Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate on Bill 33, South Coast B.C. Transportation Authority Act. In Committee A, I call continued debate on the Ministry of Health estimates. After those are completed, I will be calling the Ministry of Finance estimates. Then in Committee C, the Birch Room, I’ll be calling committee stage on Bill 26, Child, Family and Community Service Act.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 33 — SOUTH COAST
BRITISH COLUMBIA TRANSPORTATION
AUTHORITY AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

(continued)

R. Sultan: I’m pleased to comment on Bill 33, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act, 2018.

Deputy Speaker: Member, just a second. Sorry.

Hon. S. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I move second reading of Bill 33.

Deputy Speaker: Member, now continue.

R. Sultan: This bill will add additional development cost charges pursuant to bylaws. The sorts of development cost charges will be applied, including capital costs, including planning, engineering and legal costs directly related to work for a capital project. The collection may be performed by municipalities, by Metro Vancouver or by UBC, which is singled out for special attention in the bill.

The issues raised by this bill are abundant and I’m sure will be explored in detail at committee stage. So let me just give you an overview of some issues and concerns.

[1:35 p.m.]

Section 34.21 says that subject to an agreement under section 34.31, the authority may, by bylaw, for purposes described in subsection (2), impose development cost charges on every person who obtains, for example, approval of a subdivision, a building permit, etc., for the capital costs of eligible projects.

These charges levied by the authority — and let’s remind ourselves that we’re talking about the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority — must pass muster by an inspector. Who the inspector is, is rather vaguely defined. We can let our imagination roll as to who might be given this plum assignment.

I think the core of the concept is one where those of us who attend meetings around the Lower Mainland, lamenting the congestion we face and the solution of mass transit, public transit, frequently switch to a discussion of development corridors and the huge amounts of capital expended, which may be taxed in what has been up till now, at least — it remains to see what happens — a buoyant real estate market. So we’ll just pile on some more development charges, and the development charges will pay for all of this new public transit infrastructure that we so desperately need.

That’s the theory, and it is very eloquently explained in great detail by the academics who tend to show up at these conferences. I’m sure it provides the intellectual underpinnings of this proposed legislation.

Let me say upfront I oppose the legislation because I lived through the last transit referendum. That was a rather clever idea. We recognized, as the provincial government, that new sources of income must be realized by TransLink if they’re to fulfil all of our public transit ambitions. But we felt, in our wisdom of the day, that we should not levee these taxes unilaterally. We should do it pursuant to a referendum.

The referendum ran something like this: “Would you like us to raise your taxes? Yes or no?” Well, it didn’t take even the leader of the Green Party to realize that maybe this referendum was going to be in trouble before it even got out of the starting gates. And so it was.

I think the lesson to be learned from this unfortunate episode is that not only must more revenue be acquired from some source in order to have the public transit which the Lower Mainland so desperately needs; it must be raised in a politically legitimate manner. Legitimacy is acquired by much more tedious steps than just asking people if they would mind paying an extra tax, because we know in advance what the answer is going to be.

Nevertheless, we now have this new government, boldly marching into the swamp of public transit and legitimacy, saying the authority is going to make all these decisions to put on development charges. They will be kept fair and square by somebody called the inspector.

I can assure you that in the riding I represent, this would not be a scheme greeted with pizzazz and acclaim. We have suffered for too long under a governance structure which is heavily weighted by population.

While we had, for a time, Mayor Richard Walton — a very well-versed accountant by training, a savvy political leader, the mayor of North Van district — as chair of the Mayors Council, when push came to shove, what happened? The mayors of Surrey and Vancouver decided: “Well, thanks for keeping the seat warm, Richard, but we’re pushing you out, and we’re going to elect one of our own, because we’ve got the votes. So if you don’t like it, tough luck.” And that’s what happened.

[1:40 p.m.]

That, more or less, is the political legitimacy presented to all of the encircling municipalities in Metro Vancouver today. It is a bad formula for raising the amounts of capital which are required, and I think this motion will only perpetuate the bad feeling that the people who have made these decisions do not represent all of us in a fair manner.

I might interject, also, that this entire process I see, between the lines, is suffering from an overdose of what I would call academic theorizing — that somehow, you could build a little academic model of how development occurs along public transit routes. Tall condominium towers are built. There is so much economic rent to be acquired, which we can bleed off to pay for the development of infrastructure, the mass transit itself. Everybody’s happy.

Having served as an academic with economic training, myself, for many years, I recognize the symptoms. I would say they infect not only the planning proposed for new funding of infrastructure for transit but the entire seven-point “let’s raise taxes in all directions” program of this NDP government — seven new taxes being imposed on my constituents. Count them.

Tracing down the origins, frequently we find that some professor, either at Simon Fraser or UBC, has come out with a great model that if only we raise taxes enough, all will be well, and our housing supply problems will be answered. I have to say: what first-year economics class did they attend which suggested that supply would be increased of a commodity upon which you’re going to raise taxes? Nevertheless, that’s the false advice that they end up giving, and I think, having been trained with supply-demand curves with price vertically on the left hand side of the chart, you interfere with price by fiddling with taxes, and from there, all sorts of mischief flows.

They, unfortunately, lack real-world experience, and I think we see that, as the realities of some of these taxation schemes now appear. It would appear to the casual observer, such as myself, that the government is scrambling, trying to make it all work with patchwork, in-transit — no pun intended — adjustments.

Back to Bill 33. It is, to give it its due, addressing a real and urgent problem. We should commend the government for doing its best, however flawed it might be, with this bill. At least it is trying to address an issue. The issue is that we need a grander vision for our public transit system in the big city, as I call Vancouver, and we need a grander vision for how we’re going to pay for it.

I think that the creaking, aging, somewhat tired structure of TransLink, as useful as it has been in its day, should be replaced with something bolder and more attuned with current-day realities. I won’t bore this assembly by offering my somewhat academically influenced theories on the subject, but I assure you they’re not going to be influenced by a supply-and-demand curve.

I had one or two other thoughts to offer before I leave the podium here. For the record, lest we believe that somehow it is the NDP that has discovered the need for transportation infrastructure, we should point out that on our watch, a huge expansion of SkyTrain, the South Fraser Perimeter Road, the immensely successful Sea to Sky Highway and the Port Mann Bridge were all built, and other structures as well.

[1:45 p.m.]

We were significantly along on a replacement for the George Massey Tunnel, and on behalf of the consulting engineering fraternity that I hang out with from time to time, I should point out that to have the rug abruptly pulled out from under that project grievously wounded the balance sheets of the major engineering companies involved, who had put up about $75 million of their own money to prepare proposals and design concepts which ultimately led to the structure that was under construction, before it was cancelled.

One of these firms is world renowned. It is a North Shore engineering company called COWI, formerly known as Buckland and Taylor. These people are so renowned that they have been retained to build the structures replacing the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in that tragic guerrilla attack by air.

They are eminent. They came up with the unique engineering approach which saved enormous amounts of capital costs. Now, since the project is cancelled, the documents seem to have become public property, including all of their good ideas, for which they are not being compensated.

To say that some elements of the consulting engineering community are not amused by the behaviour of this government would be an understatement because of the huge amounts of money that have somehow been evaporated on proposals that led nowhere.

The other point I would make is that in devising a suitable governance structure, we must, again, trust the people whose money we plan to spend, which means a democratic presence. Although the Mayors Council is a good attempt, it is curtailed and isn’t really quite the right answer. Nevertheless, they were on, and are on, the right track. I think to really leave these decisions up to regulation and to, heaven forbid, a cabinet in Victoria, staffed and advised by people who do not endure the daily agony of congestion in the Vancouver area, is not the way to do it.

Government by regulation, in my opinion, is inherently flawed. It smacks of dictatorial tendencies and, I think, is bred into Bill 33 to an unfortunate degree. Therefore, when this bill comes up for further debate, I will be speaking further against it.

J. Thornthwaite: I would also like to speak to Bill 33, intituled the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act, 2018.

First, before going specifically to the…. Oh, somebody wants to do an announcement. Okay.

J. Routledge: Thank you to the member.

I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

J. Routledge: I have the pleasure of introducing Mrs. Sabina McCloskey and her Holy Cross Elementary grade 5 class and, I believe, some parents. Please join me in making them welcome.

Debate Continued

Deputy Speaker: The member for North Vancouver–Seymour will continue.

J. Thornthwaite: Resuming my remarks on the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Amendment Act. Before I get, specifically, into the act, I’d like to go through a little bit of history with regards to all of the investments that our government did with regards to transit and transportation.

[1:50 p.m.]

To reiterate, we’ve been supportive of the Mayors Council, as was mentioned by the previous speaker. Our own mayor in the district of North Vancouver, Richard Walton, has been paramount in working diligently for the region and also for North Vancouver in his role as the chair of the Mayors Council, and we support his work.

As the member for Kamloops–South Thompson said earlier, since 2001, the B.C. Liberal government invested more than $18 billion in transportation infrastructure upgrades. That includes major projects in the Lower Mainland. Certainly, SkyTrain, the South Perimeter Road, the Sea to Sky Highway, the Port Mann Bridge everybody knows about. Personally, I have a favourite — the Highway 1 lower Lynn improvement project, $198 million to improve all those interchanges, the three interchanges, four phases. We are expecting that the first phase is supposed to be finished later on this year. Great. Everybody in the North Shore is ecstatic about that.

As the members opposite know, I’m still advocating for at least a consideration by TransLink to investigate the possibility of SkyTrain to the North Shore and, in the meantime, perhaps a B-line from Phibbs Exchange back and forth to match and connect us across the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge to the Millennium Line on the other side. Hopefully that will be coming. I will certainly be advocating for that.

The last budget prepared on this side of the House set aside $3.2 billion for a three-year plan, which, along with the federal investments, brought total spending to $4.6 billion. Totally with transit then…. Since 2001, ridership was up 47 percent, but funding increased by 132 percent.

Here’s a little bit of trivia that people might not know. B.C. provides the highest level of provincial contribution towards transit operating costs in all of Canada, more than two times the national average.

Since 2001, our government provided over $2.2 billion to TransLink. Even since 2008, there were significant investments of just under $1 billion, including the Evergreen Line; many, many bus projects; obviously, UBC and Surrey; rapid transit; expansion of buses across the region; expansion of SkyTrains and the West Coast Express; more SkyTrain cars; fare gates; and a new SeaBus. That is in addition to, with the Evergreen Line, $1.43 billion invested by the B.C. government and its partners.

To summarize, then, going ahead towards the last election, the B.C. Liberal government had matched the federal funding, and it set up feasibility studies on major new expansion projects, including the east from Evergreen Line towards Maple Ridge and Mission, into South Surrey, into Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack, west to UBC, across to the North Shore and up to Squamish.

I wanted to go through this just so that people realize that despite the rhetoric that’s coming from the other side, there were significant investments in transportation and TransLink and B.C. Transit with our government over the years that we….

Yes, as I said, we are very supportive of the transportation infrastructure programs, but we worry with regards to this bill that any off-loading of the costs of investment onto the homeowners during a housing crisis would have a negative effect on housing affordability here, in Metro Vancouver.

I know that some of my colleagues have already mentioned this, but I’m going to reiterate it. In fact, when it comes to housing affordability, one of the key issues that is very, very important for any government to consider is: if you start tacking on more fees, more permits, more taxes, etc., that will actually increase the cost of housing. It’s called development cost charge for high-density new housing projects.

Yes, the government has made some important exemptions, including for not-for-profit rental. But the single most important tool to address is supply, and this government has not done that. That’s encouraging more supply, densification along transit lines, speeding up the approval process in municipalities.

[1:55 p.m.]

We are going through those growing pains, actually, in the district of North Vancouver with regards to trying to balance the availability of housing that, for instance, the millennials can afford. Keep them on the North Shore. We all want our children to be able to be close to home and not have to move very, very far away. The district of North Vancouver and the city of North Vancouver are in the middle of a balancing act, trying to increase the diversification of housing. Obviously, the residents are concerned about density or concerned about traffic, etc. I know it’s a balancing act.

Something that we have to really, really focus on is the supply end of the chain in order to provide more options for people at all levels of affordability. I do worry about the piling on of all these costs and fees and taxes that might have an unintended consequence. We have seen during this session that perhaps many initiatives that have maybe good intentions…. When you look at the details and the range of people and, say, businesses that are affected, sometimes those negative consequences kind of come up to bite you in the you know what.

Anyway, what I was going to say is that the speculation tax, the so-called speculation tax, which we thought: “Oh, that would be really, really good because it would stop speculators….” But in fact, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It was an extra tax on, say, cabins or inheritance or wealth.

Then, of course, there’s the famous employers health tax that actually will increase costs to non-profits, school boards and municipalities. Of course, many of the municipalities have come out publicly, and the mayors have claimed that this will not only increase property taxes but could have a negative effect on staff or a reduction in services or all three.

The member for Kamloops–South Thompson had mentioned a quote from the Urban Development Institute that from the year 2008 to 2018 — so in ten years — with all of the taxes, fees, permits, community amenities and all of this stuff piled on to increase the cost of actually building houses, it was a tenfold increase, or 790 percent, over a ten-year period. So anything that’s going to increase the cost of actually building houses would be a disadvantage.

In summary, for me, I definitely want to reiterate the importance of transit and certainly the investments in our public transit system, but I worry that these extra costs are going to just pile on extra cost to housing and negatively affect affordability of housing in Metro Vancouver. So that will be the reason why I will not be supporting this bill.

R. Coleman: I’m pleased to get up to talk about this particular piece of legislation. I’ll be focusing on the conversation around the development cost charges that are going to be applied to density in and around transit. I want to have that conversation in the context of some information that I want to share with the House.

First of all, I think what we forgot and have been trying to deal with for years is what the layered-on cost is before somebody actually starts to build on any single unit of housing anywhere in British Columbia. In some places, it’s called a development cost charge. In some places, it’s called a community amenity charge. Sometimes it’s both. Sometimes it’s got other intonations.

The challenge with it is this. For instance, the C.D. Howe Institute’s study that just came out in the last couple of days says that Vancouver has the highest additional costs put on housing prior to starting construction, which are community amenity charges and other charges against the housing, and that it totals $600,000 a unit. So before you pour any cement, before you buy the land, before you get your approvals, and before you actually get in the ground, it’s $600,000.

Now, the average across the Lower Mainland is anywhere from $250,000 a unit to $150,000 a unit. But it’s not any cheaper anywhere, and that doesn’t take into account the time. You have to have the money committed to be able to do a project when it takes four, five or six years to get in the ground.

It also might be the systemic issue that we face with regards to the fact there’s over 100,000-some-odd units in process on the Lower Mainland, in British Columbia, that are not getting built right now.

[2:00 p.m.]

The other thing that’s happening in the marketplace, something that people have to understand, is that cost is tough. But the other cost that’s tough is being able to get a project financed if you want to build it. Let’s assume you want to build a 100-unit building of condos. In order to approve the financing for that, you need to get 75 percent of that building presold. Today, because of the taxes that have been put in place, presales are actually evaporating.

There are $300 million of construction projects in the city of Kelowna alone that are on the shelf because of presales. They were people wanting to have a secondary residence — people from Alberta, Saskatchewan or even Ontario — who had presales, ready to buy, who said: “Whoa. I never knew I was going to get an extra tax, so I actually am going to step out my contract.” Presales evaporated. So those projects will not get financed and will not get built. Somebody has to finance it, and there are rules around this with both CMHC and banks as to what they’ll finance.

I want to give you a couple of other examples where I think some vision…. I’ve had these conversations with various cities over the years to try and see how they could move their vision forward, and I think there’s an opportunity in some of this. In the city of Vancouver now, in downtown towers that will get built, 20 percent of the units in the buildings will be for social housing. That means that a developer builds them and gives them to the city, which then hands them off to a non-profit to operate them for social housing.

I think they need to come out of their box. This is no new story for them, because I’ve actually told them this in the past. Think about that as 20 percent of the building now being rental housing. Who do you want to have rental housing for, in addition to social housing? One of the biggest complaints in cities like West Vancouver and in Vancouver elsewhere is that people who actually do the services in the community — nurses, teachers, police officers, firemen — can’t afford to live in the city. I know that, because over 600 police officers alone live in my riding and serve elsewhere all around the Lower Mainland, including Vancouver city police, West Vancouver city police and others.

The opportunity is: why don’t you try some affordable home ownership deals, where you can actually have some caveats put on it to allow people who work in the city to buy, stay or rent in the city and actually change that dynamic? You can’t just have it all dedicated to social housing if you really want to have some affordability in the marketplace for your people.

Now, we should remember that when that 20 percent is paid for, the people on the floors above pay for that in the price of retail when they buy there. They’re paying for the 20 percent, because it’s in the retail price.

The other thing that concerns me about this particular bill is that it’s a small development cost structure. When I was in the business back in the ’80s, it was a small development cost structure. It was $5,000 to $10,000 per door. In my community, at the time, it was $15,000 a door. Now it’s $60,000 a door. What’s going to happen when it starts at $300 to $600 per unit in the additional transit development cost charge? Already people are talking about it going to $1,200. It’ll just bump, bump, bump, and it’ll go right down to the retail price of the house and will affect housing affordability.

I want to give you another example. In the city of Burnaby, you can get 2.5 density. If people don’t understand what that means, you can take the land base and get a multiplication of square footage going up into your tower, and that’s what you can build. Now, you can take that density up for another 750,000 to one million square feet if you want to go higher.

In Burnaby, in addition to the development cost charges that are already pushing up around $250,000 per unit, to go bigger and do density, which I actually support…. You would think that density would bring more affordability into the marketplace, but not in Burnaby. For the extra 750,000 to one million square feet that you were allowed, the development cost community amenity charge is $350 a square foot. Every thousand-dollar unit has another $350,000 charge on it that goes directly into the pocket of the city of Burnaby, which still doesn’t have a contract with its fire department that’s over three years old. It doesn’t make any sense.

If you want affordability as a local government, you need to understand that and how it can work. There’s no community that I know of that’s in the development side that’s got this right.

[2:05 p.m.]

For years we’ve tried to figure out ways that we could actually reduce that cost, streamline the cost for development, get housing into the marketplace, but it’s in the control of local government.

As we go through that, let’s remember that what we want in the end is affordable housing. We want rental housing, which would allow for the 20 percent in Vancouver, which they could be really flexible and very ingenious with, if they want to be, and do some really creative things. But we need to do that in the context that it can actually get built.

Now, on top of $350,000 for an expanded unit in square footage in Burnaby, add in the $250,000 you’re already paying. All of a sudden, this new tax, this DCC…. I’ve watched DCCs for 20 years plus. They don’t go down. They go up.

For the next SkyTrain station along the corridor out to UBC, don’t be surprised, if this legislation gets passed, that it could be $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 within a couple years. Because it will be seen as an opportunity, and nobody understands the trickle-down effect of that amount of money for the ability for people to live there, buy there, rent there or find other opportunities in housing. We have to understand that the input costs in housing are staggering.

Can you imagine? You want to buy a home. Let’s say you want to buy a very small condo in Vancouver. It’s $1.6 million, because the costs in Vancouver are very high. Imagine if you figured out that the actual cost of that condo could be $1 million because $600,000 of your price is going to local government. It’s not going into the other infrastructure, because a lot of it’s already in place. In downtown Vancouver, that is particularly true.

As we go forward with this, let’s remember that today…. That’s why I just don’t believe another development cost charge is going to give you one cent of affordability in the future for housing, which is what you want to accomplish.

I think we should look at how we’re doing that 20 percent in downtown Vancouver, or the city should, and actually split it up. Have some that could be co-op; some that could be affordable home ownership; some that could be pure rental and affordable, below-market rental and social housing. You can diversify the concern and actually address some of the things that that city is dealing with.

The other thing is that if we’re going to get there on affordability, at some point in time we have to recognize the fact that we need to speed things up. We could speed up the process for rezoning. But remember on the back end. The more you layer on the front and the more presale customers you take out of the marketplace…. You can have it all approved, all 100,000 units approved tomorrow, but you can’t get it financed if there are no presales, and right now in British Columbia, we’re killing presales.

That’s what we should keep in mind when we deal with this bill.

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

Hon. S. Robinson: I had a chance to listen to some of the debate here in this chamber, and I just want to close with a couple of remarks.

I have never met anyone who likes to be in traffic. I think it’s definitely something that everybody in this House can agree on. I’m confident that everybody in this chamber gets frustrated by traffic and by congestion. Making sure that we have a robust transit system, one that meets the needs of a growing Lower Mainland — remember, we have a million more people coming to greater Vancouver — is critically important to reducing congestion.

I do want to say that I know that there was some acknowledgement of TransLink’s project costs continuing to escalate. It’s continuing to escalate because the old government, the members on the other side of the House, refused to work together with the Mayors Council, refused to work together with TransLink, refused to actually act and make the projects viable. When you have a failed referendum, which was doomed from the start — of course it just caused delay. So if people in this chamber are frustrated by delay, I think it’s because the previous government caused those significant delays that have resulted in escalated costs.

The other thing I want to point out. I heard, certainly, a bit of commentary from the development community and what some of the big developers have been complaining about, but I also have a developer who understands the value that transit will bring to their projects.

I want to speak, specifically, the words of Jason Turcotte from Cressey Developments, which is a significant developer in our community. They’ve come out in support of this, mentioning on News 1130: “If new development is going to continue to become available as a result of transit expansion, then new development should help to fund it. I really think the two things go hand in hand, so it makes sense that you have a direct correlation.”

[2:10 p.m.]

Now, the other comment I want to make has to do with the concerns that I heard from the other side around how it’s just going to increase the cost of housing, therefore making it less affordable. First of all, this includes a role for the inspector of municipalities, who will play a significant role to ensure that the rates will not deter development or discourage the construction of reasonably priced homes. So we’re pretty clear that that’s here in this legislation.

The other thing I want to point out is that when you have some fees, because it does cost local governments to move projects along…. If you were to remove the fees…. Let’s say we said: “Okay. We’re removing all of those fees.” If anyone in this House believes that suddenly the house prices are going to reflect that removal…. Remember. This is the marketplace, and the market determines that.

I’m not worried about what members opposite have been saying in their comments. We have put some safeguards in there, and this is going to be an important piece of legislation that gets people out of congestion in the Lower Mainland.

With that, I move second reading of Bill 33.

[2:15 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Second reading of Bill 33 approved on the following division:

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 33, South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority 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, Bill 34, Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act.

[2:20 p.m.]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

BILL 34 — GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION
TARGETS AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Hon. G. Heyman: Hon. Speaker, I move that this bill amending the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act be read a second time.

Bill 34 sets the foundation for this government’s climate strategy. It makes two very significant changes for how we address climate change in this province.

First, the amendments will revitalize the greenhouse gas reduction targets to set a clear path to the 2050 legislated targets. These targets will ensure that we stay on the path to achieve an 80 percent reduction in emissions below 2007 levels by 2050.

Second, the scope of the act will be expanded to cover how this province adapts to climate change and how, as a government, we are accountable for the adaptation measures that we promote and that we offer to assist communities around the province to do.

Specifically, the amendments make the following changes. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act is renamed the Climate Change Accountability Act to reflect the expanded scope of this bill to cover targets, carbon-neutral government and climate risk.

Next, the greenhouse gas emission targets are reset by repealing the 2020 emission reduction target of 33 percent below 2007 emission levels, which the previous government, as well as the 2015 climate leadership team report, said simply could not be met. We are simply too far away. In fact, in the period of time from 2010 to 2015, under the previous government, our emissions rose by 4½ percent instead of continuing to decline.

We will add new targets. We will add a 2030 reduction target of 40 percent below 2007 levels, as recommended by the climate leadership team of the previous government in 2015, which was not adopted by the previous government, and add another target on the pathway to 2050: a 2040 reduction target of 60 percent below 2007 levels. Taken together, these changes will create a clear path for the 2050 target of an 80 percent reduction from 2007 emission levels.

But it takes more than setting a target in legislation. We need to develop a strategy. That’s exactly what we will be doing over the coming months. The bill assists that by enabling the minister to set sectoral targets by order. Sectoral reduction targets were recommended by the climate leadership team, and they’re typically grouped by emissions sources. One of them is buildings and homes, another one is transportation, and another one is the industrial sector.

Sectoral targets provide clear policy direction and enable us to work with the change-makers, with communities, with entrepreneurs, with the private sector, as well as with government agencies while we recognize the unique characteristics of each sector, the capability of each sector. Where we see greater opportunities in one sector, we can avail ourselves of those opportunities.

Finally, the amendments will prepare B.C. for managing the risks of climate change. We know that climate change is already upon us. We know that even if we stopped emitting today, the impacts of climate change would continue. Emissions are happening around the world, as well as in B.C., in Canada.

Those concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to have devastating impacts on weather. We see that in wildfires. We see that in floods. We see that in unpredictability. We see that in changing growing zones, whether it’s for trees or agriculture. We see that in the movement of species as they need to find new habitat that will support them.

Beginning in 2020, the province will be accountable to British Columbians through reporting on the current and predicted climate risks. In addition, we’ll report on the plans, actions and progress that have been taken to mitigate current as well as future climate risks and to adapt to those risks that are unavoidable.

[2:25 p.m.]

The amendments to the act will also enable regulations that collect information from public sector organizations, such as school boards, that relates to how B.C. is preparing for climate change through both mitigation and adaptation measures. Together, these amendments will ensure that British Columbia is well positioned to manage the risks associated with climate change.

Bill 34 and the establishment of revitalized climate targets is the first step in developing a new climate strategy for British Columbia. Over the coming months, we will conduct a careful and thorough consultation with British Columbians to inform our actions.

We will use the newly established Climate Solutions and Clean Growth Advisory Council, which has already made a number of recommendations to government which we have made public, to advise us on the opportunities of taking action to address climate change as well as impacts and threats to British Columbia’s economy, families, communities and individuals, which we need to be mindful of as we design policies — policies that we wish to minimize negative impacts while maximizing economic opportunity and opportunities for more affordability as well as for a more comfortable, predictable and stable life for families and communities.

I will give a small example of some of the things that we already are planning to do. As part of the increase of the climate tax, the carbon tax, which began this April with a $5-per-tonne increase, we will be giving a significant percentage of that incremental tax back to low- and moderate-income families.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

We will also establish a clean growth incentive fund to assist large industrial emitters — to assist them in both making changes to reduce emissions as well as to approach world-leading benchmarks on emissions so that we remain competitive. We protect jobs in British Columbia while reducing our emissions.

We will be making a number of announcements over the coming months about opportunities to reduce emissions, opportunities that will be examples of how we flesh out a climate strategy plan for British Columbia. It’s a plan that will continue to be iterated and reiterated into the future and a plan that, coming this fall, will show British Columbians that this government is serious about addressing climate change, serious about making life better for communities, serious about providing great economic opportunities for families and communities throughout B.C.

It’s not a choice between climate action or environmental action and the economy. The truth is that the two are inextricably linked — today, tomorrow and into the future. By addressing these issues together and seizing opportunities to build a modern, diverse, low-carbon economy, cutting carbon pollution, we can show leadership for Canada. We can show leadership for the world. We can show our determination and intention to address the greatest challenge of our generation in a way that seizes the opportunities before us and that encourages others to join us.

The strategy will set B.C. on a path to ensure that we use less energy, that we make life more affordable, that we invest in innovation and new technologies and that we truly build a better British Columbia.

I’d be happy now to take my chair. I look forward to the contributions from other members as we will engage with all British Columbians to build the plan for the future.

P. Milobar: It gives me pleasure to rise and speak to Bill 34. I think the minister and I might have a different interpretation of words and language — what, specifically, the word “significant” means. We heard the minister say that this bill creates significant changes to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act of 2018. I would suggest to you that the most significant change in this bill is actually the name changing to the Climate Change Accountability Act.

[2:30 p.m.]

I would like to address a few of the changes in this bill and further explain why this really does not pose any significant changes whatsoever to the original Greenhouse Gas Reduction TargetsAct from 2007, when you go through and read. In fact, it’s almost word for word the same except for a few changes.

When you look at the section 2 amendments, at first blush it sounds very impressive that we are removing the 33 percent reduction of 2007 levels by 2020 and replacing it with a 40 percent reduction by 2030. However, given that the end point of an 80 percent reduction by 2050 is still the ultimate goal, the only way to get to that 80 percent is to have a 40 percent reduction from the original plan by 2030 anyways.

All this plan has done is put in writing what was already the preset trajectory for greenhouse gas reductions over the course of time. In fact, this was confirmed by the minister’s staff during a briefing on this as well — that the trajectory of emission reductions has not changed, with this bill, from the 2007 bill at all. What we see is an updating of dates, the natural percentage number that would go with that date. But according to the ministry staff, that’s the exact same number that would have been in place from the 2007 plan — hardly a significant change to the plan of how we’re going to tackle greenhouse gas reduction.

We hear the scope has been expanded. Well, the only scope of any change to this plan, based on what we’re reading today, is that now, by regulation, instead of coming to this House to make these sectoral changes in targets, the minister is empowering himself to be able to make those sectoral targets.

That makes one pause, I think, to consider the implications that has, as we embark — getting closer and closer to a final investment decision — on LNG plants in this province. When you consider that the government is on record as saying that LNG will not be subject to carbon tax and we now see the only change — other than the name change in this bill — being the minister granting himself the ability, by regulation, to make sectoral targets, it does connect, I guess, when you consider the possible investment decision on LNG.

Now, I fully support a final investment decision for LNG. I think it’s safe to say our caucus has been very clear that they support the LNG industry. But I find it interesting that we are now establishing, by ministerial regulation — instead of needing to come back and update in this House, through this type of a process — what those targets will be.

There are no new targets in this bill. As I say, the targets for 2050, as the minister acknowledged, are still 80 percent of 2007 levels by 2050. That’s what was in the original bill in 2007. In the original bill in 2007, the target for 2030 would have been a 40 percent reduction of 2007 levels. What we see here today is a reduction in 2030 by 40 percent of 2007 levels. Again, identical to what was presented in 2007. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any changes of any significance, to use the minister’s language.

Now, I think it’s safe to say that everyone is quite interested in what techniques, tactics and incentives will be used moving forward to try to get to these targets — because, as has been proven, it’s not from lack of trying that we’re not able, at this point, to chart to 2020. There has been a great amount of work done. There has certainly been a lot of work done when you want to talk about building codes, when you want to talk about transit corridors, when you want to talk about areas of government buildings and municipal buildings and the streamlining of those operations to try to reduce emissions in those sectors. There absolutely has been a lot of work done in there.

[2:35 p.m.]

But this is a tough nut to crack. It has been a tough nut to crack everywhere around the world. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep redoubling our efforts, and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have targets, but I think we should make it clear to the public that the fundamental targets haven’t changed. This bill does not change those targets. The real question will be, moving forward into the fall: what types of regulation, what types of incentives for heavy emitters within the industrial sector, come forward?

What types of changes may people have to see to their home environment, in terms of potential legislated rules around energy efficiency and older housing stock, energy efficiency in newer housing stock? I know, when you talk with the building associations, there gets to be a tipping point where you’re investing a lot of money to save an extra 1 percent or 2 percent on a home. That’s going to have to get taken into account. Unfortunately, we don’t see any of that today.

Although I can appreciate that we’re reaffirming the original targets set out by the previous government in 2007, until we get more detail, until we see the true impact, until we see how the yearly increase to the carbon tax, which is no longer revenue-neutral, will be implemented for a path forward, there is no clear path, as the minister has said this bill provides.

This bill does not provide that clear path. This bill reaffirms a very clear target that was set, back in 2007. It doesn’t increase that target. It’s certainly not a bill that you would consider the proverbial moon shot bill to try to accelerate a reduction in climate action. In fact, even some of the finer-point details, like an every-two-year update on even-numbered years, is the exact same language.

All of those, I think, are necessary, but let’s not kid ourselves. This is fundamentally the exact same bill as the original, which is: “The title of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, S.B.C. 2007, c. 42, is repealed and the following substituted: CLIMATE CHANGE ACCOUNTABILITY ACT.” That is the only true change in terms of outcome in this bill, other than the minister, by way of regulation — not by way of legislation, not by needing to come back to this House — providing himself the authority to set greenhouse gas emission targets for individual sectors.

One can only assume the reason this bill, with so little change in it, needs to be dealt with now, instead of in the fall, as part of a comprehensive package — when the other changes would be being brought forward from the great work the committee is doing for the minister — is because of the concern that there may be a final investment decision for LNG sometime this summer. If that’s the case, the minister would clearly need to have the ability to make sure that they had peace of mind and comfort that they would be, indeed, exempt from carbon taxation with that final investment decision.

Again, we support LNG. I don’t want to try to confuse that part of the discussion. But that’s the only reason I can see, with so little change in this bill, for this bill to need to come forward right now: to ensure that that happens.

Although this side of the House has always firmly supported LNG, and the government has now warmed up to the concept of LNG, obviously we will be supporting this bill. I know others in this House have made very clear statements around their support, or lack thereof, for LNG and the seriousness of what happens if LNG is courted. I look forward to hearing comments from other members of this chamber around (b)(4), in terms of the minister establishing greenhouse gas emission targets for individual sectors, by regulation.

[2:40 p.m.]

Certainly, this bill, although it does make very clear what a 2030 target was…. Again, that target was the exact same as was laid out 11 years ago now, in 2007.

We will look forward to seeing what the true changes in the fall will actually be and what the clear direction coming out of the other work and the update work in terms of targets and what people can expect for impacts and for the provision around increased carbon taxation — no longer revenue neutrality — and what that actually means to people in their daily lives, to industry in their daily operations, and in any serious, tangible way whatsoever to seeing any targets being met. Again, they’re the exact same targets as we saw in 2007.

Thank you for the time on this bill. I look forward to further questions in the committee stage.

S. Chandra Herbert: Well, it gives me pleasure and some hope to speak in support of Bill 34, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act, which should it pass, will be renamed, I understand, the Climate Change Accountability Act.

Now, I think that’s important — accountability. I know that the speaker before me is a big fan of accountability. He says he is and really wants to hold people accountable in his job as the official opposition. In order to do that, I think he needs to understand the history of his own previous government, the party he ran with, which from 2010 to 2015, jacked up emissions when every known scientist that’s credible and anybody who cares about climate change would know that we have to be bringing emissions down, not increasing them.

Unfortunately, under the B.C. Liberals for the last, I guess, seven years, really, from 2010 onwards, their trajectory was to send emissions up. I understand the member spoke a lot about how, in this bill, the targets are the same, so really there was no point to change them, that it’s all fine. They were all going in that direction anyways.

Well, they weren’t, unfortunately. The reason that 2020 has been abandoned — 33 percent emission reduction below the 2007 levels in 2020, which we should have made, which we should have done…. Morally, it would have been the thing that I think any one of us would agree is the right thing to do when you consider the impact of climate change.

We didn’t get there because his government, under Christy Clark, abandoned any pretence of trying to act on climate change, claiming: “Well, you know, we’re acting.” Well, they were acting by increasing emissions. I know that for generations ahead of us…. They will be looking back at governments of this time and wondering what the heck we were doing when we knew the problem was there, when we saw the problems staring us in the face of climate change.

Burning gas. Burning carbon. Sending it up into the atmosphere. Burning methane, sending it up in the atmosphere. Doing all of those things that make climate change worse — make flooding worse, make forest fires worse, make the challenge to our species much worse. This is sending people fleeing from their countries as refugees because of climate change and is drowning islands in the South Pacific and whole nations because of climate change.

Well, we knew that, and many of us in this House were trying to raise the alarm. My friends who are, thankfully, now on the opposition side did not do anything about it at the time. They made emissions worse.

That’s accountability, I would say to the hon. member, that he should reflect on — that his party made climate change worse over the last seven years, not better.

I speak today about the Climate Change Account­ability Act because I want the government of B.C. to get back on the right track to reducing emissions — to following our obligation to our fellow citizens and preachers around this planet, to this planet Earth that we all rely on.

Today is my birthday, and I mention that because, well, I love birthdays. But I mention that because we all have an obligation to this earth, I believe, through being born onto it. That obligation is to leave it as a better place for the future, not a worse place, and to reflect on our children and our children’s children and on into the future. We need to be bringing climate change emissions down and fighting greenhouse gas emissions now, and not doing the opposite.

By setting a target of 40 percent below 2007 levels by 2030, that sets us a new benchmark. I’ve got to admit I’ve given the minister a few words, and I’ve certainly shared that with the former Environment Minister as well. We need to find a way to hold politicians accountable for these promises around climate change targets. I know that certainly voters do. The argument is that they will, and some would say that’s why the Liberals lost a number of seats last time. Others will say that didn’t reflect at all.

[2:45 p.m.]

I think that there are other things that we need to think about. I’m hoping, through this legislation, that the idea of having the minister put out, every two years, a report on the risks to B.C. from climate change and what they’re doing to meet those risks would help to create an accountability loop that we could connect to.

I know there’s a time lag between when the emissions go up into the atmosphere, when the planet gets hotter and when the politician might be held accountable for that. You create emissions today, and the heat may not be felt for a while. We’re dealing with a lot of the impact from the burning of coal and so on, years ago now, because of the time lag between the actions we take now and when they impact the planet.

It would be hard in some ways to hold an individual responsible for climate change, because of course we all are. But we really do, I think, need to reflect on: how do we make sure our governments are responsible in taking that into account? We do that for budgets. If somebody doesn’t meet their budget, their salary is reduced a bit.

I jokingly asked: “Well, maybe we should do that for ministers too.” They might take it a bit more seriously if they saw their salaries shaved if they didn’t meet climate change targets — the challenge, of course, being the time lag. Maybe a minister would be held responsible for something they had no hand in doing. I suppose the argument would be: if we followed the 2020 target and we didn’t meet it because the B.C. Liberal government didn’t do anything to fight climate change and an NDP cabinet minister got their salary cut…. I could see why some people would have a challenge with that.

I’m hoping that we start broadening and that the Auditor General broadens their scope around what we audit. We often audit the books. You look at the numbers, the finance, the dollars, the cents. Do they add up? Do they track? Was it value for money?

I hope that we keep just as firm an eye — and we take a closer eye, I would argue — on carbon emissions, climate change emissions, and that we really track those as well, because you can’t act if you don’t have the data. For a while, we’ve been lacking data to see how much the emissions increased under the former government. I know the minister said that from 2010 to 2015, they went up 4.5 percent.

It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it does sound like a lot when we understand that emissions didn’t go down that much in 2008 to 2010 after the bringing in of a carbon tax and a major recession. Emissions did go down but not by a huge amount, and then they just bumped right back up.

We only have a steeper hill to climb from here on out if we’re going to reduce emissions by 40 percent below 2007 levels by 2030. That’s 12 years from now. A 40 percent reduction of our climate change emissions in 12 years — we shouldn’t kid ourselves. That is a very difficult thing to meet, because of course, many people…. How did they get to this building today? They might have driven a fossil-fuel-combusting car to get here. They might have taken the bus, which in many cases uses fossil fuels.

How did they heat the water for coffee they had this morning? Well, maybe it was with an electric kettle; maybe it was on a stove burning gas. I know, depending on what part of the province you are, there are different prevalence levels of that. Maybe they heat their home with gas to stay a little bit warmer. That’s a fossil fuel.

If we’re going to cut 40 percent of our emissions by 2030, all of those issues need to be acted on now, and that takes a while. I’ve talked to many apartment owners, strata condo owners and others in my constituency. In some cases, their boilers come up, and they go: “We need to buy a gas-burning boiler to heat the water that people want for their hot shower in the morning.” In some cases, solar can supplement if not outright replace that, and certainly, the costs are looking a lot more affordable to do that. But many people don’t think about it.

Gas prices are low right now, so they say: “Well, they’ll always be low.” They don’t factor in the climate cost of burning the gas and so may not make that transition. Well, if in 12 years we need to cut our emissions, by 2040, a whole lot of us are going to be needing to make those kinds of transitions — moving to the electric car if possible, moving to walking, biking, as many of us do. I think Bike to Work Week is upon us. Certainly, that’s how I choose to get around most of the time.

There’s a lot of change we need to make, and I’m glad that we’re started on that path. I look forward to seeing the plan to get us to these target levels because a target is just a target unless you actually act on it. We’ve seen what happens when you don’t act to meet your target: you miss it, and you miss it by a long shot. You burn gas, and you make the climate problem worse.

I’m hopeful that we can actually meet the target and then some, because I think there are generations — my generation, the generation behind me, younger than me, and so on…. All we’ve seen is political parties make promises about fighting climate change and then break them.

[2:50 p.m.]

I think the federal government, through the ’90s, made all sorts of talk about meeting the Kyoto protocol and did barely anything to actually meet it and blew past those numbers. We saw that under the Christy Clark government. We saw it under the Stephen Harper government. They made grand plans and then did nothing to actually meet them.

I’m committed to working my butt off to make sure that we actually meet the targets, because I think it’s important for my generation, for the generations to come, for our elders, for our planet, for the very thing that gives us life, the Earth. If we don’t do it, we as a species are facing incredible calamity. If we do take action, we’re already facing real, real challenges because of the inaction of previous governments and previous generations.

It’s my pleasure to speak in support of this bill and of continued action to actually fight climate change. It’s our obligation. We must do it.

A. Weaver: I rise to speak in favour and support of Bill 34, Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act, 2018. This act is putting forward a number of amendments to the original Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, which was assented to on November 29, 2007. That act has three parts to it: one with respect to future greenhouse gas emission targets, one with respect to a carbon-neutral public sector and one that had some general provisions.

It is on the first part that the amendments are being put forward today, under three main areas. The first, of course, is that new targets are being added for 2030 and for 2040. The government is proposing a 40 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, relative to 2000 levels, and a 60 percent reduction, relative to 2000 levels, by 2040.

In addition, we know that there are sections being added here to give the minister executive power, through the Lieutenant-Governor-in-council, to provide sectoral reduction targets as we move forward.

In addition, and in direct response to the federal Auditor General’s report, the government is proposing to have, starting in 2020 and reporting every two years after that…. A report will be introduced that will discuss the determination of the risks that could be expected from changing climate, the progress that has been made toward addressing those risks, the actions that have been taken to achieve that progress and the plans to continue that progress.

I’d like to go back to the original act in 2007 that’s being amended. To me, that was a very important time in my life, because 2007 was the year in which the IPCC — that’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — released its Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change. In that year, they also received the Nobel Peace Prize.

I remember that year very, very well. I remember that year because of the fact that the B.C. government at the time, under the leader, Gordon Campbell, decided that this was an opportunity that B.C. could not afford to miss out on. Gordon Campbell, the Premier at the time, recognized, as did his Environment Minister, Barry Penner, that having a climate change and greenhouse gas reduction strategy is essential to having a vision. It’s, essentially, exactly the same as having a vision for a renewable, clean 21st century economy that brings prosperity not only for the present generation but also for future generations thereafter.

He recognized that the very first piece of legislation that needed to be introduced prior to bringing in steps to actually mitigate greenhouse gases was setting a goal. That goal, in 2007, in the act that received royal assent on November 27, was greenhouse gas reduction targets.

I sat in the audience proudly watching that day when the bill was read here. I see young children from a school here. I sat where they sit that day and listened to the minister at the time, Barry Penner, bring in this legislation. I felt proud to be a British Columbian. I told my colleagues around the world to look at the jurisdiction we had. I’ll come to that in a second.

It was not just about the goal, the target that was put in. It was the subsequent legislation that was brought through in a diversity of arrays.

[2:55 p.m.]

In 2007, something happened. Mr. Campbell, the Premier, recognized that what we need to do is we need to send a signal to the market in British Columbia that we are going to be leaders in the new economy. We see the emergence of a clean tech sector, we see the emergence of a renewable energy sector, and we see the emergence of investments by companies in reducing greenhouse gases. A lot of that was done by the subsequent measures that were brought in place.

I talked about the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act. That was a goal that subsequently was buttressed by a number of measures brought in through, for example, the Carbon Tax Act, which was assented to on May 29, 2008; the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act, which was assented to on May 29, 2008; the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Emissions Standards) Statutes Amendment Act, which was assented to on May 29, 2008; the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act, which was assented to on May 1, 2008; the Utilities Commission Amendment Act, which was assented to on May 1, 2008; the Local Government (Green Communities) Statutes Amendment Act, which received royal assent on May 29.

We have the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Emissions Standards) Statutes Amendment Act, which I already mentioned, and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Vehicle Emissions Standards) Act, another act assented to on May 29. Then we have the Utilities Commission Amendment Act. Finally, we have the Clean Energy Act, brought in on June 3, 2010.

During that time, as British Columbia was leading up to the Winter Olympics, a very strong signal was being sent to the market. I remember, as part of the Climate Action Team, the very first climate action team, the multitude of meetings that we had as we made recommendations to government about the types of policy measures they might consider. We were tasked primarily with coming up with interim targets for 2012 and 2016.

We came up with targets…. In 2012, we were putting forward targets that we believed that government should seek to reduce emissions by 6 percent, relative to 2007, by 2012. By 2016, the second target that we were tasked with providing recommendations for…. We came up with 18 percent by 2016.

Government was on track. In fact, it made its 2012 target, based on the policy measures that were put in place. We knew, and government knew at that time, through wedge analysis, that we were not going to make the target of 33 percent reductions by 2020 with the policy measures and those bills and statutes on the table. More needed to be done.

Despite what the member for Kamloops–North Thompson suggests, there was no plan for 2040. The fake numbers brought up about somehow this was part of the government’s plan…. I recognize that he wasn’t there, and he’d probably throw his hands up and say: “What do I know? I wasn’t there.” However, the reality is that I was there. I was there, working on the Climate Action Team. I was meeting with the Premier at the time, Gordon Campbell, and the Minister of Environment numerous times during that time in an advisory capacity.

As I say, again, I was proud to be a British Columbian. Mr. Campbell recognized the economic opportunity associated with dealing with greenhouse gases, associated with being clean instead of polluting.

All of this came to an end with a switch in leadership. The first crack in the wall or hole in the dike started in July of 2012 when LNG was excluded in the Clean Energy Act. Energy would have to be renewable unless it was being used in the compression of liquefied natural gas. That was the first act.

It became far more aggressive towards dismantling the policies. That culminated in 2014, in the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act, wherein we in this Legislature repealed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act, which was assented to on May 29, 2008. We repealed that act, an act that business had actually sought. Even today, in speaking with heavy point source emitters, they wish that we had that legislation in place. Why, of course, is that we try to meet our targets.

We have to recognize that in our society there’s a diversity of emitters. There are large point source emitters, like cement manufacturers, like Rio Tinto Alcan, like pulp mills or paper mills. These large point source emitters are subject to the carbon tax, but the original intention back in the day, back in 2007 and 2008, was that….

[3:00 p.m.]

A regulatory framework was put in place. That enabling framework was there, through the cap-and-trade legislation, which would allow for the inclusion of large, heavy point source emitters while exempting them from the carbon tax. They’re still covered by emissions pricing, but it’s internal emissions pricing within heavy industry, which allows the most efficient investment of money to reduce emissions. They’re still covered by emissions pricing, but it’s internal emission pricing within heavy industry that allows the most efficient investment of money to reduce emissions.

This is the approach California has done with large heavy emitters. This is the approach Quebec has done. This is not the approach of some other provinces or certain states, but many jurisdictions around the world have cap-and-trade legislation or enabling legislation — some more aggressively so than others.

With the repeal of that legislation, large point source emitters were left wondering what to do. They were left troubled by the fact that they’re now going to be incorporated into an emissions pricing, a straight-up pricing, and that really what we care about is internally reducing our emissions in British Columbia by spending money on the most efficient and effective ways of doing that.

The Rio Tintos of this world that have spent billions of dollars on upgrading their facility to reduce emissions by 50 percent at the same time would potentially be in trouble if it’s suddenly only a carbon tax approach, as opposed to a cap-and-trade approach, which would have given them recognition for early adoption of measures that were subsequently brought in. That would be allowed and possible within the cap-and-trade system.

I still hope government, one day, will be bringing in that legislation. You don’t have to go far to find out where it is, because it’s right there in the legislation that we repealed in 2014 in the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act. As a little sidebar, you’ll recall that I proposed an amendment, which didn’t pass, to rename it the Greenhouse Gas Increase and Industrial Reporting Act back in the day.

Coming back to the issue of emissions. We now know, in British Columbia, that we have two new targets set in this bill — 40 percent by 2030 relative to 2007 and 60 percent at 2040 relative to 2007 — and the existing and old target of 80 percent by 2050.

Now why that 80 percent number is critical is that, while some might cynically say, “Okay, it means we don’t have to do anything, and other governments are responsible,” that number sends a signal to market, a very strong signal to market that government should listen to. That signal is this: we can no longer spend any more money investing in fossil fuel intensive infrastructure in the province of British Columbia today, because we know that we’re not going to tear it down tomorrow. Instead, we should be transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewables and the low-carbon economy.

We don’t build a coal-fired electricity plant to tear it down tomorrow. We don’t build an LNG facility — a two-train, a four-train LNG facility — in Kitimat to tear it down tomorrow. We build them to last 40, 50 years. We build them to last until 2050. Therein lies the conundrum that government has if it’s trying to talk on the one hand about LNG and on the other about meeting climate targets.

The previous government lost all credibility on that file, as they were talking 23 permits and five big plants. I mean, it was just outrageous, the rhetoric that was coming from the opposition, then-government, about wealth and prosperity for one and all from LNG that clearly didn’t transpire.

I recognize that the present government has taken the giveaway one step further with reduced electricity rates, exemption of increase in carbon tax. It has also talked about repealing the LNG income tax, which I hope my colleagues opposite will not support the repeal of, as we will not support here in the B.C. Greens. But coming back to that….

In 2007 — that is the reference point upon which all future reductions are measured against — we in British Columbia emitted 64.7 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Now, the carbon dioxide equivalent means that we know that methane, on a 100-year time scale, is much more powerful, as is nitrous oxide or certain CFCs or HCFCs. They’re more powerful on a molecule-to-molecule basis in terms of their absorptive ability on greenhouse gases. So we convert them, all those other greenhouse gas emissions, to the carbon dioxide equivalent.

We had 64.7 megatonnes. In 2008, we had 64.7 megatonnes of emissions again. In 2009, not because of any grandiose immediate policy — although we recognize that there was a very strong signal at the time sent to the market that the carbon price was going up, and there was investment at the time — emissions dropped to 61.1 megatonnes. Part of that, too, was because of an economic downturn that didn’t really hurt B.C. but hurt global economies.

[3:05 p.m.]

In 2010, we were down to 60.6 megatonnes, and in 2011, 61.1 megatonnes. In 2012 — and here’s where the policy shift started to happen — 61.9 megatonnes. In 2013, 62.9 megatonnes; 2014, 62.3 megatonnes; and 2015, 63.3 megatonnes. Every single year since the change of leadership of the previous government, emissions went up.

Why did they go up? It was because government sent exactly the wrong signal to market that you want to send if you want to head towards decreasing emissions. Government introduced exemptions on the deep-well royalty credit, not only for deep wells but now for shallow well. Heck, for any well, royalty credits now exist.

Did you know that ten years ago we used to get $35 or so for every 1,000 cubic metres of natural gas produced in the province of British Columbia, as a royalty — $35? Now it’s less than $3 as a royalty. It was more than ten times that just a decade ago. It’s going down still. At the same time, the production of natural gas has gone up and up. Why wouldn’t you take it out, if we’re giving it away?

Literally, we give this resource away, this beautiful resource, for applications that we yet have no idea of, in the future. We know that these molecules are very useful in the petrochemical industry. We know they’re very useful in other industries for creating fertilizer and creating methanol. We know that we can use our natural gas resources in a diversity of ways. Burning it is one of the most ridiculous ways, and frankly, generations after us are going to look to our generation and say: “Why did you squander that resource? Why did you burn it when the most powerful source of energy, the sun, is free, as is geothermal energy?”

Let’s come back to the targets, because it’s critical that we do that. I’ve pointed out that in 2015, now we’re at 63.3 megatonnes. That’s the last reporting year. For the next little bit, I’ll assume that we haven’t changed from that — not because that’s correct or wrong, but because that is the last year we have reporting data officially done for Canada in the United Nations framework convention on climate change.

So 63.3 megatonnes of CO₂ equivalent from B.C. in 2015. Let’s suppose we know that we’re going to add a four-train LNG facility. Shell Canada talks about a two-train facility right now, but you don’t build two trains not to build four trains. So let’s suppose we talk about a four-train facility and that that’s really the direction we’re heading.

Well, we know, as I’ve mentioned already, that if we start at 64.7 megatonnes…. That’s the 2007 reference value that this legislation is referring to. We know that our 2030 target of a 40 percent reduction of that 64.7 megatonnes means we have to go down to 38.8 megatonnes by 2030, to 25.88 megatonnes by 2040, and to 12.9 megatonnes by 2050. So that 64.7 megatonnes in 2007, under the legislation before us, must drop to 38.8 in 2030, 25.9 in 2040, and 12.9 in 2050.

Now, if we’re going to add a four-train LNG facility, we’re going to add 8.6 megatonnes — that’s before some of the recent estimates that I could talk about shortly, about fugitive emissions — on to that. So our new reference case is actually…. Well, we’re basically adding 8.6 megatonnes to that 2015 value. The 2015 value was 63.3 megatonnes. We’re going to add 8.6, and we’re going to come up to 72.9 megatonnes. That 72.9 is our starting point — because we’re adding 8.6 — for reductions.

Let’s suppose that we know we’re going to put in a four-train LNG facility. We know that Shell won’t build that today to tear it down tomorrow. It’s going to last for several decades. They’re not going to invest billions of dollars just on a whim. It’ll last decades. So what does this mean for greenhouse gas reductions in every other sector?

Here are the numbers. We know that if we have a four-train LNG facility — that’s going to be constant; it’s going to be there; we’re not going to tear it down — then every other sector in our economy, other than that facility, must drop its emissions by 52 percent by 2030, down to 30.2 megatonnes, by 73 percent by 2040 and by a whopping 95 percent by 2050.

[3:10 p.m.]

Now, reflect upon this, hon. Speaker. One four-train LNG facility in Kitimat will produce 8.6 megatonnes of emissions that aren’t going to be around just for tomorrow and then we tear it down. That’ll be around for decades. If we add those four trains and we believe these targets that we’ve actually put forward, then we need every other sector of our economy to reduce its emissions by 95 percent. That means telling Rio Tinto Alcan: “I’m sorry, but you have to shut down.” That means saying nobody can drive fossil-fuel-combusted vehicles anymore, nowhere in B.C. That means telling heavy industry left, right and centre they have to shut down because we’re already at that with things like landfills, which we have to close down as well.

There’s a staggering disconnect. To be fair to the politicians in this room, it’s not just here; it’s globally. There’s a staggering disconnect between science and policy here in B.C., in Canada and internationally. I’ll come back to that again in a couple of seconds.

Leaders around the world signed, in 2017, something called the Paris accord, which committed…. Canada was one of the signatories of it. Despite the fact that Trump wants to get out of it, he can’t for years to come. It committed to keep global warming to below 2 degrees relative to preindustrial levels. They would actually keep it substantially below 2 degrees.

What can science say? It can say this. We know the world has warmed 1.1 degrees already. We know that 2016 was the hottest year on record, followed by 2015, 2017, 2014, 2010, 2013, 2005 and 2009.

For those people who’ve been following this climate change debate, like I have, for so many years, you should be asking the question: where were all those skeptics who said we’re in a cooling period? What happened to them? Are they finding some other argument now?

Believe it or not, scientific communities understood thermometers quite well for several centuries, and in fact, the world is warming, and we can measure it. Forty percent of Republicans in the U.S. don’t believe there’s solid evidence that the world is warming. Frankly, they don’t believe in the existence of thermometers. That’s the scale of that.

Coming back, we know the world has warmed by 1.1 degrees. We know that if we do no more, if we do nothing but keep existing greenhouse gas levels fixed at the present-day values, we’re going to warm by another 0.6 degrees. That takes us to 1.7 degrees, and we know that the permafrost carbon feedback is going to give us another 0.2 to 0.3. We know that if we do no more than just keep the levels like they are now, we’re going to warm towards 1.8 or 1.9. Yet emissions continue to go up year after year in places like Canada and elsewhere.

The disconnect that I mentioned about here in British Columbia extends globally. It’s particularly in Canada. I’ll come back to this in a second, but in Canada, Mr. Trudeau signs with a smile that we’re now part of the global agreement. On the one hand, he says: “We’re going to actually bring in place a climate plan in Canada to meet our Paris targets.” It’s actually Harper’s plan, but that’s an aside. I’ll come to that in a second. He’s done nothing, argues we need to build pipelines to have a climate plan. It makes no sense, because what Paris says, not only to Canada or British Columbia but to the world, is that effective immediately, we must turn the corner and stop investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure that will continue to be around for decades to come.

As I say again, we don’t build a coal-fired plant today to tear it down tomorrow. It’s about making the right choice of investments today that will affect tomorrow. I’ll come back to some of the ramifications and the importance of this bill later.

Coming back to federally in this context of meeting our legislation. Federally, ironically, people like me are beginning to look quite fondly upon the time of Mr. Harper because he did nothing on the climate change file — nothing at all — and Mr. Trudeau has done negative by stumping for pipelines.

It’s remarkable that we have this cognitive dissonance happening politically, federally, at a time when most of the world is actually recognizing the seriousness of this. Norway, for example, a nation that recognized that climate change is not only something to be concerned about; it’s also an opportunity. Did you know that 40 percent of new cars in Norway are electric? They’re electric today. Netherlands, India and other jurisdictions have announced that all new cars will be electric by 2030.

[3:15 p.m.]

Here in British Columbia, we have an opportunity for leadership. The first step in claiming that leadership is setting in place targets. It is those targets that allow the civil service, allow the modellers, to do their wedge analyses so that we can actually start to understand what the effects of certain policy measures are in terms of future greenhouse gas reductions. That work is ongoing as I speak. I’m very pleased that it is ongoing as we speak.

Coming back to the LNG relationship with this legislation. I’ve heard it say that LNG Canada is talking about a two-train LNG facility instead of a four-train. I’ve got the numbers for a two-train LNG facility as well, and they’re no different.

If LNG Canada invested a two-train LNG facility in Kitimat, all other aspects of our economy would have to drop their emissions from 63.3 megatonnes in 2015 to 34.5 in 2030, 21.4 in 2040 and 8.6 in 2050. That’s a 46 percent, 66 percent and 86 percent reduction — an 86 percent reduction, everything else other than LNG Canada.

These are big numbers. These are very big numbers, and very big numbers cannot be met without bold plans. That is what we’re looking forward to. We’re looking forward to seeing that plan, because frankly, I got into politics back in 2012, not because I saw this wonderful opportunity for a career in politics. That was not the intention.

It’s that I was involved very intimately with Gordon Campbell’s government and the development of the climate policy and climate strategies and his government — which, hon. Speaker, I note you were part of at that time — as they put British Columbia on the map as a leader internationally in both dealing with the challenge and recognizing the opportunity of what greenhouse gas mitigation does.

We were leaders, and then I saw that start to crack apart in 2012. I could not stand by and say to my students, who would come…. You know, I would talk in these classes about framing the whole issue of climate change as an issue of intergenerational equity, because it is. Today’s generation, our decision-makers, won’t have to live the consequences of our decisions, and those who do, better get participating in our democratic institutions, because they’re going to inherit those consequences.

They don’t. I would ask them: why don’t you vote? Why is it that 30 to 40 percent of youth between 18 and 24, until the last election, voted federally? They would say to me that all politicians are corrupt. All they want to do is line their policy…. I’d say to them: “No. No, that’s not the case. People go there for a right reason. If you don’t like them, run yourself or find someone to run, but this is the system we have.”

In 2012, I’m giving the same lecture, and I’m looking at myself in the face and saying: “I’m a hypocrite. I can tell them that if they don’t like what’s happening, they should run themselves.”

So I ran. I ran with the B.C. Green Party. Let me tell you, hon. Speaker. It is not the easiest path to this Legislature, as my friend from Saanich North and the Islands and my friend from Cowichan Valley will attest. Running with the B.C. Green Party, a party that had elected nobody before in any province, is not what you do if you’re looking for a political career in power. You do that out of principle. The same goes for my colleague Adam and my colleague Sonia.

We’re here. We’re here with 17 percent of British Columbians saying: “We support you.” We were very clear in our campaign that this defining issue of our time is one that we’re here to push, to ensure that British Columbia capitalizes on the opportunities. We can be laggards of yesteryear or we can be leaders of tomorrow. I think British Columbians want to be leaders.

We could talk about revenue. Revenue to natural gas was more than $1 billion a little over a decade ago. Well, a couple of years ago we actually lost money. Now we’re making a mere few tens of millions of dollars.

Hon. Speaker, I am the designated speaker. I noticed the light has come on.

We are not going to continue to bring wealth and prosperity to British Columbia if we continue to chase the economy of the past. We are blessed in British Columbia with resources — renewable resources and raw resources like minerals, like gas, like water, like forests. We are blessed with resources that we have a duty and a responsibility to steward for future generations, not only the resources themselves but also the environmental and social systems that surround them.

That’s why this bill is critical as giving the first step of those targets that will allow the civil service the wedge analyses to get there. For example, let’s look at the mining sector. British Columbia is blessed with a mining sector. We are some of the world’s leading miners around the world. Many of them started…. Some of them get bought up.

[3:20 p.m.]

Look at Teck Cominco — well, it’s now just Teck — an incredible asset to British Columbia. Teck’s a good company, a good steward of the environment. Teck would love to be able to use electric trucks. But there’s no technology out there. There’s an opportunity for B.C. innovation.

There’s an opportunity for B.C. to actually do what Norway is doing in replacing their ferries with electric ferries — with batteries built in Richmond, no less. Why are we not recognizing this innovative opportunity for heavy industry? Electric trucks. We’ve got lots of electricity. We’ve got a company like Teck, a global leader, ready to adopt. There’s an opportunity.

Here’s another piece of innovation out there. We talk about gas filling stations all over the place. You want to be a leader of the new economy? You recognize that you can get land really cheap on the highway between here and there, halfway between towns, and you could start to put a gas station there. But the gas you’re doing is actually electricity for electric vehicles. When you fill up in a high-voltage 400-volt charger, it’ll take you 30 minutes. You’re going to sit there. You have a cup of coffee. It’s an opportunity for innovation, to start to create charging stations. But that innovation needs government to get out of the way.

Right now in British Columbia, you cannot give away your electricity and ask someone to pay for it unless you’re a registered utility. I have an electric charging station at my house. I’d love to charge the member for West Vancouver–Capilano 35 cents every time he filled his electric car up. But I can’t.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: There we go. My colleague here would charge me 25 cents, and the free market starts to come to play here. Capitalism, free market economy — here we go. He’s charging 25 cents, and maybe my colleague there from Whiskey Creek will say: “I’m going to charge 20 cents, because I’ve got a First Nations, the Huu-ay-aht, who’ve got a generating station there, and they have excess power. We want to charge that power here. Let’s go.”

This is innovation. We in British Columbia used to be leaders in that regard, and now, sadly, we’ve fallen off that. This legislation is the very first step, the necessary first step, mirroring what was done in 2007 by Gordon Campbell, to get us back on the right path.

British Columbia has an electric car company, Electra Meccanica. Our colleague there ran in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant against the member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. This is the company that builds electric vehicles. It’s traded publicly on the NASDAQ. It builds electric vehicles in Victoria. But now, guess what. The factories are going to be in China and India. He’s got hundreds of millions of dollars of sales coming forward. In B.C., we should be doing that here.

We should be saying say to Terrace: “We get that you have some economic issues right now, because the oil and gas sector is hurting because the price has gone through the floor. But you are on a rail line between Chicago and Prince Rupert. You’re on that rail line, and guess what. We can get your goods manufactured there to market in both the biggest east coast and Asian markets.”

What we need is to attract manufacturing there, by recognizing that there’s a whole generation of manufacturers who want to be clean and good corporate citizens: B corp. — the legislation I just brought in a couple days ago — benefit corporations. We could give them that clean energy. We don’t have to double down on the economy of yesterday. We could say that Terrace is the place to go, and 100 Mile House. All of these small communities across our province have their own strategic advantages that make them the place to go for innovation and variety of areas.

Forest fire innovation. There is so much potential there, both in terms of the type of suits that people wear through the suppression techniques for innovation in the forest fire sector. We have innovation in the forestry industry, but we buy our innovation from Finland.

There was a government there that recognized that in order to compete, we can’t compete by racing to the bottom. We can only compete if we are smarter. Otherwise, we’re going to give our resources away. We’re smarter, and we’re more efficient. Therein lies an opportunity. In those opportunities, those wedge opportunities, we meet our targets at the same time as we bring economic prosperity to British Columbia — not only for this generation but for generations to come, because not doing so is a problem.

We bemoan…. And it’s a tragedy that we have the flooding events in the Boundary-Similkameen region this year. We had flooding last year. We had forest fires last year. We had forest fires that took out much of Fort McMurray. This is a story that happens year in, year out not only in B.C. but everywhere.

As I’ve tried to point out time and time again, the issue of global warming, which this is addressing, is fundamentally a question of intergenerational equity. Do we, the present generation, owe anything to future generations in terms of the quality of environment that we leave behind?

[3:25 p.m.]

If the answer is no, who cares about global warming? Really, it doesn’t matter, because it just goes to hell in a handbasket and “I don’t care about future generations.” But if we care, yes, we must act now, because waiting is too late.

The analogy that’s direct is that you put a pot of water on the stove, and you turn it up to 8. Now, that dial there is essentially greenhouse gas emissions and the level in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. You turn it up. The water’s cool. It starts to warm. “I don’t worry about global warming. I don’t care.” The thing’s on 8. It starts to get a bit warm. You go: “Whoa, this is getting hot.” It starts to get a little bit warm. “I’m going to turn 8 down to 7.” It gets warmer. Now it starts boiling. “Oh, I better turn it off.” You turn it down to zero, but guess what? It’s too late.

The analogy is direct to the world: 71 percent of our globe is covered by water. It takes time for the oceans to heat up. Once they do, you can’t cool them right away either. The analogy is direct. Once you get to a stage where you say, “Oh, it’s too warm. We better cool it,” it’s too late, frankly.

Now we worry about a forest fire here and a flood there, and I get that it’s really important. But it pales in comparison to the plight that’s in store for us. You can go back and look at what the climate scientists have been saying for decades. It’s been the same thing. Those touting that it’s just somehow some natural cycles act like a legal defense team who’ve lost their case. They throw all sorts of public doubt out there, fake news and all, hoping that the public jury will render a not guilty verdict.

We know that a substantial fraction, something like 60 percent of the world’s species, will be committed to extinction — 60 to 80 percent at the end of this century, as a direct consequence of greenhouse gas emissions. We can’t turn the level of atmospheric dioxide up, on the scale of 100 years, to the levels that haven’t been seen since Jurassic and Triassic and not think there’s not going to be an ecological response.

We are literally going back to the Triassic and Jurassic in the scale of a few decades, as we take that captured carbon that was captured in those swamps and seas that created goal and natural gas, which we’re releasing in decades.

Sure, life will go on after an extinction event. It will come on in a different form, but it certainly will not be life like we know it today. We know that in the big extinction events in earth’s history, when a meteor hit or when we had more intensive volcanic activity, 80 percent, 90 percent of marine organisms went extinct. We know we’re on track to do that now.

We know that the biggest sink of atmospheric carbon is the oceans. We know that the Great Barrier Reef is probably gone, and there’s nothing we can do about it because of the sink of the carbon that exists. We know that many of the ocean’s corals are dead, and they will die forever, and there’s not much we can do about it. These are just the early stages.

Again, I come to the point of: do we, as the present generation, actually owe anything to future generations? If we do, we must act here now. We must not weigh, for example, one LNG plant and jobs that may or may not exist five years from now versus the opportunity for success in a new economy that preserves prosperity and the environment that our next generation will actually come to live in.

These are not options. I talk about some of the sad things I see. One day I see a politician putting sandbags up on a dike, and the next day that same politician is here arguing: “Rah, rah, rah Kinder Morgan and LNG.” Where’s the disconnect? The disconnect is mind-boggling.

Again, we go back to this issue that we’re proposing to deal with here. The greenhouse effect goes back to Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier in the early 1800s, the first to recognize that the atmosphere acts like a greenhouse that allows incoming solar radiation through but blocks outgoing long wave radiation to act like a blanket to keep the surface warm.

We’ve known about the different effects of a variety of greenhouse gases since the 1860s. We’ve known about the specific role of carbon dioxide in the 1890s. We had the first multisensory projections in the 1930s. In 1979, when I was graduating from high school, Jule Charney, an MIT climate and atmospheric scientist, was tasked with the first national assessment in the U.S.

They came up with the best estimate of the single most important metric summarizing our cumulative understanding of the world’s response to increasing greenhouse gases. That is climate sensitivity. Climate sensitivity, by definition, is: how much will the world warm if we double atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from pre-industrial levels, from 280 to 560 parts per million.

In 1979, the very best estimate was between 1½ and 4½ degrees. That was the range. In 1990, the first IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assessment. Scores of publications examined. Best estimate: 1½ to 4½ degrees.

[3:30 p.m.]

In 1996, a second assessment report, best estimate: 1½ to 4½ degrees. The single best estimate of the single most important metrics summarizing our cumulative understanding of how the world responds to a doubling of carbon dioxide, has not changed from 1979 to 1996, where we’re in the second assessment report.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

We move to 2001. We’re now at the third assessment report. The best assessment gives 1½ to 4½ degrees, and then we move to 2007. That’s the Nobel Prize year. It moves to 2 to 4½ degrees. Wow. We’ve changed it slightly. Then in 2013…. I was involved in every report from 1996 through 2013, and that 2013 one was fundamentally frustrating. The report had largely concluded in 2012, and I withdrew from the process when the writ was dropped in the 2013 election, but all the rating had been done.

The 2013 estimate from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, summarizing tens of thousands of papers’ knowledge on this issue, the best estimate of climate sensitivity, the single most important metric summarizing our cumulative understanding of what will happen as a consequence of global warming — that is, how much the world will warm if we double carbon dioxide…. The best estimate was 1½ to 4½ degrees again.

We don’t need more science. What we need is political will, and what we don’t need is more grandstanding on these important issues, which is why I’m excited about this bill. Why am I excited about this bill? Because it provides the first step, as was done in 2007 — the very first step that is necessary to actually head us in a direction. And that necessary step…. This should be taken as a signal.

If government is serious about this bill brought forth, it cannot support the addition of a two- or four-train LNG facility. We just can’t do it. You cannot square that round peg. It doesn’t work. The numbers don’t work, and the last thing this government needs to do is to try and play the accounting games that happened towards then end of the last administration’s governance.

We start to get things like: “Okay, I’m going to give you money and take a carbon credit, because you’re not going to not cut down those trees that otherwise you would cut down.” This is the kind of carbon accounting nonsense we get into. If you open that Pandora’s box, you’re going to have to start accounting for forest fire losses as well, and we don’t want to do that, let me tell you.

We started to pay Encana…. They had at the time…. We gave them carbon offset as they actually upgraded some natural gas facilities. Okay. That’s fine, but that was not the intent. The intent was to actually get fundamental changes and send a direction to the economy that we want to move elsewhere. And we have to be careful how we continue with the offsetting.

With that, I will suggest that this debate…. Both my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands and my colleague from Cowichan Valley will be looking to speak to this bill further.

I do want to touch upon the last two things that I haven’t marked. I want to support the minister in his ability to be given the powers to set sectoral targets through regulation. I think that’s important. He has articulated and identified, in his opening remarks, that he will seek guidance for that from his…. I forget the name of this reincarnation. We’ll call it climate leadership team 3.0, for the purpose of Hansard. He will seek advice from them. They represent a variety of sectors. I think that’s a good strategy, and I think the approach is a fine one.

I also want to give the minister a lot of credit for adopting the recommendation of the Canadian Auditor General with respect to biannual reporting out of the risks as well as how we are moving towards meeting those risks of climate change.

The risks are very real and very serious and will get worse as time goes on. You know, I could talk about…. For example, we knew since 2000, when a student of mine, Dáithí Stone…. He went to Oxford — I lost touch with him in the last few years — and was a lecturer there after that. He wrote a paper where he analyzed precipitation trends in Canada. We know extreme precip is going up.

We know, for example, we can attribute…. We did this in 2004. Nathan Gillett is a former post-doc. He’s now head of the Environment Canada Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis. We knew, in 2004, that we could detect and attribute the increasing area burnt of forest fires in Canada directly to human activity. We know that.

[3:35 p.m.]

We know what the cause is. We know what the precursors are. We need to have ignition. Well, we’ve got lots of lightening. We need to have dry, dry timber, and the way you get dry timber is through soil moisture and summer warmth. We know we can connect regional changes in increasing temperatures.

Again, I’ve said the same thing since the 1990s. As a climate science community, we know it’s going to happen. We know that we’re going to get an increase in extreme weather events, particularly in precipitation. The 100-year event is no longer a 100-year event; it will become a 25-, a ten-year event, and then it’ll become a five-year event, and so forth. We know we’re going to get that.

We know we’re going to increase our precipitation in our latitudes. We know water here is not going to be an availability issue; it’s going to be a storage issue, because we know we’re going to get increased water in the winter and less in the summer, because we have increased likelihood of summer droughts.

We know that in the winter it’s going to be increasingly likely and more and more extreme events. Ironically, we might get amazing snow years, because if the temperature is slightly below zero, it’s snow instead of rain. So yes, we might get a big snowfall, but that’s exactly what we would expect to get, because it’s winter, and it’s and cold, and we expect increasing amounts of the warming climate to have more moisture in it.

We expect a northward shift of the storm track, so yes, and lo and behold, we’re getting more of these stronger storms hitting our latitude. What would you think? That’s exactly what we’ve been saying: these move further northward.

The same in the south. We know where Arctic sea ice is going. We know it’s likely going to be gone in the summer in a few decades. We know that 2017 is right on the edge of setting a new record — the record that was first set in 2007 and then broken, quite dramatically, in 2010. We’re on path to beat it again this year.

We know that global sea ice volume was a record low this year. We know that if we don’t do anything, we’re going to commit 60 to 80 percent of the world’s species to extinction towards the end of this century. We know that we’re going to get increasing droughts. We know that we’re going to flood islands.

We know that there are hundreds of millions of people living on the coasts, and we know that if we get warming to about 2 degrees, we have a very high probability that we’re committed to seven metres of sea level rise, because that point puts Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet past the point of no return.

Now, we also know that when there’s a storm — and we know that there are increasingly strong storms — that we actually get storm surges. We know that with the warming water…. Again, you could do this experiment at home. When you have a high tide, warming water and storms, you get big storm surges, and you start to see things like Hurricane Sandy flooding New York.

Now what happens when New York, which has flooded once, starts to get flooded like that every ten years? Then you add six metres of sea level rise on that. You start to create a problem for our built infrastructure — a problem when you have hundreds of millions of people living within ten metres of the coast.

The town of Shanghai, the burgeoning metropolis of Shanghai, is less than ten metres from the coast. You get rid of Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It’s pretty hard for them to adapt if you add ten metres of sea level rise. It’s pretty hard for Delta and for Richmond to adapt if they have ten metres of sea level rise.

It’s not going to happen overnight. This is why the issue is one of intergenerational equity. That won’t even happen in the next 100 years. It takes hundreds of years for that to happen. But, hon. Speaker, let members in this House know that history will not be kind to those of us who stand by and let this happen. We will be judged. So be it if people don’t care, if they don’t care about intergenerational equity. That’s fine. People who don’t have children might not care.

Some people may have belief systems that this conflicts with. They might believe, for example, that whatever is going to happen was meant to happen, and it’s God’s will. As climate scientists, we can’t argue science against faith. You can’t dismiss those views — people within our society — because nobody, no science could ever address the question: do we as a society need to actually deal with this issue? That requires all of us.

What we need to do is we need to get facts and evidence on the table, and we’ve got to stop listening to rhetoric that’s put forward and doublespeak — like we need to build pipelines in order to have a climate plan. Politicians need to be truthful to the people of British Columbia. They need to know what the consequences of inaction are.

If society believes that you don’t need to deal with this problem, so be it. I happen to think we do, and I happen to think most people do believe we need to deal with this issue. As such, this bill is critical. When we apply this as critical, not only to implement this bill but also the subsequent policy measures that will ensure we will meet targets…. Targets have been in place in Canada since the 1980s, when Brian Mulroney introduced the first targets, and we’ve got a litany of missed and failed targets.

Europe met their targets. We have not met our targets here in Canada — not one, not close, not even a little bit close to any of our targets.

I look forward to the subsequent legislation announcement to come. With that, hon. Speaker, I thank you for your attention, and I look forward to further debate.

[3:40 p.m.]

A. Olsen: It’s an honour to stand today and speak to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act, which is now going to be renamed, and quite thoughtfully renamed, the Climate Change Accountability Act.

I think, you know, oftentimes we can get caught up in words in the Legislature here, and I think that these are important words — the Climate Change Accountability Act. I think, as my colleague so passionately spoke about just for the few minutes that he had the floor, this was about us being accountable.

I often tell the story of XÁLS, the Creator in the WSÁNEĆ territory. XÁLS left that place, left that territory, for the W̱JOȽEȽP, the people that live there. The key message that he left us was that we were to be accountable for our terri­tory, that we were to make decisions that were not to diminish it, that we weren’t to take more than could be replenished.

I think that that is the foundational principle of what’s trying to be accomplished here with the repealing of this name, which was the reduction targets, and giving it a new name, which is adding the word “accountability,” Climate Change Accountability Act. I don’t think that this should be something that should be underestimated, the importance of the change of the name of this bill.

What is also important, not more important, is that we identify the fact that we have a responsibility. The decision-makers in this place have a responsibility to more than just the four-year cycle that we get elected to in this place. We have a responsibility that goes much further into the future than four years.

I know we get caught up in the cycle of this place, that decisions need to be made now in order…. You know, the tough decisions need to be made at the front end of an election cycle, and then at the back end of an election cycle, we start to give back, and we get caught in this cycle where we, the 86 members that fill the seats of this place, become the most important. Our political careers are seen as more important than the actual policy that we’re putting forward.

I think that what’s critical here is that we start to take a look at this policy, the Climate Change Accountability Act, and we see that we’re actually making decisions that are much further in the future — the intergenerational equity.

The responsibility that I have as a father is to make decisions that are not only going to impact me and my wife in our lifetime but also the lifetime of our children, my ten-year-old son, my six-year-old daughter — the chances that they have in the future of also having a place that’s worth living in so that when they get to the time in their life where they decide whether or not they’re going to have children, they don’t throw their hands up in the air and say: “Well, what good is it? When my dad had a chance to make a choice, a decision…. When my dad had a chance to stand up for us, he made the wrong decision. He sold us out, all for a few dollars or for some opportunity that was fleeting, for a too-good-to-be-true sales pitch. He bought into it, and now we’re stuck with the world.”

My colleague, as only he could do in this place, could highlight the challenges that we will be faced with if we do not take firm, bold, courageous action on climate change.

We don’t face down the dinosaurs that we face in the open fields these days — the fossil fuel industry that has a sales pitch for us. We don’t face them down in the open fields, but we drag them into the jungles, and we say, “You’re going to have to battle us there,” because we’ve put forward an alternative vision for this beautiful place that we live that says that we don’t need to survive on fossil fuels alone. We can invest in innovation. We can create other opportunities for us that don’t require us to be beholden to the fossil fuel industry.

We find ourselves saying things that we don’t believe, or we find ourselves morally compromised, ethically compromised, because we’re chasing a dream that just simply does not exist. It may exist now, but it’s fleeting, and it won’t exist a few years into the future.

[3:45 p.m.]

I think it’s hard for us to remember that we’re only here for such a brief moment in time, yet we have to make decisions that are going be impactful for countless generations ahead of us. So it’s important that the government takes action. I think it’s important, to me and my colleagues in our caucus, that this bill, only a few pages in length — that the three of us are going to take the time to stand and speak to it.

It emphasizes the point that we want to make — that this is an absolutely fundamental and critical part to why we are here as members of this House, why we have stood to put our name forward. The action that we take is important to us — that we all stand and speak to it, that we all stand and say that this is an important first step, setting the targets, setting the goals. If we are going to take action on climate change, then we have to set goals, and we have to be accountable to them. So I think that this is a phenomenal step to that.

I think it was highlighted on Monday. A number of speakers on both sides of the House talked about the costs of climate change, and oftentimes we find ourselves having these economic arguments around certain industries, primarily the fossil fuel industry now, as it’s in its sunsetting days.

We have these conversations about economics. I think that we cannot overlook the economic costs that climate change is going to provide us. One of the examples of that is just in North Saanich alone, the conversations that are happening around rising sea levels. The property owners on the beachfront, and the district itself, are starting to wake up to the fact that early action on this now will save the property owners and the districts into the future. Making these investments, making the decisions now, here, that we can make in this place are the critical first steps. Preparing our properties, preparing our communities to become resilient and making those investments are important next steps.

I think it’s important to highlight two things. We used to be a leader in climate action. We have an opportunity to regain and retake our position as a leader in climate action. This bill, Bill 34, is not the action. This is just simply the goal-setting. It’s important to set goals. It’s also important to set the tone and to create signals for the marketplace so that they know that once again British Columbia is going to be a leader in climate action.

That’s going to create all sorts of economic opportunities for companies in our province, businesses in our province, the innovators in our province to take the wicked challenges that we have in the 21st century and find solutions for them. It’s going give an opportunity for the government to be working with our post-secondary institutions, making the investments to ensure that we are at the head, at the forefront of finding solutions to those problems.

I appreciate in this bill the fact that the minister has taken up the Auditor General of Canada’s suggestion to have annual reporting. That’s an important piece of accountability — to see where we’re at.

The section here, part 1.1, preparing for climate change, and adding the reports on climate change risks and progress…. I think it’s important that our government has in front of them a process in which we determine the risks, that we report out on the progress that we’ve taken to reducing the risks, that we’re clearly identifying the actions that we’re taking to achieve that progress and that we’re talking about how we’re planning to continue to progress in time.

I think these are really critically important opportunities for government to be learning and to be learning from our learning, and to be always in a position where we are advancing ourselves in this great challenge that we have in our time.

I’d like to thank the Speaker for providing me the opportunity to speak to this bill today. I’d like to thank and raise my hands to the minister for putting forward a bill that really clearly highlights the accountability that we, the 87 members of the government of British Columbia, need to take on this important topic of climate change.

[3:50 p.m.]

I’ll take my seat at this time, and I thank the Speaker for the opportunity.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Committee C is going to report out, so I move adjournment of the debate.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

[3:55 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 26 — CHILD, FAMILY AND
COMMUNITY SERVICE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Bill 26, Child, Family and Community Service Amendment Act, 2018, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call continued second reading debate on Bill 34. In Committee C, Birch Room, I call committee stage on Bill 28.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Hon. C. Trevena: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. C. Trevena: In the precinct at the moment and soon to be in the gallery are 18 students and a number of adults. The students are from the Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’-Che:k:tles7et’h’ elementary secondary school. These students have had to go about an hour by boat and then more than an hour, closer to 2½ to three hours, along a very poor logging road up to the main road, which gets them just south of Port McNeill, and then have driven down Highway 19 and Highway 1 to get here. It’s been a long journey for them.

[4:00 p.m.]

They’re here to see their House, where decisions are made that are going to affect them and affect their future. They’re also here on a significant day because this is the day that Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park got a new name. Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park is just north of where their school is and where their home is.

Mr. Speaker, I know the group is soon to be in the House, and I hope everyone will make them very welcome when they arrive.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Before I move second reading of Bill 34 here, I would just like to advise the House that things have moved very quickly. It will be Tourism estimates in Section C.

In this chamber, I call continued second reading of Bill 34.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 34 — GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION
TARGETS AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

(continued)

S. Furstenau: Bill 34, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act, reaffirms our commitment to the environment and, by extension, to British Columbians. The act changes the name of the legislation from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act to the Climate Change Accountability Act. Although nominal, this change demonstrates an acknowledgment of what we most desperately need in environmental stewardship, which is accountability.

The reality of climate change in British Columbia is stark, and it gets worse every year. Recurring and worsening flood and fire seasons continue to pummel our communities. They are symptoms of climate change, and they contribute to it too.

As Martyn Brown noted in the Georgia Straight last week, a single forest fire can easily wipe out any reduction of greenhouse gas emissions claimed by tree-planting projects. In 2017, there were 1,300 fires. In other words, reducing our emissions cannot rely on a few minor projects. It needs to be a comprehensive framework across every sector.

Martyn Brown also provides valid criticism of this legislation. Setting new targets is not substantive action or change that will concretely reduce emissions. Bold statements require bold action, and it is important to acknowledge that in order to meet our targets, we are going to have to commit to the hard work.

Both the B.C. Greens and the B.C. NDP campaigned with a promise to implement a plan to meet our targets. We did so because we have a responsibility to future generations. We are working in partnership to build a plan to ensure that we will meet our commitments, and this is a top priority of the B.C. Green caucus. This act is a first and small step towards us delivering on our promises.

We must do everything we can to ensure British Columbians have the resources they need to respond to the new normal of extreme weather events. Rising costs also demonstrate the urgent need to keep our commitment to the next generation to meet our climate targets. Under the Paris Agreement, countries around the world are coming together to do their part to prevent an increase in global temperatures above 2 degrees Celsius. We are seeing historic investments in clean tech and renewable energy as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy.

The status quo won’t work. Consider our forests in B.C. What should be part of our capacity to sequester carbon has, sadly, become a net emitter of greenhouse gases. According to a Sierra Club report, B.C.’s forest emissions between 2003 and 2012 have totalled 265 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. In the ten years before that, our forests had absorbed 441 million tonnes of CO₂. These emissions come from logging, wildfires, slash burning and reduced sequestration due to the mountain pine beetle outbreak.

The emissions from our forests are not counted as official emissions by the province — a change that will need to take place if we are to be serious about measuring and reducing our emissions. The government needs to heed the loud calls for forest practice reforms in this province, because how forests are currently being managed is a double-edged sword in the era of a changing climate. Not only are the forests not acting as carbon sinks; the forestry practices in the province exacerbate impacts we are seeing from climate change.

In drinking watersheds, clearcuts can result in diminished water quality and lead to ever-increasing boil-water advisories. With heavier rains and shortened spring melt periods, as we’re seeing again this year, flooding and mudslides are becoming more common and more severe in communities across B.C.

[4:05 p.m.]

I vividly remember a report presented to the regional services committee when I was director with the Cowichan Valley regional district. It was May 2015, and we were already in drought conditions in the Cowichan Valley. Aquifers were at record-low levels, and the staff brought forward a report outlining the very real possibilities that several aquifers in the valley were at risk of running dry by August if the drought conditions remained as severe as they were.

It was a moment that I recognized as reaching a deeper understanding of the impacts of climate change at the local level. Potentially, thousands of residents in the Cowichan Valley could find themselves with no water.

I asked whether there were conversations at that point with the province about the logging practices in these watersheds, given the critical conditions of these aquifers. The answer was no and that there was no plan on the part of the province to look at practices at that time.

Last year a friend who worked on the front lines of the forest fires lamented the giant slash piles that had been left behind by forestry companies — slash piles that acted as fuel for the fires that were burning so ferociously.

Where is the carbon pricing on slash burning? Where are the policies that will ensure that we’ll see a shift in forest practices that will not leave massive slash piles on land? It’s long past time for the province to take very seriously the need for reform of our forestry sector. I’m hoping that this legislation and the forthcoming plan to meet these targets include substantive reforms.

Communities across B.C. have reached out to express their growing concerns about logging practices in their drinking watersheds — Ymir, Youbou, Comox, Sunshine Coast. The opportunities for watershed co-governance with First Nations is one step I’d like to see this government move forward with, with more urgency. There is currently one pilot project in the Nicola Valley, but there are many other communities that have done the groundwork and are keen to embark on these pilot projects. I hope to see this government move forward with pilot projects in every region of B.C., without waiting for the completion of the first project.

The unfortunate truth of this amendment act is that it serves to adjust our emissions targets because we failed to meet them. According to the Auditor General, B.C. is on track to miss its 2020 targets and will not meet its 2030 targets if it does not enact a plan.

In response, this legislation changes our first target year from 2020 to 2030, but it adds a target for 2040 and raises our emissions target levels. We are also allowing for the minister to set individual sector targets and requiring biannual reports of progress made.

These targets are important to reaffirm our commitment to the natural environment of British Columbia. They provide an important, clear foundation for the renewed climate strategy coming up later this year and are a means for us to be held accountable for the health of our province and the future generations who will rely on a livable climate.

B.C. was once a leader in climate action. After enacting the carbon tax in 2008, British Columbia showed the world that a strong economy and bold climate action were, indeed, perfectly compatible. As a member of Citizens Climate Lobby, I would travel to Washington, D.C., to encourage the government there to bring in carbon pricing, and B.C. was recognized at that time as almost a superhero of climate leadership. We were seen as the one place in North America that recognized our duty to future generations.

It was actually the leadership under Premier Gordon Campbell that got us to that place, which was then rejected by the last Premier, who turned us into climate laggards instead of climate leaders. By seizing the opportunity to reclaim this leadership, we can position our province to develop a 21st century economy centred on innovation, sustainable value-added resource development and entrepreneurship.

This bill is by no means a panacea for addressing our dismal trajectory in B.C. on climate action and accountability. It’s a small, first step, but there needs to be a clear commitment on taking many bolder steps. The Clean Growth Advisory Council’s recent letter to Minister Heyman outlines the priorities they would like to see implemented, including a low-carbon fuel standard…

Deputy Speaker: Member, no names, please.

[4:10 p.m.]

S. Furstenau: Sorry. My apologies to the minister.

…a zero-emission vehicle standard, policies to address the emissions from new and existing buildings and incentivizing clean growth in B.C.

These targets need a plan, and the plan needs to be driven by a vision, a vision of B.C. as a low-carbon economy, a leader in innovation and a province that embraces the challenges and opportunities that we face right now.

We cannot double down on a 20th-century approach to resource extraction. We cannot look to massively emitting industries as the path out of the challenge that we are in today. We cannot continue to resist what is required of us as legislators and policy-makers to ensure that future generations will have a climate that is livable and ecosystems that will allow them to thrive.

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

Hon. G. Heyman: It’s my pleasure to take a few minutes to close debate on second reading of this important bill. I want to give thanks to the various members who have spoken to the bill over the last couple of hours. I want to address a couple of points that were raised during debate.

The member for Kamloops–North Thompson claims that the bill does nothing but reiterate targets that were already set. With respect, I reject the member’s argument. There is, in fact, no 2030 target. The reason we have to set a 2030 target is because we deviated so far from the 2020 target that was legislated that the only thing that made sense to us as government was to repeal that target.

While we were moving toward it for a period of time between 2008 and 2010, the fact remains that following the government of Gordon Campbell, we reversed direction and emissions rose 4½ percent. They did not go down. They rose 4½ percent between 2010 and 2015.

This bill, in setting the targets for 2030 and 2040, is a reaffirmation by our government that we are committed to meeting the 2050 target. We intend to be accountable for actions to meet that target. We will demonstrate, through the creation of a climate action strategy over the coming months, which we will unveil in the fall, how we intend to do that — how we intend to do that collectively with British Columbians.

The member for Kamloops–North Thompson took issue with the fact that we didn’t legislate sectoral targets, that we left the power with the minster to set those targets. There’s a reason for that. We accept, notionally, the sectoral reduction targets that were outlined by the climate leadership team in its 2015 report. But should it prove easier to reach targets in one sector and harder to reach them in another but overall it keeps us on our path to the 2030, 2040 and 2050 targets, I think, certainly as minister, I would explain our actions in that regard.

The goal is always to do the most we can to make the progress we need to, to reduce emissions substantially and keep British Columbia’s commitment to our people and British Columbia’s commitment to Canada, in terms of putting our emission-reduction share forward.

I look forward to working with British Columbians. I look forward to working with the Climate Solutions and Clean Growth Advisory Council, which was established last fall, including members from First Nations, industry, environmental organizations, labour, academia and local government.

I spoke about them in my early remarks. They have an important role to identify opportunities, economic and emission-reduction opportunities for British Columbia, as well as red flags for us about actions or mitigation measures we can take to ensure that we don’t adversely impact British Columbians or British Columbia industry but that we work with communities, people and industry to reduce emissions and keep employing British Columbians as we transition to a society and an economy free of climate pollution.

[4:15 p.m.]

The Leader of the Third Party spoke passionately for an hour. The Leader of the Third Party and I — and, I believe, all members of the Third Party, all members of this government and, I hope, all members of this House — share an understanding that we have to do our part to fight carbon pollution and climate change.

The Leader of the Third Party has the privilege and the advantage of understanding very deeply what has happened over decades through humankind’s releasing of carbon into the atmosphere, what the opportunities are that are available to us to reduce carbon pollution and what the threats are to us if we don’t. He has spoken continually, long before he entered this chamber, about the threat to us. He has raised awareness in British Columbia. He has raised my awareness, and for that, I thank him.

I look forward to working with the Leader of the Third Party, the members of the Third Party, members of our government, any member of this House and any British Columbian who wants to engage productively, proactively and creatively to find the innovation that is going to move us into the economy we know we must build if we’re going to defend our planet and our corner of the planet against the ravages of climate change, which we see every day, which we see increasing every year and which we know have a human cost and a quantifiable economic cost. Instead of paying a price for negative impacts, we should seize opportunities to mitigate the potential impacts, to adapt to them and to build a sustainable economy.

The Third Party House Leader spoke about being a part of the Citizens Climate Lobby. I have met numerous times, as many members of this House have, with members of the Citizens Climate Lobby from our own constituencies, from areas of British Columbia.

I met with them quite recently, in the last couple of weeks. They were thankful for the commitment they saw and the foundational principles of CASA, the confidence and supply agreement — that climate change was the underpinning of the arrangement made between our party, our government, and the Third Party to move forward with a different form of governance in British Columbia on a whole range of issues, making life better and more affordable, building a sustainable economy and providing the services that British Columbians need.

They were particularly thankful for the commitment to deal with climate change, to deal with carbon pollution, to set a price on carbon, to set targets and to move forward. In the coming months, we will be unveiling a number of measures that will make clear to British Columbians the kinds of opportunities that exist for us across industry, across transportation, across the built environment, buildings and homes, to reduce emissions and to prosper while we do it, to make life better for British Columbians.

We’ll be setting a framework for the climate action strategy. Today’s bill and the targets that we set are not the plan. They’re the foundation for the plan, they are the guiding light of the plan, and they are what will form the basis of the plan that we will reveal in the fall.

We will conduct a careful and thorough consultation with British Columbians to inform our actions. We will set B.C. on a path to ensure that we make life more affordable, use less and cleaner energy, and invest in innovation and new technology.

These are the amendments contained in Bill 34, and I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered….

These are the amendments contained in Bill 34, and I move second reading.

Motion approved.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Division has been called.

[4:20 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: Just to be clear, the question is the referral of Bill 34 to Committee of the Whole.

[4:25 p.m.]

Motion approved unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings.]

Bill 34, Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets 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: In this chamber, I call committee stage, Bill 31.

Introductions by Members

Hon. C. Trevena: A few moments ago, just after the last vote, I had the pleasure to introduce the students, family and staff from Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’-Che:k:tles7et’h’ elementary secondary school who have joined us today. They witnessed a very important part of democracy, the fact that we all come and stand up to be counted and make sure that our voices are heard.

They’ve come a very long way to see what we do in this House, and I hope everyone will make them very welcome. They get the joy of being introduced twice to this chamber.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 31 — CANNABIS DISTRIBUTION ACT

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 31; R. Chouhan in the chair.

The committee met at 4:29 p.m.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Before we begin, I’d just like to introduce my staff.

[4:30 p.m.]

Mark Sieben is my deputy minister; Mary Shaw, the executive director of the cannabis secretariat; and Devon Windsor, the senior manager of the cannabis secretariat.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On section 3.

M. Morris: Going to section 3(2)(b)(ii). It says “takes adequate measures.” So the government may not sell cannabis unless it “takes adequate measures to reduce the risk of cannabis that it possesses for commercial purposes being diverted to an illicit market or activity.”

I’m just wondering if the minister could give me an example of what he means by this.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: It would mean having appropriate security at the warehouse — so at the main distribution centre, ensuring that there is property security in place.

Sections 3 and 4 approved.

On section 5.

M. Morris: My colleague from North Vancouver–Seymour will also have a question on this. One of the questions I have — and then I’ll turn it over to her — is section 5(1)(b): “stores for the sale of cannabis and cannabis accessories to consumers and an online system for the sale of cannabis….”

I’m wondering if the minister could explain a little bit behind that and what kinds of security measures they have in that to ensure that it’s not being sold to minors, that it’s not being sold to individuals who aren’t legally able to purchase marijuana or cannabis.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Currently for medical cannabis, there is the federal government’s on-line system for ordering and for delivery. That has a whole series of security checks built into it.

We are developing the provincial on-line sales portal as well. That is one of the key issues in terms of priority for the development. That is security. That will include age check at point of delivery, for example.

We will not be going forward with that on-line portal until we are satisfied that all the necessary security issues involving minors have, in fact, been dealt with in the same way that they have been at the federal level, through their portal. But one of the key components of that will be an age check and an identity verification at the point of delivery.

M. Morris: Just a follow-up to that, has the federal government experienced any issues with the on-line medical delivery system that they have? Has your ministry looked at some of the problems or issues they’ve had with that to ensure that we incorporate any lessons learned into our system?

[4:35 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: Not only are we looking at the experience at the federal level in terms of issues to make sure that we’re learning from their experience but also in other jurisdictions so that when we do go on line with the provincial system, we’ve looked at all of the experiences in different areas to make sure that any issues have been identified and are dealt with before we go on line — or flick the switch, as it were.

J. Thornthwaite: I have a couple questions about section 5 as well. Given that my constituents, at least the ones that have talked to me about this…. Although they support the federal government’s decision moving forward with regards to the decriminalization, etc., with cannabis, what they don’t like is the fact that this government is in the business of selling cannabis.

Yes, taxing, regulation, licensing, etc., is obvious and a good thing, but the actual business of getting into selling cannabis seems to be contradictory to free enterprise economies, small businesses, etc. It will decrease competitiveness.

My question to the minister is: does the minister have any idea how many small businesses this is expected to shut down?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Well, that’s an interesting question because right now there are no legal cannabis small businesses. So the reality is, in terms of it shutting down legal businesses, the answer would be none.

We have been very clear right from the very beginning on the legalization debate — it’s not decriminalization, it is legalization, and they’re very different things — that the public will have their say. We did an on-line consultation, as well as surveys. We received almost 50,000 responses.

We worked very hard with local governments on how they would like to see not only the retail but the distribution system put in place. We’ve worked and seen what other provinces are putting in place. What became really clear was that — and I have repeatedly stated this right from the very beginning — what works in Vancouver may not work in Vanderhoof or Port Coquitlam or North Vancouver or Chilliwack or Prince George.

The local communities are going to have their say. What was very clear and came back was that they wanted the options of having a government store or a private store, so we went with a mix of public retail and private retail.

In terms of distribution, the overwhelming number of responses was that the province retains control of distribution in the same way that it does with liquor. Every other province is doing that very same thing, with the exception, I think, of Saskatchewan.

In terms of, again, the free enterprise model, this province has, in fact, said that we want to see private stores, but local communities are going to have a say. Some communities have already told me that they don’t want to have a private store. They only want a government store, and that’s what their community is about. Other communities have said they’re looking forward to a mix of government stores and private stores.

In fact, I can tell the member that in the Okanagan, for example, Kelowna has said that they are looking forward to seeing private stores. I think — now, I may be wrong — that Lake Country and one of the others have said they want something different.

We have said that there’s room for both, in line with what the public and local governments in our consultation processes have told us. In Ontario and Quebec, they have both said no to private stores. They are going strictly with the government store model. We think we’ve taken an approach, in terms of both retail and distribution, that is in line with the majority views of the people of this province.

J. Thornthwaite: Does the minister have an idea of…? Were there any surveys done specifically to North Vancouver?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The survey was provincewide. Every local government received a request for input from us, as a province, for their views on the legalization of cannabis, how it would impact their community and the kinds of things that they wanted to see.

[4:40 p.m.]

They participated — your community, as other communities did as well — on the joint working task force that we set up and announced at UBCM to deal with the issues around cannabis and how its legalization will impact on local government.

I have been very clear right from the beginning that the views of local governments matter a great deal. That is why, unlike in some other jurisdictions where government is going in and saying, “This is where the store is going; that’s where the store is going,” we have said local government will get to decide where a store goes. That applies to a government store and a private store, the same. So government and private retail are being treated in exactly the same way.

Your community would have been able to participate in the overall survey. Your community would have been asked for their input in terms of what they thought on some of the key questions, and your community would have also had input in terms of the joint task force that took place between UBCM and the province on this issue.

I. Paton: A few questions. Please excuse me and turn me away if they’ve already been asked. I got here a little bit late.

The federal government plans to give roughly 75 percent of the cannabis excise tax revenue to provincial governments. How will the B.C. government allocate this to local governments — on a per-capita basis? Or what would be the other route?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I thank the member for that question.

We’re still working on that issue with the Ministry of Finance and with local government. There are a number of factors that are coming into play on those decisions. Some of them relate to the final decisions around Bill C-46 and when that passes the Senate and on the drug-impaired driving, because that’s one of the areas that local government says that they’re particularly concerned about — any increased cost in that area. The other is that once the bills are passed…. That involves the setting up of the internal enforcement to deal with illegal operations.

That was something that local government was thinking that they were going to have to take responsibility for. We have indicated to them that that is not something they will have responsibility for. That is what the province will be doing.

At the same time, we’re also working with that joint committee with UBCM. So the issue is still very much under discussion. No decisions have been made at this point, but we are very much aware of the desire of local government to share in revenue, and I fully expect that we will come to an agreement on that issue.

I. Paton: I know this is a very wide-open question, and it’s been discussed at great length, I believe, by the committee that’s been recently activated regarding agriculture and revitalizing the ALR and our Agricultural Land Commission. I think one of the main concerns with the input that’s come from lots of the public and farmers throughout B.C. is cannabis to be grown on agricultural land.

Two questions. One is: do we have plans to restrict cannabis cultivation in the ALR; in particular, in my riding, in our greenhouses in Delta? Secondly, if it was to be grown on the ALR, would it be taxed at an industrial tax rate as opposed to an agricultural tax rate, which is somewhat cheaper by a long shot.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I thank the member for that question, because I know how important this particular issue is to him and to the community that he represents.

A number of communities, particularly in the Lower Mainland, have made representations to us on that very issue, wanting to have input in terms of the production of cannabis on agricultural land.

I can tell the member that that is an issue that we are currently working on within my ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance. So that, again, is a decision that we still have to make, but it is one we are very much aware of the importance to local government.

[4:45 p.m.]

On the taxation issue, that’s a very good question. And what I will say to the member is this: we are looking at all the different options around taxation on cannabis. One of the key goals in the whole legalization of cannabis has been to get organized crime out of the cannabis trade as much as possible.

One of the key factors in that, of course, is price and taxation. It’s a key component of that. I have said that governments need to be very careful in terms of the taxation that they do put on it. If, initially, they think that this is — a term that the opposition likes to use sometimes in question period — a cash grab or a big revenue stream coming on, it’s certainly not going to be that way in the short term. There are a lot of issues around that.

We are looking at that taxation issue, at all its different stages, very closely in terms of what it will mean for government and, in particular, the goals around the organized crime issue.

I. Paton: Thank you to the minister for that answer. Just maybe two or three more. With the increased access to recreational cannabis, do we feel, as you’re part of the government, that we still need to allow homegrown cannabis, if there’s going to be a great deal available on the open market as recreational cannabis?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I’m happy to answer the question. It is a little bit outside the section, but if it speeds things along, I’m more than willing to answer the question.

The issue of home cultivation has been one that has engendered a lot of discussion. It is part of our legislative program, because we have to operate within the federal government framework. The federal government has allowed up to four plants to be grown for personal consumption.

That is separate and different from medical cannabis. The medical cannabis rules have not changed, but in terms of the recreational, for personal use, the federal government has said that you can grow up to four plants.

We have looked at that. We’ve had discussions with the Attorney General’s ministry, because some people, a couple of provinces, have said no to that. We have been advised that in terms of the constitutionality of that, it will not stand, so we have gone with the four plants, which is the same as what the federal government has allowed.

I expect — and we can get into it more in the other — as a general thing, it may very well turn out to be like making wine at home and making beer at home. You will get those people who say: “Hey, we’re going to do it.” But the reality is that 99 times out of 100, the properly…. You know, getting wine from a great Okanagan winery or beer from an excellent craft brewery is a lot better product than trying to do it yourself at home.

There are still going to be a lot of issues around it, but in a nutshell, that’s why the home cultivation is there. It’s also why there is the four-plant limit.

I. Paton: A couple more questions. In my municipality of Delta, we have brought in a bylaw that completely bans public consumption of all forms of cannabis and the growing of cannabis and whatnot. Can you confirm that these sorts of bylaws would be at the discretion of local government?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I think it’s probably best that that particular question is addressed in the next cannabis bill that we’ll be dealing with, because that’s where that would be covered.

I. Paton: One last question. There is, under the upcoming rules, zero tolerance for learner drivers. We were wanting to know if the zero tolerance would be included also for commercial drivers, such as bus drivers, taxi drivers or truckers in the heavy-trucking industry.

[4:50 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: It actually was dealt with in the previous piece of legislation that we did on that. But the issue of impairment does not change. Even without the passage of this, if you are impaired by cannabis or any other drug, you are impaired today, with the passage of the legislation. While we wait for the federal government, you would still be impaired. Companies have existing policies in place around what they expect of their employees and especially, in particular, the trucking industry.

M. Morris: Just one more question on this section, 5(1)(a): “warehouses for the storage and distribution of cannabis and cannabis accessories.” Does the minister have any idea…? Formulated a budget for this? How many warehouses are we going to have? This is going to be a pretty prolific industry — it could be — and I’m just wondering if he has any idea where we’re starting with this.

Hon. M. Farnworth: At this particular time, we’re looking at one warehouse. It also takes up significantly less space than is required for liquor. And in terms of costs around that, I know that the AG’s estimates will be coming up, and they will be able to give you a much more comprehensive answer than I can with this bill.

Section 5 approved.

On section 6.

A. Olsen: Just one question with respect to the facility. There have been a number of questions with respect to quality and quality control. I’m not sure if this is the section of the bill that this would fit in, but it was brought up. So just with respect to ensuring quality and quality control of a product, can the minister speak to what type of warehouse this will be and how the product will be stored?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I can tell the members that the LDB will be buying prepackaged product that is shelf stable.

M. Morris: Section 6. I’m reading the subsections (1) and (2). It says in subsection (1), the latter part, that “the administrator may register cannabis as a cannabis product.” In subsection (2) it says that “the administrator may consider one or more of the following….” I’m just wondering about the choice of words here — “may” versus “shall.” “May” sometimes can be quite nebulous, subjective, and I’m just wondering why the minister chose that language.

[4:55 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: This is modelled on the Liquor Distribution Act. What this allows the administrator to do…. It gives some discretion in terms of if somebody wants to sell a product in British Columbia. The administrator has some discretion in terms of whether or not and how that product can be sold.

M. Morris: Just so I have it straight in my mind. It gives the administrator some discretion. But if it’s a product that is produced under federal licence, as long as it’s produced under federal licence somewhere in Canada, it’s still legal. I’m just assuming this. It would still be a legal product for the distribution branch to accept here.

Again, I’m just wondering what the distinction is between “may” and “shall” when the only product that can be sold is a legally produced product.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I would make this point. Just because the federal government licenses it or says it could be sold…. We still want to have the ability in that we may want to say, “We don’t want that sold here in B.C.,” if we don’t like the particular product or if we think that the product is actually geared to the wrong market.

For example, shatter. I’m not expecting the federal government to say: “Yeah. We will license and sell it.” But if they did, we may well say, and I expect we would say, that “no, we are not going to see that sold here in B.C.”

M. Morris: That takes us, then, to subsection (2). It says that “the administrator may consider one or more of the following in determining whether to register cannabis as a cannabis product under subsection (1).” So (a) is: “The promotion of social responsibility in relation to cannabis.”

Again, the distribution branch has a product that a legal producer wants to sell, so I’m just wondering what an example is of “promotion of social responsibility” for the various products that can be registered.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I’ll make a couple of points on this. The first. In terms of the licensed producers that we’re meeting, they’re actually very big on this particular section, because they think it’s crucial.

[5:00 p.m.]

As part of the social responsibility aspect of this section, the administrator will be able to look into areas that matter to and may impact on public health — such as the amount of THC per serving, for example, and whether the product promotes overconsumption or, for example, that it would enhance social success, as we sometimes see with other products that are currently advertised on TV. This is what this section allows the administrator to take into account to make a determination about.

M. Morris: Sub (b) is “the nature, packaging and promotion of the cannabis.” Under the federal act, they talk about controlling the packaging of cannabis. Is there an overlap here, or is there something more that government wants to bring in, to cover off something?

Hon. M. Farnworth: This is a section that…. It’s like many things. We’re still waiting for C-45, in this case, to become actual law, the regulations along with it. We expect stringent regulations by the federal government, but what this does is it gives the province the ability to do further if we’re not satisfied with what we see at the federal level.

J. Thornthwaite: I also have a question with regard to section 6(2)(a) and (b), “the promotion of social responsibility in relation to cannabis;” as well as “the nature, packaging and promotion of the cannabis.”

In my remarks to Bill 30, which was yesterday, I expressed concern about the age of 19 with regards to youth consumption but in particular with regards to the risk of increase in mental illness in some proportion of the youth population at that age, 19. Doctors as well as the Schizophrenia association and many psychiatrists have come out really strongly, saying that “you should not be consuming cannabis until at least 25,” because that’s when the brain is properly developed.

My question is: in the promotion of social responsibility as well as the packaging and promotion, is there going to be an opportunity to get that education and health promotion across?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the member’s question. It has been an important part of the discussion not just here in British Columbia but in every province right across the country. They’re absolutely not necessarily tied to this particular section, but the issue of social responsibility is going to be a crucial one that rolls out with legalization, and it’s obviously going to have to continue.

We have made that clear with the federal government, and it’s something that’s in our discussions with public health in B.C. — that there is going to have to be educational promotion taking place as legalization occurs and continues. The LDB is very familiar in terms of doing that already with alcohol, for example.

What you’re talking about, the issues you’re raising, will be very much a part and parcel of the overall legalization process here in B.C. but also right across the country, with the federal government also very much involved.

J. Thornthwaite: Just to clarify, is the province then waiting to see what, say, the packaging is going to be, as per what the federal government has recommended? I’m not too sure exactly where the province, as far as packaging, would be different than the federal government and whether or not you’re going to up the ante with regards to health promotion. How does that work?

[5:05 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: The federal government will be setting the laws around packaging and advertising. We expect, from everything that we’ve been told, that they are going to be particularly stringent and taking into account the issue that you have been raising.

Section 6 approved.

On section 7.

M. Morris: Again, good to see “promote of social responsibility” in there, because I think that’s going to be a big issue here.

I go to 7(2)(ii): “establish the government as the sole supplier of cannabis to retailers in British Columbia.” It’s a pretty broad statement. I understand what the premise is for this. However, when we have a plethora of illegal retailers out there right now, and who knows how much illegal cannabis is out in the province right now, I’m curious to see what steps the minister has in mind to really establish the government as the sole supplier of cannabis to retailers in British Columbia.

I think that’s going to be a major issue. The government needs to make a statement here so that all those illegal dispensaries are put on notice that they’ll be out of business the day this section is proclaimed and the federal legislation comes into force.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I’ll make this point, because I know we’re going to be dealing with it within the other bill, which is actually where those enforcement issues are being raised. What this section is doing and makes clear is that the only distribution place that retailers can get cannabis or cannabis products from and sell it legally will be this distribution centre. Every other province is taking the same approach.

If you had a cannabis store and you decide that you wanted to bypass this, that will be illegal. The only place that you can get legal product is from the provincial distribution system. That’s it.

[5:10 p.m.]

M. Morris: I appreciate the minister’s answer.

I guess I look at this as…. It says: the administrator must administer this act subject to paragraph (a) and also “establish the government as the sole supplier of cannabis to retailers….” A pretty strong statement. So a pretty big job that the administrator has.

I guess my question was more from the perspective of: is government prepared to back that administrator up? What tools is the minister going to bring to bear?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I know we’re going to be talking further about it in the other piece of legislation, but what I can tell you is that we absolutely intend to back up the administrator and the general manager. The general manager’s role under the distribution system will be…. They will be responsible for ensuring that licensed retailers are only retailing legal product, and they will have significant tools at their disposal to ensure that that takes place.

That’s why, again, in the other legislation, we’ve established the policing component whose sole responsibility will be illegal sellers.

A. Olsen: Just further on this 7(2)(b)(ii) with respect to sole supplier, does this mean that all product will pass through the location controlled by the government, owned by the government?

When you say “sole supplier,” all product that eventually makes it to the retail market will pass through the hands of the government at some point? Is that what this is suggesting?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The short answer to your question is yes. At this point in time, the government will be the sole supplier of legal product.

A. Olsen: Just for clarification, how is this different from the liquor distribution? Is this the same as what we’ve got for liquor distribution, or has that changed?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes. The answer is yes. It is similar to liquor, in that the government takes title to all of the product that is sold.

Sections 7 and 8 approved.

The Chair: Shall section 9 pass?

I’m sorry. There’s an amendment on section 9…?

On section 9.

[5:15 p.m.]

M. Morris: I’ll spend a little time on section 9 here first. Just want some clarification in a couple areas. “Cannabis revenue must, at the close of each day’s business, be applied, first, for the administration of this Act….” So just some clarification around “the administration of this Act.”

Does that include the salaries and the overall operations of the store itself? Does it also include…? There have been references already to the social responsibilities. Does it have any bearing on the responsibilities that were laid out in the previous sections, the promotion of social responsibilities?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The answer is yes. It has application to the administration of the act, including social responsibility.

M. Morris: With respect to that, I’d like to introduce an amendment to section 9. I’d like to….

Interjections.

M. Morris: Okay. I move that the committee rise and report progress and move to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:16 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.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 28 — PUBLIC INTEREST
DISCLOSURE ACT

Bill 28, Public Interest Disclosure Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Farnworth: In Section C, I call committee stage on Bill 29. In this chamber, I call continued debate of Committee of the Whole on Bill 31.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 31 — CANNABIS DISTRIBUTION ACT

(continued)

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 31; L. Reid in the chair.

The committee met at 5:20 p.m.

On section 9 (continued).

M. Morris: I move my amendment to section 9 that is standing on the orders of the day.

[Section 9 by adding the underlined text as shown:

9 (1) Cannabis revenue must, at the close of each day’s business, be applied, first, for the administration of this Act and, after that application, 2.5 per cent of the balance remaining shall be spent on cannabis education and mental health treatment, including prevention and recovery, and after that application, any balance remaining must be paid promptly into the consolidated revenue fund.

(2) If cannabis revenue is insufficient for the administration of this Act, the amount of the deficiency must be advanced from the consolidated revenue fund in accordance with arrangements made by the Minister of Finance.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2),

(a) each advance from the consolidated revenue fund must be recorded to the satisfaction of the Minister of Finance and reported to that minister, and

(b) the Comptroller General may direct the methods and procedures to be employed in administering this section.]

The Chair: Proceed.

On the amendment.

M. Morris: The reasons behind that…. When we talk about this particular bill before us and the emphasis that the government has put on the promotion of social responsibility, including in this bill, the fact is we’ve heard from constituents and individuals about the impact that cannabis has on youth and the threat that it has on developing minds.

Individuals and Health Canada have indicated this. The Doctors of B.C. has indicated this. Developing minds, up to about age 25, have problems or could face some significant issues with this.

When we’re talking about promoting social responsibility, there’s a price tag attached to that. There needs to be a commitment from government in order to put the money into that social responsibility that is so eloquently laid out in this bill — to ensure that the youth are aware of the dangers, the families of youth are aware of the dangers associated with smoking cannabis and the development of these young minds and all of the other social ilks that go with that.

I think it’s important to ensure that we’ve got money that is designated solely for that purpose. This is a new product coming on that government is saying, “There are dangers to it,” but because of those inherent dangers to it, we’re going to commit a certain level of funding to ensure that everybody in this province is aware of the dangers inherent with consuming cannabis products.

So I move the amendment.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the notice of motion. I appreciate the member’s motion and the rationale behind the motion. Unfortunately, I have to let the member know that the motion does impose a financial impact on the Crown, and therefore, the motion would be out of order.

Having said that, I appreciate where the member is coming from. I do think he raises an important point, and I want to assure the member that we take this issue very seriously. As we’ve said right from the beginning, we view social responsibility and the issues around mental health and addiction as a key component in terms of what needs to be addressed around legalization.

That’s one of the reasons why I have said outside this House publicly, and I will restate it in this House publicly, that if governments think that the revenue coming from this is some sort of cash cow or a massive revenue stream, particularly in the initial years, then that is a mistake.

[5:25 p.m.]

We know that there are going to be important and significant costs that are going to have to be addressed that are going to require revenue going to those. The issues that the member has raised — in particular around education, social responsibility, mental health, addictions services — are critical in that regard.

I can tell the member that this is an area that we are — I and my colleagues in Mental Health and Addictions, for example — working with the Finance Minister on so that once the bill passes and legalization takes place, we want to see a significant focus in that area. It’s not that I’m rejecting it because I don’t agree with the premise. There may be those who, in fact, say we need more than that. But it is very much a key priority.

A. Olsen: I do agree with the spirit of the amendment, and I recognize that a lot of the questions that have come from my colleagues in the official opposition, very substantial and significant questions, have come around the social responsibility and the action that the government has to take in order to protect the health and well-being of our constituents and the citizens of British Columbia.

I do believe that the government does need to make a substantive investment in that education and in ensuring that the information is getting to…. I mentioned this, in fact, when it came to the Motor Vehicle Act, the first piece of legislation that we’ve gone through. I recognize that once there are some revenues that are flowing to general revenue, it’s going to be perhaps difficult for the Finance Minister to pull that money back and make that investment.

What kinds of commitments can we have? It’s not that I don’t trust the minister. I do. But what kinds of commitments can we have that there will be substantive investments made in education around the social responsibility piece brought by the member of the official opposition who raised the amendment?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I thank the member for that question, just as I did the opposition critic. But we have been clear right from the outset. When the Finance Minister and I were in opposition, we went down to see how legalization was taking place, for example, in Washington and Oregon. That message came through loud and clear — that you need to do that right up front. That was very much part our findings when we came back.

The second is that, in this House, we have been very clear on that issue around the need for education. We have raised the issue continuously with the federal government at the federal-provincial-territorial meetings. It is one that I am telling — in this House, on the record — that we are very much committed to that.

The Chair: Hon. Members, under Standing Order 67, the amendment, by express language, involves the expenditure of public funds. Therefore, it is out of order in the hands of private members.

Sections 9 and 10 approved.

On section 11.

M. Morris: If I understand the sequence of events as we go through these sections and into 11…. If at the end of the day, the administrator or the manager reconciles the books for that particular store and if there’s money made after the administration is taken off, that is put into general revenue. If there are insufficient funds, then I see that this provides authority for the retail liquor side to support the cannabis part of the operation. Do I have this right?

Hon. M. Farnworth: That’s correct.

[5:30 p.m.]

M. Morris: Looking further down into section 11(c), and (d): “section 10 of this Act does not apply, and the annual report required under section 30 of the Liquor Distribution Act must include the information required by section 10 (2) of this Act.” It blends the two, liquor and cannabis, together. I’m just curious as to why government has gone in this direction.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

I’m just curious as to why government has gone in this direction. We have the cannabis distribution system distributing it to the retail outlets for cannabis, and now we are amalgamating the financial reporting under the Liquor Distribution Act. I’m just wondering whether that is going to cause some confusion or cloud the effectiveness, I guess, of the financial reporting for the cannabis side, that the public may not get a clear picture of how cannabis is producing.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I’ll make two points. One, it’s being done this way because it is efficient, from the fact that the LDB is the distributor. The cannabis division of LDB will be the distributor. The annual report will make it clear what are the cannabis financial statements and what are the LDB, the liquor financial statements. You will be able to see one, and you will be able to see clearly the other as well. They’re not going to be sort of…. You’re not going to see them mixed or melded in one report. Rather, it will be one report but with two complete, separate sections, one dealing with cannabis and the other dealing with liquor.

Section 11 approved.

On section 12.

M. Morris: Section 12 deals with inducements: “(1) A cannabis official must not, directly or indirectly, solicit or receive an inducement. (2) A person must not, directly or indirectly, give or offer to give an inducement to a cannabis official.” I’m just wondering how an inducement is defined. How definitive is an inducement in this? What constitutes an inducement here?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The reason that term was used is because it has a well-understood meaning in case law in the courts. So that was deemed by our legal advisers on this as the appropriate term to use.

Section 12 approved.

On section 13.

M. Morris: Under this definition of cannabis officials, “does not include any of the following: (a) a worker in a warehouse or store, other than a manager; (b) a security guard; (c) a prescribed employee of the government.” What about supervisors? If the manager is not in the store, if there’s a supervisor in the store, is there a delegated responsibility here with that?

[5:35 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I think, to answer the member’s question, it would be…. Anybody who is acting in the capacity of a manager, whether official or not, would be covered by that.

M. Morris: “‘Interested person’ means a person, other than the government, who does or intends to do any of the following: (a) produce cannabis for commercial purposes; (b) sell cannabis….” Does this include illegal grow ops, like somebody who’s got an illegal dispensary in the community?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The answer would be yes. In fact, if someone was operating in an illegal area, whether it was a grow op or whatever aspect of an illegal market it was trying, it would be even more illegal.

M. Morris: Just one more question on this one. Subsection (4) says: “Subsections (2) and (3) do not apply in relation to gifts of nominal value.” No definition here, but I see later on in this bill that the Lieutenant-Governor has the power to make regulation to define nominal value. Does the minister have any indication of what nominal value might mean in this particular case?

Hon. M. Farnworth: A pen would be an example of a nominal gift — or a key chain, something like that. That would be an example of a nominal gift.

Section 13 approved.

On section 14.

M. Morris: I just want some clarification here. Under section 14(2), “A cannabis official may disclose cannabis records and information,” if authorized, and so on. Down to subsection (4), it says: “An agreement under subsection (3) may only be entered into with one or more of the following: (a) a ministry of the government of British Columbia; (b) another government or an agency of that government; (c) a prescribed entity.”

Of course, subsection (3) talks about: “…the minister may, on behalf of the government, enter into an agreement that provides for the disclosure of cannabis records and information to, and the exchange of similar records and information with, a party….” I’m just wondering. Would subsection (4)(b) include public safety, include the police?

Hon. M. Farnworth: We don’t think so, as it relates to (b), but they certainly, most likely, would be under (c), other entity.

M. Morris: I guess what I’m getting at…. I see in sub (5) as well: “An agreement under subsection (3) may only be entered into for one or more of the following purposes: (a) the purposes of the administration or enforcement of (i) this Act…or (ii) laws relating to cannabis that are enacted by another government.”

[5:40 p.m.]

I guess I’m wanting to make sure that there’s nothing that prohibits the information from being shared with law enforcement agencies. Perhaps some clarification on that section.

Hon. M. Farnworth: This section would allow, in fact, the creation of an information-sharing agreement with law enforcement. It would allow what you’re asking to take place.

M. Morris: Has the minister…? Is there an example of where information may not be provided to police, with respect to this particular section?

Hon. M. Farnworth: None that we can think of.

Sections 14 to 17 inclusive approved.

On section 18.

M. Morris: Just a clarification on here. A corporation commits an offence under section 17, with respect to an employee, an officer or an agent…. Subsection (3): “For the purposes of subsection (2), a corporation has the burden of proving that an employee, officer, director or agent of the corporation was not acting on behalf of the corporation at the time the employee, officer, director or agent committed an offence referred to in that subsection.” Is this a reverse onus? Perhaps some clarification on how that section pertains to an employee committing an offence.

Hon. M. Farnworth: The answer is yes.

Sections 18 to 20 inclusive approved.

On section 21.

M. Morris: Again, subsection (2)(d), defining the term “nominal value.” There will be regulations coming in with respect to that.

Subsection (2)(f): “without limiting paragraph (e)” — which is “respecting the disclosure of cannabis records and information for the purposes of section 14 (2) (a)” — “deeming a class of cannabis records and information, for the purpose of section 21 (1) (b) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, to have been supplied to the government in confidence.”

I wonder if the minister could give me an example of information that would be provided in confidence under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Hon. M. Farnworth: It would be the kind of information that business competitors would want to know in order to get an advantage over another operator.

M. Morris: My only concern there is that competitive information…. I can understand that, but as long as it doesn’t limit the ability to enforce any provisions of this act or any of the other legislation?

[5:45 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: No, it does not.

Section 21 approved.

A. Olsen: We moved pretty quickly. Can I go back to section 19 and ask a question, or is it that if it’s passed, it’s passed?

The Chair: Okay, Member. The Chair will allow you to ask a question on 19.

A. Olsen: Just a very quick question. I recognize that in subsection (a), a corporation is liable on conviction for a fine of no more than $50,000. If it’s an individual, it’s a fine of $10,000 or imprisonment. I’m just wondering. Is there no imprisonment opportunity for a director of a corporation who breaks this…? Maybe the minister can just provide some clarification on this. I might be way off base.

Hon. M. Farnworth: A director of a corporation would also be considered as an individual.

The Chair: Okay, back to section 22.

On section 22.

M. Morris: I see this as another opportunity to make a statement as we transition into this new world here. “The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations considered necessary or advisable for the purpose of more effectively bringing this Act into operation and to avoid any transitional difficulties encountered in doing so.”

I think a regulation here that aids enforcement officers in bringing the illegal dispensaries to a halt and in dealing with the large amount of illegal cannabis that is out there, providing some avenue or some direction to police officers as to how they should be proceeding…. Because of the prolific nature we’ve seen in this province here over the last couple of years with the illegal dispensaries and the habit that a lot of these operators have in just flouting the law and carrying on their illegal activities no matter what takes place, I see this as an opportunity, maybe, to provide a little bit more teeth in that.

I was just wondering if the minister had any thoughts on what this regulation might look like.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the member’s question. I would say to that particular question, the regulations in the next act dealing with that will pertain, I think, more to the issue that the member is concerned about.

Other than that, I would just say: look, that is why we chose the distribution model that we have chosen. It gives us the greatest control in terms of getting product, the distribution of that product…. It’s the same mechanism that has been used in every other provincial jurisdiction. I think it reflects a commitment — not just here but, in fact, right across the country — to make sure that we are ensuring that the product that gets into the retail system is legal product and only legal product.

We believe that this is the most effective way to do that, and regulations, when they are put in place, are intended to support that principle.

Sections 22 and 23 approved.

Title approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:49 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

[5:50 p.m.]

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 31 — CANNABIS DISTRIBUTION ACT

Bill 31, Cannabis Distribution Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Hon. Speaker, I call committee on Bill 30, the Cannabis Control and Licensing Act. While we’re waiting for some staff, we will also take a five-minute recess.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands recessed for five minutes.

The House recessed from 5:51 p.m. to 5:58 p.m.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 30 — CANNABIS CONTROL
AND LICENSING ACT

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 30; R. Chouhan in the chair.

The committee met at 5:59 p.m.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On section 3.

[6:00 p.m.]

M. Morris: Just a question. Section 3 says: “The provisions of this Act are subject to exemptions as prescribed under section 130,” which is exemption by regulation. Then 130 states: “The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations exempting the following from all or part of one or more provisions of the Act: (a) a person or entity; (b) a class of cannabis; (c) a form of consumption of cannabis; (d) a thing; (e) an action….” This is a pretty comprehensive list. I’m just wondering if the minister can give me some examples and why this is there.

Hon. M. Farnworth: The key exemption I can give as an example for the member would be medical cannabis, which operates under different legislation at this point in time. We may be required to make an exemption in regards to that.

M. Morris: I go back to section 2. It says: “Unless this Act or the regulations provide otherwise, Parts 3 and 4 of this Act do not apply to medical cannabis.” So it’s in there already. I’m just wondering if there is something else that I might be missing here.

Hon. M. Farnworth: The parts of this bill that pertain to retail do not apply to medical cannabis. That’s why, with this section, that will allow us, if necessary, to be able to deal with exemptions if they are required.

M. Morris: So basically, it’s only focused on medical cannabis and nothing else.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Not necessarily. The reason that flexibility is in there is in part because the federal legislation is still not passed, and we still don’t know what the final outcome is going to look like. We hear that there may still be amendments, so this will give us the ability to deal with that final piece of legislation — that C-45, at some point, gets passed and becomes a federal law.

Sections 3 to 5 inclusive approved.

On section 6.

[6:05 p.m.]

M. Morris: Section 6 is talking about analysts. Perhaps a little bit more background on this. We have the federal government talking about tracking cannabis from seed to sale. And we have the province now using the cannabis distribution centre to wholesale out to the retailers.

Is an analyst under section 6…? Is this the analyst who will go in and check and make sure that the cannabis that’s being sold in the store is in fact from a recognized, licensed distributor? Do they analyze the DNA of the marijuana that’s in the store to ensure that it’s from a regulated distributor federally? What does “analyst” mean in this section?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Analysts are those who’ll be responsible for testing substances and providing evidence in a prosecution of an offence under the act. Negotiations are still ongoing as to whether Health Canada labs will continue doing testing of cannabis for law enforcement purposes or if additional labs will be authorized to carry out testing of cannabis for law enforcement purposes. But that’s the purpose of this section.

M. Morris: I see this as a significant undertaking for government and for the enforcement side because of the number of illegal dispensaries that we already have in the province and the amount of illegal cannabis that is, obviously, in the province here as well. The minister has alluded to the fact or made some fairly strong statements that illegal cannabis will not be tolerated in the province. Does the minister have an idea of how many analysts? Will we be adding a significant number of analysts to staff to help enforcement officers throughout the province and the infrastructure necessary to support them?

Hon. M. Farnworth: That’s where work is currently underway within the ministry on exactly what is going to be required. I fully expect that the member will be asking me those questions in estimates in the 2019 budget.

M. Morris: I surely will. But I guess between now and the estimates in 2019, this…. I’m assuming with the federal legislation, unless the minister has information that the federal legislation won’t be coming into force before 2019 and that this legislation won’t be coming into force before 2019…. I think that transitional period from the time that this does come into force is going to be very impactful and that those analysts are going to be very busy. That’s when we’re going to need to front-end-load onto this system to ensure that we are effective in knocking out the illegal cannabis trade. I’m just wondering how the ministry is preparing for that and whether you are prepared for that the day that this is proclaimed.

[6:10 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I appreciate the member’s question. It’s one that, as I said, we are working on. We know that we’re going to have to…. We’re preparing to be ready for when legalization takes place. When that takes place — we still don’t know.

As I’ve said publicly, what I fully expect is that this will be, as in many other components of the entire legalization process, something that is going to be starting out, and it will be building on and ramping up over time to get to the full system that we envisage taking place. Definitely, this is a key component and will be getting considerable attention from my ministry, but also other ministries that will be impacted.

M. Morris: I have it here that…. I think there’s going to be a real need for this, and I appreciate the minister and staff turning their minds to it.

Is the analyst function, or one of the significant functions of the analyst, to use DNA, to do a DNA sample of the cannabis that might be suspected of being illegal, to compare it with a federally regulated producer in the province? Have there been DNA links made? Or how is that going to take place?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The primary role of the analysts is, in terms of that prosecution, to determine whether or not a product is cannabis or a cannabis product, or not. That’s where we’re starting from. Then I have no doubt that over time it is going to build from there.

M. Morris: So judging from the minister’s answer, the analysts will only be used in cases that go to prosecution? In the interim, how do the enforcement personnel determine whether or not the product that’s on the shelf is, in fact, from a licensed producer?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I want to make a couple of points. First, in terms of the analysts, this will be dealing with, you know, a legal store and showing that the product in a legal store is, in fact, legal product. If it’s being sold in an illegal store, it’s illegal regardless of where it came from. The analyst will be looking at in terms of, as I said, whether it is, in fact, a cannabis product or not.

[6:15 p.m.]

In answer to the member’s specific question, on how you determine, there are a number of ways they’re going to be doing that. One is through packaging, records and, importantly, the excise stamp. All of those things are going to be key components in determining whether a product is a legal product that has come from the B.C. distribution network.

M. Morris: I guess I go back, again, to my days of enforcement. Those nefarious individuals who want to circumvent the law are pretty ingenious when it comes to duplicating excise stickers or packaging, counterfeit packaging and whatnot. I’m assuming that’s the role of the analyst, as well as enforcement officers, but sometimes it takes a particular skilled individual to detect the differences.

I guess where I’m going with this is…. We talked, in the previous bill, about government retail and private retail outlets for cannabis in British Columbia. I’m very concerned over the vulnerability of, particularly, private cannabis outlets and their susceptibility to the infiltration by organized crime. If there is a way that analysts can go in and check that product to ensure that it’s what it’s supposed to be — that it’s from a regular, licensed producer in the province….

Hon. M. Farnworth: I’ll make a number of remarks to the member’s question because, again, it is an important question. And he is right. Organized crime or those who want to think that they can skirt the noes and do what they want because they don’t like the rules will always try and find a way to get around those rules and try to be “creative.”

The reality is that enforcement also knows how those things happen, and they are also creative in figuring out what’s going on. The reality is this. There is a lot of interest in entering this market, and if people are not going to play by the rules, they’re going to get caught. They will get caught. There are significant penalties in the legislation, and they will be washed out. They will not have their licence. There are plenty of other people who will be lining up who are prepared to play by the rules, who will be able to participate.

That’s been the experience we’ve found in other jurisdictions, and I fully expect that to be the experience here in B.C.

A. Olsen: Just to follow up with the member of the official opposition’s question with respect to folks who have criminal records that have accumulated over time as they’ve worked in the illegal industry as it currently stands now. I think it’s important to point out that many of these folks have….

As we’ve seen laws evolve over time, it begs the question that…. This law and this relationship that we have with this particular product is evolving, and much of the reason why we’re at where we’re at today is because there have been people that have been working to bring these issues to us, and many of them have accumulated criminal records.

[6:20 p.m.]

They’re going to be left out of this situation. I’m wondering if the minister has anything to say about that — if they’re going to be allowed to operate once this new law is established.

Hon. M. Farnworth: There will be other sections of this act that actually deal with the questions that the member is raising, but I’m happy, at this point, to say, look, no one is being grandfathered in who is engaged in retail. We’ve made it clear that people are free to apply, but there will be significant background checks. Some individuals may find themselves on the outside. That’s just the reality.

There are other sections where we will be dealing with that.

Sections 6 to 9 inclusive approved.

On section 10.

M. Morris: Subsection 10(2) states: “If any of the following entities have custody or control of information that the general manager is entitled to collect under this Act, the entity must, despite any other enactment, disclose that information to the general manager on request”. And subsection (b) states: “a police force described….” in the sections above.

I’m just wondering. If we have a police force that’s investigating a criminal offence or an offence under this act and has information that is sensitive to the investigation, this section seems pretty strong. It’s a very strong section for the police force to disclose that information to the manager.

I wonder if there’s any provision or anything that the police force can use to prevent them from having to disclose any information that may be sensitive to a current investigation that they’re working on.

Hon. M. Farnworth: The collection of information by the general manager, including public bodies and the police, is there to carry out the security screenings and background checks that are necessary in terms of determining fit and proper determinations around licensing. It’s not intended to impede a sensitive investigation.

M. Morris: Would that section compel a police force to release the information even if they felt they shouldn’t at that particular time?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Our expectation is that these arrangements and the way this section will work will be similar to the way that it currently works with liquor. There’s an understanding of how it works by both police and the liquor authorities, and we’re expecting a similar approach in terms of cannabis.

[6:25 p.m.]

M. Morris: Just one more question on this section. With respect to cannabis, the investigation may not fall under the auspices of this particular legislation, but it could include an investigation under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act as well. Oftentimes there’s information that the police might have in their possession that might compromise an investigation under the CDSA, or a criminal code investigation — whatever it might be.

In my first blush, in reading this section, it seems pretty strong. So I’m just wondering if there is an opportunity for the police to say: “No, I’m sorry. We can’t do that.” And if the manager pushes the issue, what recourse do the police have?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The member does raise a good point. It’s a legitimate issue, legitimate concern. It’s certainly one that we know this section is there for, to do what I think both of us want to see, which is a proper and thorough background check.

The police services branch within the ministry understands the sensitivity and deals with the police on a lot of sensitive issues. We will be discussing with them how to make this work and how to deal with those situations, but I don’t see it being an impediment. We’ll be able to come to make it work, based on experiences in the past and with the staff in the ministry.

Section 10 approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Noting the hour, I move that the committee report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:27 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 the Whole (Section C), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

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

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 6:29 p.m.