Orders of the Day

Hon. D. Eby: In this chamber, I call second reading, Bill 57, Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2018. In the little House, I call Committee of the Whole, Bill 45, Budget Measures Implementation (Speculation and Vacancy Tax) Act, 2018.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 57 — ATTORNEY GENERAL STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

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

Bill 57 amends a number of statutes. Amendments to the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act continue to make improvements to this act. The act will give the civil resolution tribunal jurisdiction over motor vehicle accident disputes up to $50,000 for accidents that occur on or after April 1, 2019.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

The act also grants the tribunal exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether a person injured in a motor vehicle accident has suffered a minor injury which will result in a limit on their damages for pain and suffering.

Although the act has general public support and was unanimously adopted by all parties in the Legislature, it will be legally challenged. It is therefore essential that we make the act as clear as possible. The proposed amendments make additional technical changes to the act in order to clarify provisions and close potential loopholes. None of the proposed amendments change the underlying policy of the act.

Access to justice is a primary objective of class action lawsuits. Amendments in this bill to the Class Proceedings Act will further this objective by ensuring that at least 50 percent of awards and settlement funds that cannot be paid to class members will be provided to the Law Foundation of British Columbia to support a wide range of access to justice programs and initiatives.

Class proceedings addressing harm suffered by Indigenous people will be exempted from this new scheme, ensuring that 100 percent of undistributed funds remain available for programs and initiatives, specifically benefiting Indigenous people.

Dr. Peter German’s report Dirty Money: An Independent Review of Money Laundering in Lower Mainland Casinos makes 48 recommendations to address money laundering in B.C.’s gambling industry. Government has accepted all recommendations in principle from Dr. Peter German’s report.

Bill 57 makes three amendments to the Gaming Control Act to address the intent of four of the report’s recommendations. These amendments provide new authorities to the gaming policy and enforcement branch to begin the process of creating a more independent regulator.

[1:35 p.m.]

Finally, amendments to the Legal Profession Act will provide the framework for the regulation of new legal service providers called licensed paralegals. These amendments are intended to increase access to, and choice in, the provision of legal services, particularly in areas of underserved or unmet need.

With some limited exceptions, the Legal Profession Act restricts the practice of law to lawyers. The amendments will expand who may engage in the practice of law to licensed paralegals, who will be permitted to provide a limited scope of legal services to the public. Licensed paralegals will be regulated by the Law Society of British Columbia.

The amendments will apply the framework of the Legal Profession Act to licensed paralegals and will provide authority for the Law Society to establish the scope of practice within the practice of law of licensed paralegals or a class of licensed paralegals.

Additional amendments will also clarify the interaction between insurance legislation and the Legal Profession Act, which authorizes the Law Society to operate an insurance program. The amendments provide that the Law Society is not an insurer and is not carrying on an insurance business in respect of the indemnity program that is operated by the Law Society for its members — both of those sets of amendments coming at the request of the benchers of the Law Society of British Columbia.

With that, hon. Speaker, I look forward to hearing what other members have to say about this miscellaneous statutes amendment bill.

M. Lee: Let me rise also to speak to Bill 57. I appreciate the Attorney General and his staff for the briefing that myself and the member for Richmond-Steveston, my colleague, were able to obtain a mere 80 minutes ago. That gave me the opportunity to have a quick lunch and to formulate some thoughts, which I wish to share with this chamber.

Let me, first of all, start by going to section 4 of the bill, which does expand the provision of legal services in our province to include licensed paralegals. This, of course, as the Attorney General has just referred to, was the outcome of the many reports and considerations that have been put forward, including by the Law Society of British Columbia. I appreciate that this has been the outcome of a particular set of recommendations.

We all know that we can do better in this province in terms of ensuring that all British Columbians have a greater access to justice, and establishing a new category of legal practitioners who are not lawyers and allowing them to do a limited amount of work to assist individuals who are seeking guidance and navigation through our judicial system will be important, at least to continue to find greater ways to promote greater access to our justice system.

Certainly, in the visits I’ve been able to do in the Attorney General critic role, I have seen some of the important work that our family law justice access centres and our First Nations courts have done as examples of ways to enable and open up our justice system to people who typically have a hard time finding their way through our judicial system, particularly in the areas of family law, employment law, debtor or creditor arrangements, as well as appearing in front of various tribunals like small claims matters and the like.

As we look at this, I know that the Attorney General, in his mandate letter, has an important directive by the Premier to consider our judicial system and improving our access to justice in this province. This, I expect, is one initiative that the Attorney General will bring forward, and I look forward to working with him and seeing what else he is considering to come forward with, on this.

[1:40 p.m.]

As we know, there have been many leaders in the judicial community who have put forward important statements and reviews of the challenges with our justice system. Len Doust, in 2011, stated in particular, around our legal aid system, that it continues to fail those individuals and families who are most needy of assistance in our justice system and in our communities. A quote from his report, back in 2011, indicated that it’s been unanimous, in terms of the view that:

“There are many people who are left behind by legal aid in British Columbia and that it is the most disadvantaged members of our community who are suffering the most as a result of inadequate legal aid, the very people for whom the service was created.”

He went on to say:

“It is always important to remember that the people applying for legal aid are often dealing with the legal system for the first time and are unsure and intimidated by the process. They require patience and understanding in explaining the process in guiding them through the legal system.

“Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of British Columbia residents are struggling with a range of problems and do so without the benefit of a lawyer or qualified assistance. They face hearings, trials, judges, lawyers and legal documents alone, putting their children, their mental and physical health, their economic independence and their personal safety at risk.”

More recently, Chief Justice Robert Bauman has said that it is obviously important and worth considering this opportunity, in terms of expanding legal service providers, as the Law Society has recommended, given the ongoing systemic problems.

In December 2014, the Law Society unanimously adopted a task force report that recommended that the Law Society seek this amendment to the Legal Profession Act: authorizing it to establish and regulate new classes of legal service providers in order to address unmet and unserviced legal needs.

That report had noted that as much as 85 percent of people with legal problems were not getting the assistance of a lawyer. Many of these people, of course, were left to solve their legal problems on their own. This has been the challenge that our court system has seen with self-represented litigants — individuals who choose to address their legal issues and come forward in the court system.

I think it has been, as acknowledged by many, a burden which is continuing to lead to longer and more prolonged time periods, waiting periods, to get through our court system, to get into the courtroom to have matters heard. So this particular initiative will help to address some of that.

The Law Society, in their reporting, has found that about 66 percent of British Columbians experienced at least one serious and difficult-to-resolve problem in the three years preceding a 2009 Ipsos-Reid survey. They also found that, despite this, 70 percent of the respondents to that survey seek no assistance to try and resolve the problem, preferring to go it alone, as they say, rather than to seek the services of a legal professional. The three main reasons for seeking no assistance that were cited were: legal assistance was not actually required or necessary, legal assistance was too costly for the issue, and legal assistance was too difficult for the plaintiff to access.

Of the 30 percent who did seek legal assistance for their problems, only half sought assistance from lawyers directly. That should be, actually, 30 percent who did seek assistance with their legal problems — only half of those sought assistance from a lawyer. Again, some of those who sought help from someone who was not a lawyer did so because they had a desire to avoid the court, as well as the expectation that non-lawyers are cheaper than lawyers. That’s probably true, given the state of our legal aid tariff.

However, expanding legal services to non-lawyers is not the only way to expand access to justice. As I said, if there’s an unmet need for legal services, lawyers should have the opportunity to review the way in which they can offer services to groups.

[1:45 p.m.]

Of course, I must acknowledge that many members of the bar in this province do great service for British Columbians by taking on countless hours of pro bono work — some of that work they do which, clearly, they’re not billing for. Many lawyers are doing that on a consultative basis. They do it in their communities with not-for-profit organizations in the roles that they play. But we need to continue to find ways to make our legal aid access system work well, through legal aid, for example.

I think that as we look at the expansion of the consideration of non-lawyer legal service providers, we need to address and ensure that the public is protected. I expect that one of the key areas that the Law Society will first consider further will be in the family law area. We need to ensure that the people who are providing these legal services in that area, for example, are properly trained, are regulated, are carrying liability insurance in circumstances where the absence of such safeguards would clearly create an unacceptable level of risk for our province.

The Law Society had acknowledged that once this regulatory scheme was provided for under this bill, they will continue to develop the credentialing and regulatory scheme for this change — and that the in-depth work that the Law Society will be responsible for conducting under this bill will be moving forward to identify the specific types of legal services that the public requires and the type of training that is necessary to provide those services in a competent manner.

The original proposal from the Law Society had nearly 20 areas where they proposed the new class of legal practitioner would be trained in. For example, in the area of family law, these would include effective interviewing skills; triage intake and assessment; dealing with families in crisis; screening for family violence and power imbalances; cultural competence training; effective advocacy; enforcing court orders; business and practice management fundamentals; identifying when to get a lawyer involved; referring a client for independent legal advice; and dealing with unrepresented parties.

Having said that, the proposal to move forward with a new class of legal practitioners is not entirely a new concept. The Law Society of Ontario has approved in principle a new licence that would permit paralegals to provide some form of family law legal services in the areas of custody, access, simple child support cases, restraining orders, enforcement and simple and joint divorces without property.

Clearly, as we look at other jurisdictions, this is something that law societies working with government are moving forward to progress. Over the border, our immediate neighbours down south, Washington state, have had a similar program that allows for a new class of legal practitioners. We’re seeing that in many of the states in the U.S., recognizing, of course, they have a different system. But they have a similar approach in order to improve access to justice.

The legislation also sets out the fact that the Law Society, as I mentioned, will have control over and responsibility for determining what this new class of legal practitioner will be responsible for. The Law Society will have oversight on that.

That’s certainly something that at committee stage on this bill, we’ll want to have some discussion about, in terms of what the expectation of government will be on that. They will also have the ability, of course, to designate what a new class of legal service provider would be and the scope of practice for that class.

[1:50 p.m.]

I believe that it’s important, as the government has acknow­ledged here in this legislation, that it is the Law Society of British Columbia that is best positioned to regulate legal service providers. They are the ones, after all, who know best how to regulate their profession. I say that because it is surprising that in contrast, as we’ve seen under Bill 49 in this House, this government has taken an opposite approach where they have taken professional governance out of the hands of professional engineers and professional foresters, for example, under that bill. They put in place a superintendent to provide oversight on codes of ethics, professional responsibilities and training and conflicts of interest.

These are matters that the Law Society of British Col­um­bia administers for all lawyers in this province. Here we have a situation where under one bill, this bill, the government recognizes the importance of the Law Society for determining the scope of practice, the new categories of legal practitioners who are non-lawyers who might provide legal services in this province — that they clearly have that responsibility.

Of course, it’s very important that this government continue to recognize the opportunity, the ability and the confidence that the members of the public of British Columbia have in lawyers governing themselves under the Law Society of British Columbia with some external lay members, as there would be in this effort as well, recognizing that public component. We have lawyers as a professional class in this province that continue to have the confidence of British Columbians and this government.

Yet this government says to engineers and professional foresters: “We don’t have the same confidence in your ability to govern yourselves. We don’t have the same confidence in your ability to govern your ethics, your conflicts, your training. We need you to give us competence certificates for projects every step of the way.” I am, in one respect, pleased to see the continued confidence that this government has in the legal profession of this province, but reluctantly, I’m sorry to see that the government does not have the same confidence in other professionals in our province, like professional engineers and foresters.

I would like to go on, though, to say that the Attorney General, in this Bill 57, has taken the opportunity to address the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act — which, of course, a few months ago we had the opportunity to review in this House. Members on this side included the member for Richmond-Steveston as the lead critic for ICBC.

In this bill, there are a number of amendments being proposed. Again, as I learned just a little over an hour ago in terms of the briefing, many of them address some potential transitions and gaps in the tribunal act to deal with this new responsibility that the tribunal will have in making determinations and adjudications around minor injury. This does give me the opportunity, though, to comment on the nature of that determination that this government has provided authority to the tribunal to do.

As we looked at in terms of the Civil Resolution Tribunal Amendment Act, the act that governs the determination under the Insurance Vehicle Regulation, what this government did — on the Friday before the Remembrance Day long weekend, the Friday after this House rose — was to table and issue that regulation.

That regulation expanded the definition of “minor injury” to include brain injury and concussion. This is, to say the least, a grave concern that we would have, with the increased jurisdiction of the civil resolution tribunal. Already we’ve had concerns about the competence and the ability of that tribunal to deal with matters of personal injury, matters that include psychiatric and psychological conditions, as well as pain, and now brain injury and concussion.

[1:55 p.m.]

This is a concern because, after all, back in the committee stage, in May of 2018 — in answers to questions from my colleague from Richmond-Steveston and myself — the Attorney General said that no individuals with brain injuries or with broken bones are subject to the limit on pain and suffering awards or the minor injury definition.

When I asked, “Can the Attorney General at least confirm that the way that the minor injury definition is today” — that is, back in May, when we were passing the original legislation — “will not be extended in such a way that will be prejudicial to British Columbians?” the Attorney’s response was: “The member will know that regulation-making powers are constrained by the statute itself. In this case, this is the regulation-making power in relation to minor injuries.” This is the concern that we have with this government. It passes major legislation and then puts it all into the regulation-making power of this government through cabinet.

The concern that we had at the time was whether the minor injury definition would be expanded. The Attorney General clearly indicated that it would not be, yet he has done that through regulation. Now we’re seeing some adjustments, let’s say, in this bill, in terms of how the tribunal will function to deal with minor injuries. Yet the major concern that we should be dealing with and addressing in this House is the greater expansion of “minor injury” to include brain injury and concussion.

I’m under the understanding — when I talk to those who deal with claimants who have minor injuries, defined in this way — that this government has effectively included up to 90 percent of all injuries that we would see claimed to ICBC under the definition of “minor injury” now. That means that 10 percent of injuries are not included, but this is the scale and scope of what this minor injury definition has been included to provide.

The Attorney General went on to say that the regulation-making power is restricted by very strict specific directions, and he would assure myself, at the time, that “if government attempted to put a more serious injury in by regulation that was outside the jurisdiction that this section sets out, it would be challenged immediately by plaintiff’s counsel.”

Well, I would suggest that as we debate this Bill 57 and talk about amendments to how the tribunal should function, and whether its decision, under section 2 of this bill, really gets to a point where “a party alleges that a matter in a proceeding before the court relates to a minor injury…the court must stay the proceeding until the tribunal determines,” in the case of an accident claim, “whether an injury is a minor injury….” This bill merely strengthens, of course, what was intended by the government in the first place, which is to take the determination of minor injuries out of the hands of the courts.

Judiciaries have been trained, through case law in this province and in this country, to deal with the complexity of injuries to British Columbians, the complexity that would include brain injuries and concussions. Many of us, including people that we work with here, know that brain injuries and concussions can have implications and effects, even though they may not be determined or evident in the first short period of time that this government is putting on these new claimants, which is a four-month period, under this regulation. They may show up later.

[2:00 p.m.]

We have a test around serious impairment. We will have situations where, because the burden of proof is on the claimant himself or herself to demonstrate serious impairment, we’re putting British Columbians in a very tough position to deal with what, I think, all members of this House recognize.

When we talk about mental health, when there’s been a physical trauma to the brain and those who are continuing to suffer the effects of that, surely we should all be sensitive to how we’re dealing with that — not suggesting, as the regulation is doing now, sending those claimants to the designated medical or health practitioner to determine whether that individual has a minor injury. This is under a very tight time frame, 28 days, to put out a report under a very low fee schedule.

I understand that last year, there were 63,000 minor injury claims that went to ICBC — 63,000 potential minor injury claims that now this tribunal is going to be faced with, now with an expanded definition. When we had that debate and discussion in committee stage around minor injury with the Attorney General, he indicated that if the government oversteps the act by expanding the definition, that would be, in his estimation, subject to immediate challenge by plaintiff’s counsel.

This government is proceeding at a time when we need to continue to encourage access for justice. I appreciate that the civil resolution tribunal — which was brought forward under the previous government, under the leadership of my colleague from Prince George–Valemount — was done for specific purposes, with a specific mandate, dealing with strata disputes in the way that it has.

Encouraging legal providers who are not lawyers to come forward in a restrained and specific area to provide legal services is another example where we can increase access to justice. This, though, is not that. This is increasing the role of government and ICBC overtop of the minor injury definition and determination in a way that is highly prejudicial to British Columbians. The way that this government brought forward that regulation will be called into question, as in the words of the Attorney General.

This will merely block more of the work of the tribunal. This is not what anybody wants to see. We want to see people get access to justice to deal with their issues, their minor injury claims, to be able to get the kind of care and attention they need to get that whole situation of a traumatic accident behind them. But this isn’t going to do that — not if the government is acting beyond its scope of the act and introducing something that….

As I understand it, when consulting with various associations — psychiatric, psychological and others dealing with mental health — the Attorney General had said to them, as well, directly that brain injury would not be included in the minor injury definition. I think this government needs to explain to British Columbians why they’ve gone ahead and done this.

I think that as we look at…. I’ve commented on the health care practitioner concept that’s in the regulation itself. This is to assist the tribunal under its adjusted responsibilities in this bill. Health practitioners include acupuncturists, chiropractors, dentists, massage therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, counsellors and kinesiologists.

There is now going to be a new roster, just like under Bill 49. You will be certified by the government with a stamp of approval by the government that you are in a position to deal with minor injury. But these are complex matters, and I think that regulation is merely making it harder for British Columbians to seek the kind of treatment they need and the determination they need under this new regime.

[2:05 p.m.]

I see that my time is coming to a close here on this particular bill. Let me just say that I look at two other parts of the bill with encouraging greater funds to go to the Law Foundation of British Columbia. I think that that’s an important area to consider. We don’t know, from a class action proceeding, how many of those funds would not typically go to the claimants who are part of that class action — those that are unclaimed, in terms of these amounts. I understand from the briefing that that could be in the thousands of dollars or it could be in the millions of dollars. It just raises the question as to what else this government is doing to encourage access to justice.

The work of the Law Foundation is very important. I certainly sat on a board of a public legal education organization, promoting access to justice — the Justice Education Society. They received, for many years, both from government and from the Law Foundation, important funding to move forward with their initiatives.

That’s just an example of an organization that does good work in this area and, I presume, will have benefit — not that organization necessarily but other organizations alongside of it that continue to promote access to justice and provide the tools and resources to the public to help them navigate through the justice system. I hope to see other resources that this government is prepared to dedicate towards access to justice, beyond just this undefined amount.

A. Olsen: I was somewhat prepared today for a short speech, and then the member went and used the entire time. So now I am….

Interjection.

A. Olsen: I used up the time yesterday.

It’s my pleasure today to stand and speak to Bill 57. I do listen with intent to the member for Vancouver-Langara, as he does have some important insights that I think…. I look forward to hearing him ask the questions to the minister during committee stage and engaging as is necessary. Certainly the member has much more depth of field than I do on this file, so I thank him for the comments that he just made.

This miscellaneous bill makes a number of important amendments to four key pieces of legislation, with the purpose of furthering the direction that this government has been taking in improving the state of ICBC’s finances and in dealing with money laundering in B.C.’s casinos.

The civil resolution tribunal, or the CRT, is an on-line tribunal that resolves small claims. Changes to the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act will give the tribunal jurisdiction over motor vehicle accident disputes up to $50,000 and further enable them to make determinations of whether or not an injury qualifies as a minor injury.

This builds upon legislation that was unanimously passed by this House, in this chamber, during the spring sitting earlier this year in the Civil Resolution Tribunal Amendment Act, which seeks to remedy the substantial changes facing the Insurance Corporation of B.C., or ICBC.

Legislation governing class action proceedings in British Columbia is also being shifted by the act before us that we’re debating today. The amendments to the Class Proceedings Act require that at least 50 percent of undistributed awards, the settlement funds from class action suits, be disbursed to the Law Foundation of B.C., a non-profit foundation that funds projects and programs in the province in areas of legal education, research, aid and more.

Currently undistributed awards and settlement funds from class action suits are disbursed through the legal convention of Cy Pres, or as near as possible. In other words, funds that may have been awarded in a proceeding relating to a medical class action might be allocated to a medical foundation to ensure that unclaimed money still supports the cause that it was awarded to. The Law Foundation of B.C., with its broad mandate to improve access to justice in our province, will now receive a portion of these unclaimed funds.

[2:10 p.m.]

Importantly, class action suits addressing harm suffered primarily by Indigenous people are exempt from this allocation of funds. The entirety of unclaimed funds allocated to Indigenous people in class action proceedings will instead continue to be managed according to Cy Pres in an effort to ensure that the benefit of funds is felt by Indigenous people. I think that it’s important. I’d like to hear, and I’ll be asking, what level of consultation has been taken with Indigenous folks on this.

When there’s not a change being made, I can understand that perhaps there’s a feeling that there isn’t a need to have much consultation. But if there is a change being made, perhaps it’s time to have the conversation about whether or not that is still working for people. So I’d be interested to find out more about that, and we’ll be asking more about it at committee stage.

The third act adjusted by this legislation before us is the Gaming Control Act, one that has been the source of a lot of conversation in British Columbia over the past number of months. It continues to enact the recommendations of Peter German’s report into money laundering released earlier this year. It enables the gaming policy and enforcement branch to issue directives without ministerial approval, further strengthening the authority of the regulator to respond to money-laundering concerns. It also allows the gaming policy and enforcement branch to ban, in consultation with the RCMP, individuals suspected to have been engaged in money laundering in British Columbia casinos.

Finally, this act also amends the Legal Profession Act by establishing licensed paralegals as practitioners capable of delivering legal services. Certainly, the member for Vancouver-Langara highlighted, I think, the importance of being able to expand legal services in this province so that people are able to get the kind of advice and the kind of support that they need as they go through the process.

I remain interested to see how the scope of their practice will be established in regulation, in the regulatory body. But I think that this is an important move that will broaden access to legal services for British Columbians. There are also additional amendments to provide clarification to the insurance program that the Law Society of B.C. offers to its members.

Overall, the miscellaneous statutes enshrined in Bill 57 demonstrate a general commitment to the increased access to justice for British Columbians. I think that’s something that we all support in this House and, certainly, the B.C. Green Party supports. It’s encouraging that more people have access to legal services, thanks to an increase in funds for the Law Foundation of B.C. and the empowerment of paralegals to offer legal service.

I’m also pleased to see the further commitment to the recommendation of Peter German’s report on money laundering, in addition to more action in remedying the problems faced by ICBC. I look forward to learning more about these changes at committee stage, as they mark an important step for improving justice in our province. I’ll take my seat now and thank the Speaker for the opportunity to speak to this bill today.

Hon. C. Trevena: Seeing no further speakers, I move second reading of the act.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 57, Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2018, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. Trevena: I call second reading of Bill 55.

BILL 55 — PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2018

Hon. C. Trevena: I move that the bill now be read for a second time.

[2:15 p.m.]

It is my pleasure to rise today to speak about Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act. Many people have the experience of waiting for a cab, either at a stand or on the corner in the rain or at home, hoping it’ll be there in time to get to the flight you want to catch.

For the last six years or so, many have looked to their smartphone apps as providing a solution. In this, our first year of government, I have heard from many who want such a solution. Some see that the app will replace cabs. Others feel it will allow for transportation in rural communities unserved by public transportation.

The legislation before us today does two things. It modernizes the taxi sector, and it does pave the way for app-based ride-hailing. We know that people want new, convenient and safe options to get around, and this legislation opens that door.

We want to get this right for B.C. B.C. is different from the rest of the country because we have the Passenger Transportation Board, and we’re using that to ensure that our new demand-driven approach, rooted in data, works.

This bill delivers on our government’s commitment to bring in legislation which will set the stage for app-based ride-hailing. The bill amends the Passenger Transportation Act to modernize the regulatory framework for taxis and passenger-directed services. It also has substantive changes to seven other statutes.

This is complex legislation that is informed by the work of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, which provided its recommendations to this House earlier this year on commercial app-based ride-hailing. The bill is also the product of Dr. Dan Hara’s report entitled Modernizing Taxi Regulation, which included a number of suggestions to enable the existing industry to remain viable and to compete on an equal footing should app-based ride-hailing services be introduced in B.C. I also want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the introduction of some private member bills in this House, which have also been useful contributions.

The approach set out in this legislation is also informed by experiences elsewhere. Whether the gridlock that New York City is now trying to address, in addition to its already dense traffic, or the accident in Toronto resulting from a lack of regulation on drivers, we know that the absence of…. A well-balanced regulatory framework for app-based ride-hailing services is necessary to ensure that B.C. doesn’t repeat the mistakes made elsewhere.

We believe that the changes set out in this bill strike the right balance between meeting consumer demand for more services while establishing a modern regulatory framework that prioritizes safety for all British Columbians.

First and foremost, the bill does not propose any change to the provincial regulation of passenger-directed vehicle services in this province. The Passenger Transportation Board, an independent tribunal, will continue its role in receiving applications and setting out terms and conditions of licences, including those from companies seeking to provide transportation network services in which passengers hail and pay for trips with their smartphones. The Passenger Transportation Board will have the authority to determine the rates charged to passengers as well as the supply and operating area of vehicles under licences authorizing transportation network services.

Safety is key to our approach. New requirements are proposed for drivers of taxis and other passenger-directed vehicles to meet a provincial record check standard. This change addresses the gaps in the current municipal approach in which some communities demand police record checks of drivers while others do not.

To strengthen compliance and enforcement, the bill proposes significant increases to the administrative penalties for non-compliance of licence holders as well as a hefty increase to the maximum fines for offences, up to $100,000 a day for corporations who contravene the act.

The bill contains several changes to ensure that the new regime effectively monitors and provides an adequate supply of accessible vehicles where they are needed.

To reflect the unique operating framework of the transportation network services in which drivers typically use their own personal vehicles to carry passengers, amendments are proposed to the Insurance (Vehicle) Act and the Insurance Corporation Act to ensure that ICBC can develop new insurance products for the use of app-based ride-hailing.

The bill also addresses the overlap of jurisdiction, unique to this province, between local governments and the Passenger Transportation Board. We’re proposing changes to local government legislation that remove the authority of a municipality to refuse to allow the delivery of transportation services within their jurisdiction despite the Passenger Transportation Board’s approval.

[2:20 p.m.]

Finally, I want to highlight the checks and balances we propose to ensure the legislative framework for passenger transportation services in this province works, first and foremost, for British Columbians.

The bill proposes to place a requirement on the House to appoint a special committee to review how things are working. We recognize the multiplicity of stakeholder viewpoints on the topics of taxis and ride-hailing. That’s why we’re providing members of this House, working together in a joint committee, to have an opportunity to engage stakeholders in a transparent and public review process and then make whatever recommendations the committee deems appropriate to ensure we have a model that works for everyone in this province.

British Columbians have told us they want more transportation options. They’ve also told us they expect these options to be safe, affordable and convenient. Our government believes this bill marks a significant step in ensuring such services will soon be available to all the citizens of this province.

J. Sturdy: I wish I was more pleased to rise today to speak to Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act, and hopeful that we were going to see a piece of legislation that would allow ride-hailing to be embraced by British Columbians in the near future. But once again we’re debating a piece of legislation that does not make it possible to do something today, nor tomorrow, but at the end of a somewhat convoluted process and a high level of uncertainty, in a year or two or perhaps never.

This government has been in office for 18 months now. The government even appointed a legislative committee on ride-sharing, of which I was fortunate to be a member, and then, unfortunately, chose to disregard most of the recommendations — such as, simply, the requirement for a class 4 driver’s licence, for example, when the committee recognized that a class 5 was adequate for ride-sharing and taxi drivers.

The entire time they have been promising the ride-sharing rules are coming, that they’re just around the corner, that they will be here soon and that we’ll have them by 2017 Christmas or 2018 Christmas and now, perhaps, 2019 or, more likely, 2020 — if at all. Unfortunately, there’s not much in this bill that will tell us when ride-sharing will be active in British Columbia.

Let’s imagine, for a second, the happening of other things. The NDP’s made-up speculation tax, you know, is the one that doesn’t particularly address speculation. Imagine if the Deputy Premier said, “Well, you know, it could be in effect next year, or it could be the year after, or just wait until you get your property taxes, and then we’ll figure it out,” or if the Attorney General had said: “Well, we don’t know when that referendum on proportional representation is happening. It could be next year, could be tomorrow, could be never.”

Actually, all things considered, he might have done that, given everything else he left for deciding after. We’ll see what happens here. But last Christmas the NDP said this would be a thing. I have here a quote from the NDP news release: “The B.C. NDP support the passing of new rules to introduce ride-sharing to B.C. in 2017.” Unfortunately, they then said it’s too hard, too difficult, too complicated, to do what literally every other province and hundreds of jurisdictions around the world have done, and that it’ll have to be later.

A quote from Mr. Vaughn Palmer in today’s Sun: “Sure, they wasted no time launching a half-baked speculation tax and in stacking the deck in favour of electoral change. But the implementation of a service that is already in place in comparable jurisdictions all over the world? Well, some things just can’t be rushed.”

[2:25 p.m.]

I’m going to take a minute to list some of the jurisdictions that have ride-sharing, either through companies that operate as close as Seattle or Alberta or through local companies. Iraq has international ride-sharing, called Careem, which operates in Baghdad. Even Baghdad has ride-sharing. Careem operates in more than a dozen countries across Asia. Afghanistan has an Uber, with a “b,” called Buber, which is probably a better approach than here.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

J. Sturdy: Even Syria, with all its problems, has ride-sharing. Russia has Uber, but we don’t. Some other jurisdictions — Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Halifax — all have ride-sharing. North Battleford, Saskatchewan, has ride-sharing, population 13,888. You might say that is a tiny population and they have less to worry about than British Columbia. At the same time, Shanghai, home to six times as many people as in all of British Columbia, has Uber.

Now, we have here today, if this bill is any indication, a realization that there’ll be little under the tree for Christmas coming forward, because we won’t be seeing this type of opportunity. Sadly, it’ll be like waiting for a cab in Vancouver, standing at the curb, told, “It’s going to arrive soon. Really, it will be here soon,” but you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and sometimes it just never arrives.

It’s been 18 months, and even with this legislation, we still don’t have a clear pathway to ride-sharing. Eighteen months where — and it’s true; I actually checked on it today — your hamburger can get an Uber, but we cannot.

Government seems to be approaching ride-sharing like it’s inventing something new. Yet jurisdictions around the world have ride-sharing. Every other Canadian province has managed to pass ride-sharing legislation. They have people getting to appointments on time. They still have a taxi industry. They still have public transit. They have systems where people have the power of choice. But British Columbians are being denied these kinds of choices.

I have no idea why government is reluctant to allow a service that has been adopted by jurisdictions, large and small, across the globe. With the constant promises from this government, it feels like we’ve been waiting forever.

I know that getting ride-sharing on the road is one of those areas where we do agree with the Third Party. But this bill is set up to create further delays and make it impossible to deliver ride-sharing. Amendments will need to occur to eight different statutes: the Passenger Transportation Act, Insurance Vehicle Act, Insurance Corporation Act, Motor Vehicle Act, Commercial Transport Act, Local Government Act, Community Charter and the Vancouver Charter.

Through this amendment, the Passenger Transportation Board, an independent tribunal, will have its powers expanded enormously. It will decide the fare structure, the floor and the ceiling rates. It will have exclusive jurisdiction in determining supply and operating area for both taxies and ride-hailing companies.

They evidently apply a three-part test to this determination in terms of their decision on whether and how ride-hailing will be implemented, the tests of: is the applicant fit and proper to provide the service; is there a public need for the service; and does the applicant promote sound economic conditions in the industry?

[2:30 p.m.]

It’s this last test which is particularly a mysterious requirement. How will it be interpreted? Sound economic conditions for whom — the taxi industry? Where is the consideration for the consumer? This is how decisions will be made with regard to ride-hailing. Is it the consumer, or is it the industry that is dominant in the decision to promote or adopt or approve ride-hailing?

The concern is that there’s not a worry about the consumer. What happens if there are no good transportation options available? The provision of the service is good for whom — the taxi industry, the drivers, the consumer?

I’m told this will be based on Passenger Transportation Board precedent, of which I don’t believe there is much in terms of this particular type of activity. We learn through the decisions and the presentations through the standing committee that there was little data available to base decisions on, even with the requirement of the public need, other than anecdote.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

I might add that this legislation does ignore the bulk of the committee recommendations with regard to boundaries and rate and vehicle caps, along with the previously mentioned class 5 recommendations. When combined with the opportunity of local government to set vehicle types, to create the requirement in each jurisdiction for business licences and the ability of local government to determine the age of the vehicles, the type of propulsion in vehicles and the cleanliness of vehicles, amongst other things, it just strikes me that the implementation of ride-hailing in British Columbia will be a very cumbersome process, if it’s possible at all.

Instead of unleashing the potential of ride-sharing, the government has offered up some of the most restrictive rules and roadblocks for ride-share drivers in Canada. They will be subject to commercial licences, special training, road tests, medical exams and annual vehicle inspections.

I don’t think there’s debate around criminal record checks, an annual or appropriate health certificate, drivers’ abstracts and these types of things, but these other issues are roadblocks that will be problematic for the industry to come into play in British Columbia at all. Then, of course, there’s the need for the Passenger Transportation Board and ICBC decisions.

Government has had the opportunity to bring clarity and standards to a service that people want. Instead, with this bill, they’re offering the potential of a wild patchwork of fares and regulations across different cities and different jurisdictions. Across the Lower Mainland, there could be a dozen different ride-sharing fare regimes.

The minister mentioned that this is all about safety, and we certainly agree that safety needs to be paramount. But we also need the entrepreneurial spirit and the opportunity for the new economy to be embraced and to be supported.

It’s not really about public safety. In reality, it’s about providing safety for the status quo industry. It’s not building the kind of public safety that Mothers Against Drunk Driving know ride-sharing can build by getting drunk drivers off the street. In fact, in many ways, you could say that we have a ride-sharing bill designed to stop ride-sharing.

Apparently, the way this government works, it takes three times as long to bring this framework for ride-sharing in as it does for them to alter our electoral system. Let’s remember that ride-sharing is already operating in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jurisdictions around the world.

[2:35 p.m.]

When it comes to changing democracy, it’s a matter of a few weeks to cook up two electoral models that don’t exist anywhere in the world, and this bill fits the pattern for this session. While the government is telling people that this legislation will bring ride-sharing to British Columbia, it is in fact all about making it next to impossible for ride-hailing to hit the road in the near future.

It’s one more delay piled on a legacy of broken promises and delays. There is no surprise coming from this government. This government has spent this fall talking about how it wants to alter our democracy so every vote counts. Yet, it’s promoting a system where backroom party officials instead of voters will decide who gets a seat in this House. It sounds like less democracy, not more. Then there’s the so-called speculation tax and delivering higher taxes for hard-working B.C. families. The one thing it fails to end is flipping and speculation.

So it’s no surprise that this government, after more than a year and a half of delays and broken promises, delivered a piece of legislation that looks to throttle the potential of ride-sharing. Instead of ride-sharing, we can say that government is offering up ride-failing.

Interjection.

J. Sturdy: There you go. It’s failing all the people who are waiting for a cab yesterday, today and tomorrow. It’s failing all the businesses losing productivity to staff who just can’t get to meetings and appointments due to a lack of transportation options. It’s failing B.C.’s tech sector, which thrives on ride-sharing in other successful jurisdictions. It’s failing our tourism sector that sees tourists welcomed to British Columbia and welcomed to long waits for a cab.

The owner of Harbour Air just blocks from here has called time and time again for ride-sharing because his customers are astonished when they land in Vancouver or Victoria and can’t order an Uber or other ride-share. In my own riding, we see countless tourists coming to Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton and finding out they’re forced to use an overtaxed taxi industry rather than any ride-sharing apps that they have on their phone already, either at home or to use it in other countries or other tourist destinations around the world.

A quote here, Kirk LaPointe, Business in Vancouver, just today: “Like its proportional representation proposals, the ride-hailing plan leaves much to be defined in the months ahead. This is a government so intent on studying situations that it needs to start paying tuition.”

It’s failing public safety, where ride-sharing could help reduce impaired driving, according to the University of Philadelphia study. Availability of ride-sharing can reduce impaired driving by more than 5 percent.

The great success of ride-sharing is the innovation that is unleashed — the power it has handed to its customers. The wants and needs have set the quality of vehicles, the fairness of the fares and the expanded availability of transportation options. But instead of being driven by the customer and the consumer, this government, through the Passenger Transportation Board and ICBC, is going to decide the supply, the price and the boundaries for ride-sharing.

In 18 months, this government has failed families of the province through its transportation policy. More families are stuck in gridlock, with a failure to address the Massey Tunnel bottleneck and pushing back the solution by years and adding billions of dollars, undoubtedly, to the cost.

There will be fewer projects at higher costs just like the government’s previous incarnation years back, forcing unionization on public projects. The failure to deliver ride-sharing is denying people the benefit that would flow from powerful new transportation choices. This legislation is yet another transportation failure that leaves British Columbians paying the price for the NDP’s ideologically driven policies.

We have a bill that once again has little of substance, pawning off responsibilities to other bodies for regulation that will be developed down the road, with intense regulation and no actual plan to bring a much-needed service anywhere near the smartphones of British Columbia.

[2:40 p.m.]

As we move into committee stage, I hope that we’ll be able to see support for amendments to this legislation from our Third Party colleagues that reflect their previously stated ideals along with ours, including allowing private insurers to provide an insurance product to the ride-hailing-vehicle industry. Private insurance opportunities are already provided all across North America, and the product does not have to be re-created. It’s available now. We’ll be looking to make amendments to allow for this type of product to be provided.

Ride-hailing, typically, is part-time work. Class 5 licensing should be adequate. To get a class 4 licence is an onerous process. I know, from personal experience, as I do have a class 4 licence. But it adds and creates additional barriers, especially for very much a part-time job.

Out of curiosity, I did phone ICBC, in the motor vehicle branch, to see if I could book myself a time to get a road test for a class 4 licence. Unfortunately, after half an hour on hold, I gave up. I will try again and will update the House in the future to see, actually, what the process is to get a class 4 licence. But my experience has been that it adds a barrier that is really going to limit the ability for people to take up this opportunity and provide transportation services around British Columbia.

We’ll be seeking an amendment in this regard, and hopefully, we’ll see the support of our Third Party colleagues. This is a more challenging amendment to try and incorporate, given the nature of the legislation as it’s written, but seeking to let the market drive the price and volume of drivers is key to how this service is supposed to be working. It should be a market-driven service, and that determines the price, and it provides an opportunity for more people to come into the industry, where it’s necessary at any given time of day.

It should be a market-based approach. The approach we are seeing by government flies in the face of the new economy and stifles creativity and entrepreneurship. This is all being loaded back onto the transportation board and its mysterious approval process in terms of how these types of activities will be allowed.

I am concerned at the circumstances that we see here. I am concerned, with the heavy-handed and controlling nature of this legislation, overseen by a government-appointed board that does not support the addition of ride-sharing services in British Columbia, that we will remain, here in British Columbia, an outlier in North America as a jurisdiction without ride-hailing.

I do look forward to the committee stage to dig a little deeper and see if we can approve this bill and actually get to a place where when you turn on ride-hailing apps in British Columbia, they actually work.

P. Milobar: It gives me pleasure to rise to Bill 55, the bill around ride-hailing, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act. I only wish I was rising to speak to a bill that would actually see ride-hailing and passenger transportation improvements happen in British Columbia.

Unfortunately, with this bill, what we’re seeing is nothing but further delays by the government — delays that are really unnecessary and delays that…. If the government was truly sincere about bringing forward ride-hailing and modernization of the taxi industry, we should be able to see it happen immediately, as opposed to kicking the can down the field.

Now, I don’t often take more than a couple days off at any given time, but this summer I was fortunate enough to spend a week in New York with my wife for our 25th anniversary. And I thought, “Well, here’s a perfect opportunity to….”

Interjection.

P. Milobar: Thank you. She’s a very patient lady, tolerating me for that many years.

[2:45 p.m.]

I thought I’d take that opportunity to try Uber. I had the app, actually, as I was on the committee looking into Uber in January, which was, remember, such a rushed process. In last fall’s session, we had to rush to create the committee. We had to rush to meet in January so that we could get our results to the minister at the beginning of February so that something could happen. Something was going to take shape.

Something was going to be moved forward at lightning speed. Although the Premier missed his target of his promise of 2017, we were going to see Uber and ride-sharing and Lyft and all of those types of companies in place by the time we’re standing here right now.

After all of that rushed work, we still don’t see anything. But I digress. I go to the app on my phone, the Uber app on my phone, knowing full well it wouldn’t work in British Columbia. But I was just curious to see what the overall layout of it was. I didn’t bother connecting it to my credit card or anything like that at that time because I thought: “Well, I’ll never use it in British Columbia anytime soon. So what’s the point?”

I got to New York and realized: “Oh, I’ve still got the app.” So we actually took a cab from the airport down to our hotel. Unfortunately, they had mechanical problems, and they let us off at the side of the freeway and we walked a block and a half to get to a gas station to get a new cab that, luckily enough, was filling up. We got to our hotel fine.

I decided well, maybe we should try Uber. Put the credit card attached to the app. I had never tried it before. It took a little bit of getting used to in terms of trying to track where exactly the car is when you’re on a busy street and it’s coming — which side of the street and that and the like. But it seemed to work reasonably fine.

An interesting thing was you knew exactly, as the consumer, how much it was going to cost you. You punch in where you want to go, where you’re standing. You know what the fare is going to be. In fact, they would give you some options. There were various levels of options you could take. You knew roughly how long the car was going to take within about 30 seconds or so, depending on traffic lights.

You could track it in real-time approaching you with a dot on the screen or the car on the screen. And as a consumer, you were able to know exactly what you were getting. There were a couple times where Uber seemed like it was a little too expensive, so we actually just went over and we hailed a cab instead. We didn’t exclusively use Uber when we were there. We used both.

I think that’s, in talking with the cab drivers and the Uber drivers in New York on each drive, what we were finding. We were finding that that was the same experience they were having, that people were using both. People were exercising their own free option as a consumer, their own ability to think and their own ability to make a decision as to whether they felt Uber was a good deal at any particular given time or a cab was a good deal or, if between the cost and the convenience, the two together made one form over the other more desirable. That was up to the consumer to decide.

Jump forward to coming back to British Columbia. We don’t have any of that. What we see in this bill is, frankly, not only a way to put a legislative end to ride-hailing coming in — because there’s very little in this bill that the ride-hailing industry would have been asking for — but, in fact, it adds further confusion even for the taxi industry. In fact, what we’re seeing is a piece of legislation that’ll actually add further confusion to public transportation options for people in British Columbia and further confusion for those companies that are providing those services and the people that work within those services as they move forward.

The fact that there’s still not defined geographic boundaries but there’s a recognition that there will be some sort of geographic boundary change — but we’ll leave that to the Passenger Transportation Board. That report was in the minister’s hands in February. Why was that not directed in February to the Passenger Transportation Board? And why was that not already figured out now, instead of eight, nine months later, when now we’re going to direct the Passenger Transportation Board to start looking at redoing the boundaries in the Lower Mainland?

If you want to talk delay that falls directly at the feet of the current Transportation Minister, there’s a very clear delay. Report generated in February. Much rush to do it. We had to meet in all of January, the committee did. I don’t mind that. I don’t mind working hard. That’s totally fine. But one would think if such a rush was on to get the report done and one of the most basic things for the report would have been around ride-hailing and around the ability for ride-hailing companies to be able to go across boundaries, that that would have been directed right then.

[2:50 p.m.]

Let’s not forget that there had already been a report done on the Lower Mainland area for the taxi industry, but that 34-page report was deemed not to be good enough. I’m still not sure if it was actually read or not, because, lo and behold, the exact same consultant had been hired by the Transportation Minister to do the exact same work around the taxi industry again.

That was the whole reason the committee on ride-hailing was created — because that new report was specifically not to look at ride-hailing, and we were specifically not to look at the taxi industry. So a report that was supposed to be basically the reworking of the same work done by the exact same consultant that started even before the committee got their work done…. And here we are nine months later from the later report of the Uber committee, as it came to be known, and we’re only finally recognizing that boundaries in the Lower Mainland might be an issue when it comes to ride-hailing and the taxi industry?

Forget about the fact they’ve been in power for 18 months. The fact that the Minister of Transportation took nine months to figure that piece out after all these new reports were done is astonishing, to say the least.

It’s embarrassing, actually, to have to say to people from outside jurisdictions that we don’t know when this is going to come because something as fundamentally well known as boundary issues in the Lower Mainland — both with the taxi industry and the issues they would create within the ride-hailing industry — up until yesterday seemed to be totally foreign to the Transportation Minister — not to anyone else that has an inkling of what’s going on in the transportation industry, but to the minister.

Here we have a piece of legislation that would finally direct the Passenger Transportation Board to do what they should have been doing in the first place. Yet the minister’s own answer during question period today indicated that the minister was going to be looking at the boundaries, not the Passenger Transportation Board. I’m not sure if she misspoke in her answer in a hurry to try to get an answer out — because there really wasn’t much of one there — or if she was misquoting her own bill, misquoting her own piece of legislation.

Interjection.

P. Milobar: Yes, it is. It’s very embarrassing. You should read the Blues, because you would find that the minister actually did commit to the minister taking care of the boundary issue. In fact, it’s the Passenger Transportation Board that will be. The interesting thing about that…

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

P. Milobar: …is that the Passenger Transportation Board is being held up in this piece of legislation as the cure-all of how this is all going to just run smoothly and seamlessly and how everyone is going to be able to move quickly once all the legislation regulatory pieces are worked out.

Well, let’s look at that. It was a few months ago that the minister directed the Passenger Transportation Board to get 500 taxi licences out for Christmas time. How has that been going? I think we’re at about 200 right now. Now, they’re still going to be processing those other 300 applications for new taxi licences at the same time they’re supposed to be doing the new boundaries, at the same time they’re supposed to be coming up with the criteria for people to apply for Uber licences, at the same time they’re supposed to be figuring out how many Uber licences would even be allowed, which typically doesn’t happen anywhere.

They’re going to do all of that, and then the minister will turn around and say: “Well, we didn’t delay anything. It’s the transportation board.” No, it’s not the transportation board. There needed to be more direction in this bill. There needed to be actual leadership in this bill from the Transportation Minister, not just washing of the hands and pushing it off to the Passenger Transportation Board.

I don’t hear or see a massive up-hiring in the Passenger Transportation Board to be able to try to move these permits through in a timely fashion. In fact, I’d be willing to bet it would be faster for a wannabe Uber driver to apply to be a cannabis store licensed permit holder and get approved through the Attorney General’s office than it would be to apply to be an Uber driver and have your paperwork handled by the Passenger Transportation Board. That’s how ridiculous this legislation has become.

To think that people on an individual basis, on a one-off basis of Uber drivers are going to go in one at a time and apply, or in pockets of five…. That’s not how this all works. The fact that there was a total ignoring of the class 4 or class 5 driver’s licence by the minister says it all right there.

[2:55 p.m.]

No one is saying that you should only have a class 5, and that’s it. Of course you need to have criminal record checks, of course you need to pass those types of tests, and of course there needs to be safety check-ins for your car to make sure that there’s proper repair and maintenance to your car. All of those things need to be in play, absolutely. But to suggest that the class 4 licence is the key to make zero problems ever happen would be to suggest that there’s not occasionally the odd bad apple that drives for a taxi company.

Now, I’m not saying the taxi companies and the taxi drivers in general. I’ve always had good experiences with them. So I’m not trying to paint the industry with a brush. But it’s like any industry. When you have thousands of people working in it, there’s the odd underperformer. There’s the odd person that maybe snuck through the cracks or shouldn’t be actually operating. You hope that the system will catch and identify those people.

Having someone on the front end take an extra step while they’re waiting for the passenger transportation board, then sit around and, as the previous speaker said, start to wait for ICBC to have a road test for their class 4 will not only back up the ICBC offices, but it will make an even longer wait for that person to be able to try to make a living.

Look at what happens when you start backing up the ICBC office. I’ve written the minister earlier this year about issues we’ve had in Kamloops, where people with their Ns and their Ls are trying to get road tests and are being told to come back in six months because of staffing shortages, because of people away on legitimate long-term leaves and not able to backfill.

That’s the real world that people are living in. I know the other side doesn’t want to actually hear about the real world. They would prefer to just pretend that everything works in a great theoretical realm. But the reality is that there are a great many people out there in a great many road test centres that are waiting long periods of time for something as simple as getting their class 5 to begin with. We’re now telling people….

Plus all that competition for time. Let’s add in all these other people to come back in and get retested for essentially one extra criteria check instead of the skill set of: “Can you drive a vehicle properly? Do you know the rules of the road? Do you operate in a safe manner?”

They could even do a quick, simple endorsement to a class 5, like you do if you want to pull an oversized travel trailer over a certain weight. You go in, and you have a class 5. I don’t have a class 4, like the previous speaker, but I have that endorsement — to be able to haul a travel trailer. That was a much simpler process than if I’d tried getting a class 4.

Those processes exist, but those processes exist and could be used only if you had a government that actually was trying to make something streamlined and only if you had a government that was actually interested in trying to make true, relevant changes versus finding roadblocks to modernization.

In an earlier interview, I likened it to when the CRTC was first trying to control the Internet. I think the government needs to recognize that the world is changing. They can keep putting up these roadblocks all they want. They can keep having their innovation commissioner. They really like to tout the new innovation commissioner, and here they are trying to block one of the most simple of new technologies coming in within the transportation realm, trying to make it sound as if this is some insurmountable hurdle that needs to happen. We haven’t heard about the boundaries being a huge issue in the other jurisdictions, yet here it seems to be a massive, massive problem.

When you start looking at the bill…. As our previous speaker said, we’re looking at bringing in a few amendments. Now, frankly, I’m not holding my breath that the junior partners of the government are going to support any of the amendments. I hope they do, but so far we’ve seen a long history of bluster. We’ve seen a long history of threats and demands, very public, and then, at the end of the day, nothing but capitulation.

We’re watching it right now unfold during the committee stage with the speculation tax — amendments to allow municipalities to opt out, after months of the Leader of the Third Party insisting that that would bring the government down if they didn’t at least amend that, and that he was going to amend that, and he was going to make sure it was amended. What did we see? We saw him vote against that very same amendment on the speculation tax, in spite of what he was promising to do in face-to-face meetings with mayors, in spite of what he was promising the public he would do in terms of how he would conduct his votes in this House.

[3:00 p.m.]

I have every expectation, frankly, that that’s going to happen. That’s going to happen as we see this bill unfold. We’re going to hear lots and lots of bluster from the Third Party about how they’re disappointed in certain aspects of the bill. It’s the exact same aspects that we’re probably going to agree need amending. We’ll bring in those amendments. Then they will come up with some excuse, some reason — probably because of a conversation in the $1 million secretariat room that none of the public is ever privy to — to make sure that that doesn’t happen, to make sure that the government can continue to stall ride-hailing and ride-sharing and, more importantly, improvements to the overall transportation network system that the public is demanding happen.

Let’s look at something like insurance. It’d be very simple for the government to allow the private sector to come in when it comes to passenger transportation companies. That type of insurance product exists all over the place. In fact, the insurance industry has been all over the airwaves the last couple of days, saying they’re ready to go. They could jump into B.C. in a heartbeat. But it would require the government to allow the dreaded private sector to actually do something in this province, so that’s not going to happen.

Let’s look at the ramification of that not happening sooner. Let’s just say for a moment that the minister changed the insurance right now and allowed that to happen while still dragging their feet on all of the licensing and approvals and everything else Uber drivers would have.

Why is that significant? Because when you look at people within the taxi industry saying that they’re paying up to $37,000 a year in insurance for a cab, allowing those cab industry people access to a more affordable, equitable insurance product instantly would actually help the current taxi industry. But the Transportation Minister doesn’t seem too concerned about helping the current taxi industry get more competitive, doesn’t seem to be too worried about helping the taxi industry meet their request of their 500 licences that they’d like to see extra on the road, doesn’t see intent to help them at all.

It makes perfect sense if there’s an insurance product out there for a passenger transportation vehicle, be it a taxi or an Uber or whatever it is, that says, “On the 12 hours it’s parked in the compound not doing the work of the vehicle, you’re not paying any insurance of any great significance….” The odds of it causing any harm when it’s sitting parked in a compound and not earning any money are pretty slim. But when you have the meter running, when you’re out on the road looking for fares, you pay insurance for that 12 hours or eight hours or whatever it happens to be. That seems to be an insurance model that has worked for the Uber and ride-hailing industry.

The taxi industry would love to see that come in as well, because they know it would drop their cost structure. They know they wouldn’t have to come up with $3,000 a month for insurance for their cabs. That would make them more competitive.

They’ve been a long-standing industry in this province. They’re very hard-working men and women. They take great pride in what they do. They work very hard. They’re like any other small business. They look at any way they can to try to keep their costs under control. At $3,000 a month for insurance, and having the minister stall an insurance product that would actually result in them paying less insurance, I can’t understand how they would think that’s a good thing.

I think that they’re realists. I think that the taxi industry is realist. I think they understand that it’s only a matter of time that things will keep evolving, that the modern world will keep changing how people order their passenger transportation vehicle to come pick them up and take them from point A to point B. I think the taxi industry fully understands that.

I think they don’t understand why we have a Minister of Transportation who’s done nothing to address their insurance needs as well as the ride-hailing company’s insurance needs and is essentially saying to the taxi industry: “You can only have cheaper insurance once we allow Uber and Lyft to have cheaper insurance.”

Well, I would say, on behalf of the taxi industry, that’s not good enough. They should be able to get cheaper insurance as soon as possible under the same insurance models that are being discussed for Uber and Lyft moving forward.

You know, the other side loves to try to keep pointing out that we’ve had years; we’ve had years. I don’t think anyone is disagreed that there was some learning that needed to happen, that there were some early days problems that needed to be understood and addressed.

[3:05 p.m.]

Those days have long since passed though. Those days have long since passed to the point that the Premier himself said during the election — made a promise, made a commitment to this province — that a year ago, as we stand here today, we would already be having this system in place.

Of course, he also said there’d be a simple yes-or-no question on a referendum. He also said it would be part of a municipal campaign. He also said it would be part of a dual-threshold system of a referendum. He’s also said there’ll be no closed lists. So right now I’m starting to have a little hard time believing at what point we start to take the word of the Premier on these types of promises, because he’s also said that we would have it in the fall of 2018 after he blew past the fall of 2017 promise.

Well, I’m standing here. Last I checked, it’s the fall of 2018. In fact, when is the winter solstice — December 21? We’re about 30 days away from winter solstice, 31 days away. And the best we’re hearing is maybe this time next year, maybe in 2019. And I say maybe, because by all indications, whenever the government has been pressed on these dates, 2019 starts to filter off, and it starts to become apparent that the goal of this bill is to create an environment where people could actually apply by this time next year to get a licence.

Then they could sit in the queue with the Passenger Transportation Board for who knows how long, trying to find out whether or not they get a licence. Once they get that licence…. And it’s not sure, obviously, at this point, if the Passenger Transportation Board would require you to stand in the ICBC line and wait for your class 4 licence first, to wait six months to get that licence to then turn around and go in the line. If that’s the case, you would not actually be able to apply until the spring of 2020 if you have to wait to get your class 4 first. Given the moving goalposts of these dates, I don’t know why anyone would go out and get a class 4 licence and spend the extra money and time and everything else trying to get their class 4 licence when they’re not even 100 percent sure when this may or may not happen and what the process to apply would be.

Most people applying would reasonably know if their criminal record check would pass. I know of, in the city of Kamloops’s case — and I know a great many other communities are that way — taxi companies who had a driver that wanted to drive that didn’t pass the criminal record check. The RCMP recommended they not get a cab licence. It would come in front of city council, and it would be a quasi-judicial hearing by city council in a closed meeting, and you’d make a final determination.

I’m not sure if that’s going to happen here with Uber or Lyft drivers. There’s no real clarity on that. There’s a lot of back-and-forth language in this bill, but there’s no real clarity on a whole lot of stuff.

The bottom line is that this bill does nothing to try to actually implement ride-hailing into the province. I can only imagine where we’ll wind up, hearing from the Third Party, as we bring forward our amendments. It’ll be a very interesting conversation, because on the one hand, they’ve been very clear that they really think we need to have ride-hailing. Yet their partners in government — it’s one of the reasons that they’re taking their time with this — are worried about all the congestion it will cause on the roads.

Yet at the same time, we see the Leader of the Third Party out front, touting all the EV vehicles and this new magical target for EV vehicles that will probably give him justification for supporting LNG, is my guess, because now they’ll have this 2040 goal for EV vehicles they never have to prove out while they’re approving all the LNG legislation and approvals that need to happen over the next little while, so they can turn to their base and try to pretend that they’re still meeting their targets while approving LNG and that they didn’t actually sell out on LNG.

It’ll be very interesting, and I wait to hear what the Third Party comes up with to try to justify why they’re not going to support our amendments, the exact same amendments that they’ve said all along they think need to happen to make ride-share actually a proper ride-share, ride-hail-type system, yet at the same time, probably try to use the excuse of congestion, even though they’ve known about congestion.

[3:10 p.m.]

I know the Leader of the Third Party spoke about possible congestion even as we were going through this as a committee back in January. They’ve certainly been aware of it all this time, have not really mentioned it as a potential problem, have mentioned that they would like to see similar amendments that we’ve made, or will be making, as a way forward to try to actually get this.

You have an innovation commissioner. You have parties that are trying to tout innovation. You have a Premier that’s desperately trying to recapture his youth and speak like he’s 32 again. You have all these things going on. Yet the one piece of transportation that has been solved everywhere…. It has been solved in North Battleford, Saskatchewan — a fine place. I have been there. And Kazakhstan. I haven’t been to Kazakhstan. I hear it’s lovely in the springtime, though. They both have ride-hailing.

In fact, I found it interesting earlier today. Maybe that is the key to PR. Several examples they use were actually PR countries. Maybe that’s actually the sales pitch for PR. It’s what they’re trying to say. With PR, you’d actually get ride-hailing, because apparently, under first-past-the-post, they really don’t want to bring it in.

It’s ridiculous in the extreme that we need to stand in this House at the end of 2018, knowing full well that there is no way that this legislation will be in practice, in actual function, will be picking up fares, will be transporting people around in British Columbia until, at the earliest, mid-to-late spring in 2020. There is absolutely no way, given the timelines laid out in this legislation. In fact, when staff and anyone else within government is pressed on that fact by the media, they have actually backed that up on earlier press conferences and when this bill got introduced.

The reality is that 2019 is nothing more…. Like the referendum, it’s a sham. It is nothing more than a date made to placate people. It is nothing more than an acknowledgment that at a minimum, it’s a two-year broken promise by the Premier, going into a third-year broken promise by the Premier. It is nothing more than a reaffirmation that one should be very careful what they trust when the Premier makes a commitment, because it seems that be it PR or be it ride-hailing, neither of those two topics ever seem to have any commitments that actually stand the test of time. They continually seem to keep moving, and they continually seem to get changed at the moment and at the whim of the Premier.

Bill 55, by title — I like the title. Bill 55 in practice does nothing to achieve ride-hailing and the modernization of the passenger transportation system in our province. I look forward to the amendments coming, and I really do encourage our Green partners for once to put their money where their mouth is and actually stand up and vote for something they’ve told the public and their grassroots supporters all along that they support.

T. Stone: I am pleased to rise and speak to Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act, 2018. The amendments that are provided for within this relatively large bill are intended, or so we’re led to believe, to pave the way for the introduction of ride-sharing into the B.C. market. The amendments provide for changes across eight statutes and a whole bunch of regulations that will then flow from that.

I start there because this was a file that I was able to develop a fair bit of familiarity with, if I can say it that way. It is a very complex regulatory framework that’s in place. It’s akin to the complexity that exists with the liquor framework in British Columbia. The passenger transportation framework has been built up in this province through successive governments over literally decades and decades.

[3:15 p.m.]

Arguably, the legislation and the regulations that form the passenger transportation framework haven’t kept with the times, haven’t kept with the rapidly evolving technologies that we see in passenger transportation and that we see very vividly with respect to ride-sharing.

In terms of the key principles that this package of legislation is intending to address, I think all members of the House can acknowledge that there is value in these principles and that they’re worthy of embracing.

Enabling a regulatory framework for the introduction of ride-sharing to British Columbia is good. Obviously, ensuring public safety, the safety of drivers but also the travelling public, is important. Establishing a system that allows for the existing industry — so the taxi industry and the existing passenger transportation companies — to continue to thrive as well as welcoming new entrants is a worthy principle, as are reducing regulatory overlap and burden, enhancing compliance and enforcement and, very notably, protecting and enhancing accessibility and accessible service in passenger transportation.

All of these principles, as detailed in the package that is wrapped around these amendments, are worthy and do carry tremendous value. I think, as I said, all members of the House can get behind those principles.

I mentioned a moment ago the disruptive element of this particular industry, ride-sharing. As a former tech CEO myself, I’m proud to have been associated with, prior to my coming into politics, lots of individuals in my business life, prior to elected office, in the technology space. There is no question that the technology that is represented in ride-sharing came upon the world very quickly. This is a file that landed on my desk shortly after becoming a minister back in the summer of 2013.

As the member who spoke prior to me, the member for Kamloops–North Thompson…. There is no question that this particular industry, the ride-sharing industry…. Some call it the ride-hailing industry now or transportation network services, passenger-directed vehicles — all kinds of different phrases to describe the industry.

It has evolved quickly. There were lots of lessons to learn through the period of 2013, ’14, ’15. As this disruptive technology emerged in parts of North America and other parts of Canada and, indeed, in other parts of the world, it emerged and was bumpy in some places. There were no end of issues in jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions really grappled with how to embrace this disruptive technology known as ride-sharing.

It was important in the earlier years of our last mandate…. Certainly, as the minister responsible, it was very important to open up a dialogue about the potential impacts of ride-sharing coming into British Columbia — to open that dialogue with the taxi industry, to open that dialogue, obviously, with ride-sharing companies and potential new entrants into our market but also to have that dialogue with local governments. There are significant passenger transportation implications at the local level that are represented through the onset of ride-sharing. And, of course, to have that dialogue with British Columbians in communities big and small.

[3:20 p.m.]

There has been a lot of focus on ride-sharing and its potential benefits but also the challenges that it poses to existing industry in Metro Vancouver. There is also an appetite for additional passenger transportation choice and consumer convenience in small communities, whether it be my hometown of Kamloops or whether it be along Highway 16 and communities there that are looking to provide innovative transportation options for their citizens.

The point was that through the early to midsection of our last mandate, and as the minister responsible, it was important to have these conversations. It was important to do the research. It was important to conduct the reviews that were conducted then. It was important to learn those lessons from other jurisdictions around the world.

Where that got us was that by late 2016 and into 2017, we had done a tremendous amount of work, as the government of the day, at not only having those conversations and learning those lessons but developing a brand-new framework for passenger transportation here in British Columbia. That culminated in three tracks of work.

One was the development of an actual legislative package, which was done through to the end of December of 2016. I will talk about that more in a moment. That also involved a lot of work at ICBC in terms of developing not just an insurance product that would be needed for ride-sharing companies — recognizing that there is no existing insurance product that ICBC can offer for the model that is represented by ride-sharing — but also addressing the taxi industry’s long-standing and, frankly, rightfully placed concerns around the cost of insurance to their industry and ways to improve how insurance works for the taxi industry. There was a tremendous amount of work, through a good amount of 2016 and into 2017, on the insurance product side of this question as well.

Thirdly, pulling together all of the above, the potential proposed legislative changes and what that would mean for driver and passenger safety. Changes to how the Passenger Transportation Board would function and what that would mean to its relationship with government. They’re changes that would significantly impact — I believe, in a positive way — local governments and communities across British Columbia. All of that had to be considered not just from a regulatory perspective but also from a policy perspective. There’s a tremendous amount of policy work done.

This all culminated on March 7, 2017. I very proudly stood in Vancouver at the Trade and Convention Centre as the minister responsible, along with my then colleague Peter Fassbender, the former minister of community services and member for Surrey-Fleetwood. We were proud that day, on March 7, 2017, to announce that we were moving forward with the introduction of legislation, with policy changes and with insurance product development approvals to welcome this new industry into British Columbia, and doing so all the while respecting, appreciating, acknowledging and supporting the contributions of the existing taxi industry.

That was our commitment to voters, to British Columbians, in 2017. We put our plan in the shop window, so to speak. I’ll come back to the more detailed reminder for you of what those plans were. We put that in front of British Columbians, and we said, going into the provincial election which took place in May of 2017, that we would, if re-elected, at the first session after an election, be introducing that legislative framework, that package, and other related regulations. And we would also be ensuring that the insurance products for both changes on the taxi insurance side but also the new insurance product for the ride-sharing companies….

[3:25 p.m.]

All of this would be done and would be ready so that ride-sharing could be welcomed in British Columbia in time for the holiday, the Christmas season of 2017. We had that work all done. We do know that the NDP and the Greens matched that election commitment and also promised to welcome ride-sharing by Christmas of 2017.

Well, not to rehash what happened from that point forward….

Interjections.

T. Stone: As much as some members of the House might want me to regale a transfer of power that may have taken place, I’ll let them use their time to talk about that part.

But there was a transfer of power in July of 2017. There was a new government that was sworn in, and that new government now sits on the government benches. It is an NDP government, a minority government, that is supported by three Green members of this House. Therefore, at that point, it was incumbent upon this new government, the NDP, to deliver on their election commitment — which again, as I said a moment ago, was to facilitate the introduction of ride-sharing in British Columbia by December of 2017.

We then, as the summer of 2017 left us, found ourselves in the fall of 2017. Very regrettably, despite an election commitment to do otherwise, the current Minister of Transportation announced that ride-sharing would not be coming in 2017. Rather, there would be a plan underway to pave the way for ride-sharing in 2018.

Now, we know that there were two facets to that plan. There was the Hara report. This was to look at what strategies could be employed to further strengthen the taxi industry. I understand that, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. But there was a second track, which was represented through the legislative committee — the legislative committee of this House with representatives from all parties — that was mandated to deliberate and to come back with a plan for the entry of ride-sharing in British Columbia.

All of that work was done that winter and into early 2018. We were then advised, earlier this year and the summer, that, in fact, ride-sharing would not be introduced in 2018. Rather, legislation would be introduced in the fall session, which is what we are talking about here today. So another Christmas season, another holiday season, is bearing down upon us, and there will be no ride-sharing in British Columbia. Communities large and small will not see it on their streets, will not be able to embrace it, will not be able to look forward to trying it out because it won’t be here this year.

Now, it is perplexing as to why the government is intent on not fulfilling its commitment to deliver on ride-sharing. As was mentioned by previous speakers, this government found enough motivation to move very quickly on the speculation tax. In fact, they announced it before they’d even determined what exactly it was going to look like and have changed and amended it several times since.

We do know that they moved very quickly — and should be lauded as such, frankly — at putting in place the necessary framework respecting the legalization of cannabis in Canada. That is no small piece of work on the part of the government. I know, because I sat at the cabinet table, and I was part of the earlier discussions around what those policy choices would be, what those challenges would be, from a regulatory perspective. That is a huge amount of work. And in under a year, the government has managed to pull most of the regulatory framework for the legalization of cannabis here in British Columbia all into place.

[3:30 p.m.]

Of course, we know it didn’t take more than a year to put together the referendum process on proportional representation. We’ve spoken ad nauseum about how that process leaves a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, a referendum on changing how we elect our MLAs was pulled together in a matter of months. Yet here we are with a public policy issue, ride-sharing, which has huge public support here in British Columbia. Public opinion polls will tell you that anywhere from 90 to 97 percent, that I’ve seen, support the introduction of ride-sharing. And they want it now.

Ride-sharing is in existence in almost 800 cities around the world. It’s in place in 200 cities in North America. Vancouver continues to be the largest metropolitan centre in North America without ride-sharing. As I said earlier, yes, I do understand when I’m challenged about why it was not implemented in 2012. Well, I wasn’t here in 2012. I was here in mid-2013.

As I said, the technology evolved quickly. As I said, there were lessons to learn from around the world, and we did that. We did a tremendous amount of consultation and engagement with the taxi industry, with ride-sharing proponents, with local governments and with the public, through our last mandate, to get to a point where a legislative package could be developed, which we did. To get to a point where insurance products could be developed, which they were. To get to a point where policies could be crafted and could be ready to implement, and they were. We put that in front of British Columbians in the 2017 election.

As the former speaker said, North Battleford, Saskatchewan, will be the latest Canadian city, on January 1, to welcome ride-sharing — a city of about 15,000 — yet we don’t have ride-sharing here in British Columbia.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

This issue, for me — I think for most, if not all, members of this House — really is about consumers. It’s about the public. It’s about the public having choice and better convenience. It’s about the public, whether they live in the west end of Vancouver or whether they live in Kelowna or here in greater Victoria, that they’re able to choose the mode of transportation that they would like, whatever is most appropriate for them and their loved ones at that particular point in time. This isn’t about beating up on existing industries.

I have said for the years that I have been elected to this House — and this comes through having been able to build some very strong relationships and good friendships with many in the taxi industry — that these are good, decent, hard-working people who have invested, in many cases, their life’s earnings to establish a business and to grow that business. They’ve played by the rules over the years.

I, personally, have never experienced that situation that we hear all too often of calling a cab and a cab not showing up and picking me up. That actually hasn’t happened to me, personally, but I know it’s happened to my wife. I know it’s happened to other members of this chamber. I know that there have been concerns expressed about the lack of choice, about inefficient pick-ups and deliveries, about seeing a cab come and not being able to get into it because that cab, by law, can’t take you from where you are to the community you want to go to because of arcane regulations and rules that prevent that.

Consumers want that choice, and they want that convenience. Businesses want their staff to be able to get to meetings and appointments on time. The tech sector. Again, I mentioned earlier, I’m a former tech CEO. I talk to folks in the tech sector all the time, and they continue to be absolutely beside themselves that we promote ourselves, promote British Columbia as a great place to invest, as a great place to come with your innovative ideas and to build your companies, yet we put up a big wall around this province when it comes to certain technologies, certain disruptions, like ride-sharing.

[3:35 p.m.]

Of course, the tourism sector. I know subsequent members will talk about the impact that the lack of ride-sharing has on tourism, particularly in Metro Vancouver. It’s very difficult — increasingly difficult — to explain to people why we don’t have ride-sharing here in British Columbia.

Now, I mentioned a moment ago that this isn’t about assessing blame on existing industries. This is about welcoming new industries and understanding that existing industries and new industries can coexist. I believe that they can. I believe that they can coexist, that they can be strong, that they both can be vibrant and successful here in British Columbia.

Our approach with the existing industry was to support that industry through a series of measures, some of which was looking at what more could be done from a red-tape perspective and working with municipal governments and the taxi industry to eliminate overlaps in the system.

Our former government had put $3½ million on the table for a crash-prevention technology to save the taxi industry money. We had offered assistance in the form of $1 million to support the taxi industry to develop a common app across their industry. We maintained exclusive rights to curbside hailing and street stands. We had committed to opening up a taxi supply and, as I said, making changes to taxi insurance to make that insurance work better and cost less for the taxi industry.

The approach that we find in this bill is disappointing. There is much in this work that I recognize insofar as the people who were there serving our former government, and me as a former minister, are still there today. A lot of the documents look similar and some of the concepts are similar, but things have gone in a very different direction.

This approach and this plan are really reflective of the government’s default to creating a much larger bureaucracy. We see that in the changes that are being proposed for the passenger transportation branch, which will, through this legislation, be transformed into a massive regulatory machine, certainly not with consumers first and foremost in mind.

The Passenger Transportation Board will have its powers enormously expanded. As I said, this will only be accomplished through a huge increase in staffing that will be required to administer and track and enforce the rules. Of course, the leadership of this board will be even more of a creature of the cabinet than it was previously.

Cabinet, through this legislation, will determine the rules of practice and procedure for the board. This legislation provides sweeping powers to cabinet, all of which will be determined later through orders-in-council, to set fees, define terms, delegate power and specify geographic areas and classes of vehicles. This will all be determined by the government and be determined by the cabinet, and will be pushed through the Passenger Transportation Board.

It means that the government will decide how many cars are on the road, how many taxis are on the road and how many ride-sharing cars are on the road. That supply will be tightly managed by this government. It means that the fares that can be charged, including minimums and maximums, will be tightly controlled by this government. It means that where cars can drive — the operating areas — will be tightly controlled by this government.

All of this will be based on three factors that will be taken into account by the Passenger Transportation Board upon the direction of cabinet, and that will be any requests for additional taxicabs or for ride-sharing cars have to demonstrate that:

(1) They’re fit and proper to provide the service. That’s good. That’s important.

(2) There’s a public need. I think everyone can agree there’s a huge public need for more cars on the road — taxi and ride-sharing.

(3) But the request must also must meet sound economic conditions.

[3:40 p.m.]

Now, that’s the one that’s really worrying. The government had the opportunity to bring clarity and standards to the service that the public wants. Unfortunately, this legislation, as it appears to be constructed, offers a huge patchwork of fares and regulations across different cities and jurisdictions.

Safety is critical. No question about that. It certainly was under our government. I take the minister absolutely at face value that safety is the number one priority. But maintaining the requirement for a class 4 licence is simply not required in this case.

The onerous requirements that this places on potential ride-sharing drivers that would be very part-time, at best, in terms of special training, road tests, medical exams, annual vehicle inspections…. Of course, all of this is after you’ve paid for the privilege of doing this test and you’ve gone, on your time, down to a driver’s licence office, and so forth. This just isn’t going to happen. This is a significant deterrent to this new industry.

Now, I mentioned earlier that this work was largely done. We hear often from the government that it’s complex, it’s challenging, and it takes time. We announced that we had legislation ready on March 7, 2017. The miscellaneous statutes passenger transportation services amendment act, 2017, was ready for introduction in this Legislature.

The insurance product work, which we hear requires another year of work at ICBC — that work was also done. A new insurance product had been developed by ICBC for ride-sharing companies. It would have been a blanket insurance policy, similar to other jurisdictions. It would have been purchased by each ride-sharing company. It would cover drivers from the minute they commit to picking up a fare until the time passengers exit the vehicle. It would provide low-hassle, flexible and future price adjustments, and the premium would be based on the distance driven. This work was done.

Likewise, the insurance product for changes to the taxi industry was done as well. The existing policy would remain intact for full-time operation, but for part-time vehicles, there was to be a new fleet reporting insurance model, similar to the blanket insurance model that had been developed for the ride-sharing industry.

The work was done. It was done in late 2016, early 2017. So any suggestion from the government that this work requires a lot more analysis and heads-down effort on the part of ICBC for the insurance product is simply not true. The work was done.

Our legislation placed consumers at the centre of passenger transportation, provided a level playing field for existing and new operators, including driver and safety standards, insurance requirements and service and supply flexibility. It provided for open supply. It provided for no boundaries. It provided for no restrictions on fares. And our system placed a high priority on passenger and driver safety, ensuring criminal record checks, safe driving record checks — you had to be 19 years to drive — regular vehicle inspections, and so forth.

This bill fails in its promise to deliver ride-sharing to British Columbia.

J. Thornthwaite: I’m very proud to stand here today and talk about this new legislation that is before us. As my predecessor just said earlier, the member for Kamloops–South Thompson…. I very much appreciated him giving us a history of what the work was that had been done under our previous government. It was quite evident that a lot had been done. I’ll talk about that in just a little bit.

Coming from the North Shore, my constituents have been waiting for ride-sharing for many years and were very excited to hear that this government was going to bring forward this bill yesterday. But almost minutes after the bill had been introduced, I started getting all of these emails. I’m going to go through some of them just to kind of give you an idea of the feedback I’m getting from my constituents on this bill.

[3:45 p.m.]

After much fanfare that ride-sharing was coming to British Columbia, we realized that, in fact, it’s not coming. In fact, we had heard from the NDP during their election campaign in 2017 that, like our government had promised, it would come at the end of 2017, by the Christmas season. We know that did not happen with the NDP.

Now we know that it’s not happening at the end of 2018, probably not in 2019 and, quite frankly, maybe never, because this bill puts so much level of bureaucracy onto any company that wants to come into British Columbia and offer ride-sharing. There’s so much red tape and requirements that they have to do that is way more than anywhere else in the world.

I really appreciated previous speakers that had said ride-sharing is available in 200 cities in North America. We are the largest city that does not have ride-sharing. In addition, there are other countries that you would think would not have this progressive service — like somebody said, Baghdad, Afghanistan and Syria. And the most recent — North Battleford, Saskatchewan. So, quite frankly, give me a break. I mean, there is no reason why we cannot have ride-sharing here in British Columbia.

I’d like to just go over briefly — not to repeat what the member for Kamloops–South Thompson said but just to explain to my constituents…. If they’re interested, I’d refer them to the press release that was put out by our government on March 7, 2017. It introduced a series of improvements to help the taxi industry modernize and remain competitive in anticipation of ride-sharing services coming to British Columbia by the holiday season at the end of 2017.

The work was done, as was explained before, through a process of consultations, policy work and dialogue with all stakeholders over the period of, say, 2015-2016, leading up to the 2017 press release. Everything that needed to be done to introduce that legislation had been done, and it was on its way. Unfortunately, we ended up not being able to maintain government. But we relied on the opposition at the time, and now the government at the time, to fulfil their promise for bringing ride-sharing into British Columbia. Of course, we know now that they failed. They totally failed.

Without further ado, I would like to read some information that I have gotten from many constituents. About an hour ago it was up to 138 emails I had received in my office from my constituents alone. I’m going to just read you something to express a significant amount of frustration that my constituents deal with every day. I’m hoping the minister will listen to the frustrations that my constituents have and perhaps take note of how not having ride-sharing is negatively affecting their lives.

This is from Gina.

“We tried hailing a cab one rainy and cold night in late November last year. We had just exited the tents of a Cirque du Soleil performance for my mother’s 80th birthday celebration. We just assumed there would be a lineup of taxis waiting to whisk us away to my mother’s birthday dinner, but no.

“We started trekking to find a cab, in the wind and the rain. I called the main taxi company and was immediately put on hold for 20 minutes, only to be finally informed it would be another 45 minutes until a cab would arrive.

“Here we are in the downtown core. I looked over at my poor mom, huddling against her husband, trying to stay warm, hair ruined for the birthday dinner, even under her small umbrella. I felt extremely mad at the taxi industry right then. They could do much better. Just a horrible business model.

“After an hour under the viaduct at the Rogers Arena, my husband basically jumped out in front of the one cab with a light on top, speeding towards him, not looking for rides, and managed to pull him over. We were freezing, and the night was ruined.”

[3:50 p.m.]

Then she gives a suggestion.

“If this had been Uber or Lyft, the scenario would have gone like this. Sitting in our seats inside the warm, dry tent, I would have opened my app and called a car. The car would show me exactly how long it would take until it arrived right on the app — two minutes, seven minutes tops. We’d wait inside until it arrived. I would get an alert as soon as the driver pulled up outside the door. We’d walk out of the building into a warm car. No one else could grab our car as it was called especially for me. We get out at our destination. No money or tips would change hands. Just a thank you and good night. That’s the simple system of ride-sharing.”

I got a text from somebody else — and this is a young person — who was downtown at three o’clock in the morning. “Seeing no taxi in sight for blocks, we resorted to calling every one of our friends. It just so happens that one was awake and was able to come and pick us up.” She said: “The only time I’d ever gotten a cab downtown is by running down to one of the hotels at Waterfront station and getting them to get one for me.”

Ian says that he was bewildered by the press conference that the minister put on. “I’m very sad on behalf of the hospitality industry, people with disabilities, workers that can’t get home, people that get stranded.” And he brought up the wineries in South Okanagan, because apparently they only have one taxi. “I can’t see how the Liberals and Greens can support this.”

Joe from North Van said:

“I would like to voice my absolute frustration with the whole process surrounding ride-sharing legislation in British Columbia. How is it remotely possible that Vancouver is the largest jurisdiction in North America without this service? The British Columbia government claims they are committed to the tech industry in B.C., yet they have failed to bring one of the best tech services to its citizens. It’s actually quite embarrassing, as far as I’m concerned and many, many others in my network of family and friends.

“Industry changed, and in the case of transportation services, Uber and Lyft have raised the bar. Where was the provincial government when Blockbuster went bankrupt as a result of Netflix and HBO? There was no support there, nor should there have been.”

Another constituent of mine, Brenda:

“My husband and I just returned from a vacation in a city where Uber is available. We took a taxi from the train station to our accommodation. Our host encouraged us to use Uber for the return trip. We did it for the price of $3. The savings was the icing on top. We had excellent service, availability of a clean ride, clean vehicle, friendly driver and the ability — and this is the key — to see what other passengers have said about the driver. You get an estimate of the fare before the trip starts, and you can pay by credit card without push-back from a driver. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I don’t believe the delays in allowing this service in B.C. are driven by any legitimate concerns for the public.”

Joanne said:

“Living in Deep Cove on the North Shore, no taxi would bring me home from the downtown. It’s even near impossible to get one from the Lonsdale Quay. The day of the week, time of day does not make a difference. They refuse to take me home. It’s even difficult from the airport. Having used ride-sharing in other countries of the world, I know it works, and I can’t understand why British Columbia doesn’t have it. The general population needs and wants ride-sharing, and the current service is not second to all.”

This one’s an interesting one. This is from Brett.

“Hi, Jane. I’d like to express my concern regarding the delay of getting Uber to B.C. I see Uber as a way to reduce my environmental footprint while lowering my personal transportation costs by deferring and eliminating the decision to purchase a second car.

“However, policy-makers are working against me here. With further delays in getting Uber up, delays in getting car-sharing close to my home in the district of North Van and delays in the expansion of the TransLink network and SeaBus, soon I’ll have no other choice but to add another car to the system.

“In the meantime, my patience has run out. The taxi services seem to be diminishing monthly. Vancouver can’t wait. Please increase the pace and get Uber as soon as possible.”

[3:55 p.m.]

Lastly, I’d just like to talk about Lisa.

“As a resident of North Vancouver, I, too, have had many experiences trying to plan ahead and prebook a cab, only to learn at the last minute that no cab was available. As a result, I’d be late for meetings, in jeopardy of missing flights and forced to drive when I didn’t want to. My teenage children have been unable to get cabs home late at night, even from within North Vancouver. This is unacceptable to me.”

She goes on to express her experiences with Uber and Lyft in many, many other cities. She finishes:

“I’m very frustrated and want ride-sharing introduced in B.C. now. We have waited long enough. I want to be able to choose my mode of transportation. If there’s a model for making it work in other jurisdictions, we should be able to adopt that too.”

One last one here. This guy told me he actually didn’t vote for me. He voted for the Greens. His name is Greg. He asked me: “What is the holdup with ride-sharing? This is crazy. Every other major city in Canada has Uber. I use it in Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. When I voted for Andrew Weaver and the Greens, I expected more from them in this area.”

Interjections.

J. Thornthwaite: Sorry, the Leader of the Third Party.

“I guess, just like their NDP brethren, they are enjoying their seat at the table. Get moving, and get Uber.”

I’m not going to go on, but you could see that the Daily Hive has a whole exposé on comments. I thought it was kind of funny. Their title was: “So Not Lit: B.C. Reacts to Ride-Share Legislation Timeline.”

Others have quoted many media outlets. Kirk LaPointe, from Business in Vancouver: “Rather than free the market, it has coaxed into place lenience for the incumbent industry in the context of regulatory conservatism bound to make strenuous the competition most of us believed was pending.”

Mike Smyth, from the Province: “It’s an overly bureaucratic and excessively regulated system in which the government, not the ride-hailing firms, will decide how many drivers will be allowed to accept passengers, where they can work and how much they can charge.”

Vaughn Palmer today, in the Vancouver Sun: “Sure, they wasted no time launching a half-baked speculation tax and in stacking the deck in favour of electoral change, but implementation of a service that is already in place in comparable jurisdictions all over the world? Some things just can’t be rushed.”

I’ve given a little rundown of the feedback that I’ve been getting from constituents. One last thing with regards to the safety issue. I too care about safety. The member for Kamloops–South Thompson expressed what had been done when we were in government with regards to ensuring that the ride-sharing scheme was very, very safe. But if you’re talking about safety, remember those young people that cannot get home from downtown late at night and have to actually walk home on the Lions Gate Bridge for a couple of hours.

Lastly, the last thing that my daughter said was: “Can you please finish your statement with, ‘Guess NDP isn’t as woke as they thought. The millennials have spoken. Uber is lit.’”

A. Olsen: I’m pleased to rise today and speak to a long-awaited piece of legislation in this Legislature, one that is so long in waiting that, in fact, we may have experienced yet another innovation before we actually had a chance to even debate it in this House. I have to say that it is quite amusing to stand in this place.

[4:00 p.m.]

I’ve only been here since May of 2017, but it is quite amusing to sit and listen to the members of the official opposition stand in this place and pretend like they weren’t making the exact same political calculations for five years, that they weren’t determining whether or not they were going to win or lose 150 or 200 votes here or there, and that they weren’t dragging their heels for about half a decade on this issue.

It’s fascinating to hear the members talk about how, at the end of 2016, we had a full package of legislation, and we were going to roll it out right…. Well, we did roll it out right before the 2017 election, just right in time for us to bait the hook for the 2017 election.

It’s fascinating to hear member after member stand up and read emails from their constituents and pretend like they are somehow clean in this. This is not a celebration today. To me, this is actually…. I’m very happy to be debating this bill. I’m very happy that there is a bill before us to debate. But I think that this is, fundamentally, a failure of the B.C. political system — that we haven’t had this discussion earlier, that it has taken so long for us to have a conversation about an innovative and disruptive technology.

Look, there’s no question about it. This technology is going to have an impact on the British Columbia economy. That is 100 percent true. It is going to change incumbent….

Interjection.

A. Olsen: Perhaps you should have been encouraging the former Minister of Transportation to embrace that positive change, shouldn’t you. Anyway, the fact of the matter is….

Interjection.

A. Olsen: Right. Too little, too late.

I rise in this place to speak to the legislation. I promised myself that I wouldn’t dive into the ditch with the members from Kamloops and roll around in the ditch, but I had to just a little bit. The member for Kamloops–North Thompson does entice — he’s not here now — to dive into the ditch and roll around for a bit, but I’m not going to do that.

Deputy Speaker: Member, we don’t comment on the presence or absence of members in the chamber.

A. Olsen: Okay. I’m sorry to the member. Thank you, Madame Speaker.

It was enticing to dive into the ditch. Now I’ll climb out and maybe stand on the side of the road here.

I rise to speak to the piece of legislation that is long overdue, legislation that creates a framework for ride-sharing in British Columbia.

My colleague the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head has put — no less than three times — legislation into this House three times to this current government and, as well, to the former government, the government that proclaimed that it was taking rapid, near-half-decade-long quick action on this file. He has been a driving force for this government to bring something to the table.

I’m glad that for the first time this House will be able to canvass, in detail, a sitting government’s approach to enabling ride-hailing in this province. That said, other jurisdictions have had ride-hailing services operating in their cities for almost a decade, and other members have gone into just what those cities are. It was fascinating to hear that Baghdad has ride-hailing. I did not know that, so I’m learning something today.

While this is, without a doubt, a step forward, no one here, I think, gets to take a victory lap. As I said, the fact that this issue of such high public interest, one that has been highlighted a number of times already, which has been addressed in almost every other jurisdiction in North America, is now only seeing its first legislation in B.C. is a failure of our political system, in my estimation. Government cannot bury its head in the sand, and it cannot pretend that change doesn’t happen.

Technological change is one of the greatest global forces, and it’s constantly reshaping our society. A forward-looking jurisdiction simply doesn’t look to protect the status quo. It seeks to harness technology to advance, for the well-being of its citizens.

Our caucus will be looking very closely to ensure that the legislation and regulations to follow strike the right balance so that the province lives up to its responsibility to ensure public safety and a fair playing field for business, while also providing British Columbians with access to the full range of modern transportation options.

For the most part, this legislation is an enabling legislation. Few specific decisions have been made regarding the regulatory regime that the ride-hailing companies would face.

[4:05 p.m.]

Unfortunately, this means little is revealed about the realities of this regime, and the devil’s in the details. So far, everyone agrees that having legislation is a positive step forward, but little is illuminated about whether it will establish a functional regime. In this, government has some significant work to do in clarifying its intent. Specifically, we are going to be looking for clarification about how boundaries will be set, whether or not ride-hailing companies will face supply caps and whether the government intends to have regulations around pricing or wages. All of these details remain unclear at this point.

However, there is at least one significant public policy decision in this legislation, a significant public policy that we’re going to be able to debate now, which is a good thing. That is, namely, that the legislation proposes that ride-hailing companies will be regulated by the Passenger Transportation Board. This is the same body that is responsible for authorizing new cabs in different jurisdictions.

It remains unclear to me how the government proposes for ride-hailing companies to operate within this same framework when one of the most pressing challenges it has faced is approving adequate supply to meet demand. That’s been one of the main criticisms of the current system that exists already.

In Dan Hara’s report for the government, it made it clear that ride-hailing demand may exceed any estimates for taxis alone. Furthermore, the process for approval lets existing taxi companies argue about whether they will face economic hardship with the new approval. It creates this gridlock.

I have concerns that this will simply ensure the status quo is prevented from any disruption, and that’s certainly not the kind of approach that we are hoping the government will continue to take. I will be looking for significant clarity about how the minister proposes to address this concern.

I also must profess that I have some questions about the government’s decision to require ride-hailing operators to maintain a class 4 licence. Everyone here agrees that government’s responsibility must be to ensure public safety. That is paramount. However, it is not clear that maintaining class 4 is a policy decision that necessarily promotes the broader public interest or broader public safety.

In the former, we would have the government’s own consultant, Dan Hara, argue that class 5 licences are sufficient even for taxicab operators so long as they are coupled with an additional training and minimum driving requirements such as age or driving record. In the latter, groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving have joined the call for pushing ride-hailing to ensure that there are more options available to people who may be intoxicated.

If class 4 licences, as the policy tool, end up being a significant barrier, why can we not find other policy tools that accomplish a similar level of safety without the structural barriers to the industry? I’ll be looking for more clarity from the minister on this point as well.

I think that while I was critical and am critical of the members of the official opposition trying to stake or claim some high ground on this issue, which I don’t believe there is any justification for — no justification at all, considering that this is a policy issue, a significant public policy issue that’s been needed to be moved forward for about half a decade now — there have been some important points raised that need to be canvassed more deeply, as we now have the opportunity to debate it.

This is the opportunity where we get to move from where it was or where it is currently to where it will be into the future. I look forward to that.

Many British Columbians, I know, are looking forward to having more options for them to get transported around their communities, whether it be in the Lower Mainland, here in southern Vancouver Island or in rural and remote communities across the province, communities like Saltspring Island, for example. While you may not think they need a ride-hailing company, in fact, it would be very beneficial for a community like Saltspring or a community like other small communities. [Applause.]

Thank you. I appreciate that. That’s fantastic. I don’t get clapped at very often, so that’s great. I thank you. I appreciate it.

Anyways, I will close my part of the debate in this. We’re very, very interested. Of course, I would like to just state that this has been something that the B.C. Green caucus has been advocating for long before I was in this place. We look forward to it moving forward.

[4:10 p.m.]

With that, I will take my seat. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

D. Barnett: I rise today to speak to Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act. Once again we’re debating a piece of legislation that makes it possible to do something not today, not tomorrow but, at the end of a long process, almost a year from now.

The government has been in office for 18 months. The entire time they have promised ride-sharing rules are coming. The government even appointed a legislative committee on ride-sharing and then chose to disregard most of the recommendations, such as having class 5 licences for ride-sharing drivers.

“They are just around the corner. They will be here soon. Just wait. We will have ride-sharing by Christmas 2017, in 2018” — and now in 2019. No, wait. The minister couldn’t confirm, and now it may be in 2020. But if this is any indication, the only thing that will be under that Christmas tree will be a lump of coal. Sadly, it’s like waiting for a cab in downtown Vancouver, standing on the curb when you’re told it’s coming soon.

I live in rural British Columbia in an area where we have no taxis. We have no buses. We have no transportation. Ride-sharing, Uber, would be something that would certainly help many, many people. Greyhound just left, and that was our only means of transportation. We have volunteers who pick up people and drive them from point A to point B. Many of them, if they ever have an accident, according to ICBC, will not be covered because you need a business licence to drive Mary from point A to point B under the law.

This is a huge issue in rural British Columbia. Basically, I’ve read this act over and over, and there’s no consideration whatsoever for rural British Columbia. We are not downtown Vancouver, and we do not have accessibility to transportation such as the urban centres, where all the funding from rural British Columbia goes to provide these services.

What do we get? We get another government bureaucracy, when class 5 could do the job. Now we’re going to have more rules. We’re going to have more bureaucracy. We’re going to have more setup. When will it end?

Who did the government consult with? I represent the critic for economic development in rural British Columbia, and I certainly haven’t heard from anybody. Neither has anybody that I know within my caucus or within rural British Columbia. It’s like most things that happen these days in the House. “We’ll forget about rural British Columbia. There aren’t enough of them out there to worry about. We hope we get PR through. They can just all go to bed, and that’ll be the end of them.”

Rural British Columbia is exhausted at this point. For the last 18 months, they’re saying: “Who is listening?” I say: “I am. I deliver your message continuously.” This here is an opportunity to help people and to help people immediately. Many seniors, now that we don’t have Greyhound, are waiting for some new private entity to come along. Hopefully, they do soon.

Thank goodness, and thank you to the Minister of Transportation that she didn’t decide to change the rules on how you drive a bus either. I’m shocked and surprised that hasn’t happened.

Some of the questions I get in my community are…. Now we’re going to have new ICBC rules, and you’ve got to pay $50 if you drive somebody else’s car. Maybe the minister can take this question into consideration too. Many people in rural British Columbia, when they go to a dance or to a party…. They have firefighters who drive party people home, and then somebody else drives their car. We have no other way of being safe. Probably we’ll lose that too.

[4:15 p.m.]

I sincerely hope that the minister reconsiders this act and takes a good look at it and sees all it is, is a stall tactic full of bureaucracy. The costs of it are going to be exorbitant. When I look at what the fines are…. I don’t have a problem with fines, but I think they’re a little exorbitant, too, for your first error. What is going to happen to operations like Operation Red Nose? Those, too, will probably be interfered with under this act, because it looks to me like everything will be under one act or another act. Or some kind of a decision will be made on changing these things too.

What about class 4 costs? How many people, should they become engaged in this so-called ride-sharing, are going to have to get a new licence? What is the cost going to be? How many bureaucrats are we going to have to hire? How big of a bureaucracy is it going to be, and where are these people going to take these licences? We now, in rural British Columbia, have to drive sometimes a long way to take a driver’s test, and sometimes you have to wait for a long time.

I really can’t understand where the government is coming from on this particular act. Consult? Yes, where it was convenient to consult, and then they didn’t listen.

We have many, many rural areas that certainly could use ride-sharing as it is in all other provinces in Canada. It works well. This here is just, to me, and to many of the people that I’ve listened to…. You know, we’re always willing to have change if it’s to make something better. But this is not to make things better. This is to make things more complicated — more costly, more bureaucracy, more rules, more regulations. That seems to be the modern way of government today.

While I support ride-sharing, I do not support the bureaucracy and the mythology within this particular bill. I look forward to more conversations on this particular bill, and I look forward to listening to what the minister has to say in the coming days on this particular bill.

S. Sullivan: I’m very pleased to speak to Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act, 2018.

This is a very important bill for my riding of Vancouver–False Creek. In Vancouver–False Creek, we have an incredible flourishing of tech companies. We have so many very innovative companies that are hiring like crazy. We have young people that are moving into the area. There are companies that are coming from the U.S. and other areas to try to set up shop in my riding.

One of the most common comments we get is: “What? You can’t…? What kind of a primitive place is this?” They all get off the airplane and make the call to Uber or Lyft or whatever, and they are shocked that they cannot access this service that is available in almost every other civilized place in the world.

I know, with the focus that we have on technology, we are trying to promote British Columbia as a hotbed of technology companies. We have some of the real classic companies of the Internet world that have established here. Many of them actually were founded in Vancouver. We have companies like Microsoft and others that are moving here. Amazon is coming — or they’re here already, and they’re going to significantly expand their employees.

[4:20 p.m.]

Here we are promoting ourselves as a place of innovation and technology, yet we don’t have this very basic element of the tech world — the ride-sharing apps and ride-sharing services.

Certainly, in my riding, we have a lot of nightclubs and bars and such downtown — the Granville entertainment district. We have a lot of people who find themselves looking for taxis. We get a lot of comments about people saying: “Here they are.”

They’re not willing to risk not being able to get home, so they drive. This is dangerous if you have people who may have had too much to drink. We always encourage them as much as we can: “Please, have someone who will be able to drive for you.” But of course, there are many cases where people end up without a way to get home.

Certainly, in the tech world, young people that come downtown need to get home. There are cases where we will have several concerts or major events downtown, and that puts an incredible stress on the system. The taxi services simply can’t keep up with that. Putting people at risk, putting our reputation at risk — these are the kinds of things that we are dealing with.

In my riding of Vancouver–False Creek, this is a very big issue. I live in the Yaletown area, and we will often have people wandering around the streets, making a lot of noise, looking for a taxi, waiting to find an opportunity to get home. It’s causing some serious dysfunction in the community. I am really hopeful that we’ll move expeditiously on getting ride-sharing.

Now, we do know that the current government did promise ride-sharing. Two years later we still don’t have a real plan to enable ride-sharing in B.C. In the 2017 election, the NDP promised ride-sharing would be enabled by Christmas. This was pushed back a year. Now they have done so by at least another year. The minister was not able to guarantee that B.C. would have ride-sharing in 2019. It may be 2020 before this actually comes to be.

I have also heard from many people in other industries who rely on this. We have the convention industry. They are a critical part of the economy of this province. The convention centre will often bring in people from all over the world, and it’s really a sad situation when they all have to be told that we don’t actually have what everyone else in the civilized world seems to have. They’re constantly dealing with looks of disbelief as we try to manage this.

We have many cruise ships that come in. The most difficult case is when we get more than one cruise ship in at a time. That has serious reputation implications for British Columbia and Vancouver. I’ve certainly run into the situation where people have come in on cruise ships when there is one, two, sometimes even three.

[4:25 p.m.]

It’s an incredible load on the system. To not have this release valve is a very unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in.

With the tech world, with the entertainment that we have downtown, with the cruise ships — those are certainly examples where this is found to be a huge problem. But we even find the problem just for regular folks who are working downtown who, especially in inclement weather, will be a big load on the transportation system. They are also affected by this whole thing.

I do very much feel for the taxi service. I know that there are a lot of question marks around them. They worry about how this will affect them. I think it’s important to know that, in the cities that I’ve been where they do have these services, the taxi industry actually seems to be healthy.

One of my concerns is that the taxi industry does a good job. They do a very good job on their core business. What I am especially appreciative of is that they do a good job on accessibility. This is a serious problem with ride-sharing in the way it’s practised in most of the world. The taxis will often have a certain percentage of their fleet that is wheelchair-accessible and usable by people with disabilities. That is not the case in the ride-sharing.

I note that there has been some very good work being done. I think we have to thank our member from Surrey. She has done a tremendous job in working out a flexible and innovative system in which people with disabilities will still be able to benefit from accessible services.

Now, we know that there will be no ride-sharing this holiday season, and this is when it is felt the most. This is when many citizens from across the province will find themselves downtown. Of course, with the weather in the middle of the holiday season, the early evenings — 4:30, 5 p.m. is when the sun goes down. And then you have a lot of people who have been celebrating, and they are looking now to get home.

I regret that the government-knows-best approach is the approach that seems to be taken here with this bill, where they will set the supply, the price and boundaries. The question is: why not allow customers to be the ones who decide this?

The way these systems work in many other jurisdictions is that a lot of this is about supply and demand. The customers, the load on the system, the demand does dictate price, supply and boundaries. This has been very effective in other areas, and you don’t actually need a large government process, a whole government infrastructure, to try to manage this. It is best if you can do this without having a whole infrastructure in place.

[4:30 p.m.]

What few options the NDP have proposed have set more restrictive guidelines than any other jurisdiction in Canada. You know, we have commercial licences that require special training, road tests, medical exams, annual vehicle inspections. So not only are we one of the very few areas in the civilized world that does not have this kind of program, but when we do get it, it will be the most restrictive in the country and one of most restrictive in the world. This is very unfortunate, because it really does have an impact on our reputation.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Quite often, when people come to Vancouver, when they come to British Columbia, they get off the plane, the boat, the train or whatever, and the first thing they do…. Their first impression of our province is the transportation to get to where they’re going to stay. So it’s not just a nice thing to have. It actually defines us. We are actually defined by their first experience. You can’t really change a first impression, and that is so important. When people come to this part of the world, their first impression will stay with them and will define their impression of who we are and the kind of province and metropolitan areas we have.

Despite there being examples of ride-sharing legislation in every other province, the government still seems to be unable to come up with a plan for it in B.C. Here we have Vancouver, the largest of the cities in North America without ride-sharing.

So we need to have clarity. We need to have a number of different things that we can do to make sure that our reputation is not jeopardized. People come here from other parts of the world. They get to Vancouver, and the first thing they have to say about Vancouver is: “Wow, here it is — an area that claims to be innovative, claims to be tech savvy, claims to be up to date in the services that it provides.” The reputation damage alone — we’re not able to quantify it, but it’s serious.

We have a lot of challenges right now with our transportation. The Massey Tunnel, of course, coming to Victoria, every trip that we make…. This is something that I deal with personally. Anybody that has to go and take the ferry, go to the U.S. — this is another reputation issue of what people will experience when they get to this side of the water or through the border.

We need clarity. I’m very concerned that the kind of restrictive guidelines that are put onto this process through this bill will actually not help our reputational issues.

A new per-trip fee. All of either taxi or ride-hailing vehicles will have to undergo criminal driver record checks and will have to maintain a class 4 passenger licence. Administrative fines for non-compliance will change from a maximum of $1,500 to a maximum of $50,000, and a corporation that is in non-compliance can be fined a maximum of $100,000 per day.

[4:35 p.m.]

Then part of this specifies that by January 1, 2022, a legislative committee must be appointed that will review and make recommendations on the effectiveness of the changes — that is, the impact on public transportation, traffic congestion and the environment; adequacy of supply, including accessible vehicles; the extent to which the act promotes employment in this sector; the extent to which changes promote taxis and ride-hailing vehicles to operate in small, rural or remote communities. This committee must submit a report to the Legislative Assembly within one year of being appointed.

In order to make more evidence-based decision-making, the PTB will be able to access information regarding trip times, pickup locations, wait times and type of trip, etc.

I just want to kind of summarize. We have, in my riding of Vancouver–False Creek, a serious problem with our technology companies that are booming. They are creating the new world for people around the world — the types of work they are doing in creating new ways to interact with the world through the Internet. The fact is that this city that is so affecting the way everyone else lives their lives around the world through really innovative Internet technology is a city that does not have some of the most basic ride-hailing services.

We’ve got a huge issue with tourism, through the cruise ships and entertainment downtown that can often bottleneck. People who come from all over the world are finding that the lack of ride-hailing services in Vancouver is one of the first things they experience, and it defines the impression that we have. I urge the government to move expeditiously and to remove some of these more difficult obstacles and the whole government infrastructure that’s being created that will slow down things and make it much more difficult to have a successful ride-hailing industry.

I will finish speaking there and hope that the government will be able to push through some of these problems and obstacles that are in this bill and come to a point where we actually have a system that is known in almost every other jurisdiction of the world.

J. Isaacs: I rise today to speak to Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act. Imagine the excitement of planning a family trip to British Columbia to spend a week in a major city, the third-largest metropolitan city in Canada. With a family of four, you are on a tight budget, so to save a little money, you stay at a hotel just on the outskirts of Vancouver. After all, you want all your vacation money to stretch as far as possible.

You want to take in all the fabulous tourist attractions, from Stanley Park and Yaletown to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the botanical gardens at UBC and perhaps even the Teddy Bear Picnic in Coquitlam. After getting the kids ready and packed for a day of adventure, you go to your Uber app, which is available in every other major city in North America, to find out that there’s no Uber.

“What? There’s no Uber? Well, how about Lyft, then?” No Lyft, no ride-sharing at all. As you stand on the street corner with your anxious kids, you wonder: “How do people get around here?” Well, that’s a question that is being asked by virtually every tourist that visits Vancouver or British Columbia.

People from outside British Columbia are baffled that a city and province this size, with our reputation, would not have ride-sharing. During the election, all parties campaigned to bring in ride-sharing. But here we are, 18 months after an election, and we are debating legislation that doesn’t enable ride-sharing today, next week or in time for the upcoming holiday season. Instead, we are talking about legislation that will not come into effect until at least 2020 or beyond.

[4:40 p.m.]

People are getting really frustrated, and rightly so. Alfred from Coquitlam says: “I’ve used Uber in major cities all over the world. It’s so sad that we can’t use the same service here at home. I guess we don’t live in a province that’s capable of serving our own cities in the same manner.”

Ride-sharing is not new. It’s been used in jurisdictions all around the world. Every other province across Canada has managed to pass ride-sharing legislation. We don’t need to reinvent an alternative transportation model; we need to get people moving, and we need to give commuters choices.

Transportation choices are limited and still don’t get people home on a timely basis. Peter says: “I could take SkyTrain and arrive at a local SkyTrain station. If it’s late, I could just get an Uber to home, and then I wouldn’t have to spend another 20 to 30 minutes waiting for the next bus that may or may not show up.” Peter is correct. There’s no other choice for him. He would take SkyTrain partway, likely in the middle of the night, and not be able to get himself all the way home in a timely manner.

We need to get ride-sharing moving forward. We need an early completion date. It’s not only because it would be more convenient to get home at night and in a timely manner. We’re losing significant tourist dollars because visitors are having bad experiences getting around the city.

The lack of transportation options also affects our residents. Jordan says: “As a major city, we need to have a transportation platform like this, not only for our tourists but for our residents as well.” The citizens of British Columbia are being denied access to convenient, reliable and affordable transportation that is available virtually everywhere else on the planet.

This bill is set up to create further delays, and these delays are completely self-imposed by this government. Instead of coming up with some solid ideas to get ride-sharing moving forward, this government has offered some of the most restrictive rules and roadblocks for ride-share drivers in Canada. Sharon says: “I am so disappointed to not already have ride-sharing in B.C. The latest announcement basically does nothing but say that we might have it a year from now. Talk about broken promises.”

Well, it goes even further. Drivers will be subject to commercial licences, special training, road tests, medical exams and annual vehicle inspections. There will be further layers to go through, including the need for Passenger Transportation Board and ICBC decisions.

Kirk from Coquitlam says: “It’s embarrassing. We can’t get ride-sharing off the ground after waiting so long. It seems to be apparent that government is going to meddle so much that ride-sharing will be a shadow of what it should be and will be bogged down with ridiculous restrictions, imposed by government, which will ultimately remove convenience to consumers and increase costs.”

Government has had every opportunity over the last 18 months to bring clarity and standards and to broaden transportation options for those who need it — like Mahima, who says: “I would like to have Uber in the city since it would be convenient for students and also for those who don’t drive around in Vancouver.”

We have a large senior population, and it is growing. By 2020, we will see a reduction in drivers’ licences as more seniors lose their driving independence due to changes in their eyesight and hearing, slower response times and mobility issues. They won’t be able to drive and handle a walker or wheelchair, and they often have to travel long distances for their medical appointments, especially appointments with specialists.

[4:45 p.m.]

As Jennifer states: “Ride-sharing will improve quality of life, inclusion and accessibility. Living and working in the suburbs means missed opportunities, exclusion and hampered mobility.” This bill will not improve transportation affordability. It calls for fares and regulations across different cities and jurisdictions. In the Lower Mainland, there will be over a dozen different ride-sharing fee regimes. It doesn’t need to be that complicated. Other jurisdictions have figured it out. We have a hub of technology companies here in Vancouver. Surely we have the innovative skills to launch a transportation platform, a ride-sharing model that has been used already around the globe.

People simply want to get from one place to another. They want to arrive at their destination safely, reliably and affordably. Public safety is a concern for all of us. I cringe when I hear stories like Alissa’s, who is a longtime resident of Coquitlam. Alissa says: “I am honestly horrified that we have no reliable means of alternative transportation. I have personally been left stranded on the street late in the evening when the cab I have requested multiple times does not show up. It is also virtually impossible to use their app successfully.”

Cher says: “It is so necessary that we have alternatives to taxi rides in our communities. My children have been stranded on more than one occasion downtown because taxis will not take them from downtown to Coquitlam at night. Why does B.C. have to lag behind on these things?”

I don’t think we want to see our citizens, our children and our younger girls and boys stranded because they can’t get a safe and reliable ride home, especially since a safe and reliable ride is available to everyone else in North America through ride-sharing.

Will brings up a good point. He says: “I strongly believe that ride-sharing should be introduced to British Columbia as soon as possible. I was recently out with some of my friends. Once at the bar — and the bar was closing — we called a taxi. It was 2 degrees outside, and we waited for an hour for a taxi that never showed up.” Well, I’m glad to see that Will and his friends patiently waited and eventually found their way home, but how many others are not patient, and with impaired judgment and frustration, get behind the wheel and drive home?

That’s not the kind of public safety that MADD supports. People are killed and injured every night because of drunk drivers. We are entering a new challenge with the legalization of marijuana and an untested model to accurately test for impairment. These delays are compromising the safety of individuals who are stranded on the side of the road, who can only get partway to their destination because of transportation restrictions, and many more people are driving impaired on the roads simply because they do not have other options available to them.

This really isn’t a ride-sharing bill. It is taking three times longer to bring in this framework for ride-sharing than it does to alter our electoral system and democracy. They are happy to rush through a referendum and come up with three proposed new voting systems, two of which have never been tried anywhere in the world. but here we have ride-sharing — a model used for a decade or more around the world — and no concrete steps forward.

We are not getting ride-sharing any time soon. This is one more delay to providing citizens with reliable, convenient and affordable transportation. It is just one more of the broken promises that we’ve seen from this government.

[4:50 p.m.]

It’s also important to point out that ride-sharing is not just about getting a ride. As Jordan says: “It goes hand in hand with our desire to be a greener city and encourage people to shift away from the use of personal vehicles.”

Sameer says: “This will reduce the total number of vehicles, so less of a carbon footprint.” But Sameer also says: “Let’s stop living in the past. Competition always brings out the best. Why rob others of the opportunity to make money?”

That comment is echoed by Kelsey, who says: “It’s safe, reliable and allows more people to have a second job with freedom. I’ve met some amazing people while ride-sharing.”

It’s time to move forward with ride-sharing, and this legislation is not going to advance the timeline by any means. It is going to add on more red tape, fees and regulations and will end up costing everyone more. Once again, there are many unanswered questions that will be figured out later.

There were hundreds of emails received today, and I’ve quoted just a few messages from my constituents. I will end with a quote from Mike. Mike says:

“The NDP government’s announcement yesterday introducing the legislation to bring ride-sharing to B.C. was highly disappointing. You can attempt to blame the previous government and state the challenges with developing insurance coverage through ICBC, but this amounts to nothing more than delay tactics and kicking the can down the road, reinforcing the belief that your policy is being heavily influenced.

“We are now faced with going through another holiday season without adequate access to safe transportation. It’s hard to understand why B.C.’s needs are so unique that a made-in-B.C. solution is the only option when other jurisdictions, including those with public auto insurance, have managed to figure it out. The public sentiment on this issue is clear, so stop blaming your predecessors and get moving.”

This certainly sums it up for a lot of us. It’s time to move forward with ride-sharing in the province of British Columbia.

L. Throness: It’s a pleasure today to rise and speak to Bill 55, which is the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act, 2018. I want to begin by waxing philosophical for a moment and talk about history, because I’m a historian and I like reading history. I want to begin by pointing out that even before the Industrial Revolution, the story of development and the prosperity, the progress and the great conditions we enjoy in western civilization has been a story of the application of new technology that is borne along by market principles.

As an example, I think of the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in the late 1400s, which made books suddenly inexpensive. It made literacy something useful, something to be desired. It brought knowledge to the masses rather than knowledge being confined to the upper classes. I think of the steam engine. I think of the railway. I think of the gas engine. I think of air travel. I think of the McCormick reaper, which revolutionized agriculture, or the cotton gin in the States, looms to make cloth in Britain. Technology made life easier for everybody.

I think of Josiah Wedgwood, in the 1700s, who perfected the idea of mass production in the making of his pottery. He utilized the division of labour, in which tasks were divided up into steps, and one person would concentrate on one step. Instead of one person making a whole pot, several people would take different tasks and make an entire pot together. Thereby, they revolutionized the production of pots and of other goods. Mass production has made us all wealthier and better off than any previous generation in history.

Now, there are always a few naysayers, when it comes to technology, saying that enhanced technology will take away jobs when, actually, the reverse is always true. It might take away a few jobs, but it will replace them with more and better jobs.

Think of the many jobs, Mr. Speaker, that you may have done in your youth that you wouldn’t want to do now. I think of when I was a lad and I worked on a dairy farm. After milking in the morning, I would shovel manure with a great big scoop shovel, and that manure was right up to the top of my rubber boots. Every day I would be doing that.

[4:55 p.m.]

Well, I toured a modern dairy facility recently, and they cleaned all of that stuff away with water. It was pumped into a great big tank, and then it would be pumped out onto the fields, almost without human intervention. Shovelling manure is not a nice job, and mechanization has replaced it. That is the story of technology. That’s what technology does for us. It helps us to live better lives, and that’s a good thing.

I think of the people in the 1800s who destroyed looms because they were taking away jobs. They were called Luddites, after a guy named Ludd. They mistrusted technology. They didn’t seem to realize that the revolution of mechanization of making cloth would create many more jobs and better jobs than the ones that they replaced.

On the weekend, I was going over some pictures that I took when I was younger guy. I travelled through Europe with my brother, and we were taking pictures in Switzerland from a train. We came upon a field where there were about eight people in a row, and they were turning over hay with pitchforks. Can you imagine that? I thought then, in 1980, that that was very backward, because I, on the farm, had driven a tractor which pulled a mechanical rake that would turn over hay mechanically. I thought: how backward, that they were doing it with pitchforks in Switzerland.

Well, it would be unimaginable to try and make a living with that today, unless you made the method itself a selling point for some kind of, say, artisanal hay, for which you could charge a premium in the market. Yet that was still being done in 1980, and it was not a nice job. It would be hard work. It would be hot work. But the productivity that we enjoy today is incredible.

My relatives farm up in Grande Prairie, and my uncles and my cousins talk of the hundreds of millions of loaves of bread that they make when they do the harvest, and they do it from the air-conditioned comfort of a great big tractor cab that’s driven by GPS. The productivity that we enjoy because of technology today, driven by the market, is incredible.

This process of rapid change is continuing and accelerating even in my lifetime. I was thinking about this, just the amount of change that’s taking place during my own lifetime. There have been a number of revolutions. Hon. members can think of this in their own lives.

I think of black-and-white TVs that I grew up on, not even a 26-inch TV, perhaps a 20-inch TV. We watched The Beverly Hillbillies while eating our bologna sandwiches at supper. They were replaced by colour TVs that first came out during Klondike Days in Edmonton. I remember, in 1970, they were the great innovation. They cost $1,000. That was like $6,000 today.

They were replaced within five or six years. There were no black-and-white TVs around anymore. I think of flat screen TVs that replaced all the tube TVs, millions of them, dozens of millions. Now we watch TVs that have bigger and better sound and pictures than we could ever have imagined as children.

I grew up with one channel — one TV channel — in Fort St. John, and that was channel 5, good old CBC. Now I don’t even bother to count the number of channels I have. There’s still nothing to watch.

I think of photocopiers. I think of fax machines. When I started work, we didn’t have either, when I was at International Harvester, when I first started working in an office. International Harvester doesn’t exist anymore either.

I remember rotary phones were replaced by touch-tone phones, which were replaced by cellphones, which were, in turn, replaced by smartphones. Four generations of change within my lifetime — huge change, enormous change, rapid change. Think of direct long-distance dialling. I remember when that came in. Think of snail mail versus email.

Try today to find an old black-and-white TV or a rotary-dial phone or a computer monitor that isn’t a flat screen. Look for a floppy disk or an eight-track cassette or a magnetic tape cassette or a reel-to-reel to record on. Look for a camera that uses film. They don’t exist, except as collectibles in antique stores. They were completely swept away by the market, riding a flood of new technology, and they all happened in my and your lifetime, Mr. Speaker.

All of these revolutions were positive. They were good. For example, they were good for the environment. They say that the harbour in the capital of Sweden, Gothenburg, was always polluted because of the chemicals that Kodak used to develop film. That all disappeared, and the harbour was cleaned up because of the use of digital cameras. Today I can take as many pictures as my relatives can bear, and it costs me nothing. It is non-polluting.

[5:00 p.m.]

Cars today are far cleaner than they were 20 years ago. We learned that in the SCRAP-IT program presentation that we all attended yesterday. Now we’re looking at a flood of electric cars that are going to replace our outdated gas-powered vehicles as the next revolution to change our lives, and they will change our lives for the better. They will go farther with less maintenance. They’re faster. They’re quieter. They’re cleaner. They’re more reliable.

I can’t make gasoline myself at home, but I can make electricity at my home that’s just as good as that which B.C. Hydro makes. I like that idea, I can hardly wait to get one myself. That market-based impulse to have an electric car is far stronger than any government program and will drive the switch towards electric vehicles.

The application of technology has made us richer, more knowledgable. It has made our lives easier. It has extended our lives.

It allows me to buy Canadian apples and Canadian milk but also bananas from who knows where so that I can have a diet that is better, cheaper, more varied and higher quality than at any time in the history of the world, as we have made use of container technology and international trade. My mother remembered the first time that she tasted an orange — and peanut butter. I don’t remember the first time I tasted those things because I was too young. I’ve had them all of my life.

All of these revolutions required two things. They required enhanced technology and free markets — free markets that are far more powerful than governments are. If you let the market have its way, you can affect a dozen revolutions in a lifetime and improve everyone’s lives within one lifetime.

A perfect example of the continuing application of technology using the market lies before us today in this bill, Bill 55. But this government is, sadly, taking a 19th-century approach to a 21st-century issue.

I talked for a moment about the Luddites, in the 19th century. I want to talk about them a little bit more. They were a group of textile workers. They smashed weaving machines because their jobs were being threatened by technological change. So they thought the right thing to do was to preserve their way of life by smashing the technology.

The government of the day did not allow them to succeed in that, and it’s fortunate for Britain that government had its head on straight, because Britain would have been impoverished without that technology. If it had stopped that kind of activity, its people would have been poor. But instead they allowed that change to take place and made it possible for everyone, including the Luddites, to improve their lives.

I say today that the NDP are acting something like the Luddites did in the 19th century, because they’re trying to slow change by acting contrary to the technology, hindering the progress of the market in order to preserve traditional jobs. I want to talk about how they’re going to do that.

They’re setting up ride-sharing, with this legislation, to fail. It’s by doing what the NDP do best, and that is to grow the size of government and create a new bureaucracy to try and mimic what the market does best and stifle ride-sharing through a bunch of rules.

Now, ride-sharing is everywhere in the world. The technology has caught on. It’s all over Canada. Ride-sharing companies made $60 billion a year last year, with 697 million users. But it’s not in B.C. I’ll tell you why. The reason is sad. It’s a political reason. It’s because there’s a group that votes as a block, and that is the taxi companies. So the NDP want to protect them and their jobs and their ways of doing things.

Now, taxi drivers are good people. Their business wouldn’t have to be destroyed by ride-sharing. In fact, they have a head start because that’s what they do. That is their business. They are ride-sharers. But they do need to adapt — for example, through a good application for smartphones. They would do just fine.

We in this House want them to succeed. That’s why, when we brought in our own ride-sharing legislation in 2017, we included measures to assist the taxi industry to change and keep up with the times. In our 2017 election platform, we committed to making investments in the taxi industry and working with them to ensure a level playing field for insurance and other costs between ride-sharing companies and the taxi industry. We were going to help them to develop an app.

The answer is not to suppress ride-sharing; it is to help bring along the taxi industry to keep pace with the ride-sharing economy and the growth of technology, as part of being in the 21st century. But sadly, the NDP don’t operate this way.

[5:05 p.m.]

Because they want the votes of the taxi industry, they’re going to hobble ride-sharing and slow it as much as they can. The trouble is they are really hurting the taxi industry, because the worldwide business model is changing, and it’s going to come to B.C. sooner or later. It’s inevitable.

Then, if the taxi industry doesn’t change, it will be in trouble, and the NDP, by trying to shield that industry from what is happening around the world, is really exposing it to harm. Instead, it should help them to change along with the world. That’s what we would like to do.

What is most sad to me is that the NDP have lost the vision of the public interest in this case. For the interest of the good of the NDP party, maintaining a block of voters, mostly in Vancouver, they are hindering progress for all British Columbians. We have constant complaints, for instance, that there are not enough rides from the airport in Vancouver or throughout Vancouver, going from one part of the city to another. We can’t do it. The situation is dismal.

People’s lives are affected. They could be getting better service. Instead, they’re walking in the middle of night over the Lions Gate Bridge for two hours home. It’s ridiculous. The public interest is taking second place to the private political interest of the NDP party, and that is wrong in principle. It’s not the right principle of government.

I want to talk about the Trans-Canada Highway, the No. 1 Highway between Chilliwack and Vancouver. You know, ride-sharing could ease the congestion on that highway. It could do much to save accidents and save time on the freeway and provide a great economic benefit. It would be an important benefit to Chilliwack commuters to have ride-sharing.

Instead, they’re going to put a stick in the spokes of ride-sharing. I want to describe how they’re going to do that. Well, first, they’re going to delay it. Ride-sharing could have come in a year ago, and it should have come in a year ago. It may come in, in the fall of 2019, or it may not come in, in 2020. In fact, we don’t really know if it’s the NDP’s intention to introduce it at all. That’s the first tactic, to delay it.

Technology moves very quickly these days. In two years, we’re going to be even further behind, but that seems to be okay with the NDP. But you know, even the NDP can’t stop technology, because technology is pervasive. It’s informal, and it’s not bound by geography. Maybe something will operate out of Vancouver or Edmonton or Seattle. Technology knows no boundaries.

Second, the NDP will expand the existing Passenger Transportation Board to allow it to make more decisions. This much-enlarged, expensive and powerful bureaucracy will make decisions based on their estimate of demand. But by definition, they will not have enough information about the market on a daily basis to make decisions about the market.

Do they know, for instance, how many people will need a ride from the airport at ten o’clock tonight? They don’t, and they cannot. The consumer, not a public servant at the board, should be deciding what demand is. The principle is wrong.

It reminds me of the old Soviet Union, where bureaucrats would decide every year how many shoes there ought to be in a given year. The stores were either filled with too many shoes or not enough shoes, and there’d be big lineups for shoes or sausage or whatever it was. The market allocates shoes or sausage or whatever it is in a much more efficient way than government can, and it does so at no cost.

I wonder how much the enlarged Passenger Transportation Board will cost. I shudder to think of it. Government should not be involved in this, just as they are not involved in allocating the number of carpenters or the number of food stores or the number of cars to be sold or the number of truck drivers in the economy. It just doesn’t make sense. It only makes sense if you’re doing it for political reasons.

The third thing the Passenger Transportation Board will do is cap the number of cars that can operate as ride-shares, presumably so that they’ll provide less competition to the taxi industry, which are the chosen winners that the NDP have chosen. Even though it’s incredibly easy to enter and exit the market as a ride-sharing driver…. You don’t have to go bankrupt. You just decide, “I don’t want to take calls today,” and you’ve exited the market, and you can enter it without a big investment.

The government is instead going to bureaucratize the allocation of services, meaning, again, that there will be shortages of drivers or surpluses of drivers. The providers themselves will not be making these moment-by-moment decisions, and that’s what they should be doing. The board will be doing this at a bureaucratic pace during normal business hours. This is simply a wrong principle.

[5:10 p.m.]

Next the government will decide the areas in which ride-sharing can take place. Instead of allowing the market to decide, the government is going to try and carve up the market geographically, as they’ve always done with the taxi industry. They’re going to try and tell the market what to do.

To me, it looks like the NDP have chosen the wrong vision. They’re maintaining the old model of the taxi industry and just enlarging what the taxi industry does, instead of introducing the market-based model of modern ride-sharing, which has improved the lives of hundreds of millions of passengers around the world and given them safe rides, rides quickly, at a good price, and supplied drivers with a good income as well.

Finally, the Passenger Transportation Board will decide the rates that passengers can be charged. You know, the government doesn’t try to set the price of groceries or clothing or housing or gasoline or movie tickets or toys or anything else in the economy. Why would they decide the price of a ride across the street or across town? Let the market decide that, and the lowest price and the best service and the greatest convenience will win the day. It will prevail. Instead, under the NDP, the consumer will get less benefit, less of everything.

The irony in all this is that the ones they’re trying to protect — that is, taxi drivers — will one day turn on them because they’re going to be unhappy. Their market share will slowly dwindle away. They will be left hanging. They will be worse off under the NDP. The NDP, in seeking to protect their friends, are actually protecting them from progress, from prosperity, from enjoying all the fruits of technological change driven by the market. Taxi drivers will be worse off under the NDP, if only they realized that.

The minister, of course, does all this in the name of safety. Which is a crock. All the ride-sharing companies already have comprehensive safety policies. Where there have been safety issues….

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member, the Chair would like to advise: be careful about your words.

L. Throness: Okay. I sure will, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

All the ride-sharing companies already have comprehensive safety policies. Where there have been safety issues, they have been dealt with very quickly, and they constitute a minute fraction of the hundreds of millions of rides, perhaps billions of rides that have been given. That is because safety, too, is driven by consumer demand.

I wouldn’t use a ride-sharing app unless I was convinced that it was safe to do so, and the private companies have every incentive to make absolutely certain that their drivers and their cars are safe. Just like the airline industry. Just like the train industry or the cycling industry or the bus industry or the cruise ship industry or the ferry industry or the sea cargo industry. Whatever mode of transportation you want to name, the industry itself will be sure to make it safe in order to win the business of the travelling public.

They’ve done that all around the world. Billions of people travelling. This year is going to be a record year for travel for Thanksgiving in the States, and why is that? Because it’s safe. Why is that? Because the market makes sure that it’s safe.

Now, finally, I want to say that if history, just in my lifetime, is our guide, ride-sharing itself is also a technology that is time-limited. It’s here right now, but given the pace of change, it soon, too, will be replaced, probably within ten to 15 years. It won’t be around anymore, and that’s because of automated cars, self-driving cars, which may one day remove the need for people to own a car. Already fewer people, young people, have drivers’ licences in the States.

Imagine having all the benefits of a car at a fraction of the cost. You could spend all that money you now spend on a car on other things and have a better life. You’ll call a central number. A car will show up at your place on time, will drive you wherever you want. No capital or maintenance costs to pay. You just swipe your credit card, pay a small amount. No worries about finding parking. No worries about finding the place you’re going to. No worries about safety or the need to watch where you’re going. The car will do it all for you.

Your grandchildren are going to say to you: “Tell us a story, Grandpa. Tell us a story, Grandma. Tell us about when you were young, and you drove cars that had steering wheels. Because I saw a car with a steering wheel in a museum.”

The world is changing. Maybe the company that supplies those self-driving cars will be one of the ride-sharing companies of today, like Uber or Lyft, or maybe it will be another. Maybe it will sweep away those companies, and new companies will develop. But the business model they are using now will have to change completely, and that’s fine.

It is part of the ongoing revolution of technology, driven by the market, that is improving all of our lives, improving safety, improving the environment, and it’s all driven by allowing the market to flourish, using the invisible hand of competition.

[5:15 p.m.]

In all of this, the government is bungling ride-sharing because of its private political interests. Something which should have been in place a year ago is not in place yet and will not be in place for at least a year.

Ironically, ride-sharing is all over the world. Ride-sharing is all over the U.S., South America, Australia, Europe but also in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, China, countries that are not free democracies like Canada is.

Uber is in 72 countries. I was looking at some of the countries that it’s in. It’s in Russia; it’s in Hungary; it’s in Kazakhstan; it’s in Belarus; it’s in Poland; it’s in Azerbaijan; it’s in Romania. What is the common denominator of those countries? They’re Soviet bloc countries. They’re Eastern bloc countries. They were communist countries at one time, and they are all more market-based than British Columbia.

I think that the people of B.C. are angry about this, and rightly so, in both urban and rural B.C. They’re going to take this government to the cleaners on this. They’re going to take this government to the woodshed.

This morning the caucus received 6,000 emails. People are angry, rightly, about this, and more are going to come. British Columbians are going to have their say when it comes to election time, talking about the responsibility of a government that gives up the public interest in favour of its own private political interest. So I will be voting against this bill.

S. Cadieux: I’d like to take my place to speak to Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act. Once again, we’re here debating a piece of legislation that makes it possible to do something not today, not tomorrow, but at the end of a long process, almost a year from now, and a piece of legislation that comes with more questions than answers.

The minister is trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes on this issue, suggesting that this long-awaited, terribly difficult-to-get-to legislation will somehow pave the way for ride-hailing in British Columbia. But she certainly didn’t fool any of the media yesterday.

The headlines speak for themselves. “NDP Legislation Pushes Ride-hailing in B.C. to Late 2019.” “New B.C. Legislation Tosses More Regulatory Roadblocks in Front of Ride-Hailing.” “Not an Encouraging Start to Ride-Hailing in B.C.” “B.C. Bill Just Delays Ride-Hailing Even More.” “B.C. Government Continues to Dodge Firm Timeline for Ride-Sharing.”

What did some of those writers have to say in the content of their pieces? Well, Vaughn Palmer said: “The proposed law is another round of stalling and excuse-making, all in the name of crafting a made-in-B.C. solution to a problem that’s been solved pretty much everywhere else.”

He also said: “After taking every opportunity to study, consult and otherwise delay, the New Democrats finally introduced legislation Monday for a made-in-B.C. version of ride-hailing, or so they said. On closer reading, the legislation turned out to be mainly a front for further considerations, consultations, regulatory dodges and delays.”

Mike Smyth said:

“The ride-hailing plan unveiled by the B.C. government Monday is everything Uber, Lyft and the other companies expected and feared. It’s an overly bureaucratic and excessively regulated system, in which the government, not the ride-hailing firms, will decide how many drivers will be allowed to accept passengers, where they can work and how much they can charge. There is no other jurisdiction in Canada that does it this way, and Uber reacted with an understandably pessimistic response.”

The government promised the electorate, as did we, that ride-hailing legislation would be in place by December of 2017. They’ve been in office for 18 months. The entire time they’ve been promising ride-sharing rules are coming. Delay, delay, delay. Report, then a committee, then another report, then another report and more delay.

People were cautiously optimistic last week when the Premier promised the legislation would be entered. Boy, were they disappointed yesterday. I’ve had a barrage of emails, as I know all of my colleagues have been bombarded by emails on this issue today as well — emails calling on the government to get ride-hailing operational in B.C. now, not in 2019, not in 2020 or 2022.

[5:20 p.m.]

It’s the same call we’ve been hearing for some time that led to all parties in this House committing to ride-hailing, yet these calls get a wave-off from the NDP in 2017. In 2018, they get a committee to investigate ride-hailing and report to the Legislature, which that committee did unanimously, with 32 recommendations. Then the government delayed again and now has chosen to disregard most of those recommendations — things like having class 5 licences for drivers.

The public is supposed to believe that ride-sharing is just around the corner: “It’ll be here soon. Just wait. We’ll have ride-sharing by Christmas 2017. Oh, wait — 2018. Oh, well, not 2019. Well, maybe 2019. Oh, well, no. Maybe 2020.” The minister couldn’t confirm that it would be in place by 2019. In fact, there’s no way the government can confirm what private companies will choose or not choose to do. Staff said they figured not before 2020.

I certainly loved a quote about the legislation in the BIV yesterday, from Kirk LaPointe: “Will it lead to ride-sharing by Christmas 2019? If you believe so, then yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

The government seems to be approaching ride-sharing like it’s inventing something new. It’s available in countries all around the world. Heck, even small-town Saskatchewan is going to have it by New Year’s Eve, but not B.C. Why? Because Big Brother on the government benches thinks that they know better than you. They know better than consumers, better than every other government around the globe and across our country. While you can get a ride in, well, Kazakhstan or India, you can’t get one home from Vancouver to South Surrey, and you won’t be able to any time soon.

What on earth is so unique about British Columbia? Other cities, other provinces, other states, other countries have taxi industries. They have public transit, and they have systems where people have the power of choice.

British Columbians are being denied those kinds of choices. Your B.C. NDP government will choose for you. They’ll appoint some friends to a board that will hear from companies that might want to jump through all of the bureaucratic hurdles to apply to enter the market. Then this bunch of folks will decide if they think there’s a market for this service, where they think it should operate, what imaginary lines the cars can cross and how much they can charge for the service. Wow. Why not just lay out the real plan? The B.C. government will run a made-in-B.C. ride-share monopoly, but only if there isn’t any traffic congestion or unhappy taxi companies.

I know that getting ride-sharing on the road is one of the areas where our folks actually agree with the Third Party. At least, we did. This bill is set up to create further delays and make it next to impossible to deliver ride-sharing. Once again, it appears that the Green-NDP secretariat isn’t worth its $1 million price tag. The leader of the Greens is befuddled and concerned once again with the legislation that his partners have rolled out, but he certainly isn’t going to vote against it.

Instead of unleashing the potential of ride-sharing, the government has offered up some of the most restrictive rules and roadblocks for ride-share drivers in Canada. They’ll be subject to commercial licences, special training and road tests, medical exams and annual vehicle inspections. Now, I don’t disagree that there need to be precautions, safety, insurance, and so on — but all of it left to the Passenger Transportation Board and ICBC?

Government had an opportunity to bring clarity and standards to a service that people want. Instead, with this bill, they’re offering a wild patchwork of fares and regulations across cities and jurisdictions. They’ll pretend that it’s all in the name of public safety, but in reality, it’s about providing safety for the status quo. We can all agree on the need for public safety, we can agree on the need for insurance, we can agree on the need for a fair playing field, and we can agree on the need to maintain and improve accessible services. In fact, we did agree on all of those things at the all-party committee, but that’s not what this legislation is delivering.

[5:25 p.m.]

Apparently, the way this government moves, it takes three times as long, or more, to bring in a framework for ride-sharing that leads to more oversight and consultation for years to come than it did for them to alter our electoral system and democracy. When it comes to changing democracy, in a matter of a couple of weeks or months, we could cook up a bunch of electoral models that don’t even exist anywhere else in the world and present them to the public.

While the government is telling people that this legislation will bring ride-sharing to British Columbia, it is in fact all about making it next to impossible for ride-sharing to come anywhere close to hitting the road in British Columbia. It’s one more delay piled on a legacy — an already young but storied legacy — of broken promises and delays.

Now, in the last decade or two, major technical disruption has occurred. We bank on our phones. We book travel with the click of a mouse. But government didn’t bend itself into a pretzel trying to stop that to protect the bank tellers or the travel agents. Instead, banks and travel agents innovated and adapted, providing better and different services that consumers wanted.

The great success of ride-hailing is the innovation it has unleashed and the power that it has handed to customers to demand service excellence, to demand service quality in terms of timeliness, cleanliness and safety. Their wants and needs have set the quality of vehicles, the fairness of fares and the expanded availability of transportation options. Instead of being driven by the customer, this government, through the Passenger Transportation Board and ICBC, is going to decide all of the issues around supply, price, boundaries, who can operate — when, where, and how.

The failure to deliver ride-sharing is denying people the benefits that would flow from a powerful new transportation choice: the opportunity to use that innovation and that expansion in the market to enhance the accessible services offered in British Columbia — some of which, I would argue, are some of the best in the world — and a chance to enhance that further and ensure that people with disabilities have access to transportation options at the same rate as others in the population.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

Unfortunately, that again is not what this legislation lays out. By only having a fee, an accessibility levy, on new entrants — when it’s going to be almost impossible for a new entrant to enter — we’re going to continue to see accessible taxis pass over people with disabilities for rides, in favour of picking up the easier, faster, cheaper fares, as they do today. This is exactly the opposite of what we should be trying to ensure and enable.

This legislation is yet another transportation failure. Couple that, in my neck of the woods, with the cancellation of the Massey replacement and changes in Surrey that are not adequately funded by government — the change from LRT to SkyTrain, now leaving yet another area of the city unserviced. The reality is that the ideologically driven policies of this government leave British Columbians, and certainly South Surrey residents, paying the price for the NDP’s pet projects and policies.

This is not what the people asked for. This is not what the people were promised in terms of ride-hailing in 2017. It’s not even what the people were promised for ride-hailing in 2018. Certainly, I don’t think it’s going to have any success in having ride-hailing for people before 2020. That’s if we can, hopefully, convince the government to adopt some of the amendments that will improve the legislation and provide for some of that flexibility, choice and opportunity for innovation.

If the government can’t see fit to making some of these amendments, then I’m not sure I can support this legislation. I certainly want to support ride-hailing legislation in British Columbia. I was a member of the committee appointed by the Legislature to provide recommendations, and I’ll remind the minister there were 32, most of which are not considered by this legislation.

[5:30 p.m.]

I think the path was laid with the legislation that our government had ready in 2017. It could have been improved upon by the work of that committee. In fact, I think some of the recommendations of that committee would have improved upon that legislation. But again, the legislation put forward now by this government doesn’t do that. It sets up a difficult bureaucracy. It sets up yet another discouraging set of rules for the industry, and it’s really concerning.

Certainly, my constituents are speaking out loud and clear to me today that they’re dissatisfied with the efforts of government. As such, I am speaking for them.

B. Stewart: It’s great to be here and rise and speak on Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act.

You know, it’s interesting seeing how regulations come in and affect our lives. We’re talking about what we can do to make things easier. I know that my colleague from Chilliwack-Yale mentioned…. He was talking about whether in two years we’re going to have autonomous vehicles and things like that. This is really important that we move ahead and keep up with technology. So once again, we’re here debating a piece of legislation that makes it possible to do something — not today, not tomorrow, but at the end of a long process at least a year from now.

The government now has been in government for 18 long months. The entire time they’ve been promising ride-sharing rules that are coming. The government even appointed a legislative committee on ride-sharing and then chose to disregard most of those recommendations, such as having class 5 licences for ride-sharing drivers. “They’re just around the corner. They’ll be here soon. Just wait, we’ll have ride-sharing by Christmas in 2017, in 2018. Maybe now in 2019.” No, wait. The minister can’t confirm that because it may be up until 2020 by the time that they….

If this bill is any indication, the only thing that will be under the tree at Christmas hence will be that big lump of coal. Sadly, it has been waiting for a cab in downtown Vancouver, standing on the curb. You’re told it’s coming soon. Really? It’ll be here soon. But you wait, and you wait, and you wait.

Recently, even here at the Legislature, I’ve had a couple of instances where cabs that were called, organized and supposedly coming haven’t shown up. You call them. And again, they don’t come. I’ve missed meetings, missed flights because of the fact. We’ve had to make alternate arrangements. Fortunately, we’re in an urban area where we can rent a car or make alternate arrangements. But I think that that’s too often the case.

I know that several years back, we brought in the riders bill of rights. The whole idea was that they couldn’t deny people the right to have a ride to a particular area where they were going. The bottom line was that we find and we hear regular occurrences on and on and again and again that people are turned down. “Oh, that’s too far” or “I have other excuses” and whatever. They’re in the business of supposedly providing a service.

The government seems to be approaching ride-sharing like it’s inventing something new. I know that when I ran in the by-election last February, the government had promised…. Our government had said we were going to bring it in. We had dealt with ICBC. We had a product in hand to make certain that people would be protected and that the big differential in insurance between the taxi companies, which pay an enormous amount of insurance for the vehicles…. They would have a similar product for private companies.

[5:35 p.m.]

I think about the time, 1986-87, when British Columbia was getting its first LRT trains, and we were making such progress on automation, putting trains out. Really, it was the start of something of greatness.

Then what happened in that long, dry drought in the 1990s, where we had ideas that we were going to fix the highways? “We’re going to put lipstick on the Lions Gate Bridge. We’re going to widen the Port Mann by adding another lane.” Of course, we never really got to the point of looking into the future — the future of where we needed to be.

Where did we want to be with the population growth in Surrey? Maybe the idea of the LRT that they’re talking about today should have been a project in the 1990s — get over and expand and move on. But no, it was the previous government that did things like build the Alex Fraser and the connections into Surrey. The reality is that these communities have been shut out for not just a few years but decades.

I think about other projects, transportation projects that this government…. Well, they were ambitious: fast ferries. My only regret as a British Columbian was I didn’t get to ride on the fast ferry to see how fast it actually went, but I certainly did see some of the excitement and the damage that it caused because it was perhaps a product for a different market. But needless to say, it was an exciting time.

The Island Highway, which we recently….

Interjections.

B. Stewart: I know it was one of your great projects, but the only real problem was that it went so far over budget — all the cutbacks, the things that didn’t get done. And the fact is that we still have that Colwood crawl. What are we going to do to fix those types of things?

Anyways, we’re talking about ride-sharing today. And this is kind of like when I was thrust, in the mid-’80s, into free trade agreements when Canada was talking with the United States. Of course, there was all sorts of concern about supply management — dairy, cheese, eggs, all of those types of things — but believe it or not, the grape industry was one of the few supply-managed products. The apple industry, the grape industry — we lived under that umbrella of protectionism.

The reality is that it was removed at the 11th hour in the free trade agreement. Of course, the president of the day, Ronald Reagan, was from California. The California wine industry said: “Well, we want to have unlimited access, and these guys have got a monopoly up there.” They took off the differential of markup, guaranteed listings, and the reality is that it changed things. Out of maybe 300 growers, a handful of those people stayed in the business, but they innovated. They changed the way that they grew things. They made the wines that they were making previously into something that people really wanted.

I can’t help but think about the member from Chilliwack-Yale here, talking about the autonomous driving vehicles. I know that they’re being tested. The fact is that they’re probably going to be here sooner than this particular legislation is really going to get there, and maybe we’ll have autonomous taxis or Uber or Lyft cars that’ll be buzzing around the streets of the Lower Mainland — certainly, in the Okanagan, where I think that this problem exists on many of the busiest days when weather changes.

I think that the government is constraining itself by not looking at this, about the possibilities — what they really could do. But no, they’ve given it to the passenger transportation safety board, which is a good organization. It regulates buses and taxis and all sorts of transportation vehicles.

The reality is it’s another thing that maybe needs to be rethought and modernized. And the fact is that this legislation doesn’t necessarily get to a point where it’s creating — where people that have the ability to think past the idea of regulations and rules and the fact that we have to study everything to death — and is able to unleash the opportunity and the power of people that are entrepreneurial and that want to actually do something with a vehicle that they own. Maybe it’s helping them make the payments on it — the fact that they’re able to be a part of it.

[5:40 p.m.]

After spending 3½ years in China and travelling in Japan and Korea, I used all sorts of programs like that. There are lots of taxis. And the taxi drivers, especially in China, were the type that grumbled all the time. They were never happy. Of course, there were never enough taxis on the days it rained and stuff like that. But they were one size, BYD. You can look at it; they’re on line. The colour of them — they’re all the same.

Of course, you’d book an Uber, or a DiDi, as they call them in Beijing, and we’d get a beautiful black Audi or something like that that was clean. It was newer. And the fact is, they were always on time, courteous, had bottled water in there. My goodness, they went to great lengths, really want your business. They wanted you to call them back. So I can tell you from having lived that experience that it really does make a difference in a community or a city that’s almost 30 million people. The bottom line is, there is a lot of competition for taxis, whether it’s raining or not.

Every other Canadian province has managed to pass ride-sharing legislation. Here we are. We’re the last. We’re not the first with innovation. We’re sitting around. We should be…. I heard earlier today, when we were talking about this, the fact that it came about in 2012. The reality is that, of course, it wasn’t universally welcomed by people that are in the taxi industry. So what did we do to help bring that along? What did we do to help give them the ability to transition — maybe they could be the first companies that were out there leading the way in being innovative — allow them the time to be as competitive?

I heard a story last night from one of my colleagues about right here in Victoria with Yellow Cab and a great app that they have for being able to book your cab and tell you how soon it’s going to be there, very similar to what I was familiar with in China. The reality is that it works. So I certainly know that they’re going to get a call from me the next time I need a taxi to the airport here in Victoria.

When people have not only appointments, vital safety issues…. It’s not just the safety of the car, etc., and making certain that we’ve studied this to death. They want to get home at night. They might be at some place where maybe they need a lift to get home safely and can’t afford to be standing out on the street for half an hour or an hour. We hear stories about people walking across the Lions Gate Bridge. I can imagine that that’s great on a nice warm day, but at two o’clock in the morning, it’s probably not looking that attractive.

You know, one of the things that…. We do have public transit, and we’re fortunate. But I know that during the Olympics…. I don’t live in Vancouver, but I use the public transit exclusively, and I’d get off the SeaBus and get into North Vancouver. I had no idea that even in North Vancouver, there are two municipalities. The bus would get up to a certain point, and it would stop. It wasn’t a continuous system. I’m thinking: how does this make any sense?

I think the idea is to have the ability to take something that gets you to that place — not having to fight with the other 100 passengers that are getting off the SeaBus but being able to get to where I needed to get to in North Vancouver. I think that British Columbians feel disappointed that they’ve been denied this choice. The bottom line is that the government….

Interjections.

B. Stewart: You promised it 18 months ago. Was it that difficult? Oh no, you had to have a committee. You had a committee that studied it, and then you rejected what they told you in the first place.

Deputy Speaker: Through the Chair, hon. Members.

B. Stewart: Well, I just want to make certain that they don’t forget that they promised this almost two years ago. They had a campaign plan, and they said: “We’re going to bring ride-sharing.” So where is it? Here it is, and now it’s another year or two years and maybe even three.

I think about something that was kind of popular when I was younger. I think about the TV show with the Jetsons, the cars flying around, or Popular Mechanics, etc., and I think about the autonomous cars that we know are coming. So if we’re waiting for that to materialize, maybe we shouldn’t have even been discussing this legislation today.

It’s kind of consistent with Christmas promises from this government. It feels like we’ve been waiting almost as long. I know that getting ride-sharing on the road is one of the areas that we all agree we need to move on, but we need to do it sooner than later.

[5:45 p.m.]

This bill is set up to create further delays and make it next to impossible to deliver ride-sharing. Instead of unleashing the potential of ride-sharing, the government has offered up some very restrictive rules and roadblocks for ride-share drivers in Canada.

This idea of commercial licences, special training, road tests, medical exams, annual vehicle inspections…. I actually am licensed as a commercial driver. I’ve been driving for a long time, and I know what it’s like to do your vehicle inspections and things like that. But I don’t think that it should take that long to bring in regulations and be able to empower people.

I mean, we can make things happen without having to worry about the fact that they’re not going to abide by them. That comes from the enforcement side of it. The regulation side is just the rules. Somebody has to enforce these regulations, and who’s going to do that? Is the commercial vehicle safety branch going to all of a sudden get an increase or lift in terms of number of people that are on the road to check all these people? And of course, many of the Uber cars don’t look like anything different than your own personal vehicle.

I think that the idea that this has been left in the hands of the Passenger Transportation Board, ICBC, is just passing the buck. I don’t think we’re really getting to what it is that British Columbians are expecting.

As the government, they’ve had an opportunity to bring clarity and standards to the service that people want. Instead, with this bill, we’re offering a wild patchwork of fares, regulations across different cities and jurisdictions. Across the Lower Mainland, there will be over a dozen different ride-sharing regimes. Why is that necessary? I mean, if it’s by zone, maybe that makes sense. I guess the point about it is that it’s making things complicated.

On my smartphone, when I needed to go somewhere in China, I would just put the address in, punch it into the application. It would come back, and it would tell me how much I had to pay. I’d have to transfer it before I actually took the car. Secondly, I knew exactly when the driver was going to be there. That’s pretty straightforward and simple.

We don’t need to overcomplicate this with rules and papers and stuff like that. “Keep it simple, stupid” is one of the things that I think, in business, I learned a long time ago. It really makes a difference if we want to move things ahead and get on with the business of protecting people, doing the things that we talk about, whether it’s education, health care — all of those types of things that we value at the highest level. The fact is that if we complicate things and we make it so bureaucratic, we’ll never get it done.

I guess one of the things that we’re talking about is that people think that the government has introduced a bill that talks about how we’re doing this in the name of public safety. I don’t know what happened in the last 18 months about the study or conditions, but public safety, the Passenger Safety Board, has been doing this for a long, long time. The fact is that they should be able to come up with regulations and make safe without having to take another year or two years to get this done. We know that the product at ICBC was already developed by the former Minister of Transportation, regardless of what the government says today.

That’s not building the kind of public safety that, as the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers know, ride-sharing can build by getting drunk drivers off our streets.

So we have a ride-sharing bill designed to stop ride-sharing. And apparently, the way this government moves, it takes three times as long to bring this framework for ride-sharing as it does for them to alter our electoral system and democracy.

Let’s remember that ride-sharing is already operating in jurisdictions across the globe. I was surprised when the member from Chilliwack-Yale talked about, you know, in all of these countries, you’d think: “Why would they embrace entrepreneurial activities?” The fact is that people there own a vehicle, and they get into the business of doing it. Now, is it as safe? I’m kind of quite certain that it probably isn’t quite as safe as what it might be here in British Columbia, but I think that it’s adopted around the globe where cell phones and applications can be used. It makes a difference, the fact that people can get from A to B, and they wouldn’t use the service if it was that unsafe.

When it comes to changing democracy, it was a matter of a few weeks to cook up two electoral models that don’t even exist anywhere in the world. This bill fits that pattern of this session. While the government is telling people that this legislation will bring ride-sharing to British Columbia, it is in fact all about making it next to impossible for ride-sharing to hit the road in the near future.

[5:50 p.m.]

One more delay piled on a legacy of broken promises and delays. This is no surprise, coming from this cynical government. This government has spent the fall talking about how it wants to alter democracy so every vote counts, yet it’s promoting a system where backroom party officials instead of voters will decide who gets to have a seat in this House. That sounds like less democracy, not more.

Then there’s the so-called speculation tax, which is being discussed and debated clause by clause. I know that, based on my colleagues that are over there working, it’s going to be an administrative nightmare for the administrator for the Ministry of Finance.

It is not as simple as just taking a half of 1 percent of people’s home value on second homes. The myriad of exemptions, the complications, make it a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s delivering higher taxes for hard-working B.C. families. One thing it fails to end is flipping and speculation.

So it’s no surprise this government has, after more than a year and a half in delays and broken promises, delivered a piece of legislation that looks to throttle the potential of ride-sharing. Instead of ride-sharing, the government is offering up ride-failing.

It’s failing all the people stuck waiting for a cab yesterday, today and tomorrow. It’s failing all the businesses losing productivity of staff who just can’t get to meetings, appointments, due to the lack of transportation options. It’s failing B.C.’s tech sector, which thrives on the ride-sharing in other successful jurisdictions.

It’s failing our tourism sector. I know that firsthand. They only have to go to a cabinet meeting down at the World Trade Centre downtown and try to get a cab when a cruise ship pulls into town. What was it? Ten thousand passengers coming in on a single day? There’s no possibility that the cabs in the city can possibly provide the necessary services to those people that are here visiting, let alone the regular people that are counting on being able to get to those meetings and appointments.

One of the things about safety is the fact that ride-sharing is known to reduce the amount of people driving impaired. We really should be bringing that in because of the importance of making certain that we continue to make that a priority for people on the roads — safety.

The great success of ride-sharing is an innovation that has been unleashed. The power has been handed to customers. Their wants and needs have set the quality of vehicles, the fairness in fares and the expanded availability of transportation options.

Instead of being driven by the customer, this government, through the Passenger Transportation Board and ICBC, is going to decide supply, price and boundaries for ride-sharing. It doesn’t sound very innovative. It doesn’t sound entrepreneurial. It sounds more like bureaucracy and regulations.

You know, let’s just…. I guess really it’s going to take another 18 months. We’ll be almost at the end of this government’s term by that time. We’ll be into the next election cycle. Maybe there are going to be some other barriers that are going to make this not really happen, because we’re still studying. We’re going through the process and the motions of trying to get liftoff on Uber and Lyft.

More families are stuck in gridlock with the failure to address the Massey Tunnel bottleneck and the pushing back of the solution by years. There will be fewer projects and higher costs, just like in the 1990s with the government forcing unionization on public projects.

[5:55 p.m.]

Here we are today, and we’re looking at the union benefit agreement. Frankly, how is that going to be enabled to spend our tax dollars wiser, in the sense that we’re going to get more bang for our buck, actually getting transportation options that are the best value, keeping workers working, increasing apprentices? Of course, that’s one of the things that this has nothing to do with.

The bottom line is that these are all steps backwards. It’s regressive, and the bottom line is the government hasn’t introduced a single piece of legislation that is constructive, positive, innovative. The bottom line is….

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Minister, through the Chair, please.

B. Stewart: They continue to think about the 1990s and how they’d like to get back to it. I think that they’re actually going back to the 1970s. I remember the eulogy here in the House about Dave Barrett and all of the legislation that they brought in, in three years in government and how the number of pieces of legislation was a milestone. I guess it was a milestone.

But at the end of the day, the bottom line is that when it comes to this bill, it is not breaking new ground. It is not being innovative. It is not getting to where British Columbians want to go. So I leave this — that the legislation is yet another transportation failure that leaves British Columbians paying the price for the NDP’s ideologically driven policies.

Deputy Speaker: I recognize the member for Abbotsford-Mission. [Applause.]

S. Gibson: I’m overwhelmed by the response, hon. Speaker.

It’s a pleasure for me to rise on behalf of my constituents of the beautiful Abbotsford-Mission riding and speak to Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act. I’ve appreciated very much the thoughtful remarks of my colleagues, particularly hearing the remarks just a moment ago completed by the member for Kelowna West and, indeed, others who have spoken here today.

By way of beginning, I want to mention how my daughter left Abbotsford to go to university in Toronto. She had phoned us after a few months and said that she was dating a fellow from Toronto.

I come from Abbotsford, which has the largest per-capita vehicle ownership in British Columbia. So on my street, there are all kinds of nice cars and trucks, and they’re blocking everything. Everybody has a vehicle, probably like Kelowna.

I said to my daughter in passing: “What kind of a car does your boyfriend drive?” She said: “Dad, he doesn’t own a car.” I was immediately worried. I was immediately concerned that this guy was possibly a bit of a loser because he didn’t own a car. I’m being honest here.

She said: “Oh Dad, you don’t need to own a car in Toronto because the transit is great. We have great transit in Toronto.” And she lived right downtown. She said: “If you need a car here, you just rent a car.” If you want to go upcountry or drive up to the lakes or go to Ottawa, you just rent a car. You don’t have to own a car.

It kind of reminded me about how we have assumptions about transportation, assumptions about the kinds of vehicles and the kind of way that we should get around. I’m rather afraid that the government is locked into an old paradigm, locked into something that is of the past, and they’re alarmed to embrace the present — indeed, embrace the future.

I want to suggest that, to this government, ride-sharing is a reification, and as a result, this is the kind of response we’re seeing today. Yes, we know ride-sharing is an international global phenomenon — almost 800 communities worldwide — and we’ve heard from my colleagues, mentioning some of the countries. These drivers are independent operators. They’re not employees.

[6:00 p.m.]

On this side of the House, we enthusiastically embrace free enterprise, the individual initiative. Each time I go into a small business in my own community of Abbotsford-Mission, somebody is starting a little business — a little deli, maybe a clothing shop — and I talk to them. I so admire their tenacity, so admire the fact that they’re willing to take that risk. On this side of the House, we acknowledge that Uber drivers and others, ride-sharing drivers are, indeed independent contractors. It takes a risk to start your own business, but we applaud that here.

One of the questions that we would like to recommend the government look at — and my question today — is: is it needed? Well, according to the way that the minister is handling it, you’d begin to wonder. We say in this House, “Yes, it’s needed,” and we’re advancing that view here.

As we heard from the member from Vancouver — this riding over here, Vancouver…. He pointed out that Vancouver is the largest city in North America without ride-sharing — the largest community. Why is that? How have we come to this state of affairs?

When people arrive here — we heard this just a moment ago — they expect it. We have an international reputation of being a fantastic city here, the metro capital of our province; not our political capital, Victoria, where we spend much of our time. We have a reputation for being a high-tech centre. All over the world, we’re known as a high-tech centre. But ironically, in the midst of all that, we’re a low-tech centre when it comes to ride-sharing.

One of the things that I appreciate about ride-sharing is it’s more efficient. We haven’t discussed this too much. We haven’t canvassed this dimension to ride-sharing. It’s more efficient. It’s a better use of personal automobiles. People have their own cars, but they make them available, and it’s a whole profit centre. It’s a way to offset the purchase of cars.

You might say it’s like many people on my street in Abbotsford, who have mortgage helpers. I would say 80 percent of the folks on my street in east Abbotsford have mortgage helpers. They’re helping to pay their mortgage by having some folks in their basement, and it’s a good thing for providing housing at a reasonable cost. The same principle applies to ride-sharing, I would like to suggest.

It’s, in many ways, a natural dimension to the transportation options that should be available, and it’s sustainable. With this welcoming option, it embraces some of the people who might not normally be able to access transportation in this way. It’s family-oriented, and it’s young people–oriented. So why is the government dragging it out laboriously and, should I say, lugubriously?

I’m finding that the minister’s comments are quite perplexing. On one hand, we’re hearing: “Yeah, this is an exciting thing. We’re moving ahead.” On the other hand, drag it out, obfuscating.

The hon. member for Richmond-Steveston is nodding. Thank you for your encouraging nod there, hon. Member.

It’s frustrating for our residents, especially those in urban areas, who just are expecting it to come. They say: “It’s got to come.” I’m wondering if it’s even going to come in 2019. Probably not. So 2020? Here comes the election cycle. It could be an election issue all over again.

“Ride-sharing is on the way.” That’s what we’re hearing.

Interjection.

S. Gibson: Thank you, Premier. The Premier’s acknowledging. I appreciate his audience today.

It’s on the way — maybe. Maybe one day I’ll wake up in the morning, and I’ll turn on the radio: “Ride-sharing is here.” What? Amazing. It’s almost like something out of a fantasy movie. Eighteen months later, still cruising along. Nothing’s happening.

Now, I think, too, that ride-sharing is a natural complement to all the other transportation options. It’s just one piece of the transportation pie.

Personal cars. Most of us here own a personal car. Some families have three or four.

[6:05 p.m.]

The taxis. Let me say this: taxis provide a very useful service. I’m privileged to have travelled around a number of countries in the world, in South America, Africa, Europe, China, the Far East, etc. I’ve always appreciated the taxis. This is not a case against taxis. This is a case to complement taxis, to complement personal transportation, to complement public transit — even to complement bicycles.

I was staying in Portland, Oregon — some of you have stayed down there — and that’s bicycle central. Bicycle central is downtown Portland. My wife and I stayed in a hotel right down by the Willamette River, in a very nice hotel with a view of the river. It seemed like all day long the bicycles were there.

Well, we don’t really require legislation. Just get on your bicycle and go. I would suspect this government, if bicycles were proposed to be increased dramatically as they are in Portland…. They’d probably set up a bicycle commission to study it and maybe send committee members around the world looking at it and then come back and then take 18 months to study bicycle transportation.

Even, may I say, walking. This is something that is a part of transportation, which is why people tend to like to live close to where they work, if at all possible. And running, which is something I have a bit of an interest in.

So really, this government is denying the choice, denying the opportunity. It’s kind of sad in a way, because we’re getting, as I mentioned, a reification. We’re getting a double message here.

And of course, as my colleagues have so eloquently spoken, this is one more example of a broken promise. During the election of 2017, this government promised ride-sharing by Christmas. Yeah. What happened? It’s very vague. It’s almost ethereal — 2019, 2020. You’d almost think…. I’m not a suspicious person by nature. I’m not. But you’d almost think that the government doesn’t want ride-sharing. It’s almost designed to fail. Now, I could be wrong. I’m quite a trusting person, but I’d almost get that impression.

The minister has let us down in many ways. What about the bridge replacement for the Massey Tunnel? It’s a tragic, dangerous situation.

Isn’t that correct, hon. member for Richmond-Steveston?

The minister cancelled that. There have been millions spent on it by the previous government. No, we’ll just cancel it. It’s dangerous. It’s frightening. If you go through there in rush hour, those big trucks are coming like…. It’s frightening. I’m so disappointed in our minister.

What about the Trans-Canada Highway between 208th and Whatcom? How’s that going? I drive that all the time. Many of us do. The hon. member for Penticton and I — we commute that route. It’s tragic. It’s dangerous. We desperately need more lanes. Another example of this minister letting down the people of our province, especially in the more densely populated areas.

There’s a critical need for these new arteries. It’s a safety issue. It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous for truckers, for commuters, for families. Some people are delivering their kids…. I know some folks in my town, and their son has a scholarship to go to hockey camp in Burnaby. They’ve got to drive that every day, that congested artery. It’s a tragedy. This government needs to really listen to the constituents in my area and respond.

Now getting back to ride-sharing. We have something in Abbotsford once a year called Operation Red Nose. Does anybody know about Operation Red Nose? That’s a program that allows folks that think they might be impaired to work with the local police and local volunteers — to have somebody pick them up, drive their vehicle and then drive them home. I volunteered for a number of years.

Operation Red Nose, in some ways, is kind of a little bit similar to ride-sharing. Ride-sharing allows that opportunity for somebody that maybe feels: “You know what? I can’t drive tonight. I want to be safe. I’m going to call ride-sharing.” Won’t be available.

[6:10 p.m.]

As a matter of fact, the safety factor of ride-sharing is being ignored by this government. Getting impaired drivers off the road is one dimension of ride-sharing.

Interjection.

S. Gibson: What’s that? Yeah, stoned drivers. The hon. member from Richmond is reminding me that with the changes in the federal legislation, we’re going to get a lot more drivers who are stoned, which is certainly a tragedy in the waiting.

Less people stranded with ride-sharing. Young people feeling less vulnerable. It’s available to them. What about, say, if a woman has to work late in downtown Vancouver — works late at the office? She comes out on the street. She’s feeling a little bit nervous about herself. “Boy, if I had ride-sharing, this would be so nice. I could just call and have ride-sharing.” Not available. It’s a disservice to those people.

What about tourists? Our tourists — do they have access to the transit that we would like them to see?

This government is restrictive. This legislation is restrictive. It’s not making it easy for ride-sharing. It’s making it more complex, more demanding, not helpful at all. Commercial licences, all kinds of hassle, exams, annual inspections, medicals, special testing — they all may be useful in their own way. But isn’t there some way that we can make ride-sharing more accessible? Why throw out more and more obstacles?

I don’t think the government is in favour of ride-sharing at all. Shame on the minister for overpromising and underdelivering. However, I will say this as a compliment: it is consistent.

How about tampering with recall legislation? How about that? How about proportional representation? Complicated. I just talked to somebody, a nice person, a constituent of mine in my riding that opened up the envelope. They phoned me. They said: “Hon. member for Abbotsford-Mission, can you help me with this ballot, please? It’s so complicated.” It’s another example of this government overcomplicating things.

I don’t know why it was a mail ballot anyway. There are thousands of them piling up in apartment buildings and condos, just piling up — tragic. I wonder, when you open one of those up, how easy it is to get the information to vote for that person. That’s what I worry. Just wondering here.

Very bureaucratic. Only supportive on the surface. I’m not sure what’s going on with the arrangement with the Third Party. It seems like they’re kind of running the proportional representation show, and apparently doing a pretty good job of it too, $15 million later.

I never had one call from anybody that said: “Hey, MLA, could you please bring in proportional representation? Let’s vote on that again for the third time.” I didn’t get that call.

How about the phony speculation tax? More taxes for our families and seniors, the backbone of our province. So tragic. Shame on this government for its ideological orientation for this needed service. The public will remember this political obfuscation, I’m sure.

I’m speaking against this motion. I’m speaking against Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act.

I think it’s tragic that the government says one thing over here, but when it actually comes to execution, they fail the test. I’m just hoping that this government will turn the corner and start not overpromising and underdelivering but actually doing things that are in the best interests of our people, especially our young people who depend on transportation.

These are my remarks, and I thank you for allowing me to share them today.

[6:15 p.m.]

J. Yap: It’s my honour to join in this debate on Bill 55, the Passenger Transportation Amendment Act, a bill which, on the surface, and which the government, with great fanfare, has said will bring ride-hailing to British Columbia. Of course, many, many British Columbians would like this.

We are now, as we’ve heard, the very last jurisdiction in all of Canada to not have ride-hailing. I’m sure most members — I would say the majority of members — may have had the opportunity, in their travels across the country, in other jurisdictions, to sample ride-hailing, as I have, and I know you have, Madame Speaker.

It is a great service where it exists. It uses technology, which I’d say most of us embrace with our phones, our devices. It’s easy, and it’s safe. No wonder these ride-hailing companies have arisen. It’s been described as disruptive technology, using the latest technology, data-driven technology and the innovation aspect — where we now have become more and more accustomed to innovation and high technology.

For a province that prides itself, rightly, as being a place for innovation, for bringing people here, the best and the brightest and the homegrown best and brightest…. We’re a technology hub. We’ve heard the government talk about the desire to make British Columbia — and, indeed, the Lower Mainland, Vancouver — a hub for technology. It’s something that, of course, our caucus, when we were in government, as the previous government, also believed in. That is a great goal for British Columbia to embrace.

In terms of this part of the technology spectrum, millennials and others who are very tech-savvy really have been let down by the introduction of Bill 55, which purports to bring in ride-hailing. In fact, this is yet another example — as fellow members of my caucus, in their comments, have said — of a broken promise by this government.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

During the election in 2017, there was a specific commitment to bring ride-sharing to the province of British Columbia by Christmas. Yeah, that was the promise. That then morphed into: “Well, we need to study this.” A parliamentary committee, a bipartisan committee, was struck to study this, and an expert in transportation was retained — a well-respected expert — to review the industry and to make recommendations.

Then here we are, 18 months later, with the disappointment with this bill, which purports to set up a framework that will eventually, maybe, possibly enable the introduction of ride-hailing to the province of British Columbia. What was supposed to be a Christmas 2017 introduction of ride-hailing slipped to: “Well, maybe in 2018. Well, maybe in 2019. Oh, actually, who knows?”

The commitment is to introduce an insurance product through ICBC that would allow ride-hailing companies to insure their vehicles by fall of 2019. It’s not guaranteed that by fall of 2019, one year from now, there would be ride-hailing in the province of British Columbia. We have the spectacle of the Lower Mainland, Metro Vancouver, being the very last major metropolis in the entire continent of North America to not have ride-hailing. That is, frankly, an embarrassment. It’s not only an embarrassment….

[6:20 p.m.]

I see the light has come on. Noting the hour, I respectfully request that I be able to continue my comments at the next opportunity.

J. Yap moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

Hon. H. Bains moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:21 p.m.