Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call second reading on Bill 9, Workers Compensation Amendment Act. In the Douglas Fir Room, Committee A, I call continued debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Environment.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 9 — WORKERS COMPENSATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Hon. H. Bains: Mr. Speaker, I move that Bill 9 be read a second time now.

As Minister of Labour, my top priority is workplace safety, and I’m firmly committed to making workplaces in British Columbia the safest in Canada. But we also recognize that not all risks and health impacts can be avoided, especially in professions where the job is, by its very nature, dangerous. I’m speaking, of course, of our emergency first responders — police, firefighters, paramedics — as well as those who work in our justice system, such as sheriffs and correction officers.

These are the people who rush towards danger, not away from it, who are the first at crash sites to treat victims, who put their lives on the line to battle raging fires and save lives and who deal with criminals in our justice system. These are occupations that are physically dangerous and, especially in the case of firefighters, can have severe health impacts over the long term, which is why the Workers’ Compensation Act recognizes a number of presumptive conditions that are linked to specific occupations.

A presumption under the act says that if a worker in a specified occupation develops certain diseases or disorders, those illnesses are presumed to be due to the nature of the job. The worker is then eligible for benefits under the workers compensation system without having to provide evidence or proof that it’s been caused by their job. For example, the act specifies a number of cancers that, in the case of firefighters, are presumed to have arisen from their work. It recognizes that firefighters face exposure to toxic substances that, over the long term, can lead to serious illnesses.

[2:35 p.m.]

Up to this point, the cancer presumptions for firefighters have been limited to those employed by local governments, but we have been asked by the federal government to extend those cancer presumptions to federal firefighters, such as those who work on our military bases. This change recognizes that the federal firefighters are also potentially exposed to cancer-causing substances both as part of their regular duties and also when they assist municipal departments at fires in local communities. So that’s part of what these amendments to the act will do.

The other large part of these amendments has to do with another area of health impacts faced by our first responders and by certain front-line workers in our criminal justice system, and that is the mental and emotional impacts that can arise from the work they do.

These are the workers who are frequently exposed to disturbing, distressing and traumatic situations as part of their jobs. They go in without hesitation to do what must be done — what most other people could not handle doing. They put themselves in the path of danger when others run from it. They save lives, but they also see lives lost, sometimes under terrible circumstances. They deal with dangerous offenders and may be traumatized by threats to their own life — assault or violent acts.

We know these traumas can have long-term effects. They can cause real injuries and serious health problems ranging from anxiety, depression, physical and psychological illnesses and, at worst, lead to suicide. We, as government, must do our part to protect and support the brave men and women who find themselves dealing with mental illness as a result of the difficult job they do.

These amendments to the Workers Compensation Act are adding a new mental disorder presumption for first responders, sheriffs and correctional officers. The presumption will cover recognized mental disorders that may arise from exposure to traumatic events at work, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

These mental disorders will presume to have been caused by one or more traumatic events that an eligible worker was exposed to in the course of their work, rather than having to be proven in order to obtain workers compensation benefits and support. To be eligible for this presumption and, in turn, workers compensation benefits, the existing Workers Compensation Act required that a psychiatrist or psychologist must diagnose the worker’s mental disorder.

The occupations that will benefit from the new mental disorder presumption — paramedics, police, firefighters, sheriffs and correctional officers — are occupations that are frequently exposed to traumatic events at work. These amendments are about fairness and compassion for those workers who experience traumatic events as part of their jobs, because these brave men and women should not have the added anxiety of providing that their diagnosed mental illness is work related in order to receive the support they need.

The amendments include the ability to extend the new mental disorder presumption to other occupations that experience traumatic events at work. Over time, other workers can be added by regulation where it would be appropriate to do so.

This proposed legislation is a very important first step to our government, and it is just the first step. We know that there are other workers in our province who do heroic work and face terrible sights and sounds and who can be affected by occupational stress disorders. We, upon passing this legislation, will begin the next steps in engaging with those workers, their representatives, to collect data, science, to support their case as well. We will examine those occupations, and we will review the experience of workers compensation agencies across Canada.

You’re not lost in our minds. We know the type of work that you do, and the dangers, especially the mental health risks that you take, and you take on those illnesses and injuries. We are thinking about you as well.

[2:40 p.m.]

In bringing forward these presumptions, British Columbia is not alone. Currently seven other Canadian jurisdictions — Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Yukon — have legislation around PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, or broader mental disorder presumptions for workers compensation.

I would like to note that my colleague, the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, has long lobbied for these amendments and introduced a private member’s bill for mental disorder presumption last year. I’d also like to acknowledge and say thank you to many other organizations and individuals who pushed and advocated on behalf of this very, very important initiative.

Those are, in addition to my colleague the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Gord Ditchburn, B.C. Professional Firefighters Association; Tom Stamatakis, B.C. Police Association; Cameron Eby, B.C. Paramedics; Stephanie Smith, BCGEU; Robert Gagnon, the BCGEU member who walked from Prince George to Victoria to raise awareness about first responders’ occupational stress injuries; and individuals such as Lisa Jennings, Terrance Kosikar, Kenneth McLeish, Darren Gregory, Joe Hudon.

I want to say that those are just some of the few names that I’d mention. There’s always a risk of missing some when you do that. I want to say thank you to all of you for continuing to push for this very, very important issue so that we could provide the help to those who need help at the time they need that help. These are our first responders.

I say this on behalf of our government. We couldn’t wait any longer. We must act. That’s why we’re acting now, while more work needs to be done to talk about and get engaged in consultations with other groups so that our final goal is to make sure our workplaces in British Columbia are the safest workplaces in the country. We are thinking about those workers.

I want to say that I commend all of these folks, these organizations, for their effort and for their continued advocacy in this area. I look forward to the debate on this from other members. But I just want to say that it makes me so proud that I am in a position to bring in legislation like this, because these are members who protect our lives by putting their lives on the line. These are the people that needed support a long time ago. It’s a long time due, and I think it’s time that we act on it.

I would ask all members of this House to support us in this initiative. We’re not finished yet. A lot more work needs to be done. There are other members that we must work with. We must engage in consultation with those because many workers are exposed to many traumatic incidents similar to what I just talked about here. We couldn’t wait any longer on these ones. A lot of work has been done, and we were ready to go on these ones. That’s why we’re doing it.

I say thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this. I look forward to the debate from the members of the opposition and other members of this House so that we can move on this very, very quickly.

J. Martin: I think in the strict sense of the word, we’re not actually having a debate here. We’re having a discussion around a very serious and topical subject matter that, despite being around for an awful long time, has really only become part of contemporary public discourse in the last little while. It is very unfortunate that it’s taken so long to have widespread recognition of something so serious.

I think it’s important to place Bill 9 in the proper context. It’s part of an ongoing sequence of legislation that has been recognizing that there are some unique characteristics and consequences of certain careers and certain professions that don’t really exist outside of those specified professions. Bill 9 is sort of a natural next step in a number of pieces of legislation that have come and gone in the last little while.

[2:45 p.m.]

In 2012, there was legislation recognizing that mental health impacts can be work-related — and consequently expanded workers compensation to include mental disorders, including PTSD.

The Emergency Intervention Act was passed in 2012, May 31. It recognized that emergency personnel are at a higher risk of coming into contact with other people’s bodily substances. Specifically with PTSD, there has been ongoing, heightened recognition that we all want workers to have safe and healthy workplaces and that we need legislation that recognizes the work-related impacts on people’s mental health in specific professions.

Specifically with firefighters, the previous government expanded presumptive health coverage for this profession in the province to include types of cancers that present a greater threat due to the occupation. The government appreciated the vitally important, potentially hazardous work that firefighters do. There was an announcement, spread over time, of three new cancer presumptions. These presumptions for firefighters were already recognized for brain, bladder, kidney, testicular, lung, leukemia and a number of others, and the list was added to in recent years as well. In 2014, the province fulfilled its commitment to restore heart disease and heart injury as a workers compensation presumptive for firefighters.

There’s always been a distinction between physical ailments and emotional and mental disorder. PTSD has been a very, very difficult subject matter to isolate and identify. It still defies specific definition in a psychological and a medical sense, in terminology. It’s an evolving subject matter that we are slowly learning more about and are able to make a little more concrete assumptions out of the data that is emerging. That data is slow coming, and we’ve had a number of incidents in past times that have sort of put this in the public consciousness, whereas previously it never existed there.

I had the fortune in my previous career to work very closely for a number of decades with police and correctional officers — less so with firefighters and other first responders, including military. One thing that we all know about some of these unique occupations is that there’s a particular subculture there. In many cases, it is easier for members of these occupations to socialize and identify with like-minded individuals who have similar experiences.

It’s very, very normal for correctional officers to talk about a horrific incident that they encountered in one of the cell blocks. That’s a discussion that really doesn’t sit well at the dinner table with one’s family or with one’s social setting, hanging out with friends and such. It’s a unique subject matter. It’s a unique kind of experience, a shared experience, that really only people in those occupations can understand and relate to.

After a while, people in those professions — law enforcement, corrections and the military — may develop what we call a macabre sense of humour. It’s a defence mechanism to deal with things that literally turn most people’s stomachs and make them sick. For many, this is a part of what happens when they go to work. This is what they deal with in terms of injury, suffering, death, seeing over and over some of the most horrific images that the rest of us could only imagine or that we see on the six o’clock news in censored video clips.

Living that day-to-day, there’s a price to pay. The individuals that work in these occupations can have experiences that they may be in denial about or that they may be able to rectify as part of the job. Or they may understand that they are in a very unique occupation where there’s a very different norm than for most of us.

[2:50 p.m.]

In some cases, it may become that the best way to deal with this is to numb oneself through self-medication, substance abuse and other kinds of mechanisms that we all have when we’re hurting, we don’t really have a way to address that hurt, and we don’t have a way to get assistance.

Things have changed — mercifully, they’ve changed — but until very recently, it was very taboo for people employed in these occupations — particularly, but not exclusively, for males…. It was really not appropriate to show one’s emotions, to show one’s pain and one’s anguish. There was sort of a brotherly expectation that this would be covered up or that this would be somehow kept among the boys. It’s not something that would be dealt with publicly.

To be seen checking in with human resources and requesting a meeting with the workplace psychologist services was a sign of weakness. It was a sign of embarrassment, and it was a stigma. For tough guys that went into the military, went into the police and went into work in the federal prisons with the toughest cons in the country, it wasn’t something they were supposed to show. It wasn’t something that was appropriate, that they publicly dealt with. The expectation was that they could suck it up, because they signed on to a unique career, and they’re tough people. There’s a culture of machismo, where you don’t need help because you’re a guy, you’re a tough guy, and you can roll with this.

Well, there’s a price to pay over the years — and, in some cases, over the decades — of dealing with such trauma, tucking it away and hiding it away. In many cases, the result is very self-destructive behaviour, whether purposely, deliberately, or whether it comes about as a consequence of going through other measures. You know, in all those professions that I mentioned, the divorce rates were absolutely horrific. The incidents of self-medication and substance abuse far exceeded that of the general population. The lifespan for people working in those occupations was well below the normal.

It has taken us an awful long time to accept that there should be more of an opportunity and a culture of assistance for people who have undergone such trauma and have paid a horrific price for it in some cases — often, in cases, even with their own lives. We know that the number of suicides in these professions is also over the top and incredibly disturbing. It’s something that is unacceptable.

I think we’re slowly moving into an area where it is okay for men, even tough guys, to be able to make a statement that they’re hurting and they need assistance. If the legislation before us can, in some way, be a small part that helps to address what an awful lot of families in those types of professions have gone through over the years and decades…. If this can make some small impact on offering support and recognizing and normalizing that people need help and assistance — even when there’s been, historically, a social resistance and a subcultural resistance to seeking that help — then we’re on the right track. I, for one, will be happy to support the legislation.

A. Weaver: Thank you to the minister for bringing this bill forward, Bill 9, the Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2018 — a bill which I clearly stand in strong support of, with my colleagues in this House.

[2:55 p.m.]

As was mentioned by my colleague from Chilliwack, this bill updates the Workers Compensation Act so that those working in eligible occupations — we’ll come to that in a minute — who are exposed to one or more traumatic events over the course of their employment and are subsequently diagnosed with a mental disorder…. I’ll come to that, as well, in a second. That will be presumed to have been caused by the nature of their work rather than having to prove that it was work related.

Now, this particular bill is targeting the eligible occupations — namely, a corrections officer, an emergency medical assistant, a firefighter, a police officer, a sheriff or other as prescribed by regulation. Now, that’s important, that other as “prescribed by regulation,” and we’ll come to that as well.

The term, as I also mentioned in that introduction, “mental disorder” is actually a term that is defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Right now, that’s in its fifth edition. It’s termed DSM-V. That fifth edition was published in 2013 and is presently in the process of being updated.

I’ll start here, because it’s a very important interjection that I’d like to do right off the bat to highlight one particular difference between the present legislation and that legislation which was brought in by the member for Vancouver-Hastings, the now minister…. I’m having slight trouble with the title of the ministry. I do apologize. He brought in, in 2016, Bill M203, the Workers Compensation Amendment Act, 2016. It was a private member’s bill.

I sat in the Legislature as the member then read it in. We passed first reading, of course. It wasn’t brought for discussion. Why that’s important is….

I’ve mentioned the eligible occupations already. If we refer to this previous bill, and we look at the eligible occupations in that case, we see a number of differences. We see here that when we look at first responder, it means the following: an individual who is a emergency medical assistant, licensed by the emergency medical assistants licensing board; a full-time firefighter or part-time volunteer firefighter; an individual appointed as a peace officer, police officer, sheriff or corrections officer. All of those are covered.

Most importantly, section 5.2(e) of the private member’s bill brought in by the member for Vancouver-Hastings says this: “(e) a 9-1-1 communications officer employed by any of the above organizations or by Emergency Communications for British Columbia Inc.” That’s important, because that one distinction is a difference between the private member’s bill that clearly, his party was supporting back in 2016…. It does not appear here in Bill 9. It’s specifically excluded.

I suspect that the minister, through the Lieutenant-Governor, orders-in-council, will prescribe this profession coming into the future. But I will be, as we move forward, proposing a number of amendments to this bill, and one of those will be specifically to deal with 911 dispatchers for reasons and rationale that I’ll describe shortly.

Only Quebec, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Newfoundland and Labrador, British Columbia and the federal government, Canada, do not already have some form of presumptive language or legislation for mental health concerns.

In particular, at the federal level, recognizing some of the concern with respect to our military coming home — the preponderance of PTSD and the unacceptable and sad rise in suicide amongst our military personnel, people who put their lives on the line for all of us…. The federal government last year…. It was done, actually, by a British Columbian. The MP for Cariboo–Prince George, Todd Doherty, introduced a private member’s bill called Bill C-211, An Act Respecting a Federal Framework on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He was looking to create this federal framework to address PTSD in general.

Right now — it’s actually good news; I’m hoping it follows through — it’s passed through the House of Commons. It was passed through third reading on June 16, 2017. It’s presently sitting before the Senate at second reading and is being debated this year, in fact. If we come to some of the language from the government’s backgrounder in the press release…. I think it’s important to read this into the record, because it highlights some of the background for why I will be bringing forth some amendments for discussion at committee stage.

[3:00 p.m.]

The backgrounder for the Workers Compensation Amendment Act states as follows: “Currently the Workers Compensation Act provides any worker with workers compensation” — the term “worker” is actually defined under the act, and I encourage people to see how it’s defined — “for a mental disorder” — again, that’s described in terms of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual — “caused by their work, including PTSD.”

“There are two recognized situations of work-related mental disorders.” This is critical. “There are two recognized situations of work-related mental disorders: (1) a reaction to one or more traumatic events at work or (2) one primarily caused by significant work-related stressors, such as bullying and harassment.” In both of these situations, I’ll cite some examples of why I think that we need to be a little more inclusive in this legislation.

It’s quite clear to me that this legislation is targeting professions where you might get a lot of No. 1 — that is, “a reaction to one or more,” singular or multiple, “traumatic events” — but less so to No. 2, even though it still would apply to No. 2, which is “primarily caused by significant work-related stressors, such as bullying and harassment.” It would apply to those same professions.

It continues in the backgrounder and says: “In order for the claim to be accepted, medical and/or scientific evidence must be provided to establish that the condition arose out of their employment, in addition to a diagnosis by a psychiatrist or psychologist.”

That’s in the current one. That puts the onus of proof on the sufferer of the mental disorder. That, in and of itself, can be profoundly troubling and creates great mental anguish for the person who has actually been exposed to the issue causing them a mental disorder. In some cases, they might choose not to pursue it because of having to relive the experience. In other cases, they might try to pursue it, to their frustration, and add to the compounding of their mental disorder because of the fact they feel the system is not listening to them. Indeed, I have examples of that too.

A presumptive clause…. “A presumption under the act,” as here, “provides that if a worker has been employed in certain occupations” — again, coming back, those are a correctional officer, emergency medical assistant, firefighter, police officer, sheriff or others as prescribed by regulation — “and develops a disease or disorder that is recognized as being associated with that occupation, then the condition is presumed to have been due to the nature of their work, unless the contrary is proved.”

It switches the onus of burden. You still have to go through the process of meeting with doctors, qualified psychologists and psychiatrists, and having this condition professionally assessed and determined to be a result of a certain cause or causes or systemic problems in the work environment. Now, though, with a presumptive condition, there is no longer a need to prove that a claimant’s disease or disorder is work-related.

“The proposed legislative amendments,” it further says, “will establish a new mental disorder presumption when the condition is a reaction to traumatic events at work.”

A secondary thing. I’ll very briefly touch upon another…. It’s a very welcome addition. Frankly, I think it’s an oversight to previous additions to this act. It’s not going to be the dominant discussion within this House, but it’s profoundly important, particularly for some of my friends who actually work as Esquimalt DND firefighters. The amendments in this act will expand existing cancer presumptions to federal firefighters.

In our area, it’s very specific to DND. The DND firefighters come in to help out, in Esquimalt, Victoria and elsewhere, when there are large calls. They are very active and, in fact, exposed to the same chemicals, particularly if they’re working side by side with Victoria or Esquimalt or View Royal or Colwood firefighters.

This new legislation is going to bring existing cancer presumptions to these federal firefighters employed on military bases so that federal firefighters who currently qualify for the heart disease and injury presumptions…. While they do already qualify for that, they’re not qualified for the cancer presumption. So this is a very good addition. At present, it’s limited to local government firefighters under the provision.

[3:05 p.m.]

This act, again, is a direct response, in my view, as was the previous private member’s bill, to a Union of B.C. Municipalities call for an amendment to the Workers Compensation Act to include a presumptive clause for first responders. In 2015, the UBCM, the Union of B.C. Municipalities, which represents the local governments across British Columbia, specifically passed a resolution. I thank the good municipality of Central Saanich, embedded within the provincial riding of Saanich North and the Islands, where my friend who’s not here right now is from, my friend to my right here.

This is the motion that they put that was passed at UBCM. It says this: “Whereas first responders will include 911 operators….” Again, the motion specifically refers to 911 operators. They’re talking there about call receivers as well as call dispatchers. It says here: “…paramedics, firefighters, peace officers, police officers, sheriffs, corrections officers and many first responders have been affected by mental health injury/disorder, thus replacing ‘PTSD’ with ‘mental health injury.’”

It says:

“Whereas there is a need to change the Workers Compensation Act, under section 5.1, to add a presumptive clause, as it is possible that within first responders’ duties, they will encounter horrific acts and develop a mental health injury:

“Therefore, be it resolved that a two-month maximum deadline be implemented when making a decision, at any decision point of the claim, regarding a mental health injury claim, based on one psychologist and/or psychiatrist report;

“And be it further resolved that upon receipt of a mental health injury claim, the worker should receive immediate financial benefits and treatment, with the understanding and agreement of the worker, their specialist and WorkSafe B.C. that if it is proven that the injury was not as a result of their duties of employment, there will be a repayment plan for costs;

“And be it further resolved that when the worker is ‘fit to return to work or retraining,’ there will be a follow-up plan, to be agreed upon by WorkSafe B.C., the specialist and the worker.

“And be it resolved that under policy 97.34…”

Those of you who’ve been to UBCMs will realize that there are many, many policies. I challenge people to find this. They will, but there are a lot of them to go through.

“…conflict of medical opinion, the probable difference of opinion shall be discussed with the physicians — refer to the treating physician or specialists — involved, and if it is concluded that there is doubt on any issues, the board must follow the mandate of section 99 of the Workers Compensation Act and resolve that issue in a manner that favours the worker;

“And be it resolved that the province of British Columbia add new legislative language to section 5.1 of the Workers Compensation Act, adding a presumptive clause for mental health injuries, as set forth in this resolution, to ensure the well-being of all first responders who have sustained a mental health injury.”

Coming back, again, to that specific motion passed at UBCM in 2015, the first one that was included was for 911 operators.

Continuing back to the motion, it says: “A motion, duly moved and seconded, to amend the resolution by replacing the five enactment clauses with one enactment clause reading, ‘Therefore be it resolved that the provincial government work with WorkSafe B.C., first responders and other stakeholders to review and amend the Workers Compensation Act with the goal of supporting the well-being of first responders who have sustained a mental health injury.’”

This is getting complicated. It says it was not endorsed there. But that was a bunch of sub-motions within it. Nevertheless, we have that coming out of UBCM. It’s good to see that the government has responded to that.

What’s more important, as well, here, of course, is that…. We have to ask the question: why is it that B.C. took so long to actually deal with this issue? We are really, other than Quebec, one of the large, major provinces to move forward with it.

We have two shining examples in Canada, those being the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan — we’ll come back to that in a second — who actually recognized, coming earlier to the government’s backgrounder, that there are two situations of work-related mental disorders: “a reaction to one or more traumatic events at work” and “one primarily caused by significant work-related stressors, such as bullying or harassment.”

[3:10 p.m.]

Recognizing that, the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan now cover all psychological injuries defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and they do so for all professions. Why is that important? Most other provinces — Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Yukon, Prince Edward Island, for example — largely cover PTSD, although in Ontario, there’s some new legislation coming forward adding nurses as well. But why is it that we have more progressive provinces actually going further?

Let’s go directly to the Workers Compensation Board fact sheets from both Alberta and Saskatchewan. Alberta has two such fact sheets that are relevant here — the traumatic psychological injury fact sheet and the post-traumatic stress disorder fact sheet. That’s the PTSD fact sheet. Let’s focus on what it says is the difference.

Effective December 2012, Alberta actually covered firefighters with PTSD presumptive clauses, as well as emergency medical technicians and police officers appointed under provincial regulation. Also, effective April 1, they’ve added correctional officers and emergency dispatchers too.

If we look at the traumatic, psychological injury within Alberta, we see that that extends…. Effective 2018, it says: “All workers covered under the Workers’ Compensation Act who have been: a) exposed to a traumatic event during the course of employment that could lead to PTSD, and b) diagnosed with a psychological injury by a physician or psychologist are eligible for presumptive coverage through WCB Alberta, unless the contrary is proven.”

This, in Alberta, applies to every worker in Alberta — whether you be a teacher, a nurse, an emergency dispatcher, or whether you happen to be a social worker. Let’s imagine some cases. We see this legislation here as a direct response to very effective lobbying by police, by firefighters, and we thank them for their lobbying. But as legislators, we must not stop there and say that those who have lobbied are the only ones who have the issue.

I would argue that they are very efficient and effective lobbyers, and they are lobbying not only on behalf of their profession but for the broader society as a whole. I have a cousin who’s a firefighter. I understand what it’s like to…. I don’t understand to be there, but I want to understand what it’s like to witness someone come home after they’ve scraped someone off the road following a significant car injury.

Over the years, I have done some expert witnessing myself in forensic meteorology, and I’ve seen horrific pictures. But I’ve only seen them as pictures. I cannot imagine what people — firefighters, paramedics or first responders — would actually see when they go there, and having to scrape this off. Or in Oak Bay, those police who had to show up at the home of the two young children who were murdered by their father — can you imagine what they went through? I understand this.

But let’s also think about that social worker, that social worker who has to go into a home, and goes into a home and sees systemic child abuse happening. Suppose that social worker who’s seeing systemic child abuse tries to get their superior to take steps to deal with it, and they’re not. That can be a problem. That can lead to profound problems down the road.

What about teachers? What about a teacher who’s standing up and teaching the class for years, and then all of a sudden, they have a child in the class that’s clearly coming from a troubled home? That teacher has a duty to respond and report, and teachers are professionals. They will and do all the time. But there are times, and I’m dealing with some in my own constituency, when nobody listens. The administration is not supportive. The system starts to protect itself. Yet the teacher is the one who has to deal with this on the front line. This can lead to down-the-road and ongoing systemic issues with respect to depression and anxiety.

Again, I come to a case that’s going on in my constituency right now, a very serious case that falls right in that definition. Where’s WCB for them? Where’s WCB for the person who now has to prove that their illness comes from the work environment?

[3:15 p.m.]

When the system is trying to protect itself, that can be very hard, because your superiors are not going to be writers of letters saying: “Yes, we understand this person.” This is why it’s critical to include the….

What about nurses, who are front-line responders in many cases? Why are they not included in this? They would be in Alberta. I’ll come to Saskatchewan in a second. They would be in Alberta.

What about heavy truck drivers working on site where a major accident, a construction accident, occurs? It can have devastating effects on the workers on that construction site. It could have devastating psychological effects, which can be, through proper medical intervention, assessed and attributed to that accident. But they’re not covered under workmen’s compensation. Yet in Alberta, they would be.

What about somebody working in an office in downtown Kelowna, in an abusive work environment? But that person happens to be a single mother or a single father, and they’re earning just enough to make ends meet, because at home, they have an autistic child, and they have no family in town. They’ve got this one job, and they can’t quit this job, because if they quit this job, they’ll be on welfare.

Yet they’re in a systemically abusive environment that leads to depression and anxiety disorders or other such mental illness. They go to their psychiatrist, to their psychologist, and it’s very clear that it comes from the recommendations there. But again, they have to prove this. And as somebody going forward to workmen’s compensation has to prove it, they have to relive everything. They have to relive all of those experiences as they try to prove that their illness is a direct consequence of their work.

Progressive jurisdictions like Alberta — and let’s go to Saskatchewan — recognize this. They recognize that it doesn’t stop the due medical process from still occurring. It doesn’t stop workmen’s compensation from challenging an assessment, but it does provide a presumptive clause that would ensure that workers actually don’t have to relive every incident in order to prove it before workmen’s compensation.

Let’s go to Saskatchewan, another progressive jurisdiction. Now, Saskatchewan has a two-page fact sheet. If you go to page 2 on this fact sheet entitled Psychological Injuries, it says this: “Does the psychological injury presumptive clause guarantee that my WCB claim will be accepted?” It says this: “The WCB” — that’s Workmen’s Compensation Board — “will gather information to determine if you’ve been exposed to a traumatic event or series of traumatic events that occurred during work and if it is acceptable under the presumption.”

So they’re still able to gather evidence. They’re still able to make an assessment and a potential challenge if they don’t believe this was a result, but the presumptive language is there. The presumptive language is in the legislation that would protect the worker from actually having to relive that experience.

This doesn’t cost a lot at all. I suspect that government will step forward and suggest that in the case of some of them…. WorkSafe B.C. undertook these projections, and they suggested that the total cost for the presumption of the group of workers considered here would be $6.3 million a year across all of B.C.

It’s not clear if that’s going to have any effect on actual premiums, because WorkSafe B.C. doesn’t actually spend all the money they’re bringing in at this stage. So that could just be zero cost. And of course, any increases in WCB would actually go down to the local government and the municipal level, and the impacts depend on the size or the payroll.

[3:20 p.m.]

For example, Terrace. Terrace is a small municipality, and it’s estimated that the presumptive clause for all included classes would have cost about $4,000 a year. That’s $4,000 for the entire city of Terrace. I think it’s worth it.

Kelowna is a medium-sized city. In Kelowna, it’s $32,000 a year to cover all of these presumptive clauses — $32,000 a year alone. It’s not a lot. And Surrey would be $86,000 a year — a large metropolis city there. So we’re not talking about a lot of money in these.

However, it’s critical to also think about not only the upfront costs but also the costs avoided — again, not only with the specific case of the people who are eligible workers but also with the broader society. If you can avoid long-term costs of health care — long-term costs associated with frustration compounding mental disorders because of a lack of ability, a feeling out of control from an inability to actually advocate for yourself, and no one’s listening to the job environment — you can save money in the long term.

Not only that, but a presumptive clause gives WCB a little bit of power — a little bit of power that’s absolutely critical, particularly in larger institutions. Why that is critical is that if we come back earlier, to the two classes that are covered now in the present Workers Compensation Act, the two classes of coverage…. The two classes — I want to get them exactly right for Hansard so that I’m not misquoting. I seem to be filibustering my own time here. I don’t mean to do that. Here it is.

The first one is, of course, a reaction to one or more traumatic events at work. That’s the first class. The second is one primarily caused by significant work-related stressors, such as bullying or harassment.

Coming back to No. 2, No. 2 is critical — one primarily caused by significant work-related stressors, such as bullying or harassment. Now, why is that important? We all know about people who work in larger institutions. Whether they be government, hospitals or hospital boards, universities, school districts or colleges, or whether they be large places of work — we all know, and have many a story to tell, about workplace bullying and harassment that goes on. In these institutions, very often, people feel that nobody is listening. The reason why they feel that nobody is listening is because you have to prove that a mental health issue would be a direct consequence of your work.

With the presumptive clause, the onus then comes on the employer: rather than to cover something up, to actually deal with the systemic problem. Otherwise, their Workers Compensation Board fees are going to go up. There’s an incentive to actually deal with workplace bullying, if you actually include a presumptive clause for all types of workers covered under the act.

I find it odd that I am the leader of the B.C. Green Party and I’m arguing better labour policy to the NDP. This is a very odd situation. I can only hope that they see the light and recognize what Alberta and Saskatchewan did — that this is about incentivizing safe work environments.

Two years ago now I stood in this House and introduced a bill that would require university campuses to add sexualized violence policies, to insist that they have them. The culture on campuses, from small to big, was one of: “It’s not our problem.” It’s one of not dealing with the problem.

[3:25 p.m.]

These universities and colleges and smaller institutions want to be perceived as safe places for students. So if there’s an issue of sexualized violence, it’s kept under the table. It’s quiet, and policies aren’t really implemented. The Premier at the time stood up and agreed that this was an important issue, and we saw that legislation pass. It has led to good policy being put in at many, but not all, institutions. All institutions have it, but not all have as good a policy as we’ll hear about in the weeks and months coming, ahead.

Nevertheless, it required institutions to recognize that a problem exists. The ultimate penalty that they would have would be the stick of advanced education funding, which could ensure that they actually dealt with it.

In the case of workers compensation, they too have a stick. If you are in an unhealthy work environment, one that’s conducive to bullying and harassment…. We all know examples of this going on. If your management does not step in to deal with it and workers start to go on leave and, following the presumptive clause, that reason for leave is actually pinned on the work environment — without having to relive it and prove it — then there’s an incentive to actually stop, to intervene, because your premiums will go up. You can bet that when it starts to affect your bottom line, it will make a difference.

I will not accept arguments from government that somehow this is going to cost everyone oh so much. In fact, it should not cost anything. If institutions step up to deal with the problem, they should actually not cause it to rise. It’s there to protect workers. It’s there to save the health care system. And it’s there to ensure that institutions step in to deal with systemic bullying and harassment that too often are ignored in larger institutions across our province.

In Alberta and Saskatchewan, again…. One government is an NDP government. And another government — the Saskatchewan Party — let’s call it a conservative government. Across the spectrum. This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a recognition of good public policy — that employers need to be responsible and that not everybody has the ability to quit a job and go somewhere else.

I want to come back…. I’ve talked about nurses. I’ve talked about teachers. I’ve talked about construction workers. I’ve talked about 911 dispatchers. And I’ve talked about office workers, but there are many other professions. I want to focus right now, a little bit, on 911 operators. I’m going to focus on a story because I think a story says it all.

I cannot accept that government has any rationale not to have 911 operators named in this act. I cannot accept that. We know, according to the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, that public safety personnel — including paramedics, police, firefighters, dispatchers and correction officers — are four times more likely than the general population to screen positive for clinically significant symptoms consistent with one or more of the mental disorders that we’ve been talking about.

If we need the research on that for 911 dispatchers, I have some right here. It’s not a prop. It’s just white paper. I have in my hands a document that I won’t read in its entirety into the record, but it’s a thesis that was from the University of the Fraser Valley, a fine institution from down in the valley.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: Thank you to the member for Chilliwack-Kent. He recognizes it is a very fine institution.

It’s a master of arts in criminal justice. Actually, I suspect our Speaker might be aware of this particular article, because it was from his former department, there at the University of the Fraser Valley. Its title is “Prevalence of PTSD Symptoms in Canadian 911 Operators.” We have an entire study here — and it’s B.C.-focused — that points out the obvious issues with respect to mental illness, particularly PTSD and others, that are associated with emergency dispatchers and call receivers.

[3:30 p.m.]

Let me finish with a story that I’d like to read into the record. This is a story that I’ll read, and I’ve been given permission by the person who got it to read it. She or he has given me that permission. What I’ve done here is — I don’t want to give out any names — I’ve removed any identifying markers in this. It’s a story that I can vouch to be true, from a very real person in a very real part of British Columbia, and that had very profound consequences. This person, now, has told me about how she or he has consulted at least six dispatchers from not committing suicide.

The stories I’ve heard, not only from nurses and teachers but from emergency dispatchers. One of these stories was a caller, a caller who received a 911 call from a passenger who was in a car in motor vehicle accident, reporting that. That passenger sees a head rolling by, a dismembered head. Can you imagine that? The caller is on the phone, dealing with this passenger, as this passenger is in hysterics. That had a profound effect, because that person is the first responder.

I hope government listens to this story and reflects upon it, prior to us debating this in committee stage. The story goes like this:

“Mr. X was his name. He lived on the second floor of a four-storey apartment building, about a block or so away from ‘YYY.’ I don’t remember the street name anymore, although I do remember that it has exterior stairs that go up to each floor, because ERT used them” — that’s emergency response team — “and I remember hearing them stomp up them, clanging on the metal stairs outside his open window.

“I received a 911 call, where all I heard was a muffled sound of pain and then a hangup. When I called back, a male with a thick accent answered, and he didn’t want to talk to me, but clearly he was crying and/or in pain. I worked hard to establish a conversation with him to find out what was going on.

“Eventually he trusted me and told me that he had already committed hara-kiri by stabbing himself in the stomach with a large knife and was currently sitting on his bed, with his entrails hanging out. He tried to kill himself and now was really scared and didn’t want to die alone — not that he didn’t want to die. He just didn’t want to die alone.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

“I created the priority-one call and advised the chief dispatcher, who then continued to listen for a bit, off and on through the call.

“His apartment door was locked, so this became a ‘barricaded man with a weapon’ call, and ERT was called out. He refused to talk to the officer at the window, but when talking to me, he would go back and forth between wanting to live and wanting to die. I convinced him that I cared and that if he wanted to live, then he needed to come outside so the officers and the waiting ambulance could get him to hospital for help.

“He believed me and was going to come out. Then he heard the ERT officer ask for a member at the parking lot to bring him the spud gun. This set Mr. X off on a tangent of terror. He didn’t want to be shot. He wanted to live, but he refused to talk to the ERT member at the window.

“At this time, he was still bleeding, and the knife was still in his stomach. He kept telling me he was going to just pull out the knife and let himself bleed to death if the cop at the window wouldn’t leave.

“On my end, I had my team manager telling me to hang up, the chief dispatcher telling me to hang up. Common sense told me to hang up, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t be the person who caused this man’s death.

“I told Mr. X that he needed to talk to the cop at the window, that they were there to help him. He went really quiet and then wouldn’t answer me when I asked him if he was still there. So I clicked on my mute button so that he would believe that I had hung up — and then just listened.

“All this time, I was typing as well, letting the officers know what was happening, and the dispatcher was doing the same with their stuff. I saw, in the call, the request for the spud gun and that there wasn’t one on scene, but it was on the way. They were waiting and still trying to establish contact with Mr. X, trying to strike up a rapport with him. He kept crying and denying them, accusing them of trying to kill him and asking them to let him talk to me.”

Remember, at this juncture, she’s on the phone with the mute button, unable to speak.

“He blamed them for making me hang up and told them that he was going to die because of it. Car X” — I won’t say what number it was — “was there as well, and he asked the chief dispatcher where the call-taker was. He was advised that I was still on the line but was being silent on mute. They were also still waiting for a negotiator to arrive. He was at least another 30 minutes away at this point.”

[3:35 p.m.]

Hon. Speaker, you’ve got the picture now. A man,— knife in his stomach, entrails hanging out. We now, because he has a knife, have an ERT team. We now have to wait 30 minutes for the ERT team to come because he’s an armed person in there. And who’s on the phone? This one emergency dispatcher.

I continue with the story.

“I knew that Mr. X wasn’t going to live that long. If he was bleeding badly from his belly, then we didn’t have much time. I don’t know who it was, but I heard through my headset an officer yell at the dispatcher to tell me to hang the f… up.”

I’ll let Hansard fill that in if they choose to. I don’t think it’s parliamentary to do so, but I’m reading directly here from this thing:

“I do know, though, that it wasn’t car X because it wasn’t his voice. I know his voice. I felt the horror, the terror of impending death, the helplessness of having my hands tied, incapable of doing anything for this man, and I could not hang up. I was frozen. I was convinced that if I hung up, he was going to die. I also believed at that point that if I said anything more, I would be in big trouble. So I sat there for about ten minutes, listening, vibrating physically, and tears running down my face. I saw in the call that the spud gun had arrived, and I could hear the dispatcher’s comments that an ERT member was trying to get a clear shot from the window. They were going to shoot him.

“Now, common sense tells me that this won’t kill the average man” — it’s a spud gun, hon. Speaker — “but this man already had his guts hanging out of his belly, had already lost a lot of blood and was already traumatized by all this.” I’m quoting again: “F…!”

No need to fill it in. It’s in the text here. This is a direct quote that was given to a psychiatrist in terms of what happened.

“I looked over at the dispatcher, who was looking at me. She very slowly nodded her head at me in my tears. She knew that I could change this around if I was allowed to try. I think she was telling me to go ahead and do it anyways. At this point, I had created the call almost 40 minutes ago.”

That’s 40 minutes this woman, this call receiver, sat through this traumatic event. And there wasn’t much time left, if any, at all.

“I made the decision and typed into the call that I had established a trust with the man and that I was going to re-establish contact with him now. At this point, Mr. X was yelling at the cops to all go away and leave him alone to die, that he was going to die and it was all their fault. I started saying his name over and over until he stopped yelling and he heard me. I started talking with him again, got him to listen to what I was saying and trust me again. I talked him into coming outside with his hands up and letting the officers get him the help he needed, and he did. I typed this into the call, and the chief dispatcher came back on the line. She coordinated it with the ERT at the door while I talked to Mr. X. He was scared, but he did it. He unlocked the door. Then we counted to three, and he opened it and stepped outside.

“I heard the officers take him down and him screaming all the way through it. They got him into the ambulance and off to hospital. I then hung up and just about collapsed. I had to leave the room. But on my way out, I heard the chief dispatcher talking on the phone with someone that I could assume was car X. She was defending me, telling that person, ‘Well, she did, so it doesn’t matter…. Well, she did….’ as I walked past her out of the room.

“When I came back into the room about 20 minutes later, car X was there talking to my team manager. He was visibly angry and told me in a very stern voice: ‘I don’t ever want to hear of you doing that again.’ But then he stuck his hand out to shake mine and said: ‘Good job. You should take negotiator training.’ What? I was left with the feeling of not knowing whether I was in trouble or being congratulated, whether I was coming or going.

“I never found out whether or not Mr. X lived. I tried to find out a few months later. The officers didn’t know, and victim services was unable to confirm he survived, which equals he did not.

“I feel the guilt and responsibility for this young man’s death. It is a moral injury that I will likely never recover from. The kicker here: my employer and X inspectors wrote me an ‘attaboy’ for a job well done. They congratulated me for successfully causing a human being’s death. I didn’t sign up for that. I’m not a police officer. I was never prepared for this possibility.”

Now, that is just one of many, many such stories that I have received over the last few weeks. I’ve got stories like this from nurses, and I’ve got stories like this from teachers, and I’ve got stories like this from a diverse array of professions.

[3:40 p.m.]

One thing I cannot accept is that when in opposition, this government delivered a private member’s bill that included, specifically, 911 dispatchers and callers. Now, when in government, they leave out 911 dispatchers and call receivers.

They are first responders. In many cases, they are the first responder and the last person to hear someone alive, the last person to be the first responder while someone’s alive. They listen to cases like this. There are many, many other examples.

I understand that some emergency dispatchers are paramedics and so would be covered and that some are police officers and so would be covered, but not all. Many are just civilians and need to be covered under this legislation.

So over the course of the estimates, I have a series of amendments to bring forward — one of which I hope is passed, which I’m putting in; it’s on the order paper — to extend this legislation across other jurisdictions, all other workers, as defined in the act, just like they’ve done in Alberta, just like they’ve done in Saskatchewan, to actually protect workers from abusive work environments as well as to provide presumptive clauses not only for systemic harassment and bullying but also for traumatic events.

That’s the first, and I hope government sees the wisdom in that. As people look at the order paper amendment that I’ll bring in at committee stage, you’ll note that I recognize that government may have done some backwork. So royal assent with the amendment would remain the same now, as proposed here, but would be extended a year so that we would give government a time to have royal assent for all other workers not already defined in the amendment here.

That’s the first one. I have some subsequent ones, hoping it won’t be necessary to raise, under the assumption that government recognizes that we can do better. We can do better, and at least, we’ve got to do as well as Alberta and Saskatchewan. We’re a western province.

We value our workplace. For the first time in a very long time, we have a progressive, democratic government here, a government that actually brought in private members’ bills to do this and, in my view, are timidly responding in a populist fashion only to those who’ve directly lobbied, without thinking about the broader consequences and the broader opportunity that is sitting before us now. I thank you for your attention, and I look forward to debating this further at committee stage.

Hon. S. Simpson: I’m very happy to join the debate on Bill 9 related to the Workers Compensation Amendment Act, related to the issue of presumptive clause for first responders. I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to spend a few minutes to add my voice to this debate.

What Bill 9 does is establishes a presumptive clause for a group of workers, including first responders, paramedics, firefighters, police, as well as Corrections and sheriffs. It says that under WorkSafe coverage, those workers, should they face a mental health injury or PTSD, will now be deemed to have incurred that illness, that injury, in the workplace.

They will be able to move immediately to receive services related to that injury. That’s important, because we know that around mental health injuries, around PTSD, the ability to intervene quickly and to support people early in that process will lead to getting healthy again and to people getting back their lives.

[3:45 p.m.]

We certainly know — from the tragic stories that we’ve heard across the country about first responders in terms of the inordinately high numbers of suicides, the numbers of the incidence of mental health injuries — that first responders are impacted in ways that are dramatically different than other workers in the workplace. That’s the reality of what the research tells us.

I’m very pleased that our government has brought this legislation forward. It’s something that has been important to me for a number of years. I had the opportunities while sitting on the opposition benches to bring a private member’s legislation — in a couple of instances, to in fact call on the government to introduce legislation that would have put a presumptive clause for first responders in place.

To be fair to the government, the government never opposed the legislation; they simply never brought it forward. They never allowed the private member’s bill to come to the floor of the House. As a consequence, we didn’t have a presumptive structure for first responders.

The argument at the time was that WorkSafe B.C. in fact provided services to people struggling with mental health injuries, and that’s true. But it still required those workers to go through a long — sometimes far too long — and inordinate amount of hoops to get to the point where they in fact were accepted for service, moving forward.

One of the things that happened around that…. Of course, one of the big issues as to why the current system that this legislation will change didn’t work is because what we know about mental health injuries and about PTSD — and what we know about it particularly for first responders — is that it’s hardly ever the cause of a single incident — unlike if you have a roofer who’s up on the roof and falls, who falls off the roof and breaks their leg. We know what happened, and we know when it happened. They can go to WorkSafe, and they can receive appropriate supports then.

What we know about mental health injuries is that it is often a question of cumulative impact. It’s a question of spending ten or 15 or more years on the job delivering very essential and critical services to British Columbians — in the case of our first responders, delivering those critical services and always facing the pressure of what is a very, very stressful job and often a job where you are going to scenes where there are trauma, fatality, horrific injuries. It’s your job to go, to step up, whether you be a firefighter or a police officer or a paramedic, and take action to protect people, to save people’s lives, to support people who are facing these often-catastrophic situations.

As a paramedic said to me at one time, and it resonated very well with me: “It’s kind of like the backpack theory. Every time you go to one of these situations, you put another rock in the backpack, and you keep doing that. At some point, there’s a consequence to that if you don’t figure out how to take some rocks out of the backpack.” I’ll talk a little bit about that in a minute.

The challenge here is that it is so often a cumulative situation of years of critical service to the people of British Columbia. What we know is that because of the nature of the departments, whether it be police departments or fire departments or the Ambulance Service, they are challenged in the ability to document those situations, so we don’t have the records to be able to make the argument, often, about that cumulative impact. And sometimes those impacts may not be evident when the situation is happening.

This legislation says that the evidence that we have…. And the evidence is supplied; it’s supplied in many, many ways by different folks. What it does show, as the national survey that was published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in 2017…. What that survey did….

[3:50 p.m.]

It was a survey of 5,800 participants, and it showed — these are first responders — the evidence, in that Journal of Psychiatry, that 44½ percent of those people who were screened, screened positive for clinically significant symptom clusters with one or more mental disorders. In contrast, Statistics Canada will tell us that, in the general population, the rate is about 10 percent of the population.

We also know, because the statistics are there and they’re tragic, of the inordinate numbers of suicides among first responders — just enormously higher than the general population.

This comes back to the issue that I believe we’re discussing today, which is traumatic mental health injuries that are faced by people who do this work, who are involved in these professions that are so very important to us, as British Columbians, every day and are particularly important when you need to call 911 because there is something happening in your life that you desperately need help.

When you make that call, you are looking for that person or that team to show up at your door, whether they are police, fire or ambulances, to give you the help that you need. There are consequences to that all too often for people who are in that profession.

There has been a great amount of momentum building over the last number of years for this presumptive clause. We have seen it with the unions that represent first responders. We have seen it with the departments themselves that those professionals and first responders work for, as they’ve stepped up. We’ve seen it with individuals who are struggling with the challenge of PTSD or other mental health injuries who have stood up and been articulate and persistent advocates for the kind of change that this legislation will bring today for people in these areas.

It’s important for a whole range of reasons. We know, as we deal with mental health issues, stigma is always a consideration and always a concern. It’s my hope that this legislation will add another piece to the plan to reduce the stigma around mental health injuries and around mental health disorders, that we will understand it and be better at it.

Also, I’m very hopeful that this legislation, when it passes and becomes law, and with other supports, will add to the supports that we need to bring to the table to support preventative services for first responders.

This legislation will go a long way to supporting an individual — a paramedic or a firefighter or a police officer — who’s struggling. It will go a long way to support them. But what we need to do is to put in place the tools and the programs. I know there’s a lot of work going on in these fields today, but we need to put in place the tools and the programs to support our first responders as they do their work.

We need better tools to support the debriefing that has to happen after traumatic situations. We need to have better tools to support the documentation of the incidents that the first responders go out and respond to. We need to be able to support first responders and their colleagues to recognize those situations when they begin to see it in their co-workers. And we need to support spouses and families of first responders.

We need to have a place for the wife or the husband of a first responder to go when they see that their loved one comes home and maybe has a couple of more drinks than they used to have, or they come home and they seem to always be angry with the kids or angry with their loved one. They’ve got to have a place that they can go, and they know it’s a safe place, to say: “There’s something going on here, and we need some help.”

[3:55 p.m.]

It has to be able to happen in a way that’s safe for everybody, because what we know is that for a number of first responders, they buried these issues, and they buried them for a couple of reasons, I believe.

First of all, people who decide to go into these professions will tend to be alpha personalities to start with. They tend to kind of suck it up because that’s what they do. They also, though, have fear that should they come forward, they might put their careers in jeopardy. We need to be able to assure them that that’s not going to happen, that we’re going to reach out and support them to get better and to be able to go back to work, continue their careers and continue to have healthy lives because they were able to step up and say “I need help” and to do that with the security that they’re not going to put their careers at risk. That’s an important part of the learning process that bringing this legislation in, I believe, supports.

There’s been talk about the question of who’s included in this list of first responders and who’s not. I respect very much the comments of the Leader of the Third Party. I have heard from professions that believe they should be included, too, and I respect that. I very much appreciate that the Minister of Labour, when he prepared this legislation, was very thoughtful about that and included the ability in the legislation, by regulation, to include more classifications and groups of workers. I think that’s really important.

I think, though, that what we have today is a foundational piece of legislation. I’ll remind the House…. I can go back to when we first adopted a presumptive clause for cancers for firefighters. That was after many, many years of professional firefighters coming and making their case to governments and to legislators that this Legislature unanimously passed legislation that brought a presumptive clause for firefighters as it related to cancers and heart conditions.

Now, what we know, though, is that when that was first passed, I think there were two or maybe three cancers on that list. Then every year after that, more work was done, more evidence was provided, and cancers and conditions were added to that list. I believe there are now eight or nine cancers on that list. The foundation was put in place. There was no longer the need to kick the door open on this. That was done. It was now a question of providing the evidence.

I’m confident that those same conversations can go on in terms of any future consideration about adding other professions that provide critical services, whether they be public services, non-profit service providers or private sector service providers, where it makes sense. I think we can do that. And I know that the minister who is responsible for this legislation is keenly aware that those conversations will go on, heading into the future, as they should.

This legislation today puts the fundamentals in place. It creates the opportunity for us to be able to have that conversation with other groups of workers who can bring legitimate concerns about their need to be included. The thing to understand about this is that it is WorkSafe. There’s a scope around mental health injuries relating to health care that we need to respond to. The responsibility of WorkSafe is to respond to those workplace injuries that may be of a mental health nature.

We need to also be careful, because there is great potential here, once you broaden this out…. I very much appreciated the Leader of the Third Party talking about two other jurisdictions. There are seven jurisdictions in the country that have comparable legislation to what we’re debating here today, and there are two of those seven that have broader interpretations around broader groups of workers. I respect that, but it has to be about the workplace if it’s WorkSafe.

[4:00 p.m.]

We can find other ways to approach individuals who are struggling with mental health injuries, and we need to do that. But when it comes to the workplace, the distinguishment between whether it is a work-related injury or it’s related to some other part of your life is going to be a point of debate. We need to do more work to understand how to distinguish that in ways that don’t essentially create a situation where a worker coming forward — should you broaden this legislation, which I think is a fair point of discussion moving forward…. But being able to distinguish as to whether this injury was related to their work situation or related to some other aspect of their life.

You’re going to have those debates and those questions raised by a workers compensation board. That’s what their job is. I think, though, that there is a great amount of evidence with the groups that have been identified in this legislation as first responders and sheriffs and corrections officers that we can confidently say that those workers are captured by a very difficult job that they do, a job where they face, every day, personal risk to them.

They face situations that you and I would never want to have to deal with and be exposed to. It is their job. But just because it’s their job doesn’t mean that we don’t have to step up and support them when they’re struggling because they’re helping us and they’re doing the work that we’ve asked them to do.

I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words, and I do want to say some real thank-yous. I’ve been working on this issue for a few years now. I know that I’ve talked to chiefs of police, and I’ve talked to fire chiefs. I’ve talked to senior officials in the paramedic service. I’ve talked to the unions that represent those bodies and their leaders. They have all evolved and grown to the point where they have been strong voices for these changes.

I’ve met many, many individuals who have come forward and struggled personally with these issues. Part of their challenge of getting through the struggle of PTSD or a mental health injury has been to become a strong voice, an advocate for themselves and for their colleagues who are facing those challenges.

I think of my colleague the Minister of Labour when he identified some of the individuals. You always face the risk that you will leave people out. I know I’ll do that. But I do want to acknowledge people who, for me, have been strong voices, who have never let me forget the importance of this and have been on my case pretty much every day since the conversation started. I thank them for that, because it was a good thing to keep me motivated on these issues. That includes Lisa Jennings. It includes Darren Gregory. It includes Rae-Lynne Dix. It includes Terrance Kosikar and others, many others. I’ve heard from lots of people over the years on this.

We have an opportunity now to do something important here, to put the foundational pieces in place to support people who need our support at times. We all know that if you need the police, if your house is on fire, if your loved one has had a heart attack, and you pick up that phone and call 911, the person you want to see coming through your door is the person who’s going to help you with this crisis in your life at that moment. We count on them every day, in every part of this province.

We know now, without doubt, that they struggle in doing the very difficult job that we task them to do, and that they pay a large price, often at a personal level. They need our help. We stand up for them; they stand for us when we desperately need them.

These first responders, these sheriffs, these corrections officers need our help. This legislation goes a big way to do that. It’s not just our obligation. We should do it proudly, because they certainly stand up proudly every day to support British Columbians.

[4:05 p.m.]

I’m very hopeful and I’m expecting that we will have unanimous support to bring this forward when it comes to a vote. I’m very pleased that we’re finally getting this done.

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

Hon. H. Bains: I want to take this opportunity to thank the speakers who spoke here on Bill 9, starting with our critic, the member for Chilliwack. I want to thank him for the support that he’s shown. I want to thank the Leader of the Third Party for his very, very thoughtful comments that he brought forth and different areas that he feels are left out and what we do with it. I just want to say this to all of those.

Especially, I want to thank the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction for his comments and his work that he’s done for a number of years now, speaking to the advocates, speaking to the unions, their representatives, the police chiefs, the fire chiefs and all others who have worked tirelessly over the years trying to put the science together, trying to collect data to come here, lobby and to convince us why this piece of legislation was needed. I want to thank all of them.

I guess I just want to say that I am also concerned, and I really take this with a great deal of respect from many members who made many suggestions. To the groups that are mentioned that may have been left out, I just want to say this: I could have waited and collected the information, collected the data, collected the science, to have a lot more of those who deserve to be included in this bill. But I think the work on these occupations was done. We couldn’t wait any longer.

My approach to this was, let’s deal with this now, and engage in our consultation and collect our data, the information and the science behind who else could be included. That’s why we have the enabling language in this piece of legislation, Bill 9 — that I could add, as we move forward, other groups through regulations.

I think that’s one thing that I want to leave for everyone to consider. It’s not that other groups were left out because they’re less deserving. I thought we were ready to move on these occupations, but we need additional information, more science, to support adding more groups. I will start engaging the process as soon as we go through this bill, Bill 9.

I want to thank all of those who have shown concern to me and other members of the government and the opposition members. You’re not forgotten. You’re not less deserving. All we are saying is that we need additional information before we move forward with any additional groups.

With that, I want to say thank you. And because it is such an important issue, why we couldn’t wait any longer…. There are too many. Those who are supporting us when we need them. Those who put their lives on the line when they’re protecting us. Those who are first on a crash site — having to see and experience horrific scenes and sights — and, as a result, are affected by mental health disorders. Too many of them are suffering quietly, alone. Many have taken their lives. That’s why it was so important that we could not wait any longer.

Of course there are others who are just as deserving. We will be looking at adding more groups, because we do have the capacity, through regulations, to add more groups. Work hasn’t stopped. This is just the beginning, because at the end of the day, I want to make sure that every worker who goes to work comes home in the same shape that they went to work in.

[4:10 p.m.]

That should be the goal of all of us. That’s what they deserve. That’s what their families deserve. That’s what society is all about.

So many people out there have done so much work in advocating on behalf of those workers. These are the people who create wealth, working with their employers for the businesses. Together, they create wealth. They get injured, they get illnesses at workplaces, and it’s our duty to make sure we protect them. The cost of not doing it is much, much, much higher — not just the just financial but the human cost. We cannot let that happen.

My commitment is to make sure that every worker gets health and safety protection when they’re at workplaces and that we provide them support when they are injured or when they are affected by illnesses related to the workplaces at a time when they need it. I think that’s my commitment. That’s what we’re going to deliver on.

With that, I now move second reading of Bill 9.

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 of the House after today.

Bill 9, Workers Compensation 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. M. Farnworth: I call second reading of Bill 14.

BILL 14 — TAXATION STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Hon. C. James: I will do my best. I apologize for the voice.

I rise and move that Bill 14 be read a second time now.

The amendments in the Income Tax Act, as I talked about in the introduction of the bill, really relate to recent changes made in the federal Income Tax Act. Many of these are routine, and this is the kind of bill that will often come forward after a budget to make sure we’re matching up with any changes that have been made in the federal Income Tax Act.

There are also some changes within this bill that are required under the tax collection agreement that British Columbia has with the federal government. Other amendments maintain the policy intent of existing British Columbia income tax programs. So where there were changes in the budget, you will see them reflected in the changes that are made in this income tax statutes amendment act.

Just to give a quick overview of a couple of the sections, amendments are being made to the small business rate rules to mirror the amendments that were made in 2016 to the federal Income Tax Act in limiting the multiplication of the small business deductions. So this isn’t related to the 2018 budget; this is related to the 2016 budget.

There are amendments being made to the mining exploration tax credit to ensure consistency in the definitions used elsewhere in the Income Tax Act and in the federal Income Tax Act. So if a company is claiming the credit-earned revenues before they entered into commercial production, this addresses that piece. The bill also restores the restriction on extending the filing due to the date for this credit.

There are amendments being made to the training tax credit and the refundable sales tax credit to ensure consistency with the federal taxpayer relief provisions to make sure, again, that we mirror those with the federal act. They allow credits claimed by individuals to be refunded for up to ten years. So it’s, again, maintaining that consistency.

There are amendments being made to the B.C. refundable sales tax credit to ensure that if a spouse or a common-law partner is claiming the credit, they must be a resident in B.C. — so, again, tightening up that language.

Members may read in this legislation that there are amendments to the B.C. Family Bonus program. That’s simply to reflect that this program is completed now, and the benefits under that program are now being provided through the Canada child benefit. Again, this is simply a transfer of the program that’s being done at the federal level.

There are several minor changes being made to incorporate federal changes to the calculation of the failure-to-report penalty. There are amendments made to ensure that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council has the ability to make regulatory changes retroactive, when required, simply to meet the obligation under the tax collection agreement. So it doesn’t expand the ability to make regulations. It’s simply focused on the tax collection agreement that is in place with the federal government.

[4:15 p.m.]

Finally, provisions are introduced to apply regulations required for the calculation of interest in the Insurance Premium Tax Act and the Logging Tax Act, which are required due to an amendment made in the spring of 2017.

That’s a quick summary of the sections. I know there will be more specifics at committee stage. I look forward to further discussions. Hopefully, the voice will be back by the time we get there.

T. Redies: Thank you, Minister, for your opening comments, particularly with the condition of your voice. I hope it gets better.

We do appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill 14 in its second reading. And given its highly technical nature, we also appreciated the briefing that the ministry allowed us this morning with the staff. I’d like to thank you and thank the staff for their time, although I must admit, I still had to read the bill many times before I think I understood what was happening.

As indicated, Bill 14 is primarily a technical bill that is seeking to align the B.C. Income Tax Act with changes to the federal income tax, along with some additional cleanup language regarding some minor errors or omissions in the B.C. Income Tax Act.

I think the minister will be glad to know that for once, I have only a few comments to make. Although given the condition of her voice, she might like me to drone on for a long, long time.

Given the requirements for the B.C. income tax to align with the federal income tax, we understand why this is being put forward. But with any tax bill, our primary interest is how changes in tax regulation will impact individual small business and corporate taxpayers. I think it’s important to state that we are in a very highly sensitized environment with respect to taxation, especially when it comes to business and property owners in this province.

Whether it’s corporate or carbon tax increases, the September budget or the most recent February budget with the introduction of the EHT and additional taxation on real estate, plus the planned minimum wage’s impacts, business owners that I’ve talked to are reeling from a number of what they see as punitive measures being taken by government. Of course, it’s not just the one tax. It’s a combination of taxes that are making businesses feel a bit uncomfortable. So it’s really important that we’re transparent in this particular bill as to what actually is happening.

We are looking forward, at the committee stage, to being able to speak to the minister about the real impacts to individual small business and corporate taxpayers. With that, we’re looking forward to those discussions at committee stage. As I said, we’ll have a number of questions for the minister on that basis. At this point in time, we are happy to move forward and look forward to the next stage, at the committee, and asking questions of the minister and her staff.

A. Olsen: I wasn’t quite expecting it to be so brief on the other side, but I might actually achieve being more brief than the official opposition was. I also am prepared to, as this bill moves forward…. As it has just been handed to me, I’ve yet to have the ability to go into it in any depth. As it is technical, and I don’t come from the background, I might have to read it several times.

Nonetheless, I’ve had a conversation with our staff, as we started to look into it. We recognize the technical nature of it. To have it move forward and to canvass it in more detail…. But at this stage, we recognize that it’s a good opportunity to move it forward and to go in depth with the Finance Minister perhaps when her voice returns.

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

Hon. C. James: Thank you to the members for their comments. Yes, as we’ve talked about, I think it is important that we have the opportunity, although this is a mainly technical bill and does, for most of the provisions, simply mirror what the federal act has changed and, therefore, makes sure that the provincial act follows the federal act, whether it’s around penalties or tax being paid. There are a couple of additional pieces. Transparency is important. I think it is important to have that opportunity, and we’ll do that at committee stage.

With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

[4:20 p.m.]

Hon. C. James: 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 14, Taxation Statutes 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. M. Farnworth: I call second reading of Bill 12.

BILL 12 — TENANCY STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Hon. S. Robinson: I move that Bill 12, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, 2018, be now read a second time.

British Columbia’s housing crisis is hurting people. It’s hurting businesses, and it’s hurting communities. In this tight rental market, tenants are worried about where they will live or if they’ll even have a home. Loopholes in tenancy laws have left British Columbians worried that renting is no longer a secure or affordable form of housing.

This bill amends the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act and the Residential Tenancy Act. I’m pleased to provide an overview of this important piece of legislation that delivers on our commitment to provide greater protections to renters in British Columbia. These amendments respond to two key issues, issues that tenants face in this particularly low vacancy rental market: the closure of manufactured home parks and eviction for renovation or demolition.

With manufactured home parks, when they are closed for redevelopment, the tenants living in those parks often face very significant hardships. The tenants who live in these manufactured home communities own their home, but they rent out the space that the home sits on. These communities and these parks are often home to low-income seniors, persons with disabilities and young families who face real challenges in finding other affordable housing. Vacant sites are scarce, and many manufactured homes just cannot be moved because of their age or their condition. If a new site can be found, the cost of relocating the home can be very high.

These changes to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act are about strengthening protections for manufactured home park tenants, deterring landlords from using provisions in the act to unlawfully evict tenants and ensuring that there is fair compensation and due process when tenants are displaced. These provisions work in conjunction with local government policies that outline manufactured home park redevelopment and relocation obligations.

In terms of compensation for moving, a current park owner is required to provide compensation of 12 months’ pad rental to impacted tenants when a park is being closed. When you have a pad rental that is somewhere between $200 and $700 a month, this compensation does not begin to cover the costs of actually moving a manufactured home.

Instead, we are proposing an amount, defined by regulation, that will take into account the average cost of moving. We expect it will be in the range of about $20,000, and it will be paid to all tenants at the end of the tenancy. This will allow park owners to have certainty about their costs when considering whether to redevelop their property.

In situations where a manufactured home cannot be relocated, the impact to the tenant is even greater. Changes to the act will allow additional compensation in these circumstances to mitigate this loss. A tenant with a manufactured home valued at more than the expected compensation amount of $20,000 can apply to the director for additional compensation.

A regulation will outline the criteria to determine whether the home can actually be relocated — for example, if no suitable site is available or if the home doesn’t meet safety or transportation standards. It will also define the formula for calculating this additional compensation, like assessed value minus the initial compensation amount. What this means is that a tenant with a manufactured home valued at $40,000 could receive that amount of compensation — the flat amount of $20,000, plus $20,000 of additional compensation for the remaining value of the home.

While these tenants are still faced with the challenge of finding affordable housing, the financial impact of losing their home is not as great. If a tenant can’t relocate their manufactured home and receives compensation, we want to make sure that this compensation isn’t clawed back through the cost of disposal or destruction of their home. Changes in this act will make it clear that the landlord cannot seek disposal costs from the tenant in these situations.

The existing act contains provisions which require a landlord to pay compensation equal to six months’ pad rental to a tenant where the landlord ended the tenancy for the purpose of redevelopment but didn’t follow through on the plans within a reasonable period of time. The tenant has up to two years to make a claim.

[4:25 p.m.]

These amendments will increase that compensation. If you’re paying a pad rental of $200 a month, that’s not a significant deterrent to compensate for bad faith, so these amendments will increase that compensation amount and define the amount by regulation.

As pad rental varies, a formula based on rent amount may not be significant enough as a deterrent. Instead, we’ll set in regulation a minimum amount that a landlord will have to pay to the tenant, and we will then have the flexibility to change it if necessary.

The final piece relates to the notice period. Currently the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act requires a landlord to provide tenants with 12 months’ notice if they intend to convert their park to a different use. However, there are different rules for fixed-term tenancies that are related to the length of the term. We want to make these notice periods consistent so that tenants in the park are all receiving the same 12-month notice.

The second piece of legislation related to the renovation and demolition component relates to evictions for renovation or demolition of a rental. We know that the difficulties facing tenants in situations where landlords are redeveloping or renovating properties is quite significant.

The provisions in the Residential Tenancy Act allow landlords to give notice to end a tenancy agreement if they are undertaking major renovations that require the unit to be completely empty. These provisions are intended to only allow evictions where total vacancy is required and ending the tenancy is the only option. When tenants are willing to relocate for short terms to allow for renovations, it is our expectation that landlords will continue to accommodate them.

Unfortunately, there are some landlords who are evicting tenants for minor renovations, such as painting or new carpets, so they can rent to a new tenant at a much higher rate. Allowing evictions for minor renovations to re-rent the unit at a heightened rent was never the intent of the legislation.

However, the issue of redevelopment is a complex one, and it requires us to balance the needs of tenants with the goal of maintaining a supply of good-quality, safe, affordable rental housing in the private market. We don’t want to stop the reinvestment in rental properties. Upgrades are absolutely crucial to keeping B.C.’s rental housing stock in good condition, especially considering the age of much of this stock.

Landlords who are doing minor cosmetic changes to get new tenants at a higher rate need to know that this is not acceptable under the law, so we are proposing a number of changes. These initial changes will give tenants more time to find a new place to live. It will give tenants more time to file a dispute of eviction. It will allow a tenant a right of first refusal on the renovated unit. And it will bring bigger consequences for landlords who evict unlawfully. These provisions work in conjunction with local government policies that outline redevelopment and relocation obligations.

In terms of the notice period, right now, a landlord has to give a tenant two months’ notice to end tenancy to renovate, to redevelop their property or to convert it to another use. We know that the stress this puts on tenants is significant. They are not only losing their homes, but they also have to scramble, particularly in this tight rental market, to find a new place to live in a very short period of time. Four months’ notice gives tenants a better chance to find another home in the community they live.

We are also doubling the amount of time it takes to file a dispute. Right now landlords who end tenancies to do minor cosmetic repairs and then raise the rent rely on the fact that many tenants don’t understand their rights and may not be ready to file an application to dispute the notice to end tenancy within the current 15-day window. Their sense of panic and worry is significant in those first few days.

There’s an example here, in Victoria, where in a building, a landlord gave eviction notice for renovation to all the tenants, but only one tenant disputed the notice and went to a hearing. The arbitrator ruled that the landlord didn’t have the necessary permits, and the tenant was allowed to stay. We’re proposing an increase from 15 days to 30 days, and it will give tenants a little bit more time to do their research and to file a dispute and, ultimately, stop their eviction.

Further public education may also help encourage tenants to take advantage of their right to dispute these situations if they believe the landlord’s intentions in ending the tenancy are not honest.

[4:30 p.m.]

Proposed changes will also allow a tenant to exercise a right of first refusal when given notice for a renovation. This only applies in buildings with five or more units. The tenant would have the opportunity to move back into the unit after completion of the renovation. However, market rates would apply in this case.

These provisions are not intended to change the threshold on which arbitrators would determine whether an eviction for renovation was allowable under the law. But when eviction really is the only option, these changes are designed to ensure that the tenant has the right to return to that unit when the renovations are complete.

Now, the market is full of good landlords, and we want to make sure that we don’t inadvertently penalize them. That’s why deterrence is one of our main objectives of these amendments. Right now, a landlord has to pay a tenant just two months rent if the tenant moves out and the landlord doesn’t use the rental unit for the reason that they stated they needed to end the tenancy.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

In areas where rents are rising fast, landlords can quickly recover this amount by getting a new tenant at a much higher rent. These amendments increase this amount now to 12 months rent, a significant cost for intentionally using the law in bad faith. Landlord and tenant groups agree that this will put a halt to the practice of evicting tenants for minor upgrades or saying that a family member is moving in when they have no intention of ever doing so.

Instead of compensation being automatic, we want to give arbitrators the discretion to consider extenuating circumstances when deciding to order compensation. For example, if a landlord planned to move in his mother, but she died suddenly, he can then provide information to the arbitrator and likely avoid paying compensation. We think this strikes a fair balance between the rights of tenants and the rights of landlords.

Compensation for bad-faith evictions would also apply in situations where a landlord uses a vacate clause but has no intention of moving back in. This is further protection to the changes related to vacate clauses that were introduced this last fall.

I look forward to the members’ comments on this important piece of legislation, and I hope that everyone here today joins me in support of Bill 12.

S. Sullivan: Thank you, Minister. We’re pleased to see this bill and very happy to see many of the elements in it. We support all efforts to protect renters and to keep housing affordable.

We do have some issues, concerns, that we’d like to bring up, that the minister would like to consider, to make the legislation even better. First of all, I’d like to just state the obvious. This does nothing to address the single greatest factor in housing shortage in this province, which is supply — supply of housing. As a renter myself, I know that my greatest security is having a good supply of rental housing. We need more rental housing than we have renters. That would be the perfect scenario.

We must remember that there are actions that sometimes can, even though they’re intended to help, actually harm the issue of supply. We’ve seen many actions that this government — and, in fact, the previous government — have taken to try to get ahead of bad landlords and people who are taking advantage of the system. You can see them as temporary fixes. Really, they are meant to try to manage the really great problem of lack of supply. So even though we will try to keep up with changes and try to keep up with people who are trying to game the system, the real answer is greater supply.

I appreciate that there’s more than one contributing factor at play. There are more issues than supply. On this side of the House, we understand that a government can walk and chew gum at the same time. We need to do everything we can to protect renters. But any step to address the housing shortage that does not even mention supply feels like a missed opportunity.

Second, there are some vague points that I believe could improve the legislation by having some clarification. For example, the bill increases compensation if renters are evicted if the owner wants to move into the home themselves but has failed to move in after a reasonable time. The question would be: what is a reasonable time? One month? Three months?

[4:35 p.m.]

Is there any consideration given to extenuating circumstances, such as additional renovations, natural disasters, personal tragedy? Who decides what is reasonable? This bill is vague. You can easily see how different interpretations of the word “reasonable” could lead to disagreements, could even lead to lawsuits.

Third, I hope that the government has done due diligence on the effects some of the specific changes may have on the market.

Now, I’d like to give a couple of examples of some things that do involve unintended consequences. For example, I have a neighbour in my neighbourhood that is a U.S. resident, and he uses his Yaletown condo the same way many British Columbians use a little bungalow in Palm Springs or Palm Desert or such. He actually comes up here just because he loves it here. He works in the U.S., but he loves being here, and he does this whenever he has time. He is now…. Because of the speculation tax and the considerations of this and the foreign buyer tax, he has actually sold his place, and now he rents.

There are a number of people that are actually putting more pressure on the rental market because of some of the unintended consequences of some of the tax changes that are being considered.

Another neighbour of mine — he lives in my building — owns an air-conditioning company. He’s built it up to a very significant size, does work all over the region. He has a home in Aldergrove. When he’s in the valley doing work, he will often stay in that home. When he’s on the North Shore or in downtown Vancouver, he will stay in his Yaletown apartment. He now finds himself the target of…. Well, being called a speculator, for one thing.

He was quite incensed when I explained to him that MLAs have two homes. Many of them are actually given money by the government to buy a second home. Some rent, some take hotels, and some purchase. So MLAs, of all people, understand that sometimes employment requires people to have second homes. My neighbour was quite incensed that MLAs have avoided this. In fact, most MLAs here would not qualify as a…. They would actually be targeted by a vacancy tax. Most of us do not stay in our second homes in Victoria long enough to avoid a vacancy tax.

I mean, it is very wonderful that we have found ways to exempt ourselves from this, but I think we should also consider some of the other people in the private sector who require second homes for the work that they do.

All sides of this House support protecting renters and ensuring that they’re treated fairly. For example, if a tenant is evicted and the compensation fails to even cover moving costs, it can hardly be described as fair compensation. But as with anything else, this can be taken too far. There is a golden mean that we should be striving for.

Now, for example, if legislation made it financially difficult to own a manufactured home park, or discouraged owners from making improvements, that would be counterproductive. Even with the very best of intentions, we need to be careful not to hamper investment, not to discourage improvements or in any way impede the creation of badly needed supply. As I say, the best security for renters is good supply — more rental units than there are renters. That would be the ideal.

Every tool the government has at its disposal can be pushed past the point of usefulness. It could become something that hurts the economy or everyday people.

[4:40 p.m.]

For example, the NDP government may feel the province’s highest earners should pay higher and higher rates of income tax. But we can all agree that at a certain point, there are diminishing returns. They call it the Laffer curve.

For example, this bill would give renters the right of refusal to move back in if evicted for renovations. On the surface, this sounds reasonable, but we should be cautious of intruding too far into the basic principles that owners should have the final word when it comes to their own property. We’re not talking about slumlords here. We’re talking about ordinary British Columbians who have stretched to make a substantial investment in their family’s future.

I want to be clear. We support efforts to protect renters. I am a renter myself, and I’m very personally committed to this, as is my hon. member across the way. Yes, we are one of the few.

Hon. A. Dix: We are.

S. Sullivan: Again, I want to be clear. Let’s support renters. I’d be curious if the government has done any studies or projections on what effect this will have on legitimate renovation and investment. I hope there will be some study done on the impact of — another piece of legislation we passed not too long ago — the fixed tenancy issue.

There were cases where there was a lot of bad behaviour from landlords who were using this fixed tenancy as a loophole to get around the spirit of the law. This has been a good move in many cases, but in some restricted cases it has actually caused some difficulties for renters. For example, right now we have a good friend who’s trying to find a rental place and showed up with 20 other people vying for the rental position.

The situation is that this person, a woman with a dog, was considered by many landlords to be a higher risk. And what has happened is that because they no longer have the option of having a few months of fixed lease to see if the relationship can be a good one and a workable one, the normal thing now is just to say no to anybody who presents any kind of a risk. We also have heard of some people taking their properties off the market because they don’t want to risk it. So the most important thing that we can do is improve the supply of rental housing.

One thing I would like to ensure that the government does on the issue of supply is to consult this watershed study that was just published two months ago by CMHC. This study was done by 30 PhD, post-doctorate economists. They spent about a million and a half dollars. The minister asked them a question: what is behind the high house prices of homes in urban Canada? They spent about a year crunching numbers, working with Stats Canada, incredible data sets, and what they found was that by simply plugging in three variables — income, population and mortgage rates — they were able to predict 75 percent of Vancouver’s high house prices. The three issues: income, population, mortgage rates. That gave them 75 percent.

So then they went to look for the other 25 percent, and they found that in the supply curve, especially of Vancouver’s housing market. Most Canadian cities have healthy supply curves. They’re elastic curves, so that when there’s a rise in house prices, there’s an immediate response by increase of supply.

[4:45 p.m.]

The two cities that stood out as the worst, having the most inelastic supply curves: Toronto, at about 0.5, and Vancouver, the worst on the continent, at 0.25. These are terrible supply curve elasticities.

What it means is that when the price goes up in Vancouver, supply doesn’t arrive. The market is not working.

So they did also do some very interesting studies and found that speculation and investments from foreigners hardly even registers on what is causing high house prices to rise. I do worry, because I know that our Premier has said that “we know with absolute certainty” that money raised in other foreign markets has distorted our housing market.

Well, actually, we know for absolute certainty that’s not true; that, thanks to this CMHC study report — $1.5 million, 30 PhD economists working for a year — it is, in fact, completely false; that this very popular theory, that foreigners are causing our house prices to rise, has now been definitively proven false. I worry that some of the housing policies of the government are based on a completely false, and even malicious, theory. It actually scapegoats certain groups in our province.

I would urge the provincial government to read the report. It’s a 225-page report. It’s brilliant. It has so many great insights into our housing market.

Now, my final point: we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. For thousands of British Columbians, their home is their nest egg. It’s their biggest investment. It’s their family’s future. They invest in their investment. They make improvements to increase the value of their home either for themselves or to sell later down the road.

Not only is this not a bad thing; we need more British Columbians to do it. In the short term, owners are making improvements to existing rental stock. In the long term, it helps address a gap.

Not enough Canadians are saving for their retirements. According to one recent study, almost 40 percent see no point in investing in RRSPs. What many Canadians do instead is invest in a home. These aren’t speculators. They’re not flippers. These are ordinary people playing by the rules, making a tangible investment, one that they can improve themselves. It’s not hard to understand why. If we take steps to make it harder for them, we’re threatening many of their retirement plans.

These are not insurmountable issues or unreasonable questions. I accept the government and the members opposite sincerely want to protect renters from gratuitous eviction. We share their concerns. But we have a responsibility to be clear, avoid vague language and take every effort to ensure owners are treated fairly.

Thousands of British Columbians are depending on home investments to be the bedrock of their families’ future. They’re not the bad guys here or anywhere near it. I hope this government will continue to take their needs into account.

M. Dean: I rise today to speak in favour of Bill 12, improvements to Residential Tenancy Act and Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act. This act supports our government’s commitment to provide stronger protections for tenants facing eviction as a result of renovation or demolition, and higher compensation for manufactured home owners facing relocation as a result of park conversions or closures, with a focus on penalties for bad-faith evictions.

Esquimalt-Metchosin is a diverse constituency. Our communities are all coastal, and they range from urban to suburban to rural. Our communities are full of working families, British Columbians who are working hard, bringing up their families and struggling to get ahead. The housing crisis is one of the main priority issues I hear about from people living in our communities.

[4:50 p.m.]

One of the solutions that has been found, especially in my communities, is to live in a manufactured home. People pay rental for the pad, and they own or maintain their personal manufactured homes. I’ve visited many, many of these homes. People put down their roots, and they build unique homes that meet their needs and express their personalities.

In my community, it’s particularly seniors and people living with disabilities who see manufactured homes as a solution to the housing crisis and lack of affordable homes. In my community, we have had parks full of these homes for decades, and many, many people have made their lifelong homes there and built their communities there. Indeed, many people have invested tens of thousands into their homes and committed to them as their forever places to live. So when the owner of a park decides to evict tenants, for whatever reason — however, it is often for redevelopment — this is a tragedy for many tenants.

In my community, people who live in manufactured homes struggle to find anywhere to rent, and certainly not at the same rate. Most people in my community living in these parks are on fixed incomes and cannot find somewhere alternative that is affordable. Most tenants cannot have their home moved. It’s usually not feasible or affordable or worth it, and anyway, there are no spaces in other parks to move it to.

For people who have invested in their homes, they are devastated by the loss they face. They will never get back the money that they have invested. I’ll give you an example. A man in our community spent thousands of dollars on a manufactured home for his brother who lives with a disability. The family supported him to live with independence, and nearby, and now he is facing eviction because the park owner has issued eviction notices. The owners currently only have to offer 12 months’ pad rental cost to tenants when they issue eviction notices. This is inadequate for people who have spent their lives investing in their homes.

So many people in our community have been affected by evictions from manufactured home parks that my constituency office held an open house discussion to offer advice from B.C. Housing to tenants affected by this issue. We were fortunate to be joined by a non-profit housing association, as well, and B.C. Housing provided a presentation, information and resources. However, it is only with amendments to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act that people will be better able to move forward and be protected in these situations.

The changes in Bill 12 to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act will address these kinds of vulnerabilities that tenants face. For example, the amendments will ensure that the effective date of a 12-month notice to end tenancy is the same for all tenancy agreements under the act. This reduces the vulnerability of those who have only recently moved in.

The amendments will increase compensation that landlords pay to tenants who’ve been given a notice to end tenancy in order to convert a park to $20,000, an increase from the current requirement of 12 months of pad rental costs. They will increase the amount of compensation for bad-faith evictions. Landlords who give notice of closure but don’t follow through must pay tenants the greater of either 12 months’ pad rental or $5,000. This is an increase from the six-month pad rental compensation.

They will provide additional compensation if a manufactured home cannot be relocated — assessed value over $20,000. Currently there’s no compensation, so this is a major improvement for many tenants in my community who have lived in their homes for decades and whose homes are not physically able to be relocated. They’ll clarify that tenants who are unable to relocate their manufactured homes are not themselves responsible for disposal costs of the homes. So people who are evicted aren’t penalized for being forced to relocate.

We also know that many tenants need improved protections, especially in situations of evictions and renovictions. We know that not enough has been done to help renters in B.C. and that too many people in our province cannot afford housing.

[4:55 p.m.]

Whether a senior on a fixed income or a young person trying to get started in life or a parent who needs a place to raise their children, everyone deserves housing security. The changes to the Residential Tenancy Act will ensure that tenants have this.

For example, these changes will give tenants more time to find alternate housing if their landlord ends the tenancy to demolish or renovate a unit and needs the unit to be vacant. The mandatory notice of eviction period will also increase from two months to four months, and the changes will give tenants 30 days to dispute a notice of eviction instead of just 15.

Landlords who end a tenancy for renovation or demolition but don’t follow through on their plans will have to compensate tenants with 12 months’ rent instead of the current two months’. This would also apply in situations where the landlord used a vacate clause because they had plans to move back in themselves but then re-rented the unit to someone else.

The new act will include a new right of first refusal for tenants in multi-unit buildings who are evicted because of renovation or repair. Requiring landlords to offer units to the original tenant will also help address improper uses of this provision by allowing tenants to then confirm that renovations occurred. These initial changes will help alleviate some of the issues renters are facing while we continue to determine where further changes are needed through our new Rental Housing Task Force.

I know that many people in our community, who are landlords and tenants, will have much information to share with the new task force and will have great ideas for positive solutions too. In the meantime, introducing these provisions will give renters and tenants of manufactured home parks the security and protection they deserve. These amendments are another way we’re working for the people of British Columbia to create a better, more secure, more affordable housing market.

A. Olsen: Now it’s my turn. I was so eager, I was standing before the previous member spoke, so now I’m happy to take my spot here in the second reading debate on Bill 12, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act.

As I’ve said often, homes are at the centre of our community, and our homes should be places for people to live in, not only commodities to be bought and sold for profit. Yet in the last number of years, our real estate has become a place for speculators to park their capital and reap huge returns while British Columbians struggle to find a suitable place to live.

This has happened incredibly quickly. International surveys have shown that affordability in Vancouver has deteriorated more quickly than anywhere else in the world. Our housing crisis has a number of interconnected aspects affecting British Columbians across the income spectrum, and renters across B.C. have been hit particularly hard. Sky-high rents and near zero percent vacancy levels in several communities are forcing renters to contend with huge competition for units. They live in cramped accommodation and spend far too much of their income on rent.

They’ve also become vulnerable to renovictions, where they’re evicted by a landlord wanting to make renovations to their unit. Often the unit then goes on the market for much, much more than it was being rented for. In the worst cases, renovations are used as an excuse for getting around rent controls, to evict long-standing tenants.

Sometimes renovations are not done at all, or only minimal repairs are made, while the price still increases dramatically. Other times repairs are desperately needed for old buildings, but once the repairs are done, those units are no longer affordable to the people who use used to live in them. Renovictions exemplify the housing crisis affecting our cities and the disproportionate impact on low- and moderate-income people.

I’d like to just take an aside here for a second and talk about the impact that I’ve seen happen in very real terms in places like Saltspring Island. The member for Vancouver–West End and I were just having a conversation about the Rental Housing Task Force that I’m very happy to sit on with the member, highlighting the complexity of this challenge that we face and acknowledging the fact that the people on Saltspring, who will be meeting later this week….

[5:00 p.m.]

It’s not just our cities that are feeling it. It’s places like Saltspring Island, where there are complex housing needs. Complex bureaucratic and administrative rules in various levels of government have created a huge challenge on Saltspring, to the point where people who live in that community fear for the health and well-being, the sustainability, the resilience of the community that they know and love and that they were born and raised in or that they moved to and have become passionate advocates for.

It’s a massive challenge that is going to take a lot of work and a lot of effort to de-complexify the situation, really, and it’s work that I look forward to do. I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that I’ve heard, in many, many meetings over the past number of months, how the situation is deteriorating in communities such as Saltspring.

This bill increases notices of eviction for demolition or renovations from two months to four months. It also gives tenants 30 days to dispute an eviction notice for demolition, conversion or renovations, instead of 15 days. This change will provide renters more time to find suitable accommodations and more time to challenge their notice.

Perhaps the most notable change in this bill is that compensation for bad-faith evictions will change from two months’ rent to 12 months’ rent. In bad-faith evictions, the landlord evicts a tenant but doesn’t follow through on their stated plans to renovate. Another example of a bad-faith eviction is when a landlord uses the vacate clause to evict a tenant by claiming that they plan to use the unit for personal use, but then they don’t follow through on those plans and instead re-rent that home to somebody else.

I’m hopeful that this penalty increase will be a real deterrent for landlords who are considering doing a bad-faith eviction to evict long-standing tenants and increase the rent.

This bill also gives tenants in multi-unit buildings who are being evicted because of renovation or repair the first right of refusal at the market rental rate. This change is an example of the complexity of the issue. Some tenants facing renovation may be able to take advantage of the first right of refusal at the market rate, and for them, I’m sure this is a welcome change.

This change provides some additional housing security for those who can afford to pay market rates, and it maintains the incentive for landlords to renovate older properties, some of which are very much in need of repair. However, there is no doubt that this change does not go as far as many would have wanted, particularly those who have worked on the front lines with renters facing eviction.

Market rents in our cities are usually far, far above what long-term tenants in these buildings have been paying. They may be hundreds of dollars a month more. Those facing renovictions may have difficulty securing an affordable and suitable place to live elsewhere. They may be forced to move out of their home, out of their city, or they may be forced into more precarious housing situations.

Indeed, many of the stories that I’ve heard in the Gulf Islands, and in Saltspring in particular…. There are some very precarious housing situations. These are folks that are nurses, or they provide care for seniors, in-home care. They are living in precarious situations with their children, and the opportunities for them are very minimal.

We must do all we can to support renters in these situations, to provide security of tenure while also ensuring that necessary repairs take place. This is an issue that I’ll be canvassing further in the committee stage, as well as in my work, which I referenced earlier, with the member for Vancouver–West End on the Rental Housing Task Force.

The second suite of changes that this bill makes are to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act. I also have many manufactured home parks in my riding, Saanich North and the Islands. It shifts the compensation for closure of a mobile home park from 12 months to an amount prescribed by regulation. The government has stated that this new amount is $20,000. It also adds a new section providing compensation for a home that can’t be moved and prevents landlords from claiming disposal costs in certain situations.

[5:05 p.m.]

The bill also authorizes the director to excuse landlords from paying these prescribed amounts if extenuating circumstances prevent them from accomplishing the stated purpose for ending the tenancy.

In committee stage, I’ll be canvassing these changes more thoroughly to understand the real change in compensation that people will be seeing from these. I also want to explore the rationale for preventing landlords from claiming disposal costs and the extenuating circumstances that may apply.

Overall, in some ways, this bill charts a middle path. It brings up the baseline of security while ensuring that buildings are upgraded — something that’s greatly needed. The number of renovictions we’re seeing today and the reason why people are being evicted for renovations…. It’s devastating, and it is certainly contributing to the crisis that we’re in.

Nothing other than addressing the root crisis head-on and ensuring that we responsibly address the housing crisis that we have in our province will do. We need to responsibly address housing prices before the bubble bursts. We need to increase the vacancy rate. We need to build more affordable rental housing that provides security of tenure. Nothing else will be enough.

I look forward to canvassing this bill in more detail at committee stage and working with the Rental Housing Task Force to improve and modernize our tenancy laws. I look forward to seeing this bill again at committee stage.

T. Stone: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise and speak in second reading to Bill 12, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, 2018.

I think all of us members here in the House would agree that housing affordability continues to be one of the single most important and most prevalent concerns expressed by British Columbians in every corner of the province but particularly in Metro Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, here in the south Island and in a few communities around the province such as, perhaps, Kelowna.

I believe — as do all of the colleagues in the opposition, as well as, I think, those in government — that housing must be affordable for all families, no matter their income, no matter whether they choose to rent or to own and no matter which community they happen to call home. Taking action ensures that our children will be able to afford to live in the communities where they choose to work, where they choose to live and raise their families. Certainly, that includes renters across British Columbia.

There’s much, therefore, in this bill that does provide additional protection for renters. I will touch on that in a moment. I do want to say, though, that it is a bit strange that only last Thursday, April 10, the government announced its Rental Housing Task Force to improve tenancy laws. We are here today with some steps that seem to kind of jump out ahead of the consultation that the government has announced, only days ago, will take place over the forthcoming summer.

The government, when they announced this new Rental Housing Task Force, indicated that the task force will connect with British Columbians, review laws in other jurisdictions and deliver a comprehensive, full review with a set of recommendations. The task force will meet this summer and will give British Columbians an opportunity to offer their ideas on how the laws in this province can be updated to protect renters and give landlords, as well, the confidence to put more homes into the market.

All of this is good. I understand that this task force will include a jurisdictional scan. It will look at all current laws and processes within the rental industry and how they apply to all housing models. So fair enough.

Again, this task force is set to meet throughout the coming summer and will provide the Premier and the minister with recommendations in the fall of 2018. But as I said a moment ago, here we are today with a bill that changes the law with respect to tenancy before the work of this task force has actually begun.

[5:10 p.m.]

Of course, this is on top of the changes that the government made through legislation last fall, which we supported on this side of the House as well — changes that restricted a landlord’s ability to use a vacate clause in fixed-term tenancy agreements in certain circumstances only and that limited rent increases between fixed-term tenancy agreements with the same tenant to the maximum allowable annual amount.

Again, these were generally welcome changes that addressed the unscrupulous activities of some landlords. I would suggest it’s a small number of landlords, but nevertheless, there are some landlords out there that were unnecessarily forcing good tenants from their homes, or they were causing tenants to face rates, rent increases, significantly above the allowable maximum in order to remain in their homes.

Then last December the government eliminated the geographic rent increase clause in the residential tenancy regulation and in the manufactured home park tenancy regulation. Again, fair enough. But it does make you wonder what else the government may be contemplating with respect to rental housing and tenancy protections. Renters and landlords across British Columbia are wondering.

I would say, at this point, that I would caution the government to keep an eye — and I’m assuming and hoping that they’re doing this — on the cumulative impact of all of the changes that have already been made and that are contemplated in this bill today. Look at the cumulative impact of those changes on residential tenancy in British Columbia.

What we don’t want to see happen — I don’t think anyone in this House wants to see this happen — is for there to be unintended consequences of too many changes — too many changes which actually reduce the supply of secure, long-term rental housing for British Columbians. I think we can all agree on that. I hope the government, therefore, is doing some modelling and is applying some analysis here to ensure that the consequences of all of these actions are well understood, particularly as related to any changes in the market.

That brings me to the issue of supply. Perhaps the greatest failure of this bill is that it doesn’t address supply. Supply is the biggest factor in contributing to the shortage of housing in this province. The housing shortage and affordability will be solved, but it can only be solved through a mix of solutions, and supply has to figure into that.

The mix of solutions, yes, does include tenancy initiatives. That’s certainly part of the mix. The government has brought forward a number of such tenancy initiatives: affordable housing investments, particularly for seniors and those on income assistance, those with mental health challenges and other serious health considerations. Those kinds of investments are also very, very important. So are increased investments in the rental assistance program and the Shelter Aid For Elderly Renters.

Again, I come back to what I believe to be the single most impactful strategy to address housing affordability. That is on the supply side of the equation, and this bill makes no mention of supply. I really believe that the government should be focusing on — and I hope that the government will be focusing in the coming days and months on it — embracing strategies that will serve to increase supply in the market across British Columbia.

I believe that one untapped opportunity to do that would be to engage with communities across British Columbia on working together to help eliminate housing approval delays. We all know about the 120,000-plus units of housing in Metro Vancouver which are in varying stages of approval. We know that for many of those units of proposed housing, the private sector is ready and willing to build today. They’ve lined up their financing. They’ve secured their sites. They’ve done all that heavy lifting. They can often wait four, five, six, seven years for all of the approvals to take place.

It’s time for local government and the provincial government to work together to figure out how we can speed up the approval time that it takes for housing initiatives in communities. That will bring a dramatic volume of new supply onto the market, as will really focusing on densification along key transportation corridors, particularly transit lines.

[5:15 p.m.]

We have a tremendous opportunity with the proposed rapid transit lines in Surrey and the Broadway line in Vancouver to go where perhaps the province hasn’t gone before in terms of being really creative in working with local government to ensure the densification exists along those lines to the maximum extent possible.

And I believe that there should be a focus on providing incentives for the construction of market rental housing. These are just a few of the ideas that I’ve talked about in the past and that members of the opposition have talked about in the past.

I would hope that the government would look at these initiatives as potential solutions to address the need for more supply — and more supply faster, particularly on the rental side of the equation.

With respect to this bill — first, with respect to the proposed amendments to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act — there are some general housekeeping measures to bring additional sections in line with the fixed-term tenancy changes that were enacted last year. That’s fine. There are a few new provisions which seem practical and fair, including the provision of additional compensation based on the assessed value of the manufactured home if circumstances prevent the removal of the home before the tenant is required to vacate, as well as the provision for the clarification that a tenant who is unable to relocate their manufactured home is not responsible for disposal costs of the home.

The big change in this bill involves replacing the current requirement for a landlord to pay an evicted tenant 12 months of rent — plus, potentially, an additional six months of rent — of course, if the landlord doesn’t undertake the steps necessary that the eviction was based on within a reasonable time frame — with a new requirement.

The new proposed requirement would involve changing this 12-month amount, plus a potential six-month amount, to an amount prescribed by regulation. This obviously means that the amount is not specified here in this bill. We can only assume that the government has longer time frames in mind than those that are currently provided for. That’s fair enough, if that’s what the government is considering, but it’s very concerning that those details are not known at this point of debate.

I have to say it is ironic. Every time this government brings forward legislation which provides for a provision such as this, details will be forthcoming. The details will be in the regulation. Every time our former government brought forward legislation with this kind of provision, the members that are now in the government but were in the opposition at the time railed against the lack of clarity and the vagueness in those details, and here they are doing exactly that.

We’ll want, obviously, to canvass that piece further in committee stage on this bill to better understand what the government is thinking, if they’re looking at amounts longer than the current provisions for 12 plus a potential of six months of rent.

I do understand that the director of the residential tenancy branch would be empowered by this act to excuse payments if there are extenuating circumstances that prevented an intended use invoked under the eviction process. But again, taking a specific number that is there today and replacing it with some other amount to be determined at a later date via regulation, as determined by cabinet, is obviously quite concerning and not conducive to the kind of certainty that folks who invest in the manufactured home parks need prior to making their investment.

It’s certainly not in anyone’s interest to make it increasingly financially difficult to own a manufactured home park or to implement any measures which may serve, again, to have an unintended consequence, resulting in owners of manufactured home parks being discouraged from making further improvements to their parks.

With respect to the Residential Tenancy Act, the bill extends the notice period for demolition- or renovation-based evictions from two months to four months. Fair enough. The bill requires the landlord to disclose to the tenant the name and address of the purchaser who intends to buy the property. Again, I would suggest, that’s an innovative element of transparency. The bill extends the time that a tenant can file an application for dispute resolution in cases of renovation or demolition from 15 days to 30 days. Also, I would say, fair enough.

[5:20 p.m.]

One item, however, that we are concerned about in this bill, which will require further canvassing in committee stage would be this. The bill increases the compensation to evicted tenants from one month’s rent to 12 months’ rent if “(a) steps have not been taken, within a reasonable period after the effective date of the notice, to accomplish the stated purpose for ending the tenancy, or (b) the rental unit is not used for that stated purpose for at least 6 months’ duration, beginning within a reasonable period after the effective date of the notice.”

This obviously begs the question: what is reasonable? What is a reasonable time? Who will determine what is reasonable? How will this be set? What about consideration for extenuating circumstances, such as for additional renovations that were not considered necessary at the outset of the project but were discovered as necessary and required during the overall renovation project? Or what about natural disasters or personal tragedies? What about delays in getting contractors actually engaged on the project in a timely fashion? We know how hard it can be to secure the contractors that one needs, often, in renovation projects.

All of this, of course, would be sorted out by the director of the residential tenancy branch — who, I would suggest, with these changes is about to get a lot busier sorting out disputes as a result of this vague provision. In fact, I would suggest that this provision in and of itself could, at best, result in more confusion and, at worst, result in more lawsuits.

One other item that we are concerned about in this bill would be this. The bill would give renters the right of refusal to move back into a property with more than five rental units, under certain circumstances. This does sound reasonable or okay on the surface. However, I really caution the government to be judicious here, to be careful here. As we implement and layer on these additional provisions for tenancy protections, let’s make sure that we’re also keeping one eye on the fact that owners have a fundamental right to have the final say when it comes to the property that they own, and that should never be forgotten. We’re going to want to canvass that component, as well, of this bill in the committee stage forthcoming.

In summary, I certainly support efforts to provide additional protections for renters in British Columbia. All of us want to make sure that renters are treated fairly and that they have those necessary protections in place. But as with most things that are considered in this House, and most things in life generally, it usually all comes down to balance. I really want to underscore and remind the government that we all have an obligation, a responsibility, to avoid vagueness in legislation, to not leave things undefined, to provide maximum clarity and to take every effort to ensure that both owners and renters are treated fairly.

I’ll have more to say in the committee stage on this bill.

Deputy Speaker: The member for Maple Ridge–Mission. [Applause.]

B. D’Eith: Yes, yes, awesomeness. Thank you for the rousing welcome. Yes, thank you. Okay, enough, enough. Keep it down.

I’m very happy to speak to Bill 12, second reading, the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, which is improvements to the Residential Tenancy Act and the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act. In regard to these amendments, our government is committed to providing stronger protections for tenants facing eviction as a result of renovation or demolition and also for manufactured home owners facing relocation as a result of park conversions or closures, and we’ll make sure that they receive a higher compensation, with a focus on penalties for bad-faith evictions.

Housing affordability is one of the biggest issues facing B.C.’ers today. We’ve heard that over and over again. The previous government did not do enough to help renters, and our government is taking bold steps to battle housing affordability with a 30-point housing strategy. The amendments that I’m talking to are part of this.

[5:25 p.m.]

The other side kept bringing up the idea that we’re not addressing supply. Well, we are addressing supply, but this act is dealing with one part of an overall strategy, which really is a 30-point strategy that was launched during the budget.

Every citizen in our fair province deserves housing security — a place to start their life, to raise their family and to retire with dignity. These amendments will help to protect renters and tenants of manufactured homes, to give them the security and protection they deserve. The amendments are another way that we’re working for people in British Columbia to create a better, more secure, more affordable housing market.

These critical and needed amendments are the first changes to help deal with a number of issues facing renters that were brought to our attention many, many times while the new Rental Housing Task Force convenes. Of course, we’re very pleased that the member for Vancouver–West End will be chairing that task force, and we look forward to those recommendations. They will be working towards additional recommendations for amendments that are needed. But for now, these are obvious and clear changes that needed to be made.

To give an example of why that is, I’ll talk a little bit about my riding. In August of 2017, eviction notices for renovations were issued to three buildings in downtown Maple Ridge that housed many low- and fixed-income people, including a number of seniors. Many of these residents were struggling to find units in the area with comparable rents. Before the evictions, one-bedroom suites were renting for about $750. The building owner later confirmed that renovated one-bedrooms would be starting at $1,300, and two-bedrooms would rent from $1,500 to $1,600.

Many of the residents and tenants of the buildings lacked information about their rights. They often learned that they only had 15 days to contest the eviction and that in fact those deadlines had passed. In a rental market with rising rents, few vacancies and many folks struggling to find available, affordable units within the two-month period they were given, it’s just not enough time. In fact, one woman, a senior who lived in the building, spoke to us about how terrified she was that she was losing her home and wouldn’t have anywhere to go. She was lucky to find a unit for slightly more rent in another building before the two months were up.

Another constituent was unable to find alternative accommodation and ended up living in his car while he waited for renovations to be completed, in the hopes that he might be able to move back in. From what he was hearing from other residents in the building, the building work hadn’t even begun on his unit. Many months had gone by, and he spoke to us about recourse that he might have if the renovations were not completed. But he worried that, really, with a fine of only two months, the owner would just pay the fine and that that would be business as usual.

These are examples of local people in my riding who have had real problems within the recent period of time. That’s why these amendments are so critical.

The first amendment, which is actually to the Residential Tenancy Act, faces one of the critical problems that are facing renters, in the time for renters to find alternative housing if their landlord ends the tenancy to demolish or renovate the unit. Renovictions have put incredible stress on fixed-income seniors, low-income workers, young families and other renters.

The other issue is the lack of alternative rental properties throughout the province. In most communities, rentals are scarce and rental rates are high. In many cases, renters simply cannot afford to move.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

To give people more time to find a rental and giving mandatory notice of eviction period, increasing it from two months to four months is reasonable and needed in this market.

Another problem is the time period for renters to dispute a notice of eviction. Many renters who come to us don’t really have time to find out their rights under the present provision of 15 days. Under the new changes, a tenant will have 30 days to dispute a notice of eviction instead of the 15 days. I believe this is a reasonable change and a reasonable amendment, one that will really help tenants.

The third big change is that tenants in my riding have complained about landlords who end a tenancy for renovation and demolition but don’t follow through with their plans.

[5:30 p.m.]

Landlords who end a tenancy for renovation and demolition but don’t follow through with their plans will have to compensate tenants with 12 months’ rent instead of the current two months. That’s a significant change. But it would be a great deterrent for dealing with the practice — the insidious practice, really — that’s been happening so often in my community and around the province. This would apply to situations where the landlord uses a vacate clause because they have plans to move back in but then re-rented the unit to someone else. So those are both of the scenarios.

Another big change. Tenants often choose to live in a certain community or grow to love a community or their children are in the school in an area, in a town or city. Again, with scarce rentals, it’s reasonable for existing tenants to be offered the first chance to rent the unit that they were evicted from after renovation.

The amendments include a new right of first refusal at market rates for tenants in multi-unit buildings who were evicted because of renovation or repair. Requiring landlords to offer units to the original tenant will also help address improper uses of this provision, because tenants will confirm that, in fact, the renovations occurred.

Moving on to the key changes for the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act. In manufactured home parks, there are a number of different tenancy relationships. If a tenant has a fixed-term lease, notice to the end of the tenancy might be significantly shorter than someone who has, for example, a month-to-month lease or other arrangements.

Ensuring the effective date of a 12-month notice to end the tenancy creates fairness for all tenants. That’s really important so that all tenants will be treated in the same way.

Another issue can arise when landlords want to convert a park to another use. The present regime requires a payment of a 12-month pad rental cost to convert a park. But pad rentals range dramatically, sometimes in the same park — some as low as $200 a month. But for the cost of moving a manufactured home, the average price is approximately $20,000. Fixing the price at $20,000 per pad will not only ensure certainty for landlords and fairness between tenants, but it will also allow those owners to actually be able to move or deal with the situation that they’re faced with.

Presently, if a landlord carries out a bad-faith eviction, the penalty is a six-month pad rental as compensation. Again, it might be a lot easier just to make it a cost of doing business. Under the changes that are proposed, landlords who give notice of closure but don’t follow through must pay the greater of 12-months’ pad rental or $5,000. This type of penalty will be a disincentive for carrying out the bad-faith evictions that are happening and part of the reason why this is so important.

Fourth, in some cases, a manufactured home cannot be moved. The changes will actually ensure that the tenants will be provided with the assessed value over $20,000 as additional payment for this situation. Right now the way the act stands, there’s no compensation if a home cannot be moved. This actually fills a significant gap in the legislation.

Finally, the changes clarify that a tenant who is unable to relocate their manufactured home is not responsible for the disposal costs of that home, and that’s very important.

To summarize, under the Residential Tenancy Act, the existing notice of eviction is two months. It’s being proposed at four months. The time to dispute the notice is presently 15 days. The proposal is 30 days. The compensation for bad-faith eviction is presently two-months’ rent. The proposed is 12-months’ rent. While there’s no right of first refusal in a case of renoviction in multi-unit buildings, the evicted tenant would be offered a market rate for right of first refusal.

As far as the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act, in summary, compensation for closure is presently a 12-month pad rental. Of course, pad rentals vary. Setting it at $20,000 creates certainty for the landlord. It also creates fairness for the tenants.

Compensation for a home that cannot be moved…. Right now there is no compensation. Under the proposed amendments, it would be an assessed value over $20,000. As far as disposal costs, the landlord can claim that. Now there’d be no claims.

[5:35 p.m.]

As far as compensation and bad-faith evictions, right now it’s a six-months’ pad rental. The change would be the greater of a 12-month pad rental or $5,000.

The changes that are being made now are the first changes. We need to do a lot more in terms of our housing crisis, but these changes address some significant issues that have come up over the last few years in regard to renovictions and tenancies.

With that, I will support this bill. I have nothing more to add.

L. Throness: I would like to preface my remarks on the Tenancy Statutes Amendment Act, 2018, with a few comments about my personal experience — first of all, with manufactured homes.

As MLA, I’ve had a number of complaints from several different manufactured home parks in my riding over the past few years because they are increasingly occupied by seniors, many of them on fixed incomes. Many of them are elderly widows. They’re finding — and I’ve received many complaints, as I said — that a landlord will be nasty, will request all sorts of improvements that are not part of the rules of the park. He will threaten a tenant with eviction if, for instance — these are real examples — they don’t pave their driveway, don’t install new windows and a host of other requirements that are irrelevant to park rules.

They will be persistent and negative sometimes, and some people will become so frightened and so sick of it that they will sell their place, sometimes at a loss, with the landlord either able to approve the sale or not, according to his whim. Of course, if he does not approve a sale and there’s a loss because of it, you could take that to the residential tenancy branch, but seniors tend to be intimidated by the process and the bureaucracy. They tend to be very fearful of the landlord.

They’re also risk-averse. If they get evicted, they will have to move their manufactured home. That will cost some thousands of dollars. Some of the homes are basically worthless. They’re old. Even to dispose of them will cost a couple of thousand dollars. So some seniors refuse to take any risk of eviction. They will do exactly what their landlord wants. They don’t always take advantage of their rights under the law. Of course, we can’t force them to use the law to their advantage. We give them the best advice we can. We tell tenants not to be intimidated, that the act and the arbitration process are there to protect them. They are, and they are effective.

They can ignore demands they receive that are contrary to the act, contrary to the rules of the park, and if they get an eviction notice, they should simply appeal it. But tenants don’t want to go this far, many of them. They’re nervous. They’re frightened. They end up leaving. Sometimes the landlord ends up in control of the manufactured home, rents it out himself to someone else, and people suspect that the landlord’s plan is to eventually control the whole park so that they can sell it for a housing development.

I met with our seniors advocate about this, Isobel Mackenzie. She didn’t have a lot of answers on this. But all this is to say that people are vulnerable, particularly in manufactured home parks, and I see this as a continuing and increasing problem as land rises in value.

The second thing I want to talk about is my own past experience. I used to work for the residential tenancy branch, in Burnaby, way back in 1992. For a year I answered landlord and tenant questions on the phone line that is still maintained. I would speak to over 100 people a day. I would hear their stories, and sometimes those stories would run up to half an hour in length. It was a complex legal question that they would ask, and I would have to analyze that on the spot and tell them what they could do about it according to the law.

It was a very fascinating job, and I heard some very fascinating stories. I heard some stories about nasty landlords who, for instance, if they didn’t like something, would just remove the front door of the rented house and walk away with it, leaving a single mom with their kids in the apartment. What were they supposed to do? There are landlords like that in B.C.

However, I also heard many stories about nasty tenants, people who wouldn’t pay their rent, and then they would trash their suite. They wouldn’t leave, and the landlord would have to spend thousands to hire a bailiff, while missing months of rent. I thought at that time that I would decide I would never want to be a landlord. It’s great if you have a good tenant, but there’s too much risk of getting a bad tenant. And the law, since I worked there, has become more protective of tenants. I can hardly believe some of the stories I hear from landlords in my office today. I think that landlords — not always, but often — get the short end of the stick these days.

[5:40 p.m.]

All this is to say that the Residential Tenancy Act and the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act must strike a delicate balance between landlords and tenants, because if the law favours tenants too much, then landlords won’t invest and build new places to rent, and if the law favours landlords too much, tenants, of course, will be oppressed.

In this regard, the government was careful during the election to appeal to renters more than landlords. I’m not saying they didn’t mention landlords in their platform, but it was more a talking point than anything else. Anything tangible was offered to tenants, such as offering every renter in B.C. $400 a year, because it’s about votes. Simply put, there are many more renters than there are landlords out there, so the NDP appealed in crass way to a large group of voters without regard, in my view, to the balance in law that is necessary for the rental market to be healthy.

So far, the NDP have been predictably heavily weighted toward tenants. But in that political appeal, they risk, ultimately, harming tenants in all of this if the new laws they bring in drive landlords out of the marketplace. If there are fewer places to rent, the simple laws of supply and demand say that rent for everyone else will go up. So an imbalance in the law will end up hurting everyone, landlords and tenants alike.

The news release of the government recently talked about the NDP’s new Rental Housing Task Force that they’re striking. It will be headed by the member for Vancouver–West End, and that I find slightly….

Interjections.

L. Throness: And waiting for the applause to die down from the other side….

I find that a bit disturbing. In a speech to this House on the subject, he noted that 80 percent of his constituents are renters. That worries me because….

Interjections.

L. Throness: As well, the Attorney General…. The same would be in his riding.

While the member pays lip service to landlords in his speech, there’s no doubt where his heart lies. That worries me because he needs to be unbiased in his task force. The member must remember that the task force must hear from all areas of B.C. — not just his own riding — and all who are involved in the rental market, which includes renters and landlords.

The mandate of the task force is to make rental housing more secure and affordable for renters and more attractive to provide for landlords. I’m relieved to see at least a mention of landlords in the release, and we on this side will be watching very closely to see that this is not a token mention — that in the recommendations of the task force, there will be a substantive balance of interests on both sides.

I look to the legislation before us today to see if it strikes that kind of a balance — that gives security of tenure but also doesn’t let renters get away with ripping off landlords. That brings me to the sections that deal with amendments to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act. The ideal that prevails here with the concept of tenancy is that tenancy is a form of tenure. It’s a form of security for the renter.

It’s not ownership, of course, but because it’s not in society’s interest for a tenant to be able to be kicked out of a place on a whim — say, with a month’s notice, or something…. What about a family, for instance, with several children? They have schools. They have jobs. A family needs a reasonable amount of stability and security in their lives, and that is what a tenancy is designed to provide.

The notice requirements and financial compensation for people in manufactured home parks in this bill is greater in period and amount than in a normal rental unit, where a person doesn’t own their unit, because in the case of manufactured homes, the tenant actually owns the manufactured home and has to incur thousands of dollars in costs to move it or dispose of it. They also need more time to move. They’re in a more settled situation than a renter in a rental unit. So that person deserves more protection because of the security of tenure that they need, and their possibility of loss is subject to greater risk.

I agree that the law must change with the times. The price of land, particularly in the Lower Mainland, is increasing by enormous amounts. Therefore, the land on which manufactured home parks are situated also increased by a huge amount. This gives an increased motivation for the landlord, the owner of the land, to convert the park to other more lucrative uses. It’s certainly the right of the landlord to do that within reason that is without unduly uncompromising the tenure or security of the tenant.

Now, a tenant who rents someone else’s place is more mobile, more transient. They can pick up their belongings and move out of someone else’s rental unit with shorter notice. So the case for their need for security of tenure is a bit weaker.

But just as in manufactured home parks, housing prices are increasing dramatically in the Lower Mainland, so the motivation on the part of a landlord also increases dramatically to evict a tenant so that he or she can renovate it, just perhaps because it needs updating or so they can renovate with the intention of increasing the rent for the next tenant. I don’t think it’s improper to increase the protection against that kind of thing so that, once again, the security of the tenant is not unduly compromised.

[5:45 p.m.]

I want to echo the member for Vancouver–False Creek here and point out that the NDP are instituting a bunch of new rules, but they need to work harder on supply of housing. And I mean market housing. Our market economy is so much bigger than what any government can do. We live in a $2-trillion-a-year GDP economy. We work with a $50-billion-a-year government. Any solution has to include encouragement for market housing, and the government has done precious little in this regard.

I’m not going to go over the bill point by point. I wouldn’t expect to hear from tenants about this bill, because it’s in their favour, but I might expect to hear opposition from landlords. I haven’t yet from any landlords in my constituency. I’m inclined not to dispute the individual clauses in the bill before us but to allow the government to move forward with their plan and monitor the details to see how they will work in practice.

If there is an imbalance in law, we on this side, in the opposition, will soon hear about it, and we will soon move to correct it, whether in opposition or in government. That will conclude my remarks on the bill. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.

S. Chandra Herbert: It gives me great delight to be here to speak about changes to the Residential Tenancy Act that will improve the situation not only for tenants but also landlords. It’s interesting to know the mindset of my colleagues on the other side, suggesting I’m too pro-renter as if it’s a shame to stand up for your constituents and work for them every day.

Interesting to hear my colleague opposite argue that somehow you shouldn’t be able to work to improve the Residential Tenancy Act for landlords and tenants because you have renters in your constituency. “Shame, shame. We should not listen to renters.”

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

S. Chandra Herbert: That would be a shameful thing. We should not listen to landlords. That would, I suppose, be a shameful thing.

You can do two things at once, I would like to inform my colleague. It is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. He might want to try it out at some point. His mind will be blown. But maybe I’m being a little bit too cheeky here. It just bothers me when a party that did nothing to help renters facing homelessness and eviction through the Residential Tenancy Act, through abuse of the act, that looked the other way while a few bad-apple landlords made their colleagues look bad….

I talked to so many landlords who said, “If only we had a government that would act to improve the legislation so that those few bad-apple landlords who were gaming the system couldn’t get away with it, while we good, honest people are trying to follow the law. Wouldn’t that make a difference?”

They’re right. When you talk to groups like LandlordBC, the Tenant Resource Advisory Centre…. Most people try and have a good relationship with their tenants. Most people try and have a good relationship with their landlords. It’s about a relationship, after all. You can’t have a good relationship if one person is threatening eviction just so that they can make more money or if another person is abusing the act to try and game the system so that they can live rent-free. That’s not a good relationship.

It gives me great pleasure to be able to take on the role of chairing a task force into the whole Residential Tenancy Act so that we can get at some of those tough issues. I know colleagues on that side and colleagues on this side have stories. I know that on one side, they talk only about landlords, but we’re trying to talk about landlords and renters. I think they both need help here. We’ve had landlords who’ve been abused under the system, and no penalty is ever issued. We’ve had renters abused in the same way, no penalties ever issued.

Administrative penalties — something that our government is bringing in, in a much more solid and, I believe, workable way — will help. But the task force is going to be asking landlords and renters for their solutions, their ideas to improve the relationship. There isn’t much more fundamental to living a good life than knowing you have a good, safe, secure home that you can return to after work, after going out with family, friends, doing what you do to live. Unfortunately, that relationship has been allowed to fray and put people at loggerheads against each other, as opposed to bringing them together — too often.

The task force will be going out to hear from people. I’ll be asking MLAs. Some MLAs will certainly engage in this, I know, but others may not. But I’d urge to you, as we go forward, to ask your own constituents: what should be changes in the legislation? What should be changes in the practices and procedures in the residential tenancy branch operations to make life fairer for landlords and renters?

I know there are solutions which bring people together. It’s not always easy. You’re not going to please everybody, and I don’t believe that the task force final report will please everybody. There are people sometimes diametrically opposed.

[5:50 p.m.]

We can try and find the best solutions and best way forward to make things fairer. We have a challenge, and I do thank the members for acknowledging that we have a supply issue, in terms of the availability of rental housing. That’s put a real problem, because now renters have to compete for a place to live, compete for a landlord. We should get to the case where landlords compete for renters, saying: “We’ve got the best place.” “No, no, we have the best place. Stay with us. We want you to live here.”

We’re far from that today, because renters have not got the attention and rental housing has not got the attention it has deserved for far too long. Homeowners have been paid attention to. Renters, which make up 1.5 million British Columbians, have not got the attention. That changes. That changes now. The Residential Tenancy Act needs reform. The Manufactured Home Park Act needs reform. We know that, and that’s why we’re going out and talking to the community. That’s why we’re going out and talking to the experts, talking to people who work in the field, on all sides, to develop recommendations to the minister and to the Premier for change.

I’m looking forward to getting out and hearing from folks, looking at creating a bit of an MLA toolkit so MLAs can go out and hold consultations in their own communities around what kinds of changes could be made and proposed.

This legislation, I know, is a good step in a number of areas. One which I think is particularly important is if somebody tries to evict you on a false pretence and you find out after the fact that, yes, there was no son moving into the unit or no renovation required. You can actually go for penalties of up to 12 months’ rent to be paid back, which I know, in my constituency, is a considerable amount of money.

Unfortunately, when we’ve raised this issue before, landlords would say: “Well, you know, some….” A few, a minority, would treat this as the cost of doing business: get people out, and even if they caught you and proved you were lying or making it up, you’d just get two months’ rent returned. That was just the cost of doing business for them, and they made more money in renting it out at a much higher rate, even though they were breaking the spirit of the act.

I think the question of right of first refusal is a difficult one. I know I’ve argued that it’s a challenge, because the rent paid should be equal to the rent paid before, as they’ve got in Ontario. I’m looking forward to hearing from people whether that’s the right suggestion or if there are other suggestions or other ways to get at that. Or is market rent, as some would argue, the best way?

I have concerns about that, but I’m looking forward to looking at the court decisions. The Barrie case, I think, is really important in interpreting this section. What is the role of accommodation? A lot of renovations that can be done, can be done with somebody still living in the suite — in fact, I would argue, most of them. I know the act is supposed to keep that security of tenure whole. It hasn’t always in terms of its application, but it should.

I think that’s an issue that I’m going to be looking for particular feedback around. What sort of accommodations? You want to make sure that people can upgrade their unit, but you don’t want to make it so that putting on a fresh coat of paint and some new cabinets is enough and maybe moving a wiring box from one wall to another, just so you can tick the box and say, “Well, there. Now I’ve reached the goal of eviction, and now you’re out” — so that I can do some very simple renovations to no added value but, principally, just to evict.

That’s not how the act is supposed to work, and I know most landlords don’t work that way. In fact, when a tenant moves out, they tend to use that option then to renovate, while the suite is empty. At least that’s how it works in a lot of the buildings in my constituency. However, we know that there are instances where that doesn’t happen, and I think that penalty — that fine, that deterrent, the administrative penalties that we’re bringing in with the compliance unit — certainly will help send the message that this law is real and it’s meant to be followed.

I thank the Housing Minister and the Premier for the opportunity to go out, hear from members — all members, I invite you — all constituents, all British Columbians. If you have ideas on ways to improve the Residential Tenancy Act and the Manufactured Home Park Act, and the application of that through the residential tenancy branch system, I’d be looking to hear from you. I thank everybody for that opportunity.

Hon. H. Bains: It is quite, actually, my honour to stand and speak on Bill 12. I think it is a great day for manufactured home owners in this province. Many of those advocated for better protection for manufactured home owners in the province — including Surrey Manufactured Home Owners Association; Active, who are representing those homeowners on the Island; and all the other manufactured home owners associations all across the province.

[5:55 p.m.]

I think it is a great day for them. They’ve been waiting for this for a long time. As it was said before, it is quite satisfying for many of those who have worked with the manufactured home owners, including myself.

I think my journey on this issue started soon after I first got elected, in 2005, sitting across from two seniors, along with Bob Bose, our councillor, because they were two homeowners at Seacrest in South Surrey — 87 years old and 90 years old, the two of them. Tears flowing from their eyes, they said to both of us…. They called me and Bob Bose and said: “Look, what have we done wrong? We just got a notice that we will be made homeless. What have we done wrong?” That started me thinking that there was something wrong here.

Here we have seniors. That’s what was mentioned here earlier, and it’s being recognized. Most of the manufactured home owners are seniors on fixed incomes, and many of them are on disability. These are the people that built our province. They paid their dues. In the latter part of their few years, they want to enjoy their life. When they go through this kind of challenge, upheaval and disruption by getting an eviction notice, knowing they will not be able to able to move their home….. Even some of them who are able to move their home are not able to afford to, or they will not find a place to move to.

Those were the challenges that they were facing. Those risks to their residency increased as the real estate market started to grow hotter and hotter. Now landlords see an opportunity to develop that land for different purposes. Therefore, notices to these…. Many of them, like I said, are seniors.

We organized. We spoke to many of them, and we went to city hall, because the city bylaws required a zoning change in order for them to develop that land. Many city halls, I must say, have recognized this issue as well, so they have put many protections in for manufactured home owners before they will consider an application for rezoning that piece of land. Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Penticton, and Surrey, my home city, have recognized the dangers. They have recognized the need to protect manufactured home owners.

Finally, the provincial government is looking at the real need to protect manufactured home owners. To our Minister of Housing, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for taking this issue. She didn’t waste much time after she was sworn in as minister. We started to work on this piece of legislation so that those members of our society who make manufactured homes as their homes would have protections, some satisfying moments that now they have better protection.

When you look at some of the dangers that are coming or the risks that are coming, going forward…. I just look at King George Highway in Surrey. There are a number of manufactured homes located along that route, from Whalley all the way to South Surrey. Any time LRT or rapid transit goes through a route, and when you have manufactured home owners and the land that they’re sitting on, the developer will see an opportunity. I really, really was worried that many of those may be uprooted. But now, at least, they will have protection before that risk to their homes is realized. So I want to say that this is very, very timely, Minister. Thank you so much for doing this.

[6:00 p.m.]

I also want to say, as we’re talking about housing and housing affordability issues and trying to create a supply of affordable housing, that manufactured homes should be considered as part of our affordable housing stock. They are there. These are nice communities. These folks look out for each other. They do things together to entertain each other, to cooperate and share things. These are really nice…. I urge every one of you to go and take a little tour of one of these facilities. They are really nice communities, and they are nice people.

I want to say thank you very much to members of this House, hoping that you will support this and that they will have better protection as far as their notice is concerned. That they will have better protection as far as moving expenses are concerned. That if their home is not able to move, they will have a surety that they will get the value of their home. And that if there is a chance that there’s a frivolous notice of eviction, there is some protection there as well.

It will be really satisfying for them to make sure that there’s better protection than they’ve been asking for. I had the opportunity to present, I don’t know, five or six private members’ bills on this — just exactly what we are talking about in this bill. It is a proud moment for me personally, and very satisfying.

These are tasks that I, along with many members on my side, including the Premier…. Many of them have manufactured homes in their ridings, all along the Island, in the Okanagan side and the rest of the province. Many of those people were touched by the stories that they heard from manufactured home owners in their ridings. I say, thank you very much for listening.

These are the people that we must protect and provide protection to. Like I said, these are seniors. They have built this province. Therefore, now, in the latter part of their lives, they must get a little peace and some really nice moments, not worry that their homes may be taken away from them and they will be made homeless.

I don’t want to take too much time here, but I want to say thank you to the minister and thank you to many of the members who have spoken in favour of this motion, especially the manufactured home side. I want to say I’m really, really happy that we are debating this. Hopefully, we will pass this bill. Thank you very much, Minister.

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

Hon. S. Robinson: I do appreciate the comments that we heard here in this House. I want to express gratitude to the Minister of Labour for his hard work in his private member’s efforts to address the risks to those who made their homes in manufactured home communities. Also to the member for Vancouver–West End who has been a tireless advocate for renters in our communities.

I also appreciated the comments that we heard around supply — certainly heard that from members opposite. Unfortunately, it sounds like they didn’t read our 30-point plan on housing, because we really focused on three different areas in our 30-point plan, making sure that we were addressing housing but also addressing demand and protection for renters and landlords.

This is an important relationship for people who rent their homes and rent out their homes. It’s really important that we make sure that there are proper tools and proper rules and laws in place so that that relationship is one that works well for both sides.

I can clearly say that these changes to tenancy laws will make housing more secure for renters and continue to allow landlords to make needed improvements to their properties and are important steps toward our goal of a province where everyone has a secure, safe and affordable home they need.

With that, I move second reading of Bill 12.

[6:05 p.m.]

Motion approved.

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

Bill 12, Tenancy Statutes 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. A. Dix: I call Bill 13, in which are the amendments to the Public Service Act, and its committee stage.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 13 — PUBLIC SERVICE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 13; L. Reid in the chair.

The committee met at 6:07 p.m.

On section 1.

Hon. A. Dix: I wanted to introduce to the members of the House, to my right and your left, John Davison, the assistant deputy minister responsible for the B.C. Public Service Agency, from the employee relations and workplace health division. To my left is Ken Forman, the policy team lead for the B.C. Public Service Agency, policy and research.

S. Bond: We appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions about the bill that has been brought forward. Obviously, we had a number of comments putting the report in context, and a good discussion with the minister about the necessity. Our questions today, from my co-critic and I, will be about the mechanics of the bill and making sure that the intent will be able to be carried out as effectively as we would hope.

In section 1, I’m wondering if the minister could just walk through the new definitions that have been added — in particular, the “reviewable dismissal” in sub (b): “is, or was initially, a dismissal under section 22 (2).” If we could just quickly walk through the addition of those definitions, please.

[6:10 p.m.]

Hon. A. Dix: The “dismissal file” definition defines what has to be provided to the Merit Commissioner by the government in those circumstances. The key question that I think the member was asking about on “reviewable dismissal” was that these are just cause dismissals under section 22(2). That’s the reason for those definitions.

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

S. Bond: We have a number of questions on this section. Before we do that, I would like to just better understand the context of the decision to have the Merit Commissioner do this work. Section 2 actually references the Merit Commissioner, so I think this is probably the most suitable place to ask these questions.

Perhaps the staff would be able to tell us: what’s the current annual budget allocation for the Merit Commissioner’s office?

Hon. A. Dix: We’ll be able to get that, I think, to the member shortly. We’ll have someone send in the estimate numbers so we have that.

S. Bond: That’s understandable. We appreciate that.

I guess one of the things we want to sort of test here is the workload that the Merit Commissioner would now be taking on. There is already a substantive job for the Merit Commissioner, and this assigns some very significant responsibilities.

First of all, we did compliment the government for continuing with the recommendations in the Misfire report. We want to ensure, and I know the minister and government will as well, that the intent of the recommendation will be carried out effectively. Hence, the request about the budget allocation.

Has the staff, in this case, and the minister had a good look at the workload of the Merit Commissioner and assessed what additional workload expectations this will have for the Merit Commissioner?

Hon. A. Dix: As the member will know, independent officers of the Legislature come here when they have additional workloads to make additional budget requests. Obviously, the budget request for the estimate for the Merit Commissioner was based on some of that work in previous years. Should additional resources be required, then the Merit Commissioner would be in a position to come here and make those requests in order to meet the new tests of these new responsibilities.

It was felt, I think, in a general sense by the Ombudsperson, in looking at the report, that because the Merit Commissioner does this sort of work right now, more than most areas of government, this was the appropriate place to house this. It didn’t require a new independent officer, because the workload wasn’t that large, and this would be the right place and the most efficient way to do that.

The member is quite correct that if the Merit Commissioner requires more resources to do this work…. Just as when the Ombudsperson themselves did the initial report in this manner, they went and sought additional resources from the committee and from the government, that might be required and would be done.

S. Bond: I appreciate that answer from the minister. I think the issue certainly isn’t about the qualifications of the Merit Commissioner to be able to do the job. I think the concern is more related to the volume that might be required.

Perhaps the minister could speak to that in terms of how many cases one would…. We would hope there are not an abundance of them, but what would we assume that number of cases would be in an average year?

Perhaps to be more specific about the resources, if new funding is required in the short term, over the next period of time, would there be access to contingencies provided? The most important issue is that if we’re going to set this up — obviously, we’ve said clearly that we support the work that has been done — we want to make sure it’s done well and that it’s resourced appropriately.

[6:15 p.m.]

Perhaps just two questions, then: the volume that would be anticipated over the course of a year, and would there be access to contingencies if that funding is required in the short term.

Hon. A. Dix: Approximately 25 cases are in this category every year of what you’d call just cause dismissals. While, in terms of volume, it’s not a huge number, the policy issues are important. That would be the nature of the review.

Certainly, the Merit Commissioner would be in position to, in the short run…. I know that if we’re talking about the 2019-20 budget year, there are other occasions for the Merit Commissioner to make the case. But if more resources were required in the short run, then the Merit Commissioner, of course, could make application for that.

S. Bond: Thank you for that. We appreciate the answers. I think together we’ll be watching to make sure…. Now that we’ve reached this place where an important step is being taken, we just want to make sure that it’s properly resourced.

The other issue we wanted to pursue a little bit…. I wanted to reflect on a comment that the minister made in her second reading remarks and perhaps just pursue a comment to get a bit more clarity. In reading the bill, it was a bit hard to understand it in the context of this comment. Let me just quickly read this into the record: “This is not asking the Merit Commissioner to go and review every independent just cause dismissal and check and see whether it was done for the right reasons.”

Then, when you look at the amendments, it actually refers to two situations in which the commissioner would review. One is 12 months after dismissal if no grievance is filed, or six months after any grievance process is completed. The legislation itself seems to describe any and all dismissals.

Could the minister just articulate for us exactly…? We can ask the straightforward question. Will all dismissals — any and all dismissals — be reviewed?

Hon. A. Dix: I’d refer the member to section 5.14(2), which says: “The merit commissioner may determine which eligible dismissals to review.”

Given the number of dismissals we’re talking about in this category — where it’s not all dismissals; it’s dismissals for just cause, which is an important category — the Merit Commissioner can determine which of that number, in this case, she or he would review.

However, it would be our expectation in the initial period that they would review all of the dismissals. The sections that the member is referring to — 5.12.1(a) and (b) — talk about the time when the review can take place. It’s 12 months after the dismissal if no action has been taken, and six months if there’s been a grievance procedure. That just is when the process of review kicks in.

S. Bond: Initially, then, the Merit Commissioner will review all just cause cases?

Hon. A. Dix: It is up to the Merit Commissioner, but that would be my sense, although the Merit Commissioner may — according to the law we’re passing today and assuming that it passes — determine which eligible dismissals to review.

It is within her authority to decide not to review an eligible case. My expectation would be that, at least in the initial stages, she would be reviewing all of them.

S. Bond: Is the discretion, in terms of the reviews that will be done, solely in the hands of the Merit Commissioner? Or, for example, could government or others request that, should the Merit Commissioner not make the decision to review a particular case…? Is there another mechanism for triggering the Merit Commissioner’s review in the event that that decision was not made by the Merit Commissioner?

[6:20 p.m.]

Hon. A. Dix: The authority in this case is in the hands of the Merit Commissioner. That’s a recommendation that was supported by the Ombudsperson — to give that discretion to the Merit Commissioner. In other words, the discretion isn’t held by the Merit Commissioner and the Minister of Finance or some other minister of government. It’s the Merit Commissioner’s discretion as an independent officer.

S. Bond: So there would be no opportunity, then, or instance where the minister could imagine the government suggesting, recommending, directing the Merit Commissioner to pursue a particular review?

Hon. A. Dix: No.

S. Bond: Excellent. I think if there are three noes from the team on the other side, we’re probably feeling pretty good about that.

Just another area for a bit more clarification. Section 5.14(4) talks about how the Merit Commissioner “must not make a determination about whether the dismissal met the legal standard for a just cause dismissal.” But later in the bill, it refers to a report on whether the government policies, those determining whether a dismissal was legal, were followed. In other words, later it talks about a report that looks at whether government policies were followed.

So how is the commissioner supposed to determine if procedures were followed if they are not going to look at the legality of the dismissal — the separation of the legal argument from a review of the decision?

Hon. A. Dix: I think the notion here is that there are other procedures, legal and otherwise, to determine just cause. The purpose of this is to have the Merit Commissioner reviewing the practices of government with respect to this particular area — that was certainly the recommendation of the Ombudsperson — not to be making the legal determination on individual cases. There are other processes for that. There’s no need to duplicate those. It’s to review the policies and practices of government going forward.

This is frequently done in reviews of this kind. This standardizes that review, and that’s the purpose of this. It is not to create a second process — quite the contrary, to preclude that — but to have the Merit Commissioner reviewing the whole body of just cause dismissals, to review policies and practices of government to ensure that improvements are made.

Section 2 approved.

On section 3.

T. Redies: This section refers to the annual report related to the reviews that the Merit Commissioner is going to be doing. Just a question around the nature of the report and what the format is likely to take. Is it going to refer to specific cases and dismissals, or is it going to be a list of recommendations?

The Chair: Minister, and noting the hour.

Hon. A. Dix: Noting the hour? I feel like we’re just getting started. I think we are.

Two responses. One, the Merit Commissioner appropriation this year is $1.141 million for the 2018-19 fiscal year. That’s the budget now. If she was seeking a larger amount, that would be the case.

The purpose of the report isn’t to review individual cases. In fact, as we go later in the bill, we’ll see that there are specific provisions to make sure that people’s personal privacy is not affected. So we’re not referring to specific ministries or specific cases.

The job is to look at the whole body of just cause dismissals every year and to make recommendations to government about policy and practices, including the way investigations are conducted, for example, and other issues. That’s the purpose of this review function of the Merit Commissioner. It’s not to create a second place where individual cases are litigated. In fact, the Merit Commissioner is specifically, under the legislation — the sections we’ll get to — prohibited from doing that, as you’d expect.

Noting the hour, as the Speaker is giving me that noting-the-hour look, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:25 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Committee of the Whole (Section B), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

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

Hon. A. Dix: Noting the hour and with two minutes on the table, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Hon. A. Dix moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 6:27 p.m.