Orders of the Day

Hon. H. Bains: I call second reading of Bill 49.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 49 — PROFESSIONAL
GOVERNANCE ACT

(continued)

R. Sultan: I’m pleased to rise and offer my comments during second reading debate of Bill 49, the Professional Governance Act.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

I will begin by quoting verbatim from an op-ed published in the Vancouver Sun under my name on July 27 of this year, headlined: “NDP Government Seeks to Regulate the Regulator.”

“In days of yore, Dalmatians ran ahead of stagecoaches to warn of threats. In future days, when driving in the country, it may be prudent to train these wonderful dogs to warn us of bridges ahead designed under the supervision of lawyers at West Coast Environmental Law. For that appears to be the intention of the Green-NDPs, who seem hell-bent on taking over governance of our engineering profession and handing it over to lawyers and environmental lobbyists.

“Or more broadly, in fact — taking over the governance of five learned professions: engineering and geoscience, forestry, applied biology, agrology, and applied science technologists and technicians. These 55,000 British Columbians do everything from designing our highways and heart valves, cutting blocks in forestry, protecting our soils and streams from degradation and certifying the septic tank in your backyard. The NDP government is now threatening the jobs of these 55,000 hard-working British Columbians. Why?

“Unfortunately, our current Green-NDP government is persuaded that these professions’ collective performance has been unsatisfactory. They have been convinced it was somehow a mistake to rely on highly trained professionals. They accept the conclusions of another report: that professional judgment and sense of responsibility has been impaired by conflict of interest and — quoting a panel of ‘experts’ regarding a tailings pond collapse — ‘misplaced faith in design parameters and stability modeling…and blinded by the confidence of an authority or by the assumed accuracy of prior testing.’ Or in other words, the NDP believe the professionals overseeing complex projects have become too reliant on established science.

“Worried? Don’t be. Mark Haddock, a lawyer with the Environmental Law Centre of the University of Victoria, was hired to write yet another report. But he arrives at the same conclusion: we cannot rely on these skilled professionals to fulfil the heavy responsibilities thrust upon them. They must therefore be closely supervised by more responsible minds such as may be found, one must presume, among the lawyers of the University of Victoria.

“There is every indication that the NDP accepts such Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy conclusions with enthusiasm and intends to create and staff an über-regulator to govern the regulators: the five professional colleges who were themselves created for the purpose of ensuring professional competence and accountability and the swearing of oaths upholding the public interest.

“It’s not as though engineers in this province are running around without a strong regulatory framework to guide their work. The Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia recently commissioned the U.K.’s Professional Standards Authority, PSA, to audit and publicly report on the performance of the regulator. This is the same audit team that has been retained by B.C.’s government to look at the regulation of dentists. The PSA’s conclusion: seven of the nine criteria assessed were met, and action is already underway against the two outliers. Sure, there is some improvement required, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

“The mind boggles. The engineering profession I have served for over a half century licenses at least 22 categories of applied science, and that is just the beginning.

[1:40 p.m.]

“Our highly educated professionals are set up to be self-governing. Who else knows the…technical math and science needed to understand what is safe or dangerous and who is competent or neglectful?

“It is not hard to draw up a list of technical mistakes which have been made in the history of engineering. They will inevitably occur again from time to time. It’s highly doubtful amateurs can make a difference. Nevertheless, it appears self-government will be a relic of the past under the NDP government’s prescription.

“Some observers claim the United States is in decline due to the persistent dumbing down of the American education system. Is British Columbia about to set out on a parallel course, replacing technical expertise with organized ignorance, ideology and dogma? Heaven help us.”

That’s the end of my Vancouver Sun op-ed of last July.

I’ve worn my iron ring pretty much every day since graduating from engineering at UBC a long time ago. The regulatory organization, of which I’m a member, of Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C., EGBC, has responded to the government’s über-regulator — or, as some would prefer, overregulator — project with attempted understanding and tact.

In a newsletter to members they stated, just excerpts:

“Changes are coming to the regulation of a number of professions in B.C., and engineers and geoscientists are urged to take note. On June 28 the B.C. Minister of Environment and Climate Change released its final report from the review. The report includes a number of proposed recommendations, some of which would introduce sweep­ing changes to the governance of regulators like Engineers and Geoscientists B.C.

“While some of the proposed reforms are positive and align with the association’s recommendations for improving the professional reliance model, others are more problematic and could impact engineers and geoscientists’ ability to function effectively as a regulator. In addition, while the review and its recommendations focused on professionals operating within the natural resource sector, only 20 percent of B.C. engineers and geoscientists worked in this sector. The proposed changes would impact all engineers and geoscientists regardless of their area of practice.”

The association’s comment went on to say:

“The two recommendations concerning professional governance are likely to have the biggest impact. The first recommends the creation of an independent office of professional regulation and oversight to oversee the five associations subject to the review. The second proposes that government standardize ten elements of professional governance across the five associations through umbrella legislation.”

The Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, when introducing this bill to the Legislature this morning, described, at some length, the consultation process and many industry organizations that were engaged. I would like to expand on what I understand actually happened during that process.

The five impacted organizations, starting with the largest — known as EGBC, the one I belong to — did spend, as I understand it, most of May through August in meetings with ministry staff, who were highly professional throughout, and key meetings were also held with the Minister himself. The explanatory meetings by staff were not, I am told, a dialogue, which is commonly the characteristic of consultation, but were characterized to me as monologues — one-way communications and PowerPoints of what was about to happen to these, up until now, mostly self-regulating bodies.

But then again, I’m reading between the lines, because those being consulted would only enjoy that privilege if they signed a secrecy oath so they could not tell anybody what was actually happening. And I notice reticence on their part to talk about it even now.

[1:45 p.m.]

It is not clear when the confidentiality agreements expire, if ever. So here we have, across the aisle, a group of politicians who have been quick to seize upon any evidence of scientists being muzzled by government, a nefarious anti-intellectual, anti-true-science, muzzling of free speech, invented, the legend goes, by politicians in Ottawa and conveyed to them out here on the west coast, intended to muzzle any bad news about the environment. It’s the common theme.

With that cultural backdrop, I find it more than curious that the impacted five professional associations were forced to swear, in writing, as the price of consultation, as one way as it was, to keep their mouths shut about what was going on.

Now, these are organizations of applied sciences. I graduated from the faculty of applied science at UBC. The NDP-Green coalition muzzled and subjected to contracts of secrecy our applied science community. That made it almost impossible for members of this community, such as myself, to actually learn what was going on. So much for transparency and openness, NDP-Green style.

Sorry, applied scientists. You’re not allowed to say anything to anybody.

Nevertheless, hints of what was going on leaked out. Based on glimmerings of information, journalist Tom Flet­cher wrote last July, headline “Industry Groups Pan B.C.’s ‘Professional Reliance’ Review,” and cited the following: “Council of Forest Industries CEO Susan Yurkovich said the proposal ‘would effectively take us back 25 years’ to the former NDP government’s forest practices code, which proved a costly and ‘gridlocked regulatory scheme.’ The industry is now regulated by the Forest Practices Board, which issues regular audits that show a good record of compliance, Yurkovich said.”

Tom went on to quote Greg D’Avignon, president of the B.C. Business Council, who “called Haddock’s report ‘a solution looking for a problem,’ which confuses regulatory capacity in government with the role of qualified professionals who design projects and conduct environmental surveys.” D’Avignon went on to say: “Unfortunately, this report fails to recognize that whether professionals work in the private or public sector, they are all bound by the same legal and ethical standards.”

Tom went on to quote AltaGas, which is building a propane export facility at Prince Rupert, he reported. In its submission to Haddock’s committee…warned that qualified professionals “should not be tasked with making government resource management decisions. Government agencies should be the decision-makers,” said Charles Lyons, vice-president for environment and safety with AltaGas.

Subsequently, Keith Sashaw, CEO of the Association of Consulting Engineers of British Columbia, wrote:

“We understand that the intended outcomes of this process are to ensure the appropriate qualified professionals are hired for the work, and that they are competent; ensure QPs, qualified professionals, give unbiased advice; minimize controversy over natural resource decisions; improve the timeliness of natural resource decisions; ensure adequate oversight of QP regulators; increase the transparency and accountability of the professional reliance model; and increase Indigenous nation and public trust in natural resource decisions.”

Sashaw went on to say:

“We believe adoption of regulations that we support will work to achieve these outcomes. The imposition of a heavy-handed, overseeing entity will not contribute at all and, in fact, will add undue complexity and confusion.”

[1:50 p.m.]

Who is the architect of these reforms? Well, that’s quite clear. The minister, when he first introduced the proposed legislation, had sitting in the galleries with, significantly perhaps, a representative of the Professional Employees Association of B.C., a unit of the B.C. Federation of Labour, one Mr. Haddock, a lawyer and instructor at the University of Victoria who produced a report 135 pages long containing 121 recommendations — only the first two of his recommendations being embodied in this proposed statute.

Mr. Haddock, who had previously worked with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund and West Coast Environmental Law, in his report to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy recommended changes to agricultural waste control, contaminated sites, hazardous waste, landfill gas management, municipal wastewater, mushroom compost facilities, meat processing, lumber pricing, oil and gas roads and drilling, and dam safety regulation.

If a mere two of his recommendations required a 110-page and 129-section bill to implement — that is to say, Bill 49 — we take with considerable trepidation the question of how many pages of legislation will be required to implement his other 119 recommendations.

Why are we considering the legislation right now? That’s easy. It’s in the contract — the Green-NDP midnight agreement otherwise known as CASA. It’s the Green’s price for continuing support of this government. They make no secret of it. They exult in their curiously disproportionate arrangement.

Exactly who is the government planning to regulate here? Well, engineers and geoscientists, for starters, about 35,000 of them; foresters, about 5,000; applied biologists, about 2,300 of them; agrologists, a mere 1,200; and applied science technologists and technicians, 10,000 of them. Whoa.

So here we have a total of 55,000 strong-willed, skeptical, highly educated and necessary professionals who are not used to having government or anybody else shove them around, ranging from engineers working at the TRIUMF accelerator at UBC studying the engineering physics of the universe to elevator technicians trying to make sure I don’t get stuck between floors in my apartment building. Lots of luck, Government, running that crowd out of the Attorney General’s office.

What will the government’s über-regulator operating from the shelter of the Attorney General’s office actually do? Well, it seems, from reading this bill, that he or she can do just about anything — from supervising, inspecting, hiring and firing, appointing members, appointing members to a specialized roster, paying special attention to whistle-blowers, defending whistle-blowers from retribution, licensing the professionals, taking away the professionals’ licences.

Approving, or not, all the bylaws made by the regulators under them; appointing public members, who must be present at each and every committee meeting — and these organizations have perhaps 250 committees — penalize and levy fines and toss out of the profession for deemed infractions; and make sure everybody adheres to a code of ethics, which shall be composed at the cabinet level of this government. Did I leave anything out?

I’m tempted to shout: “Hail Caesar!” The disciplinary powers of this new Caesar, as the member for Kamloops–​North Thompson has already emphasized, are virtually unlimited. This person is not even subject to the constraints of civil service rules. He or she is an independent gendarme of the Attorney General answerable to nobody except, it seems, the AG — or through the AG, answerable to cabinet itself.

The analogy which springs to my mind is my late and much-lamented dog, carrying the Swahili name of Baruti, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, a big one. Those of you familiar with the breed will know them as large, loyal, very strong and athletic lion hunters with independent views. The only way to control Baruti was with a chain choke collar. If he was misbehaving, you gave him a good yank on the choke collar, and he got the message right away.

[1:55 p.m.]

The way things are unfolding, the superintendent of professionals will be the government’s choke chain, as I see it, if the engineers misbehave. And having been a registrant myself for many decades, I know they can be independent and troublesome — unruly, in fact. The superintendent will just give their choke chain a yank, and all will be well. At least that’s the discipline model embodied in Bill 49.

What could possibly go wrong? Well, here are six things which could be problematic.

One, we’re dealing here with a world of applied science, which is moving fast and evolving, as knowledge accelerates. The maintenance of which knowledge, by the way, is one of the main thrusts of this proposed law. And who could argue against that? We all get out of date very, very quickly.

Well, why not try out some of your rules and paperwork, penalties and permissions and choke chains on Elon Musk, Mr. Attorney General, and see how far that gets you.

Two, cabinet will decide what is ethical, and engineers under penalty of a yank on that choke chain are forbidden from being unethical. For starters, it wouldn’t surprise me if they ban all work on the Trans Mountain pipeline forthwith, and they, in turn, will henceforth get all their engineering work done in Houston. It’s unethical, you see — endangering the public, and so on.

Three, as the member for Kamloops–North Thompson has again emphasized, the law says…. This has special meaning; listen up. Engineers must — “must,” that’s a very pregnant word in law — report what may…. Now, that’s another word laden with meaning. They must report what may be deleterious to health and safety. That’s their professional obligation. Ignore it, and you’re being unethical.

Well, “must” reporting “maybes” covers an awful lot of territory. The member for Kamloops–North Thompson has already described the huge off-duty obligations of professionals caught up in this act, who must report any maybe that they observe. I suppose driving by a pipeline on Sunday afternoon might be reportable.

Four, a clause requires professionals, all 55,000 of them, to make a declaration of competence and conflict of interest on every job they do. I figure about half a million declarations a year should just about cover it. The thought which immediately ran through my mind was the report I listened to last week from Vancouver Coastal’s on-time and on-budget implementation of their health records IT system, with a budget that they managed to meet of just a shade under $1 billion.

Five. While there are, indeed, five organizations, only two of them are actually legally empowered regulators today. So we must make up something in a hurry for the other three. But the minister, if I heard him accurately this morning, is well aware of this, and drafting a scope of practice will, I’m sure, begin immediately for 10,000 technicians and technologists working on everything from electronics to concrete testing.

Sixth and final. These are mobile, knowledge-based enterprises and professionals — savvy. Look at some of them crosswise, and they may just say: “I’m out of here. I’m going to Calgary or Seattle.”

These are only six of the most obvious complexities of making operational Bill 49. Square one will be to gain the trust and cooperation of the registrants, because leg. counsel doesn’t have a clue about what is involved, as skilled and professional as I know they are — and they are indeed.

The only way to discipline the professionals and hold them to some standard is to have the professionals design what it is and what those standards actually are. Sorry. Minister, you must start to make nice to them right away and keep that choke chain in your hand, hidden behind your back, because that’s a good way to spook my Baruti, ridgeback.

[2:00 p.m.]

Now, having said all of that, and I appreciate I’ve said quite a bit…. To a degree which might surprise the proponents, I have considerable sympathy for the goals and objectives the drafters of Bill 49 are trying to achieve. I have sympathy for what they are trying to achieve. Unfortunately, the way they’re going about it is going to create a tremendous snafu. If you don’t know what snafu means, look it up.

M. Lee: Well, I think snafu means a really big problem. I was thinking Scooby Doo, but anyway….

It’s a pleasure to rise today to speak on behalf of others, with our opposition caucus here, on Bill 49, the Professional Governance Act. I couldn’t help but comment on the Freudian slip by my colleague, the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, when he stood up to speak and started to refer to Bill 40. I think, of course, that as Members of the Legislative Assembly, we’re all about trying to improve our governance in this province, in this chamber. The challenges we’ve spoken about and will continue to speak about through the course of today, about Bill 40, have been a lack of understanding of what good governance is and a real challenge to our province.

In terms of Bill 49, much as I would like to continue talking about Bill 40, it’s another challenge. I, like the member for West Vancouver–Capilano, also share a recognition of some of the objectives that we understand from the Minister of Environment in tabling this bill. But I hope that all members of this chamber…. Certainly, members on this side of the House recognize what this province is good at.

This province is strong in responsible resource development. Professional reliance is a critical component of that. What has been evolving in this province over the last 15 years has been a maintenance of government oversight of that, but a greater focus on monitoring, compliance and enforcement of development activity. That has enabled projects to be done in a responsible way — considerations around the environment, social licence, relationship with First Nations and other considerations on project development as we go forward. Safety. Protection of our waterways, our rivers, our lands.

This has been a critical component — but also recognizing that we need to move forward with this. When we look at the associations — the five professional associations, from the engineers and geoscientists to the forest professionals, the biologists, the agrologists, and the applied science technologists and technicians — they all play a role in this. They do it in a professional manner, as we would know, of course, I would hope.

They’re all trained to do this. They are trained in their educational institutions. They receive their licence and practice certifications. They are governed by their professional bodies under a code of conduct, a code of ethics, professional standards. They need to continue to maintain and perform their roles in the public interest. That is the professional reliance we’re hoping to accomplish in this province. Admittedly, sometimes there have been some challenges with that. That’s what’s been identified. But this is clearly an overreach, an overreaction to that.

[2:05 p.m.]

When we look at how public interest is being defined, I look at the Haddock report. I must say that the member for West Vancouver–Capilano made some general references to UVic law school. I’m a proud graduate of that law school, so I know how strong the law program is there. In the Haddock report, on page 43, it says: “The more that government does to make known its management objectives and desired results in law and policy, the more clarity there is for professional organizations and their members to determine what constitutes professional and ethical conduct in a given context.” I think that that is a challenge.

Professional and ethical conduct is something that should be determined by the profession itself. It is something that they form these associations to do, and when government starts to suggest how their ethics should change in a given context, I think that’s a concern. The overarching nature of the ability and the powers given to the superintendent under this bill suggests that there is a greater public interest that is not defined.

In the briefings that we were able to have, the two colleagues who have spoken and myself, with the Minister of Environment’s staff, it’s quite clear — and I’m sure we’ll get to this in committee — as to what the government has in its mind, in its intention. What are the objectives of this government, the true objectives, in forming this superintendent office? Without knowing that, we cannot have a meaningful discussion about this bill. Just as the member for West Vancouver–Capilano said, the consultation really appeared to be more one-way than two-way.

In this House, I believe it’s the responsibility of this government to explain to this chamber what the true objectives of this bill are, understanding how they define “public interest” in a different way depending on how these professionals should be operating, in terms of their professional ethics and conduct. I think it’s one thing to say that the government should be doing what they ought to be doing, which is setting the environmental regulatory framework for this province. But the trained professionals of each of these five associations ought to be enabled and allowed to perform their duties, to continue to set their standards — their code in which they operate, their certifications.

I know that one of the aspects in this bill that would suggest that the superintendent knows better is the competence and the conflict of interest declarations. The bill effectively says that as a registrant under this act is engaged to provide services, under section 60, that are within the registrant’s regulated practice, that registrant needs to file, within the prescribed time and the prescribed form and manner, a competence declaration. Are we saying that the superintendent now is the determinant of who is competent in this province, ultimately?

It’s not clear who this competence declaration goes to. Presumably, it goes to the registrant’s professional organization, but ultimately, that organization reports to the superintendent. That’s the purpose of this new provision. Does that shift the burden of responsibility, where the superintendent and the government of British Columbia are now blessing the competence of these professionals, so that if something goes wrong, the superintendent and the government bear that responsibility?

In terms of conflicts of interest, under that same section, there’s a conflict-of-interest declaration, which includes a “perceived conflict of interest.” In the context of what public interest is, what is that perceived conflict going to look like? These are important questions that I think we need to be addressing at the committee stage.

Ultimately, I understand that the government is trying to address what would be a standardization of good governance practices across these particular organizations, with more to follow, potentially — setting standards for code of ethics, audit, continuing education expectations, professional standards. I think government can do that.

[2:10 p.m.]

There are other guidelines that government puts out to Crown corporations, for example, about good governance. Why is it that we need to combine and take away responsibility and oversight from the line ministries that are currently directly involved with these organizations, which include the Ministry of Advanced Education; Ministry of Environment; Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development; and the Ministry of Agriculture? Those four main ministries are responsible for these five professional organizations.

Why isn’t it that those ministries, with the expertise that is at their ministry levels of staff…? Knowing the sectors which these organizations operate in, why isn’t it those ministries that are still responsible for the governance of those organizations, particularly when, on natural resource development matters, these associations are operating in the same sectoral expertise areas? So when there’s a shift here, this superintendent’s office now has to have a greater level of expertise — expertise that’s already there in the government.

This is a duplication of resources, to say the least. As I was saying before, it’s unclear to me why government can’t just set the standards across the board. There can be guidelines that are put out as to what the expectations should be around a form of a code of conduct, expectations around continuing education which are specific to that organization. These are things that can be done with­out a new super-oversight body, a super-oversight body in the form of the superintendent that dives deep into the operations of a council, even in the area where you are talking about a self-governance organization.

When you look at the Haddock report and the tenor of this bill, it suggests that self-governing professional organizations aren’t capable of governing themselves. They aren’t capable of passing appropriate bylaws around professional standards, audit investigation, fees to continue to support that organization — that government needs to step in and govern that organization of professionals for themselves. I don’t think that is the appropriate direction this government should be taking.

What we’re trying to continue to build with the toughest safety and environmental standards in the world, regulatory standards, is excellence in this province, excellence for resource development. That is something that we do in collaboration with the strong professional organizations that, in the area of resource development, are world-leading.

I recognize that the point’s been made, in terms of the engineers and geoscientists of British Columbia, that only 20 percent of its members, potentially, are in the natural resource area. I spent 20 years prior to coming to this House working in the natural resource space as a lawyer, working with forestry, mining and energy companies in this province. In the area of mining engineering and geoscientists, I’ve seen the quality of the work that they’ve put across not just for projects here in this province but elsewhere in the world.

So to say to a geoscientist and an engineer that you need to provide a competency certificate — I question the overall framework of that. Already, of course, to meet their own standards professionally, and to also meet the requirements of other regulators like the Securities Commission’s, for example, we have different forms of certificates already being provided — qualified persons certificates, confirmation of independence. It’s unclear to me why this additional layer is necessary.

[2:15 p.m.]

In fact, when you look at the quality of the work that’s being done in this province by these professional organizations…. I think this government is undercutting the confidence of the public in these organizations when they present a bill in the tenor which they’ve done it in.

This is the reason why the superintendent’s office needs to be looked at in great detail. As I say, because of the public interest objective of that superintendent’s office, it introduces the ability of cabinet and this government to be achieving different objectives through the superintendent’s office in the way that that superintendent intervenes in the governance of these professional organizations. This is the concern that I know members on this side of the House have about this bill.

We know that professionals, with the advanced education that they have and the required sophisticated experience, are there to accomplish what is necessary in the interests of the public, that that is part of their profession already. This bill is a bill that effectively will produce gridlock, as one of the leaders of industry has mentioned. This is regulatory gridlock that we don’t need to have. This is going to effectively stall the further development of responsible resource development in this province.

When I look at specific areas of the bill itself, we know that under section 23, an area to be discussed at committee stage, will be the composition of the regulatory bodies themselves, the ratio of registrant councillors to lay councillors. This will be an area where we look at what the ap­pro­priate composition is of these bodies. I question, again, the need to introduce this level, because it suggests that in the interest of transparency, we don’t have confidence in these professional bodies.

The duty to report has been mentioned already. It is a question around what the reasonable and probable grounds are, where a continued practice of a regulated practice would pose or may pose significant harm to the environment. Well, what is that standard of significant harm? What is the obligation that we’re placing on each of the registrants under these professional organizations? How practical is that going to be in terms of how a professional engineer or forest professional is going to operate and work?

It also suggests that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council can specify a further code of ethical guidelines and ethical principles for these professional bodies. Again, I question what the ability of government is to do that when we know that the ethics in which professionals ought to operate should be determined by themselves, because they are in the best position to do that.

As I said before, in terms of the public interest mandate, that needs to be defined in the context of each of these regulatory councils. It is an area where I believe, because of the contextual nature that’s been indicated in the Haddock report, we need to have a better understanding of exactly what that would mean.

[2:20 p.m.]

For these regulatory councils to be able to govern themselves, they need to understand what standard they’re being held to account to and in what ways the superintendent would be operating. I also say, in terms of the bylaws of this organization themselves, that this is a situation where the superintendent has the heavy-handed ability to impose new bylaws, potentially, on these organizations which would change the whole function of these organizations in the interests of that public interest which has still yet to be defined.

As I said, I do join my colleagues here in questioning the nature and the scope of the superintendent’s office, the powers and the duties of that superintendent, in terms of the way that superintendent can effectively take over the governance of these organizations. Right now, in terms of where we are in this province, we should be talking about how we work with these professional organizations, with the regulators, in a way to move forward projects, not add further burdens to that whole process.

I look forward to discussing more aspects of the bill at the committee stage.

S. Furstenau: It is my sincere pleasure to rise today and speak to the Professional Governance Act. I hope that some of what I provide to this debate will answer some of the questions that have been raised by the official opposition members.

The management of our province’s resources impacts all British Columbians, and this legislation is a key step towards ensuring the public trust that those decisions will protect their best interests too. For too long in B.C., the status quo of regulation and enforcement has led to cases both large and small that have impacted the health of communities and environments across the province and undermined that precious and essential public trust.

The status quo or regulatory model known as professional reliance is a system introduced over the last 16 years that shifted the expertise and responsibility for environmental stewardship out of government and replaced it with reliance on qualified professionals. The professional reliance model lacks sufficient oversight to ensure that our natural resources are being managed for the benefit of their economic, social and ecological values, and it has impacted communities, professionals and industry across the province.

It was, indeed, these impacts that first inspired me to get involved in politics. My home is in the community of Shawnigan Lake, where contaminated soil has been deposited at the headwaters of our drinking watershed. This watershed is not only an important ecosystem unto itself; it is also the source of drinking water for thousands of people. It was these impacts that motivated me to run for office as a CVRD director in 2014.

I moved to Shawnigan Lake in 2011 with my family and started teaching at what was then Dwight School, located on the shores of the lake. We not only loved living in a place as beautiful as Shawnigan but quickly came to love the people and the community. We soon noticed signs, however, with skulls and crossbones dotted along the road edges and learned that the provincial government was considering issuing a permit to a company operating a quarry at the south end of Shawnigan Lake, halfway up a mountain that overlooked the entire watershed.

The site has Shawnigan Creek on its eastern edge, which feeds directly into Shawnigan Lake, and a so-called ephe­meral stream, which is almost always running, on its western edge, which ultimately also runs into Shawnigan Creek. A CVRD park runs along the western edge of the quarry site. From that park, you can look down and see all of Shawnigan Lake, a lake that is the drinking water source for our community.

It was astonishing to us, having moved from Victoria with its fenced-off watershed, which one can only visit on guided tours, that a community’s drinking watershed could be subject to such degradation. In addition to the quarrying that was happening, there was significant logging within the watershed. And since 2012, a number of so-called soil farms have proliferated in Shawnigan and Mill Bay.

These soil farms are lands where private owners accept truckload after truckload of dirt being removed, largely from development sites in the CRD, and deposited in our watersheds.

[2:25 p.m.]

We have seen landslides into riparian areas, impacts to salmon-bearing streams and growing concerns about what may or may not be in these soils.

The proposed contaminated landfill was even more shocking. At a public hearing in July 2012, hundreds of people from the community attended, and all but two expressed vehement opposition to the proposed permit. The two people in favour of it? One was the daughter of the quarry owner. The other was the then Chief of Malahat First Nation, who later resigned after it was revealed that he had a deal with the quarry owner.in-

We had hope as a community that government would do what we expected of it. It would protect our environment, our drinking water, our community and our future. That hope was dashed over and over again.

First, on the Thursday afternoon of Easter weekend in 2013, we were shocked when a draft permit was issued for the contaminated landfill. It was the list of contaminants that would be permitted at the site that left us in a state of disbelief: benzene, toluene, xylene, styrene, methyl tertiary butyl ether, volatile petroleum, hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chloride, sodium, glycols — essentially a laundry list of everything you do not want anywhere near your drinking water source.

We responded with vigour and determination. Over 300 written submissions were made to the ministry, all of them making the case for not allowing this permit to go forward. But go forward it did, and thus began our community’s fight for the future that we wanted.

There was a moment that captured for me our community’s determination and desperation. It was the morning of December 15, 2015. That night I sat down to write out what was happening. This is what I wrote:

“A message arrived in my in-box at 7:32 a.m. this morning, accompanied by a photo. ‘Help,’ it said. This is what it has come to in Shawnigan Lake: a young mother, her baby strapped to her chest, and a grandfather standing together in front of a 40-tonne dump truck, before dawn on a cold December morning.

“I can’t look at this image without weeping. I weep for all of the lost mornings, days, afternoons, evenings and nights. I weep because of the insanity of this situation — the colossal unfairness of it, the unbelievable injustice that is playing out day after day in this community.

“I weep because all of us would rather be at home at seven in the morning, drinking coffee with our families, getting our kids off to school, thinking about the day ahead.

“I weep because each day we lose more faith in the agencies that are supposed to protect us.

“Every morning we return to the mountain — sometimes dozens of us, sometimes only a few. We return because the situation — a company being allowed by our government to dump contaminated soil in our watershed — is an affront to democracy, to common sense, to logic and to science. And it is a threat to our survival as a community.”

For 3½ years, we thought we had enough to make this stop. We thought 300 people coming to a public meeting where all but two expressed vehement opposition to the plan of putting this contaminated landfill into our watershed would send a clear message to the government and would be enough to stop this in its tracks.

We thought that over 300 letters written to the statutory decision–maker would be enough. We thought the opposition of the CVRD, the CRD, VIHA, Cowichan Tribes and the people of Shawnigan would be enough. We thought that hundreds and hundreds of letters to MLAs, ministers and the Premier would be enough.

We thought that nine expert witnesses at the environmental appeal board hearings, including geologists, hydrogeologists, engineers and a water treatment specialist, all of whom identified problems with the site assessment, the plan, the design and the engineering, would be enough.

We thought that over 15,000 signatures collected and presented to the Minister of Environment would be enough. We thought that 1,600 people on the Legislature lawn would be enough.

We thought that documenting the long-standing history this company has of non-compliance with its mines permit would be enough. We thought that documents revealing a secret agreement between the owners of the site and their engineers, who were acting as qualified professionals, would be enough.

[2:30 p.m.]

We thought that allegations of fraud, perjury, bribery and misrepresentation through the entire permitting process would be enough. We thought that evidence of a breach of water off the site, which resulted in a do-not-use water advisory for the people of Shawnigan Lake, would be enough. We thought that evidence of a water treatment system that did not function as designed would be enough.

We thought that ongoing documented non-compliance with the MOE permit would be enough. We thought that water samples that showed that the site is already impacting the environment would be enough. We thought that an engineering report that identifies water leaving the site is bypassing the water containment, treatment and testing systems would be enough. But nothing seemed to be enough.

In 2015, we were willing to continue to ask the Ministry of Environment to do the right thing and protect our water. At the time, we were clear that until they decided to act on behalf of the citizens of Shawnigan Lake, rather than on behalf of one company, what we had left were our bodies and our willingness to put our bodies in front of 40-tonne trucks.

Ultimately, over a year later, the ministry did suspend and then cancel the permit, but not before tens of thousands of tonnes of contaminated soil was deposited at the site and not before both the CVRD and the Shawnigan Residents Association spent millions between them on court cases.

Why is this relevant to today’s legislation? Because at the heart of the issue in Shawnigan Lake was professional reliance. The engineers who were tasked with putting a technical assessment report in front of the government statutory decision–maker were hired by the quarry owners. In July 2015, we discovered, because of an anonymous whistle-blower, that the quarry owners and the engineers did not just have a contractual agreement; they had a profit-sharing agreement.

As a community, we were shocked to discover that, under professional reliance legislation, this is an acceptable situation. Supreme Court Justice Sewell, in his January 2017 decision to set aside the Environmental Appeal Board’s decision and reinstate the stay on this permit, did not think it was an acceptable situation either. He stated in his decision:

“It is clear from the evidence that the delegate relied on the technical assessment report and on further information provided by Active Earth in assessing the application and deciding to issue the permit. If the question before me had been whether to set aside the permit, I would have had no difficulty in setting it aside and remitting it to the ministry for reconsideration because the technical assessment report was prepared by persons who were biased in favour of approving the project.”

He went further in his decision. Justice Sewell said:

“I am satisfied that the board ought to have been made aware that the design of the facility and the technical assessment report presented to the delegate was prepared by engineers who were not independent and who stood to profit from the continued operation of the facility. This is a circumstance that goes to the heart of the integrity of the approval process under the Environmental Management Act. The delegate and the board proceeded throughout on the basis that Active Earth were professionals acting on a fee-for-service basis.”

[L. Reid in the chair.]

For me, this realization that legislation allowed for that kind of conflict of interest governing land use decisions in B.C. was what propelled me to want to run to be an MLA.

Our community was not willing to accept the risks that it posed to our health and our future. But as we organized, we soon discovered that the problem was bigger than Shaw­nigan. Sadly, it has been echoed in communities and eco­systems across the province.

In Peachland, residents have seen boil-water advisories increase, as impacts from logging, mining and other activities have accumulated in their watershed. In the Hullcar valley, ground water monitoring was insufficient in detecting water quality concerns before it became a crisis. The result was a health hazard to the community that depends on the Hullcar aquifer for drinking water.

In the community of Ymir, residents are concerned about logging in their small, already stressed watersheds. They are worried that the forest management decisions are not taking into account impacts on other ecosystem factors.

Meanwhile, the Swansea Point community has experienced two devastating landslides. Residents had to bear the burden of significant costs for infrastructure repair, while logging activity continues to increase.

[2:35 p.m.]

The most infamous example, however, took place four years ago in central B.C. In 2014, 24 million cubic metres of mining waste flooded lakes and rivers when the mine tailings dam at Mount Polley failed. Residents of the area say they woke that morning to a sound that resembled multiple airplanes taking off at once as heavy metal–mud poured into an otherwise pristine lake. The impacted watershed was an important source of drinking water and spawning territory for one-quarter of B.C.’s sockeye salmon.

Four years later, although the photographs are not as striking, the bottom of the formerly pristine Quesnel Lake re­mains lined with a mask of phosphorus. The salmon are beginning to come back, but so are inexplicable algae blooms that choke out oxygen. The impacted communities also struggle to recover. People are afraid to drink the water, and the impact to their tourism industry has prompted some residents to relocate.

It will be years before we can fully understand the environmental and social impacts of the Mount Polley disaster, but what is clear from the Auditor General’s report into the matter is that several failures in compliance and enforcement were contributing factors.

Shawnigan, Mount Polley and the other communities I listed are just a few examples of how our current resource management model has failed to protect the best interests of British Columbians. This is why when we ran in 2017, reviewing the professional reliance model was a key aspect of our platform, and it is why when we formed our confidence and supply agreement with government last year, professional reliance was identified as a key shared policy initiative.

These commitments initiated an independent review into the professional reliance model, which took into consideration over 2,200 public feedback forms, 102 stakeholder submissions and 1,800 surveys from qualified professionals. People were concerned about the state of resource management in our province, and they made their voices heard. The culmination of these efforts was Mark Haddock’s final report, published this summer.

The Haddock report is extensive. It covers the history of professional reliance in British Columbia, as well as the complex legal and policy framework that substantiates it. It covers issues with governance, legislation and multiple resource industries, ultimately making 121 recommendations for change.

From my perspective, the recommendations made by the report are important and signal a shift in a positive direction. I was encouraged by the scope of public and professional engagement and by the common theme shared by the submissions that “there is room for improvement.” I agree.

Perspectives on the shape and the scope of that improvement, however, differ. For that reason, this summer, I convened two round tables on the professional reliance report. We invited stakeholders from industry, professional associations, environmental organizations, legal groups, unions, Indigenous groups and impacted communities. The purpose of our discussion was to seek input on the Haddock report and its recommendations in a collaborative, forward-looking environment, and I was pleased with the results.

The discussions prompted by the round tables provided unique insights into the various responses to the professional reliance report. Ultimately, there were more similarities be­tween stakeholder perspectives than there were differences. Several key themes emerged from these conversations, and I’d like to take a moment to touch on them now.

First, we heard that stakeholders were concerned with B.C.’s legal landscape. They did not find that the law worked sufficiently to protect the public interest in resource management. When the former government began deregulating resource management in the early 2000s, legal groups attempted to enforce the deregulatory legislation, but with little success.

Many stakeholders were also concerned about the lack of legal protection for whistle-blowers, which, I am pleased to note, this legislation before us addresses.

Stakeholders stress that the legislative response to the Haddock report must implement recommendations with clarity across the professional associations so that the legislation acts as an accessible tool and provides greater consistency for all actors involved. They also suggested that government set new resource use objectives — objectives that are based in scientific expertise; that are easily enforceable; and that take into account economic, social and ecological values.

[2:40 p.m.]

The stakeholders that we spoke to also highlighted that in order to adequately fulfil Haddock’s recommendations, capacity is a key concern. In the public bodies tasked with professional oversight roles, it is essential that staffing levels as well as expertise are improved. Thanks to nearly two decades of deregulation, numerous positions have been eliminated, leaving those tasked with enforcement unable to ade­quately address the numerous concerns brought to their attention.

Professionals, in particular, have flagged the importance of expertise. Civil servants overseeing particular professions need to have the scientific and technical knowledge to best inform their decisions. Capacity challenges also impact marginalized groups, especially Indigenous peoples. Those who face other systemic barriers often lack the resources and staff to fully participate in natural resource decisions.

This government has committed to implementing the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peo­ples. In order to do so, Indigenous peoples must be equitably and meaningfully included in resource management.

The stakeholders that we spoke to also raised the importance of follow-through. In other words, in order to improve the professional reliance model in a consistent and meaningful way, we cannot simply address the first two recommendations of Mark Haddock’s report. It is crucial we examine the other 119 recommendations and work to implement them to better protect the public interest and provide greater certainty for qualified professionals.

I’m pleased to see the legislation before us today, but I cannot stress this point enough: if we do not commit to the other recommendations of the Haddock report, if we do not continue to implement positive and consistent change in resource management, then this Professional Governance Act will not be able to achieve its aims.

A step in the right direction does not reach the destination. We must continue moving forward. This is what we heard from British Columbians. They are concerned, and we have the opportunity now to do better by them.

This issue is about ensuring that communities can rely on and benefit from their resources for generations to come. It’s about looking at things holistically rather than evaluating each resource separately from others, because we know that the water, the trees, the soil and the air are all interconnected.

It’s also about collaboration. Professional associations, industry and environmentalists are all calling for improvement and consistency. The Professional Governance Act and continued action on the professional reliance file stand to benefit all stakeholders involved.

The legislation before us today sets an important precedent. It addresses two of the Haddock report recommendations by establishing an office of the superintendent of professional governance and legislating critical elements of professional governance in a standardized way.

The office of the superintendent will be built within the Ministry of Attorney General. Primarily responsible for oversight and general governance matters, they will be em­powered to conduct research into best practices and established policies. The superintendent, in overseeing the administration of this act, will be able to publish information that is in the public interest and conduct investigations into non-compliance. The superintendent will also provide annual reports to the minister. This contributes to the accountability, while simultaneously ensuring that improvements to professional governance will be assessed at regular intervals along the way.

All five of B.C.’s professional associations — the Applied Science Technologists and Technicians, the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals, the B.C. Institute of Agrologists, the College of Applied Biology and the Engineers and Geo­scientists of B.C. — will now be held to the same standards. In other words, it will not only be better government oversight to professional regulation, but professional associations can know with certainty that there are consistent guidelines for them to rely on. This helps them make the best decisions possible as they make governance decisions that impact the entire model of resource management.

Professionals themselves will also be able to better perform their roles thanks to the provisions of this bill. Improved standards of conduct and competence, as well as exclusive rights to practise, will give professionals the best tools and capacity to engage in a level playing field. It shows that their work is valued, not just by their employer but by the province that depends on them.

As I already mentioned, thanks to the new whistle-blower protections, professionals can be confident that if they report unethical conduct, their own livelihoods will not be at risk. Oaths of office, a common set of ethical principles and a duty to report unethical conduct will also go a long way towards the rebuilding of the trust of the public.

[2:45 p.m.]

This is a net positive for professionals, public government and industry alike. If we know that the decision-making process has the best interests and key values of British Columbia at heart, our industries will be more competitive and our province healthier as a whole.

I do have some concerns about this act, given the significance of this issue and the breadth and scope of the Haddock recommendations. As our stakeholders stress, there is much room for improvement in resource management in British Columbia, and I remain eager not only to engage in this legislation at committee stage but to follow its implementation.

For communities such as Shawnigan, Peachland, the Hull­car valley, Ymir, Swansea Point and those impacted by Mount Polley — Williams Lake, Likely, Horsefly — this may not be able to restore their drinking water and environments, but it may prevent future crises. We owe it to those communities and to British Columbians writ large to implement the Professional Governance Act with care for detail and transparency. As legislators, we also owe a commitment to fulfil all of the recommendations of the Haddock report in order to restore the trust that was lost.

In Shawnigan, the soil that was deposited at the quarry remains there today, and it leaves the community understandably worried. As I have said all along, the story of Shawnigan Lake is not over until the site is cleaned up and the soil removed, and I remain committed to that outcome.

The permit should never have been issued. The soil should never have been brought to our watershed. Our community.... No community in B.C. should ever have to go through the years of worry, of turmoil, of costly legal battles as a result of land use decisions.

This legislation does not ensure that, but it is a step, and it is an important one. Ultimately, I am encouraged by the legislation on the table today.

The Professional Governance Act does represent a signifi­cant step in the right direction, and although there is a great deal of work yet to be done in order to adequately address the shortcomings of resource management in British Columbia, I am proud to speak in support of this act. It is a testament to the benefits of consultation and collaboration as well as perseverance of those impacted.

Moving forward, I am hopeful that British Columbians can begin to trust that the decisions made in our province protect the economic, social and ecological values that they hold dear.

S. Gibson: I want to say, in particular, thank you to the member for West Vancouver–Capilano and also the member for Vancouver-Langara for excellent comments, and I hope to complement those with my few brief remarks today with regard to Bill 49, the Professional Governance Act.

I just listened to the previous speaker here, representing the Green Party. You can see a bit of the design here that’s reflected in the government and the Third Party working together on what potentially — to me, at least — is representing government interference that’s really not welcomed and not requested.

As I read through the documents that I’ve had the opportunity to review, it is clear to me that these five professional associations really know what’s best for them. They have the integrity. They have the reputation. For the record, it’s the B.C. Institute of Agrologists; the Applied Science Technologists and Technicians; the College of Applied Biology; engineers and geoscientists; and the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals.

Now, I hold all of these folks in well regard. As a matter of fact, during my five years here as an MLA, I’ve had the opportunity to meet representatives of all five associations, and I have a really high regard for their integrity and their commitment to providing the best quality to our citizens, serving government with diligence and excellence. Nothing has really discouraged me or dissuaded me from feeling that way today. I don’t want to overstate it, hon. Speaker, but in some ways, I would characterize this as guilty before being innocent, almost switching the paradigm.

[2:50 p.m.]

The education and preparation for these professions is quite significant, if you review the credentials necessary. I know from talking to my colleague here that there’s a lot of enterprise and a lot of scholarly work that needs to be done not only to complete the credential but to gain membership.

I think that we are really, in some ways, discrediting them. I think that if I was a member of one of these professional associations today instead of being an MLA, I would feel…. I don’t know if “hurt” is the right word, but I think I would feel demeaned somewhat. I think I would feel demeaned, in light of the fact that government is trying to correct something that really doesn’t exist. I pick up on a point made by the hon. member here for West Van–Capilano. I think the phrase was: “Correcting a problem that doesn’t exist.” Something of that nature. I have to subscribe to that as well.

These associations have that integrity. They’re well re­garded provincewide, and when it comes to the resource sector, we need these folks desperately to be willing to do the job. If we’re going to set up any kind of a bureaucracy such as the one that’s being proposed here, I worry that’s going to be compromised.

I don’t happen to come from a resource-based commu­nity. However, all of us in this province come from a resource-based community in the sense that mining companies have head offices in downtown. I have significant logging operations in my community, gravel extraction. So we need not only to protect the resource economy but nurture it, and I’m afraid that this legislation proposed here does nothing to do that. In fact, it may even stifle it, which would be troubling, and I hope I’m not correct in that.

I think it’s true that from time to time, professional organizations need to be scrutinized, to be reviewed. I think we would agree with that. The question is: how is that done? What is the process used? I believe that Bill 49 is really an intrusion into the governance and regulation of these five critical agencies, professional organizations, that serve our public so well. I heard the phrase from one of my colleagues earlier on, “heavy-handed,” and I think that’s accurate. There’s some veracity to the term “heavy-handed.”

These organizations do act in the public interest. May I say this, too, that professional organizations, to keep their integrity, to keep their standards with the public, operate under scrupulous ideals. They have regulatory bodies — we see that in here — because they realize that if they do something that’s seen to be irresponsible, even just seen to be, it’s a reflection on everyone. So today, as I see this legislation being proposed by government, it’s also a reflection on the very integrity of the organizations which they’re trying to control or regulate.

Self-regulation really says to the public: “We have that professional spirit. We know what the public expects of us, what government expects from us, and we will live up to that.”

A concern that I have is that currently, these associations have an excellent rapport, a natural line of communication, with the relevant ministries. That’s a healthy thing. The ministries and the associations and their executives can have that level of communication. However, under this model, that will be mitigated, diminished significantly, with this new super-body of 11 members and the superintendent.

Now, previous colleagues here on this side of the House have spoken significantly, at some length, about the superintendent, and I won’t speak in so much detail. However, I would make the remark that as I looked at the documentation, I, too, worry about this position. In fact, this new position could supersede the discussions of the elected professional councils. Who is this superintendent? What is his or her skill set? Is this some kind of super-bureaucrat who kind of floats above the associations? It’s quite vague as to the skill set.

[2:55 p.m.]

Now, we do notice in here some of the roles that this individual has. The previous speaker, the member from the Green Party, enumerated some of those in detail.

I would point out as well, and the previous speakers have spoken to this with some detail as well, that these associations are quite diverse. They’re quite different, and this is kind of an umbrella, one-size-fits-all. I worry that this is not going to help not only their professionalism but their capacity to work expeditiously on projects, to do it within a good time frame and meeting budgets, because every time you introduce bureaucracy, it complicates things.

I come out of a local government background. In fact, many of us around this Legislature do. I come from Abbotsford council. One thing we noticed as council working with our staff was that every time the staff came up with an idea to maybe add some different legislative procedures…. We realized that their intentions were honourable. They were good to protect the public. The problem was that they slowed down the development process. That’s why you have elected councils to kind of counter, often, what staff would like to do in terms of regulation.

Now, in the extreme case, we hear sometimes in Metro Vancouver it gets so bogged down that approvals drag on month after month, year after year, and that’s, of course, troubling. So really, the comment there is that these associations are diverse, and they need a sense of understanding of their different roles because they’re quite varied.

I’m saddened by the government’s attitude reflected in this legislation. It’s almost saying to the associations: “You know, we’re going to move in on you. This is going to be heavy-handed.” And even though perhaps some of them are not saying as much as maybe I would like them to say, frankly, I understand why they’re trying to be respectful under this new government’s paradigm. Self-government was working well, and now we’re finding an intrusive side to this government as they relate to these different associations.

I think professional reliance has served the public well in the natural resource sector and has developed well in providing responsible development. The public has been protected. We hear about red tape. I don’t think a week goes by when I don’t hear somebody talking about red tape in government. Whether it’s local, provincial or federal, it’s always wondering about all the different regulations you’ve got to go through.

For anybody that’s tried to operate a business…. I had my own manufacturing company for a while, just a small company with only 13 employees, but I always struggled with dealing with different levels of government. Well, this isn’t going to help. This is going to slow development significantly. This new superintendent is going to be quite intrusive, in my view, cumbersome and potentially bureaucratic. I think it will slow down the development process. Even though the intention might be honourable, I believe that the execution will not be.

Approval timelines are critical. When we meet with the different resource sectors, I think the classic lament is: “We just need to keep this project moving. Can you help us out there, please?” We’ve got all these government agencies, which is going to be aggravated with this new paradigm, under Bill 49, with the superintendent.

Further remarks on the superintendent. Very powerful. You will notice that the superintendent can interfere with the organizations, investigate, and one of the troubling things is that cabinet is kind of the court of last resort. If the superintendent is dissatisfied with the process, he or she can go to cabinet, so government can actually get involved. That’s a bit troubling.

All these employees that are going to be hired to execute this plan. You’ve got the board. They’re going to have meetings. What is the cost of all of this huge new bureaucracy?

One thing I have noticed in my years in local government, and now in provincial, is that once an organization is set up, more employees are added, never taken away, right?

[3:00 p.m.]

Say we have this group of employees. Next year we’ll hire a couple more, and then they need their assistants. Then they need executive assistants and then secretaries, so you get this whole layer. It becomes self-perpetuating.

I do worry that once this thing gets — to use an expression my daughter uses — rocking and rolling, then you add a lot more folks to it. Again, I’m not saying that you don’t need people to do a job. However, I’m saying, in this case, that I worry that we’re going to get very bureaucratic.

This role is powerful. We’re not quite sure what the length of term of the superintendent is. And the other thing is that you’ve got the professionals and laypeople, but I’m not quite clear how that benefits the public’s confidence. Now, sometimes laypeople can provide another dimension, but if they don’t have the skill set, if they don’t have the abilities or knowledge of that file, having laypeople there may not be in the interest of the public. That’s why the current paradigm, I think, works so well. So as I’ve commented, this is really guilty until proven innocent.

I want to also make some comment about the investigative powers of the superintendent — quite dramatic. The superintendent can even abandon these — disqualify or diminish the power of these various professional associations by appointing a public administrator. This is hovering over them as a threat. “If you guys don’t do a good job, the superintendent will move in with lightning speed and really interfere with the process.”

Really, I believe this is guilty until proven innocent. I worry that government is getting into something that’s really administratively chaotic. I worry that these associations are being diminished dramatically, that their professional integrity is being questioned, so I, like my colleagues, will not be supporting Bill 49.

I am the last speaker, hon. Speaker, representing opposition speaking to Bill 49 today.

B. Ma: I am a professional engineer. My professional body, Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C., is one of the organizations impacted by this legislation. So I’m pleased to be able to speak to Bill 49, the Professional Governance Act.

As you can imagine, when word spread about the changes coming to the professional reliance model, I was contacted by many, many professional colleagues. I’m exceptionally grateful for their contact, because all feedback, both good and bad, on any of the work that our government is doing informs me in my work as an MLA.

It was this feedback that allowed me to speak with the minister’s office, the Minister of Environment, learn about their intentions, the likely way forward that they would take on the professional reliance report that came out, and it allowed me to express the concerns that many professionals share with me.

There were several discussions, and I’m grateful for how open and willing to engage the Minister of Environment was on this issue. I was particularly impressed by how he extended the same offer he gave to me to be involved to the members of the official opposition also — in particular, the member for West Vancouver–Capilano, who we heard speak today.

I left each conversation feeling like the concerns being brought forward by these professionals had in fact been heard and would be carefully considered and addressed in the legislative framework. With a bill now on the table, with supportive statements of those impacted organizations, I’m pleased to see how well the ministry has balanced the concerns of these professionals about the professional reliance model and its changes and the absolute critical need not only for public safety but for public confidence in that.

I know that there are concerns about the details of the bill from the opposition. I will not rehash them here. We will have an opportunity to explore them, as a House, during the committee stage of the bill.

[3:05 p.m.]

The member for Abbotsford-Mission expressed concern that this bill would personally offend members of the organizations, implying that professional engineers like myself who have worked very hard to obtain their degree….

I worked very many years as an engineer in training. I wrote a log that ended up, I think, being 40 pages long, just to submit it for my application to become a PEng. I took all my tests. I did the hard work to get my professional designation. I am proud of that designation.

The member for Abbotsford-Mission implied that I would be offended by this bill. I can assure you that I am not, and I will be supporting this bill. I will be supporting this bill because it is not about me. It is about the public. I will be supporting this bill because I take pride in being a member of one of the most trusted professions in the world. I am concerned that that trust is in peril here in B.C.

The member for Cowichan Valley gave a chilling account of her experience at Shawnigan Lake. If anybody watching this speech might want to hear her speech, I encourage them to do so by going through the Hansard record. Goosebumps ran up my spine as I listened to her. There is likely no better story than that to demonstrate why this act is needed. Again, not only because the environment and the welfare of the public must be safeguarded, but because the public must have confidence that they are being safeguarded.

I’ll be supporting this bill, because my professional engineering designation was granted to me on the condition that I know and abide by a code of ethics, which included an obligation to the public requiring that I safeguard and hold paramount human life, public welfare and the environment. It’s a simple concept it might seem. Yet if you dig deeper into this obligation, the execution of it becomes much more complex.

If I create a machine that is perfectly safe, and then it’s used to displace thousands of workers without transition, leaving them unemployed and impoverished, did I hold paramount the welfare of the public? If I develop a new energy source that is then weaponized and used against innocent civilians, did I hold paramount human life to the fullest extent that I was able to?

If we believe that professionals play a role in our world critical enough to warrant regulation and codes of ethics, then our collective obligation to the public does not and should not end with our fingertips upon a calculator.

It is not possible to truly hold paramount the safety and welfare of the public without looking beyond the narrow scope of our immediate work to the legislative frameworks that we operate under. These are highly complex issues that do not disappear simply because we’ve applied the correct factor of safety to our designs.

If I know the environmental regulation regarding the discharge of a certain chemical into a local lake is inadequate, but maybe my company insists that I continue to do the bare minimum required to keep the operation legal, have I met my ethical obligation? If I appropriately design my project but do not advocate for the correction of that regulation, have I truly safeguarded the public and the environment? Something being legal is not the same as something being ethical or moral.

So just how far does my responsibility to society go? I argue it goes at least as far as supporting this bill.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Minister of Environment closes debate.

Hon. G. Heyman: I want to thank the members of this House for their comments on Bill 49, the Professional Governance Act — the member for Kamloops–North Thompson, the member for West Vancouver–Capilano, the member for Vancouver-Langara and the member for Abbotsford-Mission.

I want to acknowledge and thank the member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale, who, in her capacity as both a member and a professional engineer, provided invaluable feedback to myself and my staff as we went through the process of speaking with professional engineers and members of other professions, addressing and finding ways to accommodate the concerns which they raised.

[3:10 p.m.]

I also want to thank the member for Cowichan Valley. In particular, I want to acknowledge that the member for Cowichan Valley told the stories, the real stories of impacted communities, negative impacts, significant impacts, public health impacts, safety impacts, impacts of feeling secure in their environment and their water that people should not have to face and that are at the root of why we commissioned the report on professional reliance and why we’re today debating this piece of legislation.

We need to ensure that if there are gaps in the professional reliance model, we fulfil the responsibility of government on behalf of the people of British Columbia to address those gaps if they’re identified, not to create another layer of regulation, not to supplant the responsible nature of professional regulatory associations, but to fulfil our responsibility to address issues of public trust.

The member for Cowichan Valley — also as the member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale did — was extremely helpful in identifying, for staff in my ministry and for me, issues that needed to be addressed from a public perspective. It’s not out of any antipathy to the professions that are being regulated or the professionals who perform their job, not out of any antipathy to the model at its core, but out of a sincere desire to ensure that as we regulate natural resource operations in the province of British Columbia, as we regulate environmental protection in British Columbia or the construction of public works, we always keep first and foremost the safety, security and health of British Columbians.

Our responsibility as legislators, and particularly as government, is to ensure that the public can have trust in the mechanisms and systems we put in place to protect them.

A theme that I heard repeated from members of the official opposition in their comments was concern about extensive powers that this bill might give to the new position of the superintendent of professional governance. But professionals themselves….

As we put out a discussion paper on not only the changes contained in this act but the other recommendations — which will ultimately and in the fullness of time be addressed by ministries to whom they were directed — we heard from many professionals who expressed over and over again that they wished to see…. They wished to rely on their government to ensure that the public had trust and if there were measures that could be introduced to increase transparency and public trust, that we took those measures.

In response to the member for Cowichan Valley, she has said this legislation is a good start with governance, and I believe it is. We also look forward to working with all members of this House, with the member for Cowichan Valley, with the professions and with industry to thoughtfully address the remaining recommendations in the report. I look forward to that.

In the view of this government, this bill contains the necessary tools to ensure that the public interest is protected and that the regulatory associations continue to actively govern their members but do so within the context of a common set of rigorous and appropriate standards. This would occur under the oversight of the superintendent with regard to the overall application of the standards, not to exercise control by the superintendent over the day-to-day operations of the regulatory associations themselves. The superintendent, as a member of the public service, will, in turn, operate under the oversight of the responsible minister, the Attorney General.

Aligning and consolidating standards and expectations in one act and in one ministry — standards and expectations that currently exist in four acts and four ministries — does not add new levels of regulation and oversight. Rather, it streamlines them for greater efficiency and certainty.

[3:15 p.m.]

This legislation will, if enacted, also empower professionals regulated under the act to themselves consider and take action to ensure protection of the public interest through strong standards that will apply in accordance with the act.

Professional reliance relies on a common sense of responsibility and accountability by members of professions to adhere to and to act in accordance with certain expectations. This legislation makes those expectations clear in a way that will be fundamentally consistent across the professions governed under the act while also allowing the regulatory associations to make their own bylaws, elaborating on those expectations as appropriate for each profession.

This isn’t a blind, one-size-fits-all template. This is a set of appropriate, broad standards under which the associations will tailor their bylaws, their oversight and their expectations to fit the particular activities of the professionals they regulate. If we had done something else, we would not have received, for this legislation, the endorsement of all five of the regulatory associations that are being covered. In fact, the only criticism by the associations was by the professional foresters, who said we needed to move quickly to address other recommendations in the report.

Those associations did not start at that point. But because of our consultation and our discussion with the associations — our accommodation of their interests, our explaining our intent, our working through with them how it would be implemented and how it would operate and our commitment to work with them on the development of the regulations that will give this legislation life — they understand that it is good legislation that incorporates many of the suggestions they made and which will increase public trust in their activities.

That is also why business groups have endorsed this legislation as well, because they believe that it will create more certainty and social licence for their operations.

As I noted in my opening remarks, perspectives vary. But a common goal that everyone directly involved in professional reliance should be able to agree with is that it must be carried out in ways that are transparent and accountable to communities all across our province. This act provides for that by creating a centre of expertise in government headed by a public servant, the superintendent, whose job will be to protect the public interest in a variety of contexts that must and will be considered within the framework set out by the act.

Although the creation of this bill came as a direct result of the review of professional reliance and natural resource decisions and is important to improving the model, best practice in professional governance applies irrespective of profession. Implementing a framework for oversight of self-regulating professions that incorporates elements of governance that are best practice for all professions of these regulatory bodies will increase public trust in the work they do, whether in the natural resource sector or elsewhere.

The oversight role of the superintendent comes with certain authorities in order to ensure that this role can be carried out effectively. Much of the superintendent’s role will involve actively working with the regulatory associations under the act to achieve the act’s objectives.

The authority of the superintendent to conduct investigations and audits, to issue directives and, as a last resort, to take enforcement action reflects the core purpose of this act — that is, to make sure that the practices of professions governed under the act are carried out in a manner that is transparent and is accountable to the people of B.C. as represented by the government.

I was proud to introduce this legislation. I look forward to the next steps.

[3:20 p.m.]

I look forward to working with the public, with professionals, with Indigenous nations and with colleagues to ensure that as we implement the legislation and act on remaining recommendations, we do the best job possible to protect the public interest and ensure that we have certainty in the natural resource operations, the businesses that conduct these operations and provide jobs for British Columbians in a way to enhance and support our economy and the interaction of resource businesses with the communities in which they operate.

With that, I move second reading.

[3:25 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Second reading of Bill 49 approved on the following division:

YEAS — 43
Chouhan	Kahlon	Begg
Brar	Heyman	Donaldson
Mungall	Bains	Beare
Chen	Popham	Trevena
Sims	Chow	Kang
Simons	D’Eith	Routley
Ma	Elmore	Dean
Routledge	Singh	Leonard
Darcy	Simpson	Robinson
Farnworth	Horgan	James
Eby	Dix	Ralston
Mark	Fleming	Conroy
Fraser	Chandra Herbert	Rice
Furstenau	Weaver	Olsen
	Glumac
NAYS — 38
Cadieux	de Jong	Bond
Polak	Lee	Stone
Wat	Bernier	Thornthwaite
Paton	Ashton	Barnett
Yap	Martin	Davies
Kyllo	Sullivan	Isaacs
Stilwell	Ross	Oakes
Johal	Redies	Rustad
Milobar	Sturdy	Shypitka
Hunt	Throness	Tegart
Stewart	Sultan	Gibson
Reid	Letnick	Thomson
Larson		Foster

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

Bill 49, Professional Governance Act, 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 continued second reading debate on Bill 40, on the amendment.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

BILL 40 — ELECTORAL REFORM
REFERENDUM 2018 AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

(continued)

On the amendment (continued).

[3:30 p.m.]

M. Hunt: To conclude my remarks on the proposal for the amendment, it is simply that there is such an absolute lack of information and detail that this needs to go to committee so that the committee can come and get more information, get greater understanding so that there can be a greater awareness of what’s really going on with this whole thing.

I think it’s sort of the old mushroom illustration. They’re in the dark, and they’re fed certain commodities, fertilizers, and it’s just an absolute mess. It needs to go to committee. That’s why I have moved the motion.

E. Ross: Thank you, hon. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to this amendment to Bill 40, as put forward by my colleague from Surrey-Cloverdale.

Having a referendum on electoral reform is a good thing, if the conversation is done in an open and transparent manner with complete information. Complete information. A government that sets in motion a referendum on electoral reform that will fundamentally change our democracy is wrong if it is not done in an unbiased setting, ensuring, without a doubt, that they’ve done everything they could to receive the will of the people.

That can only be achieved by giving the people all the information they need. It’s a huge, complicated, expensive task to undertake, but for a topic as important as democracy, it’s well worth it.

Now, I have to admit, on this topic, I’m being pulled in different directions in terms of the amendment itself, which I agree with. It should be sent to a select standing committee. But I’m also being pulled in different directions on proportional representation itself in terms of the process and also the outcome if it passes.

I’ve never liked taking a political stance on anything. Even in my previous job, I really tried to get to the facts. And on behalf of my constituents, I think that’s my job. I think that’s my duty. But in this case, I’m having a real tough time finding those facts. What I’m finding, to a large degree, is rhetoric, slogans — that somehow the current system we have is not good enough and that this other model that’s used in other parts of the world is much, much better than what we have in Canada.

Explaining this to voters who want more information and want to understand what exactly it is they’re voting on is extremely difficult. When we ask about it in the House or even if we look in the paper to see what our Premier says about it, he just encourages us to take a leap of faith.

Even recently it was pointed out that this side of the House has little faith and that we should get some more faith. It’s not about faith. That’s not the issue here. The issue is a lack of information. Even before the lack of information topic comes up, how are we supposed to have faith in a government that broke promises in terms of an electoral reform referendum in the first place?

The Premier, in the campaign stage, promised that there would be a simple yes-or-no question. It was simple. The reporter asked the now Premier: “So you are going to give them one system to vote on?” “Yeah, exactly.” That’s what the response was on May 1, 2017.

Now it’s not a simple yes or no. The question that the voters are being asked to choose from is one option of keeping the current system we have and three options of proportional representation, two of which have not been used in any place around the world.

The second promise that was broken was that this should go to an all-party committee to engage the public on changing the electoral system: “…set up an all-party committee to hear from citizens and formulate a referendum question at the conclusion of that process.” It was said by our now Premier to Fair Vote Canada, April 10, 2017 — another promise broken. Instead, the entire process was handled by one person, the Attorney General.

Regional threshold — again, a promise. And this promise was a big promise. There was a promise made about reasonable threshold on a referendum similar to the Canadian constitution. This is a big promise when you talk about the Canadian constitution. “The amending formula for our constitution, for example, requires approval by seven provinces, with 50 percent of Canada’s population. So it is an absolute 50 percent, but it has to include seven provinces….”

[3:35 p.m.]

“This amending formula is similar to the kind of formula we’d need for a plebiscite on changing how we elect people in B.C.” That was said by our now Premier to Fair Vote Canada, April 10, 2017.

How are people in this House, let alone the voters, supposed to have faith when three big promises were broken, in term of how this referendum would roll out? The referendum that we’re currently looking at will only require a 50-percent-plus-one threshold and no regional threshold to pass, meaning that Metro Vancouver could outvote all of rural British Columbia.

I’ve been asked lately about how this will affect Aboriginals. Fifteen years ago, I was the typical, average Aboriginal suffering from apathy. I didn’t participate in my own band council elections, provincial elections, federal elections, municipal elections. But I didn’t know that everything that was happening down here in Victoria was absolutely affecting everything that was happening my territory. I didn’t know the conversations in here were stalling the LNG initiative, which would actually drag our people out of poverty, from Prince George to Kitimat.

Apathy is still a big problem within First Nations communities. So no matter what happens, they’re just basically going to be a victim of a process that they didn’t participate in. Most of us, including myself up to 15 years ago, didn’t understand the current system we engage in — first-past-the-post.

It’s not a lack of faith; it’s a lack of information. For something as fundamental as changing the democratic right of voters in British Columbia, I think it’s only fair to ask for complete information. You talk about the broken promises. It makes you wonder about what the agenda is, if there’s no information and every promise in terms of the referendum is broken to begin with. What is the underlying agenda?

That’s why I fully support the amendment put forward by my colleague from Surrey-Cloverdale. It would send this to the select committee and maybe talk about this as well as other flaws in this process.

The Premier also said in his debate that you don’t have to be a political scientist to understand this. I thought it would help having a political degree to understand this, but apparently it doesn’t, which now a lot of my colleagues in this House know. But to question, to even point out to a voter and question their intelligence level, to say that you don’t need a political science degree to understand this, is insulting voters — and to suggest that to get the missing information that voters are craving, they should just google it. Why not, as a responsible government, just provide the information?

I did take the Premier up on that suggestion, and I did google one aspect of what was said in this House, what was mentioned and suggested. I googled Droop formula. I had never even heard this term before — Droop formula. Since I graduated in 1984 with grade 12 English and I failed math, I had a really tough time understanding this.

It was said that the Droop formula would be used to determine the outcome in a rural-urban proportion. Okay. So what is the urban Droop formula? This is what Wikipedia said: “The Droop formula is calculated by dividing the total number of valid votes cast by the number of seats to be filled plus one. One is then added to the quotient.” The formula is quota equals, in brackets, total value divided by total seats, end of brackets, plus one. Okay.

[3:40 p.m.]

Currently under first-past-the-post, I know that whoever gets the most votes in a riding gets sent to Victoria. It’s simple. I don’t think it’s fair that we ask voters to go back to college or high school and learn formulaic, mathematical equations to understand if they’re going to get a representative of their choosing to represent them in Victoria. I don’t think that’s fair. If it is, then British Columbian voters should know: it won’t be exactly as you vote. It won’t be who gets the most votes. It’ll be set up by some mathematician in Victoria.

That’s the kind of information that I want to get out to the members so they can vote, so they can understand what’s happening with this process. Because I’m having a tough time trying to find an unbiased example of where proportional representation works around the world. Both sides of this fight, of this campaign, are all using rhetoric and all using slogans.

What I don’t see is people arguing about how great this country became in the first place under a system that’s worked for the last 200 to 300 years — first-past-the-post. The amendment could at least send this back to a select standing committee, and they could have this conversation. That’s why I’m supporting the amendment.

There’s another argument, about collaboration. It’ll make this place collaborate a lot more. Well, we’re already seeing what collaboration looks like with the agreement that was signed between the Green Party and the NDP, which is called the supply and confidence agreement. That’s not the right term, right?

Interjection.

E. Ross: Confidence and supply agreement. Thank you to my colleague from Parksville-Qualicum.

In exchange for the Greens supporting Site C, the speculation tax and, indirectly, supporting LNG, the Greens get a referendum that will fundamentally change the democratic vote in B.C. That’s collaboration. That collaboration was part of an agreement that was negotiated in the back rooms of the Legislature, then brought to the Legislature, and that’s what forms government. That is collaboration.

I don’t see proportional representation being any different. Because if even half the registered parties in B.C. get elected to this place, there’ll be 13 parties in this House. Right now there are two major parties, with 80 seats or so, give or take, and there’s one party of three seats. How are we going to collaborate or get all these agreements put together between 13 parties? That’s going to be a nightmare, not to mention the cost and the doubling of size of what will happen in this House.

We already know that the confidence and supply agreement is already costing taxpayers $1 million a year to make sure that three members of the Green Party play nice with the NDP government and vice versa, the secretariat. It’s costing $1 million a year.

Now if you have a coalition of eight parties with all different agendas, how much is that going to cost? With all these parties, they’re all going to need House Leaders, they’re all going to need a wage, they’re all going to need a whip. That’s more cost. Then you’re going to need staff for every one of these 12 parties. God forbid all 26 parties get in here. We’ll spend months, if not years, negotiating confidence and supply agreements.

The articles I read from around the world about proportional representation…. It takes them months to set up these agreements to govern, and then they’re on shaky ground. At any time, they could be brought down because one party is not happy with the lack of influence that they’re exerting on the propped-up government. It’s no different here.

We had a chance to debate and vote on the legislation that would look at an agreement signed between this government and LNG Canada, but for some reason or not, it will not come to the floor for debate.

[3:45 p.m.]

It will not come for a vote. Why? Is it because the Green Party already said that they would not endorse it on the floor of this House, and it would be up to the B.C. Liberals to vote for it? I was all ready to vote for it.

Interjection.

E. Ross: Thank you. Thank you to the opposite side.

Why don’t we take it to the House? Why don’t we see the terms of that agreement? Why don’t we vote on it? That’s what the coalition government agreed to do. They agreed to work together for the betterment of B.C. I don’t know if the betterment of B.C. is in the agreement or not. I just threw it in there.

I’m trying to sort out all the information, especially in terms of the outcomes. I already have a good idea of what’s going to happen in this House when we have a bunch of coalition agreements running around here and people trying to get the best deal to prop up a government or be propped up.

In terms of the individual MLA now, I know there’s a question about whether or not rural B.C. will lose their MLAs. But in looking at the party appointing an MLA under PR: what’s the point of even running in an election?

The running joke in the hallway in this place, if you haven’t heard it yet, is that there’s no point in running for election. You’re better off if you get onto one of these party lists, whether it’s open or closed. Who cares if it’s open or closed? It’s a party list. This means you don’t have to run for election. You can just get appointed to a region by a party because the party owes you a favour.

Believe me, there are plenty of people in British Columbia who are anti-LNG who would love to get appointed to represent the riding of Skeena where the $40 billion investment that LNG Canada is going to put into B.C. is proposed and will get built. There are many people that would love to be the MLA and not get elected to it but be appointed off a party list. Many people. I would hate to see what would happen if a member of the Communist Party got appointed to be the Skeena MLA off a party list.

There are two things obvious to me because I’m relatively new to this place — about a year. It’s going to take a long time for me to still figure out everything about the Legislature and all the rules. I’m breaking rules day in and day out by accident because I’m trying to absorb all this stuff. It’s like drinking out of a fire hose. It’s just too much information to understand. On top of that, you’re trying to understand the politics, the allegiances, the agreements.

But what strikes me most about this place is the tremendous amount of knowledge and educated people. I’m surrounded by them. The people in this place that have explained to me in very simple terms these complicated and complex rules have no idea how much I appreciate their time and their effort in bringing me up to speed.

I’ve always respected knowledge. I’ve always respected education. Unfortunately, knowledge and education don’t always equal wisdom or even integrity. That’s a lesson I learned long before coming here. Some of the most unedu­cated elders in my community were the most knowledgable, honest people I ever met in my life. Simple people — simple because they simply knew the difference between right and wrong. They didn’t have to go through complex processes or understand complex formulas to understand that something was wrong.

What’s happening here is wrong. When people are coming to my office in Terrace and trying to ask me how to fill in the ballot for this referendum because they didn’t even know the referendum was happening in the first place, there’s something wrong.

[3:50 p.m.]

I agree with a lot of members in this House that said it would have been simpler if we had it in conjunction with another election and that it should have been sent to a people’s assembly, a citizens’ assembly. Let them deal with it at arm’s length from government, at arm’s length from politics. I agree with that.

In saying that and in talking about the incredible capacity of this place in terms of knowledge and education, with the wealth of knowledge in this place and the wealth of education that individuals have in this House, why is it so hard to do an exhaustive exercise in making sure the average citizen has enough information about a voting process combined with an unbiased, non-political discussion about the pros and cons about any type of electoral system, including first-past-the-post?

One of the biggest reasons I hear out here is how proportional representation will keep a political party out of power. Even members of this House stated it, that if they go to proportional representation, it will keep certain parties of this House out of power. That is such a shortsighted, self-serving reason. It doesn’t take into consideration the voters five, ten, 15, 30, 50 years from now.

Once a system like this is in place, it will be next to impossible to change it. You’ll have minority governments for the rest of our lives propped up by coalition agreements, because no political party that has a chance to prop up a government would vote themselves out, let alone a party that would be governing themselves, even with less than 30 percent of the vote.

Unbiased information is in short supply nowadays. People are most likely to believe anything on Facebook or Twitter, especially if it’s just slogans or rhetoric about how bad things are and how we got a great solution but without giving any substance or facts.

I depend on traditional media for information, no matter what the topic. To be honest, sometimes I don’t like what they write. But I respect them, especially the reporters in this place, because quite a few of them have been here for years, if not decades. They make good critics. They make really good critics, because they know the system from watching and following what is said and proposed by both sides of this House. They can sift through what is politics, and what is good governance.

When you compare that with what’s going on in social media, you can see how both sides are using inflammatory statements for or against proportional representation or for or against first-past-the-post. The people in the middle of this are average citizens who just want a brighter future, that want stability and want to know that they are in a place where they can actually buy a house, raise a family and get a job. That’s all they want.

For the political fanatics and the political geeks out there, this is fascinating, what’s happening in the House. But unfortunately, we’re not all political geeks or political fanatics. I’m trying to be, but it’s hard. In fact, just to catch up, I’m going to my research people almost on a daily basis to try to get facts. I’m going to my communications people to try to get facts. In turn, what they do is go to the library, and they pull out articles for me to read, or they give me statements and quotes. This helps me immensely, even if it’s a quote coming from a newspaper or coming from a reporter. It helps. But voters don’t have the same access to information I do.

[3:55 p.m.]

Voters do not have the same access to resources like I do; 99 percent of voters right now can’t do what I do when I need information. They can’t do it. So they’re relying on social media. They’re relying on their neighbour, who probably knows less about it than they do. But it’s politically charged against one party or another. This is not a good basis for going forward when we’re going to change something as fundamental as the way we send representatives to Victoria.

Now, with traditional media…. I’m talking about traditional media like Global TV, Vancouver Sun, Globe and Mail, Huffington Post. I’m talking about all these major outlets. I know they’re under tremendous strain to stay alive just because of social media, but they are still the best source of accurate information, of unbiased information. There’s a tremendous amount of reporters that can see right now how flawed this referendum is. There are a lot of quotes out there.

This is what I encourage voters to do: not to listen to the pro side or the con side. If they feel it’s being sensationalized, go to the reporters that have been in this place for the last 20 years. See what they have to say, because they don’t have any political affiliations with any of the parties in the House.

These are direct quotes coming from these guys that are sitting in this House. The Vancouver Sun editorial board on October 29, 2018, said: “The biggest problem with the latest electoral reform referendum is how badly the NDP has handled the issue and how partisan the process has become.” Shane Woodford and Vaughn Palmer on Inside Politics, October 5, 2018: “It’s very hard to explain to people how this is going to work, because the Attorney General has engineered it so we won’t know until after the vote is over.”

This is not the Liberals talking about this. These are reporters doing their job, trying to report what they see and hear. Vaughn Palmer in the Vancouver Sun, October 4, 2018: “When Premier Horgan calls on voters to take a leap of faith….”

Sorry, am I allowed to say that with a quote? Yeah?

“When Premier…calls on voters to take a leap of faith with him on proportional representation, he means ‘leap in the dark.’”

I corrected that, right?

Deputy Speaker: That’s fine. Carry on.

E. Ross: That’s twice today I did that.

Jon McComb, CKNW, October 24, 2017: “The NDP, unlike previous attempts to change our voting system, has set the bar pretty low.”

Mike Smyth, CKNW, November 30, 2017: “They are setting the bar as low as possible for this referendum to succeed.”

Keith Baldrey, Global News, May 9, 2018: “This is the nanny state approach to governing gone rogue.”

Gary Mason, Globe and Mail, May 15, 2018: “It is just so badly flawed, so poorly conceived, any outcome will be rendered defective and in violation of the fundamental tenets of democracy.”

Kirk LaPointe, Business in Vancouver, October 19, 2018: “We are lurching, wobbling, staggering somewhat blindly and quite deafly into the fog of conscious confusion and deliberate under-information that calls itself the 2018 referendum on electoral reform.” Kirk LaPointe, Business in Vancouver, October 19, 2018. That’s just recently.

Bill Good, June 22, 2018: “It appears they are determined to manipulate the process,” meaning the government.

Mel Rothenburger, Armchair Mayor, November 27, 2017: “What they ignore is that first-past-the-post puts power into the hands of local communities.”

[4:00 p.m.]

Todd Whitcombe, Prince George Citizen, October 8, 2018: “…proportional representation…will ensure a signifi­cant portion of those MLAs will not be accountable to anyone but their party.” That’s a pretty scary commentary coming from the media.

In closing, I want to touch on a comment that was made about what proportional representation will bring to this House — respect. This is the most disrespectful place I’ve ever worked in. If you think proportional representation or any other form of electoral reform is going to bring respect to this place, think again.

S. Gibson: Good for me to be able to speak again, for the second time, here in this House. Thank you to the government members for requesting me. I appreciate that.

I want to share a little story as I begin, if I may. I was walking into a grocery store the other day. There was an older gentleman and a young fellow beside him. I would say the older gentleman was probably in his 80s, frankly. The younger gentleman was maybe 20. They were holding hands as they walked into the supermarket, so my assumption was that the young fellow was looking after the older man who was walking along — beside each other. They were together.

I was moving fairly quickly, as I do, and I moved up beside them as we entered the supermarket. I noticed that the young man was blind. The older gentleman was guiding the young man into the store. The reason I mention that is that my assumption was flawed. It was incorrect. The young man needed the help of the older man.

May I say that this reflection applies, I believe, to our discussion of proportional representation and Bill 40. What you see isn’t necessarily what you get.

I want to share, if I may, too, that I’ve been privileged to serve in elected office both locally and provincially for 38 years and lived in both of our capital cities. I went to university in Ottawa and had the privilege of working part-time in a legislative office while I was doing a degree at Carleton University. Even here in Victoria, some years ago, as you might expect, getting to know, in those days, a party, which we sometimes forget, called Social Credit. A privilege to get to know some of those folks over the years and appreciating and growing, with an interest in democracy.

My parents also had a similar interest, as I mentioned here. Perhaps some of you will recall that they both served during World War II, fighting for the democracy that we find precious today. We’ve been accused, at times, on this side of the House, of fearmongering. I heard somebody recently make up the expression fear mongrel, as someone who perpetuates fearmongering, but that’s for another time.

I think in many ways, we’re dealing with something that I would characterize as pyrrhic. Most of you will know the meaning of the word pyrrhic. Pyrrhic is a victory that inflicts such a terrible toll on the victor that it really represents defeat. It’s named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, and he suffered many casualties — this is many years ago — against the Romans. It was irreplaceable. He couldn’t replace his forces, even though he technically won.

I want to address my remarks to the new, highly idealistic members of the B.C. government caucus. Some of those MLAs arrived here with high ideals and are now perhaps struggling with this paradigm of proportional representation. Some of them know that if proportional representation is approved and finally adopted, so many years hence, if they’re still here, they may not even have a seat here. So that’s kind of a tragedy.

[4:05 p.m.]

It’s a Pyrrhic victory if this is successful because the result — even though it meets the specifications and request of the Third Party, the Greens — really destroys democracy as we know it. I want to comment favourably on the remarks made a moment ago by the hon. member for Skeena. I thought his remarks were right on.

We’re elected here. It’s a privilege to be elected here. But we also know that under most of these models of proportional representation, even those that are imaginary, that appointed MLAs will be the order of the day.

I like being the representative of Abbotsford-Mission. People can come by my office and talk to me. I never ask them: “Oh, by the way, just before you begin your conversation, how did you vote last time?” It’s irrelevant. Isn’t that right, hon. Member for West Vancouver–Capilano? It’s irrelevant.

Now, if we proceed with proportional representation, it’s going to become a partisan environment. We’re going to have appointed representatives of other parties. It’s going to be such a tragic departure from the British parliamentary system that was conceived all those many centuries ago and has served us well.

You’ll recall that the Leader of the Green Party, in a speech, said — and I’m paraphrasing — that this will be the best way to keep out a B.C. Liberal majority. Well, may I say that he forgot to mention that it will also be a good way to keep out an NDP majority. Majority governments may be over. The confidence people have, the security people have of a majority government could be washed away with proportional representation.

I don’t come from a secret list. It’s very transparent. The person with the most votes is elected. On election night, there’s no mathematical formulas or somebody with a computer doing all kinds of calculations. We find out that the hon. member for West Vancouver–Capilano is elected, the member for Surrey-Cloverdale is elected, the member from Surrey-Whalley is elected. There are no complications. You don’t have to wait for many hours to figure out the formula.

Many years ago in this province, there was a single transferable ballot — before my time. That was conceived in 1952, and the Social Credit Party of the day, under W.A.C. Bennett, formed a minority government in 1952 under the single transferable ballot.

I had the privilege of meeting somebody called Eric Martin, who sat here oh-so-many years ago in this Legislature. I kind of interviewed him. He was elected under the single transferable ballot. Remember, this is pre-computers. This is all done manually. He said to me: “I had to wait for days, putting my nose against the window of the elections office to find out that I finally made it.”

Some of you who studied history will know what hap­pened the very next year. It was abandoned and replaced by the great system we have now, and the Social Credit Party, under W.A.C. Bennett, formed government from 1952 to 1972.

So here we are discussing something that is troubling for so many in this House and, I believe, for many members of the government too. I think there are discussions that lead me to believe that there’s not unanimity on that side of the House about this in those secret moments.

There’s no regional threshold. Winner takes all in this model, ironically, so Metro could control the paradigm. In 2005 and then in 2009, we had proportional representation ballots, or at least elections deciding referendums at the time of the elections to see what system we’d have here.

[4:10 p.m.]

I’ve been told that the reason that it was defeated so heavily — so openly, if you will — in that year was because maps were produced. Once they saw maps, people saw maps, they’d go: “Oh, hold on now. This is scary.”

Even in my riding of Abbotsford-Mission — and I’m here to represent my constituents and speak on their behalf — I don’t what’s going to happen. I do know the tragedy will be that these large rural ridings will be replaced by even larger ridings. You’ll have to spend weeks to go and meet your MLA. Kind of sad to see that. So the lack of detail is ominous.

I have somebody in my riding…. He’s actually a friend of mine. He’s a good guy. He was on council in Mission for some time. He said: “I believe in proportional representation. There is a legitimate, I think, viewpoint on that.” However, my friend is voting against this referendum. Why? Because he believes that the government is not providing the proper information, not providing the information to allow voters to make an intelligent decision.

I want to pick up again, if I may, on the point made a moment ago by the hon. member for Skeena in his thoughtful remarks regarding the concerns he has about this legislation, Bill 40. He said: “It needs to be so simple that somebody without a lot of schooling can understand it.” Yeah, that’s a good point. Not all of us want to be enveloped in the intrigue and glamour of political life. Just average folks, average people, making a living want to be able to go in there and say: “Okay, I understand this.”

It’s not the case. As a matter of fact, I’ve had people tell me they look at that brochure and they say: “I don’t get it. I don’t understand. There’s not enough information there.” The government tells us: “Well, just wait. We’ll get more information to you later. We just want to get a feeling, just get an emotional feeling about this.” Well, that’s a little scary. It goes back to the Premier’s comment: “Just have faith. Just trust us.”

This NDP-Green coalition is moving ahead on this. Yet, we know that so many governments that advocate this and live it go through hundreds of days before they can form government because there are so many little parties arguing. I want to bring something out, if I can find it quickly here. This is particularly provocative, and I hope the government will be attentive to this.

One of the real concerns I have is that proportional representation is more expensive. As a matter of fact, I have some information from economists that I think will be quite troubling. These economists studied different systems of government, and they concluded that the economic effects of proportional representation mean that spending was almost 6 percent higher of GDP in countries as opposed to those with our majoritarian plurality systems.

These economists feel that it’s because what happens is that there’s so much negotiation with the small parties that spending increases.

The member, I think, is acknowledging that. Thank you. A member here with an economic background.

Jason Clemens and Taylor Jackson authored this report. It’s quite troubling because it shows that the instability in proportional representation systems leads to more negotiation with micro-parties. They come in and make a case. The other troubling point about that is that these micro-parties have very narrow interests.

The good thing about our current system is that we have a left-of-centre party in government, which is kind of an umbrella, and we have a right-of-centre party over here that I’m a part of, which is an umbrella party. We negotiate. We work together as our groups, and the resolution is good government with general interests.

Under this model, we’re going to get lots of little parties fighting it out, representing regional interests, maybe sectarian interests. Maybe a party like the Vancouver Island Party will come in. Now, we only have to have two members. So I’m concerned — very concerned.

[4:15 p.m.]

I also want to speak about the technology of the vote. Why are we mailing it out? I was never clear on that. I don’t think government really defended that adequately for me. With all of the technology today…. Do you realize — to government members — there are countries and U.S. states, even some provinces, in variations, that do on-line voting? That is good technology. Here? Mail-in — very old technology. I wonder why this is costing $15 million. That’s part of the reason.

It’s going to arrive mixed in with pizza menus and maybe real estate flyers, the Walmart flyer, and it’s going to fall out. I’m hearing that in apartment buildings, there are already tons of them out there floating around.

It’s so sad to see this kind of technology when I would have thought maybe the Minister of Education would have advocated something a little more high tech, something a little more modern. On-line would have been really nice.

So here are all of these ballots flying around. Who do these all belong to? In apartment buildings, they’re stacked up there beside the Georgia Straight. It’s really troubling.

I just want to say, in conclusion, that I’m privileged to speak to this today. Bill 40 is very troubling. I think the public is picking up on that. We just had a rally in my area, downtown Abbotsford. We were just kind of chatting with people, and the overwhelming response was: “Yes, you guys are doing a great job. You are the bulwark against proportional representation, the bulwark against this insidious change that’s being speculated.”

I’ve never underestimated the intelligence of the voters, and I believe they will come through. They will come through and dissent on this and support our current system, which has served us well all these so many years, and support the continuance of first-past-the-post, which got all of us elected in this wonderful Legislature.

J. Isaacs: I rise today to speak to the amendment of Bill 40. There are many reasons why I support this amendment, and I welcome the opportunity to raise some of my concerns, the concerns that have been raised by my colleagues and the concerns that I have heard from voters in my riding and elsewhere.

First and foremost, there are just too many unanswered questions, and voters have simply not had enough time to sort through what the referendum will mean to them.

This referendum is the biggest, most significant vote in front of British Columbians right now, and for the most part, voters are unaware of the mechanics that are before them. They are uninformed as to how this fundamental change will impact our electoral system and how these changes will impact British Columbians, both at the local level and across the province. Voters have questions. I have questions, and we need more time for answers.

We have been in the middle of municipal elections all across the province. Voters have been completely distracted with local election issues, and rightly so. Many municipal voters were taking the time to inform themselves as to who their new candidates were, what their platforms were, and taking the time to understand what the issues might be in their local jurisdictions. With many new faces and candidates to choose from, it takes time for voters to inform themselves, in order that they feel comfortable enough to make an informed and responsible decision.

We know years in advance when elections are scheduled. Whether it is a municipal, provincial or federal election, we know the election dates in advance. There should be no surprises when fixed election dates come around.

Government has an obligation to make sure that they organize their affairs and the timing of affairs in accordance with other events that are taking place, particularly significant events such as a municipal election. Government should not have dismissed how important municipal elections are to voters and should not have called for a referendum that clearly conflicted with another election.

[4:20 p.m.]

They could have and should have had a simple yes-or-no question, which is what the Premier promised, and that question could have been added to the municipal election ballot, assuring that the process would be under the scrutiny of Elections B.C. and saving $15 million to taxpayers. Instead, we have a flawed process, a complex ballot with three proportional representation choices, two that have never been tried anywhere in the world. Voters are being asked to vote on something so complicated that the Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training admitted she was not an expert on proportional representation and cannot explain how it will work.

As a result of pressing forward, voters have raised the question why. Why, with such an important vote already before British Columbians, would this government deliberately choose this date, knowing full well that voters would be distracted with municipal elections?

Scheduling this referendum at this time and trying to push through legislation that, according to Elections B.C., cannot be implemented any earlier than 2021, raises concerns. Voters would like to know why there is so much urgency that’s been placed on holding a referendum vote right now and what the underlying motivation could be to rush through something so important, a decision so vital to our democracy and one that will materially change the way in which we govern in this province. Who is pushing this agenda forward and why?

Well, I think I can offer a response for that question. As I see it, and as many of my colleagues will agree, the only reason that this flawed referendum is being pushed through in such a rushed fashion is because there is an agreement between the Greens and the NDP, an agreement that was made in June 2017, an agreement that was formed after the election, where the Greens would agree to support the NDP if the Greens could secure agreement to bring forward a referendum vote, and further agreement that the NDP would support proportional representation.

Perhaps we can tick that one off. The rush is simply because the Green Party has one single issue that they want to bring forward, and it’s proportional representation. The intentional timing of the referendum vote was to assure themselves that voters would be distracted by another important election, that they would not have enough time to inform themselves of what is being presented to them and that many voters would be rushed to make a decision or, worse yet, that many voters would not participate in the process.

We’ve already seen evidence that many voters will be excluded from participating. Ballots are being thrown into the junk mail box in condo units, easily accessible to others. Ballots are being mailed to incorrect addresses and may not be forwarded back to Elections B.C. in time to be re-sent to the proper address. We have seen ballots being addressed to persons that are deceased.

A referendum should be taken as seriously as an electoral vote. Anything less diminishes the confidence that we should have in this process. With so many important issues that government can address and work on, such as jobs, affordability, supporting B.C. businesses, cannabis, seniors and growing our economy, the motivation and timing and reasons why the Greens and NDP are calling for election change is clear. There was a conditional agreement between two parties, and not the public, to hold a referendum on proportional representation.

I support the amendment because there are other questions that remain unanswered, and voters have not been provided an opportunity to adequately educate themselves on this fundamental shift to our election process, the process as to how this referendum changed from a simple yes-or-no vote that the Premier promised in 2016 to a more complex question, which the Premier promised would not be the case. That raises concerns. It is no longer a simple yes-or-no vote.

This broken promise by the Premier to keep voting simple is further complicated with the addition of three proposed proportional representation systems. Voters will need to consider each option individually, and that makes the entire exercise much more complex. The public has questions. Their questions have not been answered, and clearly, more time is needed so that voters can evaluate exactly what is being proposed.

[4:25 p.m.]

In the last referendum, there was an independent citizens’ assembly which was comprised of a panel of 160 members. They consulted British Columbians all around the province and asked British Columbians what kind of improvements needed to be made and how the referendum question would be asked.

In the 2018 referendum, there was no independent citizens’ assembly, no independent consultation with the public and only a skewed, on-line survey that very few British Columbians were even aware of or completed. Instead, it was the Attorney General who decided what the process would be. He decided what the question would be, and he decided what options or models of proportional representation would be put forward on the ballot form.

There have been no substantial answers as to why there was a change in the consultation process or why the Attorney General — who has publicly stated that he supports proportional representation, claiming he is unbiased in the process — decided that the public should not be afforded an opportunity to comment on proposed changes or have any input as to what model could be considered.

There are no substantial answers as to how the three options were chosen. Two of the three options have never been tried anywhere in the world, and one of the two, of the three options, was created by a university student.

My colleague the member for Surrey–White Rock, who holds an economics and business degree and has worked at the highest levels in the financial industry, along with my colleague from West Vancouver–Capilano, who was the chief economist of the Royal Bank and a Harvard professor, said they could not understand the mathematical formula being used to determine exactly what method would be used to allocate seats. Well, if these folks are challenged with understanding the methodology used, how can we expect voters to understand?

In response to a question directed to the Premier last week, he clearly did not understand that a ranked ballot vote is distinctly different than proportional representation. If the Premier is confused between a ranked ballot vote and how it differs from proportional representation, how can we expect voters to understand what is being presented to them?

When the public has raised concerns and when legitimate questions are being put forward for clarification and more comprehensive explanations, there have been no answers. In response to these important questions being raised by the public, the Premier said that British Columbians should take a leap of faith. I think that most voters feel that taking a leap of faith is not the responsible thing to do.

Voters should be allocated sufficient and adequate time to comprehend all the risks as well as the benefits of proportional representation. They deserve the time to understand what a new voting system means, and they need time to fully understand how each of the proposed options will impact them directly.

There’s another reason that I support the amendment. In the last referendum, there was a minimum threshold that had to be met in order to make the referendum binding. The minimum level needed for voter approval was set at 60 percent, with a simple majority of 48 of the 79 electoral districts.

In this case, referendum 2018 has seen significant changes to the minimum threshold limits. In fact, the minimum threshold has been dropped to an alarming 50 percent plus one with no regional thresholds whatsoever in place. This means the population of Vancouver alone could change the way we elect our local representatives and how we govern around the province and hold government accountable. How would this process be considered a fair vote for those who live in Quesnel or Salmon Arm or on Vancouver Island?

Another unanswered concern is the question voters are asking with regard to changing electoral boundaries. We know that proportional representation will reduce the number of ridings. The four Tri-Cities ridings, for example, will likely be reduced to just one riding.

Constituents in my riding are very concerned about what this means to them. The rest of the province will experience enormous changes to their riding boundaries as well. Yet there is no clear indication or confirmation of where the boundary lines may change and, once those new boundaries are in place, how representation in each region will be compromised.

[4:30 p.m.]

Without proper maps that show clear boundaries, how will the public know and understand what region they would be voting for? Maps showing the adjusted boundaries should be provided to voters before the referendum and not after. If Elections B.C. needs time to provide the maps, the time should be allocated.

This is just another example of why I support the amendment. Voters should not be casting votes in a vacuum.

The other question that voters are concerned about is their understanding. Really, it is the lack of understanding of who will actually represent them in their local riding. Will it be the MLA who they voted for, or will it be a representative that has been appointed from a party list? Will voters be able to choose the option of voting from a closed list or an open list?

Most people are completely unaware of how their representative may be elected or appointed in their riding under proportional representation. An appointed representative may not even live in your riding, and access to your MLA will be through a bureaucratic channel — a bureaucratic channel that is not accountable to the people.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

I was at a recent meeting where someone said that if you are an NDP and have an issue, you cannot go to a Liberal MLA for help. This is not the case. Once elected, MLAs work for and work with and respond to any and all issues that are brought forward by constituents. MLAs work on behalf of everyone in their constituency.

We need to pause and take the time to explain to voters what is really at stake here and how the benefit of local and accountable representation is at risk. There has simply not been enough time for people to understand the magnitude of change that will take place.

One of the biggest concerns is the question relating to the costs and ineffectiveness of government when single-issue parties or fringe groups end up with a disproportionate balance of power and end up having control over public policies, even when those policies may not represent the values or the principles of the majority.

It is the classic tail wagging the dog. Parties with only 5 percent of the votes can promote their single-issue agenda over and above the wishes of the majority, stalling other important issues, such as job creation and supporting B.C. businesses that grow our economy and provide services to support our communities.

For those voters who are concerned, want clarification, are asking questions and taking the process seriously, what has been the response to them for raising their concerns and asking questions of clarification and wanting to fully understand the proposed changes so that they can make informed and responsible decisions? Well, the response so far has been disappointing and lacks any clarity.

The responses are intended to diminish valid concerns that the public has raised. Voters have raised multiple questions, and their concerns have been met with smirking and sneers, and legitimate questions are scoffed off. Why are these questions being raised in the first place? It is because there has not been enough time for voters to understand the issues. It’s no longer a simple vote, which we currently have under the first-past-the-post system. It is a much more complex vote with multiple options and multiple unintended consequences.

We keep hearing: “No need to worry. There are 90 countries that already have proportional representation.” The Greens and the NDP and the “yes” groups expect voters to accept that statement — that that alone should be good enough. “You don’t need any other information. Don’t worry. We’ll figure it all out later.”

Well, if voters accept that 90 countries already have proportional representation, they will also have to accept the unintended consequences. We only need to look at New Zealand, a country similar to Canada, where the leader of the New Zealand First party did not get elected in his own riding because of his extreme views, including anti-immigration views. These constituents essentially threw him out, yet under proportional representation, the party reappointed him.

He is now the Deputy Prime Minister and was even the Prime Minister for a time. That’s probably not what voters intended. Yet the government and the public are left with the unintended consequences of having to deal with an extreme single-issue appointed representative. This is just one example of the 90 countries that are under the proportional representation voting system.

[4:35 p.m.]

Let’s look at one more, Sweden. Their recent election resulted in 43 percent of a right government and 43 percent of a left government. The remaining minority belongs to the Swedish Democrats, a very far-right group who started off with a small percentage of votes and over time grew their representation to a substantial 17 percent.

If you accept proportional representation, you must accept the unintended consequences that are the reality in other countries. We’ve seen Belgium take 589 days to form government, the Pirate Party in Iceland and 70 government changes in 65 years in Italy. These are the unintended consequences that we already know about.

As the yes side try to downplay the negative and unintended consequences, they believe that they will get your vote. The NDP said just a week ago: “Well, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll just change it back after two terms.” Well, that’s not okay. We should not be figuring out anything after the referendum. We should know exactly what’s at stake now and should not have to revisit this issue two election cycles down the road or eight or so years after the referendum.

People have valid concerns and questions, and they should be afforded the appropriate time to educate themselves in order to make informed decisions. The member for Prince George–Valemount made a very good point, in her comments, related to the public’s concern. She summarized the public’s asking of legitimate questions: “That is not fearmongering; that is fact-finding.”

Why does the government seem determined to characterize any questions about this referendum process as fearmongering? It is not. The public has every right to know and understand the fundamentals of proportional representation, and they can only arrive at that understanding of what it means to them locally and around the province if they raise their concerns and questions.

Because of the flawed process and deliberate intentions to stack the deck in favour of the outcome the NDP and Greens want, voters are being asked to make decisions that have serious implications, even though they do not fully have all the information that they need.

Last week someone shared with me that while he was having dinner with some friends, the topic of proportional representation came up. He told me his friends are well educated, and they were supporting proportional representation. When my friend queried them as to why they would choose proportional representation, they confessed that they had seen a video that talked about how great proportional representation would be and that everyone’s vote would count. When my friend talked with them a little bit further, it became very clear that they were unaware of how the process came about.

They were unaware that the number of MLAs would change. They were unaware that boundary maps were not made available in those areas where riding boundaries would change and where it would make a significant difference. And of course, depending on where you reside in the province, British Columbians living in the same province may be under two different voting systems. They were unaware.

They were certainly unaware that MLAs could be appointed from party lists and that a person that would be appointed may not even live in their riding. Of course, once they learned of these details and how local representation was compromised, their opinion changed.

Many people like to focus on the positive, and we all need to focus on the positives. I recall many times when I was in the financial planning industry, talking to clients about their investments and the likelihood of projected returns and outcomes. This was a time when it wasn’t uncommon to realize returns of 10, 12 and even 15 percent.

Although I would point out the downside, the possibility of unintended consequences and that under certain extreme circumstances they could even lose their investment, people would focus on the positive. Most of us like to hear positive stories and rarely want to focus on the negative or plan for the worst scenario.

I’d like to hear some concrete answers, because unlike a financial prospectus or disclosure statement with explanations in the small print, there is no small print. A fair vote may sound positive, but when we get into the small print, when the details are exposed, it is not a fair vote at all.

[4:40 p.m.]

Every vote already counts, and what is being presented and supported by the Greens and the NDP is all about retaining power. It has nothing to do with better government, better representation or being a more effective government.

People are getting their ballots in the mail. They don’t know how to vote. They’re calling us, wondering what to do. Legitimate questions: how many MLAs will I have in my riding? What will be the size of my riding? What constitutes a rural riding or an urban riding? Where will the riding boundaries be? Will it be a closed list or an open list? Will we be given the option of what lists will be used? Why should I trust government to figure it all out after the referendum vote?

Many of the systems around the world do have voters directly voting for their representatives. The government included some of those systems in their feedback questionnaire that they supposedly used to inform the referendum. Yet in the end, they discarded the systems that allow voters to choose their representatives and put in options that do not.

Two of the systems on the ballots are, as the Attorney General report states, not currently in use. The rural-urban system was rejected in both 2005 and 2009. Without clear electoral boundaries, voters are being asked to decide on a system when they don’t actually know what system they will get until after the referendum vote.

I believe I have laid out a number of issues that warrant supporting the amendment to refer to the select standing committee. British Columbians should not be voting on or experimenting with our democracy simply to ensure that the Greens and the NDP retain their power. My colleague the member for Vancouver–False Creek has really captured the essence and intent of this referendum when he so eloquently said that this referendum is a referendum of political parties, by political parties, for political parties.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today in support of the amendment.

T. Shypitka: Thank you to my colleague from Coquitlam–​Burke Mountain, and thank you for the riveting speech from the member for Abbotsford-Mission. That was fantastic.

It gives me pleasure to speak to Bill 40 and the amendment to refer Bill 40 to committee. Before I do so, I want to wish my constituency assistant, Christy Wheeldon, a happy birthday today. Actually, it’s tomorrow, but we’ll say it’s today for the sake of argument.

I’m here to support the referral motion to send this bill to committee. The reason is quite simple. It’s the lack of information and consultation that’s been going through this process. I think that everyone on our side — and, I would imagine, on the other side as well — can agree that there are a lot of questions out there from the constituents on what is actually happening. I’ve got constituents that don’t even know that a referendum is going on. Part of my job right now is to make sure that they know there’s a referendum, what it actually means and what’s at stake.

This is nothing new. This is the third time we’ve had such a referendum in the last 13 years, I believe. But what is new is that, in the first two referendums, we had a pretty well-thought-out process — a year-long process. We included what was called the citizens’ assembly. It was 160 random citizens from around the province. They were educated and directed to pick a system that would work best for B.C. as far as proportional representation goes. Politicians were literally forbidden to be in the process.

I think it was a pretty fair system. It was inclusive. It’s something we hear the other side talk about all the time — being inclusive and representative of your constituents. That’s what we, the government, did at the time for the first two referendums. But that’s not what we’re seeing here. This time around, we’re seeing a highly politicized and highly partisan rollout of an obvious attempt to cater to a few members from the south part of Vancouver Island.

What’s the rush? We’re being rushed to make this deci­sion. There’s been literally no time on the ground with the constituents, as I’ve said. This is something that’s going to be implemented in 2021, so I ask what the rush is. I think, probably, the answer is that the rush is that it was the number one condition that the Green Party forced upon the NDP in their confidence and supply agreement — to have this referendum.

[4:45 p.m.]

To give credit to the other side, they could have actually gone without a referendum. They could have put that right through. So we are having a referendum, and a lot of people are asking questions.

The Premier has been on the record as saying this is a leap of faith. “Just go for it. We’ll fill in the details later. Just have this giant leap of faith and all will be well.”

I don’t think that’s a responsible approach. I think this is something that the citizens of British Columbia should be participating in. This is something that’s important. This is going to change the way the process works as far as bringing forward our representatives to the House. We’re not seeing a very inclusive collaboration of citizens during this process.

There are no specific details, as I said. I’ve got constituents who are asking me all the time…. Even with the referendum itself and the ballot itself, it’s a two-part fairly convoluted questionnaire where the first one asks you whether you want to keep the current system or a form of proportional representation. Well, the Premier said that he had made a promise. It would be a yes-or-no ballot. But what we’re getting is a second part now. The second question asks to rank the three forms of proportional representation that you would have if you wanted proportional representation.

Those in my constituency that don’t want a form of proportional representation, and they believe in the current system of first-past-the-post, are getting a little hung up on that. They’re saying: “Well, if I answer the second one, does that kind of mean that I’m supporting it?” Or: “I don’t even know what these forms of proportional representation mean. So do I have to do all the homework? Where do I get the information from?” That is another good question.

There’s not a lot out there, like I said. Elections B.C. has a booklet, a pamphlet. It’s about 27 pages long, and it attempts to address the questions on what these proportional systems mean. But there are a lot of gaps. I think there’s about 19 different gaps that we’ve identified of not being recognized, and that’s a big concern.

You don’t have to take my constituents’ word for it. I think a lot of members on this side are feeling the same things, and I know there are members on the other side that have got constituents as well. If you don’t believe those people, just ask the Minister of Advanced Education. She was approached and asked the question of: what does it mean? How does proportional representation bring a voice to the Legislature? A fairly simple question, you would think. She did brag about herself having a political science degree, but she failed to answer the question. She said she wasn’t an expert.

That’s pretty troubling to me. The Minister of Advanced Education can’t answer a question on this referendum. How does she expect the rest of British Columbians to answer that question? So these are very concerning things, and that’s why I support this amendment to refer this to committee to get some clarification and to hammer out some of these ideas.

Now, one of the big misconceptions that this lack of information is fostering is the belief that administering a form of proportional representation will somehow magically transform our archaic, worn out and ineffective electoral system. This is what has been out there. This is the information that my constituents are saying: “Well, it’s really old, isn’t it?” I don’t know if I can say my own name here in the House, but they’re saying….

Social media is really taking off. I think everybody recog­nizes the influence it has on people. So there’s information, misinformation, websites and fake quizzes, and people are really trying to do their homework with what they’ve got, the resources they’ve got. They’re coming back with all these questions to me.

Just to clarify, first-past-the-post is the oldest system we have, the oldest system anywhere in the world. It’s been in existence since the 12th century. It’s the oldest electoral system in political history. In B.C., it’s been working well for us for 140 years. We’ve gone through two world wars, financial crisis and the Great Depression. We have seen B.C. having the highest life expectancy rates anywhere in the world. Our scholastic scores are one of the top in the world. Our quality of life here is better than anywhere in the world. Like I said, it’s stood the test of time.

I would suggest the reason why it stood the test of time is because it is resilient and it is stable. It’s not perfect. I will admit that. Winston Churchill once said that democracy isn’t perfect. But given the alternatives, it looks pretty good. That’s what I relate to first-past-the-post.

[4:50 p.m.]

It isn’t perfect, but it’s done a good job, and it’s been resilient, and it’s been very stable. But people outside my constituency are saying it’s old, and it’s broken. They’re listening to some of the people on the other side, and I strongly disagree with that.

One of my biggest complaints of misinformation, the reason why I support this amendment, is that there seems to be a view that some people in the ridings do not get a say in what happens. I hear that from the other side. With this first-past-the-post system, some people are left out, and they just don’t get their say. I really take offence to that.

I don’t know what the people on the other side of the floor are doing. I know that my fellow members on this side treat everyone as an equal when they come into the office. It’s a non-partisan environment. We don’t ask for voter cards when they come in, when they come to you with a problem or an issue. I’ve got two assistants, great ones. I mentioned Christy Wheeldon. It’s her birthday tomorrow. They take answers and phone calls. People off the street come in, and they’re all treated equally.

Yes, it may not be the party they represent, but we bring that voice to Victoria. It could be a health issue or an education issue, a worker compensation claim or anything that we can do to help. I’ve done a lot of work, for example, with the Parkinson’s community. We’re in the process right now of trying to get another surgeon that does deep brain stimulation surgery. There’s one surgeon in the province that does that, and we’re trying to get two.

Now, when I go out to the Parkinson’s community and I go talk to these people one-on-one, I don’t say: “What’s your political stripe? Which way do you lean? I don’t know if I really want to help you if you’re not of my political persuasion.” That’s just never in the cards. That just never happens. So it really is mind-blowing to me, and I feel bad if people feel that way. I encourage it in my riding for people to come in, have a coffee. I really don’t care which way they lean. So that’s one of the fallacies, for sure.

I’ve told this House many times, and I’ve told my constituents many times, that I’m not opposed to making our society better. If there’s an electoral system out there that makes us better, that represents us better, then I’m in 100 percent. I’ve got family. I’ve got, believe it or not, some friends in my constituency. I’ve got aging parents. I’ve got young children. So yeah, of course I want our system to be as good as possible. I mean, who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t, on this side, on any side of the House, want the best thing?

But to have this leap of faith and just to dash the stable system that we have right now to try the New Coke, or whatever the flavour of the day is, to me, is irresponsible. We need that information and that consultation to be brought forward. That’s why I support the amendment to bring it to committee.

I will go into a little bit about the situation we have here. I mean, like I said before, this referendum was to satisfy the confidence and supply agreement of the Green Party. It’s clearly stated as their number one priority, and that is why we’re having this referendum. That is why it’s being rushed, and that is why there’s not a lot of information in place. That’s one of the biggest problems right now. It’s this confidence and supply agreement that is the bonding glue right now that’s currently holding these two parties together.

We’ve seen waffling from the Green side on Site C and the Green leader kicking it down the road on LNG and the export terminal in Kitimat. This is the representation I’m talking about.

When we talk about people coming to the House or coming to this place and representing our constituents, that is a basic fundamental that we all should be putting forward. What we’re seeing with this referendum is botching some of that. We’re seeing that this is the number one priority that the Greens want, and they’re not fulfilling their obligations to their constituents on some of the other issues that they would like to see, like LNG.

[4:55 p.m.]

We’ll go to parts of the referendum that were part of the promise that the Premier made — if the referendum was ever to come into play, what it would look like. This is part of the misinformation as well.

The first promise the Premier made was on the ballot. It was going to be a simple yes-or-no ballot, and that is not hap­pening.

The second one. He said there would be an all-party com­mittee, non-biased, something that we saw in 2005 and 2009. We saw a citizens’ assembly — I had mentioned that earlier — of about 160 citizens from across the prov­ince. He said that would be incorporated into it, and we haven’t seen that either.

The third promise that the Premier made was something on regional thresholds. At least 50 percent of the ridings in B.C. would have to weigh in, would have to support some­thing of this importance, which is fair — 50 percent plus one. I think that’s what the NDP is proposing with just a basic, common vote. But we’ve said that that should be incorporated into our ridings as well.

We’re very diverse. We’ve got 87 ridings in the province. We’ve got geographic diversities, cultural diversities, social diversities. They all should be equally represented. To have a threshold of 50 percent, at least, of the ridings is fair. I think that is a fair request. That wasn’t done in this referendum at all.

We also had a supervote of 60 percent plus one of the general population. That’s been reduced down to 50 percent plus one. The bar has been lowered to the very bare minimum. I don’t think that’s going to fly with most people in my riding, because they know where most of the vote comes from in this province.

The other part that I get all the time on misinformation is the notion that if this experiment doesn’t work, if we go to a form of PR and it doesn’t work, then in two election cycles from now, everything will be a-okay because we’ll be able to have another referendum and change it all back again. People are taking a lot of comfort in that. I think the information on there….

People don’t understand that in two election cycles from now, when we have a PR process in place, I dare say we won’t have two parties in here or three parties in here. We’re going to have five, six, seven parties — minority governments all the way. That’s not a stretch of the imagination in any way. We see it all over the world.

I dare say I have never seen a system of PR have two parties. So because we’re going to have minority parties in place…. A current government can’t legislate what a government in the future will do. They will have to vote on it. So if there’s a minority government in place, they would be essentially voting against themselves to bring another referendum forward. That doesn’t seem practical, in my mind. That seems very wishful thinking. I think you’d have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than that ever coming true.

This is some of the information. This is why I support this amendment. It’s because the information isn’t out there. The people of my riding and across the province are just getting very misrepresented on what’s going on.

Like I said, I’ve had probably eight or nine forums in my riding. I’ve spoken to people like the Fernie Rod and Gun Club and the Kootenay Livestock Association. I went to the Sparwood Causeway Bay Hotel, and I had a meeting there, to speak there. Joseph Creek Care Village. Some of my old friends in the Joseph Creek Care Village wanted me to come and talk to them about what this referendum meant. It was amazing, the lack of information they had. They had no idea this was happening.

There were simple catch phrases. I went to door to door. I’ve been to Western Financial Place. I’ve been having private meetings with other constituents. What’s really concerning is that the information they’re getting is these simple catch phrases: “Every vote counts” and “Better representation.” I’m not sure of the other ones, but you know what I mean.

[5:00 p.m.]

It’s very simplistic. This is a very complicated referendum, and the options are very complicated. Two of the three have never been used anywhere in the world before, which is another huge concern. Because of that, that’s why I support this motion.

The example we saw from the Advanced Education Minister spelled it out fairly clearly. Inside this House — I don’t know if anybody has noticed, but we live in a bit of a bubble — we study this stuff. We live it day in and day out. We read. We dig for information. We have research people that tell us what it is and what it isn’t.

The rest of the province doesn’t have that stuff. They’re on their own, and they’re subject to social media, as I said, and catchy catchphrases that they see on sign boards across the province. That just doesn’t speak to what is actually at stake here.

No maps, no boundaries. Will there be closed party lists or open party lists? What constitutes a rural riding or a semi-rural or an urban riding? Am I in a rural or urban voting area? Dual, urban…. Is it possible to have two voting systems in the same province? These are the things that people ask me all the time. To be quite honest, I can’t answer a lot of the questions because the answers aren’t being provided.

If their MLA can’t provide that information for them, we feel fairly helpless. And I don’t like that feeling. That’s why we need this to go to committee. We need to hash this out. We need to break this down. We need to provide the information. It’s clear, across the province, that this needs to be done.

I said already that the bill suggests that we have an easy way out. We can have another vote 12 years from now. That’s not practical. Eleven years? I’m not too sure exactly when it would be. Hopefully less than that.

The other thing is the mail-in ballot. That’s another issue that I can’t understand. It’s 2018. We have digital technology and everything else, electronics. It would suggest that we would not need a mail-in ballot. We just had a civic election where everybody from around the province, from all municipalities, all citizens, got together. They made a vote on who they wanted in as their city councillors and mayors, and to put this referendum question on there, to me, seems like it would have been the easiest thing. With the lack of information, I’m glad it wasn’t. And that’s what we’re trying to hash out here.

I’ve got constituents that are getting three, four and five voting packages to their house, above who’s in the house that is actually registered. Some of these voting packages are from previous tenants or any of that stuff. And they’re confused. “Do we send them in? Do we throw them out? If we throw them out, does it get spoiled? What about voter fraud?” People are freaking out thinking that there’s a mastermind somewhere that’s collecting all these voting packages and filling them out and causing fraud in the province.

The mail-in ballot is mind-boggling. Some people are, like I said, having a hard time filling out the first question, the second question. “Do I fill one, two, both? Can I x out something if I don’t like it? Do I have to answer something if I don’t like it?” Once again, it’s just more lack of information.

Another piece of misinformation that I run across all the time…. Once again, it’s a catchphrase: 40 percent of the vote gets 100 percent of the power. I hear that all the time. The other side would somehow prefer you to think that once you get PR in, 100 percent of the vote gets 100 percent of the power, and everybody’s happy. That’s just a make-believe world, in my opinion.

Every democratic society in the world, whether it’s under PR or under a form of plurality, always has a government and always has an opposition. With PR, you’ll have 51 percent that runs their platforms, and you’ll have 49 percent that is in opposition holding them to account and wishing they were on the other side, so to speak.

[5:05 p.m.]

It’s not 100 percent. It’s not this magic wand that you’re just going to wave and all of a sudden everybody is happy and having a big group hug. It just doesn’t work that way.

Yes, we need to collaborate. I’m a very balanced kind of person. I don’t like the partisanship sometimes in the House. I consider myself non-partisan most of the time. I like to see more collaboration. I know the Greens advocate for that. I know the NDP advocate for that.

Yet in this model of PR…. In my mind, this is kind of a case study for what PR would look like, where we have a minority government backed by another party in a power-sharing agreement.

I like to hear all the talk about collaboration, how we can all work together. Yet, Madame Speaker, do you know how many times the collaborative Green Party has voted for any amendment or any bill on this side? Well, if you said one, you’d be one too many. Not once have they collaborated. That just kind of goes to show you what we’re in for.

I kind of refer it to…. I’ll bring this up again. I don’t know if anybody knows Mary Shelley at all. You know Mary Shelley?

Interjection.

T. Shypitka: Oh, really? Okay, well, we’ve got somebody that’s related to Mary Shelley.

Mary Shelley in 1818 was 18 years old, which is kind of weird. She wrote a novel that was called Frankenstein. It’s a great novel. Everybody knows Frankenstein. We saw it in the movies and all that stuff. It was the novel of Victor Frankenstein. He was a young scientist, and he wanted to create this wise creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment — scary, kind of like what we’re seeing with these PR suggestions.

In the story, Frankenstein’s monster tries to adapt. Although the creature learns how to imitate certain characteristics, and it keeps him functioning, it’s the unnatural piecing together of his body parts that allows him to fit into his environment. So Frankenstein is piecing this thing together and trying to do his bits and pieces.

To make him wise, he’s pieced together with experience, understanding, common sense, insight — I think kind of what PR is trying to do. They’re trying to piece together the perfect monster. They’re trying to bring all this cool stuff — that every vote counts and 40 percent gets 100 percent of the power. It’s an admirable experiment. However, in the movie, this is forced in an unnatural way. Like in the movie, Mary Shelley’s monster ends up killing himself in the end because of the destruction that he left behind. He couldn’t cope in the real world.

I think that’s what we’re seeing with some of these forms of PR across the world. Their intention is best for their countries that they serve or the jurisdictions that they serve. But in the end, we’re seeing a lot of chaos in some of the countries right now. We’re seeing what Germany is going through.

We’re seeing a pulling. We’re seeing the centrist-right parties and the centrist-left parties being pulled to their sides of the spectrum by some of the extreme parties that are given life by “every vote counts” and having their 2 percent or 5 percent or 7 percent stake in the game. Those extreme parties are pulling those centrist parties to the wings, essentially hollowing out the centre of their democracy there. We’re seeing a lot of unrest around the world.

We’ve seen Northern Ireland with over 600 days now without a government. We’ve seen Belgium with 500-and-some-odd days without government. We’ve seen Italy that has — I counted them up the other day — 111 different parties, either major or regional, throughout the board. Now, that’s a lot of choice. But I may suggest that 111 choices are all single-issue-type deals.

What we enjoy right now with first-past-the-post is a collaborative big tent of ideas. We have everybody from the centre right with the B.C. Liberals, and we’re a coalition. We actually are a coalition of ideas and parties. We’ve got free enterprise, we like industry, and we like bringing in revenue. We’ve got all of these other things.

[5:10 p.m.]

The left is the same way. The NDP is the same way. They’ve got social values and all the other things they like to bring to the table. Labour is one of them.

It’s a self-evolving system with first-past-the-post. We actually have a self-evolved system where either you’re in or you’re out. We’re in the penalty box right now, on this side. We’re retooling ourselves. We’re getting ourselves better. We’re reincorporating new ideas and strategies. We’re evolving right now.

That’s healthy. That’s what we want. We want those centrist types of ideas. We don’t want those extreme ideas. We want to be as balanced as possible. I think that’s what we’re doing here.

I already went into “every vote counts.” Doesn’t make sense to me. I think that’s almost all I’ve got to say.

I don’t know how much time I’ve got left here, but the bottom line is that we just need some more information. We need more information, and we need more collaboration on setting up a referendum for a series of options that we have no idea about.

We have no idea what the details are. We’ve always heard the phrase: the devil is in the details. I think that’s what we’re seeing right now. The devil is in the details, and we don’t know them. For government to say, “We’ll fill in the blanks later,” in my opinion, is quite irresponsible. With that, I support the motion from my colleague from Surrey-Cloverdale. That’s all I’ve got to say.

T. Redies: I rise to speak in favour of the motion before the House to defer Bill 40 to the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

I speak in support of this deferment because Bill 40 represents just another charlatan effort on the part of this government to gerrymander proportional representation into the province of B.C. The entire process around proportional representation has been deliberately rigged from the start — a payoff to the Green Party for supporting the NDP, who received only 41 seats in the last election, to topple the B.C. Liberals.

The NDP have a weak public mandate. They are only in power because of a backroom deal cooked up by the now Premier and the leader of the Green Party. Because of the backroom deal between the Greens and the NDP, this minority government now controls the House, and they want this relationship to continue ad infinitum.

The Green leader has even been quoted saying that the reason to vote for proportional representation is to “make sure there is never another B.C. Liberal majority again.” Now the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, who continually pontificates that members in this House should act on principle, from my perspective, demonstrates with this statement that he’s not acting with principle. He’s acting with pure self-interest.

The NDP, in their insatiable thirst for power, and despite having one of the weakest government mandates in British Columbian history, has engineered this referendum as much as possible to ensure proportional representation goes through in British Columbia so they can gerrymander a continued coalition with the Green Party.

Bill 40 is a continuation of this sham. This has been introduced by the Attorney General because that side of the House knows the public mood is shifting. The momentum is for keeping first-past-the-post because people are confused.

As they learn more about the process and what they’re being asked to vote on, they recognize that details have been deliberately held back from them. The people of British Columbia are increasingly suspicious that this is a cooked-up, backroom-deal minority government that is trying to pull a fast one on them. In that regard, they’re bang on.

The minority government, with its exceedingly weak mandate, is trying to fool voters into voting for PR by introducing Bill 40, a bill that would supposedly enable a second, referred referendum two cycles from now so British Columbians could have a chance to return to first-past-the-post if they don’t like PR.

[5:15 p.m.]

This is just a hypocritical sham. That is why Bill 40 needs to be deferred to a standing committee on parliamentary reform and, most importantly, ethical conduct, because there’s nothing ethical about what this government has done with respect to the process around this referendum on proportional representation, and there is nothing ethical about Bill 40.

This government knows that they can’t bind future governments to hold a referendum. They’re being disingenuous with the British Columbia electorate. This is just a ridiculous last attempt by that side of the House to coax British Columbians who might be sitting on the fence.

The Premier is asking them to “take a leap of faith,” to give PR a try, and not to worry, because they’re going to ensure that two elections from now, voters will have the ability to revert back to first-past-the-post.

This is a disappointing sham made by an unethical government that wants to ensure they stay in power for many years to come. British Columbia voters, and especially taxpayers, should be terrified about that prospect, because this is a government that has increased planned spending by over $10 billion in three years and increased the tax burden by over $6 billion in the same period.

Far from making life affordable, this minority government will increase per capita taxation, on average, by $1,400 by 2021. That’s for every man, woman and child in this province. Far from making life better for British Columbians, families in this province will ultimately pay a severe price because this government seized power by shackling themselves to the Greens. That is what this referendum is all about.

From the get-go the process around this referendum has been a travesty. Bill 40 is just a continuation of this farcical exercise, and again, this is why Bill 40 needs to be referred back to a committee on parliamentary reform. That’s the right thing to do.

We on this side of the House have a responsibility to stand up for all the voters in this province who deserve clarity and the full information on the electoral system they’re being asked to vote on. To do anything less would be a breach of trust to the voting public, who expect us to challenge the veracity of this process — to kick the tires, so to speak. Well, we’ve kicked those tires and found that the process is deeply wanting.

As I’ve said before, I’m not against electoral reform. If the people of British Columbia were given all the information they needed to make an informed decision on PR, if there was a valid independent process and people voted in significant numbers for electoral reform, I would embrace the process and electoral reform wholeheartedly. However, that’s not what we have here.

The Premier promised a citizens’ assembly similar to the independent citizens’ assemblies convened in the last two referendums, in 2005 and 2009. But to seal the deal with the Greens, who are desperate for proportional representation, the Premier decided to let his Attorney General control the entire process.

He said his Attorney General, someone who has advocated strongly for PR, would be “a neutral arbiter.” Does the Premier think British Columbians are stupid? How can the Attorney General, who is a member of the NDP, whose very political future depends on the NDP, be an independent arbiter? It’s ludicrous. And he’s been far from independent through this entire process. This is why, again, we have to send this bill back to a standing committee on parliamentary reform, because the process has been rigged from the start.

The Attorney General said he’d consult with British Col­um­bians, but political staffers constructed the on-line questions put before the public — yet another example where the consultation was engineered to produce more favourable support for proportional representation. In spite of rigging the consultation to support PR, little of the public’s input appears to have found its way into the question or systems before British Columbia voters.

In the consultation process, British Columbians said they wanted the voting process to be simple. Instead, we have three very confusing unexplained systems before British Columbia voters, and two of these systems have never been used anywhere else in the world. Why on earth are British Columbians being asked to experiment with their electoral system? Just because the government introduces a bill not worth the paper it’s written on just so they can change their minds two elections from now? This is ridiculous.

Something as important as an electoral system, which decides who gets to set the laws of the province and the policies of government, and the Premier is telling British Columbians that they don’t need details: “Just take a leap of faith.”

As described by Vaughn Palmer of the Vancouver Sun just a short while ago: “When Premier John Horgan calls on voters to take a leap of faith with him on proportional representation, he means a leap in the dark — details to come later, when it will be too late to do anything about it.”

That is why we need to send this bill to committee. There are insufficient details for British Columbians to be able to vote for any of the options before them. There are no riding maps, nothing provided to voters in advance, because this NDP-Green alliance of hypocrisy knows that the riding sizes have to increase dramatically under proportional representation.

[5:20 p.m.]

The Premier doesn’t even seem to understand proportional representation himself. In question period last week, he referred to the ranked ballot as a form of proportional representation, referring to the approach used by this side of the House to elect our Leader of the Opposition. But ranked ballots are not a voting system. It’s only a methodology for counting votes.

Even FairVote.ca, the proponent for proportional representation, attests to that. On their website, they say: “Ranked ballots aren’t a voting system. They are a mechanism within a system that determines how votes are counted. Ranked ballots can be used in winner-take-all systems and proportional systems.”

His Minister of Advanced Education, a person with a political science degree, said on Saturday that she’s not an expert on PR. Well, if the people who are making the decisions about this referendum don’t understand PR, how on earth can they ask British Columbians to vote for something that they can’t even explain?

I challenge the Premier, without looking at his notes, to describe each of the proportional representation systems before British Columbians and how, in particular, MLAs would be elected to this House in each of them. I don’t think he could do it. Not only are they horribly confusing, the details with respect to how MLAs get elected directly or appointed by the party haven’t been fleshed out.

Let’s take dual-member proportional representation. Here’s what Wikipedia says about how MLAs are apportioned to the House under a DMP system. Step 1 is to allocate seats to the parties. Wikipedia describes this step in the following way:

“Each party is allocated a certain number of seats in proportion to their share of the popular vote in the region. The definitive report on DMP recommends that the seat allocation be calculated using the largest-remainder method with a Hare quota and a total number of seats equal to twice the number of districts.

“Only votes cast for party-affiliated candidates are included in this calculation. The number of seats allocated must be adjusted if independents are elected, as this takes seats away from the parties, or if a party wins more that its proportional share of the seats based on plurality. See step 2.”

Well, that’s as clear as mud.

Step 2 describes how seats are awarded, based on plurality, and the transfer vote process, saying:

“At least half the seats in the region are awarded based on a form of plurality. Most notably, the first seat in every district is awarded to the primary candidate with the greatest number of votes. If the winning primary candidate is from a party that has also listed a secondary candidate on the ballot, then the votes are transferred at half weight to the secondary candidate.

“For example, if a party has won a district with 48 percent of the votes, their primary candidate is elected, and the secondary candidate is treated as having a 24 percent vote share. After the vote transfer, if the remaining candidate with the highest vote share in any district is an independent, he or she is elected. All other independent candidates are eliminated.”

Okay, I kind of get that. The parties get to put up one or two candidates per riding. If your primary candidate wins, the secondary candidate gets half of the percentage vote share of the primary candidate. Then there’s a rack ’em, stack ’em process where the votes of candidates with the least amount of votes get allocated again and again until a secondary candidate gets enough seats to be elected.

Then we go on to step 3, which is the awarding of the remaining allocated seats. Wikipedia says:

“At this point, most if not all districts in the region will have one unassigned seat. Each of these unfilled seats must be awarded to one of the remaining party-affiliated candidates. Each party’s remaining candidates are sorted from most popular to least popular according to the percentage of votes they received in their districts. Seats are then tentatively assigned to the most popular candidates in each party. The number of seats assigned in this manner is the number of seats initially allocated to each party in step 1, minus the seats each party received in step 2.

“After the allocated seats are tentatively assigned, it may be necessary to resolve conflicts. A conflict is a situation where more than one candidate has been assigned to a district’s second seat. In such cases, the candidate with the highest percentage of votes retains his or her assigned seat, while the other candidates are eliminated.

“If a candidate is eliminated in this fashion, the seat that was tentatively assigned to him…is reassigned to the party’s most popular candidate still awaiting a seat. The reassignment may produce another conflict, which must itself be resolved. The process continues until no conflicts remain. At that point, any candidate with an assigned seat is elected. The order in which conflicts are resolved has no bearing on which candidates ultimately obtain seats.

[5:25 p.m.]

“It is possible for a party to run out of qualified candidates, in which case they may forfeit one or more of their allocated seats. This situation can occur only if the party nominates fewer than two candidates in at least one district, or if…more of their candidates fails to meet the district threshold. All forfeited seats are reallocated on a proportional basis by applying the calculation in step 1 to the parties still eligible for seats. These reallocated seats are then awarded by performing step 3 an extra time.”

My goodness. Say what? How on earth are British Columbians supposed to understand this? There are further issues that have to be sorted out with the dual-member proportional representation system, including whether the system uses a district threshold or a reserve factor.

In the interests of time, I will just speak to one of them, reserve factors.

“A reserve factor is a fraction of a party’s allocated seats, rounded down, that are set aside to be awarded in a later stage of the calculation. The seats set aside are collectively referred to as reserve seats. The reserve seats are awarded by reapplying step 3. See calculation section. These extra steps occur immediately before the reallocation of forfeited seats.

“The purpose of a reserve factor is to reduce the probability that any party elects their least popular candidates across the region. Even without a reserve factor, the DMP algorithm inherently disfavours these candidates. Nevertheless, a small party may elect a comparatively unpopular candidate if their top-performing candidates are all defeated at the district level.

“Employing a reserve factor, a small party has a greater chance of having multiple eligible candidates at the point when their allocated seats are to be awarded to candidates. The seats will then go to popular candidates at the expense of unpopular candidates.”

Well, that is reassuring. Now, I should say that the young math whiz from the University of Alberta who came up with the dual-member proportional system contacted me after I suggested that dual-member proportional representation was a little hard to understand, and he clarified some things. He’s a very smart young man with a number of math degrees, I believe.

In fact, I was impressed that someone would have the mental acrobatics and agility to come up with something like this. The point being is that this is not a simple voting system like we have today. This is an ugly, complicated voting system. And most people don’t have multiple math degrees.

Now, I could go into similar detail about other PR systems being proposed by this government, but there simply isn’t enough time for me to do that, because they aren’t simple. I think a lot of British Columbians will have trouble understanding dual-member proportional representation and the other proposed PR systems. That is because, again, they’re not simple, like first-past-the-post.

This government has continued to stymie our attempts at getting to the bottom of what riding sizes will look like, how the proportional vote will be managed and, for those members who will not be directly voted in, how they will be appointed by their party.

That is, again, why we need to send this bill to a standing committee on parliamentary reform. Too many details are not known, and trying to make up for that by saying, “Don’t worry. You can change back in two election cycles from now,” is just plain hogwash.

Now, the Premier has been shucking and jiving, weaving and dodging, ragging the puck, whatever you want to call it, to avoid the debate with the Leader of the Opposition on prime-time TV before all British Columbians. We now have a date, but the initial challenge came in September. The Premier has ragged the puck to make sure the debate happens after many people will have voted or put the ballot in the recycling bin.

Far from having the courage of conviction or a principled approach, to debate the Leader of the Opposition at a time when many people will be watching and seeking clarity, the Premier has tried to delay debate until after most people have cast or thrown out their ballot. Shame on him.

I’ve had the privilege of a long and interesting career in the business sector. There were times when I had to make tough decisions, but I always looked at them in the context of whether or not I could look at myself in the mirror the next morning. Well, this is a shameful process, and I truly wonder how this Premier can look at himself in the mirror.

As Gordon Gibson so eloquently said:

“Anyone who follows sports knows the importance of detailed rules. Even apparently tiny ones can tilt the playing field and rig the game. To all but the closest students of the game, the tricks are invisible, but they determine who wins.

[5:30 p.m.]

“That is the basic problem of the current referendum on electoral change. Specific details like community representation, what bosses will choose party list MLAs, how many votes you will have and how they will be counted — these essentials are all hidden, to be decided only after the referendum by conflicted politicians. That is too much of a mandate to give to a saint, let alone your average MLA.”

Mr. Gibson goes on to say: “In short, this process is dishonest, misleading and wide open to down-the-road manipulation.”

This sham needs to stop now. Bill 40 needs to be deferred to a committee, full stop. To do anything less is to abdicate our responsibility to voters to ensure this House fully informs the voting public about the choices and implications before them. It’s why this side of the House is trying to keep debate alive, because we believe that is the right thing to do for the electorate.

This should not be about power. It should be about doing what’s right for British Columbians. With that, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to this amendment. I will now sit down.

T. Wat: I rise today to speak in support of the motion that Bill 40 not be read a second time now but that it be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

Many British Columbians have already received their referendum voting package in the mail, and voting is now underway. Unfortunately, many British Columbians are not aware of what the referendum is about.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

This is because this NDP government announced scanty details about this referendum only one day before the spring session ended on May 31. It is a deliberate move on the part of this NDP government and their junior partner not to allow MLAs to debate the referendum at length. This NDP government introduced Bill 40, the Electoral Reform Referendum 2018 Amendment Act, earlier this month, on October 2.

The debate on the referendum now underway should have been done at least in the spring session to generate more public awareness of this referendum. I don’t understand why the debate we have now was not done in the spring session and has to wait until the voting is now underway. Some British Columbians are already voting now. This is extremely disturbing and disappointing.

What is even more disappointing is that every one of the members on this side of the House has stood up and is standing up to debate this referendum bill, and only a few members on the opposite side have spoken on this bill. Come on. If the NDP government and their junior partners are so keen about a proportional representation system, I appeal to each and every one of you to stand in this House, explain to British Columbians the rationale for the three proposed PR options and answer our question: why were no details provided for the three proposed PR systems?

In his response at question period of October 29 — just Monday, yesterday — the Attorney General finally admitted that there’s not enough information provided to British Columbians about the three proposed PR options. “There are three specific systems that are being considered for proportional representation. If they feel they have enough information to vote in favour or against a PR system, then they’re going to do that. If they feel there’s not enough information, then they’ll vote to keep the existing system.”

The Attorney General has finally admitted that this is a gamble for British Columbians. The House Leader for the opposition party said in the House: “Roll the dice, and see what kind of system you end up with” in the end.

I made my decision 30 years ago to emigrate to Canada, over other countries, because of Canadians’ respect for democracy and for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In a democratic country like Canada, our leaders should not have asked voters to make a leap of faith on proportional representation when it is actually a leap in the dark, as described by Vaughn Palmer of the Vancouver Sun.

[5:35 p.m.]

I am so proud to be standing on this side of the House. We have, every one of us, articulated so well the flawed process of the referendum. Members on this side of the House are standing up in this House to point out how the NDP government, together with their junior partners, have been manipulating this referendum to ensure an outcome that would be in their favour, not in the favour of British Columbians.

Essentially, the NDP and their Green Party partners are asking for British Columbians’ blind trust. Trust needs to be earned, not just given. To earn trust, say what you mean and mean what you say. I haven’t seen any evidence of why British Columbians should give their blind trust. Here is why.

Let’s first take a look at how many factors won’t be considered until after the referendum. It totals 29 — a staggering 29 factors. How are voters supposed to make an informed decision when so much remains unknown? We don’t know how many MLAs there will be. We don’t know what’s going to happen to our ridings. We don’t know, for example — for the municipality that Madame Speaker and I represent — if the existing four Richmond ridings will be combined into one riding. One thing I can assure you all is that all ridings will be bigger. The city of Richmond now has four ridings.

Many of my constituents come to my office to seek our assistance on various issues, such as how to enrol their children in school, how to apply for a CareCard, how to apply for a driver’s licence or even how to export their products or services to the market in the Asia-Pacific. As the MLA for my riding, Richmond North Centre, I’m so honoured and privileged, like all of my colleagues in this House, that I can provide assistance to my constituents. Many of them are immigrants who are new to our province.

When a constituent comes to my office for assistance or to meet with me or my CA, we never ask them if they voted for me or not. The MLA constituency office serves all constituents, whether they are NDP, Green, B.C. Liberal or do not belong to any political party. That’s the way it should be, as the elected officials are the servants of British Columbians.

Under the three proposed PR systems, there is a likely chance that the four existing ridings in Richmond will be combined into one riding. Even worse, the neighbouring city of Delta might be lumped into Richmond. My constituents in Richmond North Centre, the same as the constituents in the other three Richmond ridings, would like to know if their riding boundaries will remain the same if any of the three PR options were implemented.

Richmond residents would also like to know if they can continue to vote for their own MLAs or vote for party-appointed candidates. Unfortunately, this NDP government does not provide this information. This NDP government has chosen to reveal as little information as possible, as they are fully aware that if all the information were provided, British Columbians would not be comfortable voting for a change to any of the three proposed PR systems. My constituents are so disappointed that this NDP government has refused to provide maps of the three proposed PR systems.

Without such details, how can the voters support the three proposed PR systems? To call on British Columbians to make a leap of faith on PR is an insult to the intelligence of British Columbians.

We don’t know what constitutes a rural or urban riding. Therefore, we do not know which system will apply. We also don’t know whether there’s going to be a closed or an open list of party candidates. One thing we are sure of: a political party gets to choose the candidates who will eventually become the MLAs that represent their constituents, and the voters are stuck with the party’s favourites. The voters cannot fire the MLAs chosen by the party, even if they are not happy with their performance.

It is really appalling that all the three PR systems proposed by this NDP government are party-based. The three PR options will shift power from people to political parties. Even worse, many critical details will be decided after the vote. Besides all these unknowns, there are no turnout requirements for this referendum. To me, this is not only a sign of the NDP government’s own insecurity; this is a distorted way to manipulate the public and entrench their position.

[5:40 p.m.]

Changing Canada’s constitution requires two-thirds of the provinces representing at least 50 percent of the population to be in favour. Why is British Columbia considering changing our electoral system with what could well be far less support than that?

I hosted and participated in several public meetings about the referendum with my B.C. Liberal colleagues this summer. One of those in attendance asked a very poignant question. She explained at the meeting that her strata council requires two-thirds of the vote to pass a rule change. How come the threshold for electoral reform is much lower than that? I cannot answer that question. I hope that this NDP government, any of the cabinet ministers, can tell her why.

In British Columbia’s two previous referendums on proportional representation, the B.C. Liberal government took steps to achieve a clear mandate. We required a majority of eligible voters and a majority of ridings to vote in favour of any change. Now the previous 60 percent threshold has been replaced with a 50-percent-plus-one threshold. This is the lowest the bar can be set. To vote for a new system that will change the fundamentals of our democracy and to vote for a new system to replace the current system that’s been in use for over 100 years, shouldn’t the threshold be set higher?

This referendum is such a flawed process that even the Vancouver Sun came out with an editorial to urge British Columbians to vote against the NDP’s government’s proposed proportional representation. An editorial published on October 26 was entitled “Vote No in NDP’s Badly Flawed Electoral Reform Referendum.”

The Sun editorial has such an insightful analysis of this referendum that I will spend some time citing the contents to share with this House and all British Columbians who are watching this debate now. The editorial pointed out this is the third time in 13 years that British Columbians have been asked to vote on whether they would like to switch from our first-past-the-post voting system to proportional representation.

The previous two referendums, in 2005 and 2009, failed to win enough support. According to the Sun editorial:

“That in itself irritates many people — that the pro-PR forces, generally members of political movements whose ideas don’t generate enough support to form government under first-past-the-post, won’t take no for an answer. Even though voters have twice rejected PR, they keep re-asking the question in different forms, hoping for a different result.”

The editorial continues to analyze:

“The better question to ask is which voting system produces the best governments. That has no clear answer. There are good and bad governments produced by both voting systems, something even pro-PR advocates admit.”

Listen carefully.

“And given that Canada routinely ranks among the world’s top countries for quality of life — with B.C. one of the top provinces — it’s hard to argue that first-past-the-post has led to chronically poor government.”

I said that I have to spend some time quoting this editorial, because it’s so insightful.

“But the biggest problem with the latest electoral reform referendum is how badly the NDP has handled the issue and how partisan the process has become.

“Previous electoral reform votes were held after citizen assemblies worked for months in a non-partisan manner on how to proceed with electoral reform — a constitutional change. This time, the NDP, which supports PR, handed the issue,” to the Attorney General, “to make up the rules. That’s like allowing one team in a hockey game to also be the referee.”

[5:45 p.m.]

The Vancouver Sun editorial continues, to say:

“Then there is the fact that voters are not being given a clear choice, as in past referendums, about what new voting system would replace first-past-the-post. The ruling politicians, those with the greatest vested interest in the outcome, are telling British Columbians to trust them to work out dozens of details, including what kinds of MLAs will sit in the Legislature and the size and shape of the ridings.

“For example, under mixed-member proportional representation, one of the three systems being considered, 40 percent of MLAs would not be directly elected. They would come from party lists, and we don’t know whether voters would be able to choose them or whether parties would decide after the elections who would fill those seats — possibly insiders and patronage appointees. We have not even been told if the parties will be required to make public their list prior to an election.

“Finally, there is the low threshold the NDP has set to change how we vote, allowing 50 percent plus one in a mail-in ballot with no requirement over how many ballots must be cast to legitimize the referendum. That means a small percentage of the population could change our voting system.”

In conclusion, the Sun editorial says, and I hope members on the other side of the House listen carefully:

“All this is unacceptable. British Columbians should vote no.”

N-o, no. Here you are. The position taken by the Vancouver Sun is similar to the will that’s expressed by members of this side of the House. If this NDP government doesn’t want to listen to members on this side of the House on the referendum, they should at least pay attention to the media’s commentaries.

Let me quote another journalist, Vaughn Palmer: “It’s very hard to explain to people how this is going to work, because the Attorney General has engineered it so we won’t know until after the vote is over.” Another journalist, Jon McComb of CKNW, said: “The NDP, unlike previous attempts to change our voting system, has set the bar pretty low.”

You want to listen to another one? I have another one. Mike Smyth also said on CKNW: “They are setting the bar” — “they” meaning the NDP government and their junior partner, the Green Party — “as low as possible for this referendum to succeed.”

You want to listen to some more? I have many. Gary Mason of the Globe and Mail said: “It’s just so badly flawed, so poorly conceived. Any outcome will be rendered defective and in violation of the fundamental tenets of democracy.”

I have so many that I can keep going on and on, but I don’t think…. I hope the hon. Speaker will give me more time. Give me an hour, then I can read all the commentaries that I want to in this House.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Continue, Member, continue. Take your time.

T. Wat: But since I have so many arguments, I’m going to skip them.

Interjections.

T. Wat: Well, my colleagues will speak more to you if you are interested.

Pay attention to the media commentaries, as I say. At least, the above quotes will give you all a sense of how the media perceives this referendum process and how they perceive this NDP government and the junior Green partners are manipulating this flawed process.

I’m sure British Columbians are watching and listening. I’m sure they will watch the debate between the Premier and the opposition leader. Let the truth be revealed in the debate.

[5:50 p.m.]

I argue that the design of this referendum is obviously very self-serving for the NDP and Green partnership.

I like the facial gesture of the member on the other side of the House.

A government formed under proportional representation will be based on a backroom deal only after British Columbians have cast their votes. This deal has only one goal in mind, which is to establish a partnership in power. So they are grappling for power. This is what this referendum is about.

Under such a partnership, there will be promises of cabinet roles, but there will not be principles of governing. Instead of working on solutions to your problems, PR means that MLAs have to worry first about what is best for their party and the parties they have formed a coalition with. That means the NDP and the Green Party.

Coalition governments just don’t exist very long — certainly not four years, as we are used to here. This instability is reflected in the length of government mandates. MLAs are forced to be shortsighted. Don’t forget that the NDP government also got formed for the last three terms. NDP governments also survive under the first-past-the-post system. It’s because you’re giving in to the demands from the Green junior partner. You want to survive. That’s why you give in.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member.

T. Wat: As I said, coalition governments don’t exist very long. This instability is reflected in the length of government mandates. MLAs are forced to be shortsighted. In order to form a government, parties are forced to make deals with each other. It’s like what’s happening right now between the NDP government and their junior partners. This will become the norm.

Just look around the world. In cases around the world, this has led to enormous power being given to fringe parties and extremist groups. It is not difficult to find examples of coalition governments where religious, populist or even racist parties hold sway.

Interjection.

T. Wat: Just wait. Be patient. I’m going to elaborate.

The system doesn’t reward consensus or compromise, and there’s none of the give and take that happens behind the scenes in the large parties, like the B.C. NDP or the B.C. Liberals. Fringe groups are empowered and encouraged not to compromise. They are instead incentivized to dig in. What you get is hard-line parties setting the agenda.

The system lends itself to chaos and confusion. In Germany, 91 of the 94 MPs were elected from party lists. This is a party with racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and xenophobic tendencies. They are linked to neo-Nazism. Under PR, they have become the largest opposition party in Germany.

This is not fearmongering, as the other side keeps saying. This is actually happening in countries that use party-based proportional representation systems.

I had the opportunity during the summer to visit New Zealand and to listen to what people there had to say about their electoral system. It was a perfect time for discussion, as New Zealand just had an election in 2017 using a mixed-member system, as proposed by this NDP government and their junior partner, the Green Party.

The balance of power was held by populist, anti-immigrant party New Zealand First, with less than 8 percent of the vote, and rejected en masse for their extreme views. A backroom deal was negotiated between this party and the minority government, like the backroom deal negotiated between the NDP government and the Green Party. Such a political arrangement was certainly not what New Zealanders voted for.

The leader of New Zealand First, who holds extreme views, was rejected by his own constituents. After the election, he was appointed by his party and became the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in New Zealand.

[5:55 p.m.]

Just imagine. Somebody who was rejected by his constituents can become the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Is this democracy? This is an example of how, under proportional representation, parties can appoint someone from their own list to represent constituents without the member actually being voted in by their constituents. This is the case in each of the three proportional representation systems proposed by this government.

Right now I’m wholly accountable to my constituents in the Richmond North Centre riding. I answer to them first. Under proportional representation, voters instead will be represented by unelected MLAs answerable to nobody but their parties. As over half of the constituents in my riding are immigrants of Chinese descent, we could not afford the rise of anti-immigrant parties or extremist parties. Even in such a beautiful province as British Columbia, we are not immune to racism. Any one of the three proposed PR options could invite anti-immigration groups to have seats in our Legislature.

You don’t think that could happen here? British Columbia actually currently has 27 political parties registered already. We need to consider this list exists under a system where the majority of those parties are never likely to win a seat, under the current system. But when we implement a PR system, it will only increase the number of political parties in our province. It’s one thing to laugh about the B.C. Excalibur Party, but I and the majority of British Columbians don’t want to see them given a single seat in the Legislature any more than I think we would like to see the Communist Party MLA given a seat.

Let me quote you a statement from the Communist Party of B.C. on June 10 of this year. “While PR does not guarantee more positive government policies…it increases the chances to elect Communists.” Another statement on the same day says: “The policy of the Communist Party in Canada has always been to support a mixed-member PR system.”

How about the Vancouver Island Party? I wonder how many members from the Island on the other side of this House would jump ship and join this party if the proportional representation electoral system was in place. Let me quote from Victoria News about this Vancouver Island Party. “Vancouver Island Party lays out its declaration of independence from B.C.” Just think for a second about our future Legislature comprising MLAs from several fringe parties focusing on a single issue.

Now let’s look at another fringe party, the Cultural Action Party. In an article published on October 16, 2016, in the Vancouver Sun headlined “Anti-Immigrant Party Registers for B.C. Election,” the Sun reported that the leader of the Cultural Action Party, Brad Salzberg, often puts out news releases against the influence of Chinese culture and Chinese-Canadian figures in B.C. In 2014, this party leader led a campaign to get a well-known University of B.C. history professor fired. He is Dr. Henry Yu, who has lectured and written about politics and racism in B.C.

Many of our MLAs in this House know who Dr. Henry Yu is. He was the co-chair of the former B.C. government’s Legacy Initiatives Advisory Council that was established after the apology by former Premier Christy Clark in the Legislature to the Chinese-Canadian community for the historic wrongs committed by past provincial governments over 100 years ago.

I have also heard from leaders from the Chinese community. David Choi is the national chair of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians, representing all major Chinese groups all over Canada. He voices opposition on behalf of all the members of his organization. He said that this referendum is not open or transparent. By the way, David Choi, together with Dr. Henry Yu, who was a target of the Cultural Action Party, were the co-chairs of the Legacy Initiatives Advisory Council.

[6:00 p.m.]

Instead of a fair and transparent referendum process, we are getting a rush job that has only served to create confusion and anger in our communities. I don’t think the majority of British Columbians want to see any credibility given to separatist or racist parties, but that’s how these parties all start. In countries like Germany and Hungary, nationalist, extremist parties have gained a foothold because of proportional representation, and in both countries, their influence increases with every passing election.

The on-line survey that informed the referendum was created by four academics that the NDP had sworn to secrecy. Three of those academics felt the end result of the survey was biased and unfair. The Attorney General, who is a so-called neutral arbiter of the process, campaigned in favour of PR, and his own staff had input into the referendum process. Both the engagement survey….

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

T. Wat: I see that my time is running out, Mr. Speaker, and you’re not giving me an extra 30 minutes.

I’m in support of the motion.

G. Kyllo: It’s always a great occasion to be able to rise to my feet and speak on behalf of the hard-working constituents of Shuswap.

As we start talking about Bill 40, on proportional referendum, I think it’s really important to note that, I think, for all of us here in the chamber, we’re all very proud Canadians — Canadians, No. 1, and No. 2, proud British Columbians. I think that if we have a look at where Canada sits internationally, we’re one of the most amazing countries on the globe. If we have a look at all the provinces across Canada, B.C. is one of the most amazing provinces in all of Canada. So when we have a look at the current electoral system, first-past-the-post, I think it’s served British Columbia and Canada extremely well.

There’s no political system that’s perfect. I think we can all realize that. But at the same time, we have to, I think, take note of what’s actually worked well for us, the fact that Canada is one of the most sought-after countries on the globe and the fact that B.C. is one of the most amazing places in Canada to live. I think we can hold our hat and actually hold in high regard the current electoral system that we have in our province.

I know that when I rise in this House, I’m very proud to speak on behalf of the hard-working constituents of Shuswap. We’ve got an amazing, diverse number of communities around the Shuswap, and they’re all very concerned about this current bill and the form in which it’s actually being brought forward to British Columbia.

I know that my colleagues have gone into great depth at explaining some of the detail around the previous referendums on electoral reform. But I think if we can go back to both referendums, in 2005 and 2009, what was important was that there was no politics involved or employed in those processes.

An all-citizens’ assembly was actually created. I believe 150 or 160 British Columbians were actually chosen, selected to go out and canvass British Columbia and to have a look at different forms of proportional representation around the globe and to land on a specific form. Because it’s important….

When you put a question before the electorate, they need to have the opportunity to clearly be able to differentiate between the current system, which has served us extremely well for about 150 years in our province, and a new form. Whatever that new form of proportional representation is, I think it’s very important for British Columbians to have a good, clear understanding of exactly what form that is.

As was done in 2005 and 2009, an all-citizens’ assembly actually went out, and they landed on a single form of proportional representation that they felt would be best serving of the potential for consideration of residents of British Columbia. That was the form of single transferrable vote.

[6:05 p.m.]

The referendum back in 2005 failed. On the 2009 referendum, there was additional work that was done, because British Columbians, in the 2005 referendum, had indicated that they wanted to see specifically how the new form of proposed proportional representation would actually impact them in their home ridings.

Elections B.C. were engaged, and they actually created the electoral maps so that when voters went to the polls to vote in the 2009 referendum, they could clearly see where their community resided. They could have a good understanding of the riding boundaries and see how this new proposed form of proportional representation, single transferable vote, would actually stack up to the current system of first-past-the-post.

There were a couple of thresholds that were put in place, and I think it’s important for British Columbians to realize and acknowledge the fact that if you’re going to be making a decision on something as fundamental as the way that we elect our governments in this province, voters have to put forward a super majority. If it was based on just a simple majority of 50 percent plus 1, you could literally do the vote one day, and a week later, do a vote and have a different outcome. So it’s extremely important that the threshold was set at 60 percent.

If we can give consideration to the NDP party…. Even the NDP party, if they want to change their constitution or the bylaws that govern the way that their party actually functions, requires a two-thirds majority.

In the Societies Act of British Columbia — again, I think we’re all very fortunate, and we certainly receive the benefit of non-profit societies who do some great work in the province — there is a reason why, if a non-profit society wants to change its constitution or bylaws, it also requires a two-thirds majority.

The reason for that is such that if there is going to be a change, you want to make sure that the majority of the members of the society — or in the case of the NDP, the majority of the members — clearly want to change the direction that their party or their society is moving forward in. That was one of the reasons why the super majority requirement of 60 percent in order to move forward, in the past referendum, was put in place.

The other piece is…. If you have a look at the huge geographic diversity of our province, we have ridings…. My col­league from Vancouver–False Creek — I remember him sharing with me that he can actually travel around his riding in his wheelchair in about two and half hours. Yet we have other ridings in this province that are over 100,000 square kilometres.

If we look back to where the whole term “riding” came from, back in the British parliamentary system, the term riding took into consideration how far you could actually ride on horseback in a given day. It certainly took into consideration the population — the number of constituents you’d serve — but it also took into consideration the geographic nature of your riding and the ability of an MLA or an elected official to actually provide service to a set number of constituents.

In both the 2005 and the 2009 referendum, there was a requirement that for the referendum to pass, if there was going to be a change in the way that we elect our governments in British Columbia, it required the passing of the vote in at least 60 percent of the ridings.

I think that most people who would put some logic to the rationale around a referendum would justify and say that that actually makes sense. If we’re going to fundamentally change the way that we elect governments in our province, we want to make sure that there is confidence of British Columbians and that there’s a mandate to look, potentially, at changing.

As we know, the referendums failed, both in 2005 and in 2009. The additional information that was provided in the referendum in 2009 actually reduced the support for proportional representation.

Here we are in 2018, with the referendum before us.

Now, back in 2017, when I was on the hustings, on the doorstep talking and engaging with constituents in Shuswap, I did not hear one question, not a single concern, from any of my constituents about electoral reform.

But here we are now, with this government that’s been cobbled together with the NDP and the three Green Party members, and we would ask ourselves: what problem are we trying to solve, and why is this referendum being put before British Columbians so hastily? There certainly was no requirement for this referendum to come forward with the haste by which it has.

[6:10 p.m.]

The bill that’s before the House actually sets out, should this current referendum pass, that the referendum would not come into play until the fall of 2021. So should the NDP have a look at their political support in the province and decide to call a snap election, it would actually be under the current system of first-past-the-post.

I think the political strategy around this is that should the NDP have a look and their popularity is failing, with some of the negative tax implications they’ve been bringing forward to British Columbia and some of the negative consequences we know it’s going to have on both the economy and jobs in our province…. If they’re pushed up against a fall 2021 election and they see themselves being in the opposition benches, well, in that case, they’d be happy to see an election in the fall of 2021 under, potentially, a form of proportional representation.

It’s not because this is in the best interests of British Columbia or that British Columbians are even looking for this referendum, and there’s certainly no requirement that this referendum was thrust upon British Columbians as quickly as it has been. This referendum could be taking place next year, in 2019, or in 2020, which would still be a year before the next scheduled election, which is for the fall of 2021.

You’ve got to ask yourself: why is the current government pushing so quickly for this referendum? Well, I think we only need to look as far as the three Green Party members and have a look at what their political motivation is. Their single-largest opportunity to increase their seat count in the House, to increase the influence that they have on the province of British Columbia and the current government is to move forward with a form of proportional representation.

We know that the Green Party won, I think, about 15 to 17 percent of the vote across the province. Under any form of PR, they would have a seat count between probably 14 and 15 seats. So this is political manipulation at its finest. The three current Green Party members have more influence on the future direction of our government and our province than the B.C. Liberals do with 42 seats.

That is the very thing that I think most British Columbians are most concerned about — where you have representation of a very small portion of the province having disproportionate influence on the future direction of our government. I find that absolutely offensive.

So what have the NDP and Greens done? They have reduced the requirement for the passing of a referendum to the bare-minimum majority of 50 percent plus one. They’ve disregarded the needs of the rest of the province of British Columbia, largely rural B.C., by taking away the threshold and the requirement for the referendum to pass in 60 percent of the ridings. And they don’t even have a minimum voter turnout.

This could’ve been done a lot more cost-effectively by putting this referendum in conjunction with a provincial election. But they’ve chosen to spend $14½ million of British Columbians’ money by moving forward with this mail-in ballot, and there’s no minimum requirement in order for it to pass.

Let’s think about that for a second. Let’s assume that 30 percent of British Columbians take the time to try and understand this complicated ballot…. And that’s another whole series of comments that we can get into here in a little bit.

If 30 percent of British Columbians mail in their ballots and, heaven forbid, 50 percent plus one actually vote in support of a change of our electoral system, we could literally have barely over 15 percent of our province change the way that we elect our governments forevermore. I find that extremely offensive. It’s got political manipulation all over it. It’s something that I certainly cannot support.

When we have a look at this current referendum that’s being thrust upon British Columbians, we know there are 28 different questions and details that have not been answered. When I was out knocking on doors on Saturday…. Actually, I had my 4½-year-old granddaughter Kylie with me. She’s a great “door-schnocker,” as she likes to call herself.

[6:15 p.m.]

When we were actually engaging with constituents, the large majority did not understand exactly what the question was going to be — the three forms that have been put forward on the ballot, two of which have never been utilized anywhere on the globe. Well, there’s an interesting thought. Wow, there’s something we want to hang our hat on. Let’s vote for something that’s never been used anywhere in the world.

A leap of faith, as the Premier says. Well, we know that is a leap into the dark. I’m telling you, there is no hope or chance for British Columbians to put that much faith in the current government, with the amount of political meandering that’s actually been undertaken.

With that, I’ll take my seat.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers….

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: We were debating the amendment.

[6:20 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 42
Cadieux	de Jong	Bond
Polak	Wilkinson	Lee
Stone	Coleman	Wat
Bernier	Thornthwaite	Paton
Ashton	Barnett	Yap
Martin	Davies	Kyllo
Sullivan	Isaacs	Morris
Stilwell	Ross	Oakes
Johal	Redies	Rustad
Milobar	Sturdy	Clovechok
Shypitka	Hunt	Throness
Tegart	Stewart	Sultan
Gibson	Reid	Letnick
Thomson	Larson	Foster
NAYS — 43
Chouhan	Kahlon	Begg
Brar	Heyman	Donaldson
Mungall	Bains	Beare
Chen	Popham	Trevena
Sims	Chow	Kang
Simons	D’Eith	Routley
Ma	Elmore	Dean
Routledge	Singh	Leonard
Darcy	Simpson	Robinson
Farnworth	Horgan	James
Eby	Dix	Ralston
Mark	Fleming	Conroy
Fraser	Chandra Herbert	Rice
Furstenau	Weaver	Olsen
	Glumac

S. Cadieux: I’d like to take my place in the debate on Bill 40, but noting the hour, I will reserve my space and move adjournment of the debate.

S. Cadieux moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Before I move adjournment of the House, I want to say that it is nice to see the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke back in this chamber. [Applause.]

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until Wednesday, October 31, at 1:30.

The House adjourned at 6:24 p.m.