Orders of the Day

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 4 — COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
TO SIT IN TWO SECTIONS

Hon. M. Farnworth: I move the motion in my name under Schedule A on the order paper. I can read the whole thing, but I believe that the opposition is fine with just the motion. I see my counterpart…. The motion will authorize the Committee of Supply to sit in section A and section B.

[Be it resolved that this House hereby authorize the Committee of Supply for this Session to sit in two sections designated Section A and Section B; Section A to sit in such Committee Room as may be appointed from time to time, and Section B to sit in the Chamber of the Assembly, subject to the following rules:

1.  The Standing Orders applicable to the Committee of the Whole House shall be applicable in both Sections of the Committee of Supply save and except that in Section A, a Minister may defer to a Deputy Minister to permit such Deputy to reply to a question put to the Minister.

2.  All Estimates shall stand referred to Section A, save and except those Estimates as shall be referred to Section B on motion without notice by the Government House Leader, which motion shall be decided without amendment or debate and be governed by Practice Recommendation #6 relating to Consultation.

3.  Section A shall consist of 17 Members, being 8 Members of the New Democratic Party and 8 Members of the BC Liberal Party and one member of the Green Party. In addition, the Deputy Chair of the Committee of the Whole, or his or her nominee, shall preside over the debates in Section A. Substitution of Members will be permitted to Section A with the consent of that Member’s Whip, where applicable, otherwise with the consent of the Member involved. For the third session of the Forty-First Parliament, the Members of Section A shall be as follows: the Minister whose Estimates are under consideration and, Jagrup Brar, Mitzi Dean, Bob D’Eith, Mable Elmore, Anne Kang, Rick Glumac, Rachna Singh, Simon Gibson, Jane Thornthwaite, Peter Milobar, Coralee Oakes, Joan Isaacs, Mike Morris, Teresa Wat, Ellis Ross and Sonia Furstenau.

4.  At fifteen minutes prior to the ordinary time fixed for adjournment of the House, the Chair of Section A will report to the House. In the event such report includes the last vote in a particular ministerial Estimate, after such report has been made to the House, the Government shall have a maximum of eight minutes, and the Official Opposition a maximum of five minutes, and all other Members (cumulatively) a maximum of three minutes to summarize the Committee debate on a particular ministerial Estimate completed, such summaries to be in the following order:

(1) Other Members;

(2) Opposition; and

(3) Government.

5.  Section B shall be composed of all Members of the House.

6.  Divisions in Section A will be signalled by the ringing of the division bells four times.

7.  Divisions in Section B will be signalled by the ringing of the division bells three times at which time proceedings in Section A will be suspended until completion of the division in Section B.

8.  Section A is hereby authorized to consider Bills referred to Committee after second reading thereof and the Standing Orders applicable to Bills in Committee of the Whole shall be applicable to such Bills during consideration thereof in Section A, and for all purposes Section A shall be deemed to be a Committee of the Whole. Such referrals to Section A shall be made upon motion without notice by the Minister responsible for the Bill, and such motion shall be decided without amendment or debate. Practice Recommendation #6 relating to Consultation shall be applicable to all such referrals.

9.  Bills or Estimates previously referred to a designated Committee may at any stage be subsequently referred to another designated Committee on motion of the Government House Leader or Minister responsible for the Bill as hereinbefore provided by Rule Nos. 2 and 8.]

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call, in this chamber, second reading of Bill 3. If that is dealt with this afternoon, then we will be followed by the second reading of Bill 2. In Committee A, the little House, I call the estimates for the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 3 — TLA’AMIN FINAL AGREEMENT
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Hon. S. Fraser: I move that Bill 3 be now read a second time.

I am pleased to introduce the second reading of Bill 3, the Tla’amin Final Agreement Amendment Act. This bill will provide the Provincial Court with the authority to issue an enforcement order or orders related to convictions under Tla’amin law enacted in accordance with the Tla’amin foreshore agreement. The Tla’amin Nation is supportive of the amendment. The orders would be in respect of payment for damages, costs associated with investigations and prosecutions or declarations prohibiting or ordering specific actions.

The amendments in this bill are equivalent to the provisions for local governments set out under the Community Charter and the Local Government Act. The province and the Tla’amin Nation signed the foreshore agreement in April of 2016. The foreshore agreement is a side agreement to the Tla’amin final agreement.

The foreshore agreement delegates comparable local government law-making authority to the Tla’amin Nation for foreshore areas adjacent to Tla’amin treaty lands. This is done to provide continuity of governance between Tla’amin treaty lands and the adjacent foreshore. In 2015, this Legislative Assembly approved a similar amendment act to the Maa-nulth First Nations Final Agreement Act in respect to the Maa-nulth Nations foreshore agreement.

The amendment to the Tla’amin Final Agreement Act provides the statutory provisions that will make specific clauses of the Tla’amin foreshore delegation agreement operable. Amendments like this remind us of the enduring natures of treaty and that reconciliation does not end when the treaty comes into effect.

[1:40 p.m.]

We have a strong, ongoing government-to-government relationship with the Tla’amin Nation, based on rights, respect, recognition and reconciliation. This government’s relationship with all Indigenous nations is grounded in these principles: recognition of rights and title and building powerful government-to-government relationships and partnerships.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Reconciliation is a cross-government priority, anchored by the adoption and implementation of the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action and the Tsilhqot’in decision. We are committed to an approach that respects the priorities of Indigenous peoples, one that fundamentally redesigns the Crown-Indigenous relationship and makes a clean break from colonial modes of thinking and doing.

I’m proud that we are making choices that are grounded in true recognition and respect and that make life better for Indigenous peoples.

D. Ashton: I would like to thank the minister for his very good remarks.

It is my great pleasure to rise in the House today to speak in favour of this important piece of legislation — Bill 3, the Tla’amin Final Agreement Amendment Act, 2018.

The Tla’amin Nation is located just north of the city of Powell River in British Columbia, along Highway 101, and is one of many Indigenous Coast Salish Tribes inhabiting the Pacific Northwest Coast. The Tla’amin Nation is one of rich heritage and history, and archaeological evidence has shown there has been occupation by the Tla’amin people in that region, which dates back almost 4,000 years.

This bill will provide the Provincial Court with the important power to issue and enforce orders and convictions under Tla’amin laws. The orders that are referred to under this amendment are in respect for paying for damages; costs associated with investigations, prosecutions and declarations; prohibiting or ordering specific actions.

Three years ago, in 2015, the previous government made the very same amendments to the Maa-nulth First Nations agreement act, and I’m proud to say that amendment passed this House unanimously.

Over the last 20 years, the Tla’amin Nation has been negotiating a fair treaty settlement with the province of British Columbia. Bill 3, the Tla’amin Final Agreement Act, is the fourth, final agreement under the framework of the B.C. Treaty Commission process.

The treaty removed the Tla’amin Nation from the federal Indian Act, and I have a question: why do we try and negotiate treaties? Because it is one of the right things we should do. Treaties are a way for First Nations to get out from under the burden of the Indian Act and to once again have self-government. This has provided the Tla’amin Nation with autonomous authority that will allow them to conceptualize, design, shape and deliver programming in a way that best supports the Tla’amin community and their families.

This treaty converted the uncertainty of the Tla’amin Nation’s Aboriginal rights and titles into defined treaty rights. The treaty established ownership, management of the lands and resources within the Tla’amin traditional territory, and it provided land and financial resources so that Tla’amin can create economic opportunities and jobs for their families.

As we are all aware, the treaty process can be terribly slow and sometimes incredibly frustrating, but we are actually seeing progress. The treaty will bring many benefits to the Tla’amin Nation in future generations and will dramatically alter the status of the nation in a very encouraging way.

I’m honoured to support, in this House, Bill 3, the Tla’amin Final Agreement Amendment Act, 2018, as we move forward to a more just and inclusive future for all in our province.

In closing, many in this House have heard me say that my dad always told me: “Never walk behind anybody. Never walk in front of them. For a better future for all, walk beside them.” I, myself, and all of us in this House, cannot change the past. But we can have an effect on the present and on the future.

I know — and I know this with the utmost sincerity — the minister and his thoughts and the direction that he would like to see it go are a very good indication, which we should all think about in this province, of how we can try and rectify some things that did happen in the past.

Madame Speaker, thank you very much for allowing me to speak to this today.

N. Simons: It’s a pleasure to be able to stand and support Bill 3, the Tla’amin Final Agreement Amendment Act. I thank the Minister of Indigenous Relations as well as the member for Penticton for their words about the importance of this amendment.

[1:45 p.m.]

I think it’s just another step that demonstrates how working together in partnership, we can help rectify some of the past injustices and continue moving towards a system where we all work really well together. I think this is just one more step in that direction.

I congratulate Chief Clint Williams of the Tla’amin Nation and the elders and all those who have continued to push for a fair resolution to outstanding issues. This is, I think, an important step in that direction.

I thank the minister, and I support this bill.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the minister closes debate.

Hon. S. Fraser: Before I ask to move second reading on Bill 3, I’d like to just thank my critic opposite for his support of this and his kind words, the member for Penticton, and also my colleague and friend from Powell River–Sunshine Coast for his words in support.

I would also like to acknowledge and thank Chief Clint Williams and the Tla’amin people for the hard work and perseverance that they have shown, leading to the point where they have made and are making life better not just for their people, the Tla’amin people, but for the people of the region and the people of the whole province. It’s an honour to be standing here today with Bill 3.

Then, I’d also like to finish by noting that my colleague from Powell River–Sunshine Coast has been a strong supporter of the Tla’amin people inside and outside of this House, and those relationships will last forever.

With that in mind, I would like to move second reading of Bill 3.

Motion approved.

Hon. S. Fraser: I move that the bill be referred to the Committee of the Whole to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 3, Tla’amin Final Agreement Amendment Act, 2018, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. James: I’d now like to call second reading of Bill 2.

BILL 2 — BUDGET MEASURES
IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2018

Hon. C. James: I move that Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, be now read a second time.

This bill amends 21 statutes in order to implement many of the tax measures in Budget 2018. The Income Tax Act is amended, and I will take the time to go through each of the pieces, each of the amendments, and just give a quick description. I know we’ll have more opportunity as we get into committee stage — but a quick description of each of the pieces.

The Income Tax Act is amended to expand, extend or eliminate several tax credits. The first is the caregiver tax credit and infirm dependent tax credit. They are replaced with a new B.C. caregiver credit for 2018 and subsequent tax years. This is going to increase support for people who provide care to relatives in need, and it’s also going to simplify tax administration because it will harmonize with federal credits. So it will be easier for people to apply for, and it’ll provide increased support for individuals who are caring for relatives in need.

When the previous government tabled Budget 2017, included in that budget in 2017 was the elimination of the education tax credit, as of January 1 of this year. In Budget 2018, we’ve delayed the elimination of the credit to 2019 to continue the benefit for one more year, just to look at how best to support post-secondary students in B.C.

People may remember…. I know the critic certainly does. In September, we had a number of measures where the federal government has eliminated a credit. B.C. had matched up a tax credit and now is coordinating those tax credits and eliminating them as the federal government is in place.

This is a very similar one. The federal government as well as Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick have already eliminated the education credits. As I said, the previous government brought it forward in their budget as well, in 2017. So we are continuing it until 2019 to give some time for transition and to be able to look at how better to support our post-secondary students.

The education tax credit wasn’t based on income and provided very minimal support when students need it the most. So our hope is that we’ll be able to look at further opportunities there.

[1:50 p.m.]

The mining flow-through share tax credit is extended for another year, to the end of 2018. Certainly, we recognize that the mining sector is a vital part of our economy. This extension will continue to encourage investment in British Columbia in mineral exploration and in development.

The farmers food donation tax credit is extended for one more year, to the end of 2019. Again, this extension reaffirms our government’s commitment to support B.C. agriculture, while providing food banks with local, nutritious food.

The interactive digital media tax credit is extended for five years, to August 31, 2023. By expanding this credit, the government ensures continued support for B.C.’s dynamic and growing tech sector. I think we just heard an introduction around innovation and looking at innovation. This certainly continues to provide our government’s support for innovation and for B.C.’s tech sector to be a high priority when it comes to our economy, and a growing part of our economy.

I certainly have to say, as an almost lifetime Victorian, I’m amazed to see the kind of expansion that we’ve seen around tech in the last number of years. I think people will be surprised to know the kinds of dollars that are coming into our economy, even here in Victoria. People picture it in the Lower Mainland, but in fact, it’s all across the province. It is one of those sectors that, as long as there are connections, can locate almost anywhere in British Columbia. So it really continues to be a growing part of our economy.

We’ve continued the book publishing tax credit for another three years, to March 31, 2021. The extension of this credit certainly continues our government’s support to book publishers in British Columbia. We know we have a thriving book publishing industry here in our province. We certainly hope that the extension of this credit will continue to see that industry grow and provide support.

The Film Incentive B.C. tax credit is also expanded to include scriptwriting expenditures for B.C.-based writers. There has certainly been a push to make sure that we provide incentives and support for B.C. writers, for film producers to use B.C. writers, to give them the experience, to be able to expand the B.C. film industry.

A strength that we have here…. The reason people often talk about coming to British Columbia is that we have a well-trained, well-experienced workforce here in the industry. We want to make sure that B.C. writers also get that opportunity. Taking a look at the incentive and expanding that is another opportunity to encourage that.

As the House will know, we’re also looking a number of areas and changes to areas related to combatting tax avoidance. This is a critical measure, critical pieces and a critical agenda for us as government — to make sure that there’s fairness in our tax system and that people are paying their fair share of taxes. I think it is an issue of fairness that all British Columbians agree with.

We are making a number of changes to be able to look at better tracking of information, better reporting of information, which then gives us the ability to audit and gives us the ability to enforce when people aren’t paying their fair share. The Income Tax Act is amended to add a reportable transaction rule and to strengthen the existing general anti-avoidance rule.

The Income Tax Act, the Land Tax Deferment Act and the Home Owner Grant Act are amended to allow taxpayer information to be shared between the Income Tax Act and the Land Tax Deferment Act. This is going to, again, as I said, enhance tax enforcement by allowing administrators to ensure that only B.C. residents can benefit from property tax deferment and, also, to verify that residential information is being reported consistently.

Again, the biggest, most important piece when we’re looking at dealing with enforcement or dealing with auditing is getting the information and making sure we have the information. That’s what many of these changes relate to.

Both the Income Tax Act and the Logging Tax Act are amended to no longer require preapproval from the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council prior to entering into information-sharing agreements under that act. These acts now follow the same procedure for information-sharing agreements as B.C.’s other taxation acts. So this is a cleanup, making sure that there is consistency across our tax acts.

The Property Transfer Tax Act is amended to increase the transfer tax rate on residential properties to 5 percent, from 3 percent, for the assessed above $3 million, effective February 21, 2018. I think it’s important again to state that this is on the value of the property above $3 million. That’s where the tax applies.

[1:55 p.m.]

We believe, again, in looking at a fair tax system, that people who have been able to see value in their homes provide a little bit more towards supports that all of us, including those individuals, enjoy in British Columbia.

The Property Transfer Tax Act is amended to exempt transfers of the bankrupt’s principal residence from a trustee in bankruptcy to the bankrupt or the bankrupt’s spouse or former spouse. This is going to provide the bankruptcy trustee with greater flexibility in trying to find solutions which benefit both the creditor and the bankrupt, so this provides support for both and ensures the flexibility is there to look at all opportunities. The Property Transfer Tax Act is also amended to strengthen audit and enforcement powers.

There are a total of five administrative amendments also made to the act. First, the limitation period for property transfer tax assessments is extended to six years. That matches with the limitation period for transactions with an additional property transfer tax liability — again, coordination, cleaning up, making sure that there are similar kinds of provisions.

Second, the collection of additional information on transactions through property transfer tax returns is enabled — again, getting back to making sure we’ve got the information to do audits, to do enforcement.

Third, an administrative monetary penalty is introduced to increase enforcement powers and deter non-compliance.

Fourth, the general anti-avoidance rule is extended to cover the entire act, instead of applying exclusively to transfers with an additional property transfer tax liability.

Fifth, the act is amended to enable access to additional information on property transactions, including information contained in a Multiple Listing Service database.

The School Act is also amended to increase the school tax on assessed values above $3 million on high-valued homes. I think it’s important to state — it said it clearly in the budget but just in case people didn’t have a chance to see all of the details — that this includes detached homes, stratified condominiums, townhouses and vacant residential land outside the agricultural land reserve, which will be subject to the additional school tax.

The higher rate does not apply to non-stratified apartments or rental buildings with four or more units. I think that’s important to state, because there was some concern that this would include rental buildings. There is no intent for this to include rental buildings or, as I said, non-stratified apartments. About 2 percent of people are looking at the number of homes that have a value over $3 million. You’re looking at about 2 percent of homes in British Columbia that will be subject to this additional school tax.

The tax rate is going be 0.2 percent of any value of residential property between $3 million and $4 million, and a rate of 0.4 percent will be applied on any value over $4 million. This increase starts in the 2019 tax year.

The School Act is also amended to include a new rental revitalization exemption. Again, people will have heard the discussion in the budget, as a part of our 30-point plan, that one of the things that we are looking at is ensuring that we have partners to come to the table to support affordable housing in our province. Addressing the issue and the crisis that we’re facing around the lack of affordable housing is not something that is going to be solved by government alone. It’s going to be solved in partnership with the private sector, with municipalities, with First Nations, with other partners.

We are bringing in an amendment on the revitalization exemption — new rental revitalization. This exemption will be available on newly built or substantially renovated rental properties which have more than four units and receive a municipal revitalization exemption certificate.

Right now there’s a tool for municipalities to take a look at giving a municipal revitalization exemption certificate to provide a break for the building of rental housing. What we are saying is we are also stepping up to the plate as a province, and we will waive the school tax in those areas. We will give an exemption on the school tax. It’ll be effective in 2019 and subsequent tax years. That, again, supports municipalities and the work that they’re doing to come to the table and partner. You will, hopefully, spur and encourage municipalities to take a look at their revitalization agreements and for developers to look at that as well, to provide the support.

[2:00 p.m.]

The School Act amendments I’ve listed also require consequential amendments to a number of acts. Assessment Authority Act, British Columbia Transit Act, Hospital District Act, Indian Self Government Enabling Act, Islands Trust Act, Local Government Act, Local Services Act, South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Act, and the Vancouver Charter. All of those acts will see consequential amendments to ensure that we’ve made the changes that I listed previously.

Effective April 1, 2018, the Tobacco Tax Act is also amended to increase the tax rate on cigarettes to 27.5 cents per cigarette from 24.7 and to increase the tax rate on loose tobacco to 37.5 cents from 24.7 cents per gram. I think all of us know that British Columbia is well known for doing everything we can to decrease the rates of smoking. Certainly, higher tobacco prices can be a very effective deterrent to those who are looking at starting to smoke — for young people, in particular — and also an incentive to quit for current smokers. So we believe this is not simply a change in a tax measure but, in fact, a health measure, if we look at British Columbia.

The Motor Fuel Tax Act is also amended to increase the fuel tax rates on gasoline and diesel in the capital regional district to 5.5 cents per litre from 3.5 cents. This has been a longtime request by the transit council here in the capital regional district. They have requested this increase to be able to provide support for expanding transit services — increasing buses, dedicated bus lanes. So this will provide an opportunity for the region. All the additional revenue will go directly to the Victoria Regional Transit Commission for the Victoria regional transit system. This is, again, a request that came forward that we believe provides that additional support.

We’ve also amended, in this bill, the Carbon Tax Act and the Motor Fuel Tax Act. They are amended to clarify that fuel sales between refiner-collectors are exempt from security. This, again, simplifies administration and avoids the potential for the double taxation of fuel.

Bill 2 also includes several amendments to the Provincial Sales Tax Act. This act is amended to enable on-line accommodation platforms to register to be collectors of provincial sales tax and the municipal and regional district tax. You will remember, hon. Speaker, that we talked about this in relation to Airbnb coming to the table. We certainly hope that you will see other on-line accommodation providers come to the table to work out similar kinds of arrangements, to provide that support to municipalities through what is known as the hotel tax but otherwise known as the municipal and regional district tax.

The act is also amended to increase the luxury surtax rates on passenger vehicles with a purchase price of $125,000 and above. We believe, again, this is going to improve the fairness of the tax system and also help provide funds for services and supports that every British Columbian receives.

The government is also making three amendments to the Provincial Sales Tax Act to clarify and simplify provincial sales tax administration. First, the software provided and optional as-needed maintenance agreements are now taxable. This actually just clarifies the long-standing interpretation of the act. That is the interpretation, and that is what people were following.

We’re ensuring that that clarification is there in the act for people. Second, services are now permitted to be included in the tax payment agreements between the province and railway companies that operate across jurisdictions. Again, this is going to simplify their remittance of provincial sales tax on services. Third, cruise ship retail operators will no longer be required to collect provincial sales tax on sales made during scheduled sailings.

The Carbon Tax Act, the Motor Fuel Tax Act and the Provincial Sales Tax Act are also amended. It will allow a fee to be charged to taxpayers to recover costs associated with out-of-province audits. Audits are needed to ensure compliance with and the fairness of our tax system. There are some taxpayers who keep their books and keep their information, their records, outside of British Columbia.

We are collecting a tax to be able to enable the auditors to do their work that they need to do. Of course, taxpayers have the opportunity to bring those books and those records into British Columbia. Then, obviously, there would be no fee charged. This is simply a charge, for those who wish to keep their books and their records outside the province, to enable us to be able to have access and to be able to do the audits.

The Hydro and Power Authority Act is also amended to clarify that B.C. Hydro’s school tax liability is limited to land it owns in fee simple and its improvements. Again, this is a clarification of the long-standing interpretation of the legislation.

[2:05 p.m.]

This clarification doesn’t affect Nisga’a lands or taxing treaty First Nations lands. It doesn’t impact, as well, B.C. Hydro’s ability to pay grants in lieu for its holdings on their lands. So no changes to those pieces. It’s simply a clarification on the long-standing interpretation of the legislation.

Finally, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act is amended to improve administration and information-sharing by allowing for the collection of oil and gas data under the petroleum information network, which is also used by Alberta and Saskatchewan, and for the information collected to be shared between relevant ministries.

I know that’s a long list of changes. I appreciate the opportunity to listen to other speakers who may wish to speak to this bill.

S. Bond: I appreciate the opportunity to get up this afternoon and make some comments about this bill. I think the comments made by the Minister of Finance certainly are probably a perfect example of the number of changes that are being made in this bill. It is a lengthy bill. It is, I think, about 62 pages long. When you look at legislators in this place and the kinds of things we have debates about, this is probably not the bill that springs to mind for most people and that would generate an energized discussion.

It is an absolutely essential bill, and that’s why it’s called the Budget Measures Implementation Act. When I think about it, it’s the framework on which government’s policy decisions, their taxation decisions — those pieces of policy that they’ve announced in their budget…. This is the framework which brings those pieces to life.

I view it as the black-and-white version. This is the technical information that is required to bring budget decisions to life. It is, in essence, a fundamental bill in this House. In fact, some would suggest that it is absolutely critical to the confidence of the government. I think you can tell from the very long list: 21 acts that are impacted by the decisions that were announced by the government in their recent budget.

As I said, if this is the black-and-white version, what’s missing from this piece of legislation — and rightly so, because the nature of the bill is such that it’s technical — is the colour version — what those policy decisions make, the changes that they make in people’s lives. We list off 21 acts that will have some implication, some change as a result of the budget. What we need to be careful about is what the implications are for British Columbians.

I want to spend just a few minutes talking about some of those. I can imagine that most British Columbians today aren’t (a) tuned into Hansard to listen to our comments and (b) will probably likely never in their lives have the opportunity or the desire to look at the Budget Implementation Act. That’s why it’s important that members of the opposition and the Green Party will stand today and ask some questions.

Today is just the overview of the direction we’re going to take. In committee there will be some very specific questions about the legislation that is in front of them. We have to remember that the legislative piece that we see in front of us does not lay out the details around some of the more significant pieces of legislation, some that have already caused British Columbians concern. Those are additional tax measures, and I’m going to have something to say about those shortly.

Some of the amendments in this bill would be considered minor, and legislation does that. There are places where there are, in essence, housekeeping measures taken to correct something. The minister very clearly articulated what some of those are. When the federal government makes changes, the provincial government needs to align their taxation measures or programs with federal government change. There are sections here which do that. They align federal and provincial programs.

There are things that were clearly laid out by the government and, in fact, by the previous government in terms of the elimination of the education tax credit and a variety of other things. There are some very matter-of-fact things contained in this bill, and I’m sure that when we go through committee, they will take less time than some of the other pieces.

[2:10 p.m.]

The minister mentioned a number of acts that will be modified to look at the issue of information-sharing. Obviously, when you want the government and the ministries and the branches of government to work more efficiently together, you do want to be able to share information. But I can assure you that British Columbians are as concerned about the protection of privacy as they are about the freedom-of-information side of this.

As we get into committee later, we will be talking about what kind of information is being collected and for what purposes. Those are important details, as we look at the implication of the collection of new taxes, the collection of information about property taxes and those kinds of things. I think British Columbians will want to know exactly what information they will be asked for.

When I look at one of the things…. I can remember…. I think it was particularly the member for Nanaimo. When we were in government, he would constantly remind us that we shouldn’t be doing…. Why do we do so many things in government by regulation?

Well, interestingly enough, one of the sections that is added in regard to the Property Transfer Tax Act is “Ministerial regulation-making power.” In fact, it says, “The minister may, by regulation, require additional information to be provided under section 12.13 on returns that must be filed….” In essence, this authorizes the minister, by regulation, to require information. We’re going to be asking exactly what kind of information and in what circumstances, by regulation — that means it doesn’t take place in this House, and there isn’t debate — information would be collected from British Columbians.

There are, though, important areas where information will be shared between agencies to allow for a more efficient process for both the taxpayer and for government agencies. So there are both positives and, obviously, some concerns about some of those potential implications.

We also note that there are a significant number of tax measures. As I said earlier, not all of them are even reflected in this piece of legislation. I think, from our perspective, one of the most significant concerns we have is the confusion that has been created regarding some of the new taxation measures.

When you think about the kinds of commentary that we’ve heard from not just business in British Columbia but from owners of houses, from employers and from employees, there seems to be a great deal of confusion and concern. In our view, it is absolutely incumbent upon the government, not only through this piece of legislation but other work that they do, to explain exactly what the implications of those tax changes are. We’re going to pursue a line of questioning related to some of those pieces as well.

We also have to take into account the fact that…. There were tax measures contained in the September budget update, and we had a fulsome discussion about that. But we want to actually look at the discussion about whether British Columbians are going to be better off after these tax changes. Or is there an unfair tax burden being placed on business and individuals in this province?

I think one of our most significant concerns is that there seems to be a lack of connectivity. When you add a tax burden to businesses, it has a trickle-down effect to the employees and, thus, British Columbians in this province. We’ve had a very vigorous debate, although, as I said, clarity…. Apparently, it’s very difficult for people to understand.

When you talk about eliminating MSP premiums, as an example, and say that it’s going to bring a benefit to employers, we need to have an accurate description of what’s happening. We’re eliminating MSP premiums, and we’re replacing it with a new tax. In fact, we are looking at one year — and the minister has been forthright about that — where the 50 percent reduction of MSP premiums does bring a benefit. But we should be extremely clear that in the subsequent years there are impacts on businesses in British Columbia. Ultimately, that will translate and will impact consumers and employees in this province.

[2:15 p.m.]

Why don’t we, just for a moment, think about what exactly is expected of business as a result of this budget? Well, we have a new employer payroll tax — technically, $4.2 billion. The carbon tax is up 16.7 percent. Yes, we see those acts being amended in this bill. The minimum wage is up by 11 percent, and the corporate tax rate is now at 12 percent.

In essence, this budget, this framework that’s being put in place, is actually being funded by businesses in British Columbia. The members of the government seem to think that you can layer that on to businesses in British Columbia and somehow it won’t be felt by British Columbians, by consumers or by employees in those businesses. We know that’s simply not accurate. We have been deluged by stories from family-supporting businesses that create well-paying jobs for British Columbians. What are they saying to the members of the opposition? They are deeply concerned.

Every day those concerns are brushed off by members of the government simply saying they’re going to get a benefit by reducing MSP premiums by half. They neglect to finish the rest of the story, to add the colour. The black and white in this bill lays out that framework, but what’s missing is the trickle-down effect on those businesses. Ultimately, that will affect British Columbians far more broadly.

When you look at recent articles…. Let’s be clear here: when our comments or thoughts are simply set aside, often it’s not the voices of MLAs on this side; it’s the voices of business owners. We should be clear. These are not business owners who are million-dollar CEOs.

Here’s a summary of the fiscal plan unveiled by the Finance Minister, not in my words but in a recent article in Business in Vancouver. “Massive new spending and balanced budgets. But it only accomplishes that balance through more than $5 billion worth of new taxes or tax hikes over three years.” While many businesses welcome the government’s $1 billion child care plan, because of lack of access to affordable child care, “they were blindsided” — not my words — “by the employer health tax, which will replace Medical Services Plan premiums.”

Let’s be clear. While the government wants to celebrate the elimination of MSP premiums, they also need to stand up and reflect on the fact that they are replacing those premiums with another tax. It’s not quite as simple as “it’s going to be really good for everyone,” because there are subsequent years which will have ongoing impacts.

That is an enormous concern for members of the opposition, and we continue to hear from business owners — large, medium and small, all across this province — who have no idea how they are going to manage those changes. Not to mention the complexity now. What about those public service organizations? What about school districts? What about hospitals?

If you do the math, if you’re looking at a budget, you can’t simply say, “Our budget is based on this income” and then incrementally start to exempt groups. “Oh, we’re going to take care of this one.” “We’re going to make sure that one is held whole.” “We’re going to look at this.” “We’re going to discuss this.” Very, very quickly the credibility of a budget begins to disappear. You can’t create a budget that makes assumptions about revenue and then start to minimize that revenue by exempting people.

From our perspective, there are significant concerns about a plan that, first of all, ignored the advice that was given to this minister, not just by her own MSP Task Force but also by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. They say that they warned the Finance Minister, in a prebudget meeting, that small and medium-sized businesses do not support using a payroll tax to replace MSP premiums. You can imagine why they might not.

While we’re simply talking about, in my comments at the moment, the employer health tax, let’s talk about the other things that are impacting those businesses. We’ve mentioned some of them already.

[2:20 p.m.]

The corporate tax is going up. There’s an 11 percent minimum wage increase. There’s a 16.7 percent increase in carbon tax. The commentary goes on to say: “The one bit of tax relief for business is the elimination of PST on electricity.” I seem to recall that, as government, we actually introduced that initiative.

From my perspective, there needs to be a thoughtful and thorough dialogue that explains the entire story to British Columbians. It’s not enough to stand in question period every day and simply say: “This is fantastic. It’s great for employers because they’re going to get a benefit.”

Yes, they’re going to have a year where they will benefit from a 50 percent reduction in MSP. But what is completely missing from the dialogue — and I think that is very unfair to British Columbians broadly — is the fact that, yes, MSP premiums will be eliminated, but they are being replaced by another tax. To suggest that that will not have implications for businesses of any size in British Columbia, in my view, is just simply not accurate.

I do want to spend a couple of minutes talking about some positive things. As I noted in my initial comments after receiving the budget, when it was tabled…. While everyone’s here in the Legislature, we’re in a little room. People come in and drop the budget books on a table, and they say: “Here they are.” Then, lo and behold, you arrive in the Legislature to provide remarks about that budget.

In those opening remarks I made, we did compliment the government. We did recognize that important investments were being made in areas like child care and housing. But what’s important is that the rest of the story be told, that British Columbians understand what was required in order to make those investments. As we have heard from businesses….

While it would be convenient to be able to characterize businesses in British Columbia that will be impacted by the budget as the rich, the exclusive — all of those kinds of descriptors — the vast majority of businesses in British Columbia are small businesses. The definition of “small business” is 50 persons that are employed. That hardly reflects the view of a million-dollar CEO.

When we make these kinds of decisions based on how you pay for what it is you’re going to announce, you need to be able to lay out the entire story for British Columbians, and we certainly will be looking forward to continuing to do that. We will do that through asking questions as we work our way through this bill in committee.

I also want to reflect on another concern that we have. Though our briefing was short, questions like when you look at how assessments will be done for taxation purposes…. The bill speaks to fair market value. Well, it will be very important to clarify for British Columbians what that means.

At what point is fair market value determined, and how does that impact homeowners? There are few things in a family’s world that have more value — literally, financially and from a quality-of-life perspective — than their home, and we are very concerned about some of the implications of the housing strategy that’s been laid out.

I do want to look at a couple of new initiatives that we were very pleased to see. We’re looking at the extension of the book publishing tax credit. While people think that that might be just a small sector, it is an important one. The measure was first introduced by our government, and I am very pleased to see that the minister has chosen to extend the book publishing tax credit for three years. It will give certainty.

The book publishing tax credit, for example, primarily applies to book publishing corporations that carry out business primarily in B.C. It might interest Madame Speaker to know that British Columbia is home to the second-largest English-language book publishing sector in Canada.

[2:25 p.m.]

Amongst all of the changes that are being made, there are things that we are very supportive of. Ironically, many of them didn’t occur overnight. Many of the initiatives that are contained both in the budget and in this bill relate to initiatives that have been undertaken after a lot of work over the last decade or so. The book publishing sector is incredibly important in British Columbia, so we were very pleased to see that included.

As I listened to the minister’s list today, when we look at things like the interactive digital tax credit, that is also an important part of looking at building on the success of our film industry, our tech sector, celebrating some of the fantastic work that’s done in British Columbia in television and film and in digital. Having worked with that sector, it is an incredibly important one.

The mining flow-through tax credit. All of those kinds of things are important. It’s great to see them being continued, but it is so important that we take the time necessary to look at the Budget Measures Implementation Act in the context of what it means related to the budget, what it means to everyday British Columbians.

It’s hard to argue against closing loopholes that are related to tax avoidance. It’s hard to argue against enforcement measures and looking at how we deal with audit in British Columbia, finding a better way to do that. I think everyone in this House wants to ensure that there is a fair and appropriate process for paying the taxes that are required. So those are important measures that are included in this bill.

Another tax measure where the implications are significant is the carbon tax. We’ve had discussion about that in this House before. We know from the September budget update, and now confirmed in the budget, that the carbon tax is going up. Our biggest concern remains that the carbon tax is no longer revenue-neutral. Again, it just builds on the narrative that while announcing important investments….

No one denies that making sure there’s affordable child care, making sure that British Columbians can afford a home, making sure that those people who struggle are supported…. But it has to be presented in the context of: how are we going to pay for those things?

What we’ve discovered and what we have certainly heard from many British Columbians over the last week or so, since the budget was tabled, was that businesses are going to bear the brunt of budget tax hikes. The very people who are responsible for creating jobs, supporting families in this province, making sure we can have a strong and growing economy, are the people who are going to carry the burden to pay for all of the announcements that have been made.

The carbon tax is no longer revenue-neutral. There is less public focus. There is not a sense of immediate accountability about what those dollars are going to be used for. We were very disappointed to see the loss of revenue neutrality in terms of the carbon tax. In fact, our government, as has been said before, won awards for the very progressive nature of that carbon tax.

Part of the responsibility of government is to explain to British Columbians…. If you’re going to take additional dollars at the gas pump and people are going to be paying more to fill up their gas tanks, they deserve to know where that money is going, not simply: “It’s going into general revenue to pay for a variety of other things.” We are very disappointed at the loss of revenue neutrality when it comes to the carbon tax.

With those comments, I want to simply remind and urge the Minister of Finance to remember that this is the black-and-white version and the framework on which the policies that her government has decided are priorities…. The implications of those tax changes, of the amendments of all of the acts, really, when you list all 21 of them, most British Columbians…. It’s probably not on their radar screen or a high priority for them to understand that.

What they do deserve to know is exactly how they will be impacted. In fact, we know there will be impacts.

[2:30 p.m.]

We will very likely see costs that are being downloaded on employers. They will be transferred in a number of ways. Either the services that are provided…. You’re going to see them become more expensive. Or, in the case of many of the people who have contacted my office, you’re going to see them consider whether or not they require staffing reductions, whether or not they will consider expanding. There are significant implications.

I appreciate the Finance Minister laying out the acts that we’ll be discussing in committee. I look forward to a very constructive committee discussion. I am sure there will be a lot of questions. And I want to thank you, Madame Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to provide some remarks this afternoon.

J. Brar: I’m very excited to stand up in this House today to speak in favour of Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2018. Before I say anything, I would like to say thank you to the member for Prince George–Valemount for her very thoughtful comments, because that’s what this House is for. We debate the issue when it comes in front of us.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

This bill proposes a number of changes to a number of existing acts. That will provide us with the kind of framework that will allow us to make decisions for new investments, for new taxation — the promises we made to the people of British Columbia. So I am very excited to stand in this House to support this bill, introduced by the Minister of Finance and the Deputy Premier of this province.

I support this bill because, after 16 years of neglect, British Columbians finally have a budget that is not only balanced but a budget that puts people first. We live in a province rich in people, resources, natural beauty and opportunities. Yet those opportunities have become further and further out of reach for too many people. Families are working harder than ever and can’t get ahead. Young people can’t find affordable housing, and seniors can’t get services that they depend on. It’s time for a totally different approach. That’s why I support this bill, Bill 2 — because people are at the centre of every choice that we have made in this budget.

Bill 2 opens the doors wide open to share prosperity in the province of British Columbia, to make life more affordable, to improve the services that people count on and to build a strong, sustainable economy that supports jobs in every part of the province. With this bill, we are charting a path to a more affordable, balanced and hopeful vision for B.C. For 16 long years, the previous government worked for the top 2 percent — wealthy British Columbians. Our government wants a better B.C. for each and every person in this province.

I come from Surrey, and I support this bill because this bill is good news for the people of Surrey — the news the people of Surrey have been waiting for, for 16 long years. I have received a number of phone calls and emails from the people of Surrey, and they’re all happy with the new investments this government is making to build a new infrastructure and to improve services for the people of Surrey.

The city of Surrey is the fastest-growing community in the province. We welcome over 1,000 newcomers every month. Our great city has led the province in population growth and in building new homes. Clearly, we have been paying our dues to the provincial coffer, but the previous government made bad choices and completely ignored the needs of our growing community for 16 long years. People are paying the price for those bad choices.

[2:35 p.m.]

Housing affordability is in crisis. Every year 4,000 kids are born at Surrey Memorial Hospital, but parents can’t find child care spaces, and 7,000 children in the city of Surrey don’t have real classrooms. Patients suffer in pain over six long hours at Surrey Memorial Hospital, but the Liberal government sold the land which was purchased by the previous government to build a new hospital. There were no plans to replace the Patullo Bridge, which is completely unsafe at this point in time. People are paying more but getting less.

That’s what the people of Surrey got under the previous government’s so-called good economy. They left our city in a big and ugly mess, and we need to fix that. Bill 2 offers concrete steps to fix those problems that people in Surrey have been facing for too long. I would like to talk about what the bill offers to the people of Surrey.

We are making historic investments for affordable housing. While the B.C. Liberals ignored the housing crisis for 16 long years, we have taken bold steps to begin to tackle the housing crisis. This includes our commitment to the largest investment in housing in the history of our province. Our investment will support almost 34,000 units of affordable rental, supportive and student housing. Our government is also going to permit colleges and universities to borrow to build much-needed student housing, and together, we will help finance 5,000 new student housing beds under this bill.

I support Bill 2 because it is a path to help build 114,000 affordable units which we promised to the people of British Columbia during the last election. The city of Surrey will receive capital funding of approximately $13 million for three modular housing projects, totalling 160 supportive housing units for people who are homeless and at risk of being homeless. B.C. Housing is going to provide $15 million in capital funding to Surrey for 50 transitional beds and 50 shelter beds for men and women who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

I support this bill because this also allows us to take action to stabilize the housing market. We are taking steps to counter tax fraud and money laundering. It starts with closing loopholes and ensuring that we can crack down on tax frauds. That’s what this bill is all about.

This bill also includes the largest investment for child care in B.C. history. While the previous government said no to people who are in need of child care, this budget offers the largest investment in child care in B.C. history, with a $1 billion child care investment over three years to lower costs for parents, increase the number of child care spaces and make sure those spaces meet the highest standards for quality care.

The plan starts with the new affordable child care benefit starting in September. It will provide up to $1,250 each month per child. It will lower fees for an estimated 86,000 families per year by the end of 2020-21.

[2:40 p.m.]

Also, starting April 1 of this year, a child care fee reduction program will provide funding directly to licensed care providers. It will provide up to $350 a month for a child care space. These fee reductions will benefit an estimated 50,000 families per year by 2020-21.

Together, this is the largest investment government has made to reduce child care fees ever in the province of British Columbia. It’s good news for the people of B.C. It’s good news for the people of Surrey. I am proud to say that this marks the beginning of a made-in-B.C. universal child care plan. That’s why I’m excited to support Bill 2.

Nothing is more important than our children’s education. Investing in our education means investing in our future. Today, young people will graduate into a global job market, and we will need to make sure that we have a public education system that will help them compete in the global market.

The result of 16 years of the B.C. Liberals’ neglect is that we have 7,000 students in Surrey who have no real classrooms, and we can do better. After a long time, this bill of our government will provide about $200 million of capital funding to build new schools and for seismic upgrades to ensure our kids are safe. These investments include the following new schools.

They’re going to build Grandview Heights secondary, a new secondary school to provide 1,500 student spaces; Burke Road Elementary, a new elementary school to provide 605 student spaces; Regent Road Elementary, a new elementary school to provide 655 student spaces; Salish Secondary, a new secondary school to provide 1,500 student spaces; Edgewood Drive elementary, a new elementary school to provide 655 student spaces; and Pacific Heights Elementary, a 12-classrooms addition to provide up to 300 more student spaces in Surrey. In addition, Bear Creek Elementary will get a seismic upgrade. Mary Jane Shannon Elementary will also receive a seismic upgrade.

That’s a huge investment. It’s a historic investment, which the city of Surrey got after a long, long time.

Transportation is another area which is a challenge for the growing community of our city with a growing population. This bill also provides a significant new investment to build transportation infrastructure for the growing city of Surrey.

Our government has already eliminated the tolls on the Port Mann Bridge and the Golden Ears Bridge as of September 1. It is free to cross the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges. These were unfair tolls put, by the previous government, on the people of Surrey, particularly on the people of Surrey and Port Coquitlam. A driver who commutes to and from work each and every day on the Port Mann Bridge will save approximately $1,500 a year, and that’s a huge savings for any working family. So we are making life more affordable for people who cross the Fraser River every day.

In addition, our government has made a new, exciting announcement to replace the Pattullo Bridge, and that is a $1.3 billion announcement. A new investment to replace the old bridge that had been, actually, replaced a long time ago, and the completion date for that one is 2023. It’s good news for the people of Surrey as well.

[2:45 p.m.]

There’s also $19 million in funding for south of Fraser’s effort, funding early work. That funding will be spent on that one, and that includes the widening of the Bear Creek Bridge and utility relocation, as well as upgrades to transit exchanges at future LRT stations.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, we have made the commitment to provide 40 percent funding to LRT in Surrey, which the previous government had constantly refused to do. Now that project is going to go ahead because we have given them the initial funding. I hope that we will see that project moving forward soon.

This bill, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, marks a new direction in our province. It puts us on a path where people are put at the centre of the government’s decision-making. Budget 2018 takes significant steps to help our businesses get the workforce they need by addressing child care and housing affordability issues. There are many more items in this bill that I won’t have time to go into today.

A key announcement to serve…. It will include building more schools and more hospitals; improving access to team-based care for people who do not have a family doctor; helping seniors live at home longer and access the quality staff they need in residential care; improving access to the justice system through family justice centres, legal aid and reduced court delays; and investing in building a strong, sustainable economy, which includes making a record level of investment in capital projects, including, as I said earlier, schools and transit. That will create 50,000 direct and indirect jobs throughout the province for the people of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, as I said to you earlier. This bill is good news for the people of Surrey. With this bill and with this budget, we are focused on making life more affordable, improving the services people depend on and, of course, developing a sustainable, strong economy that provides good, meaningful jobs to the people of British Columbia.

With that, I will conclude my comments by saying that I fully support Bill 2. With that, I will take my seat. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.

P. Milobar: It gives me pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill 2. I wish it was less of a tax-intensive bill, though, that I was rising to speak to.

When I was listening to the Finance Minister speak to open up this debate, I noticed that there was a reference to 21 different amendments needing to be made. I lost track of how many statements started with: “With this amendment, we will be increasing this tax.” “With this amendment, we will be increasing this fee.” But it’s safe to say that not once did I recognize or hear — and I could have missed it — a statement saying: “With this amendment, we will be reducing and lowering….” That, I think, is the fundamental problem with the overall Bill 2 and the amount of amendments needed to be able to bring forward the budget.

This is — let’s be very clear — a budget that has record levels of taxation. We can talk about individual ministries and record levels of this investment or that investment. Frankly, a lot of those already allotted funds were in previous budgets. This is the three-year working forward and previously announced spending priorities and spending amounts within those ministries. But what we didn’t see in those previous budgets were record levels of taxation, and that is very clearly what this budget is.

[2:50 p.m.]

What this bill will bring forward, with their amendments, is a cavalcade of tax increases across the board, touching almost every type of tax and fee you can imagine as a citizen, all under the guise of the marketing slogan of the NDP saying “making life affordable.” Only under this government’s watch does a $5.5 billion record-level-setting tax increase equate to making life affordable.

We’ve heard loud and clear from the business community. That’s not us fabricating, on this side of the House, people’s concerns. People have real-life concerns about their own individual businesses. It’s not a calculation that’s difficult for somebody that is in business — to be able to look at their payroll and figure out what this payroll tax cost is going to be as an increase.

Every time we raise that we get laughed at by the other side. They’re laughing at business people in our communities. They’re laughing at employees in our communities that are legitimately worried about their jobs, about their livelihoods and about their business operations, with a very clear understanding that their costs are going to increase. Instead of a Finance Minister acknowledging that, what we hear is that somehow they are magically seeing costs reduce because there’s an extra $5.5 billion of taxation. It doesn’t stand the test.

As we heard from the previous speaker, governments are elected to make those priority choices. I have no problem with that, and I think everyone fully expects that.

Let’s take everyone back, not to Bill 2. Let’s take everyone back, all the way back to April of last year, ten months ago, when every one of us was out on the election trail. In every election forum I went to, I heard very clearly from the NDP candidate running in my riding that not only was everything in the NDP platform fully costed against B.C. Liberal numbers. It was deliverable under those numbers, and it was a simple case that we were too mean-spirited to implement those measures under our current financial playbook that we had.

Let’s go forward ten months. What have we seen in those ten months? We’ve seen nothing but a string of broken promises. We’ve seen $8 billion added to taxation, when you look at the last budget update plus this budget. Now we have Bill 2, which has 21 different amendments needed to try to raise and amend fees and charges and taxes on people, all under the guise of making life affordable.

It seems the only promise the government kept was the marketing slogan. They didn’t actually follow through on any one of their promises. We’re hard-pressed to find any one of their promises in this book that has actually been fully implemented with this budget.

We heard a lot of great talk. We heard a lot of great talk about housing, 114,000 units, during the election. That has now changed to 30,000 units and dropping. In fact, they’re double-counting a lot of units that were already announced and being built by the previous government and saying: “Well, if we top them up with an extra million dollars, we get to count those extra 100 units.” Well, in the real world, housing costs more than $1 million to build 100 units. I guess once they crash the real estate market, perhaps not.

What we see right now with Bill 2 is a whole lot of amendments to make life totally unaffordable for the average person in British Columbia. The sad part about that is most people won’t actually start seeing the full impact of these amendments until it’s too late, until they’re already seeing their lifestyle impacted.

Seniors who have had the audacity to live in the same home for the last 30, 40, 50 years, especially in Metro Vancouver, and have a huge amount of equity built up are now being told: “You know what? Maybe you should pay an extra $12,000 a year in tax because you had the audacity to work hard, to save, to provide for your family, to live in the same house for 30 or 40 years. Because all of your neighbours’ houses have gone up in value, and yours has as well, we think, as the government, you should pay us more money now than you have been paying. It doesn’t seem right that you should be allowed to actually retire with your retirement plan that you’ve dutifully budgeted for through your whole working life.” That’s one of those amendments in here that gives me great, great concern.

Then when you look at the other amendments that are needed to try to fund things, it’s very interesting. Frankly, it was a little disconcerting — not that the Green Party decided to vote lockstep with the government. I think we all know they operate as one and the same, so that’s not too surprising. What is surprising is…. The Green Party is still in opposition. One would think that a Green Party who is in opposition, whose whole base is built around protecting the environment, would at least have spoken out about certain components of this budget where you see a Ministry of Environment that is actually seeing a net cut, a loss, in their operations.

[2:55 p.m.]

Yes, it looks very fancy. It looks like there’s $6 million being added to the budget, but that $6 million is being added to the special parks fund, which means increased sales of the B.C. Parks licence plates, which means increased revenues from B.C. Parks.

When you actually look at the real numbers, they’ve cut B.C. Parks by $9 million. Nine million has come out of B.C. Parks. I don’t hear that in these amendments. I don’t hear that bandied about by the government — that they’re proud that they have actually cut $9 million out of B.C. Parks. I don’t hear them say that they’re very proud that environmental protection is flat from last year, that they’re not putting any new money into environmental protection. The environmental assessment office is flat. No new money there.

One would have thought the Green Party would have at least read the line items within the Ministry of Environment budget and not just gone to the big number at the bottom and seen where the real numbers were within that budget. It is about priorities, in terms of making sure where the money gets moved around within a budget. That’s how you live within your means. I can understand that things get moved around, but it’s a little disconcerting that the Green Party didn’t look to see what was going on within Environment.

Let’s look at environmental sustainability. True, that went up by $1 million. Now let’s look at the climate action section. That went down by $1 million. It’s very interesting that within the Ministry of Environment’s budget, which was built and, we established in estimates last year, was the exact same numbers that the B.C. Liberal government had put into the Environment budgets….

The outcry from members opposite in the Green Party and in the NDP about how underfunded the environment was for all these years under that dastardly B.C. Liberal…. I think it was 16 years, was it? Was it 16 years? I’m just confirming how many years it was. Over the 16 years of underfunding, supposedly…. Not a word. In fact, they’re praising this Environment budget when it’s the exact same numbers as the B.C. Liberals.

Actually, it’s not the exact same numbers. It’s a cut. In those numbers, there’s $7 million in wages, a $7 million wage increase, which means there’s actually a net drop in services. Other than the conservation officers at $3 million…. I’ll be generous and say that the $3 million for conservation is actually in the wages and salaries. That means there’s still a $4 million cut to programming and services, overall, within the Ministry of Environment. They have no new staff. It’s the same amount of staff doing the same amount of work.

Let’s look at those priorities a little bit closer, shall we? Climate action was a $1 million drop. You know what went up by $1 million, when you’re digging through all the lines in the budget? I’m a bit of a numbers wonk, so I like doing that type of thing in my spare time. You know what went up by $1 million at the same time that the climate action was dropping by $1 million? The government communications department.

There’s a good priority use of taxpayer funds. Let’s drop climate action by $1 million, while our Green partners are propping us up in government, and increase government spending on government communications by the same amount of money. That is a bit of a flawed priority, if you ask me as the Environment critic. I wish my Green partners would have at least pointed this out.

Interjection.

P. Milobar: I get that a budget is a sum of many parts. You could still vote for a budget. You could still vote for the bill amendments while opposing certain parts — at least voice concern about certain parts. But that’s not what we’ve heard with this.

That’s the problem with this bill amendment. All it does is add mechanisms to raise taxes and to link more personal information, which, again, I find interesting, given the backgrounds of members opposite — how they used to be very worried about government having too much insight into people’s dealings and civil liberties and those types of initiatives. Yet we see a whole lot of amendments in here that are all about linking people’s financial and personal and real estate information all together in one big bundle. Why is that? Because then it makes it easier to keep layering taxes on year after year after year, to increase tax rates year after year after year, to actually add things in.

Let’s look at why they would need to keep raising some taxes as much as they are. I went into the Advanced Ed line items and started to look around. There’s been a lot of talk about supporting university students. The millennials out there need all the help they can get. Certainly, there must have been good news in there, with all of the tax hikes, for the students out there.

[3:00 p.m.]

Well, what we see, actually, is the student services programs have actually been cut. They’ve been cut for universities by $2 million. What does that pay for? It covers scholarships. It covers bursaries. It covers loan forgiveness. I don’t understand why they need so many tax increase amendments when they’re cutting services to university students. We heard over and over and over again how they were going to support and how they were going to make universities more affordable for students.

That’s not what we’ve seen. No, we’ve seen a $2 million cut in programs around scholarships, bursaries and loan forgiveness.

Then I go to education. That’s obviously been pretty topical in the last few days, so I thought: “Well, let’s take a look at some of the other line items in there.” Yes, there are some increases in some areas, most of which had already been, as I said, announced in previous budgets and have just been carried forward at the same dollar figures.

I thought: “Well, let’s take another look.” There’s been a lot of discussion around supporting K-to-12 education, the public library system, early learning and literacy programs, a lot of focus in recent days around that. So let’s look and see what priority this new government has put, with their 21 taxation amendments to increase taxes for everyone, on those types of services: the public library, early learning and literacy, K-to-12 education supports.

You know what it says to me in the budget book? A $10 million cut. A $10 million cut to public libraries in this budget document. That is astounding to me when we’re talking about 21 amendments to do nothing but raise taxes. They found a way to cut public libraries by $10 million. That is just incredible. Then, surely, with all of these taxation amendments to increase people’s taxations and their cost of living and their affordability….

We’ve heard a lot of talk about making sure that there’s a reinvestment into the Mines Act — reinvestment into enforcement and reinvestment into really holding industry’s feet to account and making sure things are done to a high level. Well, if we look at the environmental protection side of it within the Ministry of Environment, that funding is actually flat. There is no new money out of these 21 amendments to raise people’s taxes.

If we look at the mines, there is a slight increase but only $1.5 million. If you think of how big this province is geographically and think of how many minesites there are out there and how huge of a problem we kept hearing from members opposite, for 16 years, I believe it was…. They keep referencing 16 years, so I’ll go with that.

They kept saying we need more money into mine oversight. They’ve put in $1.5 million. That’s their priority. Out of 21 amendments that do nothing but raise taxes on people, they could only find $1.5 million. I think when they started looking at it, maybe it wasn’t as bad as they actually thought it was.

Then we think: “Well, they’re partnering with the Green Party. They’re kind of one and the same. Not in name but in action, they’re certainly one and the same.” Let’s look at the innovative clean energy fund. There must be some money being spent out of that, especially as we’re trying to transfer off of a carbon economy, as we’ve heard so many times. Heck, we’ve even heard that this government will be brought down if they dare to promote LNG, not make sure that we’re transferring to the new world economy….

Surely, the innovative clean energy fund…. With 21 taxation amendments that do nothing but raise taxes for people and make their lives more unaffordable, the innovative clean energy fund must have a substantial lift in their funding. But you know what we find? No new spending. None.

Again, not pointed out by the Greens at all, that I’ve heard. A little disappointing. They could have still voted for the budget. One would think they would do their job as true opposition, if they are trying to be opposition and not government, and actually point out some of these things that you would think would be concerning to them as a Green Party, especially to their Green Party members. One would think they assume they’re here fighting the good fight on behalf of the environment.

We’ve heard a lot about supporting technology. In fact, I think that the Finance Minister, in her speech around the amendment, referenced technology, if I’m not mistaken, and how great and how much growth we’re seeing in technology and how it’s a good way forward and it’s spreading across the province.

I’m paraphrasing her words a little bit, I know, but that was the general theme. And I agree. We’re seeing great tech growth. I’m from Kamloops. We’ve seen growth in tech go from a few companies. Now we have several hundred. We have close to 2,000 people working in tech. There are a few other big announcements that we hope to see in the near future.

[3:05 p.m.]

Tech definitely is growing. It’s a good way to expand and broaden your economy, and I think everyone can agree with that. Certainly, with 21 amendments that do nothing but raise taxes, one would think that there’s going to be a pretty good chunk of money in there for technology, innovation and economic development around it, because that is, after all, as the Green Party likes to say, the new economy.

Well, unfortunately, there wasn’t anything for the innovative clean energy fund to get us to the new economy, so I’ve got high hopes for this tech innovation and economic development fund. Alas, when I look at it, there’s a $9 million cut out of technology, innovation and economic development. With that, we just heard a Finance Minister saying how they’re supporting technology and innovation, how they’re trying to expand technology and innovation. Yet they’re cutting $9 million from its budget while raising taxes with 21 different amendments.

That doesn’t sound to me like a priority that’s in line with what’s actually in the document. That sounds to me like a great marketing ploy. Perhaps they’ve already hired some of those people in their new communication department for that million dollars, and that’s where they’re getting the speaking notes from.

To me, what that says is that the priorities are a little bit out of whack. The public is getting sold a marketing piece which does not come even close to aligning to what their platform — their platform, their words, their costing — only ten months ago said was going to happen if they became government.

Now, I know that they became government in a fairly unconventional way in British Columbia, but they are the government. So one would think that they would deliver on — or at least attempt to deliver on, reasonably close to — their promises. Now, we know all the time that when governments change, they get in and look at the books. They have to maybe reprioritize their priorities. They have to reprioritize their promises that they made within an election. That’s understandable.

One would have thought, though, that that would have resulted in either working in the same fiscal framework that they said they could deliver their whole platform on and just explain to people, “Sorry. We actually don’t have as much money as we thought, so we’re going to scale things back and we’re going to add things in over the next couple of years,” or that the government would say: “Sorry. The books aren’t quite what we thought they were, so for us to implement our full platform, we’re going to have to add an extra $8 billion worth of taxation in the next eight months.”

No, that’s not what we have. What we have with these 21 amendments, which do nothing but raise taxes for people and make life unaffordable for people, is 21 amendments that hike taxes by that $8 billion over the last eight months and still deliver nothing close to what the promises in the platform were. Talk about an overpromise and an underdelivery.

No wonder they don’t understand why the business tax is going to hurt businesses, because if you ran a business that way, you wouldn’t be in business for very long with that type of promise, with that type of underdelivery. I would shudder to think what the Yelp reviews and other on-line reviews would be of that type of promise-and-broken-promise scenario.

Those are some of the things that, as I look through this book, start to give me concern. As I say, it’s not so much that governments aren’t and shouldn’t be reprioritizing where previous budgets had money and previous governments had money. That’s totally understandable. But it’s when it’s almost like a bait-and-switch….

It’s like: “Don’t look over here. Don’t look where all the real cuts are coming, because we only want you to think about this stuff. But all the stuff that we used to rail against not being funded enough — you know what, folks? — we’re actually cutting dollars out of.”

MSP has come up quite a bit. There’s some verbiage in the amendments around MSP. So let’s take a look at the MSP budget, shall we? Miraculously, while we’re being told it’s being eliminated and, miraculously, while we’re being told that everyone is going to have these massive savings this year because it’s being cut in half, they’re actually budgeting an extra $250 million of MSP premiums coming into the budget. It’s going from about $4.5 billion to $4.8 billion.

In a time when they’re admonishing us for daring to question on behalf of businesses and non-profits and school districts and universities and municipalities about these increased costs they’re going to face, and we hear back: “Oh MSP is getting cheaper….” When you actually look at the number in the book, it went up by almost $300 million this year.

[3:10 p.m.]

I don’t understand how that is remotely a cheaper MSP program, when it actually is budgeting to collect more revenue than it collected last year. That is the problem.

When you look at these numbers…. When you consider the non-profits, the school districts, the municipalities, the regional districts and the universities, you think of the level and the calibre that all of those institutions have, working in their finance departments. To a person, to an organization, they have all said that there will be a net increase in cost to their health care benefits when this new employer health tax is in. That’s not even counting the double-dip days that are coming for them. That’s just looking at it as a true outward-looking budget.

The government only wants us to focus on the one year of that. I notice that’s the only part of the budget where the government only wants us to focus on one year. Every other announcement in this budget is talking about a three-year program — a three-year this, a three-year that. Yet for MSP, we’re only supposed to focus on this one year. That’s the only year you need to worry about if you’re a business, as if the future years magically don’t matter, as if your bank doesn’t care about that. Well, they do.

The fact is that we have a government willing to stand up in this House and, flat out, not just tell myself, or my colleagues who ask the questions, that they don’t understand how this tax works, that they’re misinterpreting it and that life will be cheaper for businesses and organizations under this tax. They’re telling all the professional accountants out there, all the public sector finance people out there, that they don’t understand how to do a simple payroll calculation. That, to me, is stunning — the arrogance, frankly, that it’s turned into.

Business owners who, not on their own…. Many of them have gone to their accountants. It is tax season, after all. Do you not think that a business owner going in to talk to his or her accountant about a year-end tax situation would be bringing up the payroll tax? Do you not think that they would be wondering: “How is this going to impact my business? How am I going to try to keep under a half-million-dollar payroll, if I’m close to it? How am I going to manage it if it’s over?” Of course they’re doing that.

I guess what the government is saying to us is that all the partners at all the big accounting firms, all of the other accountants from the small independent accounting firms, all of the government finance people, who spend their working lives working in finance and understanding how government budget policy impacts their individual budgets, are all wrong. They’re all completely wrong.

This is going to be nothing but sunshine and roses for them, and they’re going to be thanking everyone after the fact because life just got so much cheaper for them. They’re not going to have to lay people off. They’re not going to have to raise prices, if the government is talking about potentially renegotiating contracts or making people whole, if they work with the government. Yet somehow in the private sector, there’s no actual impact to them.

They talk about this small business tax being cut, but the payroll tax is going to chew into the bottom line for a company, which means there’s less income to tax. This means that the cut, at the end of the day, really means nothing. When people were happy to see a cut in the corporate rate, they didn’t think it was going to be followed up with a series of other taxes and fees like we see in these 21 amendments that are going to do nothing but increase the cost to them, increase the cost to their employees and increase the cost to life overall.

That, fundamentally, is the biggest problem with this. There seems to be a lack of wanting to acknowledge, on the government’s part, that there are very real-world concerns about this budget. It’s not coming from your typical stakeholders.

One would think that the school trustees would have been jumping for joy with the change in government, with the way the war on education was, from the members opposite towards us, over the last several years. But we even see the trustees association acknowledging that there’s a very real cost. So perhaps maybe all of those elected trustees don’t really understand how government works and how their own budgets work within school districts. Perhaps all those municipalities with all those elected councillors and mayors don’t really understand how budgets work and how governmental downloading doesn’t affect them.

[3:15 p.m.]

I can tell you, as a former mayor for nine years, that every time there’s a government decision, we instantly go to try to figure out: what is the impact to us, or not? There was apparently no thought given whatsoever to RCMP contracts.

Here’s a news flash for the government: the RCMP don’t pay MSP. They don’t qualify for MSP. They’re under a federal health plan. For every single RCMP member that is on a municipal police force — the vast majority, in British Columbia, is on that payroll — they’re still going to have to pay the administrative health tax to the federal system, and they’re going to have to pay a payroll tax based on the payroll of the RCMP that they have, which will see tons of money added to the list.

Municipalities are scrambling, trying to figure this out. The reason I’m tying the RCMP into this at this point is because at the beginning I said that businesses are also talking to their accountants, trying to figure out how to potentially keep their payroll under half a million dollars.

There are a few things with that. If you’re somebody who has staff that aren’t making in the $12-to-$14 range, you’re not making enough to be paying MSP right now, as it is. But that business, if you have enough employees, will trigger the tax. They’re looking at that, and they’re considering that. It’s a very real implication. We see that on the municipal side.

When municipalities in B.C. get close to 5,000, they actually appeal their census to try to get under 5,000 because their policing rate goes up substantially if their population goes over 5,000. If municipalities are doing it around the number of people living in their town — appealing that number so that they don’t have to pay added policing costs on a federal census — don’t think businesses aren’t trying to figure out how to keep under the half-million-dollar limit as they see new wage increases coming, making sure that they could still have a business and still provide for their own families, as well as all of the employees’ families that earn a good living with them.

I could go on forever about Bill 2, but I see my light is on. With that, I think I’ve made it fairly clear why there are more than 21 reasons to be opposed to these 21 amendments, which are going to do nothing but add $5.5 billion to the tax burden of British Columbians. That will certainly make life much more unaffordable for people in British Columbia.

S. Gibson: What a privilege it is to be here in the people’s House today to speak on Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act. It’s a pretty technical bill. I would characterize it as ominous.

A little bit of the philosophical dimensions to government today. I think if there’s anything that we have in common, whether it’s small business or individuals, it’s that we don’t like surprises. As a matter of fact, business thrives on consistency and security.

I had the privilege of owning a small manufacturing company, a plastic fabricating company. I had a payroll of 13 employees. For those of you who have never met a payroll — particularly, I’m addressing my comments to the other side of the House — let me say that having a small business is a challenge. But it’s worth it, because small business is the heartbeat of our province.

When I hear my colleagues and others talk about some of the ominous legislation that’s forthcoming, I suddenly realize why it is that so many business people today fear this government. It’s a chilling document. I want to acknowledge my colleague from Kamloops who spoke just before me, and some of the items that he enumerated.

[3:20 p.m.]

Also, if I may talk to a sense of security, I believe that the past 16 years of the B.C. Liberal government provided security to our citizens. There was a sense of comfort. There was a sense of trust that the government had their best interests in mind. Indeed, that’s why electoral success was repeated a number of times. But today, as I talk to my constituents, particularly business people, they’re alarmed. We’ll talk a bit about that.

The phrase “tax-and-spend budget” has been used quite often, and I think it has some currency. I want to particularly address my remarks to the Third Party. I realize that the Greens and the government have an alliance, but I can’t help but wonder if the Greens, if their leader, are totally comfortable with the trajectory that’s being announced here and being revealed in Bill 2. I might say that I have Green Party supporters who live in the riding of Abbotsford-Mission, and they’re sharing some of their concerns with me. So I’m sure they’re getting back to the leader.

The budget alone introduces $5.5 billion of tax increases. Now, I mentioned, earlier on, surprises. If I talked to folks in my riding of Abbotsford-Mission who decided to vote with the government team, I believe most of them would not have anticipated increased taxes of $8 billion, $5.5 billion of those in this budget alone. Nobody likes tax increases. As a matter of fact, we do need to tax people to provide services — the quality services that we all desire for our constituents and our province — but this was alarming.

We have shared in this House, and I’ll be sharing next week, some of our laments by our business people who say to me: “We can’t believe this is happening. It’s such a shock.” This goes back to my comment that business requires security. They don’t like surprises.

These taxes cover a wide variety of areas. Our government was innovative with the carbon tax, revenue-neutral — controversial but very well received internationally and nationally. But this government is changing the paradigm, and families won’t see that money returning. Rather, it’ll go into increased costs to families, small business men, farmers — the backbone of our province.

Income tax is increasing by nearly $1 billion a year. Hard to believe — $1 billion a year. We have such a buoyant economy left over from the good administration of our government. Some of the statistics I’m hearing from our government members are really representative of the legacy of what we left behind. That’ll mean an extra $1,000 per year.

I would like to share something a little bit personal. My wife is a school teacher, teaches little first-graders in Abbotsford, has done for many years and now has actually taken retirement. When our two daughters were born, my wife decided to stay home with them to provide care until they got in school, and then she went back to teaching. We certainly appreciated her income for our family.

I can tell this House that when my wife was home with our two daughters, it was tight for us financially. It was only on my paycheque. So $1,000 a year would have hurt us. I’m suspecting this is going to hurt a number of families.

[3:25 p.m.]

There’s the real estate speculation tax. I think it’s a misnomer. I don’t know whether the word “speculation” was chosen intentionally, but it certainly misrepresents the purpose of this tax. As a matter of fact, I’m already getting correspondence, people contacting my office, shocked with this — people that have a recreational home, planning to move to it for retirement possibly. Is this going to increase the inventory of homes in any way for people? No. It’s shameful, and it’s just a shock and a surprise.

I could read from a letter I received from a local constituent, absolutely amazed that this government would introduce such a tax out of the blue. There was no announcement. There was no anticipation. I don’t recall that this was mentioned in the election. Maybe I needed to pay attention. I don’t believe that it was mentioned in the election. Or if it was, it certainly wasn’t mentioned like this, in this manner.

We’ve heard a lot about the new employer health tax. This is innovative. I’ll give it that. It’s innovative, but it’s reaching right into the pockets of small business, societies, organizations, universities, colleges. This will be destructive, and it’s not offset by the withdrawal of half the MSP initially, not at all. My colleagues have already shared with this House, and I believe that the Minister of Finance is suddenly realizing that, wow, this is something quite disturbing.

I’m hoping that some of the members of the government caucus are sharing the correspondence that they’re receiving, the same ones that I’m receiving, with some of the decision-makers in government. I believe that will be helpful.

I taught at a university in Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Mission. I haven’t seen the figures yet, but we’ve heard, in this Legislature, of the impact on Simon Fraser University, the Surrey campus. We’ve heard, from one of our members, of the impact at Kwantlen. I suspect it will be very similar to the University of the Fraser Valley. And this information will come to the attention of our government.

This employer health tax is going to have a disturbing financial impact. If there’s no money to be dedicated to that, I’m afraid this is going to hurt significantly. Small businesses — some of them are struggling right now. I think about that plastic fabricating company I had the privilege of owning. Now, I’m not sure how much our payroll was then and what it compares to now, but my suspicion is that this tax would have been painful.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Ironically, our government left a very healthy bottom line, so these taxes come along as a shocker. Are they really necessary?

Our government always believed in allowing people to do their best for themselves. We had the lowest taxes for middle-income earners in the country and the lowest unemployment rate, because we created an environment. We didn’t look at government to be the panacea for people’s problems. Allow people to do their best.

There’s a newspaper chain in the U.S. Their corporate slogan is: “Give people light, and they’ll find their own way.” I like that. This government does not embrace that philosophy. They want to be the light to guide people, rather than allowing people to find their own way.

We need to nurture business. This budget doesn’t nurture business. A young business couple, maybe a young business person in my riding or maybe the riding of colleagues here — are they going to be more motivated to start a business now or less motivated with this budget? I suspect it’s the latter.

[3:30 p.m.]

Governments need to plan; yes, it’s true. They need to plan ahead. But may I say that this government is striking fear into the hearts of small business people in this province. As someone who has worked in business, worked for a large company and small companies over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the passion people have for their business. That passion needs to be nurtured and encouraged by government.

Let me say a couple of positive things, if I may. The B.C. film industry is doing very well. The tax credits that this government and our government supported are laudable. The book publishing tax credit, which was an initiative of our government, was also extended. I’m encouraged that this government continues the themes that we developed in terms of the creative industries, film and books. That’s something to be commented on.

Clearly, we’re waiting for all the details. We don’t quite know how this will unfold, but Bill 2 kind of sets the stage for what I would characterize as an ominous bill. I’m hoping that this government will see the error of their ways and withdraw some of this very, very disturbing taxation.

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak, join debates here at second reading discussion of Bill 2, Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2018. As we’ve heard from members opposite and government, this bill is being brought forward to enact some of the measures that government is proposing to do.

I’ve heard a lot in the debate so far, discussions about the budget in general. We must recall that in fact, this bill is only dealing with a few aspects of what is actually contained in the budget. The speculation tax, which we’ll clearly be debating at some point, is not contained in the budget implementation act, but something that is contained that I haven’t heard a lot about is changes to the school tax, which we’ll discuss in a second.

Before I start, I think I’d like to give notice to members opposite and to government that a press release was just issued by BCUC announcing that, in fact, B.C. Hydro rates will go up 3 percent this year, despite what the government claimed: that it was going to freeze B.C. Hydro rates. Why that’s important is that it makes us wonder to what extent this budget will be affected, in light of the debt that is being put on to British Columbians, despite the fact that we were told that rates were not going up.

The member for Surrey-Whalley and I did probe the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources on this topic, and we were assured that rates were not going to go up. In fact, they are going up. So it does not bode well for instilling confidence into the full suite of budget measure implementations that are being put forward.

The most notable changes in the act that we’re seeing here today are changes to the Income Tax Act, which I’ll come to — important changes with respect to reporting — and changes to the Land Tax Deferment Act and the Home Owner Grant Act. Again, much to do with reporting, to ensure that characters out there are not getting away with financial shenanigans in terms of claiming things like homeowner grants or avoiding taxes that they should otherwise pay.

There are changes to the Motor Fuel Tax Act, which are allowing Victoria regional transit to get an extra 2 cents per litre in gasoline. What’s remarkable about this is that gas taxes like that are very good for raising revenue for public transportation. The issue, of course, in Victoria is that we are the capital of the electric vehicle. I suspect that the government has over-budgeted its expected revenues from this as the electrification of Victoria’s vehicular sector continues to grow.

Changes to the property transfer tax are an important component of the Budget Measures Implementation Act — in particular, the additional levy being applied to properties over $3 million. I’ll come to that in a second, because again, as with many of these things, there needs to be careful analysis of the details. Of course, the Provincial Sales Tax Act to levy a surcharge on vehicles over $125,000 — I will come to that again in some detail.

[3:35 p.m.]

I’ll start by recognizing what I could not find embedded within the budget implementation act itself, but it was mentioned directly by the Finance Minister in her opening remarks. It’s a very important change that’s being implemented for cruise ships in British Columbia. We know right now that cruise ships in British Columbia are at an unfair competitive disadvantage with cruise ships that come to Seattle. The reason why is that cruise ships in British Columbia pay a carbon tax when they use marine gas.

Now, marine gas is more frequently used today than the traditional bunker fuels of yesteryear, which don’t have the carbon tax applied. The reason why they’re not applied is that if you’re an international carrier and you fly from one jurisdiction to another, international reporting regulations do not require you to actually count those emissions to your jurisdiction.

This may not seem like a big change, but it is an incredibly important change. The cruise ships, the modern cruise ships, the cleaner cruise ships using marine gas are no longer at a disadvantage if they fill up in Victoria or British Columbia or Prince Rupert. So now they can actually make, in their decisions as to where to go, a financial windfall by not being penalized by coming to B.C. Thank you to the minister, and thank you to the Finance Committee. We recommended discussions about this — and the presentation that was made to us by the steamship operators. This was an important addition. It won’t get the attention I think it deserves, but it certainly will make a big deal in terms of the cruise ship industry.

Coming to the Income Tax Act. What’s happening in that, which, I think, generally, we can support — and this is embedded within sections 14 to 34 of the act — are important changes that parallel that which was done federally with respect to clamping down on anti-avoidance. That is, there are new definitions and new rules that are being put in place to ensure that the misuse or abuse of provisions in other acts, which the income tax relies upon, will be subject to the same rules as embedded here.

A lot of incidental changes here. A lot of this is actually not, per se, a fundamental part of the government’s budget but rather important work that needed to be done by the civil service, legislative additions, in order to mirror or match legislations that have clearly been brought in place federally.

Coming to the Land Tax Deferment Act, which is section 88, we notice in here that it provides for information-sharing and use of information provided under the Income Tax Act, and back and forth. In particular, there are changes to the Home Owner Grant Act to provide for the same information-sharing. Why this is important is a couple of things. It’s a welcome change, in my opinion. It’s a welcome change, because it actually, again, has significant implications for tackling tax avoidance through enabling information-sharing across multiple jurisdictions.

For example, there could be people that are claiming that a home is their principal residence and claiming the homeowner grant for the purposes of either not paying — getting a grant — or deferring taxes, if they’re a senior, and they wish to defer taxes against the property until such time as they sell, as that property is sold. We now are requiring that information be determined for tax purposes, whether they’re a resident and, in fact, if they’re paying income taxes here and, frankly, if they’re living here in British Columbia.

Coming to the Motor Fuel Tax Act — again, sections 42 to 50 of the bill…. It’s a large bill, more than 40 pages of very dense language and multiple sections that cross-reference each other — a very complex bill. It’s a component that was asked for by the region where I live, here in the capital region, to allow additional revenue sources for the regional transit authority. I’m sure that they’ll be pleased.

This becomes effective April 1, 2018, when we get a two-cent-per-litre addition here in Victoria, up from 3½ cents to 5.5 cents — again, for regional transit initiatives. My only hope is that we ensure that such initiatives actually start to represent the future and get us down towards bringing our communities in the West Shore and on the Saanich Peninsula closer together with rapid forms of transportation.

[3:40 p.m.]

The Property Transfer Tax Act. There are some very important changes here. Some that are simple, just information-exchanging. For example, currently, the anti-avoidance rule that is being fixed here only applies to the foreign buyers tax. What’s happening is the definition and the language that was only applied to the foreign buyers tax, which is being increased to 20 percent, is now broader. It’s now applying throughout the act to ensure that avoidance is being captured.

There is also the important change that is a revenue generator here, which is additional levies on the property transfer tax for homes that exceed $3 million. Presently it’s $2 million — above $200,000 to $3 million. Now it’s going to be an additional 3 percent, to take it to 5 percent of the value of the home above $3 million.

Again, one of the things I have a problem with…. The property transfer tax is a very regressive form of taxation, in general. It’s essentially penalizing home ownership and moving up and down as you age. As your family grows, you typically get larger houses. As your family shrinks or you retire, you typically go smaller. We’re taxing all the way along the line there. Again, this was being used….

The idea here, of course, is to put a clamp on upper-end homes. But as with all of the government’s measures to deal with housing, I, frankly, believe that they’ve missed the boat. What I mean by that is…. It appears to me that government is using our housing crisis as a source of revenue to build supply, affordable housing, which is part of their plan.

Why that’s problematic and why I believe that to be the case is…. If you look in the budget, budget revenues are expected to either remain constant or actually grow from things like the property transfer tax, the speculation tax, the foreign buyer tax. If these tools were actually being designed to clamp down on the speculative market, you would expect, for example, the speculation tax to go to zero. But it doesn’t. It grows and then stays flat. This is troubling to me.

I think we’re missing the boat as to what the issue is. The issue, we know, is offshore capital flowing into B.C. in a highly unregulated manner, leading to speculation. Rather than dealing with the problem…. We’re in a crisis. Critical times deserve decisive measures, not tepid responses like we see here — the property transfer tax, 5 percent above $3 million. Again, why $3 million? Why not $2.2 million? Why $5 million? It seems to me somewhat arbitrary. It seems to be a means, a way, of actually grabbing cash.

In some sense, you could view it almost, along the lines, as a form of an inheritance tax. People, as they get older and sell their homes for their children, are going to have a…. It’s typically, if you’re living in Point Grey…. You’re a foreign buyer, you’re a multi-millionaire, or you’ve lived there all your life. You’re going to sell your home and move out, as some people have spoken to me about. This is viewed as a form of an inheritance tax.

This change took effect February 21, which was pretty rapid after the budget. It’s in place now. A tax may have the effect of exerting some downward pressure, but it’s actually not dealing with the problem as I articulated it. It’s not dealing with the issue at hand, the issue being offshore money flowing into our market.

We know about the laundering issue. We know about the link to the drugs and the money coming in from the drug trade and the fentanyl crisis into the real estate market. We’ve had excellent investigative reporting in that regard. The government’s measures are not actually targeting that. They’re targeting everyday homeowners as well as other people.

Some of the members opposite have raised the issue of a speculation tax. Now, as we’ve discussed, the budget in general…. I understand and recognize that the actual measures of implementation here about the speculation tax are not embodied and embedded in Bill 2. Nevertheless, I think it’s important to put on record that I share some of the concerns that opposition members have raised on the issue of a speculation tax. To me, it’s actually not a speculation tax. It’s a form of a vacancy tax, a provincial vacancy tax.

The concern I have, and the concern that has been expressed to me, is multifold. I don’t think government has thought this through. I don’t think government has thought what problem they’re trying to solve. They’re looking at this issue of affordability, whether it be through — what I just discussed — the property transfer tax changes or the speculation tax. They’re viewing this as a means and a way of grabbing revenue in order to build affordable housing or campus housing. I have no problem grabbing revenue if you have an outcome from somewhere, but we’re not dealing with the problem.

[3:45 p.m.]

Coming to the speculation tax. As mentioned multiple times by members opposite, there are multiple problems with this. Many people, for example, have a home on a ski hill which may be part of a rental pool. Let’s suppose I have a condo at Sun Peaks that I actually use a couple of weeks a year — I don’t, but if I did — but it’s in a rental pool. Perhaps it’s zoned tourist commercial, which means you can’t actually rent it for more than six months because of the individual zoning. Perhaps it’s in a pool. Is that exempted or not? We don’t know.

There are people who plan to retire out to B.C. They may have bought a condo here to protect themselves from the market, maybe a couple of years prior to them retiring. That condo may be vacant. It may be vacant for a short term. Should they be taxed? Why is it that the government is targeting fellow Canadians? Why is it not recognizing that the problem is not people from Prince Edward Island or Saskatchewan? The problem is offshore money, bypassing due process and normal channels, flowing into our real estate sector.

Again, I have a lot of sympathy for the arguments raised opposite on this, even though specifically, right now, we’ll have to wait until we see legislation emerging because it’s not actually in Bill 2.

Coming to some of the requirements, some might think this is onerous — the level of information that this bill is actually asking be provided as part of the Property Transfer Tax Act changes. They’re things like the date of birth of the buyer, the buyer’s social insurance number or individual tax number, the buyer’s citizenship and residency status, the foreign country of citizenship if they’re not a Canadian or a permanent resident. Clearly, these are new and additional pieces of information that government is grabbing. We also know now that there’s more sharing ability between income tax, property tax acts, etc., to allow cross-checking and to target those avoiders.

Similarly, for corporations, we’re now requiring more information in the transfer of properties. We could argue about the issues of privacy. What has to be front and centre, of course, in all of this is that we’re careful with the data that we’re collecting. I understand and support government’s desire to crack down on people who are cheating the system. However, we also have to recognize that we are collecting a lot of very personal data on issues, and we have to be very careful how we do that.

We know that one of the biggest ways that we’re seeing our property escalate in value artificially is through offshore companies buying British Columbia real estate. I’m not sure whether or not partnerships are covered. That is one of the ways that people are avoiding the foreign buyer tax. I’ll ask that when we get to committee stage.

For corporations, they now must return…. I guess partnerships should be included in that. They have to give information on the total number of directors and the number of directors who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Each of these directors now has to provide their citizen status or permanent resident status information, date of birth, social insurance number and, for people who are not Canadian, similar information about where they’re from.

I just got some notes given to me here, notes about the B.C. Hydro rate freeze that didn’t happen. We’ve just issued a press release. I reserve that for other conversations and not here on Bill 2 right now.

One of the things I do like, of course, is that the government is targeting the beneficial owners of bare trusts. Now, as we all know, this is another means that people have used to avoid, essentially, the property transfer tax at its very fundamental level. Also, it’s a way of hiding actual ownership. A property is purchased in a trust. The trust is owned by a corporation or an individual. When you dispense of a property, rather than selling the property, you sell ownership of the trust. So there’s no transfer of title. In British Columbia, we still tax transfer of title instead of transfer of beneficial ownership. That bare trust loophole I raised three or four years ago here in the Legislature. Still government hasn’t closed it.

I don’t understand why they haven’t closed it. They’re collecting more information here. When I stood opposite, the now Attorney General railed on the government of the day, day after day, about the need to actually clamp down on the ability of people to hide and not pay the property transfer tax. Here we have an opportunity to close that loophole. And what does government do? It collects more data.

I assume we’re going to get a report from this at some point down the road too. Or we’re going to send it to a committee to study it and make a decision. Government didn’t need to do that. Government could have made that decision now, which puts us, of course, in a predicament.

[3:50 p.m.]

Obviously, we want to move forward. But we must think of the collective when we determine whether we support or don’t support a budget or its implementation act. This could have and should have been fixed now. I support the collection of additional data — the social insurance numbers of beneficial owners, etc. — for the purpose of clamping down. But we’re not actually doing anything. We’re not actually clamping down.

Still, if I’m a wealthy individual and I want to buy a property here and I want to not pay any property transfer tax, especially if I want to buy an expensive property, I would be a mug if I were to buy an expensive property in anything other than in a bare trust. Nobody in British Columbia is going to pay that 5 percent tax if they’re actually smart.

What they’ll do is they’ll buy properties in a trust, and everybody will be selling beneficial ownership of the trust, and nobody will be paying property transfer tax, not even the 5 percent. They’ll be paying zero percent. The reason why they’ll be paying zero percent is because there’s no change of title when you change ownership of the actual bare trust.

Again, government could have closed this. They’re going to study it. I don’t understand it. I frankly don’t think British Columbians understand it. Frankly, I don’t think anybody who wants to game our system is going to actually go and…. Anyone who want to game it has got another loophole that they can game it in.

The best way to do it is to work a deal with someone where you’re buying a house for…. Here’s the way to game it right here and now. You have a house. You know it’s below market, and it would sell. But you want to sell it for a higher amount. So you sell it to buddy over here for $2.9 million.

It may have been registered on title, and you want to change it into a trust. Okay. You’re changing the title there. You’re putting the trust on title. You paid $2.9 million for the property, put it into a trust. But you really want to sell it to this guy over here.

What do you do? You turn around and sell the shares in your trust for $5 million, the true value of that house, to this guy over here. So this guy has bought a $5 million home and paid only the property transfer tax on the first $2.9 million. There are so many loopholes here. These should have been closed.

Frankly, it’s frustrating to sit down here and to have listened for four years to the now Attorney General, listened for four years to member after member after member hurl abuse at government for not closing this loophole. It’s also a bit ironic to listen to opposition members suddenly claim the government is not dealing with the problem properly, but that’s another story.

The government had the opportunity, and they failed. They failed here. They’re collecting more data. Good for them. But frankly, we need action, not more reports, committees or subcommittees.

When we come forward, one of the other good changes is that now government may say: “Okay. In Bill 2, we’re now allowing government access at no charge to MLS information.” In MLS, there might be some more information that might give more information on fair market value.

That way of gaming the system that I just outlined won’t be reflected here because…. “Let me list the property for $2.9 million on MLS. I can list it on MLS and sell the property right away on MLS. It’s gone through MLS — information there. I buy it in a trust, and I sell my shares in the trust for $5 million. Okay. I’ll wait six months. I’ll call it my principal residence, and I’ll pay no capital gains tax either.” It’s just that the system is messed up, and government has not dealt with that.

There are penalties, though. The government is now allowing the administrator to actually put penalties in place that are equivalent to 100 percent of the tax avoided if they catch a means and ways of avoiding it. But again, it has to be pretty blatant when there are clear legal loopholes, right now, that government is not closing and that will allow people to avoid (a) paying any property transfer tax or (b) paying the 5 percent.

To the changes to the provincial sales tax, again, the government missed an opportunity here. I sometimes wonder if the left hand is talking to the right when decisions are made in government in general. We have government recognizing that there are luxury cars…. For example, cars worth over $125,000 are really something that, perhaps, you might want to put a little bit of a tax on. Because there are costs associated with this, and people who can afford that…. You might think, if you can afford a Rolls-Royce, you can afford a little more sales tax than, perhaps, if you have a small, secondhand beater. Okay. I get that argument.

[3:55 p.m.]

You make changes to the Provincial Sales Tax Act to allow a 10 to 15 percent increase, PST applied to vehicles worth $125,000 to $150,000, and for vehicles worth over $150,000, the tax increases from 10 to 20 percent.

We’re going: “What’s the problem with this?” It may sound okay. This is good. We’re taxing the rich. We’re Robin Hooding the system — taxing the rich and giving to the poor, taxing the Maserati owners and giving it to the people who can’t afford a car. Okay. I get that. But I don’t think government actually understands that there are also segments of our economy where we rely upon people, the early adopters, to actually pay more for certain things to allow us to actually get into the market.

Let me give an example. The first people who bought cell phones paid a lot for their cell phones — the big, big cell phones. They paid a lot, and those so-called early adopters are the reason why we are able to buy cell phones so cheaply. They paid the R-and-D costs of the companies, some of which went bankrupt, that created the technology that we use today.

The first people who bought laptops paid a fortune. The first people who bought LED-screen TVs…. Can you imagine the first people who were spending thousands of dollars for a flat screen TV? They were paying the R-and-D, research and development, costs that allowed the price to come down so much that they give them away in cornflakes boxes now, pretty much.

What the government has failed to see here is that there are some new types of vehicular transport — hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and some high-end electric vehicles — that are actually new technologies, and there are extremely high R-and-D costs associated with them. What we’re doing is, rather than government giving a handout to these companies to keep them going, we’re letting those who can afford it pay the R-and-D costs for these companies.

It’s pretty clear to me that there should be an exemption here, and that exemption should be for cars that are zero-emitting vehicles, whether they be fuel cell or electric cars. Some Teslas are in this price range. Tesla is now only able to deliver a sedan because all of those people were able to invest in the R and D of the earlier models — the Model X and the Model S. But now they can develop the sedan.

What about hydrogen fuel cell? That may be a technological pathway. I doubt it, but it may be. We shouldn’t be taxing those early adopters and putting in barriers that way. I hope the government is open to an amendment which excludes zero-emission vehicles in this regard.

Coming down to the municipal and regional district tax and the PST, we now have legislation happening here that’s allowing the accommodation platforms, like Airbnb and, say, VRBO, vacation rental by owner. We’re allowing these organizations and municipalities, as well, to actually start to collect municipal and regional district taxes and PST and submit them. This is enabling legislation. It doesn’t mean that if I’m renting my house on Craigslist for a week that I’m going to do it, but it would allow me to do it if I chose to do so.

Coming to the school tax, now we have a two-tier system, a two-tier additional school tax on high-end properties. One threshold is $3 million, and the second threshold is $4 million — again, somewhat arbitrary numbers. I guess it applies to a lot of people who live on the waterfront here on Vancouver Island or in Shaughnessy or Point Grey. I’m sure the member for Vancouver-Quilchena will have concerned citizens in his riding.

Again, we have two new property school tax rates. What’s happening now, of course, is there’s going to be an addition of a 0.2 percent additional school tax on the residential portion assessed between $3 million and $4 million, and a 0.4 percent tax on the residential portion assessed over $4 million. This exempts things like purpose-built rental housing, etc.

Now, again, I can see the problem, and I can see some of the concerns. Increasing designated….

I won’t be much longer, hon. Speaker. Although I am the designated speaker on the Budget Implementation Act, Bill 2, I do see the green light coming.

[4:00 p.m.]

For many homeowners, taxes can be deferred, as we know. So if you’re a senior citizen, you don’t actually have to pay your property tax. You might want to defer it. But there are people who want to ensure that they’re not leaving debt in that way, so there is some discomfort with this. I don’t know that it’s insurmountable, but there is some within senior groups, senior citizens, about what this means.

I don’t know about the unintended consequences. Let me give a specific example, which I hope government reflects upon. I know a specific case of an individual with special needs who lived with his parents in a home. Now, that home probably could have been worth pretty close to this amount of money. When the parents tragically were deceased, the individual stayed in the home. Now the individual would be, in this case, subject to increased taxation.

That individual may not be a senior. That individual, in the case I’m talking about, was not a senior. It was a 40-something-year-old gentleman. That 40-something-year-old gentleman, who’s barely making ends meet, would now be subject to a punitive, additional tax. I hope government thinks about, in fact, exempting people who perhaps have special needs or special circumstances.

Nobody’s going to stand up here and call government out for increasing the tobacco tax — minor increases. I can’t believe that people still are willing to spend 12 bucks for a pack of cigarettes, but they do, and they’re going to pay more, clearly, as this goes forward. What we didn’t see, of course, is any legislation yet on what kind of tax revenue we would expect from cannabis as it comes forward. Hopefully, government will be letting us know that as we move forward.

With that, I’ll say that, by and large, obviously, I will support at second reading the Budget Implementation Act. I won’t speak for my colleagues, but we have had a brief discussion, and I’m pretty sure that they’re supportive as well. Well, I know they are, in fact.

We’re not entirely happy with the implementation act. We don’t see the details on the speculation tax. We should have seen those details. The property transfer tax issue, of course, has been left out in terms of proper enforcement, of actually ensuring that people pay it. That’s a mistake. Government should have fixed that. The issue of electric and non-emitting vehicles over $125,000 — that’s a punitive tax of early adopters. It shouldn’t be there. Hopefully, government will reflect upon this as we move forward.

With that, hon. Speaker, I thank you for your attention, and I look forward to the remaining debates.

R. Sultan: I’m pleased to comment on Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2018.

This technical legislation brings to life the NDP tax-and-spend Budget 2018. For those of you who tuned in late, let’s review the story thus far. Under Budget 2018, taxes are going up, and the NDP will make everybody pay. Income taxes are increasing by nearly $1 billion every year, and it will cost the average B.C. family $1,000 more. So much for affordability.

The carbon tax is going up, and we’ll all pay more at the gas pump. There are no corresponding income tax cuts elsewhere, since the NDP has abandoned the B.C. Liberal policy of carbon tax neutrality, acclaimed by the United Nations at the Marrakesh conference. Tax savings were clearly inconsistent with the NDP’s large spending appetite.

Family-owned businesses are getting smacked with a new, job-killing tax to replace the MSP, whether they previously paid employee MSP premiums or not.

The NDP has laid out a clear plan to grow government but no clear plan to grow the economy. Thus, they were left with no other choice than taxing what has already been built, and they will continue to do so as long as those taxpayers don’t decide to move away. So it’s the same old tax-and-spend NDP that many of us experienced, as they say, in the day.

[4:05 p.m.]

Here are some other miscellaneous items. Correctly identifying that we have a housing crisis in British Columbia, the government promised 114,000 new affordable housing units, but their plans to date have come a little bit short, by about 100,000 plus. Their focus is social housing, of course, targeting the most needy lower-income persons.

We search in vain, however, for housing initiatives that would help ordinary middle-income people. The promised $400 renters rebate is nowhere to be found, as is the elimination of student loan interest. It may be hiding there somewhere. I can’t find it.

Government is expecting revenues from the B.C. resource economy to decline across a number of sectors. Given their tendency to scare those sectors with activism and threats, this is surely one of the more certain of their forecasts.

No relief is promised for commuters in the Lower Mainland, with the exception of the Pattullo Bridge. There is no widening of Highway 1 in the Fraser Valley. No mention of Surrey LRT nor the UBC subway line, which was somehow overlooked, at least for now. Perhaps we’ll hear more about that in due course.

There’s certainly nothing which might encourage some of us to think they should revive what appears to be the stone-dead George Massey Tunnel replacement project. Those 80,000 daily commuters will just have to wait and wait and wait.

There’s no new money in the budget to eliminate Surrey portable schools in four years. Their $2 billion schools capital budget is essentially a continuation of the B.C. Liberal budget, 2017 — and let’s get this straight — although they are actually spending $121 million less this year than was in the B.C. Liberal plan. This is in some contrast with the rather effusive claims of the member for Victoria–Swan Lake, which we heard earlier today.

The Premier’s office budget went up by more than $2 million, from $9 million to $11 million, about ten times the inflation rate, which sets a fine example for the rest of the government. Ministerial office staff budgets have gone up almost 14 percent, in comparison with the budget the B.C. Liberals had tabled last year.

We’re not really here to fuss over these pesky details of spending. We’re here to talk about taxes. So let’s consider, in turn, four of the key tax increases they have presented the details of, to some degree, in this bill: the payroll tax, the second-home tax, the carbon tax and the school tax.

Let’s talk first about the payroll tax. Unfortunately, while Bill 2 makes a number of technical changes on numerous acts, it doesn’t really give us the details on the employers health tax, which is their somewhat misleadingly named payroll tax. There will be a huge tax increase to job creators, transferring MSP payments to family businesses in the form of a payroll tax, which will soon enough impact everybody else in B.C., who will either see staff being laid off or new prices being charged to consumers. Or some entrepreneurs may simply call it a day and take early retirement.

To assume that employers will simply eat the tax — and I think that’s probably the base assumption here — seems very naive to me. We’re not sure of the reach of this new payroll tax. Bill 2 fails to provide clarity on what could be unintended consequences, perhaps — imposing payroll taxes on charitable organizations, non-profit societies, municipalities, school boards, universities and health authorities.

[4:10 p.m.]

I sense a bit of a scramble on the government benches as they seem to be trying to figure out whether to keep organizations whole and announce that, or not. And if so, how. But we certainly seemed to get a rise when we quoted the Vancouver school board doyenne Patti Bacchus, of all people, complaining about an NDP education budget. It suggests to me that maybe the government wants to take another look at those aspects that Patti was concerned about, again. Well, that’s the payroll tax.

Let’s consider the speculation tax. Hands up, everybody in favour of speculators in the chambers today. Nobody. Well, no surprise there. Speculators are shadowy figures portrayed as living on the margins of respectability. At my age, I can’t help but recall Orson Welles and that film noir coming out of Hollywood. These are the semi-criminal players on the margins of the underworld. But the NDP has broadened the definition of “speculator” to include homeowners.

Now, that is, I must confess, creative, particularly when you want to tax them, just like the employers who, in an NDP world, will pay the employer tax — not the workers, surely. This is going to be hitting the employers. We’re certainly not taxing “homeowners.” We’re taxing “speculators.” Wonderfully powerful words. In an NDP world, people who speculate in housing should be punished, since they’re driving up prices and preventing non-speculators from living in them. So they will tax them out of business. That’s the plan.

The NDP speculation tax, however, won’t help anyone buy a home, but anybody who purchased a second home in B.C., such as those weekenders from Alberta, will be considered speculators and will pay a new 2 percent tax, year after year, starting in 2019. The so-called speculation tax is really a second-home tax, in the main. It has the possibility of even targeting British Columbians who may own a second weekend property in B.C. and who will now have to pay extra to spend time in their own province or country. If you wanted to buy a vacation home on Lake Okanagan, at least close to the city, maybe you’d be better off considering an RV or even a tent.

The NDP’s so-called speculation tax is an attempt to fill up empty houses, particularly those from a large Asian country we won’t mention, scare off those who might want to buy in B.C. or build a second home in B.C. — hopefully, they will sell them and never come back or maybe never come here in the first place — and, therefore, allow the government to get some more tax revenue out of the real estate sector.

It doesn’t seem, somehow — as I put these words together, though — particularly suited to discourage speculation. Maybe there’s something about their economic model that I’m frankly not able to grasp, but in fairness, Bill 2 doesn’t really spell out the details of the real estate speculation tax. So hold off buying that pup tent until the true thrust of the legislation becomes clearer.

Another peculiarity of the speculation tax is revealed by Budget 2018’s projections of the revenue it will produce. If the speculation tax were actually successful in clamping down on speculation, one would expect speculation to decline. With speculation going down, so would speculation-tax revenue. But obviously, they don’t think their tax is going to work very well, since they budgeted for an increasing income stream from this tax. Not only are they convinced that their revenue will continue to flow; Budget 2018 actually depends on it.

Let’s predict one thing. It’s quite probable that real estate transactions will experience a chill, at least for a time. In fact, that’s one of the government’s goals. The Minister of Finance has stated clearly that she hopes that home prices will actually fall, even homes that British Columbians already own and are currently paying mortgages on.

I must say that this is a truly extraordinary hope. If home prices fall sharply, some B.C. homeowners could find themselves underwater, owing more on their homes than they are worth in the marketplace. This will trigger anxious moments in the mortgage and lending departments of banks and credit unions, certainly. Defaults and evictions could follow, and it would surprise me if any MLAs really would advocate for that.

[4:15 p.m.]

Plainly, though, any government deliberately aiming to depress home prices should anticipate widespread negative consequences. It’s happened in my personal experience. I refer to the depression in house prices in Quebec when séparatistes made it clear that many non-French-speaking citizens should really leave. They did, and real estate prices crashed.

To a lesser degree, I experienced a similar phenomenon next door, in the state of Vermont, roughly at about the same time, when citizens there decided that there were too many free-riding out-of-staters buying property in Vermont and that they should be subject to special taxes. They were, and the market really has never recovered.

I’ve learned, therefore, that it’s quite easy — in fact, it’s simple — for governments, through tax policy, to cause depressions in house prices. It’s remarkably easy to do. Once triggered, it’s also my observation that price recovery can take quite a while. If the NDP measures achieve their stated goal, they could stand accused of rather widespread wealth liquidation. I’m not sure how popular that would be.

In British Columbia, to be fair, such radical measures as I’ve outlined in Quebec and Vermont are hardly contemplated, and we can all agree that the housing market has developed unhealthy tendencies which needed to be addressed. Housing affordability has become a major barrier for many in our province. Certainly, some action had to be taken. Let us give the government credit, therefore, for emphasizing this tremendous problem and proposing any measures, really, in desperate circumstances, however ill-considered they may be, to deal with it.

However, I have to say that measures to suppress demand through taxation are, in my opinion, a very blunt housing policy tool, with many probable unintended consequences. I’m not enthusiastic about them, at least as proposed by the government in Budget 2018. It would seem to me that measures to increase supply are less likely to trigger adverse fallout. Any action to encourage more housing supply may have a better chance to protect the families of B.C., their existing homeowner equity and their long-term financial security.

Well, so much for so-called speculation. Let’s move on to the carbon tax. In this bill, the government will have the means to bring in an increased carbon tax that’s no longer revenue-neutral, as I mentioned a moment ago, because there’s no offset. Gasoline prices are going up, and many other carbon fuels as well. Hundreds of dollars per automobile driver will be charged.

Between April 1 of this year, 30 days from now, and April 1, 2021, only three years hence, we can expect taxes to increase as follows. On aviation fuel, currently 8.61 cents per litre, it’s going up to 12.3. That’s a 43 percent increase in three years. On gasoline, the tax will go up 43 percent in three years. On jet fuel, the tax will go up almost 43 percent in three years. On natural gas, it’s going from 5.7 cents per cubic metre to 9.5, an astounding 66.6 percent increase.

I think even a tax-and-spend NDP government would agree that anybody raising prices by 43 percent over a three-year period should be investigated for price gouging and taking unfair advantage of a monopolistic situation. I would think anybody raising prices by about 67 percent in three years might be a candidate to be tossed in jail for a while to let that person cool off and reconsider their pricing behaviour.

[4:20 p.m.]

Folks, this is the tax behaviour of the gentle persons inhabiting the rows opposite in this chamber. It’s too bad we don’t have something like the residential tenancy branch before which excessively greedy and grasping governments can be dragged, held in tribunal and forced to mend their ways.

Finally, consider the school tax. I haven’t talked yet about the school tax. The best way I could illustrate the impact of the school tax in my community is to tell a couple of little case histories.

I have a constituent, a widow of 92 years plus, who’s confined to a wheelchair and still lives all by herself, believe it or not. Now, her children drop in regularly to make sure everything’s okay. However, she can’t figure out where the cash is going to come from to pay the additional thousands, plural, of dollars a year in school taxes, not to mention that that’s on top of the other real estate taxes she’s already paying for the privilege of living out her few remaining years in the family home she has loved and resided in for about 50 years. It looks like the NDP is going to kick her out. I say to the opposite bench: “Shame on you.”

This is hardly an isolated case, confined to the elderly. Another middle-aged constituent has made an appointment to see me tomorrow. He bought a home for about $750,000 ten years ago. It’s now assessed at over $3 million, so he has to pay additional school taxes in the thousands of dollars, which he doesn’t have.

I would ask the planners on the bench opposite: What do they propose I say to my constituent tomorrow? “Tough luck. You’re obviously part of the 1 percent, and you should be punished”? I’m not quite sure what the storyline should be. I find it highly aggravating.

In conclusion, how can we characterize the fiscal performance of the NDP in the almost eight months they’ve been in power? One simple mathematical model could be based on the fact that they’ve raised taxes roughly $8 billion in about eight months. And it doesn’t take too much calculus to suggest that perhaps we can expect that they will have raised taxes by $12 billion by next May, after they’ve been in office for 12 months. Or why not go all the way to four years from now? By then, presumably, the tax increase might be $48 billion. I’m being silly, I admit, but I thought I’d just ask the question.

I’d like to wrap it up with some macro concerns. Yesterday I picked up my Bloomberg printout on the iPhone, and there was a story there, the lead story, concerning the latest government of Canada report on direct investment flows into and out of Canada. There is an exodus. This was a bit of a shock. There’s an exodus of foreign direct investment capital out of Canada at the moment. Direct investment dropped by 26 percent in 2017 in our country.

In this regard, British Columbia’s deteriorating investment climate may have played a significant role. But in fairness, the NDP government had barely had time to find their way to their new offices for much of the calendar year, so let’s not heap all the blame on them by any means. But there were certainly early-warning indicators of an anti-investment, block-everything, BANANA mentality: “What are these stupid projects that you people are promoting?” With strong and growing…. In my view, it was encouraged by the NDP throughout the year and confirmed when the NDP came into power after the May 2017 election.

[4:25 p.m.]

Large energy companies, in particular, decided not to proceed with projects in Canada or B.C. And of course, as far as British Columbia is concerned, the uncertainties of the forest industry are, perhaps, a contributing factor in some way.

Unfortunately, the NDP budget is long on tax and spend, with emphasis on the public sector. And, you know, who can argue against excellent, well-funded public services? At my age, I’m probably a way-higher user of our excellent health system than anybody else in the room, and it’s absolutely magnificent. If I were in the United States, I probably could not afford the level of service I get from our health care, funded by all of you taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you for helping me stand on my feet here.

That’s the public sector. Unfortunately, the NDP budget is much shorter on incentives for investment in British Columbia, as the exodus of foreign direct investment demonstrates. We shall probably see the impact of what some would view as a less healthy investment atmosphere in forthcoming job statistics; contract awards; government revenues; and government’s ability to finance important social programs, beginning with health care and education and all the rest that we value and love so much and rely upon.

This is not a great big pile of corporate or high-net-worth money out there to be plucked to balance the books. Would that life be that easy. I caution this new government. They have to sort of encourage that money to stay here and offer up what they can in taxes as we wish.

As we proceed with consideration of Bill 2, the budget implementation act, there are many other outstanding concerns to be canvassed in committee stage, such as, as the member from Prince George alluded to earlier this afternoon, the proposed information-sharing measures and proposed ministerial regulation powers. It’s always the fine print of the regulations which may not, in fact, even get to these chambers for discussion.

We look forward to these further probings and explanations.

T. Stone: It does give me pleasure to rise to speak to second reading of Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2018.

I think the most concerning aspect of this piece of legislation is the scope and the scale of the tax increases that are provided for within it. It is a technical bill. It does accompany the budget and provides a wide range of largely technical amendments to 21….

Interjection.

T. Stone: I wish the member for Stikine well.

It provides technical amendments, for the most part, to about 21 different pieces of legislation. This is a very standard feature of the budget process. Budget comes in, is introduced, and the Budget Measures Implementation Act follows just shortly thereafter, which really is intended to bring to life the government’s priorities, especially as related to changes to acts that involve taxes.

I spoke to the budget when it was introduced, and I spoke for quite some time about just the scope and the scale of the tax increases that we see in the NDP government’s first budget: $5½ billion of new taxes in this budget alone over the next three years — $5.5 billion of new taxes.

[4:30 p.m.]

If you add on the taxes that the NDP government imposed upon taking office not even eight months ago, the total tax increase to date — including, as well, the taxes that we will see increase over the next three years — actually adds up to $8 billion. These are huge tax increases that will impact all British Columbians. It’ll impact British Columbians of low incomes, middle incomes and high incomes in many different ways and, certainly, will impact job creators in this province of ours.

Before I get into more detail on the tax measures, I do want to acknowledge, as I always try to do, that there are a few positive measures that are detailed within Bill 2. The expansion of the film incentive tax credit to scriptwriting is a very good move, and it’s a move that I think is largely supported on all sides of the House. Certainly, I, too, support that. I also am supportive of the extension of the book publishing tax credit for three years. This was actually a measure that was introduced by our previous government.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Yet the bill does not provide any detail on a number of other controversial tax increases, most notably the employer health tax and the speculation tax on real estate. I’ll come back to those in a moment. Again, I want to reiterate that the backdrop to $8 billion of increased taxes and over $5 billion of increased spending is all…. The backdrop to that is a government that inherited the strongest economy in the country, the best job creation record in Canada, a very strong and positive investment climate and, indeed, the strongest balance sheet in this country.

B.C. had been admired for having a very strong fiscal foundation. It was viewed as a safe place to invest by folks all around the world, a place that was reliable and where the rules of the game would not change. There’s tremendous opportunity here, not just in our resource industries but in our tech industries and many others.

As I’ve said many times now — and we’ve heard it from a number of members of the opposition, we believe, and a lot of British Columbians also believe — all of this progress that has been made to this point is at risk. It’s at risk due to an NDP budget that contains massive tax increases and very significant spending increases.

Now, this is a bill that backstops an NDP budget, which is really all about growing the size of government and not growing the size of the economy. It’s a budget that reflects, I think, a philosophical bent of the government — that the government knows better how to spend your hard-earned tax money than you do, that the answer to everyone’s challenges in life is to create more government. And, again, it’s a budget that provides for $5½ billion of new taxes, increased taxes in this budget alone.

Of course, this is all in the context of a budget that also shines a bright light on a number of broken promises, commitments that the government had made in the recent election campaign and has reiterated many times since — whether it’s the 114,000 units of affordable housing, which was downgraded in this budget by 80,000 units…. I’ll say that again. That 114,000 was reduced by 80,000 units of affordable housing in this budget. The government just shrugs that off. The renters rebate, the $400-per-renter rebate that was a hallmark of their election campaign, obviously, is nowhere to be found in this budget. The government doesn’t like to talk about that anymore.

The $10-a-day daycare commitment, which we know the government has moved away from. I did acknowledge, in my previous budget comments, that I do believe that the number one priority of any budget at this point should be enhanced investments in child care and early childhood development, so I applaud the fact that there are some steps moving in that direction.

[4:35 p.m.]

It is our role as the official opposition, and British Columbians are counting on us to perform this role as best as we possibly can. That’s to shine a bright light on the government’s commitments and hold them accountable for the commitments that they make to British Columbians. There is no $10-a-day daycare being provided for in this budget, and there is no runway for that that we can see in the years ahead.

Hot off the presses. We learned just moments ago that the BCUC has turned down the government’s….

Interjection.

T. Stone: Fair enough. Perhaps the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, the Leader of the Third Party, broke the news first. But I’ll reiterate the news that’s still hot off the presses.

The BCUC has turned down the government’s commitment that was made to British Columbians, that hydro rates would be frozen. They said hydro rates will be frozen. They pushed the news release out. The Premier and the minister responsible have given speech after speech after speech saying: “Your hydro rates will be frozen.” Today we learned that they won’t be frozen. Today we learned that they will increase. Another broken promise of the NDP government.

I think back to the last election campaign and the number of debates that I participated in with candidates from the other parties. The NDP candidate who ran against me in Kamloops–South Thompson took great pleasure in walking our constituents through what she pitched as a fully costed platform. A platform that, you know, had some big, bold ideas in it but that would be fully costed. Yet she never talked about $8 billion worth of tax increases. I went back and looked again this morning, and there’s no…. In fact, $5.5 billion of tax increases are not provided for in what the NDP ran on in the last election.

Let’s talk about a couple of these taxes in a bit more detail.

The speculation tax. There are many, many unanswered questions about this tax. In fact, as debate proceeds and I hear in this chamber…. As British Columbians begin to peel the layers of this onion back to try and understand what it really means and who it really impacts, more questions are raised than are answered.

The government hasn’t provided any analysis. They haven’t been able to point to any analysis that was done as to what the impacts of this tax will be on investment and retirement properties in British Columbia.

We don’t even think that the government believes that their speculation tax is going to work. We heard that again from the member from West Van–Capilano a few moments ago. Despite all of the hoopla around the speculation tax and all of the concern that it’s creating amongst many, many British Columbians, the government’s own financial projections show the revenue actually continuing to increase through the fiscal plan from this tax.

Why would you bring in a tax with the express purpose of cooling growth in housing values in select areas of the province and say one tool to do that is the speculation tax, but then project in your own financial projections that revenue from this tax will steadily increase over that same fiscal period. It makes no sense. But, again, this is the NDP.

I’ve been talking to lots of folks up in Kamloops and in other parts of my constituency and, you know, people are really concerned that this government hasn’t really fully thought this through. One gentleman said to me the other day to forget about the corporate capital tax, which was a hallmark of the NDP in the 1990s. This is a personal capital tax.

It just assumes that that property that you have, or that second property that you have, no matter where you’re from, there must be something untoward that you’ve done to have that property. Or you have a second property and you…. In the case of one couple, constituents of mine in Kamloops who came to see me, all concerned. They have a property which has appreciated through no fault of their own other than time. They’ve had it since 1954. They’re terribly concerned about what this means.

[4:40 p.m.]

I think of all of the Albertans and others from other parts of the country who are equally as Canadian as any British Columbian is and who are a big, big part of the economy on the Shuswap. I’m blessed to have Little Shuswap in my constituency. I’m blessed, within an hour’s drive of my front door, to be at my trailer with my kids and my wife and enjoy everything that the Shuswap has to offer.

I’ll tell you that every second person who’s out there is from somewhere other than British Columbia. They’ve purchased those properties. They also stimulate the economy. They all use contractors. Some of them have gardening services that come and look after their properties when they’re not there. There’s a whole industry in marine. Think of the many companies that are located in Kamloops and throughout the Okanagan and the Shuswap and other parts of the province that sell boats and all the equipment that is wrapped around that — or dock companies.

Go through the list. These are not big businesses. These are, largely, family-run operations that depend on people coming from other parts of Canada or other parts of the world and purchasing just a little slice of the Shuswap or the Okanagan or the East Kootenays or Vancouver Island or wherever that might be. They invest by doing that, and they invest with all of the ancillary services and supports and the contracting and everything else that’s wrapped around that.

There are a lot of folks that are really concerned about what this speculation tax really means. It’s a whole new level of taxation that we haven’t seen in British Columbia.

Taken with a number of the other measures, I completely understand the government’s intention. Some would say their impulse. Some would say the commitment that they’re following through to address affordability in the housing sector. I do worry that a number of these measures, taken together, could have some pretty serious unintended consequences for British Columbians.

When I ask folks in Kamloops or, for that matter…. I had the privilege of criss-crossing the province over the last five months and met with folks all over this great province of ours. I would ask people: “Who in this room would like their equity to decline by 20 percent overnight?” Not very many hands go up. There are not very many hands that go up.

Interjection.

T. Stone: I’m not looking at very many hands here, member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head.

You’ve got to be very, very careful about this. We do not want to drive thousands of British Columbians to be suddenly underwater with their investments, to drive their equity down so much and so fast that they end up having to sell their property, that they end up losing money. That is a real possibility that we have to keep an eye on.

If we move to the employer health tax…. I’ve described this as the doozy of all tax increases in this budget, a massive assault, first, on job creators. Initially our immediate reaction to this, upon trying to understand what it really meant and how it would be phased in and who it would apply to…. Our initial focus was on small business. It’s going to raise $4.2 billion of new tax over three years.

We have canvassed government quite extensively in question period. Obviously, British Columbians are increasingly awakening to this new employer health tax and asking some pretty good questions about what it really means and how it’s going to impact them. It’s been frustrating to hear, in this chamber, the message box. I understand the Minister of Finance has a message box, and the message box is: “MSP is cut in half this year.” Thank you very much. That was in our budget last February, but fair enough. It’s been cut in half this year, so there are some savings that are realized in this fiscal year.

[4:45 p.m.]

What she doesn’t address, the question she doesn’t answer, what she doesn’t acknowledge is the double-dipping that will take place next year, the fact that the half of MSP that will still be in place will be there next year. It isn’t phased out until 2020. But guess what. The employer health tax comes in next year.

This government is going to be collecting hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from that half of the MSP, which will not be fully eliminated till 2020. They’re going to be collecting that half of the MSP next year, and they’re going to be collecting this new employer health tax. That is a double-dip. The Finance Minister says so proudly that she’s eliminating MSP. That’s not eliminating MSP; that’s replacing it. This government is doing a bait-and-switch. They’re replacing MSP with this new employer health tax.

As I’ve said, it’s going to represent a pretty significant hit on job creators in this province. The government, until they’re blue in the face, talks about how 85 percent of business isn’t going to have to pay this new tax. Give me a break. The other 15 percent represent about 70 percent of the jobs in this province. When you take out the one- and two-person businesses that truly will not pay, that leaves a heck of a lot of employers that will still be paying and a lot of small operations.

Now, I’ve highlighted a few of those kinds of businesses in my riding. I talked last week about Interior Plumbing and Heating in Kamloops. This is a company that has been in the HVAC and plumbing business in Kamloops for 69 years — a great business, family owned and operated. It employs hundreds of Kamloopsians. They work on lots of projects in Kamloops. They’ve been able to grow slowly but surely over time, which is what you do in business, such that they’ve been able to bid on larger projects in other parts of the province. Then guess what. They hire more British Columbians.

This new employer health tax is going to cost Interior Plumbing and Heating $185,000 of additional net new cost per year. That’s not being replaced with a reduction in anything else. The added hit to their bottom line will be $185,000 per year. The way they see it is that this NDP government is going to take $185,000 from their bottom line. This is not a multinational corporation. This isn’t a big, scary business, which the government seems to try to suggest is the target of this tax.

There are countless other family-run businesses, small businesses. We’ve heard, again, many stories in this chamber through this week and last, whether it’s hair salons or restaurants or contractors in the Cariboo or family farms — second-, third-, fourth-generation farming families that are producing the food that we eat in this province. The margins are tight, and they’re learning that they’re going to be hit with tens of thousands — in some cases, hundreds of thousands — of new costs to the bottom line through this employer health tax. But don’t worry. The NDP says it’s an elimination of tax. It’s not a replacement; it’s an elimination.

The tech sector, which I know a few things about…. You can take the guy out of the tech sector; you can’t take the tech out of the guy. I’m a former tech CEO. The company that I started in Kamloops back in the late 1990s…. We were tech company No. 4. Today there are 250 tech companies in Kamloops, employing anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 employees.

It’s a significant and exciting and dynamic industry, especially in a community like Kamloops, which traditionally has been largely dependent on forestry, mining, oil and gas, energy. Those are still really important industries in Kamloops, but the economy is so much more diversified now, with new emerging industries like the tech sector coming on stream.

[4:50 p.m.]

I talk to a number of my tech friends in Kamloops. These are men and women that have bootstrapped their companies. They started their companies. They pour everything that they can into those operations. They finance their growth with cash flow, with debt, with equity. There isn’t a big profit at the end of the day for most tech companies, because you reinvest that so that you can grow a bit more the next year. That’s what you do in the tech industry.

I got one company who called me yesterday to say they’re a 20-person company, but their payroll is $1.7 million. So they’ve got to pay, at the highest end, this new employer health tax, which they don’t pay today — $65,000 to their bottom line taken by the NDP government.

How about another company that called me today in Kamloops? They employ a few more people, but they estimate that they’re going to take a $95,000 hit to their bottom line. Guess what the director of finance said to me. He said: “You know what this means? If this actually goes through, if this actually happens, we’re going to scale back on our hiring plan in our growth strategy.” Let’s hope that they’re still able to grow. He’s worried. They’re worried.

Of course, this all comes on a day…. Again, the irony of this is incredible. Today we learn that the government is broadening the mandate of the B.C. Innovation Council. They’re renaming it Innovate B.C. That’s a good name. I can support that. We get the press release here today, and it talks all about how the government is going to “ensure that people get the help they need to create good jobs and benefit from the opportunities of the emerging economy.”

Why don’t we start by not increasing their taxes? Why don’t we start by not taking from their bottom line? Why don’t we start by not creating an artificial barrier to growth for the tech sector here in British Columbia? That would be a good place to start.

The press release says this is going to be “a single point of contact for tech businesses throughout the province looking to build capacity, reach global markets, attract new investment and access start-up capital.” None of this is going to happen, to the scale that is possible in this province at the moment, by increasing their taxes. That is the number one, most assured way of slowing growth in British Columbia’s tech sector — to increase their taxes.

Why? Because in the tech sector — again, I’ve started tech businesses — you need power. You need high-speed Internet. You need some good ideas. You can locate anywhere. And capital does flee. It does move around. It’s highly portable, especially in the tech sector.

It gets even better. We learned that charities, non-profits, arts organizations, theatre companies and government-funded agencies are not immune from this new employer health tax.

We have a non-profit in Kamloops which is the one organization that routinely steps up to partner with government — 100 percent of their funding comes from government — to build affordable housing projects that nobody else will, to support people that have mental health challenges, addiction challenges, who need that roof over their head. They figure that they’re going to be hit to the tune of almost $100,000 by this tax. That’s outrageous.

The public sector itself, the city of Kamloops — if you don’t include policing payroll, you’re looking at a $200,000 to $250,000 hit to the bottom line. B.C. Guide Dogs. Can you imagine imposing a tax on B.C. Guide Dogs?

School districts. We’ve talked a lot about that this week. A $70 million hit is estimated from this new tax on school districts across British Columbia. School district 73, in my own constituency, anticipates that if this goes through, it’s $250,000 from their bottom line.

Rightfully so, as the opposition, we’ve been highlighting this, and we’ve been asking questions of this government. Where will this money come from — cuts in the classroom? Is the government going to make school districts whole? I sure hope they do. The preferable route to take would be to just not proceed with this terrible tax.

[4:55 p.m.]

Thompson Rivers University. I learned today that they’re anticipating a $1.5 million hit to their bottom line — a $1.5 million hit. The new engineering program, which we fought so hard for when we were in government — which the new government followed through on, partially, anyway — represented funding of about $400,000 for that program. In one fell swoop, the NDP government are going to take $1.5 million back.

Should we assume there will be forthcoming legislation that will unfreeze the cap on tuition? Is that what the government’s intention is here? I mean, post-secondary institutions get their dollars from government funds, transfers from government or tuition from students. I don’t see a whole whack of new money for advanced education in this budget. Should students expect that they’re going to be hit with this tax, in terms of higher tuition? I think that’s a fair question.

The municipal and regional district tax. Saying that municipalities and regional districts that receive the MRDT can now make these dollars available for affordable housing is laughable. What this does…. It’s going to pit affordable housing projects against tourism initiatives in communities. That’s outrageous.

Personal income taxes are up. Gas prices are up. Carbon tax is going up. It’s no longer revenue-neutral. No requirement for transparency at all, either. All of those dollars are just going to go into a big black hole. No revenue neutrality there.

We’ve got a lot of questions that we’re going to be asking, and we’re going to be canvassing thoroughly in the committee stage on this bill — a lot of questions that relate to our concerns about the massive tax grab that this bill represents.

As I said, there are a few positive measures, but on balance, this bill backstops a budget which provides for some of the most significant tax increases in this province’s history — $8 billion of additional taxes since this government came to power.

That is not how you grow the economy. That is not how you ensure that British Columbians are working. That is not how you ensure that our kids have a bright future.

With that, as with the budget, I will not be supporting this bill.

C. Oakes: I am pleased to stand today to add some comments on Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2018. I do want to talk a little bit about the technical nature of this bill and provide some comments.

Perhaps before I start…. One of the things I did when I was doing some research on response is I reflected back on comments that the Minister of Finance has made and comments that we were able to get articulated by the Minister of Labour last year during estimates.

I think it’s important to start with a quote that the Minister of Finance made April 13, in 2010, about the competitiveness of the business environment. “We have a competitive business environment in British Columbia. A competitive tax environment is critical. I don’t think it’s critical that B.C. be number one in everything, but I do think we have to be competitive.”

I would like to spend a few moments in talking about what the Budget Measures Implementation Act does to the competitiveness of businesses in British Columbia and how it is critically important that the government understand the significant impacts that the act will have on British Columbia.

I guess my first comment that I would propose or suggest to the minister — and we’ll have the opportunity when we go line by line through the budget — is to talk about the legislative framework that we currently have in British Columbia where every piece of legislation that does come to the floor does have to have a regulatory small business count to it.

[5:00 p.m.]

When the minister…. Last year in estimates we talked about the small business accord that has been signed by the government and the small business lens which exists within that accord. The government said that they were, in fact, following a similar regulatory reform as the B.C. Liberal government.

What is critical about the work that we did around regulatory reform is the need to support and modernize British Columbia’s regulatory environment. We know that by reducing that element of regulatory reform — it was discussed today in the House — it creates a better competitive environment for small business and for medium- and large-sized businesses in British Columbia — something that the Minister of Finance noted previously was critically important.

To promote the development of clear, simple legislation, regulation and policies that encourage prosperity, innovation, economic opportunity, while protecting public health and environment; supporting the reduction of regulatory burdens on citizens and businesses, particularly in key economic sectors; advising the ministries and streamlining business processes and services to reduce time and costs for government and improve citizens’ experience of government and provide transparency and regulatory reform accountability through annual tracking, such as the annual Red Tape Reduction Day — these are all critically important, as I have mentioned, to the competitiveness of businesses.

Look at the regulatory count, working with ministries to measure the regulatory burden placed on citizens and businesses, specifically the count to ensure a net-zero increase in regulatory requirements. Maintain the regulatory requirement database and the post-progress on the net-zero-increase commitment on the regulatory reform B.C. website. Implement refined regulatory reform policies, with supporting training tool support and its adoption across government, with a view to ensure regulatory requirements are necessary and not too onerous for citizens and businesses.

Partner with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business to draw attention to the business barriers created by government red tape, and celebrate the government initiatives that address these barriers. Host a day, the first Wednesday of March of each year, to celebrate and report out and to be accountable to the regulatory reform, and identify further reductions to outdated and unnecessary regulations. Develop an annual regulatory reform progress report, as required by the Regulatory Reporting Act. The report must cover government’s reform activities during the fiscal year and be made public on June 30, following the end of the reporting year.

In light of what is legislated, and in light of what a regulatory requirement framework for all ministries of this government is, I wonder how the reporting will be made, on June 30, of the increased taxes that the government has announced, and the increased level of regulatory burden. When you go to page 14 and page 15 of the budget, it talks about the increase of regulation that will be downloaded onto businesses across the province of British Columbia, in the sense of fees and permitting costs. All of these are important. They are mentioned within the Budget Measures Implementation Act because they are key barometers within the budget.

I’d also like to take a moment, if I may, to talk about the Small Business Roundtable, which was established in 2005 and which provides small businesses with a direct voice to government. The 13th annual report is supposed to be coming out in 2018. This is an incredibly diverse set of small business representatives. When we canvassed in estimates last year, they were continuing…. The minister said that their voice was incredibly important.

You have Cybele Negris, CEO and co-founder of webnames.ca; Sue Adams, partner, Pemberton Valley foods; Angie Barnard, founder of the Network Hub in Nanaimo; John Cameron, CEO, Rock Solid Business Coaching in Langley; Jill Doucette, owner of Synergy Enterprises in Victoria; Val Litwin, president and CEO of the British Columbia Chamber of Commerce; Ingrid Hope, owner and president of Hall Printing in Trail and Nelson.

[5:05 p.m.]

There’s Sam Howard, senior policy analyst from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; Ashley Ramsay, the founder and CEO of Yeti Farm Creative in Kelowna; Bob Redden, partner and president of Environmental Dynamics Inc. out of Prince George; Randy Richmond, vice-president and partner of spearhead.ca out of Nelson; Sean Surerus, vice-president of Surerus Pipeline; Mark Startup, vice-president of MyStore, Retail Council of Canada; Ian Tostenson, president and CEO of the British Columbia Restaurant and Food Services Association out of Vancouver; M.J. Whitemarsh, CEO of Whitemarsh Enterprises out of Sooke; and Judy Wilson, chief of the Skeetchestn First Nation out of Chase.

My comment to the minister is: why were all of these small business organizations, representatives and the government’s very own Small Business Roundtable caught off guard by the employer tax that was made? Within the small business accord, there is a requirement by government to ensure that a small business lens is representative, that there is a body and a group of very well-qualified individuals that the government is to work closely with, to listen to. It is very discouraging that the government has failed the small business sector.

I would also like to take a moment, if I may, to talk about how the Budget Measures Implementation Act is actually going to affect the Small Business Profile. The Small Business Profile was set up in 1997. It’s produced a profile that examines trends and growth in business. It talks about employment and earnings, contribution to the economy, industry distribution, regional details, small business exports, average earnings and leading indicators of attractiveness of British Columbia. I wonder where the profile will go this year, due to the implementation of the budget, and what effect it will have on these trends. I also wonder about the analysis that the government has made and has been very public about — who the employer health tax will actually affect.

If you look at the profile of small businesses…. We had the opportunity to canvass very clearly, when we went through estimates last year, for an understanding or to question the government if they truly understood the extent of what the small business community is in British Columbia. They had a very clear sense, they understood, that a small business in British Columbia is identified as 50 employees or less. The number of 50 employees or less is the indicator that we use in British Columbia to determine what a small business is. That is the number we should be articulating and using on impacts to small business when we look at the employer health tax.

We also had the opportunity to canvass how many are under five employees, how many are self-employed, how many are owned by women, how many First Nations small businesses there are, how many agreements are under the mobile business licence. We had the opportunity, as well, to canvass a wide array of items that, again, are within the Small Business Profile and, of course, the small business accord.

Again, it is one thing to stand in the House and say that 85 percent of businesses will not be paying the new employer health tax, but if you look at the analysis that our government, the people’s government, creates within the Small Business Profile, one has to wonder about the analysis that is being used through the Budget Measures Implementation Act.

I also reviewed some of the information on how it’s going to affect specific sectors. We’ve had the opportunity to talk about the new government. The NDP government has talked about how incredibly supportive they are of the agricultural sector.

[5:10 p.m.]

If they are truly supportive of the agricultural sector, I wonder where the hospitality pricing is — a significant ask by the retail sector and the agricultural sector, a huge opportunity. Where would that piece of legislation be, and how would it affect, through the amendments to the Liquor Control and Licensing Regulation of the Liquor Distribution Act, some of the budget measures — for example, craft distilleries and the workers that support these sectors?

We also canvassed other sectors, such as the tourism sector, on these effects to small businesses — what type of implementation process or effects this budget will have on them. It is significant.

I will ensure that we continue to hold the government to account on the necessary reporting that is due June 30, coming out with the profile of small businesses; where we are on the regulatory account, which is due next week — by this government, to talk about every single ministry on how they are working to ensure that we have a net-zero regulatory increase.

Just through review of having had this file and understanding the ministries, seeing some of the changes that have been implemented since this summer, I know firsthand that the regulatory count has been increased significantly in many of the ministries. When I look at Forests, Lands and Natural Resources, the ministry for rural economic development, I know that some of their proposed changes that I know require legislation will definitely increase the regulatory account. So all of these do have effect on the bill that is before the House.

I guess the final comment is that I had the opportunity to talk specifically about my riding and the impacts of this budget bill, Bill 2, and what it will have. I received information today in my community. I had, earlier in my responses, talked about how, this week, our high school was to be moved to a temporary location. A report came out this summer that identified our school as not structurally sound to have students. Announcements had been made. Funding had been made for a temporary move of the students to a new location. That is not moving forward now as it should.

I say to the government…. Again, I raise my concerns. It’s great that there are significant capital investments that are being made for seismic upgrades in the Lower Mainland — very important. I applaud the government for doing that. But when no other dollars are in the budget for other parts of the province of British Columbia, in schools that have been identified…. The government has the report on the safety concerns that a school in Quesnel, the Quesnel Junior Secondary, has. They have the report and were influenced enough to find small money to temporarily move the students.

I have to wonder where the rural equality is, as the Minister of Finance said that this was a budget that was meant to uplift and reduce anxiousness for people across British Columbia. Again, I say to the minister that this budget certainly isn’t reducing the anxious nature of people in Cariboo North.

[5:15 p.m.]

The other items that I identified — no longer mentioning the Cariboo connector; no funds for three-phase power to help support the climate leadership action initiative in rural communities such as Wells; no mention of connectivity beyond the coast of British Columbia, where we critically need cell service and Internet in rural British Columbia; no mention in this budget of our small businesses that were devastated this last year by the wildfires and our agricultural sector that has significant concerns as we head into the spring; and ensuring we have enough feed for our producers. The list goes on and on.

This budget has absolutely been an assault on rural communities. It has been an assault on 250. For that reason, I do not support and was pleased to speak to Bill 2.

Hon. L. Popham: I stand in the House, and I could not be more proud to support this budget. I am so pleased to speak in favour of a budget that’s focused on making life more affordable for people in this province. I would like to say that I can’t tell you how appreciative I am to have a Finance Minister who worked so incredibly hard to come out on the other side with a budget that is probably one of the most-supported budgets that we’ve ever seen in British Columbia.

As the first female Agriculture Minister in the province of B.C., I’m proud to speak in support of the budget for the benefits that it’s going to deliver to B.C. farmers, ranchers, seafood and food processors.

As the MLA for Saanich South, I’ve spent the past two terms…. I’m now into my third term, but my first two terms were in opposition. I can tell you that under the former government, I had constant conversations with people in my constituency who are frustrated with the cost of living that was rising but also distraught over the cost of housing and seniors who weren’t getting services they needed. I have experienced many conversations with people over eight years where things did not seem to be getting better. In fact, they seemed to be getting much worse.

We have become the government of British Columbia, and we’re going to be the government of the people. We’re listening to people in the changes that we’re making. Although every decision that you make in government is a difficult decision, we’re on the path to making life much better for people who live in our province.

I am so proud to be part of this government. I can say that as we all sit in this House, we reflect back on our families and our families’ needs as well. I can tell that you my mom was a young senior who was grappling with a health care system where she wasn’t getting the services that she needed. To watch her go through what she had to go through as she faced early-onset dementia, looking for supports within communities just so she could stay at home a little bit longer…. The supports weren’t there. You know, as I was used to advocating for people, I found myself in a place where I tried advocating for my own mom. But it was basically impossible because there just weren’t the supports there.

We have all seen this personally. I know that the members on the other side have also been dealing with constituents who were coming into their offices over the past eight years. They know just as well as we know that things were getting more difficult for people.

The feedback, since we announced our budget, from the people in Saanich South, and getting emails from around the province…. We know. We’ve all been getting the emails. We know that people are happy. But I can say, probably, to summarize it in one word, that they’re relieved. They’re relieved that there is help on the way. We’ve made some difficult decisions, but we have made smart choices. We’re moving B.C. in a new direction.

One of those things, of course, is housing affordability. The previous government failed to address the housing crisis. When you ignore a problem like that, it doesn’t go away. It gets worse. The costs pile up. For ordinary people trying to get into the housing market and afford to buy their own home, that has become almost an impossible feat. We have definitely taken a focus on housing affordability and making sure that people can get into the housing market, making it more affordable for families.

[5:20 p.m.]

Our government is going to address speculation and crack down on tax fraud in B.C.’s real estate market. I’ve had a couple of conversations with friends of mine who are realtors. They came up and congratulated me on a job well done on decisions that we’ve made that address the real estate market in this way. They actually have even said: “We can’t wait to see the work that you do. We hope you’ll go farther.”

We’ve made the largest investment in housing in B.C. history to build homes for people, including students, seniors, Indigenous people and middle-income families. We’ve also provided security and safety for renters, including better protections for renters facing renovictions and demolitions. This is a really important step because there are people that are struggling.

It’s very well and good to talk about and criticize, from the other side, the measures that we’ve taken, but we have kept our focus about making things better for people in the province. The decisions that the Finance Minister made are definitely going to be doing that. We’ve heard nothing but good news from people who are living in British Columbia, real people living in the province.

I’ve even heard from business owners myself. And you know what? They run successful businesses. They’ve taken a look at the measures that we’ve taken, and they said: “I don’t mind paying a bit more because we need to make sure that, in our society, we’re looking out for everybody.”

I think that the reason why this budget is one of the most popular budgets that we’ve ever seen in this province’s history is because we’ve got amazing people who live in this province and care about each other. This budget reflects that. It reflects how much people care about each other in the province of British Columbia.

Now, I am so lucky. I feel very lucky and grateful that I was appointed Agriculture Minister of the province. It’s like a dream come true for me. I’ve advocated, as long as I can remember, for the importance of agriculture, for supporting agriculture and making sure that people understand that agriculture is a strong economic driver.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

As the critic for eight years, I was very disappointed continually with the support that agriculture got from the other side of the House. Mostly, it was because I don’t think we had a comprehensive, long-term vision in place for agriculture. What we’ve done on this side of the House, the support that agriculture has seen in the budget, really reflects the idea that an investment in agriculture is an investment in rural British Columbia and an investment in long-term jobs, if you treat it right. Agriculture is interesting because if you neglect agriculture in a budget cycle, neglect it as politicians…. It’s a pretty resilient crowd. It will survive, but I don’t think you can say it would thrive.

As I travelled around for eight years talking to farmers, ranchers, food producers and food processors, they said: “We’re getting by, but we just don’t feel very supported.” Well, ever since we announced the budget, I have had endless emails from farmers, ranchers, food processors and people from the seafood sector, saying: “We finally feel like we have a government that supports agriculture.” In fact, I can say that over the next three years, we’ll be investing $29 million in agriculture. That’s a historical lift for the agriculture budget, and it is being appreciated very much by the agriculture sector here in B.C.

Agriculture is an important part of a sustainable economy. What we saw over last spring and summer was: what kind of things are a threat to agriculture, and what types of things do we need to address? Well, in the spring we saw an incredible freeze-up in the Peace River. There was spring kill, killing off some of the crops up there. At the same time, we saw this new pest emerging in the Comox Valley, a little bit in the Fraser Valley, something called armyworm, which annihilates crops, like forage crops.

[5:25 p.m.]

These were emergencies that were happening. We were very well aware of them, but we weren’t government at that point. I was getting emails from the agriculture community saying, “I’ve never seen this before,” or: “We’re now devastated.” In the Nechako Valley, we saw an alfalfa kill-off, which is affecting feed for cattle.

Then we had the forest fires. We saw just a devastating forest fire season, which affected the agricultural community significantly. At one point, I think the statistics were that there were 35,000 farm animals running loose up in the Cariboo. A lot of the ranchers that have farmed up there, at that point, really didn’t know if those cows and livestock were going to be coming home.

We were under the gun in agriculture on so many fronts. It really goes to show that you have to have a resilient, sustainable plan provincewide for agriculture. Because as climate change happens — as we face new pests because of climate change, forest fires because of climate change — all of these things front end. Agriculture faces it head-on. Temperature changes, climate change affecting our temperatures — agriculture feels that right away.

It’s so critically important to have a sustainable agriculture plan, because resilience has to be built into that. We’ve got resilient farmers, for sure. But we need to have a resilient plan. That means taking advantage of agriculture from every part of our province.

We’re very unique in this province. We’re unlike the prairie provinces, for example. That’s because we have the ability to grow just about anything in British Columbia. Over 200 land-based crops and 100 seafood crops. We can harvest just about anything.

Focusing in on primary production is critically important. You can’t do that without the land base. You can’t grow things without the agricultural land reserve protecting our food-producing lands. So within my ministry’s budget, we are going to be working, and are currently working, on an agricultural land reserve revitalization project. I can’t tell you how happy I am about that. I have been a strident supporter of the agricultural land reserve, like so many people in our province.

As we watch some of the situations right now, which we couldn’t have foreseen happen, starting to erode our agricultural land reserve, we realize that if we do want to have a resilient plan that carries us into the future, we have to take into account the modern-day threats to the agricultural land reserve — threats of development, of encroachment, of urban sprawl. You take these into account, and then you put it together with the previous government who, in my view, turned their back on the erosion of the agricultural land reserve. You start heading in the wrong direction.

I am so proud of our government having the agricultural land reserve revitalization project going on within this new budget. We are going to make sure that the agricultural land reserve is stronger than ever.

What’s that going to mean? It means that we’ve sent out an independent committee to interview people across the province. We’ve got an on-line survey that’s taking place until the end of April — April 30, open 24-7. We want everybody’s views.

If you want to protect the agricultural land reserve, go on line and tell us how you think that should happen. If you can tell us about a threat that’s happening on the agricultural land reserve, put it in writing and send it to us. This committee is going to be compiling a report for me, handing it in to me by the end of the summer, and then we’re going to make some decisions on either regulatory changes or legislative changes. Those changes are going to make sure that the agricultural land reserve is stronger than ever, and it’s going to make sure that we’ve got food-producing lands well into the future.

I hear over and over again that young people don’t want to get into farming and the average age of our farmer is really, really old. Well, we do have farmers that are aging out, for sure. But I can tell you that everywhere I go in the province, young people absolutely want to get into farming.

[5:30 p.m.]

Maybe they’re thinking about farming in a different way. Maybe they’re thinking about more small-scale farming. Maybe they want to have a quota in supply management, but they want a smaller slice of that quota. We’re trying to think of every single way that we can incent young farmers to get into farming. I think everybody in this chamber can get behind that, because I think we’re all eaters here.

We’ve incorporated into our budget supports for an organization that we’ve partnered with called the Young Agrarians. The Young Agrarians are this incredible group of young farmers from across Canada. They come into communities, and they hold, basically, potlucks or dances or weeding parties on farms. They invite any young people that are interested in farming to join them, and then they try and match them up with land that, perhaps, is owned but not farmed. It’s an incredible program. I’m looking forward to working with the Young Agrarians as we try and do as much land matching as we possibly can.

I have such a fabulously exciting mandate in the Ministry of Agriculture. It’s based on Grow B.C., Feed B.C. and Buy B.C. I was thinking back, about a few years ago, to when we were thinking about an agriculture platform. We came up with those three words — grow, feed, buy. We had written it down. We had talked about it. We had talked about if it engaged people with agriculture, and we decided it would.

Now when I look down at my mandate and I see those words on the page, it’s almost surreal. I believe in it so much. I believe in agriculture so much. It really links everything together. Grow B.C. addresses everything on the land base, including protecting the agricultural land reserve. It also addresses policies that affect farming. So it would affect insurance programs that farmers depend on for stability in their industry. It would affect making sure there’s enough staff within the Ministry of Agriculture to support the beekeepers of the province. There are just so many ways that we can support farming within our ministry. A lot of that has to do with educational supports or what we would call field services or extension services.

I was a certified organic farmer. I know that when I was farming in the ’90s, I was able to access the ministry and field service workers that came right out to my farm and advised me on what was going on with my soil or if there was a disease in my vineyard. I really appreciated that. Over the years, those sorts of services have been eroded from the ministry. So one of the first things I did when I was sworn in as minister was appoint a full-time certified organic extension officer to replace one that had been cut by the previous government. That was really satisfying, but it was just the first step. I hope to be making sure that we’re including that within the budget that I have now.

We’re looking at a seed specialist. We’re looking at a forage extension officer. There are a lot of things that you can do. Farmers are so incredible. You just give them a bit of information, especially new farmers that depend on that information, and they can do just about anything, especially with the way that our province is laid out.

Then, of course, we have the Feed B.C. part of the mandate. That’s one of the most exciting parts of the mandate, actually, because it really focuses on food processing. There’s just so much to say about the Ministry of Agriculture and the focus on food processing. Food processing and manufacturing is the second biggest part of manufacturing we have in this province. We’re going to be making sure we put a focus on value-added and processing.

Then, of course, we’ve got Buy B.C., which is an incredible marketing program. We’ve got Grow B.C., which supports the land base. It supports the farmers. It supports policies that support farmers. We’ve got a way to process that food once they grow it, and then we’ve got a way to market it with Buy B.C. It’s a fabulous plan.

[5:35 p.m.]

I can’t wait to go into estimates with the opposition. I get four hours to talk about agriculture, and there’s nothing better, nothing more that I would want to talk about. I can’t imagine anything else that’s more important to me.

I’m going to wrap it up because I think the opposition has one more speaker they want to get up. I appreciate the time in the House, and I look forward to debating this budget.

T. Redies: As we know, Bill 2, the Budget Implementation Act, is a very dense compilation of the various measures this government needs to implement in order to bring its first true budget to life. At over 62 pages long, it contains many, many measures that allow government to begin implementing some of the $5.5 billion in new taxes it has dropped on businesses, individuals, non-profits, school districts, universities and Crown corporations as part of Budget 2018. We now know that 70 percent of the new tax increases are borne by many businesses that had no advance warning and will struggle to meet the new obligations.

Bill 2 also introduces a new additional property transfer tax of 2 percent on homes over $3 million, on the amount exceeding $3 million, and additional school taxes on homes over $3 million. For many seniors who had the good fortune to buy their homes many years ago but who are now on fixed incomes, this additional school tax is essentially unaffordable. These are responsible people who made their financial plans years ago only to be ambushed by these new and punitive tax measures. This really does go against any principle of fairness.

Further, there are extensive new measures in Bill 2 to acquire and share more information on asset holders. Some of this is justified. Nobody likes tax cheats, and government does need to uphold the law and ensure fairness for those British Columbians who live here and pay their taxes according to the law. However, the depth and breadth and open-ended language of some of the collection authorities provided under this bill gives government significant power to gain and share personal information. Again, some of this is necessary. However, I am concerned that we might be seeing the herald of a much more onerous and intrusive information-gathering climate, which will concern domestic and foreign investors alike.

I also suspect this information-gathering and the greatly enhanced powers of government to share information will likely spook foreign investors out of our property market, maybe even more so than the 5 percent increase in the foreign buyer tax. Yet this seems to be what the government wants to do: chase all foreign and other Canadian investment out of our housing market.

Maybe the government wants to chase all foreign investment out of our real estate market. After all, the Finance Minister is on record saying she wants to see the housing market fall. But as we have seen with the devastation of the collapse of the U.S. property market in the global financial recession of 2008, which endured for many, many painful years, when property collapses happen, they happen very quickly. So one has to be very, very careful about what is said. What starts as a trickle in a downturn can become a full-blown avalanche.

When all is said and done, it’s the middle class or the main street people who end up bearing the disproportionate brunt of the devastation. It’s not the rich; it’s main street British Columbians. This is a scenario we have to avoid, yet we have three levels of government all intervening in the B.C. real estate market at the same time with little or no coordination. That, in itself, is a big risk.

It’s usually not one policy that tips markets into declines. It’s usually a buildup of various government policies and then a slight change in business sentiment, or some other even minor trigger, that tips markets over the edge. While governments think they can manage the situation, once housing markets start declining, they go down fast as people sit on the sidelines, waiting for the carnage to play itself out.

[5:40 p.m.]

My real concern is for those people who have gotten into the property market in recent years, scraped up their savings, probably barely putting down 20 percent or less. A housing market fall of even 20 percent could wipe out the equity of many of these young British Columbians — British Columbians like my niece Laura, who with her husband built their first house in Abbotsford a couple of years ago, pulling together all that they had to make their first home together.

I can’t imagine what it will be like for Laura and her husband if all of these various government policies — to be fair, they’ve been introduced at multiple government levels — trigger a property market decline. It won’t be the foreign investors’ equity that is wiped out if this happens. It will be those young millennials like Laura and her husband, who had the good fortune — or, maybe now, the misfortune — of being able to fulfil their dream of owning their own home.

The Bank of Canada has estimated that a 25 percent price drop would put one in four homeowners in Metro Vancouver underwater, which would mean their property would be less than the mortgage on the property. Given this, how the Minister of Finance can be cavalierly suggesting that the housing market should fall is, frankly, irresponsible.

As Mr. Cameron Muir, the chief economist for the B.C. Real Estate Association, said: “If home prices were arbitrarily driven downward by government policy, there are large consequences to that in the marketplace, including builders pulling back on production, so you’ll end up in another supply crunch down the road, as well as you’d impact the overall economy.”

If the economy doesn’t grow, if the real estate market sees major corrections and the construction industry throttles down, it’s not only the homeowners that will be underwater. It will be this government’s finances that will be underwater. From there, all British Columbians suffer.

Interestingly enough, even with this clampdown on the property market — like some of my colleagues have said, even the leader of the Green Party, I believe — the government is still relying on growing property tax revenues over the three-year plan, including the property transfer tax. This doesn’t really make sense.

Finally, despite 62 pages of, largely, tax changes, this bill doesn’t even include the two biggest tax elements of the budget. The new real estate speculation tax, untested and experimental, coupled with the highly controversial employer health tax, are both ill-conceived. This proposed tax has not been fully thought through, either in terms of its fairness to Canadians who don’t live in B.C. or in determining the unintended consequences with respect to foreign investors.

It seems to me that many of these new tax measures introduced with this budget were designed in haste and capture many taxpayers through unintended consequences. While not in this bill, we are seeing this in the chaos and confusion that the new employer health tax is causing. Charities and non-profits and even municipal governments are receiving conflicting measures from the government. This government keeps suggesting it’s a wash, that somehow these entities that are paying MSP are not going to pay any more with this employer health tax. Well, that’s just not true.

My own city of White Rock just confirmed to me today that they will be paying an additional $136,000 in tax, net of the reduction in the MSP.

The issue here is that this downloading of health care onto the backs of municipalities and businesses is going to have downstream consequences. For the city of White Rock, they’re looking at a 0.6 percent increase in property taxes. Maybe the other side doesn’t think that’s significant. But for a lot of seniors, for a lot of people who are on fixed incomes, it is.

There’s no clear direction on who is and who is not exempt from this new payroll tax. The Minister of Finance and the Premier seem to be duking it out as to whether or not there are going to be exemptions, or there won’t be exemptions. I guess we’ll see who wins that battle.

Meanwhile, the private sector feels particularly singled out. All of this is exacerbated by the government’s plans to double-dip when the employer health tax overlaps for a period of one year while MSP premiums are still being collected in the same tax year.

We have no explanation from government as to why this double-dipping is being done, other than what seems to be an insatiable appetite to spend the taxpayers’ money.

Interjection.

[5:45 p.m.]

T. Redies: It is insatiable. In fact, my concern is that it’s not going to stop, even at the insatiable amounts that it has already increased.

Furthermore, the government’s own advisory panel told them in no uncertain terms not to overlap a combined MSP and employer health tax. There’s absolutely no justification for this.

B.C. is the leading economy in the country but won’t remain that way for long if this government continues to make bad decisions. We’re quickly losing our reputation as a competitive jurisdiction, both inside and outside of the province. Our closest neighbour, Alberta, is well aware of that.

The business community within our province is quickly beginning to realize that the government wants to shift a huge tax burden onto the private sector. International investors are scratching their heads and wondering why this government is deliberately ruining our reputation as a business-friendly environment.

The peril, of course, is the risk of imposing tax measures that will trigger a domino effect in the provincial economy. Once the business community picks up stakes and moves to a more tax-friendly jurisdiction, government revenues will surely fall. This will set off a downward spiral that will eventually result in a return to a deficit financing in British Columbia.

We, as the official opposition, have put the government on notice that the sudden increase in program spending is unsustainable. Any downturn in the economy will place our province in an untenable position. And whenever you find yourself in a hole, as the old adage goes, stop digging.

I know the other side thinks we’re fearmongering, but we’re only pointing out what decades and decades of evidence has told us of how this has played out in many jurisdictions throughout the world. Excessive taxation chases away high-income earners and businesses and job creation. If individuals and businesses are taxed and regulated to the point where staying or operating in a jurisdiction is too onerous or uneconomic, the very people and entities that generate the lion’s share of the tax revenue leave.

In extreme cases, economies go into recession and government is left facing high spending costs with dwindling tax revenue, often forcing them to raise taxes again. But this time, it’s on the broader middle class.

Noting the hour, I’d like to reserve my right to continue to speak and adjourn debate.

T. Redies moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: The House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday morning.

The House adjourned at 5:48 p.m.