Orders of the Day

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

Budget Debate

(continued)

D. Barnett: To carry on from this morning. That leaves the NDP in a bit of a dilemma. Now that they have maxed out income taxes on the high-income earners, their next target is the private sector. Here’s where the new employers health care tax comes in.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

This is what defines the stark difference between the NDP and the B.C. Liberals. We announced a plan to cut MSP premiums in half because that would’ve represented a $1 billion tax cut to individuals or to companies that paid MSP as a benefit to their employees. We had a budget that was balanced five years in a row, and the government was now generating a surplus. So we, on the B.C. Liberal side, wanted to deliver a tax break.

Now the NDP wants that money back. As a matter fact, they plan on double-dipping. The NDP is going to do this by launching the new employers health care tax in 2019, but they are not going to end MSP premiums until 2020. So if you are currently a business that pays MSP premiums as a benefit to your employees, surprise. You get to pay both taxes at the same time.

That will result in a $1.8 billion windfall for government. If they call this making life more affordable for British Columbians, it depends on your point of view. If you are a company in British Columbia with more than ten or 12 employees, you’re going to find the cost of doing business in this province a lot higher.

Here’s another little gem in this budget. The regulations surrounding hotel tax are changing. The government says it wants local governments to pay more for social housing, so they are giving more flexibility on how hotel tax may be used. We are not talking about turning more revenue over to local governments. The NDP is basically saying the province wants a greater say in how you spend hotel tax.

Most municipalities already spend that money on existing programs. Now they are being told by the provincial government to increase their budget for social housing but without any new resources.

[1:35 p.m.]

This is the NDP way: “Our way or the highway.” So we are looking at higher taxes in British Columbia and an NDP government that expects the business community to fork over as much money as they can.

Here is what Val Litwin of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce has to say: “When I look at the dogpile of increasing corporate tax, increasing minimum wage, loss of neutrality around the carbon tax and now — we get to add to that — payroll tax, that’s going to be leaving businesses by 2021 footing an almost $2 billion bill.” Litwin goes on to add: “By the time we reach 2021, the business community is picking up 70 percent of the tab. That’s a lot. It’s too much. The impacts are real, and I think it will stifle growth and investment in key sectors.”

It’s bad enough that the business community is feeling the heat from the NDP. Now it’s an all-out war on the homeowner. If you heat your home with an oil furnace or natural gas, it is going to get a lot more expensive each year, for the next four years, because of the carbon tax cash grab.

Homeowners have much more to fear from this NDP government. The Finance Minister has made it clear that she wants to intervene in the housing market and cause house prices to drop lower than the current value. This is a dangerous game.

The government says it wants to study the effect of all punitive real estate tax it is bringing in. This includes the expanded foreign buyers tax, the speculation tax and now a huge tax hike on properties worth more than $3 million.

The fact is that a house is the largest single asset for most middle class British Columbians. People that bought their home to raise a family are more than likely making their home a big part of their retirement plan. So when a Finance Minister says it’s her deliberate intention to bring down the value of your house, this is a very serious matter.

There are a lot of seniors and retired pensioners out there who may become victims of the NDP’s experiment with housing prices. There are a lot of worried people out there, because they don’t know what the NDP really stands for. There are a lot of voters who are asking questions, too, because the NDP’s first provincial budget doesn’t live up to its campaign promises either.

Let’s take a look at what’s missing in the budget. I think there were a lot of young families who voted for the NDP because they liked what they heard about $10-a-day child care. We are now being told that was just a campaign slogan. This budget is now looking ten years down the road on child care. Middle class families with young children are not going to get $10-a-day child care.

Low-income families who are earning less than a combined income of $45,000 will eventually benefit. But middle class British Columbians receive little or no benefit at all.

This is what the Finance Minister had to say last week on Voice of B.C.: “We could not, even if we had the resources, implement a fully universal child care system for every parent or child who needed it today because we don’t have the spaces. We don’t have the people to be able to provide the support for early childhood education.” I know this will come as a disappointment to many families in my riding.

What about the $400 annual rebate for those who rent? That’s missing in the budget too. British Columbians are discovering that NDP campaign promises are not worth a plugged nickel. But watch out, homeowners. The NDP has a plan to make you pay for that renters rebate.

When asked about what she plans to do with the homeowner grant, the Finance Minister had the following to say: “It is a difficult issue because there are seniors who bought homes when they were not worth $1 million and who don’t have the income to be able to manage. So we need to be able to make sure we provide that balance. I’m sure it’ll be a lively conversation. Whenever you talk about homeowner grants in our province, it’s a lively conversation, but I think it’s a conversation worth having.”

[1:40 p.m.]

Get ready, seniors. Get ready, pensioners. Get ready, British Columbia. The tax-and-spend NDP are back, and they are looking for new, creative ways to separate you from your money.

I cannot support this 2018 budget.

Hon. M. Mark: It is my pleasure and my privilege to stand in these chambers to support Budget 2018. But first, I’d like to acknowledge that the Legislative Assembly is on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen-speaking people, members from the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

Government is here to make choices. Budget 2018 is a message to British Columbians about how we’re on their side. I’m proud to be a part of a government that puts people first and makes life more affordable. In fact, I got into politics…. I ran for office because I didn’t see how my children were getting ahead in the education system. I didn’t see the lives of my family and friends and loved ones in my community getting ahead.

I’m glad that we made the choices that we did, and I can’t wait to drill down on those line items that I know are making people’s quality of life better.

Beforehand, I’d like to give a shout-out to my team, just briefly, to acknowledge my staff and everyone around me who put some materials together for this budget — my hard-working constituency staff back in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, who are opening the doors for people that are coming in asking for help and assistance.

Help is on the way. That’s really the message and the thesis of Budget 2018. We’re paddling in a different direction. We’re changing the public policy for the better to make people’s lives better in British Columbia.

Budget 2018 shows that our government is making life more affordable for people in delivering services that people count on. It tackles housing affordability with a new tax on housing speculators and a historic investment in housing supply. I’m thrilled that we’re investing $1 billion to create a universal child care plan. We’re making child care more affordable, creating more spaces and training more early childhood educators, which I’ll speak about momentarily.

Other highlights include $200 million towards Indigenous priorities. We’re investing $50 million in Indigenous language revitalization. Yesterday, there were remarks made about whether or not there’s any value to investing in Indigenous language revitalization. I can assure you, with grandparents that attended residential school, and with a public policy led by the federal government which was intended to “kill the Indian in the child,” it is vitally important that we fight for Indigenous language revitalization.

We’re also investing $30 million to enhance the agreements with young adults program led by my colleague, the Minister for Children and Family Development, who is supporting 800 former youth in care.

I’m very, very proud to be part of a government that’s working for people. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, it is as members in this chamber talk about: budgets are about our platform commitments. When I knocked on the doors back in Mount Pleasant last year for the election, people told me about the hardship that they were facing trying to access child care and how unaffordable the city was becoming. People want to talk about home ownership when many of my constituents could barely find a place to rent.

I want to give a summary of some of the areas that we committed to in our budget, which I can guarantee you are going to make not only a big difference in the people that live in my constituency of Vancouver–Mount Pleasant but the people across British Columbia.

Introducing a new affordable child care benefit that will reduce child care costs by up to $1,250 per month. That is a huge investment for 86,000 families. My children don’t go to daycare anymore. They go to after-school care. My oldest daughter is 14 years old, but I can tell you that for 14 years, I was struggling. I’m not talking about 16 years. But for 14 years, I was struggling trying to get child care for my daughter.

[1:45 p.m.]

Why did I need child care? I needed child care because I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to finish my degree and go to Simon Fraser University. But in order to do so, I needed someone to help me look after my daughter.

Child care is a real issue. People are in crisis. I’m so glad to be in this chamber and speak to Budget 2018 to reinforce that help is on the way.

Also mentioned in our budget: improving B.C.’s Fair PharmaCare program to eliminate deductibles for families with annual net incomes lower than $30,000, starting in January 2019. That’s going to have a huge impact on 240,000 families who are going to now receive expanded coverage.

Another item related to our three pillars around making people’s lives more affordable: we’re reinstating the free bus pass, adding flexibility to support other transportation needs for over 100,000 people in this province. I can tell you that many individuals rallied outside of my constituency office, up and down Commercial Drive and by the social assistance offices, saying how unfair the clawback was and the decisions made by the former government were. Again, help is on the way to make people’s lives better for over 100,000 people.

Speaking to another pillar that we spoke to, which was about delivering the services that people count on. The Minister of Education was in question period earlier today talking about investing in education. I can assure you, as the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, who had to work with parents and students, to stand by them, because we were so afraid that they were going to close down my only high school, Britannia Secondary, in my riding of Vancouver–Mount Pleasant…. Those were real fears.

Of course, the direction our government is going…. We’re paddling in a different direction. We’re investing in education. We’ve invested in 3,700 new hires across the province. That’s going to make the quality of education better not just for my daughters, who are both in public education, but for thousands of children across this province.

Dedicating $18 million to services that provide outreach in counselling support for women and children affected by violence. Madame Speaker, I know this is a matter that is close to your heart and many of our hearts here in this Legislature. We know that there are residual effects for children who witness violence, and there aren’t a lot of supports in our communities for women that are fleeing violence. So I’m glad to see that there is an investment of $18 million to support women to get not only the outreach support and the front-end needs but also the counselling support for women and their children.

Another service that we’re improving is access to justice, increasing funding for legal aid and family law services and the hiring of more sheriffs and court staff to reduce court delays. These are major issues for court services that are overburdened. There are huge wait-lists. It has a big impact on our criminal justice system. I’m so glad to see that our government has invested in improving the access to justice.

Building a strong, sustainable economy. I know, when we’re in these chambers, there’s a lot of mention, through some of the fear messaging that comes from the opposite side of these chambers, about how we’re not interested in jobs. That is certainly not true.

We’re investing in sectors like the B.C. agrifood sector, supporting and enhancing the Buy B.C., Grow B.C., Feed B.C. initiative. I have a role to play, as Advanced Education Minister, to help make sure that we have the farm team — pardon the pun — to make sure we’ve got the students trained up to have those opportunities in research to advance innovation to make sure that we can build a sustainable economy and create jobs, all through innovation.

Increasing grants administered through the B.C. Arts Council and Creative B.C. will support…

Interjection.

Hon. M. Mark: Yes. Thank you very much.

…all the advocates for the arts. I know how important the artistic community is in my riding. I will speak to post-secondary education shortly, but Emily Carr, the school for design, is in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. It is one of our cherished institutes in British Columbia. They do important work, again through innovation, designing clothes through use of our environment to reduce our carbon footprint.

[1:50 p.m.]

I had learned, visiting Kwantlen Polytechnic University, that one of the biggest polluters is the dye from our clothing. If we can advance technology and reduce our impact on our ecosystem, we are making changes for our generation.

I notice that there are some children in our chambers today. Thank you for being here. It is all about making the world a better place for our children.

Just a bit of a summary. I could spend all day. I know I don’t have all day to speak to Budget 2018. Again, I’m a proud member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, and I know that the investment that we’ve made is going to have a big impact on families that are trying to get child care and people that are trying to get access to MSP that we’re going to be reducing. If not, we’re getting to eliminating them in January, 2020. We’re bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, launching a comprehensive housing plan, making child care more affordable and then, of course, increasing supports for youth in care.

People that visit my office of Vancouver–Mount Pleasant sometimes come to us with hardships. Sometimes they come in and they give us a high five and say: “Thanks for making that happen.” I can tell you my constituents are very happy with our budget. They know that they’ve a government working for them. They know that they’ve got a government committed to investing in people.

Vancouver–Mount Pleasant is a very, very vibrant community. It is home to thousands of small business owners. We know that our cuts to MSP and the cuts to PST on Hydro is going to have a big impact on their bottom line. We know affordability is an issue. For those of you that have visited Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and have walked Commercial Drive, many of our small businesses have been forced to close, because they didn’t have someone working for them to address the affordability issues.

Child care. I know that there is discussion. I’m hearing a little bit of remarks from the members opposite. Investing in child care is an economic investment. We know that by investing in parents and helping them reduce those cost burdens to return to work that they can contribute to the economy. But it’s not just about having affordable child care. It’s about having quality child care. It’s making sure that we have licensed child care facilities. I know that when I leave my daughters…. When I left them, especially when they were younger…. I want to know that I’m leaving them in good, safe hands and that when I return from work or school that they are going to be there. It is essential that we have the quality side — and accessible.

I mentioned earlier that I got into politics because things weren’t looking too bright in my world. I had to scramble for child care and had a whole kind of patchwork of services to help me go to work, and that added a lot of stress. We know that families, through our investment in child care, are going to have a better quality of life because of the decisions that we’ve made on this side of the House.

Education. I had mentioned earlier, investing in 3,700 new teachers. That means that I don’t have to rally to try to save Britannia Secondary School from closing, because that had a major impact on students, families and teachers in my community of Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. I’d mentioned earlier about making prescription drugs more affordable.

What I haven’t gotten to, though…. I’m so proud to be speaking to investing in tech and innovation. Vancouver–Mount Pleasant is home to thousands of start-ups, people that are innovating and creating. We’ve got now, as an announcement from my colleague the Minister of Jobs, our new innovation commissioner.

We’re leaning in to invest in the digital tech community. Vancouver–Mount Pleasant is home to the Centre for Digital Media and the Creative Coworkers. There are so many entrepreneurs who are investing in science, tech, engineering, math, design, arts and entrepreneurship. I’m glad to be a part of a government that is investing in that sector.

Housing. I spoke a little bit about housing. It’s the number one issue not only — I wouldn’t say — just for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant but, I would say, on the minds of all British Columbians. People are facing a crisis. They’re trying to find a place to live. They’re trying to go to work at sometimes, for some people, because of the affordability issues, two or three jobs. They’re scrambling to put that patchwork of services together for child care.

[1:55 p.m.]

I’m so glad, as I mentioned earlier, that under Budget 2018, help is on the way. We’re investing historic amounts of money to address the housing issues in British Columbia and the child care issues. These are going to have a big impact on people in my community, people that access things like the SAFER program. We’re really reaching out to seniors because we know that they’ve made a huge investment in British Columbia, and we should be on their side.

We know that renovating social housing building units is essential, because some people, sadly, have been living in…. I don’t want to say “filth,” but when people contact my office and say that they’re living with mould and infestations and poor air quality, that isn’t acceptable, and we as a government need to be leaning in to invest in people’s quality of life.

I mentioned the bus pass earlier. Investing in the bus pass means that we’re investing in people and their mobility so that they can be active participants and members of the community. It helps them get to their medical appointments. It helps them volunteer in community. So the bus pass is going to have a big impact on Vancouver–Mount Pleasant constituents.

I mentioned the B.C. Arts Council. For those of you that get the chance in November, visit Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and hit up the Eastside Culture Crawl. There’s a lot going on in Mount Pleasant. People open up their doors to show their glass work, their pottery work, their jewellery work, their paintings, you name it. Vancouver–Mount Pleasant has it all when it comes to the arts. The artists in my riding and throughout British Columbia are definitely going to benefit from the increase in investment to the B.C. Arts Council.

Mental health and addictions is a major issue for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. We know, however, that the opioid crisis is not isolated to one community; it’s a provincial issue. It has gone across the nation. It is a crisis. I know there has been a lot of loss to members of my community who have died from the opioid crisis, so I’m glad that we have a minister who is dedicated to go to work every day to work with partners like the First Nations Health Authority to address the opioid crisis.

We know that affordability has been a major issue. I spoke a bit earlier about how we’re eliminating MSP premiums and how we’re increasing things like the minimum wage to $12.65 by June 1. That’s going to have a big impact on people, as I mentioned, that might be working those two or three jobs — to address the affordability crisis in urban centres or ridings like Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

Moving on, I want to reserve some time to speak to my portfolio. I am proud to be a member of cabinet. I’m proud to have the dynamic portfolio of post-secondary education, skills and training. I had a chance in the early days of my tenure to get out to visit all 25 public post-secondary institutions in the province.

I just want to list them off because I want to show the magnitude of who’s out there working in the post-secondary sector: BCIT, Camosun College, Capilano University, College of New Caledonia, College of the Rockies, Douglas College, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Justice Institute of B.C., Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Langara College, Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, North Island College, Northern Lights College, Northwest Community College, Okanagan College, Royal Roads University, Simon Fraser University, Thompson Rivers University, University of British Columbia, University of Northern British Columbia, University of the Fraser Valley, University of Victoria, Vancouver Community College and Vancouver Island University.

These are the institutions that are training up the leaders of tomorrow. They are the farm team for the people that are going to go out into the workforce and create those businesses and those innovative jobs, and they’re going to solve some of the global issues that we are faced with and some of the health issues that we’re faced with. I’m so proud to be a part of a ministry that is so invested in innovation.

I can tell you, however, after visiting all 25 of those institutions, that students told me about not only the pressure of getting into school and the pressure — for those of you at home that remember what it was like to pull those all-nighters and write those 20-page essays.

[2:00 p.m.]

For me, back in the day, the Internet wasn’t so accessible. It doesn’t mean…. We don’t have to say how old I am. But anyhow, the point being that students have told me, in addition to the stressors of having academic success…. Their success in their institutions is going to help them reach their dreams. I studied political science. It wasn’t my dream to become a politician, but look at me now. You never know where you’re going to wind up. You never know how your education is going to pay off.

Students told me that in addition to meeting deadlines, all-nighters and taking breaks to check out a little bit of Netflix, housing and paying for rent is a major stressor on their lives. Affordability, student debt. We have one of the highest rates of student debt for students across the country.

I’m so glad that in the early days, seven months ago when we formed government, one of the first moves, the first decision, which I made with decisive action, was to reduce the student debt by 2.5 percent. That had a huge impact on students’ bottom line as they get out of college and the institutes and universities. That had an impact on 200,000 students in the province.

Student debt was a theme, but the other themes were mental health, sexual violence and misconduct. Students really wanted to emphasize how important it was for them to be able to go to school feeling safe on campus and how important it was for them to feel that their quality of life was solid.

Speaking to Budget 2018, I’d mentioned earlier about how our canoe, so to speak, is paddling in a different direction. Our ministry, our government are leaning in and investing in students. Budget 2018 shows a boost of $116 million in the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training. It includes a record-level investment in housing — $450 million for on-campus housing. Our government is making sure we give people the opportunity to grow and succeed.

I know I mentioned earlier in my remarks that government is about making choices. The second massive decision that I made as a cabinet minister was to eliminate the cruel fees that were put into place for adult basic education and English-language-learning programs. When we eliminated those fees, my in-box and the in-box of my ministry were filled with thank-you notes. Thank you, thank you, thank you — for eliminating those cruel and unfair fees that stood in the way of students going back to school to upgrade and access education.

As I said, I’m so proud to be in these chambers speaking to Budget 2018 and to emphasize that help is on the way.

In the early days…. It’s been seven months, but at the very beginning of September, I stood with the Premier and the Minister for Children and Family Development up at Vancouver Island University to say that we are going to make a tuition waiver program for former youth in care. Not only was that an initial decision that we made, but this budget, Budget 2018, added an extra investment to make sure that help was on the way for former youth in care, young adults, through the agreements with young adults program.

We’ll be adding more information technology, computer science and engineering seats as part of our 2,900 tech spaces. Back in July, our government announced 2,900 seats across the ecosystem to deliver, for example, at UNBC the first civil and enviro-engineering program and the first software engineering degree program at Thompson Rivers University.

This is groundbreaking. This is historic for communities that said: “We don’t want our students to have to leave, to do two years of their diploma and then have to leave the community, go down south to UBC or SFU or whatever other institution to complete their degree.” Help is on the way. We were able to deliver and make sure that those degrees are now available in their own backyard.

[2:05 p.m.]

There was mention from members opposite that we don’t seem to care about the north or the Interior communities, and that’s just simply not true. I have family members in Haida Gwaii. I have family members in the Nass Valley.

My family members from the Nass Valley have to travel to UNBC, which has an amazing medical program, to take their medical training, which is great. It’s closer than having to go all the way to the Lower Mainland to access that education.

I’m so pleased with our government’s announcement of the 2,900 seats. There is more to come.

We’ve invested $30 million over three years to improve Indigenous skills training. Part of my mandate is to deliver on helping people with their apprenticeship training. That’s right through to completion. We are working with communities. We’re working with the Industry Training Authority. First Nations communities made it loud and clear when we met with them at the First Nations Leaders Gathering that they want people to have access to skills and training so that they can have those jobs in their backyard.

There’s so much that I can say. I got wind that I don’t have much time to go. But I do want to emphasize that we’ve invested in new trades facilities. The importance of that is you can’t expect students to work in the 21st century, for those 21st-century jobs, unless they have the right equipment, unless they’re working in the domain of the 21st century.

We know that technology moves fast. We know that places like the car mechanic sector have changed. Think about those cars that you have nowadays. You can talk to them. Some of them, I’m not sure…. You can talk to Siri. You’ve got Bluetooth. Some of them park by themselves. There’s all sorts of advanced technology going on within the car industry. We need to make sure that we’ve got the right training facilities to meet that demand.

I talked about a record investment in student housing. I just want to underscore that it’s a part of our ten-year plan. I know there’s a bit of criticism, that we’ve got plans. There’s a saying in martial arts: fail to plan, plan to fail. We need a plan, a long-term plan that’s going to address any affordability issues. Bricks and mortar, not just renovating. We’re going to renovate, but we need to build housing. Why? Our economy is growing. It’s building. People are coming here. They are going to continue coming here. So we need to plan for the future.

When I talk about student housing, what is most thrilling to me is that it’s going to be transformational on campus for students and campus life. When people, students, choose to go to any of those post-secondary institutions in British Columbia, they want to be a part of student life. If they can work, play, learn all in a one-stop shop, that’s going to make their quality of life better.

Reconciliation. All members of cabinet are required to make sure that our policies, our programs, our investment — everything that we do — is in line with Truth and Reconciliation’s call to action and UNDRIP, the United Nation declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. There are so many points, but I’m just going to give some highlights.

We made a $50 million historic investment in language revitalization. As mentioned earlier, I’m Nisga’a and Gitxsan. My grandparents went to residential school. I don’t speak the language. There’s a chance that if we invest, we’re going to salvage what we have left. Some communities have less than ten elders that speak their traditional mother tongue, so it’s vital that we hold on to the language.

As mentioned, the residential school policy was about killing the Indian in the child. Right now I can assure you, as a proud Indigenous woman standing in these chambers, we are the fastest-growing population, the Indigenous community, across Canada. So I think it’s important that we make those significant investments.

As the Minister for Advanced Education, I’m proud to say that we invested in the first Indigenous law program, which is going to be held at UVic, the first of its kind in the world. It’s going to invest in looking not only just at the common law but also how Indigenous law and common law can be interpreted side by side. Indigenous communities lived without Internet and books and a library. We relied on our oral traditions. We were stewards of the land since time immemorial. So it’s important that we weave those Indigenous laws into the 21st century.

[2:10 p.m.]

I won’t say much more. Well, I guess I want to add one more thing — friendship centres. I’m sorry. I have to say it. Everyone has got those shining lights, the beacons of light in their community. The Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre is a beacon of light. They open the doors to all sorts of programs — skills and training, youth recreation, advocacy. They host elders luncheons. Bottom line: we’re investing, in this Budget 2018, in the aboriginal friendship centres.

I won’t say too much. But obviously, there’s a lot to say about investing in British Columbians and how help is on the way.

R. Coleman: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

R. Coleman: In the chamber today, coming through, are three classes from the Langley Christian Elementary School in my riding. The teacher is Tim VanHemert. One group will be here at around two, right around now or shortly before now. One will follow after, and another after. The teacher, with all groups, is Tim VanHemert.

Would the House please make them welcome.

Debate Continued

J. Yap: It’s, as always, a privilege to rise in the House and to take my place in the debate on behalf of my constituents of Richmond-Steveston. As you know and as I’ve mentioned many times in this House, I never get tired of saying, really, that Richmond-Steveston is just a wonderful, vibrant area that I have the privilege of representing, with community organizations, sites where films are filmed, tourist sites and small businesses. A great community — Richmond-Steveston.

There’s a lot always happening. Much of that is thanks to the great community leaders and volunteers who contribute so much to our community. They’re constantly working toward creating a community that meets the needs of everyone within it. That’s why it’s a shame that this government is willing to ignore the needs of the constituents of my riding.

One example is their inaction on the worst bottleneck in British Columbia, in terms of traffic. The Massey Tunnel replacement project seems to have been scrapped by this government, after having been thoroughly consulted on, with shovels literally ready to hit the ground last year. Environmental and engineering assessments were performed, and the results were conclusive.

Our previous government was prepared to get to yes in order to move people and goods more efficiently through the region. Instead, residents in my constituency as well as others throughout the Lower Mainland will continue to wait for hours and hours in traffic, to and from work, as well as away from their families. Emergency responders will continue to report difficulty in getting to crash sites and in transporting the injured to hospital. Commercial truck drivers will continue to be stalled in their efforts to get goods to market, which has negative impacts, obviously, on our economy. In fact, over 85,000 commuters are stuck in traffic gridlock each day because of the Massey Tunnel.

This is completely unacceptable. But this budget makes no mention of improving the situation. Instead, the government’s priority is the Pattullo Bridge, which is indeed a worthy project as well. The government says it will become unsafe to drive on the Pattullo Bridge in five years’ time. The Massey Tunnel, as we know, is unsafe now, so it’s frustrating to see there is no plan or timeline in place to address this worst traffic bottleneck in British Columbia.

Furthermore, while the Pattullo Bridge is in need of being revamped or replaced, there’s no reason for the government’s negotiation tactic to start by giving away the house. One hundred percent of the $1.377 billion cost of this Pattullo Bridge is being taken on by the provincial government with no federal infrastructure support. So the good residents in places like Richmond, Revelstoke and Rossland are left to wonder: “Where is the money for infrastructure in our communities?”

Unfortunately, this government seems to have blown its budget on this bridge. But surprisingly, they may be sticking to at least one promise found on the internal campaign document that proved that they never intended to replace the Massey Tunnel. Indeed, the Pattullo Bridge is the first step in their stated goal that they would ditch the Massey Tunnel replacement for the Mayors Council vision.

[2:15 p.m.]

Meanwhile, another way this government is ignoring the constituents of Richmond is in the important area of health care. The Richmond Hospital acute care tower, as you know, had been announced by the previous government. It received no mention in the budget and is now pushed further down the line to a yet-to-be-determined date.

The men and women who work at Richmond Hospital do a tremendous job, but the facility is aging, and its seismic safety issues need to be addressed. The equipment that those medical professionals will work with is in need of updating, and patients could enjoy a more comfortable setting with the right improvements.

Now there’s a major effort in our community to get a firm funding commitment from the province for a new tower. More than 1,800 people from 47 Richmond businesses got behind a Richmond Chamber of Commerce appeal to the provincial government to provide this capital. At last check, a petition started by three Richmond city councillors on this issue has garnered more than 2,000 signatures.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also acknowledge the incredible amount of work that has been done by the Richmond Hospital Foundation — which I know that you also appreciate, Madame Speaker — not only to raise awareness of this issue but to raise funds to support the new tower, among the many other hospital initiatives that it supports.

We know that a sizeable chunk of the money already committed for the tower is contingent on a firm funding commitment by the province, as well as a 2020 construction start date. But this budget certainly puts a question mark around the project, given that Richmond Hospital is not mentioned. In fact, the word “Richmond” does not even show up in this government’s budget.

I should note that it’s not only Richmond that’s suffering from this government’s inaction on vital infrastructure, as well as its poor negotiating skills. This budget outlines no new capital funding projects for the next three years for hospitals or health facilities in this province.

There’s no relief coming for those needing new light rail transit in Surrey’s growing communities. Chilliwack residents will not see the widening of Highway 1 any time soon either. The Broadway line in Vancouver also isn’t in this budget. It’s clear that this budget is an abandonment of the province’s critical infrastructure needs.

Another unsurprising revelation with this second Green-NDP budget is the prominence of broken promises. We know the junior partners, the Green caucus, has called campaign platforms “irrelevant” — that was the word that was used — which shows where the priorities of the Green Party lie. But the people expect us to live up to our word.

We gave the new government the benefit of the doubt during their September update. They said: “Wait and see what we have in store for February.” Here we are. With February here and the first full NDP budget now presented, we see the continued trend of broken promises.

Just to remind everyone, the NDP promised $10-a-day daycare. Well, now that’s just a slogan. The NDP promised more than 100,000 affordable housing units. They are scraping by just to get a quarter of that. The NDP promised a $400 renters rebate, which is nowhere to be seen. The NDP promised the elimination of student loans. Well, not quite yet. The NDP promised ride-sharing, another stalled-out endeavour. The NDP promised the creation of transportation infrastructure, yet the government has blown their spending on a single bridge, with no federal funding.

The government may finally be starting to realize that governing is a lot harder than yelling out promises from the other side. They may even begin to see that they’re going to need some substantial growth to maintain their tax-and-spend budget plans. However, that is yet to be seen, because their idea of growth is a bloated government, based solely on taxation — in fact, with this budget, $5.5 billion worth of taxation, taxes that attack the very economic growth needed to sustain our economy.

[2:20 p.m.]

Here’s some analysis by B.C. Chamber of Commerce president Val Litwin. Mr. Litwin says: “This budget looks like it’s being balanced on the backs of business through accumulating tax increases. This new tax will have a negative affect on growth and investment.” Of course, Mr. Litwin is referring to the new payroll tax that will be imposed, which will negatively impact employers, workers and growth.

This is basic economics. The incentive to hire or give raises to workers decreases with the added payroll tax on businesses. This will especially affect small and medium-sized businesses, who are the drivers of our provincial economy and who, I should note, will also fall victim to NDP double-dipping, as we’ve heard in this House. We all know that the MSP premiums are not being phased out before the new payroll tax comes in. The new payroll tax will come into effect starting January 1, 2019, while the MSP premiums won’t be eliminated until 2020. That means double taxation for those businesses in 2019. We don’t hear the NDP acknowledging that fact at all. They will, however, enjoy the tax windfall.

Here’s another thing that they’re not acknowledging. The Finance Minister has been out there saying that only large businesses will pay this payroll tax, that this tax is built to protect small business. Not so, says Kris Sims, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. She notes that the payroll cut-off point is actually quite deceiving. She says: “It’s easy to get over that $500,000 threshold. Really, all they’re exempting is microbusinesses. They are still catching small businesses here.”

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business also agrees. Vice-president Richard Truscott says: “A payroll of $500,000 seems like a lot, but that’s probably only eight to ten people.”

Meanwhile, this is what the Vancouver Board of Trade had to say about the situation B.C. businesses now find themselves in: “We also note with concern that the new small business payroll tax comes on top of a previously announced minimum wage increase of 34 percent over four years, an increase in the general corporate tax rate of 9.1 percent, a 14 percent increase to the personal income tax rate of most skilled professionals and a previously scheduled increase in the B.C. carbon tax of 16 percent, moving up a further $5 to $35 per tonne of GHGs emitted.”

That’s a lot to take on. We’re talking about a lot of family-owned businesses here. Many of them are entrepreneurs who work seven days a week, who have sacrificed so much over the years to get where they are today. Instead of celebrating that success and working with those business owners to channel that momentum, to produce even more success and more benefits for our economy, this government does everything in its power to work against them, to punish them and perhaps, in turn, their employees or consumers. While the government may think its taxation scheme will create more growth, it’s worth noting that their rate of spending is at twice the rate of revenue being brought in.

As they continue to claim to make life more affordable, the inconvenient fact that contradicts the slogan is the $1 billion increase to the income tax revenue each year. Well, guess who is paying for that.

Along with this government’s tax increases, this budget is anticipating stagnant and declining revenues in many of our vital resource sectors. The stubbornness of the Premier also put our wine and tourism business industries at risk through his misguided pipeline war with Alberta, which thankfully has come to an end for now. Small, family-owned wineries as well as grape growers had their livelihoods threatened.

In addition, this government has created so much uncertainty around various projects in the province, from the Massey Tunnel to Kinder Morgan to Site C. It’s nothing but redundant reviews, reviews after reviews. The good member for West Vancouver–Capilano had estimated about 30 reviews, I believe — delays and ditherings while jobs hang in the balance in our province. It seems as though this government will only agree to capital projects if the taxpayers are the ones fully paying for it.

[2:25 p.m.]

This has always been the fear of British Columbians. The residents of our province voted for B.C. Liberals to remain in government for 16 years, and again delivered us the most seats in this Legislature in the last election. They did this not only due to a fiscal record and the strong economic environment that was delivered, though it is the main reason, but also, they feared — wait for it — an NDP government coming into power with looming intentions to spend but no plan to spur our industries.

The 1990s are not that far from memory for British Columbians. We have witnessed the tragedy of the 1990s, and this budget is paving the way for an imitation. This budget is nothing but spending and tax, spending and tax. I have to say I’m already hearing a lot of negative feedback from my constituents and others who are going to suffer financial setbacks thanks to this government.

Case in point, on the housing front. I recently met a couple that owns a condo in Steveston. They reside here a total of six months a year and then in the U.K. for the other six months. They are usually here two months at a time and then in the U.K. for two months, so it’s very difficult to rent out the condo.

Their children, who are adult professionals, live in London. They have been coming here for ten years or so each time on a visitor visa. Their condo is assessed at $750,000. They will be subject to this new 2 percent speculation tax, which will cost them $15,000 per year.

These folks love Steveston, and I can understand why they love Steveston. They want to continue to reside here for half of the year, of each year. They have a car. They insure it through ICBC. They contribute to our economy. They do not want to sell. They would argue — and I would agree with them — they’re being unfairly penalized by this government.

Why are we discouraging well-intentioned people in their retirement years from enjoying their time here? They’ve been coming here for a decade. They’ve made a sizeable investment. They eat at our restaurants. They buy from our local merchants. They’ve made friends and acquaintances. They’re part of the community. Steveston is their second home.

They are not speculators. So why are we sticking it to them with this huge tax bill and discouraging them from spending time here and spending some of their money here, maybe even forcing them to sell their property when they don’t want to, after they’ve contributed to our province in a number of ways? To me, it doesn’t make sense.

I suspect we’re going to hear — and we are hearing — from many more people with stories like this. The other odd thing about this tax is that it won’t help anyone in B.C. buy a home. It doesn’t help with affordability.

Speaking about the many Albertans who buy homes in B.C., especially in the Okanagan area, Anne McMullin, the president of Urban Development Institute, said: “I don’t think curbing the sale of vacation homes to people in Alberta addresses the affordability issue in the Lower Mainland.”

In the meantime, the Business Council of British Columbia noted that our province’s housing sector, and the construction activity and retail spending that go with it, has been a very significant factor driving our recent strong economic growth. “Since the budget is predicting a significant decline in housing starts in the years ahead, the council feels we need to encourage growth in other sectors of the provincial economy.”

Greg D’Avignon, the B.C. Business Council president and CEO, had this to say: “We also believe the province should be doing more to speed up and reduce the cost of new residential development. Progress on affordability requires strong action on housing supply, not just additional government interventions to lessen housing demand.”

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Andrey Pavlov, who specializes in real estate finance at Simon Fraser University, told the crowd at a recent Urban Development Institute post-budget event that “the NDP budget, together with the mini-budget last year, increases taxes or costs on just about everyone, including the locals. So even if real estate prices fall, as they likely will, this will not improve affordability, since everyone is poorer.”

[2:30 p.m.]

Here we have what some people are calling a real dog pile of taxes, courtesy of the NDP, that will punish people with vacation homes; damage the tourism industry, as we’ve heard, and further jeopardize our relationship with Alberta; fail to resolve the housing affordability issue; and potentially cause small and medium-sized businesses to lay off staff or increase prices for consumers. Indeed, everyone will be hurt by this suite of taxes being brought forward by the NDP, in one way or another.

For a government that preached and continues to preach affordability at every turn, it doesn’t add up. They are dismantling the competitive tax regime that helped business and our economy thrive, and the tax pressure they’re putting on businesses will no doubt trickle down in some ways to workers and to consumers. I believe that it was the Vancouver Board of Trade again that astutely reminded us that 60 percent of B.C. residents are employed by small and medium-sized businesses.

I guess the NDP hasn’t thought about any of these implications, just like they haven’t thought about a strategy for increasing revenues and growing our economy. Instead, the focus is on taxing people to the hilt. That’s their only plan. That’s all they could come up with. They promised the world to British Columbians, and now, because the NDP doesn’t have the foresight or the creativity to bring in money any other way but through taxation, British Columbians will pay for it one way or another.

It’s the same old NDP. They can argue all they want that the 1990s were a long time ago and we should stop bringing it up, but it’s up to them to prove they’re going to do things differently. So far, all signs point to a repeat of that troubling time for B.C.’s economy.

Hon. B. Ralston: It is, indeed, a pleasure to rise in the House to address the budget. This is our government’s first full budget, and it puts people at the centre with the focus on making life more affordable for everyone in British Columbia.

I was fortunate enough to be born here in British Columbia, and I’ve lived in British Columbia, aside from a few years in other countries for study, for most of my life. As I’ve worked and raised my family, I realize how very proud I am of British Columbia and proud to call British Columbia my home.

Unfortunately, many other British Columbians are struggling to call this place home simply because they can’t afford to live here. People have been frustrated for many years. I’ve listened to their stories, particularly in my duties as an MLA in Surrey-Whalley, in the north of Surrey. I hear from families who rely on two incomes, dual incomes, to pay the rent or the mortgage and hope to have some money left over for groceries.

For some parents, the struggle to find safe and affordable daycare is a real challenge. It sometimes feels like the only way it could be done is equivalent to winning the lottery. For those who can’t find child care, it’s cheaper sometimes just to stay at home, when people wish to work. But then, in that case, you risk losing your skills, being out of the job market, and you find it increasingly hard to get back in when the opportunity arises.

Young people on their chosen career paths are often forced to live in their parents’ houses because they simply can’t scrape together enough money to buy a home, or they couch-surf or live in intolerable conditions.

My family and I live in Surrey, with a population of over half a million in the 2016 census. It’s expected to surpass the population of Vancouver between 2020 and 2030. I think it’ll be closer to 2020, when it does that, than 2030.

Many of Surrey’s citizens are newcomers to our country. They are moving here, many of those people, for a better life. For many, this journey has been challenging. They are struggling with learning a new language, getting access to services they need and finding a job somewhat similar to what they were doing, and with the required qualifications. Newcomers have also struggled with how much it costs to live here, particularly in the last decade.

I think everyone recognizes, in the labour force needs, the challenges of a growing British Columbia. We need to better serve people coming here for a new life and joining our workforce. We’ve heard these stories for far too long, and now is the time to make a change, and for the better.

[2:35 p.m.]

This budget, Budget 2018, will work for all British Columbians, meeting the government’s goals to (1) make life more affordable; (2) provide people with the quality services they rely on; and (3) build a strong, sustainable economy that supports job growth all over British Columbia.

While British Columbia’s economic outlook is positive, one would not know that, hearing of the doom and gloom on the other side. They seem to not want to advocate for British Columbia. They seem to have lost hope in British Columbia, mistaking, perhaps, their political fortunes for the bright prospects of British Columbia overall.

We need to take steps to make sure our economy stays strong and keeps growing. This budget balances people’s needs with the fiscal prudence that makes B.C. an economic leader in Canada. It puts people first because people are our greatest resource. It takes bold action by making smart investments to keep the economy strong because a strong economy is one where everyone is doing better, not just the top 2 percent but everyone.

To make sure British Columbia remains an economic leader, we’re taking action on two of the most critical economic issues in our province: child care and housing. For far too long, B.C.’s housing crisis was ignored. The other side had 16 years of neglect, made a few desultory and half-hearted efforts to deal with the housing crisis but ultimately did nothing.

Through Budget 2018, we’re tackling speculation, curbing demand, increasing housing supply and improving security for renters. We’re introducing a new tax to help deter speculators that use the housing market, our housing market, as a stock market. We are increasing and expanding the foreign buyers tax so that foreign buyers pay for the quality of life they enjoy in our province and contribute their fair share to the services they use.

We’re supporting renters by building more market rental housing and boosting rental assistance programs for low-income people and seniors. And we’re making the biggest investment in housing in British Columbia history: $6.6 billion over ten years to build and maintain affordable housing.

Let me talk a little bit about child care. A few years ago, David Dodge, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, gave a lecture about the importance of early childhood education and child care generally, not so much as a social justice issue — although that is very important, to help every child realize their potential — but as an economic investment and advantage.

In a population where the demography is such that the upcoming generation is much smaller than the retiring boomer generation, it is very important in economic terms that every child realize their full potential in order that they can enter into the labour market and contribute.

Early childhood education, quality child care, enables children to have their learning disabilities identified, realize their potential and then take full advantage of the public education system in order to become trained, fully responsible, autonomous adults who can help create a better life for everyone here in British Columbia. An investment in child care is an important economic investment and has real value. Indeed, businesses and business associations throughout the province recognize that. The Surrey Board of Trade has advocated for an expansion of the child care program and has issued some comments supporting the recent initiative in the budget.

Years ago, when I was making tours around the province with the Finance Committee pre-budget, representatives of the board of trade in Prince George said in their submission to the committee that an affordable child care program was essential for business in Prince George in order to have access to workers — typically women, but not always — who, using child care, would be able to enter the labour force and help work in businesses in Prince George. They were strong advocates for that program.

I think it’s clear that business recognizes the value of a child care program, and it is an important economic investment, contrary to what we’ve heard on the other side of the House in the way of some recent attacks on this investment.

[2:40 p.m.]

We are investing over $1 billion in child care over three years to lower costs to parents — and that’s important — to increase the number of child care spaces and to ensure that those spaces are safe. This is the biggest single investment in child care in B.C. history, marking the beginning, and only the beginning — there’s more to do; that’s acknowledged — of a made-in-B.C. universal child care plan.

It includes the following attributes: a new, affordable child care benefit that will offer up to 86,000 families across British Columbia up to $1,250 per month in child care cost relief by 2020; a new child care fee reduction program that will benefit up to 50,000 families in licensed care, with fee reductions of up to $350 a month; and the creation of more than 22,000 new licensed child care spaces throughout the province.

When we spend money on quality child care, children will be in a safe and nurturing environment where they’re already starting to learn and to grow. Parents can re-enter the workforce, pay their bills and plan for the future, all while contributing to the economy.

Continued investment in young children means more training for early childhood educators. We’re spending $16 million in federal funding for bursaries and grants to support certification and professional development opportunities for early childhood educators. Their critical work includes flagging the issues that can be addressed in the early years, which I’ve spoken to earlier — and Mr. David Dodge, the former governor of the Bank of Canada — maximizing a child’s potential for success.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

That is critical. I think that, really, upon fair examination rather than ideological rhetoric, most members in this chamber would come to support it.

Budget 2018 sees $2 billion allocated to ensure schools across B.C. are safe, well-maintained and modern. Indeed, we’re hiring more teachers in this budget to create better learning conditions so students stay in school and graduate, moving down a successful path to employment or entrepreneurship.

This budget also includes supports for children who need it the most: children in care, in government care. We can no longer fail them. As my colleague the Minister for Advanced Education mentioned, we are investing $30 million to enhance the agreements with young adults program, helping youth formerly in care to attend post-secondary school or training so they, too, can succeed and enjoy a good quality of life. That is something that we are proud of and justifiably so, I would say.

When we give all children the best start in life, they will grow to be active contributors to our economy and society and will, indeed, enjoy better and more satisfying and full lives than they would otherwise.

Now let me turn to the other issues in the budget. We’ve been hearing some back and forth about the budget’s introduction of the employer health tax. People clearly want a tax system that is fair. That is why we’ve cut MSP premiums in half as of January 1 of this year, reduced the small business tax by 20 percent and cut provincial sales tax and electricity for business.

Budget 2018 includes another change to improve fairness. We are eliminating all medical service premiums, effective January 1, 2020. This will mean families will save $1,800 a year, and individuals will save $900 a year, and it will help make our tax system more fair and progressive.

Clearly, the medical service premiums, notwithstanding some of the supports for those below $30,000 net income, was an unfair and regressive system. People above that limit paid the same premiums as those who were earning hundreds of thousands of dollars more. That’s the very definition of a regressive tax. So it goes without saying that this elimination of MSP premiums does make the tax system fairer.

Of course, it goes without saying that eliminating MSP also eliminates a portion of government revenues. We’re making sure that we can continue to deliver the services people count on and maintain fiscal responsibility. That’s why the MSP revenue will be replaced with an employer health tax, similar to other provinces.

[2:45 p.m.]

This is not a particularly politically divisive question other than here. Across the country in other provinces, an employer health tax is something that’s well-established. I’m thinking particularly of Ontario as an example.

The tax will be levied on large businesses in B.C. that are benefiting the most from the elimination of MSP, and it will be the lowest payroll tax in the country. The revenue raised will be invested in people and services that we count on.

Let me now talk a little bit about another responsibility that I have — small business. That’s a part of my ministry. The previous Ministry of Small Business was an independent ministry. It’s now a division, without any diminution of programs or service, as part of the ministry that I have been asked to head up.

We recognize that small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and they continue to show strong signs of growth. Indeed, the business confidence index of the CFIB for January set British Columbia’s small business at the second-highest level of confidence in the country, and 27 percent of employers have plans to hire more employees. Given the low unemployment rate here and the increase in retail sales, for example, small businesses have every reason to be optimistic about the future in British Columbia — notwithstanding the cries from the opposition, which seem to be ill-founded and not based on reality.

We’re working to help B.C. businesses grow by implementing changes that will make it easier for businesses to succeed and to improve the competitiveness of B.C.’s business environment. That means lowering, as we did, the small business corporate income tax rate by 20 percent, from 2.5 percent to 2 percent, retroactive to April 1, 2017.

We’re also lowering electricity costs for B.C. businesses and industries by phasing out the PST on electricity. For a number of the businesses that I’ve met recently — part of my duties, which I really enjoy, leads me to meet with many businesses — that is acknowledged as a boon, certainly for those companies that use a lot of electricity in their manufacturing or production processes.

Following the 50 percent reduction that started on January 1, 2018, government will completely eliminate the PST on non-residential electricity on April 1, 2019. Residential use of electricity is, of course, already PST-exempt. Eliminating the PST on electricity will translate into savings of more than $150 million annually for B.C. businesses. Of course, those proceeds will be invested in more jobs, expanding into new markets, reinvestment in new technologies and more investment in growth for companies.

We’re also helping and making it easier for businesses in smaller regional communities to export their goods overseas and expand their reach. The member for Prince George–Valemount mentioned that “we started it.” Yes, indeed you did, and I acknowledge that.

That’s a program that I’m proud to continue. It’s a good program. That demonstrates, I think, the willingness on this side of the House to acknowledge good ideas, no matter where they come from, and to continue the work — not of everything that the previous government did…. Frankly, there were 16 years of neglect, and a lot of things needed to be fixed. But this particular program is a good one.

It means that more B.C. regional businesses can get help accessing new markets for their goods and services. Growing the market, growing opportunities for business, creating new markets, creating new revenues and creating more profits is something that we are interested in doing, that we’re willing to support. This program helps small businesses stretch their market opportunities outside the region, outside the province, even outside the country. It looks abroad to markets where innovative small businesses can capture new markets and grow their business in new and exciting ways.

That’s why, with the help of the Small Business Roundtable, we’ll be creating a small business task force to make sure we understand the needs of small businesses so they can continue to thrive in a healthy business environment. I look forward to sharing more details about the task force in coming weeks.

[2:50 p.m.]

My ministry has a vital role to play in helping government meet its top priorities, and the staff of my ministry work hard to meet these goals every day.

Now, particularly, I want to talk about the booming technology sector that creates a lot of jobs for British Columbians. The Premier himself has a keen interest in this sector. When I talk about the technology sector, sometimes people view, I think, wrongly that it is confined to growth or businesses in the Lower Mainland or sometimes even the boundaries of the city of Vancouver.

In fact, the technology sector is a vibrant one — whether it’s in Kamloops; Kamloops won a national award for the start-up environment in Kamloops — and works closely with the university there. That’s something that I’m sure the member for Kamloops–South Thompson is justifiably proud of, an achievement for Kamloops. I, too, share in that accomplishment of this sector in Kamloops.

In Prince George, there is a cluster of excellence in wood technology, whether it’s…. Certainly, the clean tech sector is growing related to bioenergy and the forest industry, understandably. In fact, Western Diversification just advanced a couple of hundred thousand dollars to assist the growth of clean tech companies in Prince George. Here in Victoria, there’s a cluster led by an organization called Techtoria, which has about 900 members. There’s a vibrant technology sector here on the lower Island, which is creating jobs, opportunities and new markets abroad from their base here in Victoria.

Kelowna has Accelerate Okanagan, a vital centre in the heart of Kelowna where there is, again, an emerging technology cluster in Kelowna. So this is not a sector that is confined to the Lower Mainland. This is a sector that is provincewide and, indeed, changing very traditional industries.

Let me give one example. Many members will have attended the mining reception last night. There was a company there called LlamaZOO. LlamaZOO is a company based here in Victoria which, using visualization technology developed in the gaming industry, has invented and devised software which enables mining companies when they set out to build or construct a mine to describe in 3D virtual reality — and you can actually put on the googles, which I did last night — and look at the minesite as it would look if it were developed.

They integrate all the data, whether it’s previous drill holes, where the roads are going to go, where the disposal of waste will go and where the spillage dams are. It’s quite an impressive piece of software, and it’s an example of how technology is revolutionizing the traditional resource industries like mining. No one would…. We sometimes think, in a traditional way, that mining was a very traditional, unadventurous industry. But in fact, technology is changing that industry.

There’s another company called MineSense — let me give one more example — which, using the Internet of things, a much more precise array of sensors, sorts ore from a mine in a way that is much more sophisticated and much more efficient, therefore separating the tailings from the ore in a way that enables…. It’s more efficient, and therefore, it’s more profitable. Therefore, it’s better for the company’s bottom line and, ultimately, for creating jobs and further investment.

Technology is a sector that has potential across the economy, and those are just some examples. But I probably shouldn’t go on too long, because I’m sure my time will run out.

While I’m talking about this topic, let me say that last month we established B.C.’s first-ever innovation commissioner — an initiative with our Green Party partners — Dr. Alan Winter, to support our growing tech sector. He will advocate on behalf of the sector in British Columbia, in Ottawa and beyond. This position will be starting with a budget of $600,000 this year and $1.2 million in the following year, therefore, to ensure a level playing field with other provinces and to coordinate alignment with federal funding programs in support of the tech innovation sector. That is important.

[2:55 p.m.]

The federal government, in 2015, when they were elected — said they were running — established an innovation focus in their government.

There are federal resources. Mr. Winter was previously the CEO of Genome B.C. Genome B.C. works with Genome Canada, a federally funded agency. He has a web of contacts and relationships in Ottawa that will enable him to work on behalf of British Columbia and British Columbia programs to make sure that we are advancing British Columbia’s interests in alignment with federal programs.

In addition, the tech sector is also poised to expand even further with an announcement that the B.C.-based digital supercluster consortium has been awarded some of the $950 million from the federal government’s supercluster initiative. This exciting initiative is a consortium, and I think the genius of the process was to force a number of companies to collaborate in a major way.

It’s led by some of the big players in the B.C. economy — Telus, Microsoft, Teck, Canfor, Shoppers Drug Mart, Providence Health Care and the University of British Columbia. Most of the research institutions are involved in some way, and there are a total of 200 companies, big and small, who are part of this consortium. This initiative is also supported by the B.C. Tech Association and other partners, as I’ve mentioned.

The supercluster here focuses on digital technology, taking the advantages, some of which are evident in the example I gave of LlamaZOO and the virtual reality, alternate reality, mixed reality sector. There are a number of projects envisioned. A secretariat will be established and a CEO hired within the next couple of weeks — apparently, the interviews are underway — and that supercluster will be up and running.

This initiative, involving over 1,000 organizations, will create tens of thousands of new, good-paying jobs that provide skills and long-term employment opportunities for people across B.C. and Canada. Particularly, given that it’s based here…. There will be collaborations across the country, but it will be principally based in British Columbia in many of the locations that I spoke to. This is a tremendous opportunity for British Columbia to capitalize on the opportunity that innovation stands to bring to our province and the good-paying, family-supporting jobs that our province stands to benefit from as a result of this news.

That’s a good example of the promise of technology, and that is simply one sector. There are opportunities in other sectors that are being revolutionized by technology where British Columbia is a leader — sometimes, an unacknowledged, below-the-radar leader, but certainly, when you come to meet some of the great companies and the great talent that’s here in British Columbia, you realize the potential.

Many of the companies that I meet with, or many of the boards of directors, tell me that one of the reasons that they want to locate in British Columbia is the talent. That’s a tribute to the success of our education, both at the K-to-12 level and our post-secondary institutes, colleges and universities. It’s one of the reasons why companies are lining up to come to British Columbia. They continue to line up, and they are very enthusiastic.

Well, there are doubters over on the other side. I get that they’ve lost faith in British Columbia, but they should never mistake their political fortunes for the promise…

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Hon. B. Ralston: …the great promise of British Columbia.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Hon. B. Ralston: British Columbia is doing well. British Columbia will continue to do well….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Please take your seat, Minister.

Hon. B. Ralston: They have failed, and they know it.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Minister, please take your seat for a moment.

Please continue.

[3:00 p.m.]

Hon. B. Ralston: Thank you, Madame Speaker.

Your government continues to wish to establish British Columbia as a preferred location for new and emerging technology companies, to increase the growth of local tech enterprises and remove the barriers to attracting skilled workers provincewide. Clearly, the tech sector is already a major driver for British Columbia’s economy. British Columbia companies, as I’ve said, in this sector are gaining global recognition, creating jobs and contributing to significant GDP growth.

We’ve strengthened our support for the Cascadia Innovation Corridor between B.C. and Washington, which will help grow technology, life sciences, clean tech and data analytics industries across borders. We will ensure that that momentum continues. I’ve been touring the province to participate in tech-focused regional round tables to better understand the sector’s needs, and we will continue the commitments of the tech strategy with some refinements.

The B.C. tech fund gives companies the capacity they need for research and development, patent technologies and to scale their businesses to global markets. The B.C. Innovation Council continues to have our support, and we will be thrilled to co-host the third annual B.C. Tech Summit on May 14 to 16.

Let me just, since my time is running out…. I do want to say that in January, with the leadership of the Minister of Advanced Education, we expanded technology and engineering post-secondary programs by adding 2,900 more seats by 2023 to provide B.C.’s robust tech sector with additional tech talent to ensure a steady supply of skilled professionals meeting labour demands.

The availability of good paying jobs will keep people in B.C. and attract people to B.C. That’s why we believe investing in children, housing or post-secondary opportunities is money well spent and is worthwhile.

Let me, in the very brief time that remains, talk a little bit about trade. I know that the member for Kamloops–South Thompson called our trade mission traipsing around Asia — clearly out of sync even with members of his own caucus who have spoken about trade over the years.

R. Coleman: I’m glad to stand up and respond to my 23rd or 24th budget in the last 22 years. This one’s rather interesting, though. I’m going to take a couple walks down memory lane as I talk about difference and changes and ideas and philosophies. This is the first time in 22 years that I’ve actually seen a government tax itself twice and double-tax.

The NDP are removing 50 percent of the MSP on January 1. That was already committed by all the parties that ran in the last provincial election. The money was there for that. But the irony of this is that in 2019, they’ll put in a payroll tax. In 2020, they’ll eliminate the last $900 million of MSP.

For a year, they’re going to tax themselves twice, on the backs of British Columbians. They’re going to take $900-plus million, probably $1 billion, in MSP next year and this year. That’s $1.8 billion. But they’ll put in place a payroll tax in 2019, which also they will pay. They’ll pay it on every school board, every school teacher, on every person that works in health care, every person that works in the public service, everybody that works for a Crown corporation. It’s going to be in the millions of dollars.

Not only do they want to tax every British Columbian; they actually want to tax themselves. They’re going to subsidize their own tax thing to help reduce their costs to themselves but increasing their costs to themselves at exactly the same time. Now, I’ve seen some strange things in this place, but that is one of the strangest ones I’ve ever seen.

We shouldn’t kid ourselves about what the payroll tax is. The payroll tax is a tax on small business. It’s a tax on family-owned operations. It’s a tax on corporations. It’s a tax on the public service, on payroll taxes. It’s a tax on every single person in the province of British Columbia that owns any form of real estate. It’s a tax on any small business, whether their payroll is over $500,000 or not. Now let me explain.

[3:05 p.m.]

After this budget came out, I got on the telephone. I know a lot of people in local government, city administrators that run cities, and I phoned a number of them. I’d say, “Have you done the calculation yet as to what this means for you as a municipality or a city or a regional district?” Some had, some had not, but they’ve started to come in.

One community that I live in estimates that they will have to raise property taxes between 2.5 and 3 percent next year in order to deal with the payroll tax. What does that mean to anybody? If you’re a small business sitting at the corner of 200th Street and 64th Avenue in Langley and you run a glass repair shop and your landlord gets his tax notice sometime this year, he comes in and says: “Well, your rent is this much. Here’s your triple-net.”

Every single business, no matter how small, that has a triple-net lease in the province of British Columbia…. It’s probably about 90 percent of all the leases that will go up. Every single one of those businesses is going to be affected by this tax. Don’t kid yourself when you hear the Finance Minister get up and say that it’s only 15 percent of companies that get affected by this.

If you own a home in British Columbia, or a condo or a townhouse, your municipality will raise your property taxes, and you’ll be paying it on your taxes at your home, for every single person in B.C. That means money is being taken out of the pocket of every single child that may want to play sports in the province or take dancing, whatever.

The family is going to have their costs go up by 2 to 3 percent on their property taxes. This comes out of their pockets. It’s after-tax income. It’s very difficult for people to get ahead when you’re taxing them at the front end and claiming you’re trying to save them at the back end. That’s what’s going on here.

The reality is this. Because the federal government cut corporate taxes, the NDP raised corporate taxes. They say they’ve cut small business taxes, but a lot of small businesses are corporations.

They’ve actually started to tax us out of competitiveness. What we know about competitiveness is that we have a very significant trading partner to the south of us that is going to start to eat our lunch because Canada is overtaxed. We are overtaxed, and if we continue to be overtaxed, we won’t be competitive. Investment will go elsewhere, and it won’t be in this province. That’s a big concern.

Interjections.

R. Coleman: I always love it when the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast is in the House when I speak. He can’t help himself but heckle me in any way whatsoever. He should go to the pulp mill in Powell River and ask them: “How much is the payroll tax going to hurt you?”

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, through the Chair.

R. Coleman: This little double-tax fraud that’s going on here in this budget is a payroll tax that affects a whole bunch of things. Today in question period, I talked about the Jansen family, who have been farming in my community for 40 years, and that $100,000 just went out of their bottom line in payroll — $100,000. You know what happened after that question was asked in question period today? A bunch of other farmers in my community, across the Lower Mainland and up the Fraser Valley — whether it be strawberry farmers, blueberry farmers, people who do the packing or whatever it is — are saying: “Me too.”

We just hit farming in B.C. — and we want to have a significant, stable food supply for our future — with a tax on people whose margins are so thin. They work ten, 12 or 14 hours a day, seven days a week. If they have animals, they can’t go away. They have to be there for their farm. We’re saying: “Oh, we don’t care how hard you work. We don’t care how much you’ve got at risk. We’re just going to tax you and take more money out of your pocket.”

That starts to affect everything. As you do these things to the economy, you start to see some significant hits. There’s a second tax. People haven’t even spent a lot of time on it, because everybody is pretty shocked about the payroll tax.

Let’s talk about the carbon tax for a second. It was at $30. It’ll go to $50 in a few years. Now, I sat through over 168 meetings, presentations from people, back in 2008, from across this country, across all industries, to get to a decision on how you could do a carbon tax that you could actually use to reduce GHGs and enhance technology in order to get more clean technology into the system while you’re actually making the existing system work. That’s because the carbon tax was revenue-neutral. Now it’s become a cash grab.

[3:10 p.m.]

When I sat through that, all that time, the leader of the Green Party was in some of those meetings. I’ll never forget the conversation. I sat on the side and listened to him, with others, extolling the virtues of the Site C dam — not opposed to it but the virtues of it — because it was a way to take clean power to shape future power, like wind and solar and those types of power. He was very, very enthusiastic about it, so enthusiastic that he actually went up to the announcement for Site C.

Now, I know there’s been a change. I respect that people change their opinions. But 168 presentations…. It took everything from the life cycle of an electric car or a hybrid and what it really meant and what you do with the batteries and what the effect on the environment long term and short term are.

What resources you needed to have in order to have the future economy in the world, which includes every one of these laptops in here, or iPads or whatever, that have things like copper and other forms of metals in them that come from mining…. The outside of the iPad is made out of petroleum products. In actual fact, you need the resources in order to do new technology. You need to have the stuff coming out of the ground.

The disappointment on that is…. The carbon tax — which was supposed to be revenue-neutral, could find solutions for a cleaner economy by reinvesting it in new technologies and what have you — is a significant hit to rural British Columbia, and it’s not fair.

Is it fair that you can live in downtown Vancouver and have your car parked in an underground parking spot and leave it there for months on end, because you can walk anywhere you need to go? You can get on a bus or transit and go just about anywhere in the Lower Mainland and make your connections. It’s fair for them.

In Quesnel or in Prince George…. Just take the member for Prince George–Valemount…. It used to be Mount Robson, I think. Anyway, I do remember, you see, the names of these ridings. But take a trip with that member sometime to go to Valemount, round trip, and how many hours on the road it takes. There is not, by the way, any other way to get there. Yet the carbon tax will penalize those people that need to do that work.

Think of the logging truck operator who doesn’t have a replacement yet for a diesel power truck that he goes into the bush with and brings the logs down to a mill. Whether it be West Fraser or Tolko, Canfor or any of the other companies in forestry, they’re all getting hit with a payroll tax. At the same time, the very guy who was trying to deliver the logs to cut the resource for export is getting carbon-taxed, in addition to the fact that he’s trying to make a living for his family.

When you do this and you say, “Well, let’s ignore the rest of British Columbia and just concentrate on one area,” you start to separate rural and urban British Columbia, which, in my opinion, is wrong. I think it’s wrong for a number of reasons, because I think we’re all British Columbians.

I was born in Nelson. I was raised in Penticton. We live in the Lower Mainland. I’ve never thought I was a Nelsoner or a Pentictonite or Aldergrovian. I’ve always thought of myself as a British Columbian.

Now, as we look at this, there are some other significant impacts. This is a little memory lane thing I’m going to take you down. In 2001, I was made the Solicitor General of this province. I went and looked at the complement of the provincial police force in this province and how much money it was getting. It was 40 percent underfunded to what it had to have to actually have a provincial police force.

They were managing by vacancies, because the government would say in April, “This is how much money you get,” and by June, they would claw it back. We had no technology. We had no innovation. We had police cars that were going 400,000 kilometres and having to be parked, because there was no money to replace the police car.

We have a group of people out there — I’m going to talk specifically about police for a minute — who do a job for us. We now have about 2,600 people on the provincial police force, not counting the support staff — just that many people.

Having talked to the RCMP — some guys I know in and around it — and looking at the number, the payroll tax will cost the RCMP in excess of $4 million. That is about 40 police officers. Think about that.

That side of the House — I’ve always contended, by the way they dealt with policing in the 1990s — has always had this love affair with the criminal, not with the people who are to be protected and not, certainly, with the police organizations that need to protect us.

[3:15 p.m.]

If you can think about this for a second, $4 million is what it cost to take down three Hells Angels clubhouses in about 2006: a special task force, millions of dollars, a huge investment in actually going after organized crime. And $100 million is what it cost us for the Pickton investigation and its court case and the time to its completion — about 100 million bucks.

In 2001, it was obvious that we hadn’t bought a new radio in a long time, or a new computer, or, for that matter, updated any of our old DOS systems that police were being asked to work on, including the fact that they couldn’t get on the radio in Langley and talk on the radio to Vancouver. They had no way of sharing information that could go back and forth. If somebody went missing in Vancouver and were checked in Coquitlam, nobody would know that they were missing. There was no cross connection.

We made the largest investment in technology in North America in policing history, and we’re still the only jurisdiction — this is sad, by the way — on the entire continent that is actually all on the same information management system in real time, called PRIME. It’s been highly successful. None of that was invested in, in the 1990s.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Now we see a budget. We have a gang task force that’s going to cost you $4 million or $5 million. That’s the equivalent price of the payroll tax, just on the provincial police force. Guess what it is if you take all the municipalities together, all of them across the board, all the police forces, just the police forces. There will be an increased cost on policing alone in excess of $20 million. Who has to pay for that? Langley has to pay for it for their RCMP complement. Vancouver has to pay for it for its city police. Delta is the same. New Westminster for its city police and Burnaby for its piece. They all have to pay the payroll tax.

It takes money out of what? Front-line policing, protection of the public, or somebody has to go tax it. Why do I say the taxes will go up, the property taxes, by 3 percent? That’s factored into the cost of the operation of a municipality, and fire and police are the two most expensive things that they contend with. All of it is payroll tax. All of it is tax to take money away.

While we don’t believe anymore in clean technology that we invest the carbon tax in to actually change to a cleaner economy — we just want it as a cash grab into our pockets — we’re also taxing everybody in B.C. with a payroll tax while we’re collecting MSP. What a sweetheart deal. Only a government could think they could tax themselves and everybody else twice.

As we go through this, I looked at the Solicitor General’s budget. It’s down about $300 million. There’s no priority for things like an integrated homicide team or an integrated sexual predator observation team, which follows people to get the DNA of sexual predators when they’re breaking their parole and they might hurt another child.

Money is going to get scarce because somebody has to pay. The government is taxing policing. They’re taxing firemen. They’re taxing people in public safety, sheriffs within their own system. All of this is going to be caused by payroll tax.

On top of that, I’m concerned about the specialized groups and teams, those that deal with organized crime, the gang task force, the ones that go into communities and try and build undercover operations long term to stop the guns and gangs issues that take place that you don’t see. We don’t talk about who’s doing it where, because we don’t want to put our undercover police officers’ lives at risk.

I do know this. I’ve never seen, to my knowledge, where you tax a police force and say to somebody else: “Pay for it, because we want to take that money into general revenue. You just go increase taxes to every one of your citizens in your particular community.” I think it’s wrong.

At the same time, these guys are dealing with a very dangerous job that has challenged us all. I think we all got that little message when we lost Constable Davidson out in Abbotsford late last year — how dangerous the job is and how, at any moment, somebody doesn’t get to go home at night to their family.

[3:20 p.m.]

Those guys are out there doing their job, and we’re going to tax the municipalities who provide those police officers. We also don’t talk about what’s coming — the cost.

I looked at the mental health budget. If you take it and you cross the dollars over, it pretty much came out of the health budget and was moved around within government. There’s nothing new there. But you can’t tell me, when police officers and firemen and ambulance and first responders and other people are having to take a drug, inject it into somebody and give it to somebody so they don’t die — and sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t — that you’re not going to have a huge expense of post-traumatic stress for these people.

I’ve talked to these guys that have actually had to do it, and it is shocking for them when they do it. It really does hit home for them. On top of everything else, we’re taxing them, so their municipalities will probably reduce or not hire additional officers because of the budget restrictions and, at the same time, say: “Do more with less.” It’s wrong.

We have another little memory-lane thing I want to talk about here. I, like everybody else, particularly because I knew what the numbers were, was shocked at the number that came out in the NDP platform saying they’re going to build 114,000 housing units in ten years.

I know how many units of housing are built in British Columbia every year. I know how many are in the process in municipalities right now in this province, and I knew that this was false. I knew it was false. It wasn’t until the following estimates when the minister said, in estimates, to one of my colleagues: “Well, it’s an aspirational goal.”

Now we have a new aspirational goal in this budget, telling us how many units they’re going to build in the next ten years — dropped by about 75,000-ish units. But the irony of it all is that they’ve already counted 4,900 units that are in the construction process and previously funded by the previous government.

They’re counting units they never did anything with, except continue on the funding that was already in place. Imagine. Why don’t you just go back to 2001 and take the other 10,000 units that were built and add them to your list, if that’s what you’re going to try and do with your shell game on housing?

Housing has some challenges in B.C., some that nobody wants to talk about. For instance, we have 130,000 units on the Lower Mainland of British Columbia alone that are in the chain to go through different types of rezoning and development. Some of those units have been in the process for in excess of five years and still don’t have their building permit.

Somebody says: “Well, why don’t you do something about housing?” This government has the same challenge any government will have. If you don’t have supply but you’ve still got demand, prices don’t come down. If the people that want to buy it have more buyers than the ones that are going to sell it, the prices don’t change.

Now, there are some issues that we’re going to have to address. There’s one community in the Lower Mainland that will give you bonus density for community amenity charges, bonus density of a certain height of floor because the higher, the better — the higher the value of the square footage. That community charges, if you can imagine, the equivalent of $350 a square foot for the community amenity charge.

You get a 1,000-square-foot condo. Before anything has gone in the ground, it’s $350,000, and somebody from that council or that local government says: “Oh, we’ve got to do something about the price of housing.”

Look inside. My own community in Langley township has got way too high of DCCs and off-site costs, from my opinion. That could go back into the pockets of people.

The services and the costs they put on housing are unconscionable. There are literally hundreds of millions of dollars sitting in accounts in municipalities in the Lower Mainland from community amenity charges. They just keep going up, and they keep adding things to them, and they put them in their bank account. And then they complain about the affordability of housing.

They won’t meet the schedule, either, so you can actually understand, when you walk in with some plans on some zoned land, when you can get through their process and get in the ground. And that’s time. If it takes you four years…. I know one project took over five years in the city of Vancouver. If it takes that long, somebody is paying interest on that property. Somebody is accumulating costs. Who gets hit with it? The consumer. That’s who gets hit with it.

[3:25 p.m.]

The interesting thing about the housing side that I found most laughable, or interesting, in this budget is this. In 2006, I stood in this House after a budget and did a debate not dissimilar to this and listened to people rail at the Minister Responsible for Housing because he had the temerity to put in place a rental assistance program for people of low income in British Columbia to help them with a cheque — where they lived, anywhere in British Columbia, today.

They called it a landlord subsidy. They said it was stupid. They said it was ridiculous. “This is absolutely crazy. We should build, own and operate all housing in British Columbia from the government’s perspective.”

All of those things were said, either in this House or in media, about a rent assistance program. Guess what’s in this budget. An increase in the rent assistance program. They want to do more units in rent assistance, something that they actually oppose. They’re going to go out there and say: “Oh, we’re going to do this. This is great. We’re going to do this.” Well, you’ve got 15,000 family households on it now and 20,000 seniors households on it now. If you expand it, good for you.

Then they announced 2,000 modular units like it’s some big surprise, never been done before. Three or five years later, 1,350 units of modular housing were put in British Columbia, in small communities, for seniors to be able to stay in their communities and live there. And they’re not temporary. They’re permanent.

Don’t do what you think you’re going to do here — to members on the opposite side. You do 2,000 units of temporary modular housing. You’re letting down the modular housing industry, for No. 1. What they build is good enough to last. Put together with the right structure — and they can do it — you can build a four-storey apartment building modularly. You can build a motel modularly.

Don’t go out and put 2,000 units in there of low quality that you’re going to have to move in ten or 15 years. Put the investment in the ground, and make it permanent. All you’re doing is using a different form of construction, using the capacity of our manufacturing plants to do it.

Now, I read the section, a couple times, on the speculation tax. This one disturbs me. I want to tell you why. It’s deciding that we’re not all Canadians anymore. It says, “If you don’t pay income tax in British Columbia, we’re going to tax you if you want to invest in British Columbia” — as a Canadian.

I have a son that went overseas to Afghanistan. I know guys from Calgary, Alberta, and places across the country who were mates of his over there, who stood up for the peace of our country. I had a father on a ship in the English Channel in the Second World War, and a father-in-law and his brother on the beaches of D-Day. They didn’t go over there to say we’re not going to be a unified country. They didn’t go over to say we’re going to actually prejudice against Canadians….

There are people that invested in homes in this province, which they think they’re going to retire in someday. It’s maybe in Fairmont or the Lower Mainland, but their work takes them somewhere else right now. And we’ve decided that’s wrong? I understand the speculation tax that people want to go for, but I don’t understand doing it to Canadians.

We all carry the same passport. We all come from the same country. Some people in this province have a residence in Comox or Courtenay or Nanaimo. They get on a plane and go into the oil patch or some mine in the Northwest Territories, for three weeks in and two weeks out. And we want to actually start to question whether they’re home long enough in order to actually have the benefit as a Canadian of what we all have.

I don’t know who thought this one up, but you got the wrong people. You’re telling me citizens of this….

You know, I actually pay and file my income tax every year, like everybody else, and I’m pretty sure we all send it to the Canada Revenue Agency. I don’t think we send a separate tax return for our income in this country to a province. We are calculated on what we pay for taxes in this province, and that’s why people make a decision where they want to live. But certainly not to the point where you’re going to take away fundamental rights of Canadians…. I’m not even sure this tax is constitutional. I wonder.

[3:30 p.m.]

At the same time, we have this entire situation facing us with other issues around homelessness, youth homelessness, shelters and all of that. I can tell this House that I know the numbers that there were for homelessness with no 24-7 shelter in the entire province of British Columbia in 2001. I know it has been multiplied over five times for 24-7, with meals for people, to help them. I know that there are 6,700 to 7,000 people a year that meet up with outreach workers for success.

I think we need to continue this and build on the opportunities, the resources and everything else for our province. You’re going to tax mining out of business. You’re going to tax natural gas out of business. You’re going to take away jobs from Indigenous people who are trying to build economies for the areas across the province of British Columbia, and I could give you another half-hour on just that subject alone.

When you decide that Canadians are not Canadians anymore, and when you decide you’re going to tax every single person through the back door and not be honest with them about where that tax is flowing to and how it’s going to affect their family and their income, it makes it a pretty dishonest budget.

For that reason alone, just on that little tweak, given all the other things that I wish I had time to talk about, I think we should defeat this budget.

Hon. H. Bains: It is always an honour to stand here but, especially today, to stand in support of our government’s first full budget.

Before I get into this, let me…. I listened to the member from Langley very, very carefully. I have a lot of respect for the guy. He’s been around, and he’s had some good points over the years but mostly wrong. I must say that: mostly wrong. I mean, there are times that he’s been right. I’ve watched him for about 13 years, so I can say this.

Let’s talk about this. He talked about memory lane. We don’t need to go back. I mean, he’s in the 1990s. Some of the members who have made this House now recently probably were toddlers. We should be talking about what happened just recently. All the things that the member has talked about…. He was trying to poke holes in this budget. Of course, no matter what policy a government brings in anywhere, you cannot please everyone. That’s granted.

I think it is quite interesting for the member to talk about memory lane, especially considering what we had in the last 16 years. On one hand, we had the lowest-wage earners’ wages frozen for ten years. On the other side, that is the government that gave a tax break to the highest-wage earners. Any reasonable-minded person will tell you that is grossly unfair. But did they care? They didn’t care.

Anyway, not only that, on top of that, MSP premiums doubled on them. ICBC tripled; hydro more than doubled. Not only that, they left behind a $1.3 billion deficit at ICBC for taxpayers and others to clean up the mess. The member thought that everything was fine, what they did. He listed a whole bunch of programs. Everything wasn’t fine, even on the crime side, despite all the best effort. If you look at what’s going on today, it is a very, very disappointing failure, and more needs to be done.

Take a look on the economic side. Forestry, the industry that built this province for 150 years, has been brought to its knees, and 30,000 jobs are gone. Over 150 mills got shut down over those 16 years. Sixteen years ago, there was hardly a mill owned by B.C. companies that re-established themselves on the south side of the 49th. Today there are over 50. It used to be that American companies would come and invest in the forest industry because they saw a future in here. Now our companies are going over to the other side.

[3:35 p.m.]

Think about that. Everything isn’t right. Everything isn’t fine. There are a number of reasons for that, but part of that reason is the government’s failed policy that they brought in, in 2003, called the forest revitalization program.

Take a look at other programs that they brought in: South Fraser Perimeter Road, B.C. Place roof, Vancouver Convention Centre, Port Mann, transmission lines. None of them is under 43 percent cost overrun. None of them. You call yourself a very prudent government. That’s the result. That is the result.

You take a look around the education side. In Surrey alone, 7,000 students are in portables right now — 7,000 in portables. They had 16 years to fix that. What did they do? The portables continue to go up.

You know what? In this budget, for the first time, we are hiring 3,700 new teachers — 3,700. They spent 16 years fighting with the educators. The reality is….

Interjections.

Hon. H. Bains: I know many of the members don’t like that. It was the member from Langley who decided to talk about memory lane.

You know what? They spent 16 years fighting the educators. It took 14 years to go to the Supreme Court of Canada, only to be told: “You were illegal. You need to go back and fix it.” For 14 years….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, please.

Hon. H. Bains: In those 14 years, what happened? A whole generation of students came and left the education system. They were there for 12 years. They were in there without the resources that they deserved, because they wanted to fight with the educators. They wanted to fight with the education system.

It was the Supreme Court who had to tell them their actions were illegal. “Go fix it.” That’s the memory lane. That’s the legacy that is left behind.

Public transportation. Let’s take a look at that. Surrey should have something started now, had it not been pure politics to put this thing through referendum. That is a pure and clear-cut abdication of government responsibility. Rather than showing responsibility, they play politics. Right now we have nothing to show for it in Surrey as far as the public transportation expansion is concerned.

We are building the Pattullo Bridge. We are showing leadership. We said that we would raise our portion from 33 percent to 40 percent. That’s leadership. We’re doing that. Had they done that four years ago, instead of playing politics, we would have construction going on and probably ready to have that public transportation extension all the way to Newton, Guildford and Langley. That’s the legacy.

I know it hurts, but they wanted to talk about memory lane. Anyway, we have 16 years, and people know that.

Finally, we have a budget that is thoughtful, balanced, prudent and, more importantly, puts people first. That’s what the government should be: putting people first. People are those who elected us, and we should be looking after their interest. We should be making policies — not just policy that supports only your rich, wealthy, powerful friends — so that every British Columbian can benefit from our economy. That’s what this budget talks about.

Last summer our government created a stand-alone Ministry of Labour, which clearly shows the importance we put on the welfare and success of the working people of our province. I was very proud to be appointed Minister of Labour, and I know our ministry plays a wider role in the economic health of our province and its people.

The increase to my ministry’s budget in this budget is about $3 million of important funding over three years to the employment standards branch for planning activities related to my mandate to update employment standards to reflect the changing nature of workplaces and ensure that those standards are applied evenly and enforced.

[3:40 p.m.]

It will put the branch in a better position to respond to upcoming recommendations from the B.C. Law Institute, the B.C. Federation of Labour and the B.C. Employment Standards Coalition. That’s what we will be doing — updating B.C. labour legislation and bringing it into the 21st century.

The funding will also be used to support the development of a temporary foreign worker registry to help protect vulnerable workers from exploitation and track use of temporary workers in our economy.

We’re also looking at reviewing workers compensation — the policy, the regulation and the act — so that the workers’ and the employers’ needs are addressed in the changing workplaces of British Columbia.

The Labour Relations Board is another area that we need to bring into the 21st century and make sure that the employers and the unions have confidence that they can go to the labour board and trust that they will have their issues addressed in a timely fashion and in a fair and objective manner.

That relates to my ministry. But the big picture with Budget 2018 is, clearly, the fact of the frustration that the people of B.C. are feeling after years of rising costs, reduced services and the neglect of working people in favour of big business interests. It is time. It was very clear in the election campaign, when we were told it was time for a change, that we need strong, clear, fundamental change.

Our government ran on three key commitments to British Columbians: (1) to make life more affordable, (2) to deliver services that people can count on and (3) to build a strong, sustainable, innovative economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected. We have already started to work on that. Last week’s budget described in detail how our government is turning those commitments into reality.

The first piece in this budget is affordability. To deal with that affordability issue…. I have said this many times that in this country, this province, this day and age, nobody who works full-time should be struggling in poverty, should be struggling to put food on their table, should be struggling to pay rent. Nobody who’s working full-time in British Columbia today, one of the richest provinces in the world, should be living in poverty. They shouldn’t.

They shouldn’t be forced to work two or three jobs, longer hours, away from their children, just to pay for the basic bills. Ninety-four thousand British Columbians take home minimum wage. That isn’t enough to live on. B.C.’s lowest-paid workers deserve a raise. So we established the independent Fair Wages Commission that, after extensive consultation and research, laid out recommendations for reaching, at least, a $15-an-hour minimum wage by June 2021.

The pathway that the commission recommended, with regular incremental increases, give businesses certainty and predictability. That’s exactly what the businesses asked for. That’s what we are delivering. The increases each June, to 2021, are measured, and they reflect B.C.’s strong economy. I look forward to the commission’s next report, which will provide recommendations on how to raise wages for those workers who are paid one of the alternative minimum wages, such as liquor servers and farmworkers paid by piece rate.

After that, the commission will turn its attention to looking at gaps between the minimum wage and the living wage and how we address that. That will be a bit more complex and will require a bit more work and research, but they are the people who have what it takes to make sure that they will bring us the right answers.

Affordability. Again, on the expenses side, affordability is about paying bills that we all have to pay. In too many parts of this province, the bills have become unmanageable. I’m not talking about costs for nice-to-have things. I’m talking about things that we must have — expenses like housing, child care, medical services, utilities and transportation.

[3:45 p.m.]

For too many years now, the working people of this province have been struggling to make ends meet and sometimes having to make decisions they shouldn’t have to — like choosing between a roof over their head or food on the table or choosing between work and a career or staying at home — because affordable child care simply can’t be found. That’s why our government, in this budget, is putting people first and making life more affordable for all British Columbians.

On the housing side, which was a key component of unaffordability, the gap between haves and have-nots in our province has become so wide that it’s not enough to raise minimum wages and reduce bills. Not enough. Not only that, but our government have taken a two-pronged approach. On one side, we are lowering their financial burden by eliminating tolls on Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges.

Eliminating MSP premiums, making tuition free for adult basic education and English language learning, and affordable child care — all of that is to take the financial burden off of British Columbians. On the other hand, we’re raising the minimum wage and also creating jobs that are family-supporting jobs so that people can have a better life. At the same time, they will be investing that extra money in businesses within their own communities, so the businesses will benefit, and the workers and their family will have a little better lifestyle.

In many parts of B.C., as you know, it takes more than full-time right now at minimum wage to pay for basics, especially with the cost of housing. In fact, many families who make what is considered a middle-class income still cannot afford decent housing even if they can find it. For many, the dreams of home ownership are gone, and it’s no wonder.

I can give you my own example. I started in a sawmill in South Vancouver. Eburne Saw Mills is no longer there. Part of those 150 mills are gone now. I was making $8.30 an hour when my wife, Rajvinder, and I bought our first house in Whalley Surrey — $55,000. So you make the calculations. That was $17,000 gross I made. Those were good wages in those days. Sawmill wages were good wages — good, union-supporting jobs. A $55,000, six-year-old house — really nice 1,200 square feet with a basement — was a little over three times my gross, some of the top wages in the province at that time.

Today, 41 years later, if my son was working on the same job, he would be making about $30 an hour. That’s about $60,000 gross. To think the 41-year-old same house that we raised our family in is, like, 14 or 15 times that gross today. It’s unaffordable. That dream of owning a home in British Columbia, especially in the Lower Mainland, is gone. The only dream they have today is: can they have an affordable rental place? There’s something wrong with that.

What we enjoyed, my generation and previous generations, isn’t available to our children. So I think it’s a responsibility that we have as a government to do something. The member from Langley talked about what’s wrong with these steps that we have taken, but they had the opportunity to fix it, and they didn’t. So now he is saying: “Well, this is wrong, and that is wrong in that plan.” At least we’re taking steps.

Many people have said that those are the right steps to take. Of course, there are some people who will not like it. But at the end of the day, at least we are taking steps to make sure that we bring affordability, especially the housing piece, and give some stability to it.

I think the question that we have to ask ourselves, the situation I’ve described — how is that reasonable in this day and age? Instead of doing something, they actually opened up doors to speculators, house flippers and tax fraud. They know that that happened and then did nothing. That, again, is abdication of government responsibility.

[3:50 p.m.]

They’ll have to answer to people, not only today but generations to come. You were there and had the opportunity, but you failed to act. Now we have a true housing crisis that has put home ownership out of reach for average Canadians. Like I said, the only thing they have now is a dream of a clean, safe rental unit that they can afford and that is not two hours of commute each way.

I have people coming to my constituency — I’m sure each one of you has those people coming to your constituency — telling me and my staff about the struggle to find decent housing. Surrey’s homeless rate has increased by 50 percent in just a few years. Food bank demand has grown drastically, with more and more working families and seniors relying on them. People are working two and three jobs just to make ends meet.

I was very pleased and proud, in fact, to listen to the budget speech as it laid out the concrete, specific actions that our government is taking on housing. We are making the largest investment in housing in B.C. history, $6.6 billion over ten years, to build the affordable housing that is so desperately needed.

For my own seat in Surrey, it will have a significant impact, with $13 million capital funding for 160,000 housing units for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, almost $11 million in funding for 121 units of Aboriginal housing, and $15 million in capital funding for 50 transitional beds and 50 shelter beds for those who are homeless or at risk. These are investments that will be life-changing for many of my city’s most vulnerable residents.

All over B.C., people have clearly been hurt by the housing crisis, and businesses have as well. The B.C. Chamber of Commerce 2017-18 survey flagged housing affordability as the top issue hurting businesses in B.C., yet nothing got done. The CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade said on budget day: “We have long recognized that if workers cannot afford to live near their employment, then they will move to where they can. Employers know that attracting workers needs a community that is attractive and affordable to families.”

Around the province, we are cracking down on real estate tax fraud, speculative practices that treat our housing market as a stock market. We are ensuring that the foreign buyers will pay more for the opportunity that B.C. provides for them. These are fair things to do and the right things to do for our province for 2018.

Then on child care. Another area that is hugely important to so many people in our community is the cost of child care. Many families find themselves in impossible situations. The cost of living is so high that both parents have to go to work, but then they find themselves paying thousands of dollars each year for safe care for their children — an expense that can eat up most, if not all, of their incomes. It is much worse for single parents. What choice do they have that will allow them to work and get ahead while making sure their children are safe and cared for?

I’m so proud that our government is making the largest investment in child care in B.C.’s history, with more than $1 billion over the next three years. We are lowering costs for up to 86,000 families with child care benefits that will decrease their costs by up to $1,250 a month.

There will be a new child care fee reduction program that will benefit up to 50,000 families with children in licensed care facilities. That program will save families up to $350 a month. We will create more than 22,000 new licensed child care spaces across the province, with incentives for more flexible care choices. These are concrete steps to help children get the quality care they need and give families options that will help them get ahead.

Getting ahead also means providing the best opportunities when those children enter the school system. That’s why our government is hiring 3,700 new teachers to support students in the classroom. We’re undoing the damage that was done by the previous government in its war with the educators.

We are investing $2 billion to replace and upgrade schools around the province. I’ve said it before: 7,000 students today are in portables in Surrey. If you really go back and take a look, from 2006 until 2012, not a single capital dollar was approved by this government to build schools in Surrey. Those are the facts.

[3:55 p.m.]

Now we have to do catch-up. It’s not that the student population was growing and they didn’t know, that it was just a sudden growth. No, they knew ten years ahead of time that the population of Surrey was growing at a rate of 1,000 new citizens moving in every month. They knew that. They don’t come alone. Children come with them. But they were not prepared, because they had different priorities.

In Surrey, for too long we’ve had students being jammed into portables with no new funding in years. I’m excited to see that in this budget, our government is investing in children and education, including in Surrey. We will see two new secondary schools with spaces for 3,000 more students, which is $115 million in total funding. Three new elementary schools and an expansion to another school to provide spaces for over 2,200 more students — $77 million in total funding. And seismic upgrades to two other elementary schools — $10.4 million.

As Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor said in the throne speech — and I dearly believe in that — education is a great equalizer. Investing in education means we are investing in equality in our society. That hasn’t happened in the last 16 years, and it’s going to take a while for us to catch up. Sixteen years of damage left behind is going to take a long time to fix.

A member from Langley talked about crime. It’s one of the real issues in Surrey. If you don’t feel safe in your own home, if you don’t feel safe walking your kids to the neighbouring park, if you don’t feel safe using public facilities, nothing else matters. Right now, not only in the Surrey-Newton area, in all of the Lower Mainland — Abbotsford, Chilliwack — parents are worried when their kids are out. They’re worried even when their children are in school, because we’ve seen incidents of shooting at schools. School walls got hit. There’s a serious problem.

I fully understand some efforts were made, but I think the comprehensive approach that is needed to deal with crime and gun violence in British Columbia was lacking. There were hardly any preventative measures taken, hardly any gang suppression. We need to have that two-pronged approach to deal with this. That hasn’t happened. It will take time, and we are going to move in that direction.

As a result of that, we put $500,000 into the Surrey Wraparound program, which is a program in Surrey schools. Very, very successful — so successful that there were 40 to 45 at-risk children waiting on the waiting list. We thought that was wrong, because no child who is looking for help should be told to wait in the lineup. We put in $500,000 so no child is on a waiting list. They get the help when they need it so that we can bring them back to the right path.

I just want to talk about…. My colleagues speak to the other key areas of the budget, such as health care funding, taxation, transportation and other measures that will ensure a strong, sustainable economy.

Health care. Surrey, again, was neglected from 2001, until a lot of pressure from Surrey residents…. Finally, some additions were made to the local hospital and another branch was opened — the Jim Pattison branch.

There was land purchased in the 1990s to build a new hospital. Just to tell people how prudent they are, that they had balanced the budget, they sold that land. Now we have to purchase and find a new space to build a new hospital. We have already started on planning the new hospital. There are a lot of other innovative ways to deal and deliver. Health care is on the way.

I just want to focus…. My constituency, largely, is working class and proudly so. Like me, many of them are people who have come to this province to build better lives for their families. They only ask for the opportunity to do so and for the barriers to be not too great.

We are a new government that has inherited some big problems, and I do not think fixing them will be easy. It will not be as fast as we all would like to see.

[4:00 p.m.]

This previous government focused on an economy that only benefited their wealthy friends. On this side of the House, we believe that by supporting and improving the lives of workers, of the vulnerable and of the disadvantaged, we are all improved. We are all strengthened as individuals and as a society.

I believe that the path outlined in this budget speech truly illustrates the vision that our government has of making life better for all British Columbians. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on that.

I. Paton: I rise today to respond to this government’s budget and explore the ways in which it meets the needs of my valued constituents in Delta South. However, sadly, I’m afraid many of them will find this budget quite lacking in that regard. That’s why I’m speaking today in opposition to the government’s budget.

Before I get started, I’d just like to thank a few people that are close to me, in my life, in my riding. I’m proud to be a third-generation farmer living on our farm in Delta. I was born there in 1956, and I’m still living on the same farm I was born on in 1956. My family has a long history of agriculture, both in Delta and in the province. In the ’80s, my father was the chairman of the Agricultural Land Commission.

I’d also like to thank my wife, Pam, who does a great deal of work for me in my office, and also my office staff, who do an absolutely fantastic job — a young man, Mr. Dylan Kruger, and Michelle Pici, who work in my office. I’d like to thank the members of my local Delta South riding association, as well, for their support.

Now, while the NDP made big promises to families and individuals in my riding and across British Columbia, they are coming up short in many ways that mean a lot to these folks. They will have a lot to answer for as British Columbians struggle to understand what happened to those commitments.

Let’s go through some of those promises that have seemingly disappeared into thin air. We have $10-a-day daycare. Apparently, now that’s just a slogan. The more than 100,000 affordable housing units that were promised — well, it seems increasingly unlikely that all of those will get built. What about the $400 renters rebate that people were counting on, never to be spoken of again? They didn’t quite meet the commitment to eliminate student loans either.

Then there is infrastructure. I want to focus on a project that has been a top priority of mine since being elected in 2017 — gosh, even before that, in my time as a councillor on Delta city council and as a longtime resident of Delta. I’m speaking, of course, of the George Massey Tunnel.

It’s not just politicians that have been talking about this structure. It’s a hot topic amongst nearly everyone in my community and in the neighbouring communities — especially the communities of Ladner, Tsawwassen, South Surrey and White Rock and the community of people that live in North Delta that make the trek down from North Delta to go through the George Massey Tunnel each morning.

The Massey Tunnel has served its purpose for most of its life, but next year the tunnel will be turning 60 years old. We all know it urgently needs to be replaced. I say “urgently” because it’s a safety risk now to the people who travel through it. We know it’s seismically unsafe. We know that emergency responders have a tough time accessing it when there has been a crash, not to mention the risks that they expose themselves to from the fumes and smoke from damaged vehicles, inside the tunnel, which they’re attending to. Sometimes they have a tough time transporting patients to hospital in the midst of the gridlock that is common to the tunnel.

I have a personal friend that had a stroke. It’s so important, people south of the Fraser, in Ladner or Tsawwassen. If you suffer from a stroke and you’re in an ambulance, you need to get to Vancouver, to St. Paul’s or to VGH, as soon as possible. Imagine if there is an accident that’s tying up both lanes of the tunnel. There’s no way for an ambulance to get you through in an emergency situation. You’re in an ambulance, a life-or-death situation, and you can’t get through that tunnel to get into Vancouver to a major hospital.

These are major concerns for the safety of our first responders and for the local and commercial motorists who wonder what will happen to them if they happen to be driving that stretch of road when the big one hits. I can tell you that I have personally, so many times — on a dark, rainy day, with traffic backed up — somehow ended up in the very middle of the George Massey Tunnel when traffic comes to a complete halt.

[4:05 p.m.]

It’s very claustrophobic. It’s very frightening to think: “Here I am, stuck, going absolutely nowhere, in the middle of the George Massey Tunnel. What if the big earthquake comes while I’m in here?” I don’t really want to be there at that particular time.

There was a plan underway to replace this aging, seismically unsafe tunnel. It was a bridge project led by our former government that has now been shelved by the current NDP government. They’ve ordered another review because, apparently, 14,000 pages of information isn’t enough. The numerous meetings, consultations, studies and engineering reports that were undertaken don’t seem to matter.

There was almost $100 million already spent in the last few years, getting ready for the project to take place, with the widening of Highway 99, with the moving of hydro towers, the widening of the piles that were going to be driven into the ground for the building of this beautiful new bridge.

They’ve ordered the sham review, delaying relief for some 80,000 commuters a day and creating uncertainty for thousands of workers. There could be 9,000 construction jobs related to this project, but instead of driving by and seeing people hard at work and hearing the roar of machinery, we’re not hearing any of that or seeing any of that. We see piles of sand sitting untouched and hear no activity. It’s very sad.

I did a bit of calculation with some friends in the trucking industry. It’s estimated that there is 600,000 tonnes of sand sitting, waiting, along Highway 99 as part of the project to widen Highway 99 to ease congestion and traffic. It was all going to be heading to the new bridge that was going to be built.

I hate to be cynical, but a big part of me wonders if this George Massey Tunnel project is ever going to get moving. We recently heard this government announce a new Pattullo Bridge, which is a worthy project. I’m not going to argue that. As the government has said, that span will be unsafe to drive within five years.

The Massey Tunnel is unsafe now. Why isn’t the safety of Delta commuters a priority? It seems they have no plans to fix B.C.’s worst bottleneck and relieve the gridlock and safety concerns for those motorists.

We see no mention of any relief for those folks in this budget, nor do we see relief for the widening of Highway 1, moving out to Langley, Aldergrove, Abbotsford and all the way to Chilliwack — or the Surrey LRT line. Where is it in the budget for the Broadway line that was going to be so important? It seems to me like this project and, with it, the entire community of Delta have been abandoned by this government.

There’s one more thing I’ll note about the Pattullo Bridge. This project, worth more than $1.3 billion, will be done without any federal help. Why is that? It definitely raises some questions in my mind about the current relationship between the NDP government and the federal government. Tensions are high after B.C.’s unnecessary trade war with Alberta over a pipeline that already received federal endorsement, and now all sorts of things are being impacted as a result.

I’d now like to turn to another subject that’s near and dear to my heart, and that’s agriculture. I’m a third-generation dairy farmer, and I’ve lived on the same family farm for all of my 61 years. I know the farms in Delta and the farmers that run them. We’re strong, supportive, and we’re a resilient community.

We talk to each other a lot, and what an earful I’ve been getting from them lately. A lot of their concerns have to do with this government’s plans to hike the carbon tax and the minimum wage. These measures are going to hit them hard financially, and that could mean some tough decisions ahead, like reducing staff or raising prices for their customers.

I should note that the minimum wage, in particular, came as a surprise to many of them. Danielle Synotte, communications director for the B.C. Agriculture Council said: “The government received a report from the minimum wage review commission and just adopted every recommendation without any consultation for how it would be implemented.” That doesn’t sound like a great way of working with industry.

It turns out there are other concerns around consultation on agriculture issues as well. Farmers are wondering about potential changes coming to the agricultural land reserve and the Agricultural Land Commission. The minister has put together an advisory committee to study the ALR and the ALC. Frankly, I do not see too much wrong with our ALR or our ALC.

Farmers are nervous because when they saw the names of the committee members, they saw very few farmers and ranchers on that list, not to mention some key agricultural areas of the province that were also left out, such as the Kootenays, the Similkameen Valley and the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

[4:10 p.m.]

Some important people were left out too. Ranchers, tree fruit industry people, berry growers, hay farmers, grape growers and vegetable growers are not really seen on this committee that’s out there right now. What you have is a committee made up mostly of people who have no experience actually working the land or farming, who are going to be making big recommendations and decisions that will greatly impact the people that do.

If that’s not enough, we’ve learned that the committee will only hear face to face from invited representatives from handpicked groups and associations. That means most farmers, ranchers and growers will be limited to giving on-line feedback only. If the true intention of this committee is to protect farmers and farmland, why is this government putting so many restrictions on who can give input and how they can do so? It doesn’t make much sense to me.

Finally, on the topic of agriculture, I feel this budget didn’t contain much to appeal to the folks in this important sector. At first glance, $29 million over three years for agriculture, food and seafood sounds pretty good. But when you break it down and you consider that this government has announced only $7 million of new money for the current fiscal year, there’s actually nothing really new for agribusiness. Almost all of the business development funding, $5.3 million, is the repurposing of the B.C. Liberals’ promise of a $5 million tree fruit replant program. There’s really nothing else.

Think about what that means for our wineries, who lost almost $1 million after the NDP provoked an unnecessary wine trade war with Alberta. That means no new supports from government. It’s also disappointing, given last summer’s devastating wildfire season and the tremendous losses felt by farmers, ranchers and business owners.

Also disappointing is that this budget lacks any plan to grow our economy. But that’s not a problem for the NDP. They have found one way to pay for all their spending, and that’s more taxes. This budget introduces $5.5 million in tax hikes, meaning that the NDP have introduced $8 billion in new or increased taxes since taking office last summer.

Income tax is increasing by almost $1 billion a year, a move that will cost an average British Columbian family an extra $1,000 — money that could be better used by families and put towards their own priorities, not the priorities of government. The carbon tax is also increasing, costing British Columbians more to drive their cars and heat their homes.

Being in the agriculture industry, this effect of carbon tax being raised will certainly affect our farming communities throughout British Columbia. On gas that they use, on diesel that they use, for transportation to get products to and from the farm, for supply companies to bring products to the farm, for a company to come and fix the tires on your tractor, everybody is going to be paying more in carbon tax. Everybody is going to be paying more for fuel.

It’s no longer revenue-neutral, meaning that British Columbians won’t see this money returned through corresponding tax breaks. I fail to see how this makes everyday life more affordable for British Columbians.

Perhaps most shockingly, government is introducing a new $2 billion employer health tax, a direct hit to the family-run businesses that are at the heart of our economy. This tax will take the place of the MSP, which our former B.C. Liberal government announced would be phased out and eliminated. However, when we introduced this tax cut, it was intended to be just that, a straight reduction. This was going to be a break for British Columbians, and we wouldn’t make up the money with taxes elsewhere.

While I’m pleased to see the NDP is following through on our former government’s commitment to phase out the MSP, it’s concerning to see them introducing a new tax in its place, effectively giving with one hand and taking away with the other. I know that businesses in my home community of Delta and, indeed, communities across the province will face tough choices because of this tax — the same choices I spoke about farmers facing, earlier in my remarks.

Greenhouses, BCfresh, processors, the milk plants where our milk goes to get processed — all of these have many, many employees that are going to be part of this tax, when you add up the wages and salaries of the employees that work in these agricultural businesses. Do they lay off employees, who support their families through these jobs? Will they be laid off? Will prices go up, passing this tax on to consumers? These aren’t choices a small business wants to make, but this tax places them in a tough spot.

[4:15 p.m.]

This is something government should have considered when they came up with this plan to pay for their spending. In fact, the government’s own MSP Task Force cautioned against using a payroll tax as the only means of replacing MSP revenues: “A payroll tax would reduce the 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 improve the competitive position of many U.S. businesses.”

Not only will this tax negatively impact business in our province, but it is coming into effect one year before MSP is actually being phased out. This means that for one year, government will be double-dipping, collecting both MSP and this new employer health tax in the same year. Imagine the hardship this will place on businesses who pay their employees’ MSP premiums. For one year, these businesses will be paying both MSP and this new employer health tax.

Iain Black, with the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, pointed this out as well. He says that suggesting small businesses will be exempt is not accurate. He says, “We’re a non-profit with 36 people” — well within the 50-person-or-less definition of a small business. “This is going to cost us $45,000, or one full-time entry-level employee.”

Richard Truscott, vice-president the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says: “We think the threshold should have been much higher; $500,000 in payroll may seem like a lot, but it is only between ten to 12 employees.” I’ve seen it in many cases in the last couple of days, with businesses in my riding of Delta South.

The Finance Minister’s assertion that this tax will only be paid by large businesses, that it is actually built to protect small businesses, doesn’t seem to be providing much comfort to these organizations and the people they represent. In fact, it sounds like the business community is quite astounded by this piling on of taxes.

Here’s a quote from Val Litwin of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce. He says: “When I look at the dogpile of increasing corporate tax, increasing minimum wage, loss of neutrality around the carbon tax…. Now we get to add to that a payroll tax. That’s going to be leaving businesses, by 2021, footing an almost $2 billion bill.” He goes on to say: “The impacts are real, and I think it will stifle growth and investment in key sectors.”

I can’t think of a better way to put it. The tax hikes and the pressures being put on B.C. businesses will, no doubt, trickle down to the worker and to the consumer, in addition to chipping away at our competitive advantage and thus hurting our economy. But it doesn’t need to be this way. The NDP could instead focus on attracting investment, growing jobs and our economy. Instead, they’re up to their old tricks of the 1990s. This is the same old NDP tax-and-spend which drove B.C.’s economy from first to last place in the country. It’s not a very optimistic picture moving forward, and I feel my constituents and all British Columbians deserve better from their government.

Hon. R. Fleming: I’m pleased to rise today and speak in support of Budget 2018.

This is our government’s first full budget, and it is the first progressive budget that this House, this province, has seen in 16 years. It’s a budget that delivers on pledges we made as a government, broad pledges to make life more affordable for hard-working British Columbians; to improve the public services that those British Columbians rely on; to tackle the crises that we’ve had for many, many years around child care and unaffordable housing. It meets our commitments around building a strong economy that works for everyone in our province. Really, this budget is about putting people at the centre of the choices we make for building a better British Columbia.

We know that B.C. is a wealthy province. We also know that for far too long, many British Columbians have been left behind in our province, feeling more and more economically vulnerable. That’s why there are so many critical supports around incomes and services that will help strengthen families in British Columbia and the communities where they live.

[4:20 p.m.]

There are families who work hard every day, who contribute to our economy but who struggle just to find a house to raise their family. These are people who may have to juggle two or three jobs. These are people who I represent in my constituency and other members of the House represent in their communities. These are people who can’t find child care that they can afford, and in some cases, they can’t find child care at all — in too many parts of our province.

These are constituents, like mine, who lose their jobs when they cannot find child care after the expiry of their maternity leaves. That’s an incredible cost to an individual family and an incredible cost to employers and the workforce in regional economies, like mine here in the capital regional district.

That’s why I’m so proud that our Finance Minister has tabled a budget that actually speaks to these British Columbians that we represent, that actually offers them support as they work to get ahead in life and that actually gives money in their pockets, as families who are struggling to pay bills at the end of each month — like the $1,800 per year that each working family in British Columbia will get to keep when the MSP is abolished in British Columbia, when we are no longer the last province in Canadian Confederation that has a regressive flat tax assessed to individuals, and we get rid of that system.

The other side says, “Oh, we’d like to get rid of the MSP too. We believe in that.” Their record was pretty clear over 16 years. They doubled the MSP. They raised it ten times. Almost every budget, when they raised it ten times, they’d come back into this House and go to the same well for a tax increase on the MSP. That well was middle class working families again and again and again.

This budget has said: “Enough.” It has abolished the MSP. We’ve gone from anomaly to normal, in terms of how provinces fund health care, and it means that we will no longer have a regressive MSP tax in existence. That is critically important. That’s progress, and that’s Budget 2018.

We’re supporting the largest investments in child care and housing in generations in this budget. I’m so proud that we are laying the foundations for a universal child care system in B.C., with the largest investment ever that we’ve seen in this critically important service in our communities — $1 billion over three years to make child care cheaper for families, to increase the number of child care spaces by tens of thousands in communities right across British Columbia and to ensure that those spaces are of the highest standards for quality care that we should provide in British Columbia.

The reviews are in. A previous member quoted the Vancouver Board of Trade. The reviews are in: B-plus on the budget. Pretty tough crowd to please, but B-plus on the budget and, in particular, a thumbs-up on the child care proposal, the child care plan that is before the House right now. Chambers of commerce across British Columbia….

Interjections.

Hon. R. Fleming: There’s an op-ed in the Times Colonist today. I’d ask the Liberal member across the way to have a look at it. Thumbs-up from the chamber of commerce in greater Victoria on our child care plan. It’s something the previous government never did but is laid out before this House right now in Budget 2018.

Parents don’t have to wait forever to get the benefits of this progressive plan to kick in. Five weeks from now, on April 1, a child care fee reduction program will provide funding directly to licensed care providers. That’s Budget 2018 — action delivered in communities like mine. It will mean up to $350 a month in savings for a family for a child care space in communities like mine. These fee reductions are going to benefit 50,000 families per year by the year 2020-2021.

It gets better. One of the elements of this plan that I’m so proud of and that is so progressive is how it will help hard-working families that are struggling to get by, which I’ve spoken about already, who make much more than a minimum wage but cannot afford child care at all.

[4:25 p.m.]

I think of some of the people that my kids go to school with who fall into this category — single moms who make less than $45,000 a year and simply cannot contemplate paying up to $15,000 or $16,000 or even $18,000 a year to put their infant and toddler into a child care space. That’s how much it costs.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Combine that with paying huge housing costs in communities like mine and others in British Columbia, and it almost makes work not pay. Well, our government and our child care plan does something for that. Starting in September, a single parent earning up to $45,000 a year will have free infant and toddler care in the province of British Columbia. That is a progressive, bold step that the province of British Columbia is taking, and it’s one that’s going to be vitally good for families and our economy.

We’re also working on the supply side, creating 22,000 new licensed child care spaces all over B.C. We’re going to work with all of our partners to educate and train the early childhood educators who will be needed in the months and years ahead, as we build out a comprehensive child care system.

I know my colleagues the Minister of Children and Family Development and the Minister of State for Child Care will have much more to say about this, in this debate and outside of the House. But I do want to acknowledge the great work that both of those colleagues of mine have done in kick-starting investments in child care that the previous government simply refused to make.

I’m also pleased that Budget 2018 provides $9 million to the Ministry of Education to play our part in supporting child care and the new early learning initiatives. We know that there is an incredibly strong connection between early learning success and success in the K-to-12 education system. We have today, in this patchwork system of child care in British Columbia, less than four out of ten kids involved in structured child care in the province of British Columbia. When it gets to kindergarten, 99.4 percent — I believe, if I’m quoting accurately — of kids are involved in the kindergarten system.

That’s six out of ten kids that are missing, that are arriving and often are assessed by the school system, through the early development initiative, and are found to be vulnerable on a number of fronts. They’re not ready to learn. That’s the sad reality — that some kids are set up to fail from day one of school. They’re not positioned as well as other kids.

Many of those would be kids that have benefited from high-quality child care spaces in our province. That’s why the investment that we are making, the $1 billion over the next three years, and investments beyond that, are so critically important. We want to have more kids successful in K to 12, as a precursor to go on to higher education beyond that, to meet the diverse array of skills and opportunities out there to have, to participate in the economy, to be able to earn a living wage and raise a family in the province of British Columbia.

It starts at the earliest age, to boost the chance of success in the K-to-12 system to go on to higher education in British Columbia or another province. But to be able to open those doors of opportunity, it starts at the very earliest age. And that’s why this investment is so critically important.

The early learning funds that I have spoken to, in the Ministry of Education, will provide a few things. It will provide an initial investment in early learning initiatives. This includes the development of an early learning framework. It will build capacity in school districts. It will also help them derive interest and provide space for child care spaces. It will also provide an ongoing evaluation of our existing early learning programs that we have in the ministry and in our communities.

That’s money well spent. That’s money that will help ramp up all of the other pillars of the early childhood education investment that we’re making in the government. It’s one that’s critically important, and it’s one, I’m happy to say, that the ministry is hard at work achieving, right now as we speak.

Let me turn now to one of the other priorities outlined in Budget 2018: affordable housing. We’ve seen skyrocketing home values all across Metro Vancouver, here in the capital regional district and other parts of the province. They have literally left people in the cold — renters who can’t find a place to live.

I have met, last Christmas…. My constituency office tried to help a 71-year-old woman who was living in her car for nine months because she’d been renovicted from an apartment she held for 40 years. That’s one example of what’s happening in communities across British Columbia, and happening to far too many people.

[4:30 p.m.]

That’s what’s been going on in our rental housing market that’s been far too tight. That’s what you get when you have a 0.5 percent vacancy rate, as we do here in the capital regional district — the worst vacancy rate, if you will, in the entire country, followed closely by Vancouver.

We have young families who have to leave their communities because they can’t afford a home where they grew up. The distorted housing market has actually limited the dreams, hopes and aspirations of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people in British Columbia. That’s why it’s urgent, and it must be addressed. That’s why I’m so proud that we have a budget that is doing that.

We’re taking action on a number of areas where the previous government, quite frankly, feared to tread. We’ve got a comprehensive housing plan that, among other things, seeks to address and tackle speculation.

Speculation has had an absolutely negative impact on the well-being and quality of life for so many British Columbians. It has been out of control. It has driven prices out of reach for so many young families and single buyers. That’s why we’re taking action on it. That’s why we’re raising the foreign buyers tax to 20 percent, and why we’re extending it to the capital regional district, the Fraser Valley, Central Okanagan and Nanaimo.

We’re introducing a new annual speculation tax as a disincentive to driving up prices simply to realize gains on investments. We have all heard and know examples in our own communities where this kind of negative, cancerous activity of speculation on real estate has gotten out of control.

I have heard people talk about how they buy ten or 12 condo units at a time, hold on to them for three months and sell them for spectacular gains. That’s not the kind of thing that our domestic real estate market should prioritize. It’s something the previous government turned a blind eye to, but it has had a cumulative negative impact on hundreds of thousands of domestic British Columbians. We cannot allow that to continue, and this budget will tackle that problem head-on.

We’ll close loopholes that will counter money laundering and tax fraud. Can you believe how long this problem has been going on in the province of British Columbia? I don’t have to cite the media exposés that have been brought to the attention of members of the former government, but this has been a consistent, chronic problem that is linked not just to driving up real estate prices and impacting hard-working British Columbians in terms of their housing costs…. It’s also associated with the criminal underworld, drug importation and all kinds of social problems in British Columbia.

Why wouldn’t the previous government have taken decisive action on that problem? Well, I can’t answer that question, but maybe they can. I am proud that at our first opportunity to table a full budget, we are exactly going after that kind of tax fraud and money laundering in our housing market in this budget. We have a $7 billion comprehensive housing plan that does much more than that.

We’re taking action to ensure our province has diverse, affordable and inclusive neighbourhoods. I’m so proud that, already — even with the budget being introduced; it will be debated, and then it will be passed, but even upon introduction and knowledge out there of some of the pillars of our housing plan — the non-profit housing sector is working with communities, school districts and other partners out there to find land and affordable housing opportunities to build tens of thousands of units.

In one of the communities I represent — one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Victoria–Swan Lake, Burnside Gorge — we’ve got the Pacifica Housing company, which is a non-profit association with a very large presence here on Vancouver Island, signing a memorandum of understanding, already, with the city of Victoria and the province, within days of us releasing information about what Budget 2018 might have around housing.

There is more and more interest each and every day. The takeup and the pent-up demand to work with a government that is going to provide the funds to build thousands of units in communities like mine is unbelievable.

I can also say that some of the people that are very pleased with this budget include university and college presidents. For over a decade, they told that government — the former government, the members across the way — that we should be building residences on campuses.

At the University of Victoria, for every five students, young adults, that apply for a dormitory or a residence on that campus, four of them are turned away. We could have built hundreds of units over many, many years, and all of them would have been filled. It would have helped address the 0.5 percent vacancy rate that I spoke of earlier. It would help every renter in the capital region.

[4:35 p.m.]

The previous government even acknowledged it in the 2009 throne speech. I’m sure that you remember that one, Madame Speaker. It was a classic. In 2009, this government promised they were going to take action and allow universities to finally build student residences again. Eight budgets came and went, and nothing happened. Well, today Budget 2018 will allow universities and colleges to build student housing on land that is available, that is already paid for, that is owned by the public, so that we can resolve the housing rental crisis that we have in communities like mine.

Let me now turn to the budget for my own ministry, which is a critically important ministry, for so many reasons. Critically important around looking ahead in terms of the kinds of jobs and shared prosperity we hope to create as a province; in terms of creating a talented, diverse — in terms of skills and competencies — globally literate and democratic citizenry. That’s the mandate of the Ministry of Education, in my view: to lay the groundwork, to build the foundation and to drive continuous improvement in our school system so that B.C. remains a strong economy among the top of the OECD and providing opportunities for the next generations.

That’s why Budget 2018 is a real investment, a future-oriented investment, because it invests now in our kids. It will provide $1.8 billion, over three years, to replace aging schools, add more spaces in growing communities and fast-track seismic upgrades that are long overdue. This is an historic investment after years of underfunding.

It’s not just that we’re investing more; we’re investing smarter. Unlike the previous government, we’re actually going to spend the money that’s in the budget on building the schools that we plan to build. Since 2012, I’d remind the former Minister of Education, the previous government actually underspent its capital budget by up to 29 percent in each year. He might want to remember the year after they won the 2013 election, when they promised all sorts of things on the seismic upgrade front. In that year, they underspent their capital budget by one-third.

We’re doing it differently. We’re working with communities to fast-track investments.

Interjections.

Hon. R. Fleming: Maybe the member should look at what we’ve done since Labour Day. I know it hurts him, but we’ve spent $300 million….

Deputy Speaker: Members, through the Chair.

Hon. R. Fleming: We’ve spent $300 million since Labour Day fast-tracking new seismic investments, and we’re just getting started. There are 50 more over the next 18 months to address the backlog left by the previous government. Budget 2018 allows us to do that. In this budget is $508 million to maintain and rehabilitate schools. A new $15 million playground equipment program is in the budget, which is very much appreciated by parent groups around the province — parent groups that don’t have the capacity, quite frankly, to hold nine years of bake sales to buy playground equipment and put it on their schools. Okay? That’s in there.

The capital budget increase in spending next year will go up by $150 million because we’re building momentum in the school sector and working with school districts right around British Columbia to get schools in the ground, to approve them faster. It shouldn’t take seven years to build a school in a community in British Columbia. It should take three to four years, at the very most, and we’re working with districts now to speed implementation and capital spending in different parts of the province. That’s what we’re doing.

Budget 2018, when I say smarter investments, also includes a new feature: a $100 million enrolment growth program so that we have a new envelope of capital spending that will add classrooms in districts that have rapidly growing enrolments. We do have that in different parts of the province now, even within districts like Vancouver or Richmond, for example, where you have growth in one part of the city that is starting to accelerate and exacerbate the lack of education infrastructure in those communities.

We’ll be able to use this fund to fund expansions that will alleviate overcrowding as those opportunities arrive. I think that is something that the school sector has welcomed. We’ve responded, and it’s a part of Budget 2018 that I think is critically important.

[4:40 p.m.]

Budget 2018 also makes good on our commitment to fully fund the memorandum of agreement with the BCTF. Government is now supporting the MOA with more than $400 million annually to fund 3,700 full-time, new teaching positions in British Columbia. Now that’s an incredible thing, if you stop to think about it — 3,700 new teachers. This is the largest hiring of teaching professionals in the province in generations.

It has not been easy. We thank our school district partners, who have led a massive national, out-of-province and in-province, and international recruitment drive to get skilled teachers to come back to British Columbia. It has been incredibly successful in every part of the province.

There are some areas where we will need to look at recruitment and retention of teachers, both in the short term but also in the medium term. We have to train more specialist teachers. There’s no doubt about that. We have teacher shortages in certain categories of teachers.

I’m very proud that we were able, in very short order, beginning last late October, to nominate and name a recruitment and retention task force that took just six weeks to report and give back to the Ministry of Education an action-oriented report. There are a number of recommendations there that are very thoughtful and that are going to help us to tackle the recruitment and the retention issues that we face and know are coming at us, going forward.

One of those items was to begin to train more teachers starting September 1 — the next intake in our universities and our faculties of education — and $900,000 more to train an additional 100 specialist teachers, starting September 1, and funded by the Ministry of Education. That is the kind of action that we need to fill some of the gaps. We’re looking at other opportunities to make sure that we have the teachers on call and we have the specialist teachers that are needed in our communities.

It hurts me to see new parents bringing their kids into the school system for the first time. Young kindergarteners who want, for example, French immersion classes, and they can only provide a finite amount of spaces. They’re not meeting the expectations and the interests for the different kinds of choices that we want our dynamic school system to have. That’s why we’re going to continue to work on this problem with our key partners.

Our government has an ambitious agenda at the Ministry of Education. We’ve already launched B.C.’s first comprehensive review of the outdated funding system that we have had for over a decade. This will be the first time we’ve had a public, deliberative, thoughtful and comprehensive look at how funding is allocated and how funding decisions are made and what the relationship is between the key education partners, the province and school districts in 25 or 30 years. I’m actually not sure. It’s been so long since we’ve done this. But we’re already underway.

We worked with the B.C. School Trustees Association to come up with a set of principles of what that review should look like. We’ll have more details on that, Madame Speaker. I know that you’ll be keen to hear them and to participate in that exercise.

The reason we are funding this exercise and working with our partners to have a deep look at the education system in British Columbia, to compare with what other innovative jurisdictions have done around the world and to find a more stable way to fund schools — whether they’re remote or rural or inner-city or suburban — is to focus the attention of everybody working in the education system, all of the partners, on an agenda of student success.

We should be looking at how we can nudge numbers up in terms of the students that feel engaged, feel like they are getting the education that they expect and anticipate, and feel prepared to transition into career and further education.

The exit interviews which we do for graduating classes show a negative trend over the last six years. Even as graduation rates largely went up provincewide, although there were some districts where they were falling, the reviews by students themselves exiting the school system said that they felt less prepared for post-secondary education and the world of work than they would like to be. That is something that we have to correct.

[4:45 p.m.]

Students are at the centre of the education system. It sounds silly to have to say that, but sometimes you have to say that in the audiences of other professionals working in the school system. And that’s what the comprehensive funding review that our government is doing has to be about. It has to be student-centred. It has to be focused on boosting achievement levels.

Of course, within the student success agenda that we are pushing and working with our partners on, we know that we have to pay extra attention to help certain types of learners or certain groups of students who we might categorize as vulnerable if we’re going to boost outcomes for all children in B.C. I think one of those groups that undoubtedly has to be mentioned, and there are significant supports and investments in this budget to help them, is Indigenous students.

We have to start down the road, as the Truth and Reconciliation calls to action oblige us to do, with doing better for First Nations and Indigenous students in B.C. We know that the school system, such as it was once upon a time, was used to degrade, humiliate and culturally suppress an entire people in the province of British Columbia.

We can be proud as a nation when we look at how well immigrant students have done in our school system, how we have empowered generations of new Canadians for success because of our education system, people who have built our countries. Conversely, it’s our nation’s greatest shame that the residential school system did the opposite to First Nations people for so long and for so many years. It traumatized and dislocated an entire people, even within families.

It falls to us to make sure that the racism that shut out First Nations people from the mainstream of British Columbia life in the 19th and the 20th century — shut them out entirely of the economy and left them traumatized in their communities — is replaced with an education system that lifts up, liberates and empowers First Nations people to take their rightful equal place in Canadian society and in our economy. That is an obligation that falls upon a number of ministries in government, but the Ministry of Education is key among them. I am proud to say that this budget is moving us a long ways towards not just recognizing but taking action on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s key findings.

We are focused now on closing the gap even more aggressively between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students in terms of the high school completion rate. We have two major pieces where we are working with First Nations communities to boost the achievement rates of their young people.

One is the new curriculum, and we’re continuing that in grades 10 to 12, most critically, which now has significant amounts of embedded Indigenous content. There’s more work being done on the senior grade levels and on the graduation program with regards to that. We’re ensuring that the content in B.C.’s curriculum accurately and fairly reflects the rich history and the significant contributions of Indigenous people. That’s critically important because that wasn’t the case just a few short years ago.

It’s something that I’m so happy to say I have seen communities across British Columbia embrace and do well at. But we have 17 Indigenous languages taught in some capacity in our schools. We’re adding six more. There’s much more to do, but Budget 2018 is a strong foundation for education and social and economic success in British Columbia. Thank you.

M. Bernier: I’d like to say it’s a privilege, which it is, to rise in this House at all times to speak. But in this specific instance, speaking to the budget that we have in front of us, it’s an interesting time, when we get to actually be in the House and actually debate this. It’s unfortunate the member who spoke before me basically talked about the fact there’s no point debating it. It’s already passed. Obviously, the Green members got the memo of what they have to do and how they have to vote, which is unfortunate because I thought they had a free vote in the House.

In saying that, it’s important that we move forward and actually have these discussions to make sure as an opposition that we’re also not only scrutinizing but making the public aware of where the flaws are in this budget.

[4:50 p.m.]

There are some things in this budget that are good. It’s unfortunate that when we listen to the NDP, everything is doom and gloom. In fact, I’m trying to highlight the fact that there are a few things in this budget that are good. It’s very rare that we’ve heard the NDP ever stand up and speak of any other budget other than their own that is good.

One of the things that we really need to focus on is making lives better for the people in British Columbia. It’s absolutely appalling and insulting when we’re in this House and every member of the NDP stands up and figures that they own the narrative, that they’re the only ones that care for people in British Columbia.

I look at the great work that was done by the last government — some of the ministers, the work that they did to help vulnerable students and to help families in British Columbia. For the NDP to stand up and pretend that nothing good has ever happened in this province under their watch is absolutely appalling and insulting. I know the people of British Columbia see it that way as well.

As a member of this Legislature, my first and foremost job is to stand up and talk about how we can do better supports for the people in my riding, the people who elected me. I want to thank them again for the privilege and the honour, as we all have in this House, to be able to be here and represent our constituents. My riding association, my family, my constituency assistants and everybody in my riding, I want to thank them.

One of the things that we need to talk about, and we’ve talked about before…. People come into our constituency offices all the time. They want to ask questions about the budget. They want to ask questions about the throne speech. They want to ask questions about what’s happening in this House. At no time…. I would be absolutely shocked if any member in this House actually said: “I want to know who you voted for first.”

We represent everyone in our riding. We represent all the people who have issues, all the people who are vulnerable and all the people who have concerns. At no time do we sit there and ask who they voted for. We go through an election process, obviously, to choose who is going to be the representative. But when that representative is in this House, when they’re in the constituency, they’re there representing everyone. I’d be shocked if anybody stood up in this House and said otherwise. Actually, I guess I am shocked, because I’ve heard people from the Green and the NDP actually insinuate that exact comment.

I want to welcome — today’s an exciting day — our member for Kelowna West. Today puts us in a very exciting situation to have a seat that’s been vacant for the last little while, and that seat’s filled. It’s also important to recognize that puts us to 42 seats on this side of the House. Interesting. The opposition has 42 seats and government has 41, but I won’t digress into that discussion, only to highlight the fact that it’s great to have our member for Kelowna West here in this House.

When we’re talking about the budget, typically, we stand in this House and talk about what’s in the budget. That’s going to be really difficult today, because a lot of this stuff is talking about what’s not in the budget and some of the discussions that are taking place in my riding.

I listened to the throne speech with anticipation of what I was going to be hearing that was going to help people in my corner of the province — I would say, in so many ways, the economic engine of this province. I was hoping to hear, in the throne speech and then highlighted in the budget, supports for agriculture, which I don’t really see. Supports for mining, which I don’t even hear anything about or see. Supports for LNG, for natural gas. All I’m hearing is that it’s time to do more consultation and more reviews, which are actually going to slow down those exact industries and those exact groups that we’re trying to be supporting.

When you look at LNG, specifically, there are huge opportunities from my corner of the province to get the gas out of the ground, but for the province of British Columbia. I won’t get into all of the debates and details of how the NDP have flipped back and forth on their support, not support and support for jobs and for LNG, but there are 3,000 jobs that we could have right now in LNG.

What’s appalling is that I would say it shows the situation we’re in with this minority government when the leader of the Green Party can put out a tweet and the now Premier has to stop in the middle of a trade mission where he now says he supports LNG. He has to absolutely stop his trade mission because of a tweet to go out there and actually say: “No, actually, I do now support LNG,” even though the leader of the Green Party says he’s drawing a land in line in the sand, is going to take down government.

Actually, I think it’s time to go on a field trip down to the beach because, according to the Green leader, there are a lot of lines in the sand. Maybe the tide came in and washed them all away, because he hasn’t followed through with any of the threats that he’s actually talked about.

[4:55 p.m.]

The point is: what does this do for the investment climate here in British Columbia? Why would a company in China, who graciously took time out of their schedule…? They could be investing anywhere in the world but took time out of their schedule to meet with our now Premier. I commend him for going over and meeting with them, because that is important. It’s unfortunate that we get into the debate between the minority government of whether we should or shouldn’t be even be doing that.

The message that’s being sent is absolutely going to be disastrous for the province of British Columbia if we’re not careful. Why would somebody want to invest here? I’ll get into some of the details that are actually just compounding this stressful situation for companies in a minute.

When you look at the situation that we’re in right now in B.C., where we’re sending mixed messages — mixed messages on investment, pretty strong investments — about how we don’t want a lot of that investment in here…. When you look at the natural gas industry…. Okay, be careful. Now we’re going to have a fracking review. This could cost lots of money. Let’s start a fight with Alberta. Well, that’s going to affect pipelines right around the province.

I’m wondering if the members opposite, when the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is out there touting how great our province now is…. I’m really, really impressed with the epiphany she had, and I want to thank her for that.

One of the things that I’m concerned about, when we look at the position the government’s now taking about fighting with companies and trying to stop them from coming in…. Companies that actually followed the rules. Companies that said: “We want to invest in British Columbia. Tell me what I need to do in order to invest here. What are the rules? How can I invest in British Columbia? And how will that help the economy and the budget in B.C.?”

They follow the rules. They get a permit. Then they’re told: “Sorry. We want to change the rules.” How would you feel, hon. Speaker, if you were driving home and a policeman pulled you over for doing 95 in a 100 zone, and he says: “I want to ticket you for speeding, because I feel it should only be 85. I know those are the rules. I know those are the laws. But we just want to make them up as we go here.” The citizens of British Columbia would be appalled, and I think our companies are in the same position that they have to be worried about.

Investment in B.C. is important. Companies coming to British Columbia and investing is what helps put money in the coffers for government to reinvest for vulnerable people, for citizens of B.C., for the projects and for what we need.

I think the government, now, is finding very quickly that it’s real easy to criticize, and it’s real darn hard to make an actual decision. When you look at almost, I think, 30 consultations that are underway…. I think the next one we’re going to hear next week is probably a task force that’s being put together to keep track of the consultations to make sure none of them slip through the cracks.

Again, these are the issues that we’re faced with. People want certainty. Investors want certainty. Families want certainty. When we talk about certainty, this budget does the exact opposite of that in so many ways.

When they looked, in the last election, about what they wanted to see in a government, it was pretty easy for the NDP to stand up and promise a $10-a-day child care, because a lot of people wanted to hear that. It’s unfortunate that in this budget, again, they’re not following through with that.

It’s interesting to hear that they wanted to promise 114,000 affordable housing units, and then in the throne speech, they announced 1,700. I guess a 1 percent target for the NDP is pretty good — if they can stay within 1 percent of their promises.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: The minister across will love to heckle me on this, but she’s the one that’s actually not able to stand up and contradict the fact that they’re not going to be meeting their promises. If she does so, I’d love to hear the fact that I’m wrong and that she’s going to be building, in the next four years, the 114,000 units.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: Well, I won’t even digress into a debate on the floor, which I easily could.

When you look at the promises that the NDP made in order to try to convince people to vote for them, which…. By the way, they still didn’t get more votes and more seats. Again, I don’t want to digress to that comment.

[5:00 p.m.]

People did want a change. People did want to know that they had a government that was listening. They did want to know that they were having a government that was going to be putting issues first that are going to help families. Unfortunately, the party that was promising that isn’t delivering it. People are going to wake up really quickly and realize what’s going on.

Actually, it reminds me of that movie, Hot Tub Time Machine, a flashback to the ’90s. That’s exactly where we’re at now. Of all of these promises that are being made, none of them are being delivered on, except for tax increases. Maybe it’s really important that people remember what happened in the 1990s. We went through an exactly similar situation here. I’m being reminded of this because companies were investing in British Columbia and families were moving to British Columbia until taxes went up, until there were fewer jobs. It was because of companies not wanting to invest here.

Families were looking to put food on the table. What did they do? They had to move away from British Columbia. Does it happen overnight? No, it doesn’t. Are companies going to pick up their dollars overnight? No, they’re not. But we’re going to start seeing that trend happen very quickly, unless the government starts realizing that if they’re actually making it more expensive for companies to invest here, they’re not going to. Money can be invested anywhere. That money that’s invested brings jobs. It brings jobs that support families. It also supports our schools. It supports our hospitals. It supports what’s important for the people in B.C, what they’re asking for.

Again, in the budget there were some things that I want to acknowledge and recognize — you know, supporting vulnerable people. We heard, loud and clear in the last election, that people want us to be investing possibly differently, possibly investing more. But by raising taxes on companies, by raising taxes on people in B.C., how is that making life more affordable?

We heard about making life affordable. “Don’t worry. Elect us, and you’ll get a $400 rebate, if you’re a renter. We’re going to make life more affordable.” I don’t see that in the budget. Well, that’s because it’s not in the budget. The government has even acknowledged that they’re not putting that in.

What they did do was $5.5 billion of tax increases. I don’t know about you, hon. Speaker, but I’m not sure how $5.5 billion of tax increases in British Columbia is somehow, overnight, saying that it’s making things more affordable. Now you compound on, increasing minimum wage to small business. You look at some of the stories that we’re hearing from people around B.C., saying, “Okay. If I have to pay this new health tax,” which I’ll talk about in a second, “if I’m going to have to raise minimum wage, and I’m in a small business, you’re actually putting me out of business.” You’re actually going to be looking at small business….

I come from small business. My family was fortunate enough to raise me, running a small business in Vancouver, so I know the stress. I know the fact that the margins aren’t high. I know the fact that small businesses are the lifeline to small communities. They’re the ones that step up and support sports clubs, support kids who are raising money for school programs. These small businesses — we rely on them. To increase taxes to them, to make things less affordable, is completely the wrong direction that we should be going here in the province of British Columbia.

When we look at this health payroll tax…. I’ve heard the Minister of Finance stand up and say: “No, no. It’s okay. We’re getting rid of a tax, by adding a tax. We’re getting rid of MSP tax, and we’re putting it into a health payroll tax.” Somehow they’re trying to tout that as a success. What would have been a success is if they actually did what we were trying to do — which was to make sure that we had the strong economy and money coming in, so that when you actually eliminate the MSP, it’s not replaced with anything.

That’s called savings. That’s called money in your pocket. That’s called help for school districts. That’s called help to municipalities. That’s called help for families. When you get rid of an MSP and just say, “Well, guess what. A tax is a tax, but there’s nothing to see here,” according to the Premier, when, in fact you’re replacing it with an equivalent — and, actually, in a lot of cases, a more expensive — tax, you’re actually hurting people.

[5:05 p.m.]

I had a call from a company in Kelowna that said: “Maybe, to the NDP, $200,000 a year might not seem like a lot of money in a $50 billion budget. But — guess what — $200,000 to my small business is going to make the difference of whether I grow my business or, even worse, that means I’m laying people off or not hiring summer students, and I normally hire six or eight summer students per year.”

What it’s also doing is making companies rethink how they want to invest or grow. This one company, again in Kelowna, told me:

“We’re looking at expanding. We want to hire another hundred people. We want to double the size of our company, and we have an opportunity to do that. In fact, a lot of our business is done in Alberta, and we’re very proud of the fact that we chose to be stationed in B.C. even though we’re hiring all of these people now in Alberta.

“Well, guess what. We have to rethink that plan now, because we might as well move our head office to Calgary, employ the people from Calgary through Calgary and avoid paying that new payroll health tax.”

What does it do? It puts more money into another province’s pocket.

Back to my comment. We saw this happening in the 1990s. Does it take a few years? Absolutely. But companies think about this, because they need to stay in business. They need to stay responsible to their shareholders as well.

Members before me have stood up and talked about how this tax is going to be a double-dipping tax next year. It absolutely…. I’m flabbergasted by the fact that the NDP members opposite stand up and say: “Don’t worry. You’re saving 50 percent this year when it goes down.” Somehow it’s okay to kiss somebody before you smack them, I guess. “It’s okay to save money this year, but we’ll double it next year.” Somehow that’s good. I guess that’s NDP math for you again, but I have a hard time understanding how that helps people here in British Columbia.

One of the issues I face in my riding is competitiveness. Why competitiveness is so important is because the majority of the industries in my riding are very susceptible to issues in Alberta, because I live on the border.

One of the challenges that I always hear from our small businesses is: “How do I stay competitive against an Alberta company who doesn’t have to pay a provincial sales tax, who doesn’t have to now pay for an increase in this carbon tax” — which is going up, and I’ll get to that in a second — “and who’s not going to have to pay for all of these other issues around a health tax?” It is very hard, if not almost impossible, for a small business in my riding to compete with a company who is a mere ten kilometres away in Alberta, doing the exact same business.

Now, I don’t know about you, hon. Speaker, but I want to actually stand up for the companies in my riding. I want to stand up for the businesses here in British Columbia. We want them to be competitive. We want them to invest here, and we want those family-supporting jobs to be here in British Columbia.

That is not going to continue under this budget, unless we’re very, very careful. That’s why we need to be highlighting this, because that certainty and that competitiveness is what people expect. It’s what the companies need if they want to invest here in British Columbia.

Now, one of the other issues, of course, we heard about is this…. Well, they’re calling it a speculation tax. You could almost call it a tourism tax in some ways. Once again, the government has picked the wrong tool to try to fix the issue. A speculation tax, 2 percent, to go after people and say, “We’re going to tax you more,” thinking that’s going to lower the value of a house. “We’re going to tax you more,” thinking that somehow that’s going to make life more affordable for people. I don’t know about members in the NDP, but I know that on this side of the House, we recognize the fact that if you tax somebody more, that’s actually less affordable.

If you actually are taxing somebody…. I’ve got a letter here, an email that a woman sent me, saying: “I’m born and raised in British Columbia, lived there for 30 years. I moved to Alberta….” Coincidentally — and I’m not being cynical of this — she moved to Alberta in the 1990s for work, but she kept her house here on Vancouver Island, on a lake outside of Nanaimo. She is being told now that, even though she owns her house here in B.C., because she is living and working in Alberta and it’s the family home on the lake that they had, she’s going to have to actually pay an additional tax.

[5:10 p.m.]

Again, some people might think, in the NDP, a $6,000-a-year additional tax isn’t a lot of money. But for this person, it is. I flip this back, and I say: “How would we feel if we were fortunate or people here in British Columbia were fortunate enough to own a cabin in Jasper to go skiing in the winter?” But oh, God forbid, they’re from British Columbia. So they’re now going to be taxed now by Alberta. Well, that’s what we’re doing.

At what point did we build this wall between provinces and forget the fact that we’re actually all Canadians? We have rules in place to try to help British Columbia. Obviously, we need to be standing up for people here. But to penalize other Canadians that want to invest in British Columbia, thinking that that is going to miraculously, overnight, solve a housing crisis…. I don’t know if somebody out of province investing in a summer home or a winter cottage for skiing is somehow disastrous, according to the NDP, and we have to tax them more.

I don’t know how raising and having a 20 percent vacancy tax on a house in Vancouver is, obviously, going to somehow lower the price. Somebody making $50,000 or $60,000 a year, as the NDP are saying…. Somehow taxing that $3 million, $4 million, $5 million, $6 million home a little bit more is going to help that person on minimum wage or making $50,000 a year. Somehow, miraculously now, they’re going to be able to afford that $6 million house because of this 20 percent foreign buyer tax. No, absolutely not. Hogwash. It’s tax coming in. It is just the government trying to get more money and looking for a way to do it.

Now, I might be okay with it if they all of a sudden turned around and said: “Guess what. We’re going to use that money and reinvest it in an area that’s going to help middle-class families in housing.” But they haven’t done that. No, they’re collecting all of this extra tax in this budget. They’re putting in all these extra fees. They’re charging all these extra areas to people in British Columbia to raise more money so they can miraculously say: “Even though it’s a $5.5 billion increase in tax….”

Why? So they can try to balance the budget. They know that the revenues are going to be going down. They know, with these decisions, that there’s going to be less investment in the province. So let’s just hide it in other places. Hopefully, people won’t know. A year from now we’ll see where we’re at and cross our fingers, knock on wood, that companies haven’t migrated out of the province, which, unfortunately, I think they’re going to do.

One of the things that we used to pride ourselves on when we were in government is that competitiveness. Since when was it a race to have the highest taxes? We used to pride ourselves on the fact that…. Please come to British Columbia. You want to live here as a family. You want to settle here. You want to invest here. You want to raise your family here. We have some of the lowest taxes in Canada. We had some of the lowest small business and corporate taxes in Canada.

The NDP gets into government and just says: “Holy cow. We’ve got the lowest taxes. We can’t have that. We better start raising them. It’s okay to be the same as everyone else. It’s okay to charge more.” Well, that is a completely flawed approach to the economics of how you want to get people into the province of British Columbia to invest.

The point is you need to make things more affordable for everyone. You want to make life more affordable for families. We all want to do that. If we’re scaring the jobs and the investment and the people out of British Columbia, how is that making life more affordable? That is a completely backwards approach to how we should be trying to help the people here in British Columbia.

When you look at what we need to be doing, this budget misses the mark in so many ways. Again, I don’t want to go and do myself what I was accusing the NDP of doing. There are some good things in this budget. We heard loud and clear in the last election that there are other areas that we can invest in and that we need to be recognizing that there were areas that government was shopping….

Interjection.

[5:15 p.m.]

M. Bernier: It’s unfortunate that the Leader of the Green Party has to come in here. Of course, he’s the first one to try to stop all the investment and, actually, the first one to try to do….

Interjection.

M. Bernier: Well, it’s unfortunate now that the member of the Green Party has to continue being so disrespectful and insulting. I guess that’s his character in his narcissistic way. He just wants to be on the record in some way.

What’s really important here is that we’re actually doing what’s important for the people in the province of British Columbia. I’m sure the member of the Green Party will have his opportunity. Oh, wait a sec. He already did, and most of us weren’t listening to it.

What’s important is that we are making these investments. This budget that’s in front of us…. If you’re going to be increasing taxes, if you’re going to be doing that to businesses in the province of British Columbia, how is that making life more affordable?

With that…. Obviously, I could continue on. Instead, I’ll actually….

Interjection.

M. Bernier: It’s okay. If the leader of the Green Party wants to continue to be insulting…. Obviously, that means that I’ve hit a sore spot with him, and he’s recognizing the fact that he is wrong yet again.

I could continue. Actually, I might continue going on. I’m enjoying the fact that the leader of the Green Party once again thinks that he knows more than everybody in this House and wants to talk over everybody. Maybe he should actually respect the House here and the fact that some of us might have a difference of opinion to him. Many of the people in my riding actually don’t agree with him. Actually, a lot of people in Kelowna West, according to the last election, don’t agree with him. I know he spent a lot of time up there campaigning. How did that work for him?

It’s really important, again, before I sit down, that we actually look at what’s affecting the people here in British Columbia.

I’m glad the green light came on. I’ve got two more minutes if I want to continue going after the leader of the Green Party who, unfortunately, doesn’t want to recognize the fact that I have the floor.

Again, looking forward to the fact that…. Most of the members in this House on our side have done our due diligence, have recognized where some of the flaws are in this budget — that it’s actually not meeting the test of what the people of B.C. are wanting. That’s why we will be voting against it.

M. Elmore: It’s a great honour to rise and take my place in this House and speak towards this historic budget, which I am just so proud for our government to bring in, and address the priorities, the concerns, the issues and the realities that British Columbians face, not only in Vancouver-Kensington but right across our province.

I was listening to our colleague from across the way, in terms of his remarks and his experience as the previous Minister of Education under the previous B.C. Liberal government. I just wanted to make a few remarks, as well, in terms of my experience representing Vancouver-Kensington — now in my third term, ninth year — and the contrast in terms of my first two terms when it was under the government of the B.C. Liberals, specifically on education.

I think that, certainly, was one defining issue with respect to the hardship and what I would characterize as the battle that the previous government really took against teachers and against our public education system. That was one of the very active issues that parents in Vancouver-Kensington were very actively engaged in. I was very pleased to support their efforts around ensuring that local schools remained open and that there was adequate funding of public education.

The record of the previous 16 years on education has been characterized by a fight against teachers, by underfunding our public education system, really to the extent that it took a decision from the B.C. Supreme Court that the B.C. government should adequately fund public education. That’s the record on the other side.

[5:20 p.m.]

I’m just very honoured that our government doesn’t need to be told by the Supreme Court that we should adequately fund public education. I’m very pleased that with this budget we make a significant investment in public education and that we are looking at what the concerns of British Columbians are. This budget, our Budget 2018, really looks at putting people at the centre. We know that after the past 16 years, coming into government with the support of the B.C. Green Party in a minority government and having the opportunity to table Budget 2018, it’s a very historic day. It’s a historic budget, and it’s something that I’m very proud about.

For too long, we’ve really seen the impact of 16 years of the previous government, the B.C. Liberals. What has it been? I want to just talk about that, contrast that and talk about the priorities and the commitments moving forward with the budget now. We know that British Columbians really endured cuts to services, just incredible increases to fees and affordability crises, as well as tax cuts for the rich. These were the priorities and the decisions that the B.C. Liberals prioritized. That’s how they governed, and those were the decisions that they made in terms of their time in government.

After years of neglect, British Columbians now have a budget that is balanced and a budget that puts people first. I think that that certainly is our priority, not only in the budget today but every day in government. People are at the centre of our policies, our decisions, our budget. Decisions that we make look to address affordability for British Columbians, look to ensure that British Columbians have the support of public services and, certainly, that it’s a sustainable economy that not only balances concerns around our environment but ensures that British Columbians have good-paying jobs to support themselves and their families.

We know, and I know particularly in Vancouver, the issue around the housing crisis was just incredible and certainly the worst. We could characterize it as the worst crisis in our country around unaffordability, just putting incredible pressure on British Columbians. That has been one of the main commitments of this budget: to take action to begin to tackle this housing crisis.

I know we had the previous members talking about record investments, but I think, without debate, we can all agree, regardless of which side of the House, that this budget tabled is the largest investment in housing in the history of our province. I’m very proud of that. That is certainly much needed.

When we talk about the issues around our housing market, I know I’ve talked to many folks in Vancouver-Kensington who have great difficulty finding affordable, adequate and safe housing. Certainly, I hear from families who have challenges finding affordable rentals. I hear from students who have difficulty finding housing while they’re going to school. I meet seniors, as well, who have difficulty around affordable seniors housing while they’re on a fixed income. With rental rates near zero, there’s also just the difficulty for folks to get into the housing market.

The crisis in our housing market didn’t appear overnight. It has come to this point after years of — as I would characterize it — neglect, oversight and, really, a lack of focus and priority of the previous government in addressing concerns around housing and ensuring that British Columbians have access to affordable, safe and adequate housing.

[5:25 p.m.]

That is one of the main priorities of this budget: to ensure that British Columbians have access to housing. It’s a human right, and it’s something that our government believes in. To that end, it’s not a simple matter. It’s not a one-off. It’s not something that’s going to be tackled overnight but, certainly, taking a concerted approach.

That’s why I’m very proud of, and I support, the initiative and the comprehensive housing plan that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has put forward and that the Minister of Finance has tabled in the budget. Our commitment towards a comprehensive housing plan looks at really addressing demand and supply. You know, we hear often that we just need more supply, that we just need to build more units. We actually haven’t seen a shortage in terms of supply. It has been the type of building that has fallen short.

We have not seen, you could argue, in a generation, really…. When I travelled across British Columbia, we put the questions to communities: “What are your challenges? What are your needs?” It’s not only in Metro Vancouver, but this also extends right across the province, into communities. We have not seen the building of affordable rental units for a generation, for decades, in our province.

That includes one of our key features. We are looking at both demand and supply in terms of the housing market. A 30-point plan to address that challenge and to move forward has been well received, and I think it’s a comprehensive effort to look at it.

I just want to review some of the key components. I think it addresses some of the themes with respect to how we ensure that there is adequate housing in British Columbia and what the role of our government is: to ensure that British Columbians have access to that right and to ensure that we address the concerns of British Columbians. It’s a fundamental right. Certainly, as a government, wanting to ensure that British Columbians have access to housing…. For me, that is an important priority, and it’s long past due.

When we look at what the needs are, then, what are the themes, in terms of the 30-point plan, the comprehensive housing strategy that we have tabled? One is to stabilize the market. Our housing market has been used for speculation. Really, there have been no holds barred. It has also been encouraged under the previous government, because efforts were not put in place to discourage that. So we are taking steps to make sure that the housing market is not used as an investment tool — the speculators.

Primarily, our view is that housing should meet the needs of British Columbians to have a place to live. So we are stabilizing the market by putting a tax on speculators, who are driving up housing costs. We’re also taking steps to increase the foreign buyer tax to 20 percent and expanding the foreign buyer tax to areas outside of Metro Vancouver, increasing the property transfer tax on the value of homes over $3 million, as well as increasing the school tax rate on the value of homes over $3 million. This is really looking at not only stabilizing the market but also looking at ensuring that those who have the ability to pay more, those who are more wealthy, also share more of the burden.

We have an expansion, as well, in terms of on-line accommodation. We have, in terms of policies, just multiple loopholes that the previous government did not address. So we have brought that in to ensure that the expansion of on-line accommodation is integrated into our taxation system. We’ve heard that there are concerns, from folks who’ve been in the hotel industry, with motels and bed and breakfasts — that that’s a loophole. So we’ve ensured that we address that and that it’s a fair playing field for everyone in the market. Those are some steps we’ve taken with respect to stabilizing the market.

[5:30 p.m.]

Cracking down on tax fraud and closing loopholes. There are specific initiatives that governments can take to address the crisis. That’s the commitment of our government: ensuring that we stop tax evasion, in terms of the presale condo reassignments; taking action to end hidden ownership, including an ownership registry that ensures that that is open to the public and there’s accountability; strengthening auditing and enforcement as well as infractions; and ensuring that we take steps to combat money laundering, tax evasion and avoidance, which have been contributing to our housing market being used as an area of investment.

As well, there’s a component in terms of building the homes that people need and making a more than $6 billion investment in affordable housing. There’s a priority in terms of the missing middle, ensuring that there are affordable rental units, 14,000, particularly for individuals, working families and seniors.

Ensuring that women and children fleeing violent relationships are adequately supported — we know that that’s a dilemma for women. They have to have a safe place to go with their children to be safe. That’s a priority, as well as looking at ensuring that universities and colleges can build student housing so that they have the ability to borrow. That’s a piece, as well, that we’re moving on.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Partnering with Indigenous communities to invest in building social housing is a long-term plan. In addition, 2,500 new supportive homes for people struggling with homelessness.

We’re really looking across the board, at the continuum, in terms of how we address adequate housing. Of course, we have a good number of renters. We’re expanding support for seniors who are living independently, also increasing the rental assistance programs to help working parents, and strengthening protections for renters and manufactured home owners.

We have quite a significant existing stock of affordable housing, so ensuring that that is renovated and kept up is a priority. Looking at partnerships…. How we’re going to be forward and be successful is ensuring that we partner with housing organizations, municipalities and First Nations in terms of working together with the federal government to build projects and to be a partner. So those are priorities, I think, that will address some of the crises that families experience.

When I talk to folks, certainly, there’s been a positive response to the budget — that those are positive steps — but there’s a real need now. Families have a real need now for affordable housing.

The second-highest cost for families is also child care. There’s a real need to ensure that families have access to adequate child care. That’s a significant piece, as well, in this budget. For many families, child care is nearly as expensive as housing and also difficult to find.

It doesn’t only impact families, but it is a real detriment for employers. This is a real issue in terms of recruitment and retention and concern for…. To ensure that employers are able to have folks working for them and to have that reliable workforce, parents have to feel that their kids are in good hands. That’s a concern right across the spectrum.

The lack of affordable, adequate child care is also hampering our economic growth. That’s why we’ve seen support from the B.C. Business Council, chambers of commerce, Vancouver Board of Trade and municipalities to address the need for affordable child care.

These two pieces…. When we talk about our budget and the priority of our government to address issues of affordability for families…. Our investments in housing and child care are not only supporting families and providing that support, but there’s also support across the board from employers. It’s also an economic investment.

[5:35 p.m.]

We have a commitment towards…. Our Budget 2018 marks the beginning of a made-in-B.C. universal child care plan, and our commitment is to building a quality child care system that is affordable and accessible. We are looking to put that in place.

We are committed to creating 22,000 new licensed child care spaces. Again, one of the themes is working in partnership. So partnering with municipalities, school districts and not-for-profit operators to ensure that we can create the needed spaces.

We’re also supporting family-based care, which is a choice by many parents, and we’re providing incentives to unlicensed family care providers to become licensed. The three pillars of our child care plan are affordability, accessibility and also quality.

We also know that there is an increased demand for early childhood educators. We are working on a comprehensive workforce development strategy to look at supporting early childhood education training and compensation.

These are the three components that will put us on the path to a universal child care plan. It is, I think, no understatement that it characterizes real transformational change in our society. So those are key areas.

In addition, I also have the great privilege of serving as the Parliamentary Secretary for Poverty Reduction. This is another priority. We talked about this in the campaign, and there’s a real need to address poverty in our province. It is just a real understatement to say it’s a shame to have the levels of poverty that we have in our province under the last 16 years of the B.C. Liberal government.

I’m very proud to be working with the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction to bring in a poverty reduction plan in British Columbia. It is much needed. We’re the last province to have one in our country, and it’s much needed. We had, coming into government, the highest poverty rate, the biggest income inequality gap, with hundreds of thousands of people, 700,000 people, living under the poverty line, right across our province.

We have taken a number of steps. Again, this is an issue that is not a simple issue. It’s not a one-off. We’re not going to end poverty overnight. But we are committed to bringing in a poverty reduction plan, and we have taken significant steps.

We have, from September, increased income assistance rates by $100, both for people on income assistance and people with disabilities. They haven’t seen an increase in over ten years. We also increased earning exemptions for those folks to ensure that they have more opportunity to keep their income if they are able to be employed. We also ended the clawback of the transportation amount that people with disabilities had lost under the previous government. So we ensured that people with disabilities are supported in terms of their transportation costs.

As well, looking at: what are the needs and challenges to address poverty in our province? We also want to…. Certainly, I think that on both sides of the House we can agree that access to education and encouraging people to pursue their studies and get some sort of training, vocational or college, university or trades, are important qualifications in terms of being able to have access to the jobs that are present now and, also, moving forward.

To that end, our government ended the fees that were imposed by the previous government on adult basic education. It didn’t make sense. In terms of charging people onerous fees, it was a great barrier for folks who wanted to complete their grade 12 and move on to upgrade their skills. We have ended those fees, as well as ending fees and ensuring that there was more access for folks who needed English language learning. That was another piece as well.

[5:40 p.m.]

We have made a commitment to support youth in care. Youth in care, who are the collective responsibility of all of us, of the government, also have one of the highest poverty rates once they age out of support. So we made the decision to ensure that they can access post-secondary training and that their tuition is paid for. To further support youth in care, we’ve also looked at wraparound supports to ensure that youth in care have the support and have opportunities to be successful.

We talk about this budget and our commitments towards a poverty reduction plan. I talk about it as an investment. This budget, and our poverty reduction plan, is an investment in people. It’s an investment in services, and it’s an investment in opportunities to ensure that British Columbians, regardless of the circumstances they may find themselves in, have every opportunity to be successful, that folks who live in poverty or who are homeless or who live on the street have access to services.

If they have the opportunity to also pursue their training and upgrade their skills and pursue educational opportunities, they are more on a track for success that benefits not only them individually but that benefits our community and our province. A poverty reduction plan is an investment in people. It’s an investment in services, and it’s an investment to ensure that British Columbians have opportunity. There’s a value to all of us, so I’m very proud to be doing that work.

Another area that is of very keen importance…. I made some remarks with respect to our investment in education. Our government does not have to be told by the Supreme Court that there’s value in that. I’m very pleased with the hard work of our Minister of Education, in terms of his initiatives, and very pleased, as well, in terms of Vancouver-Kensington where we have a commitment around seismic upgrading. Certainly, that’s a priority. It’s very important to ensure that….

Under the previous government, we really saw a backlog and a very slow pace in terms of the seismic upgrading and the security of our schools. Very pleased that we have a commitment to go forward, certainly in Vancouver-Kensington, on one of our schools, Sir Sandford Fleming. There’s that piece, moving ahead.

I want to also talk about access to justice. We know that with women fleeing violence, often there’s difficulty not only in terms of getting out of the violent relationships and ensuring that there’s counselling available but also that women, primarily, are able to have legal support through the court system. This is a big challenge. The record of the previous government cutting legal aid, and also cutting funding for family law and poverty law, has really left the system in tatters and put women, particularly, at great disadvantage and also vulnerable to just being re-traumatized through our justice system.

Our commitment towards investing and ensuring that we support legal aid and that there is increased support for women, in particular, who are seeking to leave violent relationships. That’s an important priority, so that certainly is a positive step.

Our Budget 2018 takes significant steps primarily to address the biggest crises in our housing market, as well as significant investment in child care to put down and move us in a direction to bringing in universal child care. As well, we know that there is significant investment in our infrastructure, in capital spending as well, so I’m pleased about that ongoing piece.

[5:45 p.m.]

Looking at how we can ensure that projects we undertake as the government — if it’s constructing highways or building hospitals or colleges — and that we ensure that our tax dollars are at work not only for those important services but also that local communities benefit and that we ensure there are opportunities for apprenticeships for British Columbians and that local businesses are supported.

In terms of looking at encouraging a model of community benefits from our infrastructure projects, that’s a positive piece. And it looks towards and really comes back to the priority of our government to ensuring that we consider British Columbians and that we look at decisions and that our priorities benefit not just British Columbians but businesses in our communities and also provide opportunities.

We have a commitment to addressing the affordability crises that we really saw run out of control under the previous government. We made a commitment to eliminate the MSP premium. That is significant. We saw the MSP premium double over the tenure of the B.C. Liberals, and we’ve made the commitment to end that and ensure that families do not have to pay those fees.

It was very unfair, and it’s also really…. With the MSP, if you made $45,000 a year or if you made $450,000, you paid the same fee. So we are going to be ending that and bringing in an employer health tax to move in line with the rest of the country. That’s one example in terms of addressing these rising fees that have really put a pressure on families.

I know my time is…. It has really flown by, and there’s just much more to say. But I’m very proud of our Budget 2018. It addresses priorities and keeps people at the centre of our decisions. We’re working hard every day to ensure that affordability is addressed for British Columbians, that British Columbians have services they depend on and an economy that works for them.

C. Oakes: I’m proud to have the opportunity to rise in this House today and provide response to Budget 2018. I would like to begin, to start, by humbly thanking the constituents of Cariboo North. It truly is an incredible privilege that you grant me in representing your voice, of the Cariboo North, in this Legislature. I am incredibly grateful.

I would like to thank the staff in the constituency office, Deb Burton and Jackie Sarginson, and to thank Sheila Mitchell for the support that they provide in our office.

I’d like to thank the Victoria staff, Karen, Doug and Blake, research, and our new interns. The interns are doing a fantastic job on all sides of the House, and I would like to thank them.

I would like to thank the riding association, the volunteers and, of course, my incredible family for their support.

Today was a fantastic day for the B.C. Liberals. We had the opportunity to welcome a member for Kelowna West. Perhaps a little piece about the member for Kelowna West. As a new MLA and a new cabinet minister, the member for Kelowna West was a great mentor and friend to myself. He provided great support as I navigated a new role. It’s great that he has joined us in the House today.

It is also fitting that when I was first elected as the Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development…. I’m a strong and passionate advocate for the arts and culture, so I will say I was pleased to see that there was an increase in the budget for the arts. The sector provides a real important piece of vibrancy to communities across the province, and it is a motivator of our creative economy.

[5:50 p.m.]

I would’ve welcomed, of course, funds for museums, both large and small, such as the Barkerville heritage site and the cultural gem just across the street, the Royal B.C. Museum. I’m a huge advocate for museums and will continue to do so in the House.

I was also pleased to see funding for Indigenous languages. Again, as the former minister, I saw firsthand the extraordinary partnerships with the Royal B.C. Museum and the living language program. Initiatives across the province that can help to promote Indigenous languages are critical.

I am so proud of the First Nation communities in my riding — Kluskus, Lhoosk’uz Dene, Nazko, Lhtako, ?Esdilagh, Xats’ull and the William’s Lake Indian Band. I’ve been privileged to work with and learn from elders — such as Doreen Patrick, Maureen Boyd and Ellie Peters, just to name a few — who have been strong mentors of ensuring that the language is passed on to youth and keeping traditional language alive. Dahooja. Sunachailya. Over the break, they have offered to help teach me some new Carrier languages, which I will absolutely take them up on.

I was also pleased to see there is an added increase for early childhood learning and child care investments, not quite the $10-a-day daycare that people were expecting but, again, important investments.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take some time, if I may, in this House to talk a little bit about 2017 and the impact that the wildfire season has had on the Cariboo. It is an incredible reminder of how large and diverse Cariboo North is.

With 38,000 square kilometres and limited road access, sporadic connectivity to many parts of the riding, many days were spent with different agencies trying to navigate silos and answer concerned constituents’ questions. It meant spending time on the phone and meetings in my car, driving out to remote areas and advocating for commonsense solutions. Every day was a fight to make sure our residents were heard and not forgotten.

Out of this incredibly difficult time, the best in people and communities arose to the forefront — people opening their homes to evacuees and families, organizations like the pet coalition. Important volunteer organizations were up and running in no time to support our region.

One of the most extraordinary things I’ve seen in our region is that on that night that the fires flared, there was this long caravan, as long as the eye could see, of horse trailers arriving at our Alex Fraser agricultural park to come to the aid of animals and families that needed to be evacuated. A grassroots campaign formulated as the smoke filled the air. People went to Facebook and Twitter and phoned their friends. This sense of purpose and support has continued, and I am proud of the constituents of Cariboo North.

To our ESS volunteers and all the organizations serving meals, to the communities like Prince George and Kamloops, for sheltering our residents, words can never express our deepest sense of gratitude. For the many volunteer fire departments, search and rescues, and first responders who immediately went out upon first lightning strikes to attack the fire…. This was often done with limited equipment and supplies. However, what they lacked in equipment was made up with experience and training and heart. Years of training led to extraordinary efforts of these amazing volunteers that helped save communities.

Which turns me to the response to the budget. Last fall I had the opportunity to canvass multiple ministries for support for these incredible front-line organizations. In each case, I received positive affirmation of the value the NDP government places on these incredibly important organizations. However, as I’ve reviewed the Budget 2018 and the support I expected to see, it’s just not there.

[5:55 p.m.]

The Minister of Finance opened her budget speech with the comments that this was the budget that put people first, a sustainable economy working for everyone. Everyone, except if you live in rural B.C. Or as we like to refer…. Sometimes we describe ourselves as “living in 250.” The minister went on to recognize that people were anxious and uncertain about the future and that this budget would help alleviate that.

Again, to the government, our people in Cariboo North do not feel any less anxious, and they do not feel any more certain.

This past wildfire season cost $870 million, and we have not yet begun recovery and rehabilitation of the devastation of the land and the devastation to people’s lives. This comes out of contingency. So when I looked at the contingency fund for this year and noted that it is $350 million, I note an incredible shortfall.

It is my hope that no community ever has to go through what we had to go through this past wildfire season, but if you review reports such as the Auditor General on looking at the Interior’s change in climate, we have to prepare. We have to be ready for the future of what may happen in our communities.

So $72 million over three years to prepare and respond is simply not enough. If you talk to local governments, and you talk to First Nations, even FireSmarting communities will eat up a majority of this amount. This does not begin to prepare communities, to prepare first responders, to prepare our volunteer fire departments — to prepare for this upcoming season.

Constituents like Stewart Fraser…. I have talked about Stewart in this House, who lost his ranch and a significant portion of his guide-outfitting territory. He wants to rebuild, and he wants to attend shows to market his business, but he’s still waiting for a response back from the ministry.

Whether you’re in forestry, tourism, small business, guide and outfitters, trappers, agriculture — the list goes on and on — reality is setting in that your livelihood has changed dramatically. Financial resources are desperately needed. To my constituents who have been let down by government, I speak from my heart to say I’m sorry. We will not stop fighting for you, and we will ensure that your voices are heard.

Other significant gaps in the budget in the Cariboo relate to connectivity. A significant portion of our riding still does not have cell service, and many areas have very limited Internet coverage. Everything in our government is turning to commuting on line. This means applying for permits on line, getting government service information on line. Even getting updates on wildfires this summer was on line. Everything rests on a person being able to connect with technology.

This summer, when the fires were exploding so fast and so furious, great organizations like the Cariboo Mining Association knew that there were placer miners out in the field. On any given day, about 150 small placer operators in the Cariboo were out there. The problem is that we had no way of connecting with them. In government, we also don’t have a way to track many in the resource-based economies who are out in the field. Needless to say, there were many frightful days.

As far as ranchers were concerned, I was part of a very old-fashioned, good old land-line phone tree. For those who don’t know what that is, you have a phone list, and you just reach out and make sure you connect with as many people as possible, just like the good old days.

Interjection.

C. Oakes: No, you don’t log a phone tree, but I can tell you. We used to have party lines, and we’re happy that we no longer have party lines.

We had ranchers who were running livestock out on the range in very remote areas. Again, a distinct lack of connectivity is an issue. This government needs to ensure that everyone has access to simple connectivity.

On road infrastructure. For anyone living in rural communities, side roads are key linkages. We need to ensure that people have safe and reliable access in and out of their community, especially in times of emergency. This infrastructure is critically important to generate revenues that pay for programs like road maintenance that people expect and rely on.

[6:00 p.m.]

I’ve looked through the budget, and it appears there are cuts to the side-road program. I also note that there was no mention of the Cariboo connector.

Now, I noticed, at the announcement of the $1.3 billion promised to replace the Pattullo Bridge in Metro Vancouver, a lot of people in my riding were asking: “Where would that money come from?” Well, if you look at the budget, it is very clear. Projects that we have worked on for many years — projects like the Cariboo connector, so critical to bringing important goods and services from rural to urban B.C. — have been cut. A plan to expand phase 2 — nowhere in the budget. Road infrastructure, critical to driving the economy — nowhere in the budget.

Moving all of the transportation investments to the Lower Mainland will result in a loss to the economy of revenue of this province. Without phase 3 of the Cariboo connector…. It will have an incredible impact on First Nations like the ʔEsdilagh First Nations, who are counting on this project, who have been planning on this project to tie in with other vital economic development projects.

We have other transportation projects that I’ve long been a champion for. In fact, I ran both my campaigns about the importance of safety improvements to get commercial vehicles off our Front Street, where large numbers of seniors live and where our hospital is located. We had a record number of 850 people attend an open house last Monday in support of the proposal that the Ministry of Transportation has presented. I will continue to champion this very important project as well as safety improvements on Highway 97 near Racing Road and Hydraulic Road. Transportation investments support economic growth across the province and are critically important.

Quesnel is in significant need of a new high school. Today we heard, from the Minister of Education, how important it is to have students in safe schools. We all agree with that. But I have to wonder why, in the list of capital projects listed in the budget, none of the capital is being spent outside the Lower Mainland. Do our students not deserve the same level of safety as those in other parts of the province?

I will be advocating for the important need for a high school. A report was released this summer that action is required — beyond moving students, starting in a few weeks, to a temporary location. Our high school, in a few weeks, in the middle of winter, is having to move our students to a temporary location because our high school is not safe. This is simply not good enough. It’s not fair, and we should be taking action. Does it take a tragedy in our community to get us put on the list?

Our rural schools continue to struggle to retain and attract professionals. To the students, PAC groups and parents in communities, you will not be forgotten. I was a tireless champion for Kersley and Parkland elementary schools, and I will fight for you.

These smaller remote communities and First Nations are critical to the province as a whole. These are the areas of the province where we see so much resource and food production. There continues to be such a lack of understanding of resource-based communities. On more than one occasion, I’ve heard from those not living in rural B.C. the comment that ranchers just shouldn’t live so far out. They are told to move to cities where there are better schools, which is absolutely ridiculous.

I ask you: how many cow-calf operations do you see in downtown Vancouver? How many producers are in Victoria? The disconnect or lack of understanding on the requirements of land and the sacrifices families make to provide food security for the rest of the province is shocking. Where is the support for our agricultural sector? In return for their dedication to the land, we should at least support basic services like schools and side-road upkeep. We’re not asking for a lot.

[6:05 p.m.]

I would like to highlight, if I may, Horsefly — one of the most spectacular areas in the entire province of British Columbia. If you have not visited, I highly recommend that you take the opportunity to visit Horsefly. Put it on your bucket list. Horsefly is a perfect example of a community made up of generations of small businesses in ranching, forestry and tourism. All of these family businesses have provided a lot to building the economy of this province.

I just received a letter from the Horsefly Board of Trade on the need to fix one of their side roads. Their school has had difficulty recruiting professionals, and what makes things more challenging…. It’s a school without fibre optics. A B.C. education curriculum that is executed through technology puts some rural schools without access to technology at a great disadvantage and makes teacher recruitment much more difficult.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

In the area of Wells, the enormous opportunity for tourism and housing development is significant. However, three-phase power is required. We’re supposed to be looking at reducing our climate footprint. However, without significant investment in infrastructure in rural and northern British Columbia, we will continue to lag behind.

This government loves to talk about fairness, but we don’t see much concern outside the Lower Mainland. Wells and Bowron is another one of those communities that requires an alternate emergency access out of their community. A small investment there could ensure considerable safety for the community while providing considerable economic development.

How about support for other sectors like forestry and mining, important job providers in our region? I encourage everyone to look at page 14 and page 15 of the 2018 budget. It talks a story of decline in forestry and a decline in mining. What I can tell you is what I see on the ground. What I see every single day is that there is resilience, hard work and a belief that there is going to be a positive future for these economies.

How about we talk about red tape and regulation, things that…? This government has worked so tirelessly over the years to ensure that we are laser focused on making sure that we are consistently looking at ways to make doing business in British Columbia just a little bit easier. You turn to page 15, and it’s about: “Let’s increase fees for hunting. Let’s increase fees for water licences. Let’s increase new regulations.” These are the tactics that got us into such difficult times for small business many years ago.

The provincial budget affects everyone in British Columbia because it outlines the priorities of a government. No other document provides a better road map of the government’s intentions for the coming year than the budget. For voters and taxpayers, it’s an important opportunity to review all the campaign promises made during an election. Then compare the budget against the government’s actual record. In this particular instance, the 2018 budget represents the NDP’s very first budget document since 2001. We did, in fact, have the benefit of a September budget update — a mini budget, if you will — that contained a few hints as to where this government wants to take British Columbia.

When minimum wage was increased, the minister said that they would have a plan to support and mitigate costs to small businesses. They would have a plan to support and help mitigate costs to small business. Well, we have learned what that help is and how they are going to mitigate costs to small business. They’re actually going to tax them more with a new employer health tax. There was absolutely no warning, public consultation with respect to this brand-new payroll tax. It’s rather a surprise because this government is noted for the well over two dozen reviews and public consultations it’s launched since assuming the reins of government.

Where is the fairness in having that conversation with the small business community? Caught completely off guard by the brand-new payroll tax, Jock Finlayson of the B.C. Business Council said the announcement came as a “nasty surprise.” Mr. Finlayson is, of course, referring to the government’s plan to shift the cost of health care into the private sector through its new employer health care tax.

[6:10 p.m.]

Iain Black, president of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, immediately declared: “This is a hammer that came down that we didn’t see coming.” We know, in the budget, it is important to be able to prepare for sustainability, and this is just not sustainable.

When the B.C. Liberals announced a 50 percent reduction in MSP premiums in Budget 2017, it was supposed to represent a $1 billion tax break for average British Columbians. Now it’s abundantly clear that they want that money back. The same applies to the reduction of the small business tax from 2.5 to 2 percent. All the savings that small businesses would otherwise reap will go towards the new employer health care tax.

To make matters worse, the government will experience a $1.8 billion windfall when the new payroll tax kicks in, in 2019, and overlaps with MSP premiums that won’t be eliminated until 2020. The employer health care tax is nothing more than a double-dipping tax grab.

I recently had the opportunity to meet with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a great organization of small businesses. They represent small business; they survey them regularly. I asked a few questions of the CFIB to understand the cumulative effect of the changes, whether it was minimum wage or whether it’s this new payroll tax.

The first question I asked to the CFIB was: “What do we consider small businesses in British Columbia?” Well, the definition for “small business” in British Columbia is 50 employees or under, which is a large number. And I asked the question: “How many of those employers, on average, actually pay the MSP premiums?” They identified it as about 20 percent.

I’ve tried to take the information that the Minister of Finance continues to articulate in the House — about who’s not going to pay the MSP and how everything is going to be fantastic for small business — and I’ve tried to drill down. I’ve talked to organizations, I’ve talked to small business, and here’s what I’ve heard: there is such an incredibly slim margin when you operate a small business that competitiveness is incredibly important. Small businesses take incredible risks to do the jobs that they do, and they lead with their heart. They hire people in our communities, and it’s so critically important.

I look at what’s happening — today the federal government announced their budget — and I was looking at how that is going to affect our small business. I’ve been following what is happening in the United States, the changes in their tax policy and what that is going to mean for the tax competitiveness for our small businesses. I’ve been incredibly proud, as a former Minister of Small Business, to look at how British Columbia has been leading the way in small business growth. I worry, because I know the significant impact that this new employer health tax will make on small businesses that already operate with such slim margins.

To lighten the blow, the government says it’s establishing a threshold for companies with a payroll of $500,000 or less. Again, I took that out, and I started to talk with business owners across British Columbia to understand how it’s creating an artificial and unfair divide between companies in the same business. Here’s what I’ve heard.

In the Cariboo, Inwood Trucking operates a fleet of over 20 trucks. Owner Lloyd Inwood feels that he would be at a competitive disadvantage with smaller operators. The day after the budget was delivered, Mr. Inwood wrote me a letter. I’ve talked to Lloyd many times. He’s a very dynamic business owner in our community. He writes: “Why should a company with an annual payroll of less than $500,000 be exempt from this tax? By not charging smaller operators, the government is forcing bigger business to downsize in order to stay competitive.”

I often heard many years ago, as a joke, that the NDP goal is to make big business a small business. I thought that was just a colloquial saying. It was kind of funny. I know we’re partisan. Now I see the actual reality. You see the driving force of many of these tax policies that have come forward — this layering of fees and licences, corporate income tax, what you’re seeing with changes in minimum wage.

[6:15 p.m.]

All of the cumulative effects are going to have an effect on businesses across this province. The 2018 budget is starting to face a significant backlash from the business community — first, by not consulting with them and, second, by not providing any kind of cushion to smooth out the transition. Instead of the double-tax combination, it’ll take a significant chunk out of a company’s bottom line in 2019.

What I heard last night…. Members from both sides of this House met with the mining sector to understand how this will attack the competitiveness of resource sectors, producers and employers in small business that generate wealth in the province and create jobs.

The Minister of Finance says the $500,000 threshold means that 85 percent of companies in B.C. will pay no tax. Then I go back and I think: “Small businesses are defined by 50 employees or less.” Again, I struggle with the language. I hope that the Minister of Finance will table the analysis of where she has come up with that.

Small family businesses, like restaurants or retail shops, are also facing hurdles, such as a 34 percent increase to the minimum wage. I talked to one business in my community, a business that has operated for 85 years — a Home Hardware store. A multi-generational family has run this really important business. “What does that 34 percent increase mean for your business?”

That minimum wage increase, over the next four years, will actually cost $100,000 a year for this small business. They employ 20 to 25 people. A lot of seniors, a lot of young people, work at our Home Hardware. Increasing $100,000 in minimum wage — and then you start cumulatively looking at the other taxes that are coming down — makes it really difficult for our small businesses to be competitive.

Now let’s turn to carbon tax and how this is going to affect, again, rural communities. The new government is going to increase the carbon tax by $5 a tonne. That may not sound like much, but consider what it’s going to cost you every day.

We have a mining company in the Cariboo. This goes back to why perhaps you could take that and invest in projects such as three-phase power. A Barkerville gold mine currently uses about $400,000 a month on diesel. They would love to go to electricity. They would love to have that investment in three-phase power. They would love to be ensuring that they’re contributing to climate leadership. Investment in rural B.C. is important.

I will be voting against Budget 2018, as it’s an assault on 250, an assault on rural British Columbia.

D. Routley: It gives me great pleasure to stand up for the first time in my now 13-year career in provincial politics to speak in favour of a B.C. NDP budget. I’m very proud to do that.

What we have had are 16 years where the issues and priorities of British Columbians have been shunted off the desk of their government as though they don’t matter; 16 years of continual deficits; 16 years of deficits in classrooms, deficits in hospitals, deficits in child care space, deficits in the attention of their government to a housing crisis in this province; 16 years of neglect.

Finally, we have a budget that puts people at the forefront for their government, as it always should have been. We have seen a government that has, essentially, answered the wish and call of those at the very top in our society. We had a government, the previous B.C. Liberal government, that made tax breaks for the top 2 percent the feature of their budgets. Now we have a government that puts child care, small business, education, forestry, housing — the things that matter to British Columbians — first. This budget is something to be proud of.

[6:20 p.m.]

This budget defends those values that people consider to be their core values. This budget invests in people, in education and in child care. After 16 years of all those things being neglected, it is an absolutely stunning moment to stand up and defend this budget.

Things that matter to people are things that should matter to all of us. When people cannot afford child care, that should matter to us — not simply because their children aren’t being cared for or that they can’t work because they don’t have care for their children but because, economically, it’s a huge hardship on British Columbia. We are an advanced economy that depends on an efficient, productive labour force.

One of our biggest challenges, well known for the last decade and a half, has been the skills shortage and the demography of this province as we face an aging population. A difficulty in every business, every industry is replacing a skilled labour force.

It is of paramount urgency that British Columbia invest in things like child care. Did you know that after the province of Quebec invested heavily in child care, it was shown conclusively that they had the highest participation of women in the skilled trades? That was linked directly to their investment in child care. That is then linked directly to the success or failure of an economy. These are not simply social investments. These are economic investments.

For 16 years, we had a government that treated education as a punching bag. They literally tried to cause a strike for political gain at a time when we should have been throwing the full might of British Columbians’ capability behind the young people of this province. That is something that an entire generation of students had to live through. I, as a school trustee 15 years ago, was coping with those cuts and the impacts on children.

Public services, unlike the hydro bill and unlike a lot of other things that we control in our lives, aren’t like a light switch. You can’t just turn it on and off. When you go a generation without investment, you embed in our society disadvantages that will not be cured simply by flicking the switch and adding more money to the system. We have to cope with those problems. We have to cope and support people who did not get the full advantage that they should have gotten as they went through school.

In the meantime, we invest heavily in education. After a government for 16 years that was content with trampling over the constitutional rights of teachers and tearing up contracts for political gain, we have a government now and a budget now that invests in 3,700 new teachers this year.

We have a government that finally will invest in youth in care and extend resources to them with a $30 million investment for children who were formerly in care.

We have seen a $300 million fast-tracking of seismic upgrades after that, too, was neglected for 16 years under the B.C. Liberal government. We have seen a $50 million top-up to the capital spending budgets of districts so that they can maintain schools.

My father was a maintenance superintendent of a school district, responsible for the buildings, the grounds and the busing. When I was young, I would ride around in his school board pickup truck with him going from school to school. My dad had a high standard for the paint, for the windows, for the floors — for everything. We cared. People cared about public education then. But we’ve seen those schools deteriorate.

I live one block from the Cowichan high school, a school that my dad used to walk me through the hallways and talk about how difficult it was to maintain the school. It has sunk to such disrepair that, finally, it’s getting a coat of paint. Finally, it’s getting a few new windows. Finally, it’s getting a few new doors.

It’s important for us, not simply because we want to deliver public education as a public service to students but also as an economic function — as an underpinning, as a foundation stone, of a thriving and sustainable economy.

[6:25 p.m.]

These are important social investments, but even more importantly, perhaps, they are essential and crucial economic investments that have gone wanting and have been neglected, along with other priorities, for the past 16 years.

Mr. Speaker, I really don’t like having to deliver a speech in two parts, but having stood up at the end of the day, I would have to say that that’s my fate. I will return tomorrow to continue my remarks. In the meantime, I would move adjournment of the debate and reserve my place in the order of speaking.

D. Routley moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I know we would all love to hear the cliffhanger that was coming from my colleague’s speech. Unfortunately, the clock is close to 6:30.

With that, I move adjournment of the House.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 on Wednesday afternoon.

The House adjourned at 6:26 p.m.