Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this House, I call continued second reading on Bill 5. In Committee A, I call continued debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Environment.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 5 — COMMUNITY CARE AND
ASSISTED LIVING AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

(continued)

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

T. Shypitka: Thank you for the opportunity to come back and regain the debate from yesterday on the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act, 2018.

When I last left off, I was three-quarters through my little speech I’ve got here, and there were a few heads scratching on the other side. I don’t know if it was in regards to this bill, although we support the bill in its fundamental form. It’s a good bill. Bringing transparency and reporting to community care and assisted living is something that I think we can all wrap our arms around.

I did make the comment that perhaps this bill needs a little tweaking. We’ll look forward to that in committee stage — on doing just that. The comment was that this bill may be slightly aggressive for those ground-level care facilities, the ma-and-pa shops, where perhaps this bill may name or shame people into getting a licence. Those that don’t want to go through some of the rigorous reform of being licensed may just drop off the page. I think that’s a realistic argument.

For example, my wife could have chosen to look after our two children instead of putting them into daycare. With that, she could have very easily taken a couple of neighbours’ children into the home. It would have been unlicensed, but it would have been a loving, caring facility. But it may not have been something she would have looked forward to if she had to bring those standards of that facility up to a commercial level with the rigour that comes with it.

What I’m saying is maybe a transitional type of form or a tiered system for lower-level versus higher-level care facilities — commercial versus maybe ground-up facilities, as you may want to put it — may be something to look at. That’s really all I was getting at there.

[2:40 p.m.]

We will support the bill because we think that transparency is, in general, a good thing, but we don’t think it will help the government to meet the needs of parents for more child care spaces. In fact, it may just do the opposite, as I said. We’ll be watching carefully to see if that happens.

The bill also targets recovery houses. There are several in my region, and I think, for the reasons that I just mentioned, transparency and reporting is something we need in these facilities. For example, the crime reduction strategy for Surrey, just made public in late 2016, recommended that a database be created for all licensed treatment and recovery facilities. This will fulfil that recommendation of transparency.

However, another recommendation of the crime reduction strategy is not being followed by the government, and that is to establish an accreditation board to develop programming requirements, housing and care standards and other requirements for recovery houses in the city. Without such a board, it’ll be harder to push some of those bad actors out of the system.

Also in the act…. It touches on assisted living. Seniors care and assisted living is a big issue in my area. We’re going through some problems right now with ensuring that people are getting the proper care hours that are required. It’s a concerning one.

What I’ve been doing through my regional health authority is to bring up to code that the hours of care are being addressed. For example, there may be a decline in care hours, and then, because the reporting is biannual, those care hours could be somewhat smoothed out every six months. For example, you may have, during the Christmas holidays, staff not showing up and care hours go down. And then in January, they may bump those hours to overservice, so that when the reporting comes through, those hours look like they’re somewhat level and they follow suit with the recommendations.

Through our health authority, we’re now doing some monthly reporting on care hours. I think that maybe something like that…. I’m not too sure where that fits into this bill. I’m sure we can maybe plug it in somewhere. I notice the Minister of Health is maybe making note of that. I think it would be something to look at — to do more consistent reporting, maybe monthly. With today’s technology, I don’t know why we couldn’t do it in real time, almost, with hours that are being plugged in.

With that, I support the bill. We look forward to going to committee stage.

J. Isaacs: Thank you for the opportunity today to speak to Bill 5, the amendment of the Community Care and Assisted Living Act. This bill primarily focuses on universal care and provides information to parents and others who seek information on a child care operator or facility.

A single website will provide parents with basic information, such as whether or not a daycare facility is a licensed or unlicensed facility. Unless otherwise exempted, it will provide a location of the daycare, the name of the operator and the name of the facility. The website will also provide information to parents and others regarding the outcomes of routine investigations or inspection infractions, non-compliance issues related to safety and care standards, as well as genuine complaints regarding the operator or facility.

This website and reporting disclosure will be an important resource for parents as they begin their search to secure daycare for their child. The information will provide a means for parents to gauge the nature of the infraction, to see if there are multiple infractions and to determine whether or not those infractions have been dealt with in a timely manner and to the satisfaction of a health officer. It will also report if the matter remains outstanding.

From my own experience — and I have done it all, from grandparent care to family care, taking my children out and having someone come in, licensed daycare, live-in nanny, live-out nanny, before- and after-school…. The first thing that comes to mind for parents who are choosing a daycare is the health and safety record. But equally and just as important are the passion and commitment the operator and staff clearly demonstrate — providing a loving, learning and nurturing environment for children.

[2:45 p.m.]

It’s seeing for yourself how the operator and staff interact with children and the accountability measures the owner-operator puts in place to make sure that their business, whether it’s a private business or a not-for-profit business, delivers a positive environment and the best quality of care to children.

Without this kind of centralized reporting, parents often have to trust their instincts, which usually come from visiting the facility, meeting with the daycare provider and staff members and, perhaps, speaking to other parents who attend the facility or getting a referral from another source.

The amendment will provide parents and others information on the operator or facility within 30 days of that facility being licensed. This information provides parents with some assurance that a health officer will report an infraction or, where warranted, multiple infractions that come as a result of an investigation or inspection. The reporting mechanism will also include information as to the nature of the complaint, the action or actions taken by the facility to repair the infraction and will further report and update the website once the infraction has been properly dealt with.

The use of standard language for reporting complaints will ensure that each facility is subject to, at the very least, a minimum standard of care for operations and policy. Parents who seek this information will be able to look at the data with a level of comfort, knowing that the same terminology and same standard of care applies across the board to all licensed and unlicensed daycares, regardless of whether they are privately owned or non-profit businesses.

While the standardization and reporting of infractions is helpful, and I support the transparency and full disclosure, the infractions remain on the website for public viewing and scrutiny for five years. Many infractions may be very minor and are sometimes resolved immediately or within 24 hours. So I question whether it’s good policy to have a minor infraction remain on a website for five years.

The public is certainly entitled to be aware of infractions, even minor ones, and infractions of a serious nature certainly warrant a longer public disclosure period. A clearer differential, though, between a minor infraction compared to a serious infraction, would be helpful, so that parents could use their own common sense and make the distinction of whether an infraction is a minor concern or if parents should have concerns over a more serious infraction. A ranking system that highlights the seriousness of the matter, as well as a mechanism to drop off minor infractions over time, certainly prior to five years, would provide more recent and relevant information for parents to consider.

Having a minor infraction on a public website for five years may actually cause unintended negative consequences to the reputation of the operator, the owner and the facility. Therefore, the absence of a mechanism that ranks the infraction as to the seriousness of the complaint is a concern. The reliance in determining the seriousness of the infraction becomes the responsibility of the interpreter, and that information is usually interpreted by the parent.

Language barriers or cultural differences should also be taken into consideration. A clear ranking mechanism, once again, that rates the risk of level of seriousness of a violation or infraction will help eliminate any guesswork for parents and allow them to immediately move forward with the next steps — securing a daycare at that particular spot, that particular facility, or eliminating the facility from their search.

Unlicensed daycares are permitted for a maximum of two children. The maximum two children policy does not include children who are related to the family. So grandparents can continue to care for their grandchildren and may additionally care for a maximum of two other children before they are required to be licensed.

What is interesting in this bill, however, is the clause 15.3(3), under: “Publication of reports respecting unlicensed facility.” It states: “A medical health officer must promptly remove information that was published under this section if a licence is subsequently issued in respect of the community care facility.”

In other words, if an unlicensed daycare operator, who has had an infraction which has been publicly reported on the website, obtains a licence, the infraction posted on the unlicensed operator or facility is dropped from the website — dropped from public viewing and dropped from scrutiny. The newly licensed daycare operator or facility starts with a blank slate.

[2:50 p.m.]

In other words, the blank slate is granted without restrictions when an unlicensed operator obtains a licence, regardless of the seriousness of the infraction. This obviously creates an unfair level of reporting and disclosure, especially if there was a serious infraction.

Licensed daycare operators often have enormous expenditures when establishing a building or a facility. For instance, there is a purpose-built daycare centre in my riding that spent over $1 million just to purchase the land and build that daycare. There is another operator who has five separate facilities, and she and her business partner have invested $1 million into their operations. Other facilities undertake high renovation costs to accommodate a range of care options. Recently an operator told me they invested $20,000 to replace the floor. This is the cost that operators have to bear.

Removing the requirement to report an infraction of an unlicensed daycare operator, as an incentive for the operator to license that daycare, whether the infraction was minor or serious, is troubling, particularly if a serious infraction occurred. Tightening of criminal record checks and quick processing of approvals will go a long way to protect and ensure that the safety of children is always paramount.

While we have policies and regulations to protect our children by implementing the highest of standards, accidents can happen at any time. Such tragedies are not predicated on whether a daycare was a licensed or unlicensed daycare or whether the operator was a private business or a non-profit. We have seen such incidents occur in all facilities.

For parents, it has to be about options and choice, options that are best suited for the family and child who is seeking daycare. As a parent, I want to have that choice of where I place my child — whether it is in the loving arms of a grandparent, which is a lifelong family bond that no one can replicate; my neighbour, whose child might be best friends with my child and they spend all day playing together, a very healthy and creative environment; or whether I want to place my child in a private or not-for-profit structured centre. All of these options have positive attributes, but it is my choice to decide what is best for my child or children.

We have to be abundantly cautious that privately owned family and neighbourhood daycares — whether they offer full-time, part-time, before or after school, or just provide care over the summer holidays — are not eliminated as options and choices for parents because of excessive rules, fees, public reporting or simply peer pressure. Removing options for parents can end up having an adverse effect, reducing the number of spots rather than the intended purpose of creating more spots.

Overall I see the amendment pertaining to the reporting of care for children as a positive step to help parents find daycare facilities that may be within their neighbourhood or close to their place of work. It provides assurance that there are regulatory processes in place that are followed up on and reported publicly. That greatly assists parents in choosing which operator or which facility is best for their child.

The bill also includes a reporting of assisted living facilities and residential care homes. I am very supportive of the work of the B.C. Care Providers Association, B.C. Seniors Living Association and the office of the seniors advocate in reporting the many challenges facing seniors who need care. As a result of their work and engagement as advocates, the public can be assured that there is this additional oversight.

There is one area of the amendment proposed in Bill 5 that does raise some concerns. The new Residential Tenancy Act has clear language regarding the landlord’s right to enter and access a rental unit. As the residents in long-term care, residential care homes and assisted living homes are, in effect, renting on a month-to-month lease, there should be more clarity regarding the right to access, just to eliminate any misunderstandings or miscommunications.

Many care homes are addressing the issue with an indemnity clause. However, without clearer, more precise language, followed by regulation or possibly legislation, the right to access could be challenged. The safety and the security of residents would always be paramount.

I will turn to the last focus of this bill, which is in regard to recovery houses. There are different recovery house models, and it’s important to recognize the distinctions between them. For example, there are abstinence homes where there are no alcohol or drug substances of any kind permitted on site, and individuals who are living in the home cannot return to the home if they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

[2:55 p.m.]

There are also harm reduction models where the recovery house is allowed to have on-site consumption of drugs and alcohol. Two completely different models with two completely different outcomes, and each model has a different set of challenges.

There is a high percentage of relapse, and unfortunately, recovery houses cannot control the behaviour of those living in the house. It often results in behaviour that is not welcome in neighbourhoods, particularly where families with children live. This is a challenge in itself — simply getting approvals that accommodate a site for a recovery home.

There is also second-stage housing to consider. Second-stage housing continues to provide the necessary support for recovery, and it is an essential piece to managing an addiction and making sure that people do not return to the situation or environment that was part of the abuse in the first place.

Individuals and families who are at wits’ end and cannot see a path forward to change the negative and harmful behaviour of their loved one often pay enormous dollars for treatment in recovery homes and are often disappointed with the results. While there is no doubt that ultimately the individuals must be accountable for his or her recovery, not every recovery home has in place a structured model of support. Too many times, this can result in individuals who really struggle managing their own behaviour and, as a result, are in and out of treatment, and there has been no monitoring or reporting of outcomes.

We have seen evidence of this, particularly with unregulated homes which may not offer structured programs. Without a minimum standard of care, which should include the aid of an addiction specialist or in-house doctor, it is difficult to determine the readiness of individuals to leave the recovery home. Everyone has their own unique path to recovery, and assigning timelines can be counterproductive to recovery.

As well, it can be difficult to find a treatment bed, recovery home or second-stage housing. This is challenging when trying to access treatment in a timely fashion. A database similar to that of the care provider registry would allow the public to find available beds and locations. The database would also disclose if the bed available was publicly or privately funded.

Inspections and investigations of recovery homes are necessary to ensure a standard of care that people with addictions deserve. There is a need for public transparency so that both the public and non-profit organizations, which often provide the social services and other supports, are informed of infractions and non-compliance matters. The only way of providing such disclosure is with appropriate public reporting.

I would encourage organizations and stakeholders to continue to work on defining and implementing models of care to create minimum standards of care across facilities with different models. The reporting will be a first step to determining some of the cracks that currently undermine recovery.

Organizations such as CARF, which is the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, can be a first step to ensuring minimum standards are set for the community and assisted-living facilities. Working alongside non-profit organizations, CARF offers accreditation for community housing, community integration, host family services — which are family homes — supported living, respite services and rehabilitation facilities. Implementing a standard of care ensures individuals and families can rely on proper accreditation and support, accountable practices, transparency and reporting.

I’ve laid out my concerns regarding the amendment to Bill 5. I believe the amendments are the first steps to improve reporting and disclosure. I hope that the government will take my concerns seriously, and those concerns my colleagues have raised as well, as we move forward to committee stage.

B. Stewart: I rise today to speak in favour of Bill 5, the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act, 2018. While there are indeed issues with the bill, it is my hope that the government is open to some friendly amendments from our critic. I do support the principles laid out in Bill 5.

This bill targets child care facilities. Unlicensed daycares are legal if they care for just one or two children. Usually, these are in the family home.

[3:00 p.m.]

A facility caring for more than two children must, by law, be licensed and adhere to the child care licensing regulation. Under this bill, the government will now publish the routine inspections and special investigations into child care facilities. The objective of this bill is therefore to provide greater transparency for institutions that receive public funds, and I believe that this is a good thing. Any effort of government to increase transparency and accountability is a good thing. Any effort to increase access to information and reports on child care facilities for parents is a good thing.

As a father of three, I know how important child care decisions can be for your children. Being able to look up reports on facilities that a parent is considering is a valuable tool. However, in the end, this is a decision that rests with parents.

The bill will serve a commercial purpose in that it will make for a more level playing field. All licensed providers will be published on the same site. All will have to abide by the same regulations. More daycares will be publicly known and fewer will operate unlawfully.

I have yet to see any numbers that prove publicly regulated daycare has higher safety outcomes, as suggested in this House yesterday by the Minister of Children and Family Development. There was a recent death in one of the unlicensed daycares here in British Columbia, but recently, also, in 2017, a child died in public daycare in Quebec. So it doesn’t necessarily guarantee the outcomes will be better in one situation versus the other.

If this government is using safety as the rationale for coercing daycare providers into the government framework, I would like to see the numbers that back that up. I also cannot understand why the government is going to be actively inspecting unlicensed and unlawful daycare providers in B.C. rather than cracking down on individuals who are skirting the law. This government seems to be desperately attempting to inflate their numbers by peer pressuring rulebreakers into a government system to meet a quota.

This may result in a situation where illegal daycares have been visited by government officials, reported on and then left operating. The government is caught in a tricky situation. Unlawful providers don’t license now because of the extensive licensing requirements, even for the family child care category, taking care of three to seven children.

I can assure you, as many of the members in this House, that Storyland daycare in Lakeview Heights, operated by Mrs. Reiter, who operated with our three children, never had any of these problems. I guess what I’m saying is that a certain amount of common sense from people that operate these is required.

Licensing requirements that are being proposed or are in effect require a criminal record check, a program of activities, numerous written policies and procedures, extensive recordkeeping, including a log of minor injuries that did not require medical attention, a comprehensive file on each child and reports to a local health authority and so on.

I guess I wonder if this makes my wife or I complicit if we bring our three granddaughters and pick up their friends and bring them home. Although we’re not offering daycare, there are many days when our daughter, who’s at work or with her husband, needs to have that extra care.

While these requirements may be good, they are also burdensome. I would suggest that a parent does not keep that kind of information, as I previously mentioned, about his or her own children, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem to the government, while providing additional care in the family home for three or more unrelated children suddenly triggers many extra requirements. Common sense would say we need to re-examine the licensing requirements and streamline the process. That is not found in this bill.

Instead, the government is hoping to force unlicensed providers into becoming licensed, and in doing so, some unlicensed providers, unable to acquire the licensing, will shut down. Ironically, the unintended consequences, which I know the minister, yesterday, was surprised by, is that this actually may lead to an overall reduction if people decide to reduce to the level where they can remain unlicensed.

[3:05 p.m.]

Some will definitely license, but others will simply drop a child or two from their service, down to two children, so that they can continue to provide care legally, unlicensed, and we will lose the remainder of those spots. Lineups will grow, and parents will be further inconvenienced.

This government needs to make it easier for providers to license. After this bill passes, the reasons that providers have not licensed in the past will still remain. I will be supporting this bill as, on the principle of increasing transparency, it is worthy of my vote. However, I don’t believe that this bill will achieve anything of substance in terms of increasing the number of child care spaces in B.C. In fact, it could have the opposite effect.

S. Gibson: It’s a privilege for me to rise to speak to Bill 5, the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act. I just came off three weeks of meeting with my constituents. We were all there. I appreciate that opportunity at home in the Abbotsford-Mission riding, and it’s great to be back here.

I want to speak to this bill this afternoon. One of the areas this bill covers is child care and child care facilities, which is really important to hundreds of families in my community. The rules governing the operations of child care facilities won’t substantially shift. Facilities that care for more than two children must continue to be licensed and follow the child care licensing regulations. Unlicensed daycares will continue to be legal if they care for one or two children. Public health officers can continue to investigate facilities if there are concerns, and offences, penalties and violations will continue.

In many ways, the fundamental structure of how child care takes place in our province will largely remain the same. However, there are some changes I’d like to take a few moments to address today. Under this bill, the government will publish on-line inspections and special investigations of child care facilities. That’s new.

Now, I’m supportive, as it provides greater transparency about institutions that receive public funds, and because parents will also have access to this information. That’s a good thing. This measure will provide those using or considering to use child care with additional knowledge about the quality of care in facilities that have been inspected or investigated. That is positive.

Publishing information on a licensed daycare of a designated location, using websites, will provide additional information and ensure that information is disseminated. With more information publicly available, fewer daycares will operate unlicensed. Now, I do have some concerns, however, that I want to just raise briefly now.

While I’ve noted and mentioned that I agree with the government publishing inspections and investigations and support the access to information, increased transparency, I have some reservations about how the material will be available without revision for five years. If an inspection identifies an issue and the provider takes steps to correct it, the original issue will still remain on the provider’s record for this period of time. I join colleagues in echoing the concern that this could result in impact on a facility’s record when there’s no longer cause for concern.

Similarly, I also have some questions about privacy. Within 30 days of licensing, a health officer will publish the provider’s name and the name and address of their business. Now, I agree with this, but it’s important to balance transparency with individual privacy. I also feel this bill could have the unintended effect of reducing available child care spaces.

[3:10 p.m.]

Parents who use unlicensed child care facilities will be eligible for subsidies if their daycare becomes licensed, which means that we can reasonably expect more providers to become licensed.

Often unlicensed child care providers do not seek out a licence due to the requirements associated, including a criminal record check, written policies and procedures and the duty to keep extensive records. These requirements are significant and can be costly. Naming child care providers may encourage some unlicensed providers to become licensed. In other cases, these providers could opt instead to reduce the number of children in their care. That’s a possibility.

For instance, a home-based child care provider caring for only three or four children may decide not to license but instead take only two children into their care, therefore legally removing that requirement for a licence. As a result, a community would lose these spaces, and we could expect wait-lists to grow. That’s a possibility. While licensed daycares operating in family homes do have slightly relaxed regulatory requirements compared to larger centres, they still tend to have more limited resources, which could create a burden on their operation. This should be considered as government moves forward.

Government has stated that this bill will help enhance safety. Now, I recognize the safety of our children is of the utmost importance. I speak of that as a parent and a grandparent. Parents, guardians and family members want to know that when they leave their child in the care of a provider, everything has been done to ensure their safety. But safety issues can, unfortunately, occur in both licensed and unlicensed facilities. So I’d just like to raise a point of caution, which there should be, regarding these outcomes.

While I support the transparency this bill will bring to child care in British Columbia, it will be important to ensure that this bill meets the objectives set out by government, without additional negative consequences. This bill also will not help meet the need for new child care spaces — something I think it’s important to acknowledge today here in this House.

In addition to child care facilities, this bill also applies to recovery houses for individuals dealing with addictions. The measures this bill outlines for this type of facility are similar to the ones proposed for child care providers, which includes posting information on line about inspections and investigations of both licensed and unlicensed facilities. Again, I think greater public transparency in this area is desirable, and I support this measure. Colleagues have spoken about this type of facility in greater detail, so I will conclude my remarks here.

This is a bill with some important elements but also some areas that will require some caution and close observation. I look forward to seeing some of these areas addressed in committee stage here in our Legislature.

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

Hon. A. Dix: I want to thank all the members on both sides of the House for taking part, for their interest in this area. I know that some of the people who spoke — the member for Kootenay East — are parents, currently, who have been recent users of the daycare system in British Columbia, the child care system. I know that others are expressing the interests of their constituents and have certain interests in the child care debate.

I just wanted to say a few things — first of all, that members raised issues around the regulation of unlicensed recovery homes. As members of the House will know, that deregulation happened, I believe, in 2002. That’s a debate, though, that I think all members of the House are interested in because I think the objective circumstances since then have changed.

[3:15 p.m.]

This bill doesn’t seek to do this. What this bill seeks to do, solely and exclusively, is ensure a measure of transparency. It’s to allow, in other words, the freedom of parents to know all of the information that the health authority knows when they’re making the very important decision to put their children in care — and that seniors and others know all the information the health authority knows and the same information in Northern Health as they would know in Island Health or in Interior Health or in Fraser Health about long-term care and about assisted living.

The purpose of the legislation is that very transparency. They are indeed modest but important changes. They’re modest because they are not the changes that make dramatic changes in the whole child care system. We are doing that through the budget and through other actions of the government that people will know and we’ll debate publicly, I’m sure, in this Legislature and around British Columbia.

We’re very excited. I think parents are very excited around B.C. about the extraordinary changes being put into place by the program led by the Minister of State for Child Care, along with child care providers across British Columbia.

We are not, of course, debating the very significant changes to seniors care because the budget tabled by my colleague the Minister of Finance is also the most important seniors budget in a long time. It addresses the issue that the overwhelming majority of care homes today, for example, do not meet staffing levels and staffing standards.

Again, that’s not debated in this legislation, although there is information about that that the seniors advocate provides, and it’s sometimes, of course, the subject of controversy. But the seniors advocate, a position created by the previous government, has created more openness and more understanding amongst those who are making decisions around a care home. Generally, that’s a good thing, even though that very openness, the reports brought forward by the seniors advocate, is sometimes criticized by care home operators.

There’s a natural tension there between the desire to show transparency and the desire, if you’re running a seniors home, not to have bad or critical or negative information about you on a website — in that case, the website of the seniors advocate. In this case, the information posted is open and not evaluative. I hear members of the opposition say that we should be ranking the situation — not telling parents all of the information and having them make judgments but making judgments first, before they can see it. The purpose here is to be open and not evaluative.

I think members of the House, when they reflect on that, hopefully, will agree that that is the right approach. Instead of defining in legislation what is major and what is minor as safety concerns, families will be provided all the information and allowed to make their own judgments. In a free and open society — dare I say it? — even a free and open and Liberal society, that is the kind of thing we would want. We would want, in fact, all of the information available because it’s, after all, the responsibility but also the right of parents to make judgments on that basis.

People have raised issues about unintended consequences. I want to be clear that it has never been allowed. I mean, there were inspections and inspectors working for the health authorities under the previous government, ensuring that people didn’t function contrary to the law, unlicensed child care facilities.

It is consistent with the law — this doesn’t change here, and it’s not likely to change — to take care of two children, two or less, in a home without a licence. But it is not consistent with that to take care of more. It has never been allowed. So when members suggest that this will reduce the number of child care spaces, they are wrong. This doesn’t change that at all. It wasn’t allowed then, if I may refer to the previous period. It’s not allowed now.

What we do insist upon, when negative reports come out — we saw a very public case of how that can affect the lives of parents, a case that was brought forward by advocates of those parents, who suffered a terrible loss and made the case that they should have known things the health authority knew and that they didn’t know them — is that those will be published on a website so that parents have the opportunity in all cases.

No commercial advantage for one type of child care against another type of child care — that there be knowledge everywhere of what the circumstances are, that the information be open, that all of the information be available. That is a fair system. That is not choosing one system over another. That’s not choosing one type of child care over another.

[3:20 p.m.]

That’s ensuring that everybody is treated the same but, most importantly, that parents are treated fairly and, in the case of seniors care and assisted-living care, that sometimes family members, if they’re supporting senior members in care, or the senior members themselves, most importantly, have access to that very same information.

That’s what this act seeks to do. It is, in fact, a modest proposal that does something that’s very important: makes our care system safer, gives more rights to citizens, not less rights, and more information to citizens, not less information. That is the purpose of it.

This is information that, in fact, is in the possession of the government — these reports. It will be presented consistently in each case, explaining what will be made available and what won’t, and fairly, so that parents, seniors and others who use our care system have the ability to make their own evaluation.

I move second reading.

Motion approved.

Hon. A. Dix: I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for committee stage at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 5, Community Care and Assisted Living 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. D. Eby: I call second reading of Bill 11, the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act, 2018.

BILL 11 — INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL
ARBITRATION AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Hon. D. Eby: I move that the bill be now read a second time.

The International Commercial Arbitration Act was a front-runner in international commercial arbitration legislation at the time it was enacted in 1986. It’s now outdated and in need of modernization.

The International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act will update our existing legislation to reflect current international best practices. The amendments will modernize British Columbia’s arbitration regime, enhance British Columbia’s standing as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction, support international arbitration in language and concepts familiar to international business parties and counsel, and provide an opportunity to position British Columbia as an arbitration destination for international commercial disputes.

British Columbia’s existing legislation is based on the UN Commission on International Trade Law, UNCITRAL, 1985 model law. The UNCITRAL model law was significantly updated in 2006, and we have not amended our legislation to incorporate these updates.

The proposed amendments to the International Commercial Arbitration Act incorporate the recommendations of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada in response to the 2006 model law, as well as other recent best practices in international commercial arbitration. The amendments will make the International Commercial Arbitration Act an efficient and comprehensive piece of arbitration legislation that will support international arbitration in language and concepts familiar to business parties and counsel.

Modern international arbitration legislation will provide an opportunity for British Columbia to position itself as an arbitration destination for international commercial disputes. British Columbia is well situated as a neutral venue for parties who do not wish to arbitrate in the United States or Asia.

The most extensive update in the UNCITRAL 2006 model law is the addition of a section that deals comprehensively with interim measures and preliminary orders. The bill contains the addition of this section into British Columbia’s International Commercial Arbitration Act.

The bill also adds a new privacy and confidentiality provision which will limit disputes regarding the scope of common-law confidentiality as it applies to international commercial arbitration under the International Commercial Arbitration Act. This provision will clarify such obligations in advance for the parties.

The bill also adds a new immunity provision for arbitrators which protects arbitrators for anything done or omitted to be done in connection with an arbitration, unless the act or omission is in bad faith or the arbitrator has engaged in intentional wrongdoing.

Other significant amendments contained in this bill include clarified standards for arbitral challenges, an expanded definition of “arbitration agreement” that accounts for technological advances, an increased threshold that must be met for challenges to arbitrator independence or impartiality, the creation of appeals from negative jurisdictional rulings and the removal of out-of-date language and references throughout the International Commercial Arbitration Act.

The amendments will preserve a numbering scheme similar to that used in the UNCITRAL model law in order to make the material easily referenced and understandable by international parties. This bill will modernize British Columbia’s arbitration regime with the goal of enhancing British Columbia’s standing as an international arbitration-friendly jurisdiction.

[3:25 p.m.]

M. Lee: Well, just to hear the Attorney General outline this bill…. Certainly, it does come to this chamber after a bit of a hiatus, and I’m happy to see that the government is finally starting to introduce some semblance of a legislative agenda.

That being said, this bill is not part of the expected legislation that the government campaigned on and later redeveloped in their agreement with the Third Party. From what I understand, this bill is actually the result of two years of work and consultation done by the previous government, under the leadership of the previous AG. So it really isn’t part of the government’s legislative agenda. It is merely a carryover from before.

Before I get into the substance of the bill, I would like to talk about how important this particular piece of legislation is. International commerce is very much a large portion of our economy. A great deal of our exports are sent to other jurisdictions — south to the United States, across the Pacific or east to the rest of Canada. Our small businesses, our major corporations and everything in between all depend on international trade in order to survive.

That is why, perhaps, recent events are so troubling. It appears to me that this government doesn’t seem to really be thinking about international trade as a priority. We see this government standing firm against a federally approved pipeline to ship resources. We see them penalizing homebuyers from other provinces. We see them increasing taxes by incredible magnitudes on the businesses that international trade depends on. I think and I fear this legislation may actually become pointless if this trend continues, for we won’t have the types of commercial interests to arbitrate remaining in or coming into contact with our province.

Moving on, in recent years, we have seen a number of cities that have become known as venues for arbitration. These cities include such global powerhouses as New York, Paris, London, Geneva, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. They benefit from this industry, as they bring highly trained and skilled arbitrators and their supporting professionals. Vancouver should continue to strive to join these ranks, and this legislation is a part of that. It’s a first step, a next step.

Part of the importance of this legislation is also to consider our unique situation. At the time of the original legislation coming into place in 1986, Vancouver wasn’t the international hub that it is today. In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle — none of these jurisdictions have a similar piece of legislation. We are the jurisdiction on the Pacific coast of North America that has this tremendous advantage that we continue to be bold with. We have many ties to the Asia-Pacific region, with many law firms, investments, trade and so on. Being a centre for arbitration, unique to this coast, is indeed a special advantage.

Additionally, Canada has a great deal of characteristics that make it an effective referee in arbitration. Key among them are our perceived notional neutrality, objectivity and political stability — although that last may not continue, in the light of this government’s actions to deny federal jurisdiction and constitutional authority. These qualities, additionally combined with Vancouver’s geographic position and moderate climate, make Vancouver an ideal choice for the international business world.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

British Columbia has its own International Commercial Arbitration Centre. BCICAC is recognized as a national leader in arbitration. It offers fully administered arbitrations and mediations, dispute resolution services, upholding the highest standard in the domestic and international arbitration community. The centre maintains panels of both international and domestic experts and offers disputants a choice of rules, depending on the size and complexity of the matter.

As the Attorney General has noted, B.C. was the first jurisdiction in the world to adopt the 1985 United Nations Commission on International Trade Law model law, which our current International Commercial Arbitration Act still follows. This bill brings forward a number of needed ways to modernize that act. I will have a number of questions to discuss in the committee stage, but for now I’d like to make a number of comments on the proposed amendments.

[3:30 p.m.]

The bill does incorporate terms and a general reference to UNCITRAL’s Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, as originally adopted in 1985, with amendments adopted in 2006, including a more fulsome definition of “arbitration agreement.”

Section 6(2) of the proposed amendments states that: “Questions concerning matters governed by this Act that are not expressly settled in this Act are to be settled in conformity with the general principles on which this Act is based.” While this may be a compromise to align the act with the UNCITRAL model law, it will be important to consider how these general principles will be interpreted or utilized under the act.

Additionally, there is other modernization of the act through amendments to the sections dealing on legal proceedings. Amendment 9 of the bill raises the test threshold for when there are justifiable doubts as to an arbitrator’s independence or impartiality. This, as I understand, goes beyond UNCITRAL’s model law but does track what England, Singapore and Australia have adopted. This bears some discussion at the committee stage.

Amendment 11 imports much of the model law’s section on interim measures into the act, as outlined by the AG, with some variations. This adds a new section to the act, addressing interim measures and preliminary measures. This section would enumerate conditions for such measures granting as well as to what grounds they could be recognized, refused and enforced on. In addition, this section of the bill provides an express provision for a court to refer the request for an interim measure back to an arbitral tribunal, which I recognize is a B.C. innovation.

In terms of the parties’ abilities to present their case, amendment 12 lowers the current requirement that each party must be given a full opportunity to present their case. The alternative, now, is that each party must be given a reasonable opportunity. Again, this is a slight departure from UNCITRAL’s model law, and the standards for reasonableness, as it occurs in this bill, will be important to discuss at the committee stage.

I also acknowledge that amendment 13 pulls into this act the sole regulation dealing with legal representation.

For amendment 16 in the bill, I acknowledge that this amendment seeks to follow the recommendations of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada on enforcement and the consolidation of agreements. This amendment should be discussed as to how it’s interpreting those recommendations.

Amendment 19 of the bill removes the ability of an award to be set aside for something that might be seen to be contrary to public policy due to the fact that an arbitration may have been funded by a third party. While this kind of provision is also not in UNCITRAL’s model law, it will be useful to discuss the competitive nature of this provision. Particularly, Singapore, which is one of the world leaders in this field, has adopted a very similar concept into their jurisdiction.

For amendment 21, I also recognize that this is another variation from UNCITRAL’s model law, but I recognize that the privacy and confidentiality requirements, which are currently in our common law, are certainly beneficial to the parties in the arbitration proceedings and to have those set out up front in the governing act.

In conclusion, this bill is one that I support, but I will have additional questions and concerns that we will be canvassing at the committee stage.

D. Routley: It’s my pleasure to rise and speak to the amendments to the International Commercial Arbitration Act. I will try to keep the excitement to a minimum, because the content of this matter is so illuminating. But it really is important, and it is particularly important to people who care about our status as an international trade destination and a place of world-class commercial significance.

[3:35 p.m.]

It’s important that B.C. take advantage of an opportunity that hasn’t yet been seized by other west coast jurisdictions in order to position ourselves, as the minister has indicated, as an arbitration destination for international commercial disputes.

The International Commercial Arbitration Act is being amended, hopefully with the support of all the members in the House, because I do believe it’s a very positive thing for our economy and for our status. It’s being amended in order to reflect more accurately and more currently the UNCITRAL model law, which was introduced in 1985 but amended in 2006. In order for us to be in a position to host international arbitration conferences or to host international arbitrations, it is necessary and advantageous in either case to have an updated act.

UNCITRAL is the core legal body of the United Nations. It is the UN Commission on International Trade Law, and the standards that are set in the model law allow countries to have interaction and settle disputes with common reference points in the laws in their respective jurisdictions so that an effective arbitration can be achieved that both sides will respect and that can survive challenge in whatever jurisdiction is affected.

In order to make all of that happen, the Attorney General is proposing that the act be amended to achieve the following goals. There will be, hopefully, the addition of provisions that deal comprehensively with interim measures and preliminary orders. There will be an addition of a new privacy and confidentiality provision, which will limit disputes regarding the scope of common-law confidentiality. As the previous speaker from the opposition pointed out, it’s a slight departure from the UN model law, but necessary and, again, advantageous in both cases to both the parties involved and the people affected by the decisions.

This act will introduce a new immunity provision to protect arbitrators. This will, of course, not protect arbitrators who have acted improperly or dishonestly. There will be clarified standards for arbitral challenges and an expanded definition of “arbitration agreement” that accounts for technological advances. As the Speaker knows, many of our acts in the province of British Columbia constantly require updating because of technological changes, and the commercial trade law is certainly not immune from that.

This act will establish an increased threshold that must be met for challenges to arbitrator independence or impartiality. This will create a more steadfast system in B.C. — the creation of appeals from negative jurisdictional rulings, the removal of outdated language and references throughout the International Commercial Arbitration Act and the preservation of a numbering scheme similar to that used in the UN Commission on International Trade Law model law, in order to make the material more easily referenced and understandable.

Of course, that would mean that the act that we would introduce will maintain numbering throughout it that will reference from the UNCITRAL model law as well as laws in other jurisdictions. This is something that will not only help us, hopefully, attract more international arbitrations and have a greater status in the commercial and international trade communities but will also help Vancouver in their attempt to host, their bid to host, international commercial arbitration proceedings.

In fact, currently, Vancouver is bidding on the 2022 International Council for Commercial Arbitration Congress, one of the world’s most prestigious arbitration conferences. So this updated legislation would not only strengthen our status and our ability to host arbitrations but would also strengthen Vancouver’s bid for this prestigious conference.

[3:40 p.m.]

With that being said, I’ll bring my remarks to a close but offer my support to the act and encourage all members to support the act as a step in further establishing and entrenching B.C. as a significant world leader in commercial trade and international trade relations.

Deputy Speaker: Leader of the Third Party.

A. Weaver: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I had thought that there was a much longer speaking list and that I would be speaking subsequent to other speakers. But I do thank you for recognizing me.

I arise to speak in favour of the bill before us. That is Bill 11, International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act, 2018. As has been mentioned, this is an important piece of legislation that modernizes our existing International Commercial Arbitration Act, taking into account the changes that were done by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law in 2006 in their updates to model legislation there.

This comes on the recent move that Ontario did to update its act in March of 2017, where they did something very similar, in a very similar attempt to modernize the original 1985 model law that was adopted by B.C. — we were one of the first to do so, frankly — as well as other jurisdictions.

It’s clear as well that this is not something that was dreamt up overnight, that obviously there has been some good work that was done unto this over many years. So it’s important to credit both sides of this House for the work that they’ve done to bring this to fruition to ensure that we actually bring our arbitration law up to international standards, taking into account the best practices that exist as outlined in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law’s model law.

As the government has noted…. The government has suggested that they have a responsibility, and I agree, to ensure that standards are modern, that they meet the standards of the bar and judiciary and that these standards have the confidence of international and domestic clients. This is one of the goals of modernizing our present legislation. In addition, virtually all provinces and territories in Canada have incorporated UNCITRAL — sorry, I won’t say it again; it’s the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, the UNCITRAL, a model law of 1985 — into their respective statutes.

Each province or territory has a separate piece of legislation that deals typically with domestic or international commercial arbitrations. In fact, all Canadian provinces and territories as well, with the exception of Quebec, have adopted and ratified the New York convention, allowing for the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards from its signatory states, of which Canada and British Columbia are.

Ontario was in fact the first Canadian jurisdiction to amend its legislation to reflect the changes made to the model law in 2006. As I noted, this was done in March of 2017, last year. B.C. was setting the stage to do that. Of course, we had something rather irritating occur between March and May of last year. Irritating for some, but delightful for others. We had an election, and that clearly would have ensured there were these sort of pieces of legislation that take time to develop.

Obviously, the civil service had been working hard on this in consultation with stakeholders as well as government, and this piece of legislation smoothly passed through the transition from the former government to the present government, and is brought here today for our debate — and presumably adoption, based on the comments I’ve heard from both sides of this House.

Federally, international commercial arbitration is governed by the Commercial Arbitration Act. This deals with things like investor-state disputes brought under NAFTA or CETA and similar agreements. NAFTA, of course, is the subject of much debate as we speak here in this Legislature, due to negotiations happening with our federal government, Mexico and the United States.

[3:45 p.m.]

I’d like to provide a quote here from an individual. I’d like to get the exact…. It’s the International Arbitration Review, edition 8, Canada, by Gordon Tarnowsky, QC, Rachel Howie, Chloe A. Snider and Holly Cunliffe, published in the Law Reviews of August 2017.

They say this: “Although similar in many respects, there are certain marked differences in international commercial arbitration legislation among Canadian jurisdictions. This situation can create unforeseen risk to inter-jurisdictional entities that might ultimately resort to arbitration in more than one jurisdiction, or to those choosing a city in Canada as a seat of arbitration, if they are not fully aware of the variations.”

This is one of the reasons why it’s critical for us to adopt legislation along the lines we have here, to modernize and bring the standards that are adopted by the United Nations arbitration laws here, both nationally and federally.

Australia did some recent work in this regard. Prior to 2010, domestic legislation regarding arbitration varied between each and all of the various different states in Australia. The model commercial and arbitration bill that they agreed upon by the standing committee there of the Attorneys General actually was a way of creating domestic arbitration law throughout Australia that was uniform. They’ve all since adopted that, and we’re hoping to see such things happen here in Canada as well.

There are a couple of benefits of adopting this law. Not only is it important to have Vancouver become a host for international arbitration; it’s one of the selling cards of Vancouver. A government led by Premier Gordon Campbell did a very fine job of actually bringing British Columbia to its pinnacle of international recognition as a go-to destination in the world, culminating in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Prior to that, of course, we have to give due respect to Bill Bennett, who recognized…. He was probably the first that really went beyond the parochial vision of British Columbia as only a province of Canada, with bringing in Expo 86, I believe it was. I was in Vancouver, living there at the time, at UBC. That, too, put British Columbia on the international arena as a go-to destination. The 2010 Winter Olympics — another critical aspect in this regard.

This is very much a bill that’s focused on Vancouver. Vancouver has grown to become an international city, one that unfortunately has by-products associated with that happening, one of which is, of course, the affordability crisis that’s affecting Vancouver. Nevertheless, this is actually good for business, this bill. This bill is good for business and for sending business the exact type of signal that they need to say that British Columbia is open for business, it’s open for international business, and it’s a go-to destination if you want to actually have business in the new economy.

I’m excited by the prospects of this emerging economy that’s happening here in British Columbia. I’m less excited by the trials and tribulations of members opposite as they sulk and complain about Kinder Morgan and others.

There are so many opportunities in British Columbia. Adopting legislation like this, legislation that modernizes our arbitration proceedings, actually positions Vancouver as a leader, a go-to destination in the world, along with places like Paris and New York — to come and actually have arbitration cases settled in a very non-partisan way, in a way that’s viewed to not have any particular biases. We have a good brand internationally, Canada, in terms of brokers of deals and being fair-minded, and Vancouver and British Columbia can lead in that regard.

It does have that other very important signal that it’s sending. In Vancouver, in British Columbia, we want to be a focal point for international business, and we want companies to come here. We want companies like Tesla to come here. We’d love it in British Columbia if Tesla came to B.C. and built a giga factory in Terrace, to ship those batteries to Chicago or Prince Rupert via the railway that exists. We’d love companies to actually build in terms of the innovation potential that we can offer here.

This is the direction we’re going. This piece of legislation is critical to continue our path forward to building Vancouver as an international hub for excellence and British Columbia, in general, with all its communities, from north to south, east to west, rural to urban, suburban to single cabins on the lake. We’re excited about the prospects for British Columbia.

[3:50 p.m.]

Another benefit of this bill, of course, is that there is, coming forward relatively soon…. I believe it is in 2022 that Vancouver is bidding to host the international United Nations conference. My notes here don’t actually have the date. Well, they do somewhere, but they’re buried within my multiple pages of notes.

In this international conference which is coming to Vancouver, it’s kind of hard, as part of your bid, to put a bid in to host the international UN conference on arbitration and then, at the same time, not have brought yourself up to standards — standards that, since 1985, recognize that in fact we have the preponderance of technology that exists today that didn’t exist then, and many other such examples.

With that, I’ll say that, after speaking with both my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands as well as my colleague from Cowichan Valley, we are in support of this bill and look forward to committee stage and supporting the bill through to final adoption in this Legislature.

L. Krog: It’s always a delight to stand up on the government side once again and speak in favour of government legislation. It’s been a very long time, leading up to last year, that I had that opportunity — I think 21 years, to be precise — so it’s an unexpected pleasure that I wish to take advantage of today. For the purposes of full disclosure, I want to assure the House that notwithstanding my profession as a lawyer, I don’t participate in arbitrations in any way — or mediations — have no training as such and therefore have no conflict when it comes to providing support for this bill, introduced by the Attorney General.

This is one of those examples where one questions why the B.C. Liberals, who were in power for 16 long years, didn’t bother to make changes that are set out in this piece of legislation. They would have had a wonderful opportunity to encourage, in particular, Vancouver’s development as a major, world-class city by ensuring that these changes were undertaken.

This act hasn’t been updated for 33 years now, I believe. It was 1985. In fact, proposed amendments to the act simply incorporate recommendations that were made from the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, which was a response to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, the 2006 model law.

In fairness, I suppose one should say that it was really since 2006 that the B.C. Liberals chose deliberately, for whatever reason, not to take advantage of Vancouver’s incredible location and of British Columbia’s incredible attraction to people from around the world, both in terms of its geography, its people, its sophistication, its international reputation, its wonderful airport — all of those things that would, in fact, attract the kind of international commercial arbitration work that’s undertaken.

Now, I say as a lawyer, this does reflect a somewhat disturbing trend that reflects badly on the justice systems, literally around the world, not just in Canada. That is the slowness with which these kinds of disputes can be dealt with — awards of damages or whatever made, as the case may be. The fact is that justice systems face these challenges everywhere.

As a result, many large corporations, in particular, smaller businesses and people engaged in family law litigation, for instance, are resorting to methods and proposals that will resolve their disputes outside of our court system. Now, you may say, on one level, that’s a good thing, particularly in family law matters, where there is often great acrimony and an emotional overlay to those disputes. It’s, I would respectfully suggest, a very good thing for those disputes to be settled outside of a courtroom, through arbitration.

What we’re dealing with today in this bill involves arbitration of commercial disputes. I remember that some years ago it was Justice McEachern, I believe, who acted for B.C. Hydro in the great B.C. Hydro construction case. He became chief justice long after that. At that point, up until that time in British Columbia, it was the longest-running trial in B.C.’s history. It lasted, I think, over several months, into years, and there was a suggestion that it perhaps lasted much longer than it should have, and it cost both sides a great deal of money.

[3:55 p.m.]

That is what the essence of this bill is all about. It is about saving money. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a very good thing. Why should corporate bodies who have the ability to prosecute these kinds of cases, to bring their suits to a court system…? Why wouldn’t they turn to a system of international arbitration that allows to get past the horrible jurisdictional issues that are often raised? Which country is their proper forum? Which level of court is the proper forum? There are all sorts of very interesting and intriguing aspects to this.

When you submit to international commercial arbitration — and this bill enhances that process in British Columbia and modernizes it — then you have, in fact, a genuine opportunity to save a great deal of money, to ensure, most importantly, a speedy settlement. Any business understands that every day spent in a courtroom is, by and large, generally speaking, not an overly productive day. No criticism of my profession. I’m delighted to see lots of lawyers employed. After all, most lawyers have families to support and mortgages to pay and all of those things.

In terms of getting to a speedy resolution of significant issues, commercial arbitration is an incredibly popular and growing field around the planet. And if you’re going to do it somewhere, if you’re going to have those kinds of processes take place, why wouldn’t you want to come to beautiful British Columbia if, in fact, it has an up-to-date act that recognizes what international bodies have already recognized around commercial arbitration?

Now, hon. Speaker, as you know, this legislation, as I’ve suggested, could have been undertaken by the B.C. Liberals some time ago, and I’m surprised, again, that they didn’t do it. What these amendments proposed will provide is the addition of provisions that deal comprehensively with interim measures and preliminary orders, a new addition of privacy and confidentiality provisions.

I think that unless you’re completely obtuse, you’ve had an opportunity to observe Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony before the U.S. Senate committee the other day, in which the issue of privacy and how we deal with matters of privacy are becoming front and centre in the United States. As we well know, the U.S. President now is trying keep certain of his affairs in a private way, out of the court system and out of the public eye, but that’s privacy of a different nature, of course.

We want to clarify the standards for arbitral challenges. We want to expand the definition of “arbitration” that accounts for technological advances.

I can remember, in the early ’90s, when we used to get a sheet from the Premier’s office telling us how many phone calls and letters had been received on individual issues of importance to government. That was before emails. Maybe they were faxes. They used to arrive that way. We are now in a era where — and many members of this chamber can attest to it — they spend their whole time focused on their electronic devices. It’s not inappropriate, I think, because I’m not commenting on the absence of any members, to indicate that many members in this chamber now are readily taking advantage of the electronic opportunities availed them by using their electronic devices to transmit information.

Surely we have to have an up-to-date statute in British Columbia that allows us to recognize that the world of 33 years ago was indeed a very different world. Now, the removal of outdated language and references is an important part of this legislation. Why are these amendments necessary? Well, firstly, our act is simply out of date. So let’s get caught up.

To use the words of the Prime Minister when he talked about gender balance in his cabinet: “Why? Because it’s 2015.” Well, it’s 2018 now, so it’s even more pressing that we get on with this job. We’re playing catch-up to jurisdictions like Ontario, Australia and Singapore in terms of modernizing our international commercial arbitration.

I would expect and hope and trust, of course, that both sides of the House will support this. This is good for British Columbia’s economy. It is good for attracting incredible talent from around the world — the kinds of lawyers who want to do this kind of work, the kinds of retired judges, judicial officials, those who’ve had an opportunity to work in this field — all of which will bring money into British Columbia.

[4:00 p.m.]

In modernizing this legislation, we are giving an opportunity, also, for younger lawyers and those who work in this field to participate with senior counsel in British Columbia — primarily, obviously, in Vancouver — to learn, firsthand, the skills that go behind this kind of work.

I’m reminded of a story. I believe it was about a very famous lawyer who juniored in a case before the Privy Council, back in the old days when you could still appeal to the Law Lords of the Privy Council.

The young lawyer, whose name will come to me in a moment, became Canada’s leading lawyer of his day, one of the great litigators. He was fascinated that by the end of this wonderful, long submission and this appeal to the Privy Council, it was obvious — the next step — what would be the next portion of his argument.

It was late in the day, and he asked for the court to adjourn. The young lawyer said to him in the car, as they were headed back to their hotel, basically: “Well, why didn’t you make the point? You almost had them.”

His basic reply was, from senior counsel: “Well, I know the point I want to make, and they will come to that conclusion over the night. They’ll think it’s their idea, and then we’re most likely to win the case.”

Of course, that was absolutely correct. The horse had been led to the water, and of course, the next morning it drank the water. The case was won, and the very fascinating conclusion of this trial is that this young lawyer learned something that he wouldn’t have had the benefit of learning unless he’d an opportunity to participate in the process.

That is one of the great advantages of this. It’s why funding legal aid is such an important thing in British Columbia, because it ensures that young lawyers get an opportunity to go to court with senior counsel and learn all the skills necessary to be truly successful advocates. So this we must think of also as a training opportunity for young counsel in British Columbia to become the best in the world.

As I say, with the attraction of geography and place and these kinds of skill sets, we have a real opportunity here. One hesitates to be an overblown nationalist in matters of this kind of thing, but the reality is that our judiciary — within the Commonwealth, within the United Nations and, for that matter, within the world — is, generally speaking, highly respected. The judges who are appointed in this country to the superior courts, the judges who make it to the superior courts of the provinces and the courts of appeal — and, eventually, the Supreme Court of Canada, for some of them — enjoy international respect. You will see them employed around the world settling these kinds of cases, dealing with these kinds of arbitrations because of that skill set.

We will attract, with this legislative change, the kinds of litigants who would otherwise be fighting it out in courtrooms in other parts of the world. They will be attracted here, their staff, their people, all of the things that go with it — hotels, transportation, all of the benefits, restaurants, you name it, support services, people to take down transcripts every day of the proceedings — so that the people involved will have an opportunity to review the kind of evidence that was placed before the arbitrator or the panel of arbitrators, as the case may be.

All of that will happen, hon. Speaker, because this Legislature is going to hopefully sit down and pass something that sounds as boring — no offence — as the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act, 2018. This is one of those wonderful opportunities when we get to speak about something that is positive in this Legislature and that should attract general support.

I’d be surprised if the members opposite would be critical. I don’t expect them, of course, to apologize for not having done it sooner. There does comes a time when you have to stop beating up on the opposition for their 16 years in power. It’s only reasonable and fair. I know that the member for West Vancouver–Capilano certainly agrees with me on this point — that it is rude to continue to be so critical of the opposition. Having spent as long as I did over there and being over here, it’s just so much sweeter on this side, and it’s time to be magnanimous, I would think.

[4:05 p.m.]

Some of the members have already spoken about this, but we also face the wonderful opportunity to host the 2022 International Council for Commercial Arbitration Congress. In 2017, Vancouver put in a bid to host the conference. Apparently, we’ve made it through to the final round. Now, one knows that making it to the final round in life doesn’t necessarily mean you win the game. But it’s much better to have an opportunity to win the game than to finish really early in the season, as our famous Vancouver Canucks often do, and know that you’re going to have to watch other teams play on through the rest of the season.

Well, we’re still in the game. By making this legislative change, we have kept British Columbia in the game. We’ve given an opportunity for significant economic investment in terms of the services that I’ve talked about, a wonderful opportunity for young counsel to learn, a wonderful opportunity for us to enhance our reputation as both a province and to enhance the reputation of Vancouver as a truly international city.

I, for one, will be delighted to vote in support of this legislation. I look forward to kind comments from the members of the opposition, who I know are just as enthusiastic as I am about the possibility of attracting international arbitration work to British Columbia.

R. Sultan: I must confess that my friend from Nanaimo had me almost weeping as he shed crocodile tears over the long delay of this legislation, which we, the former government, should have brought forward a long time ago. He perhaps is unaware that this is, in fact, in all material respects, a B.C. Liberal government bill that’s been in the incubator for some time. Indeed, it has been rather long in the making, because as the member for Nanaimo points out, it’s a complicated, arcane subject. But we didn’t want to rush it through. It took two years.

I’m tempted to contrast that to my speculative interpretation of the length of thought, deliberation, analysis and consultation which has gone into the menu so far of government bills, including the budget presented to this House. Now, they had 16 years to get ready for that exercise, and I think we are the ones who should shed the crocodile tears.

In any event, I’m delighted to join my colleagues in talking to Bill 11, International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act, 2018. It brought back memories for me of a fierce social justice warrior, Margaret Birrell, executive director of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities, who became a local hero in the fight against no-fault automobile insurance in the 1990s, ending in a humiliating defeat for the NDP.

Margaret was assisted behind the scenes by the Trial Lawyers Association, who were fearful of the impact of no-fault insurance on their personal injury litigation industry, with court trials being replaced by some faceless bureaucrat guided, possibly, by what was known, elegantly, as the “meat chart” and possibly subject to some modest form of negotiation. Thus ended in failure the last attempt to quench that earlier version of what today the NDP chooses to describe as an automobile insurance dumpster file, only this time involving the NDP’s own automobile insurance company and own financial problems.

Now, I concede it is a rather long distance to travel from Margaret Birrell and the Coalition of People with Disabilities to the reports of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and their commentary on the draft text of a model law on international commercial arbitration.

[4:10 p.m.]

As my distinguished colleague — the previous speaker, a lawyer himself — alluded to, the principle is the same. To avoid at all cost the courthouse — cumbersome and inefficient; unpredictable; unfair, even — as the means of settling disputes in favour of a less time-consuming, less costly arena: arbitration. If I was a lawyer, I would worry about this development, frankly.

Let’s make clear, as I think is already clear, that the opposition on this side of the House strongly supports this bill, partly because we invented it. But I will give other reasons it merits all our support. It comes to us after a bit of a hiatus, as the previous member for Vancouver-Langara already pointed out. He was encouraged, as I am, that there seems to be the beginnings, at least, of some semblance of a legislative agenda for this place. If so, it’s about time.

Notwithstanding its parentage — and I appreciate that the folks on the government side may wince at the suggestion that they have adopted sort of an orphan here, and I say good on them for doing so — I find it encouraging and positive, to be serious for a moment, that our current Attorney General has spoken vigorously and positively in its favour. I find that encouraging, and we hope that it augurs well for similar business-friendly legislation and debate by our new government going forward.

In a similar vein, it’s with joyous surprise for me, after many, many years of dialogue from this member, to listen to the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan speaking positively about commercial enterprise, international trade, making money — no, he didn’t say that — and dispute settlement and, indeed, applauding this hope for an international conference on arbitration which may, we hope, arrive in Vancouver.

Vancouver has a tremendous opportunity here, if we don’t blow it. Certainly, being recognized as a hub for commercial arbitration on international trade would be a great feather in our cap. You all know the reasons why. Our Asia-Pacific location is really unmatched. Just get out the globe and look at it, and you realize the geographic advantage that the good Lord has given us to happen to be right here at this point on the globe.

Secondly, culturally — our strong representation in our society and respected members, integrated members from China, from India, from the Philippines, from all of the Asian countries. The language abilities that this automatically bestows on us…. I have a hard time finding anybody who can understand the few phrases of Swedish that I recall from my parentage, but I hear a lot of Chinese being spoken on the street, and I think this is a good thing for the future.

Fourthly, the Canadian reputation for neutrality and fairness. You might say it’s a very bland, boring country, but the flip side of that is it’s rather predictable. We do not like exciting adventures that go off into the unknown such as the current occupant of the White House seems to enjoy launching every evening before he goes to bed.

Fifthly, political neutrality. We have, I think, succeeded over the years in wending this tricky path between Cuba and the United States, between China and the United States, between various Asian countries, some of whose governments we aren’t particularly admiring of but, nevertheless, are the current reality, and with whom we do business on respectful terms.

We are not a military power threatening anybody. To my knowledge, we don’t have the Canadian CIA infiltrating governments abroad. Maybe they’re there, but I’ve never heard of them. I think we’re viewed as rather unthreatening in that regard. That’s really good if you want to be an international trading hub. We don’t have too many hidden agendas.

[4:15 p.m.]

Also, as has been alluded to previously, we have inherited and developed a legal and parliamentary system with much heritage going all the way back to Great Britain. We get a free ride from the establishment, by those folks who somehow patched together something they call the British Empire for a century or so, creating institutions, in many cases, quite similar to those that we enjoy here today, including the institution of parliament — with Speaker, Clerk, opposition, two-swords’ length. It’s great. It’s wonderful. I think thoughtful people from around the world envy us.

Vancouver is a stepping stone into North America. I’m reminded of Quark Venture, which Karimah Es Sabar, a constituent of mine, is now heading up — funded and with access to $1 billion U.S. of high-risk biotech venture money located right here. Now, they’re not going to invest all that money in Vancouver, certainly. I don’t think we could absorb it. It will be a base for their investments in those sorts of ventures throughout North America and the world, and they’ve already begun to do so. It is a model for the future of the hub that Vancouver can be.

Finally, and I say this with perhaps a twinge of concern: a jurisdiction where law is respected. Now, we’ve had a fair amount of debate this morning on that topic, and I’ll leave it at that. It’s very important that we maintain our reputation for respecting law, whether we agree with it or not.

I would mention a final point — Advantage B.C. I’ll tell a little story. When I was working for the Royal Bank in Montreal, they were very upset because the financial capital of Canada was obviously moving from Montreal to Toronto. Being good Quebecers, we all ran up to Ottawa saying: “Save us.” They said, “Okay, we’ll give you a special tax avoidance” — not evasion, although many of them were pretty good at that too. “We will exempt from taxation a lot of international trade–related and investing activities based in Montreal, and we won’t give it to Toronto. That should allow you to save yourself, if you behave.”

Then they said: “Well, wait a minute. Politically, that’s not going to work — giving something to Quebec but not to the rest of Canada. Okay. Here’s the solution. Let’s give it to Vancouver.” Thus was formed what became, eventually, Advantage B.C. It was a series of understandings and tax arrangements, which did indeed allow people to avoid what could be significant income taxes by setting up shop here. But they did, and it has helped propel Vancouver into the larger ranks — it would be a mistake to call it the front ranks — of international financial institutions. It certainly has laid the foundations for the future in line with all the other advantages I have described.

Unfortunately, the new government didn’t quite see it this way. All they saw was a bunch of people who weren’t paying income tax, and who in the heck knew what they were up to? Maybe it’s a big money-laundering operation. Who knows?

On one of their first acts of business, they cancelled it — gone — some 25 years of history down the commercial drain. I think that was very shortsighted. I think, to buttress the purposes of Bill 11 and all the other dreams and hopes that we have to establish Vancouver as a hub of commercial activity in the Asia-Pacific, that decision warrants reconsideration.

[4:20 p.m.]

In conclusion, this bill is generally a housekeeping bill, but it clearly is one that all three parties support for good reasons. We, on our side of the House, do have some questions and concerns that we will be canvassing further in committee stage, but it’s certainly an important step in the right direction and a further enhancement of Vancouver as a global centre of international trade and finance.

A. Kang: I rise today to speak in support of Bill 11, the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act. Our government has introduced this legislation to position British Columbia as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction. The bill is essentially updating its legislation to align with accepted international standards. This legislation will help position Vancouver as a more desirable location to host international commercial arbitration proceedings.

From time to time, our legislation needs a little bit of upkeep and modernization to meet with the standards of the bar and the judiciary. While doing so with this piece of legislation, we can attract more businesses to our beautiful province and enhance B.C.’s reputation as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction for international commercial and investment treaty disputes. We are looking at a number of updates in this bill to align with accepted international standards, and I’ll be touching on a few.

We are, essentially, adding provisions that deal comprehensively with interim measures and preliminary orders. We will see a new immunity provision to protect arbitrators and increase the threshold that must be met for challenges to arbitrator independence or impartiality. We will see the creation of appeals from negative jurisdiction rulings as well as the removal of out-of-date language and references throughout the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act.

The amendment will also address the preservation of a number of schemes, similar to that used in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law model, in order to make the material easily referenced and understandable. Furthermore, it addresses the addition of a new privacy and confidentiality provision that will limit disputes regarding the scope of common-law confidentiality. It will bring clarity on standards for arbitral challenges. As well, we will see an expanded definition of “arbitration agreement” that accounts for technological advances.

This is just to outline a few important points to be aligned with accepted international standards. Moreover, Vancouver did put in a bid to host the 2022 International Council for Commercial Arbitration Congress conference, and we have made it through to the final round. By supporting this bill and the updated legislation, we will be strengthening Vancouver’s bid.

There are three benefits to updating this bill. First, the updates would make the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act an efficient, comprehensive piece of arbitration legislation that would align with the current international best practices and contain language and concepts familiar to the business and legal communities.

Second, they would also enhance the province’s reputation as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction for international commercial and investment treaty disputes and attract hearings and arbitration conferences to Vancouver.

Third, it would also encourage additional benefits in the form of increased business for professional services, hotels, translators and other arbitration support providers.

We have a spectacular, safe and unique community in B.C. We have majestic mountains, sparkling oceans, rainforests and beautiful foliage throughout the four seasons that make Vancouver one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Canadians are known for our friendly nature, and B.C. citizens take great pride in welcoming, clean, safe streets day in and day out all year round. We are a world-class venue for international arbitration hearings. By updating this bill, we would be providing that environment.

Even though this is simply an update of the legislation, I understand that the government consulted broadly on these updates and that these changes stem from recommendations made by the Attorney General’s arbitration advisory group, which is an advisory group of senior British Columbians, legal counsel with extensive international commercial arbitration experience.

I see this in very similar comparison to, say, a restaurant which has been in business in the same location for the past 30 years or a few decades. The interior decor and the electrical system are outdated, and perhaps the service model can be expedited by a review of new demands on the industry, etc. So it is time to modernize the business and the outlooks of the property, to rethink its business model and now put in updated interior designs and other functionality. That’s an analogy of what we’re doing here today. It’s really just to update and make better.

[4:25 p.m.]

Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in Canada, and we have one of the busiest business hubs, great tourism attractions, fresh air, friendly people — you name it. By updating this legislation, we can open our doors to attracting more hearings and arbitration conferences to Vancouver, stimulating our economy and putting Vancouver on the map once again as a well-situated neutral arbitration venue for parties from all over the world.

If I may proudly say and boast, Vancouver provides superior services and great value. Our hotels, our restaurants and our business community offer outstanding levels of service and product quality. When I talk to my out-of-town guests about their experiences, they tell me that their experiences here always have exceeded their expectations, and they always mention our friendly services and advantageous exchange rates for the Canadian dollar. So why not give another reason for people to come to Vancouver and experience a world-class experience?

B.C.’s current International Commercial Arbitration Act is based on an outdated version of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, a 1985 model. This model was significantly updated in 2006, but we here in B.C. have not amended our legislation to incorporate the necessary updates.

This new legislation incorporates recommendations from the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, in response to the 2006 updates as well as other recent international best practices. As well, it is noteworthy to observe that Australia, Ontario and Singapore have made similar amendments to this legislation, with similar objectives to welcoming more international arbitration hearings and spinoff benefits.

B.C. at this point is playing catch-up to other jurisdictions on modernizing legislation on international commercial arbitration. For all these reasons, I will be supporting Bill 11, as this will improve access to justice, attract international arbitration hearings and provide related economic benefits to our region.

B. D’Eith: I’m very pleased to speak to Bill 11, the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act. I believe that the Attorney General is showing great leadership in bringing forward this piece of legislation in a continued effort of this government to attract international business to British Columbia.

B.C.’s economy is strong, and we want to keep it that way. We have the lowest unemployment rate and the highest GDP growth in the country, and just last week, the credit agency, DBRS, affirmed B.C.’s credit rating as the best in Canada because of our strong economic and fiscal plans.

Vancouver has actually become a truly international city. Today we met with representatives from YVR airport, and it was amazing to hear how our airport has grown over the last years. I remember that when my family came to Canada in the late ’60s from Hong Kong, we had a very small airport. I remember that my father saw the potential of Vancouver back then, back in the late ’60s. Over my lifetime, I’ve seen B.C. and Vancouver grow — especially Vancouver, into this amazing international city that attracts people from all over.

YVR now is, arguably, one of the most beautiful airports in the world, and it’s actually been voted the top airport in North America in the Skytrax awards, which are based on an independent survey of over 13 million passengers from 108 countries. YVR is the only airport to ever receive this honour for eight consecutive years, which really shows how world-class our city and our airport is. In fact, 55 airlines service YVR, connecting people and businesses to over 125 non-stop destinations in Canada, the U.S. and around the world via chartered and regular scheduled flights, and YVR welcomed a record 22.3 million passengers in 2016, including arriving, departing and connecting passengers.

This just shows that we not only have the capacity to be an amazing city in Vancouver, but also we have an international capacity through things like our airport. Not only is Vancouver ranked as one of the most livable cities in the world; it’s also known for its business climate and its vibrant, innovative, progressive and green policies. Vancouver is very strategically located as well. The city shares a time zone with Los Angeles and has same-day travel to New York and even London, England, over the Pole.

[4:30 p.m.]

As Canada’s Asia-Pacific gateway, Vancouver is connected and accessible to major international business centres, including Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. This makes Vancouver positioned to be a real leader in things like international arbitration.

It’s easy to get here if we’re recognized as friendly to international business, that we’re a hub of international business. It shows how successful this could be. Really ensuring that Vancouver’s ability to grow as a centre for international commerce arbitration seems a very logical and prudent step for this provincial government.

The purpose of the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act is really threefold. One, it’s to allow British Columbia to attract international arbitration hearings and conferences. Secondly, it’s to improve access to justice for parties needing to resolve international disputes. Third, it’s to provide an economic benefit to the region.

The amendments are actually aimed at helping Vancouver be a more desirable location to host international commercial arbitration proceedings. Updating the legislation is really to bring our legislation up to date with international law and into alignment with current international best practices, and it will contain language and concepts familiar to the international business and legal communities.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

The present act, B.C.’s present ICAA, is based on an outdated version of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, UNCITRAL, the 1985 model law. UNCITRAL, the model law, was significantly updated in 2006, but the province has yet to update and amend this legislation to incorporate these updates. Australia, Ontario and Singapore have all overhauled and similarly updated their legislation with the similar aim of capturing international arbitration hearings and the spinoff benefits that would come from that.

We’re really playing catch-up. We’re playing catch-up with these jurisdictions in modernizing the legislation at this time. Really, it’s about staying and remaining competitive on an international playing field. Vancouver and British Columbia are players in the international playing field, and that’s why it’s very important that this update happen now.

The specific updates in the amendment. There are a number: the addition of provisions that deal comprehensively with interim measures and preliminary orders; the addition of new privacy and confidentiality provisions, which are very important internationally — we’ve been seeing recently with things like Facebook in Congress and a number of other things how important privacy and confidentiality are — and which will limit disputes regarding the scope of common law of confidentiality. And a new immunity provision to protect arbitrators is very important.

There also are clarified standards for arbitration challenges. In addition, there’s an expanded definition of “arbitration agreement” that accounts for technological advances. I know that even since 2006…. Just imagine how much technological advance has happened just in the last year alone. Can you imagine back to 2006? So we really need to update for technological advances and make sure that the act is flexible for that.

It also has an increased threshold that must be met for challenges to arbitrator independence or impartiality, the creation of appeals for negative jurisdictional rulings and the removal of out-of-date language and references throughout the act, which really will modernize the act, which is very important.

Of course, the act wasn’t just done arbitrarily. It was done after a number of years of consultation. The government consulted with stakeholders in 2015, 2016 and 2017 at the Western Canada Commercial Arbitration Society annual meetings, the Vancouver arbitration continuing legal education session, the British Columbia Arbitration and Mediation Institute conference and the British Columbia International Commercial Arbitration Centre’s 30th anniversary reception.

There have been a number of consultations. The government has also consulted and received advice on legislative reforms from the Attorney General’s arbitration advisory group, an advisory group of senior British Columbia legal counsel with extensive international, commercial and arbitration experience. It’s clear that the stakeholders have been thoroughly consulted in this matter and that these changes are recommended.

[4:35 p.m.]

How were these changes formulated? Well, proposed amendments to the act incorporate recommendations from the Uniform Law Conference of Canada in response to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, the 2006 model law, as well as other recent best practices in national arbitration. The Attorney General’s arbitration advisory group, a blue-ribbon panel constituted to make recommendations on B.C.’s international and domestic arbitration legislation, reviewed the Uniform Law Conference of Canada materials, as well as the other international best practices, and recommended that these amendments be made.

What are the benefits? First, the updates would make the ICAA an efficient, comprehensive piece of arbitration legislation that will align with current international best practices and contain language and concepts familiar to the business of legal communities. This alignment will attract cases. This will attract arbitrators and will attract businesses to have these cases heard in Vancouver.

Second, the amendments will also enhance the province’s reputation as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction for international commercial and investment treaty disputes, and it will also attract hearings. This shows that we care, as a government, about the international community and our role in the international community, especially in regard to commerce, and that we want to be welcoming to commercial arbitration.

Third, in the fall of 2017, Vancouver put in a bid to host the 2022 International Council for Commercial Arbitration Congress. We made it through the final round. In fact, updating the legislation would strengthen Vancouver’s bid and the possibility of hosting this conference, which would bring many people into Vancouver, introducing arbitrators to Vancouver, introducing businesses to Vancouver and to the province of British Columbia. In addition to that, the conference alone will actually have a significant economic impact, as these conferences do.

Finally, they will encourage additional benefits in the form of increased business for professional services, hotels, translators and other arbitration support services. These international arbitrations involve a great number of people, from the arbitration team, the claimants, the witnesses, and they will all have to use amenities in British Columbia and in Vancouver, which means our hotels will be full, our restaurants will be used and people will be using our taxis, using our services. That will have a big economic impact on our province.

I will be supporting Bill 11, the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act, in order to continue Vancouver and B.C.’s growth as an international city and a centre for business and a venue for commercial arbitration in the world.

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

Hon. J. Darcy: With that, on behalf of the Attorney General, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 11, International Commercial Arbitration 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. J. Darcy: I call second reading of Bill 6.

BILL 6 — EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Hon. H. Bains: I move that Bill 6 now be read a second time.

Bill 6 introduces several important changes to the job-protected leave provisions of the Employment Standards Act. With job-protected leave, a worker is able to take leave for a specific reason and up to a specified time period, with the assurance that their job will be waiting for them at the end of the leave.

The aim of this legislation is to update job-protected leave in areas workers have raised with us and in areas where British Columbia can be among the leaders in Canada. The changes are also driven by my mandate letter, which directs me to update employment standards to reflect the changing nature of workplaces in B.C.

[4:40 p.m.]

Bill 6 introduces two new job-protected leaves to the Employment Standards Act. The first new leave impacts the parents of a child who has died. Currently the only leave available under the act to the parent of a child who has died is three days’ bereavement leave. The government believes that these three days of leave fail to adequately recognize the very significant challenges experienced on the death of a child. Accordingly, Bill 6 introduces a new provision to the act that provides up to 104 weeks of unpaid leave where a worker’s minor child — that is, a child under 19 years of age — dies under any circumstances.

This is similar to the legislation already in force in Ontario. Other Canadian jurisdictions provide for unpaid leave if a child dies as a result of crime. British Columbia will be a leader in the provision of this new unpaid leave. Entitlement to this leave will mean that parents who are faced with the tragedy of their child’s death will no longer have to worry about having a job to return to once they decide to go back to work after the specified period.

The second new leave impacts the parent of a child who has gone missing. Currently the act does not provide a parent with the right to any job-protected leave when their child has been the victim of a crime-related disappearance. Bill 6, therefore, introduces a new provision to the act that provides up to 52 weeks of unpaid leave where a worker’s minor child is missing due to a crime.

In a sense, this is a catch-up for British Columbia. All other provinces provide unpaid job-protected leaves of various lengths for a crime-related disappearance of a child. This new leave formally recognizes the hardship and challenges parents experience when their child has gone missing, providing them with much-needed time to cope with the disappearance without worrying about their continued employment.

In addition to these two new leaves, Bill 6 also amends three of the Employment Standards Act’s existing leave provisions — compassionate care, pregnancy and parental leave. The amendments are in response to recent changes to the federal employment insurance program’s compassionate care, maternity and parental benefits.

First, compassion care leave, which allows a worker to care for or support a family member who is dying, is being increased to 27 weeks unpaid leave, from the current eight weeks. Additionally, the leave may be taken at any time within a one-year period, instead of the current six-month period. The vast majority of other provinces, including Alberta and Ontario, have already amended their compassionate care leave provisions to address the employment insurance compassionate care benefit changes.

Second, pregnancy leave, which is unpaid leave granted to a mother before and after childbirth, is being made more flexible. It can now start as early as 13 weeks before the mother’s expected due date, instead of the current 11 weeks. I should note, however, that the actual amount of pregnancy leave that workers are entitled to under the Employment Standards Act remains unchanged at 17 weeks. Most of the provinces have already allowed pregnancy leave to start at least 13 weeks before the mother’s expected due date.

Third, the current provisions for parental leave, which is available to all parents to care for a new child, are being amended by Bill 6. Workers will now have the option of taking a longer parental leave: (a) 61 weeks for birth mothers, an increase from the current 35 weeks; (b) 62 weeks for all other parents, an increase from the current 37 weeks.

Birth mothers can actually, if they take the pregnancy leave and the parental leave, be entitled to 78 weeks of leave. That is to match the unemployment insurance benefit changes by the federal government. The change provides the certainty of job protection to those parents who choose the new extended employment insurance parental benefit options. Alberta, Ontario and the federal jurisdictions have already changed their employment standards legislation to address the new employment insurance parental benefit, which other provinces expect to follow.

[4:45 p.m.]

With these changes, workers in British Columbia who collect EI compassionate care, maternity and parental benefits are assured of having a job to return to, once those benefits have ended.

Finally, Bill 6 also includes transition provisions that provide the benefit of these changes to those workers already on leave, those who have requested leave but not yet taken it or those who may be planning leave when the amendments come into force.

Ultimately, the changes in Bill 6 help to address real work-life balance needs for British Columbians facing some of life’s most profound experiences, including caring for a dying family member, losing a child through death or disappearance, or welcoming a new child to their family. Bill 6 is a part of the government’s commitment to support workers and make life better for British Columbians.

I look forward to the comments of other members in this House.

J. Martin: Congratulations to the minister. I believe this is the first piece of legislation that the minister has had an opportunity to introduce since being appointed Labour Minister.

I’m very happy to speak to Bill 6, and I congratulate the minister for bringing it forward in a timely manner. Obviously, this speaks to a number of areas that are very, very important. I can’t imagine being in the position to have lost a son or daughter that may involve criminal activity, or we might not even have a clue where or what has happened. This is addressing something that would only occur at the lowest point in a person’s life, and to have to balance that experience with concerns about the job place remaining there in the interim is something that nobody would need to go through. So I’m very happy to support the legislation.

There are a few pieces I’ll speak to, and at next reading, there are a couple of technical areas that I’ll seek clarification from the minister on. But clearly, the loss of a loved one, particularly a child…. Right now the entire country is grieving, with the events in Humboldt. How do you even speak to this? How do you try to make sense of it? If this legislation can offer some degree of relief or comfort to someone going through that experience, then certainly I’m happy to get behind and support it.

Losing a child is, obviously, the most traumatic event in one’s life. Trying to deal constructively with that through the grief and all of the other emotional turmoil…. Again, I couldn’t begin to imagine what that would do to one. The parents in this situation are in a position that is beyond anything, hopefully, that any of us are ever going to have to experience in our lifetime.

We know that people deal with pain, deal with tragedy, and deal with loss in many different ways. And they deal with those unfortunate events to the best of their ability. Some people have differing degrees of skill sets and resources and support that they can call upon to assist them getting through that stage. For others, it will be endless. It will never go away.

People need an opportunity to mourn and to grieve in the manner that is best suited to them and to their loved ones. This bill, from what I can gather, ensures that parents will be given that opportunity to deal with such circumstances in ways that are effective for them individually, personally. One of the small ways that will contribute to assisting people through this process is to address that workplace situation.

[4:50 p.m.]

In more pleasant circumstances, newborn or newly adopted children’s early development as being essential for their future health and their future success…. Well, this legislation also gives extension to parents. It gives them options for their work-life balance after the birth or the adoption of a child while providing for the needs of that child. Again, it’s another significant piece of the legislation I’m happy to get behind.

We also understand that for businesses — small, medium, large businesses — the most essential resource they can call upon is their staff, their employees. This is a piece of legislation that should be able to enhance that relationship.

Some of the highlights I have taken note of going through the legislation. Giving a pregnant employee the option to take two weeks more in leave in advance of the expected birth date, from 11 weeks to 13 weeks in advance, makes perfect sense to me — also, giving up to 26 additional weeks of unpaid leave to parents of newborn children and adopting parents with a longer time frame.

The legislation further adds another section to the bill that would give parents up to 104 weeks of unpaid leave following the death of a child and adds another section that would give parents with a child that has disappeared due to the result of a crime up to 52 weeks of unpaid leave.

There’s one thing I’m going to give the minister the advantage of the heads-up on that I will be bringing forward later. I’m curious. Once we start talking about leaves in the area of 104 weeks, it’s very possible that job doesn’t exist in 104 weeks or has changed so dramatically that the employee may not have the skill set to jump back into it. I’m eager to have a discussion with the minister regarding what the training or the upgrading process might be, how that might be covered and if there’s any thought to enshrining that in the legislation at some point.

I can envision a scenario where the employee is ready to return to the workplace, and the reality is that position doesn’t exist anymore; that department doesn’t exist anymore. Then we get into a whole different situation if it’s a unionized workplace. What are the rules around this going to be for bumping into a position? What are the rules going to be if the person is going to require some further certification and training to be able to perform that job and to be certified to do so? Just some things that I’m happy to look forward to having a discussion down the road with the minister on.

The other piece of the bill I found a little bit troubling, and I’m hoping that the minister will be able to clarify this at some point, is when we get to “Leave respecting disappearance of a child,” 52.3. When we get to No. 7 there, it says: “If requested by the employer, the employee must, as soon as practicable, provide to the employer reasonably sufficient proof that the employee’s child has disappeared in circumstances in which it is probable the disappearance is a result of a crime.”

I’ve got a little bit of concern around this. Most individuals do not have the skill set to make the determination of whether an event happened as a consequence of a crime or not. There’s a reason that laypeople don’t have an opportunity to practice law, because it’s often a lot more complicated than it would appear to be on first sight. That’s another area I would, down the road, like to get some clarification on.

To be in that situation and then have the onus put on a grieving parent to somehow satisfy the requirement to demonstrate that this incident is a consequence of a particular violation of the Criminal Code is something that most of us, at the best of times, are going to have difficulty working our way through, particularly someone going through that experience. It wouldn’t be an enviable task for a grieving parent to have to maybe engage in that undertaking. But I’m sure that the minister will be able to provide a response to that, and we can talk about that at next reading.

[4:55 p.m.]

Those were the only two areas that somehow provided just a little bit of an awkwardness to the legislation. On balance, on the whole, I will be supporting the legislation, and I tip my hat to the minister for bringing this forward.

Hon. C. Trevena: It’s with great pride that I stand here to support Bill 6, the Employment Standards Amendment Act. It sounds from the opposition critic that we might have unanimous support for this bill, which I think will be most welcome. It’s a very important piece of legislation that will have a profound impact on many families in British Columbia.

As the member opposite mentioned and as the minister also mentioned, for the most tragic cases of where a person loses a child due to crime, there will be support for that person. I think everybody has been in shock and in sorrow these last days thinking about the families in Humboldt — the loss of a child there, the loss of a young person.

Here we are talking about those parents whose children have gone missing and who have possibly died as a result of a crime. It is a situation nobody wants to imagine can happen. So sadly, it does happen. I think it is absolutely right that they don’t have to worry about their work circumstances — they don’t have to worry about employment; they don’t have to worry about that sort of security — as a result of when they’re going through such a horrific, horrific ordeal.

While these legislative changes won’t ameliorate that pain — there’s no way that pain could ever be lost — it does ease some of the burden, some of the obvious worry and stress that any family would be going through at that time. They don’t have to start thinking about their job security, what’s going to happen there, when they are dedicating themselves to their families.

As I say, it’s one section of the act, when it becomes part of the act under the employment standards, that people would hope would never have to be activated. But it does give that space in case there is that need.

The other section is giving families that extra space for looking after newborns by allowing parental leave, often mothers, to extend — extending it from the current 12 months for maternity leave, pregnancy leave, up to 18 months for a mother who wants to take their full pregnancy leave and parental leave. It ensures that their jobs are also going to be protected.

The federal government allowed employment insurance to extend over that period. This amendment will allow people to be able to benefit from that, actually take the leave. I think this is going to have a huge impact for families. It gives the families that extra time, the extra six months to be with their what is then almost a toddler for the families.

I think that it will really be an extraordinary help, because parents have that need to be able to be with their young ones without having to worry, again, about work. It gives more space, more time to be ensuring that there is the structure in place for when they go back to work.

We know our government is committed to universal affordable and accessible child care for everyone. We are looking specifically, initially, at the infant-and-toddler age group to ensure that this age group can get the child care.

By allowing the birth mothers to have the full pregnancy leave, to have 18 months, it gives them a bit of space, a bit of breathing room — literally, the breathing room — so if they are not able to find the child care or if they simply want to be with their child for those extra six months, they can do that.

[5:00 p.m.]

Before the birth, it also allows a person to start their pregnancy leave and maternity leave at 13 weeks before the birth date, which gives an extra two weeks. I’m sure that the mothers who have gone through a pregnancy, and all of the planning that that takes and everything that they are facing, really will welcome having those extra two weeks included.

I do think that this is really going to ensure that…. It gives stability to many, many families who are looking for this. It really allows people to cope better.

As we’ve mentioned many times on this side of the House, we are absolutely committed to ensuring that families have every opportunity, that there is really a true investment in B.C.’s families, where there is child care, where there are movements like this that will ensure that extra protection for work through the employment standards amendments, that we can ensure that there is that opportunity given to families, that they are not faced with extra stress at a time of either incredible emotional pressure or the joy of having a baby.

Also, the piece that the member of the opposition…. I’m not sure whether he mentioned it or not, but this amendment also does allow for extra time for if you’re caring for an ailing partner, an ailing loved one, which again is so important. There is so much stress at a time when you are dealing with…. Whether it is the tragedy of a spouse dying from cancer or situations such as that, these amendments will give people that extra bit of space too.

I think it’s something that we’re really very proud to have introduced. It is really a step in our government’s commitment to really update the employment standards, to reflect the needs of families today, reflect the needs of employees today and reflect the needs of today’s society, to make sure that it is working, that the system — that’s what laws are all about — is working in the benefit of everyone and working in the benefit of those families, those workers who are so needed.

This will allow…. Definitely, it reflects the changing nature of work, but it also provides, really, a lot more flexibility. I think the minister has introduced a bill that will also include a lot more fairness for so many people. It takes away the stress so that they can access those supports when needed, access the employment insurance when they really need it — and without adding to their burden.

I will take my place, but I just wanted to make my mark, say that it’s an extraordinarily proud moment to be able to stand and talk about a bill that will make such a fundamental change for people at some of the happiest times of their lives, the birth of their child, and definitely the most tragic time of their life, which is the possible loss of a child. I think that there are obviously more things that still need to be addressed, but as a start, I think that this is really embracing much-needed change.

With that, I’ll take my place and say that I will be fully supporting this bill.

R. Coleman: Obviously, this piece of legislation is supported by me. I’m not going to get into the daycare piece today. It’s more, for me, the thought that somebody came to terms with — and I don’t know why governments haven’t thought about it in the past — giving time to people who have lost a loved one, particularly a child.

It’s appropriate, I guess, that we have this legislation in front of us, given the tragedy that happened in Humboldt. They lost a 16th person today, who did not make it after being in hospital. There are 16 groups of parents who are now going to go through memorial services and grief and loss of a loved one. In addition to them, their grandparents, their friends, their families and their communities will also come to grips with the tragedy.

[5:05 p.m.]

When I was 20 years old, I went to a fatal accident on the No. 1 Highway in Brooks, Alberta. The person who died in the accident was a 14-year-old girl. We had to deal with getting the accident cleaned up and, of course, getting the person to hospital, and we needed an identification and a notification of next of kin.

I think, as a 20-year-old kid from Penticton, it was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. First of all, I had to find out where the father was. He was on an oil rig north of Cessford, Alberta, about an hour away from where the accident was. I went from there to the accident scene to the rig to let him know that his child was dead. The police did those notifications in those days.

I picked this man up, who was more than twice my age, and he wept and shouted in anger for the next hour and a half, while I took him back to Brooks — after I convinced the person running the rig that this guy needed to go. He said: “Well, he can wait till tomorrow.” The sensitivity to the loss of somebody in those days maybe wasn’t so good — and maybe some of the work environments.

After we got to Brooks, I sat with him and his wife, because it was obvious that neither one of them could cope. I spent the time to deal with that couple, and I saw them over the years, the five years I was there, when they separated. About 70 percent of people who lose a child actually separate and get divorced. It’s one of the tragedies of human life.

I think that that piece for me was telling. Obviously, it was traumatic, even for a young man. Over eight years as a policeman — I was trying to calculate today — I did about 20-plus notifications of next of kin. The toughest one I did was to a 17-year-old girl to tell her that her parents were killed in a car accident. I sat with her for 16 hours while we waited for some family to be contacted or to get a minister or somebody that could be with this young woman who was obviously in distress at losing her parents.

In the past 20 years, seven friends of mine have lost a child. Accident, suicide, health issues — they lost a child. I remember a couple of those, and that’s why I so passionately believe in the section that allows for the leave.

One of my friends lost a kid. He happened to be not there. He was working out of town. He blamed himself for the fact that his child was out at 15, 16 years of age with their friends on a weekend, because he wasn’t there on weekends. He worked weekends. I watched the family go through this. I watched a number of families, but this one was one of those telling one you see.

My friend came back, had to deal with the loss of his child. There are people all around. Food comes. Friends come. The community stands behind you, the kids you went to school with — high school, elementary school, whatever it is. The kids in the school rally around the family too, because they went to school with them. Some spoke at the memorial service and all the rest of it.

The immediate thing that hits these people is a management of grief that they don’t know they’re actually doing. What happens is they know they need to phone a funeral director. They know they need to find a location for a funeral or a memorial service, whether it’s a religious one or just a memorial service in another location. They know there will be a lot of people there, and they feel they have a responsibility to let everybody feel like it’s okay and that they’ll be okay — not that it’s okay that it happened to their child, but it’s okay and they’ll be okay.

I and my wife, in particular, who’s very good in circumstances like this, spent a lot of time with these folks as they came through that week. It’s a week, really, from the time that the accident had taken place to the memorial service. Maybe ten days. They get through that. Mid-week on the second week, and he has to be back at work on Monday.

He goes back to work on Monday. No time for him or his wife to have time together to even process, just as a couple, this tragic loss. You watched him over the time, and I spent some time with him every once in a while when I could. There was a blame piece to the grieving process, but there was also this thing about: “I guess I’ve got to get on with my life.”

[5:10 p.m.]

Most people don’t do well — particularly, probably, men — when it comes to counselling. “I’m strong.” “I can handle this.” “I don’t need to do this.” They need time.

He needed a year, but he worked. I saw the anger and the frustration and the loss of personality and no smile or any light in this person’s eye for a year. Then slowly but surely, he came out of it. But never, ever did he get over it, nor did his wife.

There is such a massive outpouring of support when somebody loses somebody, and the support has to remember it needs to be there afterwards. If they don’t have time to be with themselves or get the counselling support because they have to be somewhere else, it’s kind of like the insensitivity of our society.

Everybody in those six circumstances that I talked about handled it differently from a personal perspective. Some, because of the strength of relationships they had, or family close by — like grandparents, what have you, that could give the support — probably adjusted better and came through that successfully, maybe in less time. Never successfully to the point you ever stop missing a child or, for that matter, a loved one of any kind.

My dad died in 1981. I still miss him. My mom died at 93, three years ago. I miss her. I also miss those kids that I got to know in organizations that we worked with and stuff, because I knew them as well. I knew how much they meant to their parents.

Whoever came up with this idea and finally brought it to this Legislature, congratulations, because I think it’s important.

I had a friend — actually, more of a friend to my wife — who lost their son in Afghanistan. The tragedy here was they lost their son in Afghanistan. Of course, there was a big military event and the church service. Afterwards the couple really needed people for them, and some family and friends spent some time with them, what have you. But the tragedy there was that the other son felt so sad, so hurt, that he actually went into the Cariboo camping, and was never found again.

The tragedy was losing both of your children. Now, the grief, and the support, and what it took for that family to adjust to losing both their children, were immense. They didn’t have the luxury of an act like this because they actually had a farm. The farm was their life, and maybe that was therapeutic for them. The fact of the matter is, if there was an opportunity in a work environment for them, they should have had it, because the grief and the challenge go on and on.

Some of my friends, out of the seven, their marriages survived. Others did not. The loss of people in these situations is so tragic. It’s unbelievable.

Employers should do this, unquestionably. I’ve never employed a person in my life that lost a loved one and told them when they had to be back to work. I’ve always said: “Your job is here.” I never thought of actually having them on unpaid leave. We paid them and let them have the opportunity to grieve. Give them the support, steadily — one day, two days, three days a week to come back into the work environment.

I never really understood why somebody would say: “Well, that was too bad you lost your kid. I know the funeral was on Wednesday. You should be back to work on Monday.” The question should be: “Do you think you’re okay to come back to work on Monday?” And: “We’re there for you. We’re there for you financially. We’ll be there for you as a person. We’ll be there for you with whatever group plan you had.” My company has always had group plans for counselling and support to employees.

The important piece, though, is that if you’ve lived this in many ways, with your first way being at 20 years old having to tell somebody they lost a child, and having to deal with that anger and frustration and a police car driving them home, then you recognize just how much that hurts.

I remember, when I was 20 years old and doing that, the first thing that came to me was a young woman I went to school with in grade 10, who was killed in an accident with a friend who was shooting a firearm at targets. When people walked in front of him, he put the gun on his shoulder, and it misfired and shot her, sitting on a bank.

I remember losing Debbie Padget, across the street from me, from a brain tumour when I was 12 or 13 years old.

[5:15 p.m.]

I’m thinking: “How do they feel? What can I say to this guy?” I couldn’t say a lot. I just let him vent and cry and emote.

When I saw this legislation, I thought, “Thank you,” because too many families that I have seen have gone through this — too many families whose children’s lives are cut too short, who then have to have entire communities grieve with them but have to have the time for themselves on their own to do it.

To put the pressure of having to be back at work when you lived with people, sat with people, cried with people, cared for people and prayed for people…. That somebody is doing this, finally, in legislation, I think, is fantastic. On behalf of those families, thanks for doing this. I don’t think any of you won’t vote for this piece of legislation.

At the same time, in the world we live in today of Humboldt — where I also know my nephews played in Humboldt in junior hockey against Humboldt a few years ago — it is such a good message. Maybe not intentionally by the introduction of this legislation, but it is an indication that people in public life can actually care to the point that they’ll do something a little bit different to make somebody else’s life better.

R. Singh: It is with pleasure that I stand to speak in favour of Bill 6. But before I start, I would really like to commend the member opposite from Langley East for the compassion and the empathy as he told us the stories of the families who have lost their children. So thank you so much to my colleague for such moving stories and such moving explanations of the families and what they have gone through.

The tragedy that we are dealing with this week, the Humboldt tragedy, has affected all of us so much. And this bill coming at the same time — it is even more significant because we all are feeling the pain of the families that have lost their kids. They were not just the kids of those families, but they were like our own kids.

Being a mother and also being a hockey mother, I just don’t even have words to explain how I am feeling, how heavy my heart is since last Saturday when I first heard that news. It could have been…. My son is the same age as the kids that died that day. I’m having such a hard time even talking about that because I feel so emotional. I really feel as if my own child, if he was in that position…. What would I be dealing with?

I really want to thank our Labour Minister for bringing in this legislation. Think about the families who lose their kids. It is such an unimaginable grief that parents go through. I really wish nobody has to experience it, but we live in a practical world, and we just have seen a practical reality happening in front of us in Canada.

So many of us go through this every day. At that time, nobody can think of work. It is simply not…. You are just not in your right frame of mind that you think about going back to work, to start doing the work and to go back to your employer.

I think this legislation coming is allowing the parents to take the time off, not worry about job security and be able to properly grieve. I think this is the most compassionate and empathetic way a government can work for B.C. families. And I really, once again, would like to thank our government and also the Labour Minister for bringing this in.

[5:20 p.m.]

At the same time, this bill is also bringing some more time for the families that are taking care of a dying family member. In the community I come from, most of the South Asian families I know have their parents living with them. Nobody wants their parents to go away, but this also happens. They take care of their families, of their elderly, and they try to keep them at home to take care of them. But most of the time, what I’ve heard is that they’re not able to do so because of the work pressures. They’re not able to take the time off work and to devote that time to their parents, to their loved ones, who took care of them when they needed them the most.

What we have with compassionate care leave is workers who are supporting a dying family member will have access to more than triple the length of job-protected leave. I think this will also go a long way. It is also enhancing family values that we believe in, values that we always stand for, but also giving them a practical implication to this thing, just talking about these things and saying that we care about our families but also looking at the practical aspects, like what values we have to take care of our families. I think this bill takes care of that as well.

But I’m really happy. With all the sad notes about that and taking care of sick ones, it also brings a very positive one for people who have given birth to a young child.

I have experienced that myself too. When I had my daughter ten years ago, I was very happy to take one year leave. If I look back, that was one of the best periods of my life, being able to spend that time with her. I was exclusively breast-feeding at the time.

When the time came for me to go back to work, it was heart-wrenching for me. I didn’t know what to do. I had to go back to work because there was no other provision in the work standards. Thankfully, my mother did come to stay with me to take care of my child, so I was fortunate that way. But I’m just imagining that if I had six extra months to be able to spend with my young child, the bonding that I have now would be even more strong.

I’m really happy for the parents that would be able to avail this. I know there are so many mothers who really want to spend more time with their child. All the studies that we have seen talk about early childhood learning and the bonding that happens between the child and the parent during the very early formative years. I think this is important for strong family ties but also for the developing of the child as well.

I’m just saying that being a mother, being a daughter who has elderly parents living with her, I am so thankful for this bill. I stand in support of it, and I thank you so much.

B. Stewart:

They tell me it’s amazing how I’ve stayed so strong,

but they don’t see how I cry when I hear your song.

They see the smile on my face but miss the hurt in my eye.

I would rather seem rude than let them see me cry.

I put on this front as I don’t want the world to see

the pain and sorrow so deep inside me.

I don’t act this way because I’m ashamed to feel the way I do.

I act this way in honour of you.

Because although I hurt right now and my heart is broken,

I can’t help but feel pride and love when your name is spoken.

My strength comes from the love you gave me,

and it’s the strength that I want the world to see.

It’s an excerpt from a poem from Daniel Kerr.

Death is trauma — a sudden, unexpected death even more so. The death of a child is unimaginable. Today in this House, we’ve heard, from every person that I’ve heard speak on Bill 6, personal experiences. I know that I have a couple. Just a few short years ago, when I first served in this Legislature, my sister lost her son, in July of 2009. Falling a year later, a sister-in-law lost another son, both in their 20s and unexpected. It’s a very traumatic time. I’ve watched, in the last ten years, how they’ve tried to recover from those tragedies.

[5:25 p.m.]

The loss of a loved one is something that must be grieved and dealt with, especially by the parents in the horrific event of the death of a child. It is for this simple reason that I rise today in support of Bill 6, the Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2018.

This bill will provide much-needed unpaid leave to parents in the death or disappearance of a child. That time is needed for grief, and the last thing we want is grieving parents distracted by or throwing themselves into their work. It’s not good for their health, and it’s not good for employers. A business’s most valuable resource is its employees. They require healthy, focused and positive people working for them to achieve the best results. An employee coming to work right after the death of a child benefits no one.

On a lighter note, this bill gives a pregnant employee the option of two additional weeks of leave in advance of the expected birthdate and an additional 26 weeks of unpaid leave to parents of newborn children — and adopting parents, a longer time frame. The extension gives parents more options for their work-life balance following the arrival of a new child, be it through birth or adoption. This also allows parents to provide for the needs of a child in a greater capacity and gives them the opportunity to play a larger role in the early childhood development.

I think that everybody in this House supports the addition of new generations joining older generations as the population, we hope, continues to grow in British Columbia. I will be supporting this bill on behalf of every parent who has ever lost a child — and a new child that’s coming in here. Your pain is unimaginable.

M. Hunt: I rise to take my place in the debate concerning Bill 6, which is the Employment Standards Amendment Act. I’ll start on the positive side of this bill, because this bill covers both ends of life — on the positive side of it, dealing with an expectant mother, looking forward to that date, being able to have two extra weeks to be able to prepare for that.

I know what it’s like because right now my youngest daughter is expecting her first and was due a few days ago. Only the Lord knows for sure when that’ll actually happen, and we’re looking forward to it joyously. I will let you know, Mr. Speaker, when that actually happens and will let the House know, and that’ll be a wonderful time.

But then, as that child is born and now we have the development of that child and the raising of a child and, of course, the tremendous bonding to the parents, I totally agree with having the extra opportunity for the parents to be able to have extra leave during that time, and this bill gives an extra 26 weeks for that.

I think that so often in our environment here in our western world, we are so busy at getting back to work and so focused on our careers, that often we leave out the relationships and the building of those relationships and the great bonding that actually happens in those very early days.

I know that with my youngest son, the bonding process of the whole…. Well, let’s put it this way. It was 12 years between the time of our first child being born and our last child being born, and the processes of giving birth at the hospital changed dramatically between those two. With the last one, there was much more of an attitude of, if the baby is fine, and everything is doing well…. The nurses said: “You bond. We’ll see you later. We’ll check on you from time to time to make sure your things are progressing okay.”

There was a much greater opportunity for families to be able to bond with their children, parents to be able to bond with their children, right at those very first moments and first hours of time. To be able to extend that an extra 26 weeks I think is great. I thank the minister for bringing this forward and for extending this possibility.

[5:30 p.m.]

The second side of this is a whole lot more difficult. Of course, this week we’ve had the Humboldt tragedy, and we can only imagine what those parents are going through. But each one of us brings to this House our own personal perspectives and the life that we have lived to this point as we bring that to this place.

I, unfortunately, have had the experience of standing with parents who have lost their child — and the agony, the shock, the pain, the stress that that produces. Certainly, as has already been commented by the member for Langley East, divorce is a very high reality for the parents in these situations. The divorce rate, as he said, was around 70 percent because of the stresses and strains. Obviously, there needs to be a tremendous process of healing, of counselling, of comfort, of working with these people.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

In fact, many times we find that as the individuals grieve, they bury their grief, and often we’ll find that exploding three months later, six months later, as these people work through this agony and this process. How each couple, each family, each extended family grieves and works through that process is a challenge that I believe is very individual. It’s something that I believe those of us setting employment standards need to be looking at and to be working with.

I certainly congratulate the minister for bringing this forward, although it seems, when you look at it, you’re seeing that this is a tremendously difficult amount of time — 104 weeks, two full years. By the same token, when you see the pain, the process — when you see, literally, the destruction of families that often happens in the midst of these situations — for us as a society to stand with these individuals, work with these individuals through this process and give them the opportunity to work through this process I think is extremely important.

By the same token, there is the challenge, particularly if you’re dealing with small businesses, ma-and-pa type of things, businesses that can go through restructuring. I think there’s a whole other side of this that needs to be thought through and worked through. But certainly, in dealing with the parents and the challenges that parents go through because of the death of a child, and especially the sudden death of a child, I stand to support this.

The third piece of this, which also deals with the extended leave, is if a child, resulting from a crime…. It’s up to 52 weeks of unpaid leave. I also agree that the challenge of this is the almost, if we can call it, legal piece of this resulting from a crime. I would certainly hope that in the crafting of this — and I imagine it’s in the regulations dealing with this — this would also be something that we work at: how to make those definitions as soft as possible to deal with the tragedies, rather than it being a legalistic thing that we’re dealing with, because once again, we’re dealing with parents.

I just think of some of the situations that we’ve seen lately in the news, where we have the disappearance of a child. Of course, the first questions are…. You’re looking at the regular suspicions of kidnapping or these sorts of things, and then it evolves from there, and the stresses and strains. As the police go through investigations and these sorts of things, often there’s a massive question mark over all of this. When is the determination that the leave is possible? If it’s as a result of a crime, well, often you won’t know that it’s a crime until a fairly lengthy time within that process. It could be.

[5:35 p.m.]

I would be asking the minister that it be considered as to how we deal with that and that we actually deal with police forces on trying to find a structure for this that makes sense in the real world, because often when the child disappears, we don’t know that it’s a crime. We don’t know what’s happened. It is going through an investigation and a process. I would simply raise that issue so that the minister would look at that and consider that.

Certainly, on behalf of parents who have grieved before and gone through that grieving process and those of us in the community that have tried to help and work with those people in our various professions in the past, I want to thank the minister for this and for bringing this forward. I certainly will rise at the appropriate time and vote in favour of these amendments to the legislation.

Hon. D. Eby: It’s a pleasure to rise this afternoon and speak in support of the Minister of Labour’s legislation here and the bill that’s in front of the House around establishing minimum standards for leave for employees at really sensitive times for families.

I think that we’ve heard from a number of members here in the House that have had very moving stories about personal experiences and reflections on the national tragedy that 16 families are grappling with right now and stories about childbirth, the start of new families and the expansion of families.

It’s interesting when the business of this House, which is often technical or fraught politically, involves such intimate familial issues as the loss of a child and the birth of a new child, because it really erases a lot of the divisions in this place and brings us together in ways that are often unexpected, but certainly wonderful to see and to hear about. I wanted to take a moment and reflect on how much I appreciate hearing about the personal stories of members in this place as they reflect on the importance of this legislation — the impact it will have on families across British Columbia.

In terms of the technical piece of this, it’s a relatively short piece of legislation, and it has some very specific features and changes that it makes to protections for employees in British Columbia. It amends something called the Employment Standards Act, which is a provincial piece of legislation. It applies to everybody who works in the province, except if they’re excluded by regulation, and it deals with job-protected leaves — making sure that you can leave work and that when you come back, your job will still be there for you.

They say you can’t legislate common sense, but I think this might come close. I hope that, for the majority of employers, these would seem like common sense leaves that they would offer employees in any event. In that sense, we may be legislating something that happens by practice in most workplaces anyway.

What we’d like to do, I think, is provide employees with the assurance that, if they decide to take the time that they need — in a time of crisis or in a time celebration, like a new child, or in a time of grieving — they don’t need to even worry for a second that their job might not be there when they come back.

In some sense, this bill might be more about peace of mind than about, necessarily, a change to what any one employer might do. Certainly, I’ve been very fortunate through my working career to work for employers that I think wouldn’t hesitate to give leave like this in these kinds of situations.

The specific amendments…. The first is allowing a person to start pregnancy leave, known as maternity leave, as early as 13 weeks before the expected birthdate. Expected birthdate is a mug’s game, but in any event, there is an expected birthdate for most babies that come into the world. So this legislation kicks in 13 weeks before the expected birthdate, which is an increase from the current 11 weeks.

[5:40 p.m.]

Those critical weeks before birth are very different for women, who experience pregnancy very differently. Providing women with time to be able to leave work and — whether physically, emotionally, mentally or just in terms of setting up a new room for a new baby — providing them with the space that they need to get things in order with their families is, I think, a very positive change.

While two weeks doesn’t sound like a lot of time, it can be a lot of time, in terms of a family that’s expecting a new baby. I know that those two weeks will be appreciated by those who take advantage of this new provision and who rely on it.

The second aspect of the maternity changes is to allow a parent to take a longer unpaid parental leave to care for a new child after the child is born, resulting in up to 18 months, from the current 12 months, for a birth mother who takes the full pregnancy leave and parental leave, ensuring job protection. This is an unpaid leave, but it provides parents with the opportunity to ensure that the mother can return to work and that the job will be there.

Our government has embarked on a very ambitious child care plan. It will take a long time before we’re in a place where people have what is our goal, which is readily accessible and affordable child care. A lot of families struggle with finding child care that’s safe and appropriate, and they may expect to return to work at the 12-month period when their child is a year old, but they may not be able to, because they may not have found appropriate and safe child care. Those extra six months could make the difference to finding safe child care.

We heard about the horrific Baby Mac case. Every time I think about it, really, it’s difficult to even….

I think if families have the time to ensure that their child is in a safe place, the six months that they may need to get things arranged…. Or maybe they’re just in a situation where they feel those extra six months would make a difference, in terms of being able to care for a child that needs more attention, to be able to care for a child that needs more medical attention, perhaps. Providing 18 months of unpaid leave and the ability and the security to know that the job will be there when they’re ready to go back is a very important protection as well.

Those are on the maternity and pregnancy side. But those aren’t the only changes in this legislation. There are amendments here around compassionate care leave. This is a situation where somebody is working and they’re facing the scenario of a dying family member. I don’t think there’s anybody in this Legislature that has not. If they’ve been so fortunate themselves not to be in this situation, surely they know someone in their close, personal lives who has been in a situation of having to provide care for somebody who is dying, in their family.

There really isn’t, for many families, a choice when this happens. The work of caring for a family member who is dying needs to be done, and they leave work to do that. One of the least of the things that I think we can do in this situation is to say: “If you have to leave work to care for someone in your family who is dying, your job will be there when you go back.”

I think we’re fortunate that the federal government also ensures that there are employment insurance supports for people in this situation so that a financial crisis is held off and that when they go to return to work after this terrible situation, their job, at least, will still be there.

I know that for a lot of people who have been in the difficult situation of caring for a dying family member, the return to a routine of work can sometimes be quite therapeutic for them. The loss of a job, in addition to the loss of a family member, is an additional stress that we don’t want to place on people. It’s a very important provision here, and I agree with the member from Langley when he says that this is something that we can all agree is something that should be done.

[5:45 p.m.]

I think for anyone with a small person in their lives, a child in their lives…. I think we’ve heard a few of the stories today about personal experiences, members moved to tears about how significant the loss of a child or the disappearance of a child is — even just to contemplate, even if it hasn’t been personal, even just to hear in the news about a family you don’t even know who is going through this situation.

This bill provides job-protected leave for children who have gone missing as the result of a crime or who have died. Even beyond the emotional grieving of such a horrific situation are the overwhelming obligations that come as well — the arrangements that need to be made, the relatives who are coming over to offer condolences. To do all of this while dealing with the loss of a child is overwhelming for anyone. People are not thinking about work, and they should not have to be worried about the possibility of returning to a workplace where there isn’t a job for them.

As I said when I started this off, I imagine that the vast majority of employers would provide this leave in a heartbeat for a parent whose child has disappeared as the result of a crime or a parent whose child has died. They wouldn’t even think about it. They would say: “Of course. You take the time that you need.” So in some senses, this legislation is legislating something that would happen anyway. But to provide that peace of mind to a parent — they don’t even need to worry about it, the law is on their side, and the job will be there. When they take the time they need, when they return to work, the job will be there.

It just eases one additional burden for people going through such difficult circumstances. Obviously, these changes in the law will not erase the pain of these parents and the pain of these communities and these family members, but it will ease some of the worry and the stress.

I think it’s useful to understand a little bit about the Employment Standards Act generally, in terms of these amendments and the history of this act and the history of employment standards. It has not always been the case that we would assume that employers would generally provide this kind of leave automatically or that it would be the concern of an employer about what happens in somebody’s family. We’ve come a long way in terms of recognizing the need for dignity and respect for all employees and all workers in our province and internationally.

The Employment Standards Act of B.C. really reflects the evolution of these standards over time to where we are today, and today’s amendments contribute to that. The purposes of the act set out some of this history, really, in terms of our modern statute, and they’re quite instructive about the amendments to this act that are in front of the House today.

The first purpose is to ensure that employees in British Columbia receive at least basic standards of compensation and conditions of employment. If I can say that there is one consistent theme in the speeches that we’ve heard today, it’s that we all agree, at least in terms of the speeches I’ve heard, that the amendments that are in front of the House today are at least basic standards of conditions of employment. We expect that it would be basic for a family facing these situations — a dying family member, a child who has died, birth of a new child — that they would have these basic conditions of employment, that they would be able to return to their work after they took the time they needed to grieve or to celebrate or to spend with the new baby.

The second purpose is to promote the fair treatment of employees and employers. The amendments, although they extend leave, note that for some of the extensions — for example, after the birth of a child — some of this time may be unpaid. So it does recognize fairness to both the employee and the employer. Those six months that are added for a birth mother who takes the full pregnancy and parental leave is unpaid leave. It provides a family with the opportunity to make that decision for themselves while attempting to balance that with fairness to an employer.

[5:50 p.m.]

Purpose C is to encourage open communication between employers and employees. I think one of the benefits of these amendments is that it will facilitate and it will ease the concerns of employees raising issues about, for example, a dying family member with an employer. It will actually create the possibility of better open communication between employers and employees.

Someone might be afraid to ask a favour of an employer for leave for a dying family member. They might not want to say anything for fear that they might lose their job. I think that to the extent that we can reassure people…. As I’ve said several times, and I’ll say it again, I would hope and expect and believe that the vast majority of employers in British Columbia would provide this leave to people to care for someone who is, for example, dying and who is in their family.

This provides the ability of someone to go up to an employer and feel more confident that they’re not asking for a favour — this is something that they are entitled to by law — and to know that they can then have that conversation with an employer and discuss how best to accommodate the situation that that individual faces. They might be able to find something that works better for everyone, and it really facilitates that open communication between employers and employees.

Purpose D is to provide fair and efficient procedures for resolving disputes over the application and interpretation of this act. The amendments that are in front of the House are quite straightforward. They provide very clear direction to both employers and employees, and it’s my hope that the dispute resolution procedures of this act would not be needed to resolve disputes here.

If there were a dispute, I submit to the House that the amendments are drafted with sufficient clarity that it would be quite easy for an adjudicator to make a decision if a dispute was raised and a decision had to be made in relation to this. But I suspect very much, based in part on some of the speeches on both sides — all three sides, if I can say — of the House on this matter that disputes on these points are very unlikely to arise in employment in British Columbia.

Point E is an interesting one. It’s to foster the development of a productive and efficient labour force that can contribute fully to the prosperity of British Columbia.

I think the amendments recognize that it is incredibly difficult for someone to be a productive and efficient employee if they’re grappling with a dying family member, if they’re grappling with the death or disappearance of a child, and that there is some benefit in recognizing that in order to ensure that someone is at their best and able to do their job, they also will benefit from the peace of mind of knowing that these provisions are in place for them and that if they face these difficult situations, they can leave work and come back when they are ready to be that productive and efficient member of the group of workers who make British Columbia such a wonderful place.

Finally, I think Purpose F of the act is really the very obvious purpose of the act that relates so directly to these provisions. It’s to contribute in assisting employees to meet work and family responsibilities. The legislation really tries to import into the act, through these additional provisions, a balance in assisting employees to balance work obligations — you’ve got to pay that rent; you’ve got to know that there’s a job there for you — and family responsibilities. You’ve got somebody at home who’s really sick. You’ve got a child who’s passed away. Truly, these amendments profoundly assist employees to meet work and family responsibilities.

[5:55 p.m.]

It might be useful for members to know a little bit of the scope of the act and that there are exceptions under the application of these provisions — individuals who will not be affected by these provisions and who will be affected.

The act defines an employee as “(a) a person…receiving or entitled to wages for work performed for another, (b) a person an employer allows, directly or indirectly, to perform work normally performed by an employee, (c) a person being trained by an employer for the employer’s business…(e) a person who has a right of recall” to an employment place.

It’s a very broad definition of an employee. What is attempted to be captured in the act is, basically, anybody who is showing up and doing work for pay. It’s written broadly to avoid structures that might attempt to evade the act and the protections that it provides.

There are exceptions. This act does not apply to federally regulated employers. Anytime we’re talking about employees at banks, rail transportation or postal contractors, those are covered by the Canada labour code. There are some very specific exemptions: students in work study programs and professionals like accountants, engineers, dentists and lawyers. In addition, of course, if there’s a collective agreement of some sort, then that would take precedence as well.

Generally speaking, I think that it’s very helpful to understand these amendments in terms of the purposes of the Employment Standards Act of British Columbia — what that act is trying to achieve — and to know how these amendments contribute to the purposes of this act, which has such a history, and to workers’ rights, which have such a history here in British Columbia.

I think in closing, I’ll just note how moved I’ve been by hearing the speeches of other members on all sides of the House tell their personal stories about how they’ve seen families and how their own families will be benefited by provisions like this. I want to thank all the employers in British Columbia for what I’m sure is their support of these types of initiatives and, I suspect, would be their practice in any event.

I certainly want to thank the Minister of Labour for bringing this forward and the government for bringing this forward. I want to join all members who have spoken who are thinking about the national tragedy that we are all reflecting on right now, the loss of 16 young men, and how events like that really drive home the importance of this legislation and why it is that we come to this place and do this work.

Deputy Speaker: Minister of Education.

Hon. R. Fleming: Madame Speaker, thank you very much for recognizing me to take place in this debate. I want to rise and speak in favour of Bill 6 for a number of reasons that I’ll briefly state.

I think maybe at the outset, I would like to commend my colleague the Minister of Labour for bringing this legislation before the House after doing quite a bit of work preparing the legislation and consulting with his federal counterparts, holding discussions with both business and labour organizations and also working with victims-of-crime organizations in our province to bring forth a package of reforms that is before the House for consideration.

They both modernize aspects of employment standards law in the province and also add compassionate grounds into the legislation that I think British Columbians support for reasons that have to do with circumstances that nobody in British Columbia would want to find themselves in, as it relates to additional family leave provisions in the event of a tragedy.

[6:00 p.m.]

Of course, as other members have noted, the timing of this bill on the heels of the tragedy in Humboldt…. All members have put their thoughts into it and expressed their grief and taken part in the national moment of coming together for the victims and for the families of that tragic accident. It can’t help but be noted as important context for the kinds of leaves that might be available to families that found themselves in such a tragic situation in British Columbia.

The amendments to the Employment Standards Act are important because they demonstrate the intent of our government to better support families, by providing these new, extended, more flexible, job-protected leaves. The amendments to pregnancy and parental leaves, I know, are incredibly important to families in my constituency and all across British Columbia.

It’s important, in hearing from my constituents, that things like unpaid pregnancy leave…. Allowing that to be more flexible, to occur earlier than the expected due date, is something that many mothers seek and are able to negotiate often with the consent of their employer. I think this is important because it actually provides provisions that better define what those leave provisions may be and gives both employer and employee some options that currently don’t exist in legislation.

It also allows this to be done seamlessly in terms of accessing federal employment insurance benefits. Again, I commend the Minister of Labour for ensuring that all of the reforms that are talked about on the leave provisions for parents in this bill are congruent with employment insurance standards and will be compatible with that benefit program that’s administered federally.

I think that it’s also incredibly important that this bill adds up to 18 months of parental leave for the birth mother — an increase on the current 12 months. That’s important for a number of reasons.

It’s important because it better reflects the reality out there for a lot of parents and the difficulties they face upon returning to work today. It’s often the case that a return to work is not possible in exactly 12 months from the birth of that child. This is due to a number of factors, but you know, mostly in my experience, it’s due to the child care situation that we have in communities like mine and other communities around British Columbia, where it’s simply not possible to go from a waiting list to actually secure a child care spot exactly and neatly at a 12-month mark.

That puts the mother currently at risk of losing employment, because that job will not necessarily be held open for a mother seeking to return to work. This is allowing families to be able to have, in essence, more job security and more security to be able to contemplate and start to build a family without risk to the means to raise children and pay for the expenses of raising a family.

That 18-month provision, I think, gives a lot of comfort to parents out there struggling to find child care spaces — while our government is endeavouring to create tens of thousands more child care spaces. But we exist in a situation today where there is a backlog, where wait-lists for child care spaces are a reality and where parents, mothers, are often only able to return to work at 14 or 15 or 16 months’ time.

This will give them up to 18 months. I think that that is both fair and is wise. I think it also fits within the government’s mandate to expand affordable child care and better support families. Because in some cases, it will be a result of the wait-list reality I’ve just spoken about; and in some cases, it will be a choice. Giving families the ability to take additional unpaid leave — until the child is 18 months of age, for example — may be something that a family would think is in the best interest of their infant and toddler as they put them into a child care space, for example.

I think that it’s a progressive change, and it’s also one that better reflects the reality of what family life looks like today in British Columbia.

I think that the reforms — to move on to the compassionate care leave elements of the bill — that make a lot of sense to me…. The one I’d like to begin with is just around a compassionate leave to care for a dying family member.

[6:05 p.m.]

We often refer to…. I think sociologists have coined the term “the sandwich generation.” We have a very different reality than maybe previous generations, where families can be raising kids while caring for aging parents — often on incomes that are challenged.

Often the aging process is such that a family member can fall very ill very suddenly and require care that it’s simply not possible to hold down a full-time job, raise children and care for an aging parent. This will give families in those kinds of situations the ability to be able to, again, secure job protection so that’s not a factor, in order to be able to make arrangements that are in the best interests of their family and their loved ones. Again, these reforms, these amendments in this act that triple the length of job-protected leave, have federal EI support attached to them, and I think that’s critically important.

Finally, in the section of compassionate leave, I want to speak as the member for Victoria–Swan Lake and say how incredibly important it is in a city that a number of commentators have said lost its innocence a long time ago — March 24, 1991, to be exact, 27 years ago — with the disappearance of Michael Dunahee. I know Michael’s parents very well. We thanked them in this legislative chamber and in our province for the kind of work they have done, which was a result of that tragedy of Michael’s disappearance, to create organizations like Child Find B.C., to advocate for better policing data and to create things like the AMBER alert program.

I think this legislation in some way pays tribute to any parents who may ever find themselves in the horrific situation that Michael Dunahee’s parents found themselves in many, many years ago. Nobody wants to think about those kinds of situations, but the reality is that there are circumstances where tragedies like that occur, and to be able to search for your child and work with the community and the kinds of agencies that might be involved in helping with the disappearance of a child is obviously all-consuming. To hold down a job in those kinds of circumstances…. I think these protections speak for themselves in terms of the wisdom of them and why they deserve every member’s support in this House.

Obviously, it will never address the pain of families going through that kind of a situation, but it will help them in those kinds of horrendous circumstances where they find themselves grieving for the death of a child in some cases and the disappearance of a child in other cases.

The last reason — or, I think, a couple more reasons — or an additional reason why I support this legislation is that it should be seen as not the end but the start of a thoughtful, more comprehensive package of reforms to employment standards that are being discussed today by employee organizations and by employers with government leadership as to where we can make changes that better reflect the modern realities of work life, of family life, reforms that will be balanced to take the interests of all parties in the workplace into account that look at social realities and the economic factors that could be used to muster facts that will help motivate further reforms.

I know that those broader reforms are under contemplation now by government, but I think it makes a lot of sense to start where we can with some areas that everybody in this House will agree are long overdue and that have indeed been supported by other jurisdictions in Canada and make a lot of sense.

Overall, of course, the takeup for these leaves is expected to be quite modest in our province. I think that would take care of any concerns that may be had by some parties when they look at the entire package of this bill.

[6:10 p.m.]

I think that on both the flexibility that makes sense for young families and on the realities we face with aging parents in our society, as I’ve spoken to a moment ago, and in those exceedingly rare and very difficult-to-contemplate situations where the legislation simply did not have adequate leave provisions previously, this legislation addresses some of those deficiencies we find in the law of British Columbia, in the year 2018.

I’ll take my place in this debate, thank the other members who will be participating in the debate and speak in favour of Bill 6.

S. Gibson: I am pleased to be here in the Legislature today to speak to Bill 6, Employment Standards Amendment Act, on behalf of my constituents of the Abbotsford-Mission riding.

The bill touches on both extremes — we’ve already heard quite a good discussion of that — of the emotions of a parent. On the one hand, it touches on the birth and adoption of children — I’ve experienced that, of course — some of the happiest moments of a parent’s life, and, on the other hand, the passing of a child, which I know is the most difficult for a parent to have to deal with.

This bill comes at a time when we’re all mourning the tragedy that struck at the heart of our nation, a tragedy that has left parents in mourning, questioning, grieving, angry and, in some instances, calling out to God. Making sense of this tragedy is fruitless. I can only imagine what the parents are feeling, even today, and I hope that they’re able to find peace someday, but I know that they’ll need time to cope with this event. Life as they know it has changed dramatically forever, and living day to day over the coming months and years will indeed be a challenge.

In these unfortunate circumstances, parents should not need to be burdened with other unnecessary challenges or concerns, including their employment being threatened or in jeopardy during this time of mourning. All individuals deal with pain in their own personal ways. I believe that taking leave from the workplace may complement many in dealing with that grief.

This also gives parents who are grieving for their missing children, as a result of a crime, extra space to deal with the deep emotions that stem from such a situation. I can only imagine the glimmers of hope and the moments of despair that are felt throughout the time of having a missing child. Employment, again, shouldn’t be the main worry of these parents.

On the more pleasant side of this bill, the birth of a new child or an adoption is an exciting time — I speak from experience — a wonderful time to grow a family. Worries about work and job security should not have to prioritize over the early development of a child and not be a source of tension.

The bill’s extension of the parental leave and pregnancy leave is laudable. We know how important these moments in the life of the parents of a new child can be. But it’s also immensely important for the child’s well-being, their health and their future success. We as a province should be supporting our children and raising them to become successful, and giving parents the extra time to be with their children supports this goal.

For those reasons and others that have been enumerated, I will be supporting this bill.

A. Weaver: I, too, rise in support of Bill 6, Employment Standards Amendment Act, which makes a number of substantive amendments to the existing Employment Standards Act — in particular, with respect to issues of compassionate leave, paternity leave, maternity leave, family leave, as well as matching these with federal legislation that was passed late last year. I believe it was in November.

[6:15 p.m.]

In fact, one of the things that happens, as this bill is being debated and discussed, is that we’re proposing here to mirror the federal legislation, which essentially extends employment insurance benefits to those with newly adopted children or parents of newborns from 12 months to an extended 18 months. They’re allowed to have their EI benefits.

B.C., by passing this legislation, would ensure that not only federal employees that are subject exclusively to the federal legislation but also in British Columbia, here, we would be protected both for job security and be eligible to be part of this extended EI. It doesn’t actually give people more money. It allows families to determine if they wish to take the amount of money that would be spent and just distribute it over a longer period.

Some have actually criticized the federal legislation, which we’re proposing to adopt here, by arguing that it is not doing enough to actually support new families by not providing additional resources. Nevertheless, I would argue that’s an EI issue and a federal issue and not one in the purview of our jurisdiction here. So I think it’s important that we actually do follow the federal lead in this area.

One of the most important changes, of course, in this legislation is the additions that are truly provincial with respect to extending the amount of leave that is eligible for those whose child, most unfortunately, happened to be taken away in an incident.

My colleague and friend the Minister of Education and the MLA for Victoria–Swan Lake knows the Dunahee case, a very famous case here in Victoria. I’m sure such leave…. I can only imagine the hurt that the parents of Michael went through and continue to go through. But were such leave available to them at the time, I think it would have been very beneficial. Hopefully, nobody needs to claim this benefit. I’m sure that’s the hope of all of those in this House, but it’s critical that it be there for those who do need it.

The amendments to compassionate care leave are triple the length of the leave, from eight to 27 weeks — again, a very important addition.

In terms of the other issue…. Heaven forbid. I can only imagine the loss of a child, and it would be something that would be devastating to any family. To give extended leave, protected leave, job security on that leave, over an extended period of time to parents whose child under the age of 19 were to be tragically lost is the sign of a government that recognizes the importance of putting families first, of being there for families to support them in their times of greatest need.

I applaud government and, in particular, the minister who brought this piece of legislation forward.

Other highlights within this piece of legislation, of course, are that maternity leave can start two weeks earlier, 13 weeks prior to the due date rather than 11 weeks, and that it can go longer after birth, where the employee requests leave after birth, from 17 weeks rather than six weeks. It also increases leave from 37 weeks to 62 weeks for adoptive parents and allows that leave to start no later than 78 weeks after the child is born, instead of no later than 52 weeks after the child is placed with the parents.

There are many, many reasons why this bill, I’m sure, will be passed and wholeheartedly supported by all sides of this House. The fact that it doubles unpaid leave time is important. It doesn’t address the financial barriers, the affordability issue for parents who have to spread out the benefits over a longer period of time, and I look forward to the government continuing to develop and implement its strategy to deal with the affordability crisis here in B.C.

I’m not sure whether this bill actually has provisions to deal with stillbirths or miscarriages. I would seek to ask the minister, during committee stage, whether in fact the bill, as constructed, does recognize stillbirths or late-term miscarriages as grounds for leave, based on the fact that death of child might be considered there, where, here, the child was born, in the case of a stillbirth, sadly, dead on birth or in a late-term miscarriage, sadly.

[6:20 p.m.]

I mean, we all know people who have had a traumatic effect on their lives, and perhaps government might be open to thinking about that over the coming days — about whether (a) this is dealt with in the legislation or (b) if in fact changes need to be amended or added to account for that.

With that, I have spoken with my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands and also my colleague from Cowichan Valley, neither of whom will speak to this bill. We collectively support this bill and look forward to bringing it forward in legislation.

D. Routley: It gives me great pleasure, as it has done for the previous speakers, to be able to stand and support such a positive change as we see in Bill 6. Not having experienced such a horrible tragedy as is described and accounted for in this bill…. At least in one of its amendments, that being the amendment that would extend the length of time that parents have without worrying about their jobs after the loss of a child, either through health reasons or, in another amendment, to crime — either a disappearance or the loss of the life of a child to crime.

This bill also amends the Employment Standards Act to allow pregnancy and parental leaves to be extended and to be claimed in different ways that are more flexible for people. It goes to the issues of pregnancy leaves, parental leaves and workers supporting dying family members — a number of situations that are terribly challenging for families and during which time the security of their job should not be their prime concern. In fact, their only concern ought to be healing successfully and humanely grieving the loss or the challenge that this bill describes — or, in another case, celebrating the arrival of a new child or the adoption of a child.

The reason it makes me so happy to be able to support a bill like this is that I think we all come here in an effort to make B.C. better. I know that our government campaigned on a promise to make life more affordable, to make life better for British Columbians. I think everything we do here ought to be directed towards that goal. So any measure that this Legislature can take that improves the quality of life for British Columbians is a measure that I’ll support.

This is something that I think we, as legislators, need to be leaders on, in terms of people’s standards in their workplaces, the conditions in which they work and how they’re treated by employers — and the security of employers, frankly. That’s why it makes me so proud to be able to stand up for this bill. I feel like it’s the ratcheting of something. We take a step, and we advance a step. Then we step back and take another step and advance again. This is another ratchet in the effort to make people’s lives better.

I’ve been through the time before and after the birth of my children, and I had the great pleasure and privilege to be able to stay home as a stay-at-home dad with one of my daughters for her first six years — in fact, from the third week after she was born through to when she was six and went off to school.

It was a really challenging time for our family. I say I was able to do it; I was, in a way, forced to do it. My wife, at that time, had no ability to take off time because of her employment status, and I was able to do that. So I had that great privilege, and it was the very best time of my life — the very most challenging time of my life but the best. I remember taking my daughter for walks and watching her blonde hair swing on her back, walking through trails and thinking at the time that there can be no better time than this, and I was right.

[6:25 p.m.]

I had that privilege, and I think so many parents are denied that or don’t get enough of that. Particularly, I would say, in my experience, men haven’t been able to take the time and haven’t, perhaps, even desired that in the past. I’m not sure, but I do know that having experienced it, I would say to any man that it’s the very best experience in life you could have. With that appreciation of that kind of time with your family, with your children, I can say that this bill is something worthy of the support of all British Columbians.

There’s an obvious concern whenever we introduce benefits to workers, employees, that there will be an according cost to employers, and of course there will be. But in this case, employers in British Columbia will be put in the same position as employers in other provinces. In this case, the benefits that are being offered will not be taken up in more than a modest fashion, we believe, and will have a manageable but minimal impact on employers.

For example, the number of child deaths in B.C. each year is small, and the experience of other jurisdictions that have already increased compassionate care leave entitlements has shown that these changes will have a modest effect. So some costs will be incurred by employers through loss of productivity, perhaps — if a worker’s position isn’t backfilled or costs of training for temporary replacement workers.

I, myself, as an employer, had an employee whose granddaughter suffered a viral infection that paralyzed her. The time that that grandmother needed to be able to take care of her granddaughter…. In their case, the parents both worked and weren’t able to take the time required. I watched them go through that and the terrible pain and the anxiety of not knowing what the outcome would be.

I can only imagine how terribly wrenching it would be for a parent to have to leave a child in Children’s Hospital in Vancouver to go back to work a few days after, in that case, a potential paralysis had been endured. They were fortunate. The young girl still has a minor paralysis. But it really drilled home to me how these things impact not just the child and not just the parents but also the extended family, particularly when these supports aren’t in place.

This will improve people’s lives. This will make B.C. a better place for the people of B.C., and therefore it deserves all of our support. Allowing mothers to start their unpaid pregnancy leave earlier and allowing either parent to take a longer unpaid parental leave while accessing the new employment insurance benefits are steps that make life better. These are steps that actually reduce other costs in our society, because families are healthier and we have better outcomes. It’s hard to measure those things, but I think we all know intrinsically that that’s true.

Allowing a person to start their pregnancy leave 13 weeks before the expected birth date is something that is important to many people, particularly people in situations of difficult pregnancies. That would be up from the current 11 weeks. In allowing compassionate care leave to workers supporting dying family members, those workers will have access to more than triple the length of job-protected leave currently.

These are excellent changes. These are changes that will improve the quality of life for parents and therefore better outcomes for children, and I support it wholeheartedly.

G. Kyllo: It’s always a pleasure to stand and rise in the House and speak on behalf of the hard-working constituents of Shuswap. This particular bill, the amendments that are proposed for the Employment Standards Amendment Act, is something that I know is certainly supported by both sides of the House. There’s nothing, truly, that could be more important than the time that you spend in raising your family.

[6:30 p.m.]

My wife, Georgina, and I have been very blessed. We’ve got four daughters, now aged 29 to 23. It’s amazing, when you think back, how things have changed. I remember back in 1989, when our first daughter, Sarah, arrived. Georgina was busy doing payroll — that was in the old days, when you had the books with all the payroll tables — trying to get the payroll done in the middle of labour. She was sitting at her desk, breathing in between trying to get payroll done before we went off to the hospital.

She was only in the hospital for a few days and brought Sarah back home just after the May long weekend, actually. Sarah was sleeping in a pram in the front office as we were checking houseboat vacationers back in off of their houseboat vacations.

Things have certainly changed. I did not have the ability or the opportunity to spend as much time at home with our girls as I’d have liked when they were very young. So the amendments that are proposed here, I think, are certainly moving in the right direction. It’s something that I can certainly support.

When we have a look at just the amount of time that you want to spend with your children…. Again, that time when they’re very young is just so intrinsically important and something that…. I think anything we can do to provide those additional supports, and provide the supports for young moms to be able to spend more time at home with their children, is certainly a valiant endeavour.

The other part of this bill, which is something that I know can draw a lot of emotion, is when folks have actually lost the life of somebody close — a close family member or the loss of a child. Of course, as has been mentioned here, when you have a look at the issue with Humboldt, Saskatchewan, and the tragic bus crash, it only just brings that back home.

When you have a look at…. I’ve been, I guess, fortunate to have a number of businesses in the past. When you see employees dealing with the grief of the tragic loss of a child, it is just so unbelievably emotionally draining — not just on the individuals but on the entire work staff.

I think that’s when the heart comes in. I know that most employers — I would say, actually, all employers — faced with the challenge of having an employee having lost a child would certainly be supportive of providing that opportunity for those that are in your employ to actually take that important time to be with family and friends — to take that time away from the workplace and to have that latitude to know that when they’re at home grieving with their families, trying to get on with their lives, their job is secure.

These are certainly amendments that I know that are supported on both sides of the House, and there have been some amazing stories shared with us here about just some of the tragic losses and some of the impact that’s had, again, not just on those individuals but also on other employees that are actually working in those organizations. I think that we have so many small businesses in our province. There’s an awful lot of heart. A lot of small businesses are employing their family, their friends, their neighbours and community members, and they certainly would be very supportive of this amendment.

With that, I will take my seat. Are there any more speakers?

Interjection.

G. Kyllo: Oh, there is. Thank you, Madame Speaker.

B. D’Eith: I, too, would like to echo the sentiments in regards to the appreciation for the personal stories that a number of our members have made in regards to this bill.

I know how panicked I was if I lost a child in the grocery store. I can’t even imagine what a parent would go through actually having a child disappear. It’s something that just fills my heart with dread. I can’t even imagine what a parent would have to go through.

I have experienced the loss of a teenaged stepdaughter of a past fiancé of mine, and even though I only experienced that as a semi-outsider of the family, I was still part of the group. Just seeing what the family had to go through, just witnessing what the parents had to go through, these types of measures and this type of compassion is so important.

[6:35 p.m.]

In regards to what this bill is trying to achieve, it really is trying to make sure a number of things. It’s not just dealing with the death of a child; it’s also dealing with the care of new children, which is very positive. It’s also taking care of ailing loved ones or coping with the death, as I said, or the disappearance of a child and not having to worry about a job. I mean, I would imagine that would be the last thing on anyone’s mind — the job, our work. Taking some pressure off that is so important.

The government is proposing amendments to the Employment Standards Act to really better support working families with new, extended and more flexible job-protected leaves. That’s what this is all about. There are amendments to pregnancy and parental leaves that will allow mothers to start their unpaid pregnancy leave earlier and either parent to take a longer unpaid paternity leave while accessing the new federal EI benefits.

This also is getting the provincial laws in line with the federal laws, which gives some harmony in regard to that. In particular, there are two new options. One is to allow a person to start their pregnancy leave — also known as maternity leave, of course — as early as 13 weeks before the expected birth date, up from the current 11 weeks. That’s really important.

A number of friends of our family and relatives, and every person who goes through a pregnancy, will find that their pregnancy is different. Some women, when they experience pregnancy, have no problem. They go right up to term, and everything’s fine. Others struggle immensely with pregnancy. Having that flexibility is really, really helpful. I think it would be helpful to a lot of families, so I think that is a wonderful amendment and change.

Another specific part of the amendment is to allow a parent to take a longer unpaid parental leave to care for their new child, which results in up to 18 months, from the current 12 months, for a birth mother who takes the full pregnancy leave and parental leave, while ensuring job protection. That’s very important also — that part about job protection. As part of the overall strategy of the government in terms of child care and other issues, it’s really important, especially with women in the workforce.

When we only have 5 percent of women in the trades, for example, how can we make life better for them? How can we make it easier for them to be able to get into jobs, and then when they do have children…? Obviously, we need children in our community, in our society, to continue to grow and thrive as a community. How do we support women and mothers in that environment? This is a wonderful step in that direction.

In addition, there are amendments for compassionate care leave, where workers supporting a dying family member will have access to more than triple the length of job-protected leave while also having access to the federal EI supports. That is really important, especially now in this world where we have an aging population. We know that a number of people are experiencing the sandwich generation, where they’re not only bringing up children, but they’re also dealing with, often, ailing parents as well. There’s a lot of pressure being put on families to deal with compassionate care. So this is a very important, and compassionate, change to the rules.

Another part is that the government is also introducing a new job-protected leave for parents whose children have gone missing as a result of a crime or have died, because no one, of course, should have to worry about their job security when having to go through such an ordeal. As I said earlier, I can’t even imagine what parents would have to go through. I’m sure the last thing any parent is thinking about is a job.

[6:40 p.m.]

As I said, even my limited experience with losing a child for five minutes was enough to know the terror of just that experience. To have that extended over a period of time, I could imagine that a parent would have…. It would just be draining everything from them. The idea of working would probably be the last thing that anyone would be thinking about.

The other important thing is that these are first steps. Of course, we’re looking at a commitment to update employment standards generally to promote fairness and flexibility. I know our Minister of Labour is working diligently on those changes. I commend our minister on making these changes now, while we’re working on a number of important issues, as well in the future — for example, the issue of domestic violence more broadly and supporting victims generally.

I know that right now British Columbia is looking at more broader amendments to the Employment Standards Act after considering recommendations from the B.C. Law Institute’s review of the act — that’s currently underway — and from organizations like the Employment Standards Coalition, for example. Other leave changes may be considered as this process unfolds.

Of course, there will be some impact to B.C. businesses. Nearly all the members have said, quite rightfully, that…. Most businesses that I know, if one of their employees faced something like this, would be incredibly supportive of that employee. I know all of my clients, as a lawyer, the many businesses that I’ve represented…. I know how compassionate they are, especially in small business — how much of a family small business can be and how, really, so many employers and employees are just part of this family in business.

I know that…. While there will be some adjustments that have to be made, I am confident that business will support these recommendations. They’ll embrace them, in fact, and celebrate the fact that we’re taking a balanced approach on this.

As far as other jurisdictions, yes, there are some jurisdictions looking at issues like domestic violence. As I said, the ministry is looking at those issues now. I’m actually very excited, over the next months and years, that we’ll be able to bring forward a number of very positive changes to our employment standards.

With that, hon. Speaker, I would like to say a few more words on this bill.

Interjection.

B. D’Eith: Yes, I am filibustering myself, Member. In fact, I must say, in hearing your experiences, Member, on the other side, as a police officer and what you had to go through…. I know I’ve talked to a number of police officer friends of mine who had to go through the same kind of, in a sense, trauma that you had to go through.

I know it’s not as related, but I’m very pleased that there are going to be changes in regards to PTSD, as well, for our first-line workers. Not only are parents having to deal with these types of issues, but our first-line responders are also having to deal with so many things in our community. So I’m very pleased that we’re making some moves in that regard as well. Those changes will be very important and, actually, really dovetail with the overall plans that are being made in regards to just trying to make life better for our citizens.

Having said that, I would like to stop talking now.

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

Hon. H. Bains: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I just want to thank everyone who participated in debating this bill. It was quite moving listening to the stories. We all have been touched by Humboldt, as we know, and many of you brought that out.

[6:45 p.m.]

When we are hit by a tragedy like Humboldt, it also brings back our own personal memories. You’ve heard them here in this House today. Many of them brought their personal stories. These are the stories that keep us grounded as human beings.

In a world of rough and tough politics, I think these are the type of incidents that actually bring the real human nature of each one of us — the human side of it. So I want to say thank you very much, all of you, for the support that you have shown to this bill.

It is important that we move with time. The mandate letter that I received from our Premier is to modernize our labour laws, and this is one small step. There’s going to be more consultation and more areas of change because at the end of the day, what we are trying to achieve is modernizing our laws so that they reflect the changing workplaces of today.

What we had 20 years ago or ten years ago at workplaces isn’t what we have today, what the workers face today. The needs of those workers, from what they were at that time, have changed dramatically. I think we, as government and members of this House, must remember that because that is our responsibility.

The decisions that we make here today — we will be judged by those decisions going forward ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. Reflecting back to those who were here on behalf of the B.C. residents, they made those decisions. They made the changes so that the future British Columbia, the future Canada, is a better place than what we inherited when we came here into this House.

I think it is our responsibility. I think we are all playing our part. I really want to admire many of you who have come up and shared your personal stories. It’s not easy. It’s not easy, I must say.

Our family went through it. I can only imagine what those families in Humboldt are going through. I can only imagine. It could be any one of us, as the member from Green Timbers said. It could be any one of us any given day.

I think this is something that we should never forget. It brings the real purpose in life before us and why we are really here and what our real job is as elected officials on behalf of our constituents.

These are timely changes that we are proposing. I am so gratified that almost everyone who stood up — I think all of you who stood up — supported these changes. It adds to, I think, the benefits to those that we are talking about here, the expectant mothers and the parents.

I think it also encourages and helps those who wish to participate in workplaces who otherwise wouldn’t be if they know that their job isn’t there if they take the pregnancy leave or they take parental leave. Then they would shortcut…. They would take less time with their newborn.

In the case of a missing child and the death of a child, they have no provisions other than the bereavement leave, which is three days. So they don’t have the opportunity to sit together, grieve and share the pain of what they’re going through and somehow start to rebuild their lives.

This will give them the opportunity to get the families together and share their grief, share their pain and support each other. That’s what this bill will do.

[6:50 p.m.]

Those expectant mothers — now they know, I think thanks to the federal EI changes, that they will be able to collect some income. At the same time, now they will have leave to correspond with that benefit period.

I think this is what a responsible society must be. I think that we’re moving in that area. I think that we owe it to them.

It is a new time. It’s our time. It is time that we make those changes so that all of us, all citizens of our province and our country, are able to benefit from the economy, benefit from participating and realizing the best of their potential, rather than being forced at home because of the conditions that they are in. I think there are a number of benefits we as a society will get out of this, in addition to those individuals that we’re helping here.

With that, I really, really want to thank all members of the House for the support they have shown. I know that the people who are really affected by these things will thank you. They will appreciate all the work that you’ve done, all the kind words that you have said in this House.

I think it shows the real humankind, human side of us, all of us in this House. What people see is us in question period — how we try to demean each other or come up with all kinds of different arguments. Perhaps sometimes we are seen to be insulting each other. But I think this is something that brings us together and brings the real side of us, in who we are. So I want to say thank you very much.

With that, I move second reading of Bill 6.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 6, Employment Standards 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.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

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: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. Thursday morning.

The House adjourned at 6:53 p.m.