven’t even talked about the arts, the creative industries, and on, who are also seeing increased supports in this budget. I haven’t talked about health care, home care, education. My goodness, there’s just so much to get excited about here, and I know I’ll have more opportunities to share in how we can make a better province together.

Finally, I just want to say thank you. I’m an individual who has all sorts of flaws, as friends will tell you, but I’m made better by a community that wants me to succeed and that wants us all to succeed. Because when we succeed, they succeed.

S. Furstenau: Congratulations to the government on their first full budget. There is much to be proud of this week. I’d like to recognize the Minister of Finance and the Minister of State for Child Care, in particular, as I know they’ve been working tirelessly these past many months to pull everything together.

The budget takes a number of steps on a variety of important files. Some, like the billion-dollar investment in child care and early childhood education, are huge. Others, like the new housing initiatives, are more cautious. And others, like investments in K-to-12 public education and climate change initiatives, are still lacking.

Noting that many of the members from the official opposition are using their platform to drag out the tired “all taxes are bad” narrative from the 1980s, I’m going to look to our future and try to articulate ways in which government may be able to do better going forward, as compared to Budget 2018. To do this, we have to take a brief detour back in history to identify some of the main forces that have shaped where we are now and how we got here.

Coming out of the Second World War, there was a strong, growing sentiment that the role of government was to look after people. The world had been through the Great Depression and two world wars in one generation. There was a huge surge in labour and social democratic political parties who followed Keynesian principles that promoted the use of government spending to stimulate the economy.

This philosophy guided government policies for most of the 1950s and ’60s while economies in the western world expanded. In the 1970s, as people became more affluent and debt became more available with the introduction of credit, consumerism began to rise. The increase in demand for goods was not accompanied by an equivalent increase in supply, and high levels of inflation ensued.

By the end of the 1970s, inflation was chronic and public unrest grew. There was a strong public opinion that there needed to be an adjustment, because inflation was out of control. A debate on how to fix these growing problems ensued between the monetarists and the Keynesians. Monetarists, or the Chicago school economists, led by Milton Friedman, believed that the economy could be controlled by manipulating the money supply, versus the Keynesian counter-cyclical fiscal policies that focused on demand management, policies which often took effect after an economic problem had set in.

Margaret Thatcher was the first major global leader elected on a pro-business, monetarist platform in 1979. Her model became what we now call neo-liberalism. Ronald Reagan, in the U.S.A., and Brian Mulroney, in Canada, followed her in 1981 and 1984, respectively. The backlash to the inflation and economic stagnation, termed “stagflation,” of the 1970s became deeply entrenched across the western world.

The monetarist policies of these political leaders were effective at getting the interest rates down and inflation under control, but came with a pro-business and anti–social safety net price. Taxes and government spending were kept low, and there was a systematic deregulation and decreased spending on enforcement.

[3:30 p.m.]

The economy continued growing through the 1990s and into the early 2000s, but affordability challenges simultaneously began to take root with devastating impacts, which we are reckoning with in Budget 2018.

B.C. is now the worst-performing economy in Canada for younger generations. Compared to 1976 levels adjusted for inflation, the cost of an average house is up nearly $500,000. Not only are wages not up $500,000; they are down $9,000. I would encourage everyone in this chamber who was old enough to buy a home in the late 1970s and early 1980s to think about how their life would be different had their home cost half a million dollars more and their income been $9,000 less. How would that have impacted the course of your life?

To reference data from Generation Squeeze, an organization which has grown out of Dr. Paul Kershaw’s lab in UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, B.C. has lost control of home prices more than any other province. It took five years of full-time work to save a 20 percent down payment on an average home from 1976 to 1980. From 1991 to 2001, it took seven to eight years to save the down payment. Over the last government’s term, from 2001 to 2017, it rose from eight years to 20. Twenty years of working in a good job to be able to save a 20 percent down payment for an average-priced home in B.C.

On top of that, good-paying jobs are harder to secure. Full-time earnings have fallen more in B.C. than in any other province, since 1976 to 1980. While Statistics Canada data indicate that the average five-year mortgage rates have fallen from a high of 10 to 13 percent between 1976 and 1980 to a low of 3.76 to 4.38 percent from 2011 to 2016, today’s higher home prices negate any benefit this may have brought to young British Columbians. Despite much more favourable borrowing rates, the typical 25-to-34-year-old in B.C. must devote more than eight months of their full-time work year to cover mortgage costs on an average-priced home in B.C. That’s an extra three months of their paid work each year to cover annual mortgage costs compared to the same-aged Canadian in the 1970s.

Young citizens must increasingly come to terms with renting for longer periods, if not indefinitely, and personal debt is on the rise. Again, to quote Dr. Kershaw’s data, since 2001, university tuition rose more than in any other province, and today the average amount of debt held by British Columbians under 35 is $40,000. Why do we hear so much about how B.C. has the fastest-growing economy when it is the worst-performing economy in Canada for young people? It’s because the real estate sector is propping up our GDP, which is a problematic measurement to begin with.

Using 2015 figures, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction combined account for 5 percent of B.C.’s economy; educational services are 5.5 percent; public administration is 5.5 percent; transportation and warehousing, nearly 6 percent; professional scientific and technical services, 6 percent; retail, 6.5 percent; health care and social assistance, 6.5 percent; manufacturing, 7 percent; and construction, 8.5 percent.

Real estate, rental and leasing — today they account for 20 percent of our province’s entire economy. But while escalating home prices that have driven B.C.’s economic growth since 2001, they have not grown employment opportunities at a corresponding pace. Real estate accounts for 20 percent of our economy but only 2 to 3 percent of our jobs.

Budget 2018 certainly makes some great affordability adjustments, but it is operating within the same neo-liberal framework. The governing principles from the last 30 years have taken us to a very unhealthy place.

[3:35 p.m.]

The “taxation is bad; consumerism is good” story will not save us. Let’s remember that the system is perfectly designed for the outcomes that you are getting. When used properly, the taxation system can be a tool for achieving goals in the public interest. Together we need to draw a new map for where B.C. is going.

Part of that narrative must be a broader analysis of our economy and how it is serving British Columbians. Gross domestic product measures our province’s economic activity. It does not account for economic or social well-being. The devastating fires that we had last year, for example, will be counted as an increase in GDP, because we had to spend $750 million to fight them. Are we better off as a province because of those fires and that money spent? I don’t think so.

We cannot hold GDP as the sole measure of success. Even treating it as an indicator of general well-being is inaccurate and dangerous. GDP measurement encourages the depletion of natural resources faster than they can renew themselves and conceals a growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. We are using an antiquated tool that never really did represent health, well-being or intergenerational equity to measure how we’re doing. It is a backward-looking tool, and we need to be forward-looking.

It is time that we asked instead: what kind of growth are we achieving and at what cost to our environment and our communities? Today the answers to those questions are not positive. The growth we are achieving is collecting as incredible wealth for the lucky few, while certain groups of people are consigned to a life of disadvantage and suffering.

In B.C., the most affluent 10 percent of the population holds 56 percent of the wealth. At the same time, 3 percent of the wealth is shared amongst 50 percent of our population. Think about that. Fifty percent of the people of B.C., close to 2½ million people, hold only 3 percent of the wealth in this province.

The narrative that we just need to have people willing to work hard does not hold water when 50 percent of the citizens have to find a way to make 3 percent of the wealth work between them. None in this province work harder than the people who are struggling to make ends meet every day — sometimes working two or three jobs, juggling the demands of life and seeing costs steadily rise while their incomes remain stagnant.

Working harder or getting a job is not the solution. The vast majority of people in B.C. who are living in poverty are working, but the jobs do not provide the income necessary to be able to make ends meet, let alone to thrive.

The cost to our environment is immense by the consequences, which will largely be borne by our children and grandchildren. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced well below 1.5 tonnes per person in order to avoid severe damage to the security of the climate for today’s younger generations and their children. Instead, the average Canadian is producing 21 tonnes of greenhouse gases, more than 13 times the level considered to be sustainable.

This means the model of economic growth that is undermining the financial standard of living for younger Canadians is also compromising the climate, air, water and soil conditions on which younger Canadians depend.

People cannot make the necessary changes on their own. They need our help and leadership. We need to build a system that internalizes externalities through life-cycle accounting. We need to stop treating people as externalities and consider ecological economics.

How can we live within our means and elevate the health and well-being of our fellow British Columbians? How can we live within the very finite carrying capacity of the Earth? We need to refocus on quality of life. Everything has been focused on quantity, the frantic pursuit of excess. Consumerism has not brought us happiness. Instead, it has come at an incredible cost to our environment and our communities.

[3:40 p.m.]

Beyond the cruelty of it, there is a real cost to keeping people down — $1.2 billion a year in B.C., in fact. As the B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition says: “Inequality negatively impacts physical and mental health, education outcomes, trust and community life, homicide rates, children’s health and well-being, drug abuse and more. As a result, more equal societies have far fewer health and societal problems.”

Poverty is a fundamental determinant of both physical and mental health. This isn’t surprising, given that living in poverty means that you are more likely to live in cold, damp or unsafe housing. You are also more likely to suffer illness, have a chronic health condition and die earlier.

A significant cause of these health problems is a lack of food. B.C. is facing a chronic hunger problem and significant food insecurity. After paying for rent, heat and electricity, people with low incomes have little money leftover for food, so they are less likely to eat fruit, vegetables, milk products and other food that provides the nutrients they need for good health.

Addressing long-term health issues associated with poverty adds a cost of $1.2 billion per year. In other words, our public health care system could save $1.2 billion a year if poverty reduction initiatives reduced health care costs of the poorest 20 percent of British Columbians by raising their incomes. By not taking action on poverty reduction, our health care system is overburdened, and we all face the consequences of long wait times; overworked doctors, nurses and medical staff; and unsafe hospitals.

“There are measures to tackle the breadth of poverty in B.C. through investments in the 2018 B.C. budget, but there is little to tackle the depth of poverty,” Poverty Reduction Coalition said this week. I agree. This budget is a step in the right direction. Action on housing and child care will help the economy and make communities healthier, and it doesn’t preclude larger systematic changes we will need to make. But we need to keep working on it.

How do you get a system that internalizes environmental and societal externalities, that prioritizes baseline health and well-being for all? As opposition members, we can start to facilitate these conversations. To start, I believe we need to refocus on government’s three main purposes.

First, the role of government should be to facilitate the highest and best outcomes for the health and well-being of current and future generations of British Columbians. According to the social determinants of health, 60 percent of illness is caused by economic, social and environmental factors, with income as the number one factor.

If government is going to achieve the highest and best outcomes for health and well-being, the social determinants of health, especially liveable income, must be addressed. Our goal should be to ensure that all people have economic security. This will also have the effect of reducing the burdens on government spending — particularly in health, which is the greatest percentage of our budget.

Secondly, government must sustainably manage our province in the interests of intergenerational equity. The original concept of sustainability: meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. I note those future generations are sitting up in our gallery right now, and it is to them who we owe a debt.

Sustainable management is essential if our land, air, and water are to support life as we know it, now and for years to come. That does not mean that we must pit the environment against the economy. Rather, with innovation and inspiration, we can profit from our clean environment, while diminishing the threat to economic and social stability from global warming and environmental degradation. Our goal should be to sustainably manage our province for the benefit of all British Columbians, including future generations.

Thirdly, government should be the steward of public resources and manage the delivery of public goods and services on behalf of the people as important assets owned by everyone.

[3:45 p.m.]

We need to reset the relationship between people and their elected representatives. Governments are people elected by people to look after the best interests of all people in the province. Public goods and services belong to us. They are part of our personal wealth. It is our duty to take a direct interest in ensuring these assets are well managed and maintained on our behalf.

The quality of our public infrastructure — our public transportation, our hospitals, our schools — and the availability and excellence of services, such as those provided by our mental health nurses, our teachers, our peace officers and our social workers, enhance the livability and pride in our communities.

Neoliberal 20th-century politicians have portrayed governments as a burden that weighs down citizens with taxes and regulations, often irresponsibly spending their money on schools, roads and hospitals. They have persuaded people to give up their ownership of public assets — such as parks, public transportation, Crown land, hospitals and schools — and to look down on public servants. They have destroyed community, glorified a brash individualism and disparaged those concerned for communal well-being and future generations.

The way society works is created by all of us, and when systems don’t work or stories don’t make sense, we can and must change them. Increasingly, research is showing that connection and community are what truly underpin our health and well-being.

An article in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper reinforces this with a story about the town of Frome in Somerset, England. A GP, in response to her patients’ concerns, created the compassionate Frome project, which set up a directory of agencies and community groups. This let them see where the gaps were, which they then filled with new groups for people with particular conditions. They employed health connecters to help people plan their care and, most interestingly, trained voluntary community connecters to help their patients find the support they needed.

The outcome? While hospital visits across the U.K. have risen by 29 percent over three years, in Frome, visits have decreased by 19 percent. That’s 38 percent fewer hospital visits in a town that made connection and community a priority. These are the stories that we need to be paying attention to.

I will be supporting this budget. I will also say it’s time for B.C. to be forward-looking — to embrace innovation, to stop trying to solve 21st century challenges with 20th century approaches, and to create a new story for our province. Our potential lies in our extraordinarily beautiful and bountiful land, our people, and our diverse, caring and connected communities.

R. Leonard: I’m proud to stand in this House today to support this government’s first full budget. I’m honoured to represent the people of Courtenay-Comox, and I’m excited about the future for the people of my constituency and for the people of British Columbia.

Courtenay-Comox is the home of the K’ómoks First Nation. The landscape of their unceded traditional territories is spectacular in its beauty, from Mount Washington and the Comox Glacier to Comox Bay and the Salish Sea. It is the land of plenty. It is great to enjoy the richness of our paradise, but along with the goodness, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

We are all here to do our best for this province, I believe. I hope that the only difference between us is how we get there. What I do know is that the “how we get there” of 16 years of successive Liberal governments has not worked for far too many people. Unfortunately, propping up the top 2 percent has not trickled down to create successful living for the rest of British Columbians.

I prefer a strategy that puts people first and that works for the people who drive the economy. That’s why I support a budget that is about people, a budget that will build a better B.C. for everyone. Compare this focus on the people to the path chosen by the Liberals for 16 years.

[3:50 p.m.]

My mind goes back to the beginning of the era when then Premier Gordon Campbell’s income tax cut was followed by the selling-off of so many of our public assets, while instituting an untold amount of hidden fees and charges.

Year after year, for 16 years in total, more hidden fees and costs created bigger and bigger financial burdens for hard-working people. No matter what you call them, they’re still taxes — taxes that are not progressive, taxes that are not fair — regressive and unfair taxes like the doubling of MSP premiums; B.C. Hydro and ICBC rate hikes; rising ferry fares; fees for adult basic education and English language learning; more than doubling of tuition fees, not to mention the rise in student fees to get around the tuition cap; and so many more other insidious and incremental increases to the cost of living.

The service cuts of the Liberals were also relentless, hurting a whole generation of students, hurting those who need supports, hurting the environment and, yes, hurting the business climate.

It is incumbent on a government to not turn a blind eye to the barriers and constraints to a successful society. It was not only the cry of the people raising the hurt caused by the growing housing and child care crisis; business also recognized and rallied for action.

I’d like to recall a story that was in my newspaper way back in 2003. Marty Douglas was the head of the real estate board for Vancouver Island. He made the call that we were on a train wreck that was unavoidable. Even with actions being taken, we were not going to be able to resolve our rental housing crisis, and by 2008 we would be seeing a lot of homeless. And actions still were not taken.

You can’t tackle huge deficiencies in a piecemeal way, with band-aids and minimal efforts. Yet, that is how the previous government approached the big-ticket items for the people of British Columbia.

I recall in 2007, with an unprecedented almost $1 billion in property transfer tax revenues, there were repeated calls, again from the real estate industry, to invest in affordable housing right now. At the time, the Liberal government’s response was: “We’ll invest it.” Basically, save it for a rainy day. But that rainy day came and went far too many years previously. The warning signs of the crisis had come, and bold action was needed, yet it was left to languish.

On child care. Every year at local government budget time, a local child care society came to my city council asking for property tax exemptions, trying to whittle away at the growing expenses that continued to make child care more and more unaffordable. But local government was not the place for the sweeping changes that were needed, so Courtenay council turned to the province, year after year, to no avail.

There have been so many other transgressions by the previous government: education, seniors care, health services. The list goes on and on. But I will say that we did reach a tipping point in B.C. It was time for a change, and this government today is prepared to respond to the challenges in real and lasting ways, to work for the people instead of the top 2 percent and to build a better B.C. for everyone.

Budget 2018 builds on the September 2017 budget update. Our government began with the September 2017 budget update to turn the tide. We took some important first steps, and although the Liberals cry the sky is falling, the economy has remained strong.

Since taking office, we’ve made moves to make a tax system that is fair and provides for a more affordable life for people with the services they need. This government is creating a climate where people in communities throughout B.C. can share in the prosperity of a strong economy.

[3:55 p.m.]

We are helping where help is most urgently needed. In September 2017’s budget update, we increased disability and social assistance by $100 a month. This is money that will be quickly moving through the economy. I’ve heard the relief over and over from people in my constituency about how that extra $100 is really taking a stress off people that are trying so hard to make ends meet.

Then there’s the sound of doors opening as we increased earning exemptions, allowing those able to participate in the job force to gain experience and grow more opportunities — that will do what? Oh, right, help grow the economy.

We reversed the previous government’s clawback of bus passes for people with disabilities, helping more than 100,000 people connect with the services they need.

We are addressing the devastation of the public education system and a generation of students who were underserved and are now in need of upgrades to lift themselves up. We have returned free tuition for adult basic education and English language learning.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

This spring I met a young woman who had aged out of foster care and had stopped her studies because she couldn’t cobble together the resources to pay her tuition. She looked like she struggled to put food in her belly, let alone have the wherewithal to focus on studies. That’s changing, for her and for many others.

It’s not all about what services have been and are being improved. The budget’s also about making sure we have fairer taxation. In Budget 2018, our government acted to reverse a tax break given to the top 2 percent income earners by the B.C. Liberals, and we increased the corporate tax rate a modest 1 percent to align with other provinces.

Now, the regressive flat tax MSP is on the way out. We started with a 50 percent reduction in MSP. Now when that bill comes in every month, and you think, “Didn’t I just pay that?” it will be such a relief when it’s gone entirely. I know a couple who are living from one pension paycheque to the next. They’ve already noticed a real difference in their budget. This is a real expression of a fairer tax system.

Our government is ensuring that small businesses in B.C. are protected while replacing that flat tax of MSP premiums with that fairer system. It is being replaced by an employers health tax. At 1.9 percent, it will be the lowest rate among provinces with a payroll tax, in all of B.C. It’s important to note that despite the Liberals attempted spin-doctoring, 85 percent of businesses in B.C. will not be paying the employers health tax.

Adding to that, in the September budget update, our government lowered the tax rate for small business and phased out PST on electricity for businesses — all in order to support B.C.’s businesses.

We’re also extending PharmaCare coverage, doubling the poverty threshold held under the Liberal government and eliminating deductibles for families with a net income of $30,000 per year or less. This will help to ensure that all people in this province are able to access equitable health care regardless of their income level. We’re bolstering the Fair PharmaCare program by eliminating family maximums for low-income families so they will be able to claim full coverage right away.

Budget 2018 scales back some of the other insidious fees that have made life increasingly unaffordable in B.C. over the last 16 years. We are a maritime province. In my constituency, we live on Vancouver Island, and we rely on our public ferry system. As a maritime province with that public ferry system, it’s designed to make our coastal communities more accessible. However, over the past 16 years, the ever-increasing costs associated with ferry travel has made the price of commuting prohibitively expensive.

With Budget 2018, we have committed to freezing fares on the three major routes and reducing fares on non-major routes by 15 percent. This will directly impact people in my area, many of whom rely on B.C. Ferries for transportation to and from work on a regular basis, putting money back into their pockets and back into our local economies.

[4:00 p.m.]

We’re also restoring a provision that will allow seniors to travel for free on weekdays. I know that that is one of the benefits that people have been waiting for, for a long time.

Now, I would like to highlight the big game changers, starting with affordable, quality and accessible child care. Government is committing a $1 billion over three years to lower costs, add more spaces and improve quality. On lowering costs, the impacts to families cannot be overstated. Up to 85,000 families will get up to $1,250 a month by 2020, and people making under $45,000 will essentially be paying nothing at all.

The fee reduction program will benefit up to 50,000 families in licensed care with up to $350 per month per space, regardless of income. All families making up to $111,000 a year will get some subsidy for licensed care. Every family can benefit from the fee reduction program, ensuring that those who need the most help get it but leaving no family behind. In fact, if you do the math, by September 2018, it’s less than $10 a day for many families.

I have heard immediately the story of one early childhood education worker who can now afford to put her kids in child care so that she can go to work. Nurses and police and other shift workers will be able to access off-hour child care and not turn down work. I know in my community, we have that issue where there are vacancies because nurses and police can’t take their shifts, and the community suffers. No more.

I’d like to tell you an older story — a friend of mine who’s now retired who had free child care that allowed her to advance her education and get a family-supporting job. She was a teacher, and it created a life for her as a single mom where her kids could grow up with aspirations that led to a whole other generation of workers with family-supporting and fulfilling jobs.

There is more still to this program. There are going to be more than 22,000 new licensed child care spaces that will be added, and there will be support for early childhood educators with increased training and development. So 21,000 families are already receiving subsidies, and they will continue to be eligible for full or partial benefits as the system transitions to help child care providers become licensed.

I’d like to quote the minister’s Child Care B.C.: Caring for Kids, Lifting up Families — The Path to Universal Childcare:

“Research indicates — and the current state of child care in B.C. confirms — that there are many challenges associated with market-based models when there is unmet demand, leaving them fragmented and unaccountable.

“The province’s plan for early care and learning is to move from the current patchwork of programs and services — delivered with limited accountability and regulation with fees that are out of reach for many families — towards universal child care that is affordable and available for any family that wants or needs it.”

That is an admirable goal for our children and future generations. I want to say thank you to Minister Conroy and Minister of State Chen for listening and responding.

Deputy Speaker: Just riding names, Member.

R. Leonard: Oh, I beg your pardon.

Now I’d like to turn to the next big game changer, the 30-point plan for housing affordability in B.C. outlined in our budget. The Minister of Housing also deserves kudos for bringing this multifaceted plan forward. I won’t address all the points because 30 is a lot, but let’s start with the overall picture — addressing demand, increasing supply and providing safety and security for renters.

Speculators, no matter what the commodity, can drive values beyond reach for those who need it. Government has taken bold but measured steps to reinsert the people of British Columbia back into the housing equation as we work to ensure British Columbians who live and work here have a safe, affordable and appropriate roof over their head.

[4:05 p.m.]

How do we address such an overwhelming and unaddressed need for affordable housing? Well, we have a historic investment of $6 billion over ten years, plus a focused effort on engaging all the players in housing development, drawing on the skills and resources of our own B.C. Housing, with the new housing hub.

I’d just like to share that I was involved with a number of committees on affordable housing in my community. We worked with a lot of agencies, and we worked towards working together because we were living in a competitive world where agencies were having to battle against each other for limited resources. We ended our mandate with a call for a housing planner or convener to bring partners together to find funding and to work with local governments to build the affordable housing that will work in each of our communities.

It’s exciting to see the needle-sharp focus of a housing hub that draws on the expertise and networks of our existing organization of B.C. Housing. The list for 34,000 direct units is impressive. More than 14,000 rental units for the missing middle will address the housing needs of workers and — oh, yes, by the way — to help business, who agree that housing prices and low vacancy rates prevent workers from living in their communities.

This budget will add another $378 million over three years and more than $1.8 billion over the next ten years to increase rental stock. This is in addition to the funded 1,700 units from the September budget update.

Up to 5,000 students will benefit from opportunities for universities and other post-secondary institutions to borrow from the province to build student housing to the tune of $450 million. We’ll see $141 million over three years and $734 million over ten years to help house women and children fleeing violence. For projects underway that are threatened by increasing costs, we have set aside more than $75 million over two years so that these 4,900 homes can remain affordable. There is $550 million set aside for 1,750 units of social housing for Indigenous people, in partnership with the Aboriginal Housing Management Association, Indigenous housing societies and First Nations.

I am excited that this budget is building on the successful initial supportive modular housing program, in the September update, to add 2,500 more homes with 24-7 support for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Operation and maintenance of existing stock is critically important. I was on the library board for Vancouver Island. We did a facilities master plan, where we had facilities that hadn’t been properly maintained for decades, and the costs soared astronomically. It’s essential that we keep on top of these things, and this is an investment that’s bigger than anything that’s been seen in more than 20 years. It’s $1 billion over ten years for seismic and safety upgrades and essential repairs and maintenance. I’m particularly keen to see the investments that will lower carbon emissions and cut energy costs. It’s all part of the cost-of-housing story.

Of keen interest to many vulnerable renters is the increase to the seniors SAFER allowance, effective September 2018 — an increase of up to $930 a year. Then there’s the RAP program for families, an increase of about $800 a year.

I have a constituent who regularly contacts me and says: “What about seniors? What about seniors?” This woman gives up her rental house and goes travelling to save on rent and visits with family. What about seniors? We’re getting on with the job. Those living in manufactured homes who are at risk of losing their pads and their investments in their housing will be granted more protection with this budget.

[4:10 p.m.]

I’d like to move on now to one more note about seniors. I lost both my parents eight years ago. One got to live at home till she had a stroke. The other one had a stroke and ended his last days for a number of years in a seniors residential care facility.

I do recognize very much the needs for seniors, to help them maintain their homes, helping seniors maintain their dignity in care homes. The need has been identified as so great, and I’m so proud that we are going to bring in $548 million for seniors care over the next three years. As the advocates have said, this moment is a big one.

Government is doing all this with a balanced budget that’s been built with conservative contingencies, or what they call “fiscal prudence.” I don’t like to be thought of as a prude, but I think prudence is good in this instance.

In spite of the unexpected and unprecedented wildfires and the head-on collision of ICBC losses, the Minister of Finance has been able to focus on our priorities to make life more affordable for people, enhance services and build a strong, sustainable economy. What’s the verdict? I’m all in, and I think that the B.C. public will also be all in too.

Deputy Speaker: I recognize the member for North Vancouver–Seymour. [Applause.]

J. Thornthwaite: Thank you very much for the claps.

Interjection.

J. Thornthwaite: Appreciate the compliment, once again.

I’d like to start my remarks about this budget. But first of all, I’d like to just put in a little plug and thank you for my family. Everybody knows, here in the House, that we spend a lot of time here. That means a lot of time away from our families and, certainly, my children. At least, the one that’s still living with me probably misses me. Well, maybe not. But in either case, I wanted to put the shout-out for them, because they do have to put up with a lot of not having their mother around.

I’d also like to say thank you to my staff in my constituency office, both Nick and Stephanie, and obviously, the staff that I have here with us as our LAs. Our communications people, as well as our research people, are very helpful. We obviously could not do our job here in the Legislature without some really strong, committed staff, so I’m very appreciative of that.

Also, we have volunteers that help us out in our constituencies at home. Certainly, with the election, we had a lot of volunteers that helped me door-knock, door to door to door. I did a lot of door-knocking, and there was a lot of help. We certainly can’t do what we do without the commitment of the volunteers that help us back in our constituencies.

Before I get on to the budget perspective, I’d like to make some comments about some sad news of folks in my riding that passed away since the last time I was able to speak.

I’d like to add to what the member from Langley East had said in his remarks, which were really apropos and very touching, on the passing of Leonard George. He’s the beloved leader of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. As an elder and chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, he was known for his wisdom, wit and work to protect First Nations land, water, resources and culture — and, also, a very distinguished actor.

I would also like to give a tribute to another beloved North Shore resident, Maureen McKeon Holmes. Maureen worked tirelessly for decades as a volunteer, as a North Vancouver district councillor, as a mental health worker and as a fellow soccer mom. She was the mom of a child that was on my child’s soccer team.

She was an inspiration for all women. She has five successful daughters, a very loving husband, Rob, and was really a trail-blazer in the North Shore for women in politics and business, a powerhouse. She will be missed by all of us.

[4:15 p.m.]

Then, finally, I’d like to pay tribute to Jay Piggot. Jay was a team member at North Shore Rescue and was very inspirational. He beat cancer once and had a drive and passion to help others and a truly positive outlook on life all the time. He was really funny. Every time I saw him at all of these various events that we were both at he was always extremely generous, friendly and just a really funny guy. He had absolute love and adoration for his wife Denise and their two boys.

He will definitely be missed by the North Shore Rescue family as well as everybody on the North Shore. He was prolific on social media as well, so we’re missing those posts. I’d like to just quote him. He truly embodied the SAR motto: “So others can live.”

Going on to the budget. First of all, I’d like to talk about some promises that were very prominent, actually, in the NDP platform that have suddenly not become a priority once this budget…. We waited for this budget. There was a budget in September and, to be fair, we gave the other side the chance that they had their own budget coming up now. There are some significant things that are wanting here. I’m disappointed in some significant ones that I’m going to talk to you about.

With regards to the campaign promises, the number one — the one that kept coming up daily — was the $10-a-day daycare. We now know that that was a slogan, and even though there is an aspiration to have a universal child care program, it does fall short. Certainly, others on this side of the House have spoken to the problems with the program that they brought forward.

I would say, from my perspective, from North Vancouver–Seymour, having raised my children, as well, when they were little…. I actually had a worker that came in to my house, a nanny. Many of the parents that we hung around with had nannies as well, mostly because it was a cheaper form of looking after your children if you had more than one child. There’s nothing in this program that helps them, and certainly there’s nothing in this program that helps parents that want to stay home and do make that choice to stay at home.

I think that there’s no choice there with regards to daycare options. Obviously, the intent is to get from unlicensed to licensed and unionized workers, which is going to bump up the price, eventually, either to the people or to the government as well. I support more emphasis on daycare, but I’m not supportive of the way that this is being quite limiting to a lot of parental choice.

The other thing that is gone in the promises that were in the campaign is the $400 renter rebate. My son rents. He would have appreciated that, but it’s gone. It’s no longer.

The other thing that I found quite disturbing is a lot of talk about housing. We were looking forward to the funding for these 114,000 units of affordable housing, but obviously there’s a huge shortfall. Other colleagues of mine have come down to…. It’s an 80,000 shortfall. So lots of promises, but the inability to deliver.

The other thing that is very disturbing, particularly on the North Shore, that’s missing, is that there’s nothing there for rapid transit for my constituents. It’s a huge issue in the North Shore, transportation and transit. I’ll get into that in a little bit more detail later. Then the number one issue that I fought for, and certainly a lot of my colleagues did fight for, was the ability to bring ride-sharing into British Columbia, particularly in the North Shore and other suburbs.

[4:20 p.m.]

Because all parties had promised ride-sharing before the end of last year, we were really hoping that by this time, we would have had it. We didn’t, so we’re still waiting. We hope and pray that ride-sharing is coming soon.

Getting on specifically to more issues with regard to the promises…. I’ll just say briefly that the other thing I noticed is that there’s a lot of studying going on, a lot of reviews — endless studying and reviews. At last count, there were 19 studies getting done, with no action.

Now let’s go on to the budget. I’ll give kudos for a few items. One that was actually our idea, one that was in our budget, was the cutting of the MSP. The cutting to the student loans — we did that as well, as well as the reduction of the commercial PST. We had brought these forward in our budget, and all of a sudden, it’s coming under their budget.

The thing that is really interesting and that nobody was counting on was the payroll tax on businesses that comes along with having to pay for the MSP cut. This is something that’s very serious. My colleague from Prince George–Valemount, who spent quite a bit of time on this topic, talked a lot about the extra taxes that are getting loaded onto constituents of British Columbia, which is interesting, considering this is being called an affordability budget. When you’re tacking on a lot of taxes to constituents in British Columbia, it doesn’t become very affordable.

When we’re adding on to taxes, carbon tax is one of them. We were increasing the carbon tax, but it came with carbon neutrality, which meant that whatever increase was going in on the carbon tax to encourage people to decrease their greenhouse gas impact was actually made up in other tax cuts in other areas. That is gone. The revenue neutrality is gone.

Now we will just be getting an increased bill with regard to our gas, for instance, without the compensation of reducing taxes in other ways. That, in particular in the Lower Mainland, is significant because we rely on gas to get us around. Not only does that affect us filling up at the pump, but it will also affect businesses that have to transport their goods to and from wherever they make their money.

This payroll tax, which has been levied upon the backbone of our economy — i.e., family businesses, the private sector, entrepreneurs and the tech sector — is the issue that most people are talking about today, and it has certainly taken up a lot of time in question period for the last week. The government plans to double-dip, though, with these MSP premiums. We’ve got a reduction in the premiums, but starting on January 1, 2019, the new payroll tax kicks in, one full year before the MSP premiums are phased out. What that means to business is double taxation.

Meanwhile, what it does mean for the government is a $2 billion windfall. That means a tax windfall, because of the overlapping taxes. Somebody texted me the other day and called it a 13-month double-dip on MSP and a new employer health tax. That’s significant, particularly for small businesses.

I’ll say a couple of quotes here. One is from Iain Black. He’s the CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, and he has said that this has arbitrarily changed the definition of a small business. “Companies with eight to 12 people will be hit hard with this mandatory tax, and many will find themselves with lower net income. Don’t forget, 60 percent of B.C. residents are employed by small businesses.”

Richard Truscott, who’s the vice president, B.C. and Alberta, of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said about 20 percent of his members pay MSP premiums for employees and “the double whammy next year is going to be particularly harsh.” Truscott said: “If the government had been wise and responsible, it would have done a thorough economic impact study, which would have revealed how much of a squeeze the new tax will put on businesses.”

[4:25 p.m.]

He says he doubts that only 15 percent of businesses will be affected. He said: “It looks like a huge swath of small businesses will have to pay the new health tax, and that’s going to be a tough pill to swallow.” That’s concerning, because businesses will either have to lay off workers or increase costs, which will be increased costs to consumers, which again, will affect affordability.

With regard to housing, I was a little bit disturbed about what the Minister of Finance was quoted as saying the other day. I think it was in the news today. The goal of the budget on the housing taxes is a downturn in the market and drop in home prices — potentially making the market more affordable, but potentially putting some existing homeowners underwater on their mortgages.

The minister was asked specifically if the goal was a decline in home prices, and she said: “Yes. I hope we don’t see the kind of escalation you are seeing now in the market.” But a decline in home prices could cause some recent buyers to suddenly see the value of their home drop below the price of the original mortgage they took out to purchase the property. Unfortunately, the government has not done any modelling on how much the market could adjust because of those measures.

In summary, there’s an escalating series of taxes that has been put on British Columbians, even in the last seven months since the NDP became government. Again, my colleague from Prince George–Valemount tacked it up to the tune of $8 billion worth of new tax measures. That doesn’t sound like an affordability budget to me.

I’d like to talk a little bit about transportation, because that is the number one issue in my riding. I’m very, very pleased that the $198 million lower Lynn four-phase interchange project will not be sacrificed in this budget. That was actually mentioned as carrying on — thank goodness. It is the number one issue on the North Shore and, certainly, in my riding. I was very, very pleased that I was able to bring that to fruition before the last election and that it’s carrying on.

The transportation nightmare that we all experience on the North Shore doesn’t just affect me and people like me. It affects businesses. The North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce did a study recently on the transportation nightmare that we live in with regard to the effects on businesses, and 40 percent of the participants are considering moving their businesses out of North Vancouver due to transportation challenges — 40 percent of the businesses that the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce had asked in their survey.

With regard to their effect on employee attraction and retention, transportation is a key barrier to attracting 84 percent and retaining 74 percent of employees. Over half of the businesses, 51 percent, struggled to attract customers due to transportation challenges. Here’s the kicker, with regard to commuters.

We all talk about how the people that live on the North Shore are affected by the traffic nightmare, but almost half of the participants that were included in the survey by the chamber said that 50 percent of their employees commute to North Vancouver for work. Not only are there people that have to get from North Vancouver to work wherever they’re going, but there are businesses in North Vancouver, and 50 percent of them have employees that don’t live on the North Shore and have to commute.

That is precisely the reason why I had brought up the idea of SkyTrain to the North Shore — which, by the way, was quite popular. Given that I’m not expecting that to come any time soon, we also proposed that there would be a B-line. The B-line, the buses that are going east-west, has a problem. To date, I have not been convinced that there will be designated lanes. Let’s face it. If you’ve got a B-line going west-east and if the buses are stuck in traffic, then there’s no incentive for the people to get out of their cars and go on transit, because they’re still waiting in traffic.

[4:30 p.m.]

To me, that’s why the SkyTrain to the North Shore idea was so, I thought, appealing. My other suggestion has been: why not a B-line going across the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge to Vancouver or Burnaby? It would connect with the SkyTrain system on the other side and then connect us to Phibbs Exchange and Capilano University on the North Shore side. Maybe we could have something that would start at Joyce SkyTrain station, with connections to Gilmore and then the Kootenay loop and then via Phibbs Exchange.

Right now the 28 bus line, which starts at Joyce station and ends at Capilano University, follows a similar trajectory. However, it has 38 stops along the route, and the Commercial-Broadway 99 B-line, for example, has 18. At peak times, the schedule allows for an hour, end-to-end, if there are no accidents. The King George–to-Joyce route is roughly 24 minutes. So it’s not inconceivable that someone from Surrey could commute to the North Shore in roughly an hour, entirely by transit, if the B-line was configured to get from Joyce to North Vancouver in 30 minutes.

This is a viable solution. Because we do have 50 percent of the employees on the North Shore that don’t live on the North Shore. To get them to and from the North Shore, if we can’t have my SkyTrain to the North Shore idea right away, let’s get that B-line going. And yes, I’ve already made that proposal to TransLink.

The last thing about transportation that I’d like to make sure gets on the record is that…. TransLink is in the process of reviewing extended SkyTrain hours on weekends, late at night. We know that it’s always a problem — particularly for my kids, who are youth — getting back home after an evening out. Sometimes the taxis don’t take them home. In fact, a lot of times the taxis don’t take them home, which again, is another argument for ride-hailing. But extending the SeaBus service, along with the SkyTrain service — I’m hoping that TransLink will definitely consider that.

The last thing I’d like to focus on, mostly, is the issue of mental health and addictions. I am the official critic for mental health and addictions, and I’d like to spent some time talking about that. I did do a private member’s statement on this topic, so I’m just briefly going to go over what I talked about. If anybody watching at home wants more information, they can check that out.

Over the last several months, I had the privilege of meeting with a wide range of experts in the field of addictions and mental health. I’ve met with harm reduction advocates, psychiatrists, doctors, recovery advocates, nurses, academics, mental health professionals and more. From all of these meetings, it’s clear that everyone in the field recognizes the severity of the opioid crisis. However, the number of diverging views on how to tackle this crisis presents a perplexing challenge to governments. How do they balance all these different views to help solve a crisis that is taking lives by the day — four a day?

At the same time, we must not lose sight of something just as important. How do we prevent the next generation from falling through the cracks? The answer is simple. We have to do it all. British Columbia needs a full continuum of care, ranging from harm reduction, which we’re doing pretty well at here in the province, through to abstinence-based recovery. B.C. has been a leader in harm reduction, from opening North America’s first supervised injection site, in 2003, under Premier Gordon Campbell, to when then Health Minister Terry Lake declared a provincial public health emergency in April, 2016.

This reminds me that I would like to correct the record. I did hear our Minister of Mental Health and Addictions speak yesterday. I think this has been kind of a common theme by the other side in these discussions. We on this side have been demonized that we don’t care about people. Well, I know that everybody on this side of the House cares about people. They obviously do care, and their constituents care because they keep getting re-elected.

I have delivered for the North Shore. I work hard for the North Shore. And I get offended when I’m told I don’t care about my constituents. I have delivered, as I mentioned before, the transportation infrastructure project. I delivered the Foundry. I had a meeting a few years ago with Dr. Steve Mathias, when the Foundry was just kind of an idea.

I worked with the Minister of Health, and we brought it forward. We have five centres. One is in North Vancouver. We promised 11 more to come, and that’s what’s coming. That was our government that did that.

[4:35 p.m.]

When the minister speaks up and says there have been 16 years of B.C. Liberal inaction, that really infuriates me because it’s not true. I will show you an example. The Canadian Public Health Association actually gave our previous Minister of Health an award, a National Public Health Hero Award. I’ll tell you why. It says here, and I’ve got the release:

“The Hon. Dr. Terry Lake, former Minister of Health for British Columbia, has accomplished many things, but nothing has more impact on the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our province than the unwavering support he provided for the declaration of a public health emergency and the subsequent actions to stem the tragic deaths from illegal drug overdoses in B.C.”

This was our minister.

“These actions have undoubtedly saved many lives and made access to overdose prevention, care and treatment available to many, many more.

“Arguably, his most groundbreaking policy initiative was the ministerial order of December 8, 2016, requiring the establishment of overdose prevention sites where individuals could use drugs in the presence of responders trained on overdose recognition and naloxone administration.”

That is part of 16 years of action on mental health and addictions.

Now I’m going to get going here. Other things that I have to remind the members opposite about is…. We announced Riverview in 2015. The NDP didn’t even change the date of completion, and they announced it with six less beds — reannounced our announcement with six less beds. Naloxone was descheduled on September 20, 2016. This allowed naloxone to be provided at locations beyond pharmacies — meaning health care sites, treatment centres and community agencies.

B.C. was the first province to deregulate naloxone. That was in April 2016. No-charge naloxone kits were made available in 297 sites in B.C. in 2016 alone. That also expanded to hospital emergency rooms and public health units.

On July 27, 2016, our government announced a joint task force on overdose response, headed by Dr. Perry Kendall and Clayton Pecknold. He’s the director of police services. And our government also opened more than 220 beds in 2015 and 2016 for those struggling with substance abuse.

The minister, as I mentioned before, issued a ministerial order, on December 9, to support the development of overdose prevention sites. Twenty-three overdose prevention sites were included, including one mobile overdose prevention service that travels between two locations in Kelowna. And the two sites in Surrey were converted to supervised consumption sites in June 2017, after federal approval was received.

Our government expanded access to naloxone kits, significantly expanded opioid substitution treatment medications, established 23 overdose prevention sites and submitted seven applications to Health Canada for new supervised consumption sites, added new outreach teams and established the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, which has developed treatment guidelines for opioid use disorder and trained more than 1,200 doctors and other health care providers on how to provide the best treatment.

The reason why I went down memory lane there is because I wanted to say and put on the record that our government did a lot for mental health and addictions, and we’re not getting recognized for it. I think that we need to give credit where credit is due. I will give credit to this government for establishing a separate ministry of mental health and addictions. But, on the other hand, she cannot and should not be allowed to say that we did nothing for mental health and addictions in our tenure as government.

Let’s just talk about those overdose prevention sites. I know there’s been a lot of discussion on harm reduction, and this government has expanded what our government already started on harm reduction. But it’s not enough. The real question remains: how do we get people off drugs completely? We know that for some people this may not be possible, but there needs to be more attention from this government on abstinence-based recovery.

Continuing to pour money into harm reduction services, including replacement therapies and drug-testing kits, may help save lives today, but it won’t end the cycle of addiction. Right now across the province, there is an abundance of beds available in private recovery facilities with a proven track record of getting people off drugs, but those beds sit empty because government is not funding them.

[4:40 p.m.]

Don’t let anybody tell you that we have a shortage of beds. They just need to be funded, because they are available at private facilities. And we need a provincial registry for licensed sites that are publicly funded.

We need to get to the root of the problem, which can involve childhood trauma, abuse or neglect. We need to recognize that stable recovery can take a long time and can come with relapses, just like any other chronic physical illness. It takes time. With healthy lifestyles, exercise and nutrition, mentoring, family involvement, people in recovery can become healthy, productive community members.

Investments in the communities and community centres or schools are required, and that leads me to early prevention in schools. I see that I don’t have enough time to get into that in very much detail, but again, you can check out my private member’s statement.

In summary, I’d really like to emphasize that we need to look on both sides, where credit is credit is due. More needs to be done on mental health and addictions, but I’m disappointed that there’s not enough on recovery and prevention in this budget. In fact, there’s nothing on treatment and recovery that I could see. We need to get people the options and the opportunities to get off drugs when they are ready. In my opinion, with what has happened with this budget, that has not been offered.

I’ll let the other side continue on with the debate.

Hon. J. Sims: It truly is an honour today to rise in this House to show my support for an awesome Budget 2018. I stand here as the MLA for Surrey-Panorama and as the Minister of Citizens’ Services.

First of all, let me thank my constituents for their support and for electing me last May and sending me to represent them here in Victoria. I am so excited to welcome a new era in our province’s history. This is a budget that makes life more affordable for all British Columbians by making historic investments in child care and housing and removing the burden of MSP premiums on B.C. families. This budget helps people get ahead, by making life more affordable, improving the services offered by government and by creating a strong and sustainable economy, one that produces good-paying jobs across the province.

We live in a prosperous province, yet families are struggling to afford a home or to pay for child care. Our students are graduating with higher levels of debt and facing greater challenges in starting their lives. Over the last 16 years, we saw taxes for the wealthy being cut while our seniors struggled to get the services they rely on. Not that long ago British Columbians on disability were told they would no longer receive their monthly bus passes.

Then, like so many in our province, I had to stop and ask: how can so many be left behind or out of the prosperity of this great province? Well, it seems pretty obvious to me, and it seemed pretty obvious to the new opposition leader during his recent bid for the B.C. Liberal leadership, because he recognized their government had lost touch with what British Columbians need. He stated: “We were preaching at people from 30,000 feet, telling them about credit ratings, telling them about our debt-to-GDP ratio. The NDP, meantime, were in their living rooms offering them a cheaper way of life.”

For me, Budget 2018 marks a turning point that will include so many left out of our province’s success. Gary Mason of the Globe and Mail agrees. He said our budget “addresses a fundamental failing of their government to demonstrate even the tiniest bit of compassion and sympathy for the average person and their workaday lives. It was a budget that focused attention away from the elites and the bond-rating agencies and towards people who genuinely need help.”

[4:45 p.m.]

Budget 2018 turns the page on an era when too many were being left behind. This budget is a declaration that it’s all British Columbians who are responsible for B.C.’s prosperity. It is all British Columbians who should benefit from it.

As many of you know, I have spent decades teaching young people in B.C. I want to talk a little bit about education here. I have seen firsthand the impact of the cuts over the last 16 years. I know the value firsthand of investing in young people. It is so critical for our success as a province and nation that our young people get the best possible start in their lives.

I’m so proud. We are hiring new teachers, bringing our total to 3,700 new hires across the province to support students. That means teacher-librarians. That means ESL teachers. That means teachers to work with students with special needs. That means learning assistance teachers. And that means support for some of our most vulnerable students.

This was a clear decision and a decision that the B.C. Teachers Federation president, Glen Hansman, could support. After 16 long years of being attacked by a government, he has this to say: “This budget’s overall focus on affordability will help recruit qualified teachers from other provinces to B.C. to help address our province’s ongoing teacher shortage and will improve services to kids.”

We are going to provide funding that will actually respond to enrolment growth. We are investing $2 billion — I repeat, $2 billion — over the fiscal plan to maintain, replace, renovate or expand schools across B.C. — something the previous government neglected.

In my own community of Surrey, this budget makes welcome investments in our educational facilities. It will respond to the 7,000-plus students being educated in portables in Surrey.

I couldn’t be happier — and I know families in my community will share this sentiment — to see a capital plan that includes $60.6 million for a new secondary school at Grandview Heights secondary, with 1,500 student spaces; $55.2 million for a new secondary school, Salish Secondary, with another 1,500 student spaces; $72.3 million to build three new elementary schools — Burke Road Elementary, Regent Road Elementary and Edgewood Drive elementary. These three schools will bring almost 2,000 new student spaces to Surrey. These investments are in addition to seismic upgrades for Bear Creek and Mary Jane Shannon Elementary, as well as 12 classroom additions at Pacific Heights.

I know that for teachers, students and families in my constituency of Surrey-Panorama and around this province, this is like a breath of fresh air. I cannot wait for our fabulous Minister of Education to come back to Surrey and announce many new projects that are in the planning stage. We have a minister that understands that teachers need the resources they need and students need classrooms — real classrooms — that they can learn in. He is on the job.

Now, let me just switch to child care for a second. British Columbians have a government that is making much-needed investments in the services that our citizens count on. It’s not just in education. With a $1 billion investment in child care over three years, we are telling British Columbians we value our children and want them safe and supported.

Under the new benefit, many families with annual pre-tax incomes under $45,000 should find their licensed infant and toddler child care costs are nearly free, with others finding their costs significantly reduced. Families who earn between $60,000 to $80,000 in pre-tax income and who are using licensed infant care will be eligible to receive support that would result in their paying an average of $10 per day per space for care.

[4:50 p.m.]

This is why I’m so excited to be part of a government that is investing in our children. We all know that every penny we invest in our children brings back dividends a hundredfold. This is one of the largest investments in child care in B.C.’s history.

We are telling families they can move forward with planning for their future without the additional burden of costly child care — families like Laura Cornish’s, a parent and product manager for a software company. This is what she said to the Globe and Mail: “I hope this is the new standard. This is a significant difference in our monthly budget that means I will be able to make more long-term changes for our family.” That is a budget that is for the citizens of British Columbia.

This investment in child care is an economic investment. Often we only hear about it from the aspect of child care, and it’s good for our kids. If it’s good for our kids, it’s good for our economy.

We heard from the business community how difficult it was to recruit personnel because of the lack of child care. We heard from the business community how the lack of child care spaces meant that a lot of women who would come back to work sooner could not come back to work, and this was creating challenges for them. We also heard from the business community that they know that when parents know their children are in safe and secure child care facilities, their productivity and their focus at their work is going to be much higher.

We talk about pillars in our budget, and one of those pillars is housing. After 16 long years of neglect by those sitting on the other side, they allowed the housing market to get out of control. Not only did they not take serious, comprehensive steps to stop that, but they deliberately looked the other way and failed to take action.

Well, we have a government that has taken bold steps to tackle housing affordability with a new tax on foreign and domestic housing speculators, a historic investment in housing supply and plans to shut down tax loopholes and money laundering in our housing market. That’s what you call taking action — a 30-point plan that tackles the housing crisis that we are in from every direction.

We have a comprehensive plan that will improve security for renters and will work to increase the housing supply, and $15 million from B.C. Housing for 50 transitional beds and 50 shelter beds for men and women who are homeless or at risk.

B.C. Housing is also providing the community with Aboriginal housing developments. The Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver will receive $1.3 million for a 15-unit project in Surrey, and Kekinow Native Housing Society will receive $9.4 million for a 106-unit project in Surrey. Our government is also providing $13 million for three modular housing projects in Surrey. These will bring about 160 supported-housing units for people who are homeless or at risk.

I’ve used Surrey as an example just to say the kind of things that are possible riding by riding. I’m proud to say that this is a budget that is investing in Surrey, just like it is investing in British Columbia.

I can tell you that whether I met with the Surrey Board of Trade or with the school board or with other people in the business community, housing was another issue they were really concerned about. It was the lack of child care and the high cost of housing that was making it difficult for them to attract the new technologies, the new tech industries, and also to attract professionals to move into that area of Surrey, because people were worried about how they were going to manage.

Quality services can mean the difference between getting support for addiction or mental health challenges or suffering alone. I want to acknowledge the previous speaker who said that the previous government had started to do some work on this.

[4:55 p.m.]

What I want to say is I’m so proud of our government that saw this as an epidemic, a serious epidemic, of the opioid crisis — we know the linkages with mental health — and took very serious actions. I’m so proud of a Premier that created a stand-alone ministry to deal with both the opioid crisis, the drug addictions and mental illness.

I do acknowledge the work done by others on this, because this is not a partisan issue. This is an issue that I believe every one of us cares about, no matter where we sit. We all live in communities. We have neighbours. We have children. We have grandchildren. Almost every one of us lives in fear that one of those phone calls could be for us, impacting one of our loved ones. So for me, I see this as a non-partisan issue, one that we can all work on together.

Too many British Columbian families are losing loved ones because of the overdose crisis. First responders, health care professionals and community organizations are doing all they can to turn the corner on this crisis, but they need help. That’s why our government not only created a stand-alone Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, but it will invest an additional $322 million over the next three years to help combat this health crisis.

This year we will help move B.C. from a focus on emergency response to a more integrated, proactive and preventative approach and help people when and where they need it. I hear time and again from my constituents that this is a top priority. It doesn’t matter what income level people have; this is a crisis they care about very, very deeply.

I also have heard a lot of relief from my constituents — how delighted they were when we reduced the unfair MSP premiums, which was a special health tax only British Columbians paid, by 50 percent this year. Now, of course, they are delighted that they’re no longer going to have to pay that, and they’re going to have equity with the rest of Canada. So that is delightful.

That tax, the MSP premiums, is a regressive tax, and it’s difficult to administer. British Columbians are the only people paying it, and it just seemed totally unfair, just like the tolls we removed after we got elected. That was unfair. The only people paying tolls were people crossing those two bridges. There was a bridge in Kelowna, there are bridges in other parts of B.C., where there were no tolls. That was a fairness issue.

In the same way, when we’re looking across Canada and looking at the Canada Health Act, this is the fair thing to do, and it was the right thing to do. On January 1, 2020, we are going to see the elimination totally of the MSP premiums made by individuals and families. What that means is that the average family has the potential to save up to $1,800 per year. Imagine what a difference that can make to your life and your affordability when you’re looking at the tolls being gone and many other things.

We also recognize that too many British Columbians do not have a regular family doctor. I don’t have one. It’s very difficult to get a family doctor in the Lower Mainland. That’s why our budget has allotted $150 million over three years to help connect British Columbians to team-based primary care with other medical professionals, including nurses, mental health practitioners and midwives.

For Surrey specifically, the capital plan sets aside $8 million for the Fraser Valley cancer centre to expand the acute care unit chemotherapy area. There’s also $4.6 million for Surrey Memorial Hospital’s inpatient psychiatric and seclusion room.

The previous government — you’ve heard me say this before, Madame Speaker — for 16 long years, over and over again, kept promising a new hospital to Surrey. But what they did was they sold the very land that hospital could be built upon. Well, since we have formed government, we are moving forward with building a new Surrey hospital, and we have begun the concept planning to help the needs of our rapidly growing population — once again, because it’s the right thing to do.

[5:00 p.m.]

Madame Speaker, I know that you read a lot. When I was still at high school, I remember reading a passage that said that you judge a society by how well it looks after its young, its old, its sick and those who cannot look after themselves. So it is such a delight to me that in this budget, we have prioritized improved supports for B.C.’s elder citizens. For 16 long, long years, investment in seniors care has been neglected, but our budget reflects a government that believes seniors shouldn’t have to worry about the cost of housing or the quality of care they receive in assisted-living facilities.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Budget 2018 invests $548 million over three years to support seniors. Mr. Speaker, you and I have read the same newspaper articles that have told the story over and over again about long-term-care facilities not having the supports they needed to provide the services our seniors need. On top of that, 22,000 low-income seniors accessing the rental assistance program known as SAFER will see average benefits increased by $930 per year.

For years, 16 long years under the B.C. Liberals, seniors in care homes suffered. Nine out of ten care homes didn’t have enough staff to care for some of our most vulnerable citizens — our parents, our grandparents. They are the ones who raised us. They are the ones who have built our province. That’s why we’re adding more specialized primary care services, helping seniors stay in their homes longer.

I really appreciate this because I have a mom, 93 years old, who lives with me. She’s had a stroke, and she’s had some pretty major health issues. Because of the support we’re able to receive in an extended family system, we’re able to care for her at home. I can tell you that that is an honour and a privilege.

We need to focus on the care that our seniors receive in residential care homes, and this budget has a focus on that. I think Jennifer Whiteside from the Hospital Employees Union said it best. “The $548 million set aside in the budget to increase hours of direct care” — direct care — “in residential care restores hope for seniors and those who deliver the care.”

I have seen the kind of pain that caregivers suffer when they know they can’t provide the services the seniors need, like seniors who get bathed maybe only once a week. And then if their caregiver is away that day, sometimes that can lead to up to two weeks. Budget 2018 will help ensure our seniors, parents and grandparents are treated with dignity and respect.

Our government is standing up for women and children fleeing domestic abuse. I was so proud when the Premier came to Surrey and announced for the first time in 16 years — it’s a repetitive pattern here, I know; 16 years — an investment into the women’s centres that support those fleeing from violence. Budget 2018 builds on a $5 million investment in services like counselling, outreach and crisis support, with ongoing funding of $18 million over three years to increase the supports.

Additionally, as part of a housing plan, B.C. is investing $141 million to support 1,500 new units for women and children escaping abuse. Let me repeat that. We have a government right now that is actually going to invest in 1,500 — that’s one thousand five hundred — new housing units to support women and children escaping abuse. That makes me feel proud to be a legislator, because this budget is so focused on taking care of the vulnerable.

[5:05 p.m.]

The majority of British Columbians have had a government for the last 16 years that put them at the bottom and made sure that they took care of the top 2 percent. I could go on and give you many, many examples as a teacher and having worked as a volunteer in a community, in many of these centres that provide support. I can tell you that we have a lot more to do. But we have only just begun.

Mr. Speaker, this is not news to you, but there are 203 First Nations in British Columbia — more than any other province or territory. This government is committed to supporting Indigenous peoples. We are committed to reconciliation with First Nations and to the adoption of the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

We are committed to the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. For this government, that’s not words. That is in every mandate letter for every minister. I can tell you that in my ministry, as I know in others, every action we take and every step we take, we are looking at it through this lens. Budget 2018 immediately commits $50 million for the preservation and revitalization of Indigenous languages in B.C.

I want to say…. I don’t think it’s news in this House that I was actually born in India. My first language is Punjabi, and my family emigrated when I was nine years old. I grew up in an area where there were not that many Punjabi speakers when I first moved to England. I lost a lot of that language. But I found books, and I taught myself. I kept reading and reading. My father was a reader. I can tell you that English I learned at school. It is my primary language, but my mother tongue is Punjabi. I can understand why to our Indigenous people, their cultural survival and cultural identity are all tied up with the mother tongue. That’s what our Indigenous peoples are struggling with: identity culture. How do you pass that on?

I’m so proud of the work we’re doing in the laying of the fibre optic and the digital footprint, because that’s going to enable the revitalization of a language. We’re talking about languages for the First Nations in B.C. where the language has almost been lost. Only a few elders speak that language. But this money now will allow for digital footprints of those languages, to capture those stories and to spread it on to the next generation. Some of our universities are doing amazing work on this.

This is very, very touching. Only our First Nations people — and I’ve heard it from their words, and I’ve heard it from their mouths — can truly express what this means to them. This is about their cultural survival. This is about their identity. This is about who they are.

Of the 34 First Nations languages in our province, eight are severely endangered and 22 are nearly extinct. I’m so proud of our Minister of Indigenous Relations because he is so focused on delivering programs that will help to support our First Nations people, as we look at truth and reconciliation and UNDRIP.

The budget also invests $158 million over three years for housing for First Nations, $30 million to continue the Indigenous skills training program and $16 million over two years for the First Nations Health Authority’s important work to support mental health and wellness. I think having that kind of targeted spending into our Indigenous communities goes a long way and is a testament to the work being done by this government.

I think about the Connected Coast project we announced just a few weeks ago. When that was announced, one of the things that one of the elders said was: “This is going to allow us to save our children, to keep our children.”

[5:10 p.m.]

As a mother and a grandmother, I understand that. There is nothing more poignant than hearing a parent saying: “This will allow me to keep my children.” I think any investment we make in this area is money well spent.

We travel on the ferries on a weekly basis, and we come here to do the business of the people. But British Columbians have told us over and over again that they have serious, serious concerns about the affordability issues of B.C. Ferries. The rising fares for B.C. Ferries trips are keeping families apart and are hurting businesses.

For families separated by the Strait of Georgia, rising ferry fares have meant cancelled plans and fewer visits. I’ve had in my office many a grandparent who’s come to tell me how with their limited resources they can no longer visit their grandchildren as much as they want to.

The rising cost of travel between the Lower Mainland and the capital, as well as between communities all over the coastline, has been a challenge for our tourism sector, for coastal communities trying to attract new residents and for post-secondary students heading home to see family after they have been studying at the wonderful post-secondary institutions on Vancouver Island. Sunday night you could certainly tell that it was the end of the reading week, because the ferry was packed with students.

But really, transportation is a major issue for businesses of all types that depend not only on visitors, but for goods to be moved backwards and forwards. Fares have increased while coastal communities, big and small, have been calling on their government for help. But that has fallen on deaf ears.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister.

Hon. J. Sims: We’re going to take care of that.

I know that I’m coming to an end.

Deputy Speaker: No, it’s finished. Thank you.

Hon. J. Sims: I have ended.

G. Kyllo: Before I begin my comments on the budget, I’d just like to take a few minutes to thank some of those folks that have made my work as an MLA possible.

First and foremost, I want to thank my lovely wife, Georgina. We’ll be celebrating our 30th anniversary this fall. She’s actually just made her way down to Costa Rica for her very first yoga training program. So I want to wish her well.

Georgina, without all of your support, I would not be able to stand here today and do this job. So thank you, honey.

Also, four beautiful daughters who are very supportive of me — Sarah, Brittany, Angela and Samantha — as well as seven grandchildren. We have Maya, Kylie, Siddhalee, Nova, Hannah and Journey Fawn Brenda, who’s my newest granddaughter who just arrived here this past November, and my grandson, my namesake, Nolan Gregory.

Grandkids are absolutely the best thing in my life right now. They are an amazing amount of joy for Georgina and me, and we are absolutely blessed by having them live close to us. We get to spend lots of time with the grandkids. I remember just recently talking to one of my daughters, saying that I’m enjoying the grandkids a lot more than I enjoyed them as little girls. They were quite concerned by the comment, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course, I’d also like to thank the great people of Shuswap, the hard-working men and women that work in Shuswap. We’ve got an amazing community where folks are very focused on community organizations, non-profits. There’s a very helping and positive work ethic within the community. I want to thank those folks from Shuswap for voting for me and for allowing me to be here in the House today.

My constituency assistants, Holly Cowan and Cheryl Leite, who do an amazing job with constituency issues. I just want to thank them again for the great work that they do in supporting me, as well as Shala. Shala’s my legislative assistant here in Victoria. I share Shala with three other MLAs, but she just does an absolutely amazing job of making sure that appointments are correctly put in my calendar and arranging for travel. Again, Shala, thank you very much.

I think it’s also important to note a very successful election campaign that we recently undertook, a by-election campaign in West Kelowna. Ben Stewart…. I believe that I can mention his name because he has yet to actually be sworn in. My friend and colleague Ben Stewart did an amazing job, ran a very strong campaign.

[5:15 p.m.]

When Ben is sworn in next week, he will actually bring our numbers up to 42, one more than the opposition members. Ben Stewart ran an amazing campaign, where he annihilated the other parties, and I think that that is kind of telling. When we have a look at what has happened across the aisle, with the newly formed coalition government — 41 plus three — the fact that we ran such a strong campaign in West Kelowna, I think, is very telling to what we will see in the coming years. So, again, Ben — looking forward to having you join us here in the House next week.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

In simple terms, this budget is a budget that B.C. cannot afford. Since the fall update, the B.C. NDP mantra has been “Wait and see.” Well, folks, here it is. We see a whole new raft of additional taxation that is going to absolutely cripple businesses across our province. It’s going to stifle economic growth.

Although there are some increases in spending for necessary programs and services that we all agree are necessary, the challenge is with who is going to actually be paying for that and what the negative impacts will be on the ability of B.C. businesses to continue to invest in our province and to create those very important, family-supporting jobs.

Now, I can’t really say that I am, or any of my colleagues are, too terribly surprised by any of this. This budget that the NDP have tabled has a great deal of spending, fails to deliver platform promises and has an overwhelming number of tax increases. Before and during the recent election campaign, the Premier and his caucus laid out an aggressive spending plan. The list of planned expenditures was already long in May and has grown significantly since.

Like many of my colleagues, I don’t for a moment believe that British Columbians endorsed endless spending, nor did they provide a blank cheque to the current government. But in typical NDP fashion, they have racked up a mind-boggling amount of debt in only a few short months.

Now, I remember when members on the opposite side of the House cheered as they announced that they were going to take on $4.3 billion of debt by cancelling bridge tolls for the Port Mann Bridge. That’s $4.3 billion of capital spending that cannot be borrowed now for hospitals, other new transportation networks or schools in our province.

The NDP have chosen to ignore the incredible demand for the George Massey Tunnel replacement project. So again, by making the choice to eliminate tolls, that transferred that $4.3 billion debt on to the taxpayer-supported debt program for our province, reduced borrowing ability and also took away the ability for the George Massey Tunnel replacement project to actually be funded through tolls.

By taking on the debt of the Port Mann and the Golden Ears Bridges, it also negated the ability of adequately funding the George Massey Tunnel replacement project. So what have we seen? The project has been cancelled.

Now, the GMT project was a very important project, not just for commuters south of the Fraser. It’s also a very extremely important transportation network. The amount of goods and services that actually flow along that line is extremely important to providing businesses with that economic opportunity of getting their goods safely, quickly and cost-effectively to markets. But what have we seen? The NDP have actually cancelled that project. Again, yet another study, another review.

What we have seen, though, from the NDP is a $1.4 billion Pattullo Bridge project that was supposed to be taken care of by TransLink after the NDP entrusted it to them back in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the Vancouver mayors sat on the project for nearly two decades.

As their luck would have it, here comes the NDP government of today, swooping in to take up the entire tab, the full $1.4 billion cost, without even the common sense of having a conversation with the federal government about potential joint funding for this project. So, once again, B.C. taxpayers have been forced to bear the full load of this project.

For folks in my riding in Sicamous, in Enderby and in Salmon Arm, they will be paying and contributing towards the cost of a bridge that was taken over and supposed to be looked after by TransLink, those folks here in the Lower Mainland.

[5:20 p.m.]

Now, why would a provincial government take on a project like this without federal support? Well, one potential answer is they know that they’ve severely damaged their relationship with Ottawa by sparking an interprovincial trade war.

The trade war has been disastrous for the B.C. wine industry. It’s been disastrous for our economy, and it’s been terrible for our international reputation. Not only have we distanced ourselves from Alberta by blocking the Kinder Morgan pipeline, but on a national level, the Premier has risked Canada’s climate change plan with his recklessness.

Now, I know that this was a bit of a tangent, but to recap, so far I’ve only covered two projects, and we’re already in for $5.6 billion of additional debt. Our neighbours are enraged, and we may be the weak link that causes Canada to fail our targets as part of the Paris climate accord. Broken promises.

What we don’t see in the budget. Limited mention of the $10-a-day daycare program or the $400 renter rebate and a massive drop in the number of housing units that they had promised. All of this after only seven months of being in government. This is their best effort after being on the sidelines for 16 years. It’s honestly severely disappointing.

Now, when we look to the economy…. Obviously, we need to have a strong and growing economy. It is the private sector that largely creates the wealth in our province, those family-supporting jobs that everyone relies upon. Now, there are a number of troubling items in this budget. What concerns us most, and what should be of concern to British Columbians, are the items that are missing from the throne speech or the budget update.

What is missing is a plan to sustain and grow the economy and create the jobs that British Columbians need and deserve. The government has a very aggressive spending plan, but in no real way have they set out their plan for stimulating or growing the economy and creating jobs across British Columbia. In place of actual job creation or some sort of a plan to generate fresh revenue, we have a tidal wave of taxes that are ready to drown British Columbians.

Since taking office, the NDP planned to increase taxes by $8 billion, and there’s a $5.5 billion increase in this budget alone. Just taking a brief look at the list, we have income taxes increasing by nearly $1 billion a year, which will cost the average B.C. family an extra $1,000. How that is affordable and how we square that with the claims of the NDP is extremely hard to swallow.

Carbon taxes going up. You’ll be paying more at the gas pumps. For those folks living in Fort Nelson that might be heating your home with natural gas, guess what. The carbon tax can have a significant increase on your home heating bills.

The speculation tax. That certainly won’t help anyone with buying a home, nor will the new 2 percent tax. And family-owned businesses are getting whacked with the new job-killing tax to replace the MSP.

The 2 percent tax is a significant impact. I made a number of calls over the last few days to businesses within my riding of Shuswap to get a bit of a feel for how the impact of this 2 percent — I believe they’re calling it the health care tax — is going to impact our businesses. So 2 percent is a significant challenge for businesses, again, when there is no advanced notification.

No notification. These businesses were advised and found out earlier this week when the budget came down that, effective January 1 this next year, an additional 2 percent is going to be levied on businesses generating more than $1½ million a year in payroll. At the same time, the NDP government is going to continue to collect MSP premiums. Double taxation.

Now, the strength of our economy comes, by far and large, from individuals that are working in the private sector. It’s our private sector that helped drive British Columbia to the No. 1 spot in Canada. We were able to do so because we had a competitive tax regime that did not burden businesses.

My colleagues and I were focused on ensuring that businesses had a competitive edge in a continually increasing and growing global economy and that businesses had the supports needed to distinguish themselves from the rest of the playing field. But what do we get to thank them with this new NDP budget?

[5:25 p.m.]

The NDP have thanked the business community by slapping them with a new payroll tax to the tune of nearly $2 billion a year, effectively discouraging businesses from expanding or hiring new people. How does the government expect businesses in this province to hire more employees, especially when it becomes increasingly more expensive to hire staff?

The payroll tax has not gone unnoticed by the B.C. Business Council. As they noted earlier this month, B.C. has the sixth-highest marginal effective tax rate for businesses when compared to 35 other jurisdictions and the ten Canadian provinces. This NDP job-killing budget of 2018-2019 will further reduce the competitiveness of B.C. businesses with the addition of the new unfair payroll tax and the increased carbon fuel tax.

This situation was made worse in September when the NDP increased the corporate tax rate by, yes, another full percent to 12 percent. Inevitably, from this new budget, B.C.’s descent has not slowed down from there.

Starting on January 1, 2019, the new payroll tax kicks in a year before the MSP premiums are phased out, meaning the government is going to rake in additional $2 billion on the backs of B.C. businesses. The impact from this move will be felt by small and medium-sized businesses the most.

This was the very thing that the government’s very own handpicked MSP Task Force warned against. Let me quote: “First, whatever mechanisms are chosen to replace MSP revenue, we feel strongly” that there should not be any overlap phase-in of the new measures in the phase-out of MSP. “Rather, we suggest that MSP be eliminated at a specific date and that the new revenue measures take effect fully at the same time.”

“No overlap.” Their own consultants, their own experts. What we see with regards to a multitude of different issues that are happening across our province where they sent projects out for more review, more consultation…. What is the sense? Why are we doing that when you’re not taking the advice of the consultants that you are actually hiring to provide these reviews?

Your own task force knew and warned about the problems that would be associated with doubling up on MSP, but they did not heed the advice, and away they went with sticking the additional $2 billion in taxes to the business community.

A payroll tax would reduce competitiveness of B.C. businesses at a time when they are facing several competitiveness challenges, including expected increases to the minimum wage, CPP increases and recent tax reform in the U.S., which improves the competitive position of many U.S. businesses.

The chair of their task force has laid out in plain language what B.C. businesses are currently facing and how harmful a payroll tax would be. In spite of all this information, the government is content to add to the load of B.C. businesses, forcing them into this unyielding uphill battle.

Since coming into power, the NDP have used the facade of reviews and consultations to delay projects and put B.C. businesses on notice. Again, what is the point of paying these task forces for reviews and consultations if their decisions are ultimately tossed out?

Noting the hour, I move adjournment of the debate and reserve my right to continue at the next sitting.

G. Kyllo moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the differing points of view and the debate that’s taken place in this chamber. Noting the hour, I move the House do now adjourn, and I wish everyone safe travels on what we know are some very icy and cold roads in different parts of the province tonight.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday morning, February 26.

The House adjourned at 5:29 p.m.