Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued debate on the budget.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

Budget Debate

(continued)

R. Kahlon: I will pick up where I left off, and that takes me to the beginning, which is: what is the main focus for this government, and what is the main focus of this budget?

The main focus was to make life better for the people of B.C. This budget contains measures to address the critical services that we need to make life better for B.C. It has important affordability measures, and it talks about good-paying jobs and initiatives to support that. I’ll do a quick summary.

As I mentioned previously before lunch, this has the single-biggest, largest tax cut for middle-income families, by elimination of MSP premiums. Families will be saving $450 by removing another additional 50 percent off by the end of this year.

We talked about the B.C. child care opportunity benefit, where families with one child will get $1,600 a year; families with two children will get $2,600; and families with up to three children, up to $3,400. I talked about child care and how critical child care is for our communities and how critical it is to make it affordable so that families can have both caregivers actually working and encouraging people to get into the workforce. It’s critical for our economy. It was raised as one of the major issues from the business community.

Not only that, it’s about pocketbooks for families. Families are struggling with daycare payments. To take these actions — it really helps ease the burden on families.

I was talking about eliminating interest on student loans. I’ve been hearing some of the speeches from the opposition members about how we’re spending on too much, and there’s too much spending. I’ve been intrigued to find out, I’ve been waiting to find out from them what it is of the spending they don’t like. Do they not like that we’re cutting MSP premiums? They haven’t said it yet, but I suspect they might be.

Now, we know the first thing that they don’t like is eliminating interest on tuition fees. We know now that the Leader of the Opposition went on the radio this morning and said that he didn’t agree with this. He says that eliminating this will encourage students to take on debt.

Well, he should talk to some young people. People don’t want to be taking on debt. They’re forced to take on debt because they realize and their families realize that education is the path to success. This helps ease the burden that these students are facing with tuition.

It’s easy for the Leader of the Opposition to say: “Well, this is a bad move, because it’s going to encourage people to carry around debt.” I think he should talk to some young people and talk to them about how this feels. He’ll hear from them loud and clear that that is not something they support.

So far, we know that they don’t like the idea…. Their leader, anyways, doesn’t like the idea of eliminating interest on tuition fees. We’ve yet to hear…. We know they like to increase the MSP, because they did that many, many times when they were in government. Perhaps they don’t like the fact that we’re cutting MSP.

[1:40 p.m.]

Again, I look forward to hearing more speakers. Perhaps a few of them may even have the courage to stand up and speak to it. Perhaps they don’t like the investments in hospitals and urgent care centres, many of them in their communities. Perhaps they don’t like the additional funds on mental health. I think that one is pretty safe. I think that one is across the board, where everybody supports the investments in mental health. Perhaps they don’t like the additional dollars to expand PharmaCare for our seniors so they can have more options for drugs.

Perhaps they don’t like the new affordable housing — 114,000 affordable housing units — that we’re building over the next ten years. Some of my good friends on the other side might think 114,000 is too ambitious, but it’s much better than having no vision and no plan to build any affordable housing. We’re going to aim for the highest measure we can because people need it.

We talked about housing starts. I mentioned this in my previous remarks before lunch. Housing starts are higher than the ten-year average. In fact, housing starts in our budget are higher than they had in their own budget, so I find that criticism quite humorous.

Also, increased spending in education, in our classrooms. I’m interested in hearing from them. Is that what they don’t like about the budget?

Increased support for caregivers. That’s both foster parents as well as for children, in case they have aunties and uncles taking care of them. There is a huge disparity, where people are going: “Kids are being sent to foster care. The foster care parents get more money than if an auntie and uncle are having to take that child on.” We’re correcting that by creating a level playing field. Perhaps that’s the spending they don’t like.

I’m really interested, and I encourage the members opposite, in their speeches, to share with us what part of the spending investments in our community they do not like. I think they’ll have a difficult time finding things, because they realize that services are missing.

My friend across the way yesterday called this a socialist budget. I think this budget probably has 70 or 80 percent approval from the public. So he’s saying that 70 percent, 80 percent of the public are socialists because they support these measures. What that member should have said in his speech remarks is what exactly in this budget he does not like. I know he doesn’t like the government, and he wants to throw shade on the government, so to speak. But he couldn’t find things in the spending that he didn’t like, because he knows….

Interjection.

R. Kahlon: Well, he says he found two things. Given that we’re on day two in question period and they ran out of questions goes to show you that there’s not much they can criticize about this budget, because it’s a good budget. I’m going to be proud to support this budget when the vote is called.

I’m proud of the work of the Minister of Finance. I’m proud of the work of all the ministers in our government, who are doing extraordinary things to address the issues that people have been concerned about for so long, addressing all the services that people have been feeling have been lacking.

With that, I’ll take my seat and look forward to hearing from other members.

J. Thornthwaite: I’m pleased to stand here today and offer my remarks on the budget. First of all, though, I’d like to say a few thank-yous to my family, my three grown children, for their support in my job and the fact that I’m not with them all the time. Maybe they like that.

I’d also like to thank my assistants, Nick Hosseinzadeh, who’s my constituency assistant back in North Vancouver, and Stephanie Marshall-White, who’s my legislative assistant here in the Legislature.

I’d like to give a little hello to Yuval Daniel from Equal Voice. We had a nice luncheon today with all these powerful young women that want to get into the political game, so to speak. They’re here today checking us all out. Hopefully, we don’t all scare them away with their day that they’re here. Hopefully, they enjoy their time here.

[1:45 p.m.]

I’d like to talk about the budget. First of all, I’d like to take up the challenge of the previous speaker and say that, yeah, there are some things in this budget that I do support. I do support the elimination of the student loan interest. I also was supportive of the increased compensation for family-based caregivers, like foster parents, who do such great work — that’s a positive step — as well as extending that to extended family, like grandparents. I think that was good.

I was very pleased to see this government put focus on the Foundry centres, the one-stop shops for children and youth ages 12 to 24. We’ve got one in North Vancouver. I was definitely supportive of the Foundry centres. In fact, when I chaired the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth when we were in government, we put forward some significant recommendations in one of our reports to do with mental health and how to improve mental health services for children and youth in British Columbia. One of those recommendations was to have these one-stop shops like Foundry. Subsequently, they ended up calling them Foundry.

I’m very pleased that this government has chosen not only to support the Foundries that are here right now but to expand more Foundries provincewide. I don’t know, from this budget, how many that is going to be. I suppose this is going to be a question to the minister at the time. But certainly, I’m going to be supporting more Foundries.

I also liked the mention of more programs, including mental health supports in schools for parents and families to support kids in their early development, as well as specialized family care and day treatment for young people that meets their needs. These are all very positive steps that I definitely would support this government on.

I also have a caution that there are significant things missing in this budget that certainly not just me but others were concerned about. One of them is the B.C. SAR funding for search and rescue.

Our government, a few years ago, gave a substantial amount of money, $10 million, to B.C. SARs. Certainly my own SAR in North Vancouver, North Shore Rescue, was extremely appreciative of that funding. These people are volunteers, and North Shore Rescue has had a rough couple of days. They did rescue one snowshoer who escaped the avalanche, but unfortunately, yesterday it was discovered that they recovered the body of another one that did not survive the avalanche. These are volunteers that take the time out of their day, their family time. There are 2,500 volunteers provincewide.

Chris Mushumanski from the B.C. Search and Rescue Association said he was hoping that this government would have at least renewed a commitment of $5 million per year. I’m quoting him saying: “I think it’s safe to say that the BCSARA board, the ground search and rescue groups, the SAR prevention program AdventureSmart and the 2,500 volunteers would have been really delighted to hear a funding model announcement in this budget, but it appears that this is not the case.” I’m sad about that, that there was nothing for these valuable volunteers.

I was also saddened to see that there was nothing in the Agriculture budget for the SPCA — our government, when we were in government, really considerably increased funding for the SPCA in capital funds for their pounds provincewide — but also to implement the legislation that we passed just before the last election on shutting down puppy mills.

[1:50 p.m.]

There are some regulations that needed to be implemented to assist that legislation. I don’t see the funding being offered for implementation. I’m worried for the animals as well — dogs and cats — because I would assume…. I know the minister has a definite interest in animal welfare, but it doesn’t appear that that interest is reflected in her budget, unfortunately.

Other things that were missing — no mention of film. I always talk about film in the Legislature. But there’s nothing about the film industry, and it’s a considerable job creator in our province.

In fact, in this budget, there is actually not a jobs plan. We know that there are lots of little goodies in there that are expensive. But really, I was taken aback that there was no plan to generate revenue to actually pay for the goodies. The only thing that was in there with regards to resource development was LNG, and lo and behold, obviously, that started with our government.

I’m not too sure how…. I know that the minister has said that the budget is balanced. Certainly, it helps to have those transfer payments from the federal government, but that’s not going to always be available. So it’ll be interesting to see how the year unfolds with regards to not having a jobs plan to pay for the promises that they put in the budget.

I do want to mention one thing. I was pleased to see the Lions Gate Hospital tower that was in the budget document. But I want to remind people, particularly my constituents, that in fact — and this is from Vancouver Coastal Health, where I got this confirmed — it was actually the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation, the good people of the North Shore, that raised $100 million for that tower. The remainder of the funds to build the tower actually came from the sale of the Pearson-Dogwood lands in Vancouver.

Land sales went to a portion. And thanks to the good people of the North Shore and the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation, who actually provided the majority of the funding for this hospital. I don’t think it really deserves a mention in the budget document because it didn’t come from this government.

Moving on, I would like to mention something about Mental Health and Addictions. As you know, I’m the critic for Mental Health and Addictions. I mentioned…. The positive mention. There is, here, $74 million over three years that is coming in to enhance mental health and addiction services for children, youth and young adults. That’s all great. I don’t know where that’s going — $24 million a year. But what I am disappointed in is there is nothing for addictions, nothing for recovery.

We saw, earlier on today, an announcement from the B.C. Centre on Substance Use. They have recommended that government adopt this so-called heroin buyers club vision. The idea is to provide legal heroin sales in British Columbia for addicts.

The B.C. Centre on Substance Use is proposing that a co-op group be established to buy bulk medical-grade heroin from Switzerland to sell to doctor-assessed club members. I, quite frankly, am worried that there’s too much emphasis from this government on one side of the addiction argument — on the harm reduction.

We definitely need to keep people alive. I support the naloxone kits. I support the overdose prevention sites and the hard-working staff that save individuals every day. But what we don’t have in this system is effective and accessible treatment. As I said before, there’s nothing in this budget to support recovery programs.

I have a quote here from the chair of the B.C. Recovery Council, Mr. Marshall Smith. I’m going to quote what he said with regards to the emphasis on harm reduction without the recovery end.

[1:55 p.m.]

“This crisis began,” the opioid crisis, “by doctors freely handing out opioids to the population. With all of the years and deaths that have occurred, it appears that we have learned nothing from our experience. Programs that hand out heroin from vending machines and storefronts are not based on evidence and are dangerous to the population. When it comes to the addiction crisis, this government is focusing exclusively on fringe harm reduction programs, while British Columbians who seek recovery and a drug-free life are left out in the cold. I, for one, won’t stand for it, and I don’t believe taxpayers will either.”

That’s from Marshall Smith. I’m not going to go as strong as he is in those words. But certainly, it is my belief that we need to do a way better job with a system of care for mental health and addictions in this province. Not seeing anything in this budget focusing on treatment and recovery programs and supporting the recovery communities was very, very disappointing to me.

The other thing that I was disappointed at…. I’ve asked the minister numerous times to at least bring in the private member’s bill that I proposed last year — actually two years ago, I guess — the Safe Care Act. I have been heavily lobbied, and I’m sure the minister has been heavily lobbied, by mothers, by the parents of addicted youth, to please save them, rescue them, get them out of harm’s way quickly, right now.

Certainly, the Safe Care Act that I proposed to the minister a while back — at least bring it up for debate so that all of us can discuss it and discuss the merits. If they wanted to do an amendment, fine, but the bottom line is that there are kids dying every day. This opioid crisis is not going away. Fifteen hundred people die each year in British Columbia. Einstein says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Somebody mentioned something about our record. It was our Minister of Health, Terry Lake, who won a public health award for his success in bringing forward treatment programs for drug addicts. So do not…. I’m not taking any advice from that side with regards to what we did in our record as government.

The bottom line is we can’t just leave it the way it is. We have to try something different. And what is recommended by the experts, including Marshall Smith from the B.C. Recovery Council, is more funding for recovery.

It needs to be accessible for everyone. It needs to be accessible for people that are the middle class. Right now, the only people that can get into a recovery centre are people that are very poor or have a health plan that pays for it. They can be expensive. They need to be regulated as well. That’s the next thing. We need to regulate counsellors as well. That will be a question that I’ll be asking the Minister of Health.

The other issue is what the impact is of the overdose crisis on municipalities. This is not just a downtown Vancouver issue. This is an issue all across the province, all across the country.

Funnily enough, last night I was at a UBCM reception, and some of the executive people on the UBCM board were telling me that in their municipalities, they’re having grave difficulty managing the opioid crisis. I asked them what they meant by that, and they said: “Well, the costs to clean up — for instance, discarded needles outside parks and outside schools — and policing costs.” These are hidden costs that municipalities have to fund and that are not identified as part of the financial and human cost of the opioid crisis.

[2:00 p.m.]

I’m not going to get into any major detail on what I believe we should be doing with regards to mental health and addictions. I’ve spent lots of time in this House talking about it. But we really do need to double down and look at a whole system of care.

Certainly, we should be looking at the Portugal model. But I will caution anybody that is listening to me, with regards to the Portuguese model. The success of the Portuguese model is not the decriminalization of the drugs. They’re not legal. It’s not the decriminalization of the drugs. It’s the wraparound care and the strong incentives for people to get into treatment and recovery. That’s the success. They’re doing a way better job in their country of actually getting people well, because they’re offering treatment and recovery options at the right time.

What I’d like to just mention, with regards to, again, the lack of recovery facilities, or the lack of taxpayer-paid recovery facilities…. There is a drug recovery centre in New Westminster called the Last Door. There’s a lineup. He says that there’s a seven-week waiting list for people to get in there. Obviously, he’s been begging government to give these recovery centres their assistance so that they can either grow their businesses so they can get more people in or have more recovery places for these people.

Giuseppe Ganci with the Last Door Recovery Society says that the wait times for people that want to get help “can wreck a person’s drive to get help.” I’m quoting one of the people that he’s talking about. “‘By this time next week, I’m probably going to be high again, and this whole feeling of despair, this whole feeling of wanting to change will be gone,’ he described some people as feeling. ‘That’s the cycle of addiction, and that’s happening to a lot of British Columbians right now.’” When people are ready for treatment and recovery, we need to have those helping systems available to them at the right time — then.

Moving on to the rest of the budget, I think I’ll just get on to some of the things that my other colleagues have been talking about a lot with regards to all the extra taxes. This is one thing that is kind of telling. There are lots of promises and lots of goodies but no explanation as to how to pay for them.

We have seen, since the NDP came into government, 19 either new or additional taxes in the last 18 months. Those are worth more than $5.5 billion, representing 1,100 new taxes for every man, woman and child in British Columbia.

What are those taxes? Well, the ones like the employer health tax. Now, the employer health tax is the one that replaced the MSP. This year, 2019, there’s a double-dip. Businesses and municipalities will not only have to pay the MSP. They will have to pay the employer health tax.

When it comes to municipalities, they don’t have any other way of making money except for taxes, property taxes. So we, the people that live in these municipalities, are going to get an increased tax bill in our property tax to pay for the employer health tax. If you don’t believe me, I am going to quote what the mayor, at the time, of the district of North Vancouver has said about the employer health tax. This was Richard Walton.

[2:05 p.m.]

He says: “All three North Shore municipalities have payrolls exceeding the $500,000 threshold, which means a requirement to allocate funding for this new additional cost. The district of North Vancouver has accounted for this additional tax and is working on strategies to lessen its impact on the municipal budget. However, this means a change in cost from $700,000 under the MSP to approximately $1.4 million in the district.” They’ve got to make up that cost because of the employer health tax.

Then there is the famous speculation tax. Everybody would have gotten their notice in the mail in the last month or so and is frantically filling this thing out. I don’t have so much of a problem with the time it took for me to fill it out. It wasn’t that cumbersome. But I do, like what some of my other colleagues have said, worry that we had to submit our social insurance numbers plus our emails. I, too, like my colleagues, am a little bit worried about getting inundated with government propaganda because they now have all our email addresses.

I’m not the only one that has shown concern for that. There was an article in the North Shore News by a fellow named Paul Sullivan, who said:

“This tax, an affront of its own, only applies to about 32,000 British Columbian homeowners, but 1.6 million British Columbian home­owners are required to endure a tedious process and invasion of privacy to prevent paying the tax.

“The form is a lulu, requiring me to fill out a declaration code, an 11-character letter ID code, my social insurance number, email address.

“It’s like being hacked by my own government. I’m afraid to think about what they’re going to do with my social insurance number and email address. I’m completely mystified, and not in a good way, by the declaration code and the letter ID.”

He kind of expresses the sentiment of pretty much everybody I’ve talked to about the speculation tax.

Then there are other taxes as well. The increased Vancouver gas tax is going up. The foreign buyer tax is going up. There is an additional school tax. We talked about the speculation tax, and there is now the carbon tax.

I seem to recall that when the government was increasing the carbon tax, they were saying that they were going to take away the carbon neutrality, which is what our government did for the carbon tax, and they were going to make sure that whatever was collected was going to be used for clean energy initiatives.

Well, we found out yesterday, in question period, that in actual fact, the $6 billion that is going to be collected from the carbon tax…. Only $900 million of that is actually going to clean energy initiatives. The rest of it is going into general revenue to hopefully balance the budget, I would assume. I’m sure our critic for Environment will have more to say on that during estimates.

The other thing I’d like to mention with regards to affordability, which comes up a lot in the throne speech as well as the budget, is that…. I’m going to quote Puneet Sandhar, who’s a lawyer. I thought she was pretty bang on. She was talking about how housing initiatives can be counterproductive with taxing. She said:

“Measures like the speculation tax, increased stress tests and higher interest rates have certainly had an impact. In the last six months, we’ve seen home prices come down from the market….

“But here lies the problem. Continuing to bring prices down will inevitably turn the cool in the market to a chill. That means risking every job related to the construction industry — the very people we need to be making life easier for.

“With a growing population, we can’t effectively reduce demand. So the real answers lie in dealing with supply. Numerous reports and studies have shown the added costs buyers pay are because of building permit delays, lack of supply and limited densification.”

She quotes a Bloomberg study that showed that a new home in Vancouver that costs $654,000 to build costs an extra $644,000 in regulations, almost doubling the price. So there is a lot of extra money that goes into the cost of the home, taxes being one of the keys.

[2:10 p.m.]

The other thing that we have just learned with regards to the availability of new houses is that as of January, Vancouver-area home sales have plunged by 39 percent from 12 months earlier. Over the past six months, the benchmark price for a single family home in greater Vancouver has decreased by more than 8 percent.

Jock Finlayson, who is the chief policy officer of the Business Council of B.C., said that we should be bracing for even more losses. “If the NDP government wanted a cooler housing market, they must be quite satisfied with how things have developed. The market has tanked, notably in the Lower Mainland, with big drops in sales and a downward trend in prices that seems to be gathering steam. None of this really helps restore affordability to the market for first-time homebuyers. Curbing demand through taxation and lending policies is only part of the solution. What is needed is more supply. It is local governments that hold the key to getting new homes built.”

On that note, my district of North Vancouver councillor colleague Matthew Bond wrote a post about a month or so ago on what was going on in the district of North Van. He said that 4,455 net new homes have been approved in the seven years since the adoption of the official community plan in the district of North Van. Most homes approved in 2018 will likely not be built and occupied for another three years. In 2021, halfway through the plan, the total number of homes constructed and occupied will be less than 5,000. This is in the district of North Van. He worries that that will have a negative effect on affordability.

He also talked about traffic and transportation. In the last bit that I can talk about, I’d like to mention that instead of supporting this rapid train to Washington state, I think that this government should do a little bit more of a focus on the transit needs on the North Shore.

Yes, we’ve got a couple of B-lines coming. That’s good. But I attended a presentation in a district of North Vancouver council workshop by Stephan Nieweler, who’s a prof up at SFU. He has a pretty good business case for getting a SkyTrain system to the North Shore, as well as light rail along the North Shore. We have, because of our housing affordability issues, more people commuting out of the North Shore to get home and then coming back to work on the North Shore because of housing affordability. So housing affordability and traffic and transportation have to go together.

I’ll be looking forward to my favourite pet project, the Highway 1 interchange project, being finished. Our government, of course, announced that, and it’s well underway. It’s $198 million at the foot of the Cut. Yay. We’re all looking forward to that being completed.

Then the last thing I’d just like to mention to folks is we’re worried about ride-sharing coming at all. But according to page 22 of the budget document…. There’s a mention of taxi modernization and ride-hailing. They’re talking of $9 million being provided “to implement the government’s commitments to modernize the taxi industry and enable ride-hailing in B.C.” They’ve got it spread out for three years, up to 2022. Does that mean we’re not having ride-hailing until 2022? I don’t know. I’d be very sad about that.

In either case, thank you, Madam Speaker, for listening to me. I’ll sit down.

Hon. J. Sims: It’s my pleasure today to rise and speak in support of what I think is one of the best budgets that I have seen. But before I get to talk about the budget, I want to take this opportunity to thank the people of Surrey-Panorama, who elected me and sent me here and have entrusted me with a huge responsibility of representing their voice here and taking back to them what goes on in the House so that they are fully informed. I thank them for that.

I also would be remiss if I didn’t thank my amazing family: my partner, my wonderful kids. Of course, you’ve all heard me talking about my grandchildren: Jacob, Jessica and Emily, and now, of course, my great-granddaughter Aliya. I know they make a lot of sacrifices so that I can spend the time doing this, and I don’t get to spend the time with them that I would love to. Once again, thank you to Surrey, B.C., and to Surrey-Panorama for sending me here to be their voice.

[2:15 p.m.]

When I looked at this budget…. I was actually so moved the day the Finance Minister presented the budget. I thought how different this budget was from the budgets where in my previous life, wearing a different hat, I sat in budget lockups. When I sat in those budget lockups, I was looking for all those hidden lines that were death by a thousand cuts to public education, to social services, to health care. It was just so, so heartbreaking.

On the other hand, this time….

Deputy Speaker: Minister, Delta North would like to make an introduction.

Is leave granted?

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

R. Kahlon: Thank you to the minister. I will introduce 40 kids from Gibson Elementary that are here visiting today. They’re grade 5 students, and their teacher is Ms. Nicole Lewis. They’re here today to check out the Legislature, hear what’s happening here.

You’re hearing debates on the budget.

These poor kids had to wake up this morning at 5:30 and 6 a.m. to get here, so I hope you can make it entertaining for them. Will the House please join me in making these young people welcome.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister. Please proceed.

Debate Continued

Hon. J. Sims: As I was saying, this budget felt so different, and I was moved by this budget in a totally different way. When I used to sit in budget lockups, as I said, from my previous life, it was so disheartening as we saw service after service — whether it was in public education, whether it was in health care, whether it was support for our social programs — being decimated. To be in a place where we are actually adding to services, whether it’s health care, education or social programs, and investing in people…. That’s why I’m so proud to stand here today and speak in support of this budget.

Obviously, we can see that we have a different government, and therefore, we have a different approach towards the budget. No longer is it about how much we can cut, cut and cut, because now we have a government that is investing in people to build a strong economy today.

There is no way you can have a strong economy that does not invest in people, that does not invest in our kids that are our future. This budget shows that it is all about investing in the people of British Columbia, in our kids, in health care and in social programs.

You know what? When we invest in our kids, we are investing in our future. That is the foundation for a strong economy. The other side, when they were in government, saw a dichotomy. For them, a strong economy was always talking about raw materials. What they forgot in that equation is that a strong economy is the people of this province. It’s our seniors who built this province. It’s our young people who are going to continue to build and are going to be our future doctors, nurses, long-term-care attendants, engineers, business owners — you name it.

A strong economy is when we look after each other. That was what was missing from the previous government, budget after budget after budget. They failed to recognize that we are stronger when we support and look after each other.

Their focus was to — you know what? — reward the top 2 percent. Their entire commentary was always about the top 2 percent. That is not the way this government is, and it makes me so proud to sit with the Premier today and with the government that I sit with.

We have the best economy in the world. We’re not saying it; others are saying it. We have the strongest projected GDP growth. We have, let me tell you, also the lowest unemployment rate.

[2:20 p.m.]

I can remember two years ago when there was an election happening. You would have thought, from the rhetoric from the other side, that if the NDP should happen to form government, the sky was going to fall. The fish were going to jump out of the ocean and be writhing on the side. The rivers were going to stop flowing, and the sun might even fail to rise.

Let me tell you that the sun still rises and sets. The fish are still swimming in the oceans and the rivers. And let me tell you, it’s all happening while we have one of the healthiest economies that is the envy of the rest of the country, because we have taken an approach that puts British Columbians first. That’s every British Columbian.

We’re going to be taking action, and we have been taking action, to make life more affordable, because we know that when life is not affordable for British Columbians, every one of us suffers. We’re going to build the services people need. We’re going to build a strong and sustainable economy that doesn’t leave 98 percent of the population behind.

Budget 2019 moves forward on the biggest middle-class tax cut in a generation, putting thousands of dollars back in people’s pockets. I don’t know where my colleagues on the other side studied economics, but let me tell you, to call the largest tax break in our history a tax grab is really, really amazing to me. Having been a teacher of history and geography and many other things during my lifetime, I just wonder where they get that rhetoric from.

You know what? We’re going to be creating new opportunities so that people and businesses can thrive, by creating a new B.C. child opportunity benefit. A bit of an anathema to the other side, but absolutely, for us, it is a key, key investment.

Eliminating interest on B.C. student loans — I’m just going to highlight a few, and then I’ll be delving into them with a bit more detail later — is so that young people can get a good start in their lives and careers and not be overburdened by their tuition burdens.

Elimination of MSP premiums: starting January 1, 2020, full elimination, saving families up to $1,800 a year and individuals, $900 a year. Isn’t that a big tax break? B.C. was the only province — the only province across this country — that had that supplementary health tax. No other province had it. And it’s so good for British Columbians to have that same treatment under the health care act that the rest of Canada has.

Sharing stable, long-term funding with First Nations communities and our commitment to truth and reconciliation is embedded in our budget.

Moving forward with CleanBC, you know something? I’m so glad our young kids are in the House today to hear this. They understand better than many people in my generation the importance of looking after Mother Earth, the importance of looking after our planet, our water and our air, to make sure that this beautiful planet called Mother Earth is there for future generations.

Along with new B.C. child opportunity benefits and the full elimination of MSP premiums, we are putting thousands of dollars back into people’s pockets.

Here is a figure that I would like the other side to memorize. The net result of all this? A family of four making $80,000 a year will be paying 43 percent less a year in taxes than they did under the previous government.

This is not rocket science. These are the facts. These kinds of cuts are good for people, good for our communities. You know something? When it’s good for people, it’s good for our communities, and it is absolutely outstanding for our economy.

When we talk about life being more affordable, and that’s where our focus is, MSP premiums are just one of those examples. In total — because I know my colleagues on the other side love figures — $2.7 billion in a tax cut. That’s what the MSP premiums are. It was long overdue and neglected by my colleagues on the other side.

[2:25 p.m.]

Now let’s talk about our kids. A historic investment in the people of our province that puts more dollars in the pockets of middle-class families, the B.C. child opportunity benefit gives support to families for every child they have up to the age of 18. The previous early childhood tax benefit only provided support up to the age of six, and it was about $600. Guess what, colleagues. In this budget, the new benefit — it’s progressive, with a maximum amount applying to low-income families — means that for the first child, the benefit is as high as $1,600 a year. For a family with two children, the benefit is as much as $2,600, and then it goes up.

Wait for this. It is there till the child is 18 — not up to six years of age but up to the age of 18. In total, the B.C. child opportunity benefit will put nearly $400 million — not thousand — a year back into the pockets of hard-working families. You know what? Our government is ensuring that the supports are going where they are needed and that the investments are happening to address our young kids.

The B.C. student loan interest is eliminated, and let me make it very, very clear: we are the B.C. government, so we can only eliminate the B.C. student loan. In order to look at the federal elimination, that is a different level of government. As of February 19 — not tomorrow, not next year, not three years down the road — immediately on the day the budget was tabled, all student loans will stop accumulating interest, new and old.

You know what? At this stage, I actually want to do a huge shout-out to the students at universities and colleges across the province for their advocacy, and a special shout-out to recognize the work of the students in advocacy groups at Simon Fraser University and KPU — great institutions in my community of Surrey, B.C. — who, I know, were passionate advocates for elimination of interest on student loans.

In Budget 2019, while we’re talking about SFU, I also want to say that we are making a significant investment in SFU: a new sustainable energy and environmental building. The government’s commitment to that is $45 million. Let me tell you that our minister of post-secondary education has been extremely busy making announcement after announcement of all the investments that are being done in post-secondary education, into skills development and opening up new seats in the technology sector.

Income assistance and disability rates. Somebody said to me a long time ago…. I was still at secondary school — a long time ago, for the kids up there — when I had a teacher who read an excerpt out to me from a book. What it said was that you judge a society not by the size of its big houses or big cars or whatever. I’m ad-libbing a little bit. You judge a community by how well it looks after its sick, its elderly, its young and those who cannot care for themselves.

I am so pleased that in the last budget our government announced a lift to the income assistance and disability rates of $100 a month — the first raise in over a decade, at that time. This year it’s $50 additional per month, bringing the total increase to $150 a month, or $1,800 a year. Do we have a long way to go in that area? Absolutely, but this is a significant beginning. I’m so, so proud of this, because more money can now be spent on groceries, which are not a luxury, transportation and life’s basic necessities. So $26 million in income and disability assistance enhancements to make these benefits fairer and respect people’s dignity.

There are many other measures we’re taking. One of those, of course, which gets talked about a lot is housing and homelessness. The province has made an incredible commitment to growing and operating a rent bank that will provide short-term, low- or no-interest loans so that renters don’t end up being evicted.

[2:30 p.m.]

We are moving forward on a homelessness action plan, with a $76 million investment. Surrey got 160 modular homes. I know that other communities right around this province celebrated as they received the homes as well — very, very necessary and, I can honestly say, almost a 100 percent increase from the previous government, because there were not that many steps taken. All of this is happening because people have been working very, very hard.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Let’s talk about PharmaCare. We all know that the price of prescription medication is too much. We’ve already eliminated Fair PharmaCare’s deductible for people with low incomes in the province. For 240,000 B.C. families, prescription medication became more affordable due to the $105 million investment.

In Budget 2019, we’re taking the next step by investing an additional $42 million to expand the drugs covered by Fair PharmaCare. These are not small issues, because now we will see medications for people with diabetes, asthma and hypertension being covered as well.

Let me take a second to talk about the Ministry of Citizens’ Services. Technology and innovation are growing rapidly. I believe we are on the verge of becoming the new Silicon Valley, and it’s all exciting. We have a global hub of innovation and connectivity. Our government, in this budget, is spending an additional $50 million to expand high-speed Internet across British Columbia so we can allow businesses to expand in dozens of rural and remote communities.

Mr. Speaker, you’ve heard me say this before. Connectivity, broadband and high-speed Internet are the foundational pieces. They’re the railroad that we need to build in order to grow the new digital economy and in order to support the existing economies. Without this foundational piece, it’s very difficult for us to talk about truth and reconciliation without us being able to talk about rural development and diversification and supporting the growth of good-paying jobs in every corner of this province.

Since July 2017, we have, either underway or completed, 417 communities, including 74 Indigenous communities, or nearly 43,000 British Columbian households that will have been connected.

OrgBook B.C. is another amazing thing that’s happening in our ministry, a new innovative service to support small and medium-sized businesses. When I present to the B.C. chambers or when I went and met with the identity conference, they were saying that B.C. is on the cutting edge. We are an outlier because we’re one of the first governments to use blockchain technology to improve services and provide secure transactions. The World Economic Forum — not a group that I expected to get praise from — also gave us accolades for the work we’re doing in this area.

Our new procurement strategy is a powerful tool for delivering services people depend on. Let me tell you that since that new policy came into place, over the last six months, we have announced or we have awarded over 50 procurements within a month, from beginning to end. Just let that sink in. These procurements are supporting small and medium-sized businesses. They are right-sized. They are under $5 million, ranging anywhere from $70,000 up to $5 million. We have streamlined. We have become agile.

I could not stand here today without talking about health care for a moment. Budget 2019 provides $1.3 billion for three years to the Ministry of Health, which means more doctors — which we know are needed — nurses and shorter wait times for families around this province. Since 2018, we have added 800 hours of MRI operating times a week. We are on track to provide 37,000 more MRI exams this year compared to last year.

We have new urgent care centres around the province. I’m so proud of the one that we have in Surrey because it’s actually managing to take some of the stress off our emergency room at the hospital.

We’re planning for a brand-new hospital in Surrey. That’s only happening because of this government. I know the colleagues sitting across the way were in government when they sold the land that they had announced four or five times the hospital was supposed to be built upon. Then, before leaving government, quietly they sold that land.

[2:35 p.m.]

We’re also investing $4.4 billion over three years to expand and upgrade hospitals right around this province, medical and diagnostic equipment and health information management systems. More direct care hours are going to be available.

Mental health. I’m so glad that my colleague on the other side gave some accolades to our minister because — you know what? — I’m proud of the fact that I’m part of a government that recognizes the dire need we have to invest in this area. We have a ministry and a minister that is focused. I’m so proud about, as we said, the Foundry clinics that are opening but also clinics like the Roshni Clinic, which opened up in Surrey — culturally sensitive — to tackle the issues of mental health and addictions.

We have a lot more work to do, but an additional $74 million is now going to be put in to address a child and youth and mental health strategy. I can tell you that I’ve been talking to teachers and parents. A growing epidemic we have — I’m going to call it that — is the great number of students who are of elementary and secondary school age who are suffering from mental health issues.

Let me just focus a little bit on the Fraser Valley Cancer Centre in Surrey, which is an expansion of acute care unit chemotherapy that the provincial government is supporting. The Surrey Memorial Hospital in-patient psychiatric and seclusion room — $4.6 million — is once again supported for Surrey.

Education. None of you would believe it if I was to leave today and not talk about education. Having been a teacher for most of my working life, I know how important it is to invest in a quality public education. We know that public education is not only good for our kids, but it’s the very foundation for our democratic institutions.

Budget 2019 invests over half a billion dollars to ensure that our schools deliver the quality of education we want for our children. This includes $58 million over three years for the classroom enhancement fund to support better classrooms for our kids and billions of dollars into new schools, additions, seismic upgrades and property purchases. It’s the largest capital investment in B.C.’s history, trying to make up for 16 long years’ worth of deficit created by people sitting on the other side today. We’re also making record investments to achieve smaller class size, improve schools and classrooms and give kids support.

Here are some capital projects in the education sector that are being carried out in Surrey. Maddaugh Road elementary school, 605 new student spaces; Coyote Creek Elementary School, with four new classrooms adding 100 more spaces; Frost Elementary School, six classrooms add­ing 150 more spaces; Douglas area elementary school, adding 605 new spaces; Sullivan Heights Secondary School, which I can see from my office, adding 750-plus student spaces; Sullivan Elementary School, eight class­room additions to provide 200 spaces; Panorama Park Elementary School, 200 student spaces; Grandview Heights secondary school, 1,500 student spaces.

I could go on and on. Of course, Regent Road Elementary School, 655 student spaces; Edgewood Drive elementary school, 655. At Pacific Heights Elementary School, we’re looking at 300. At Mary Jane Shannon…. We’re looking at seismic upgrades to quite a few schools.

What I was saying is that this is such a difference from the people who sit on the other side. For 16 long years, they allowed Surrey’s infrastructure to be ignored, and over 7,000 students were sitting in portables. We’re taking care of that. I’m so proud of the work of our Education Minister, who has announced, in one way or another, over 7,000 spots already.

I hear so much about economy from my colleagues on the other side, and I sometimes wonder where they studied economy. I will say this: it’s hard for them to believe that investment in people is investment in our economy.

Let me tell you, when we invest in child care — guess what — we’re investing in our economy. Child care centres have to be built. More early childhood educators will be hired. They will have work, and work is created through that.

[2:40 p.m.]

We also know, and good research shows us — I will point them to the research done by our leading universities — that for every dollar you invest in child care, you get $3 back into the economy. That’s what I call growing the economy and growing decent-paying jobs, while at the same time investing in our kids.

Our plan is working. Our plan is working, because we can see we have a very, very low unemployment rate. As I said earlier, we are the envy of other provinces as they look at where we’re sitting today.

They don’t have to believe me and what I’m saying, because I have some quotes here from a newspaper article that was published on February 20. “B.C.’s partners in Confederation can only look on in envy,” says Gary Mason. And then it goes: “It doesn’t get much better. B.C. is now becoming comfortable at the top of the economic heap in this country.” He goes on to say: “B.C. is booming and could be for the foreseeable future.” “Move over, Alberta. British Columbia is the economic powerhouse of the country right now.”

Let me also now talk about infrastructure. I know my colleagues across the way find it very difficult when we talk about infrastructure, because it’s an area they totally ignored. They did not invest back in our communities or back in people.

You know what? Twenty billion dollars over the next three years invested in growing our infrastructure is economic investment, an economic driver. I’m hoping that my colleagues across the way understand that when we’re going to be building Pattullo Bridge, it’s not going to be built just because we have a budget line. People are going to be working on building that bridge. They are going to have work, they’re going to be paying taxes, and all of that spurs on the economy.

When we’re building roads, when we’re building schools, when we’re building hospitals, when we’re building child care centres, when we’re building highways and byways…. Let me tell you, all of that grows jobs. You know what? Governments of that ilk in the 1980s understood that. It seems to me today that they need to go back and do a bit of studying of that era in our history and say that investment and infrastructure are good for the economy and grow jobs.

I have to say my hat’s off to the Minister of the Environment for the amazing job he did in putting forward a major investment of $902 million in CleanBC. Let me say, despite the rhetoric from the other side, this is the largest investment in climate action in B.C.’s history. This includes making electric vehicles more affordable, putting money into British Columbians’ pockets so that they are encouraged and incented to buy electric cars, and $41 million invested in incentives that will save families so that they can make their homes more energy-efficient with retrofits, etc.

That is also the ministry of my other colleague, and $15 million this year to support remote communities in transitioning to clean energy solutions.

Across government, ministries are working very, very closely to make sure that we can deliver on the clean energy plan. We are reducing climate pollution by shifting homes, vehicles and businesses away from fossil fuels, towards clean B.C. electricity and other sources of renewable energy with increasing climate rebates for working and middle-class British Columbians.

Here is a zinger for my colleagues on the other side: families will receive rebates of up to $400 a year. They forget to mention that. Somehow, they seem to not be too good at math when it comes to it.

We are building a strong, sustainable, low-carbon economy, and we are able to achieve this because of our partnership. We want to thank them too — the B.C. Greens caucus.

Revenue-sharing with First Nations — a very moving day. You just have to watch the faces of the chiefs and the people who were here in this room. They have waited a long, long time. They are now going to be getting 7 percent share of the gaming revenue. That is going to allow them to invest in communities.

[2:45 p.m.]

Hon. K. Chen: I would like to seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Introductions by Members

Hon. K. Chen: I have a school group from Stoney Creek Elementary School that is probably just on their way to come in right now. Sorry about the timing. But I really want to introduce the Stoney Creek Community School. I have two groups here today. One has already left. They were grades 7 and 6, and then we also have grades 4 and 5 here today. They’re here to visit the Legislature and learn about the work we do in this chamber.

I would like to ask all the members to make them very welcome, because community schools are an important part of our community. There’s a little bit more funding support for those schools to be able to gather their parents and community members to be able to engage with each other and to learn from each other. I would like the members in this House to make them very welcome. Too bad that I’m missing them again, but they’ll be coming in here very soon.

Debate Continued

M. Morris: Before I get rolling in my response to the budget speech, I just want to thank my family. My wife, Chris, for standing by me over the last six years in this life as a politician that I never thought I would step into. My sons Matt and Dan and their wives, Heather and Michelle, for being the rock that supports me and do so much for me when I’m not at home. And of course my inspirations, my five grandchildren that just embrace me every time I come home and fill me full of life and help me with my journey in trying to prepare British Columbia for their future, when they become add

I’d also like to thank Charlotte and Brenda in my Prince George office. They do yeoman’s work there every day in answering the phones and attending to the folks that come through the door with their myriad of issues and questions. And also Erin in my Mackenzie office, who does the same thing — a bright young woman up there who’s full of energy. And my constituents, who fill me full of the good ideas and the energy that I need in order to carry on in this particular job.

The budget affects constituents right across this beautiful province of ours. I want to talk a little bit about my riding in Prince George–Mackenzie. Prince George–Mackenzie is a little to the right of the centre, and I’m talking geographically, in the province here. My colleague from Nechako Lakes can take credit for being in the geographical centre of the province, but we’re right dead centre in the middle of British Columbia, about halfway up the province from Vancouver here. It’s about a nine-hour drive from Vancouver.

We’re at the crossroads of highways; of railways going north, south, east, west; of our hydro transmission lines going north, south, east, west; of our oil transmission line going north and south; and our natural gas pipelines that go north, south, east, west, as well, bringing those resources down from northeast B.C. and around the country.

The resource sector is one of the foundations of this great province that we live in. It provides high-paying jobs. It provides a lot of resources, a lot of tax base for government, for our municipalities and for our regional districts. It provides for a good lifestyle for those that are involved in that particular area.

I’m going to talk about each one of them a little bit, just to highlight some of the concerns that I have with this budget and with the direction that this province is going, that this government is going. I have some increasing concerns.

Forestry is big in Prince George, in the central interior of the province. It’s been one of the foundational industries that we have in British Columbia. I like to say that the one that I’m engaged in or have been engaged in, in the past — trapping — is the oldest industry that we have in British Columbia. Forestry came along much after that.

Forestry consumes, in the Prince George timber supply area — and I’ll include Mackenzie in this as well — about 12 million cubic metres of wood every year. Now, a lot of people that aren’t familiar with the forest industry….

[2:50 p.m.]

Well, 12 million cubic metres of wood. How much is that? It probably doesn’t mean much to the average person unless you’re involved in the forestry industry. One cubic metre of wood is probably the equivalent of a telephone pole. We drive down the road, and we see the telephone poles. That’s one cubic metre of wood.

When we talk about 12 million cubic metres harvested on an annual basis in the Prince George area alone…. I think, provincially, we’re talking about somewhere in the area of 70 to 80 million cubic metres of wood that’s cut every year in this province. It’s significant. But the 12 million cubic metres of wood that we cut in the Prince George area equates to about 270,000 truckloads of logs every year going into our mills in the Prince George area — so 270,000 loads of logs every year coming into Prince George.

Imagine the number of trucks that haul that wood, to haul that 270,000 loads. That’s just in Prince George. That’s not counting the rest of the province. Pretty significant. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of trucks that do that, some trucks making two or three trips a day hauling the logs into the various mills.

In addition to that, we have a logging industry that supports these logging trucks, that puts the product on the truck to haul into the local mills. Feller-bunchers are the big machines. You see them in the bush now. They’re huge machines in comparison to what we used to use in the past. We used to use hand fallers in the past, and then they went to a feller.

Now they’ve got these feller-bunchers. They’re worth about half a million dollars apiece, about $500,000, $600,000 by the time you get them equipped. They can cut down a lot of trees in a day. There are dozens of those operating on a daily basis, 24 hours a day most seasons, in the Prince George timber supply area.

Once the feller-buncher cuts this down, then it’s taken by a forwarder. It’s another big track machine. They’re worth $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 apiece. They will take these logs to a central location. Oftentimes they’ll use grapple skidders as well, and they’re worth a lot of money. These are dozens of machines.

When it gets to this area, then a processor will take these logs and trim them, trim all the branches off them, cut them to length and put them in a pile. These processors are worth $500,000 apiece. All computer-controlled, they can cut the log to whatever length that they want, whatever diameter that they want. A lot of technology involved there.

Then we have a butt-n-top loader — again, the same kind of a platform as these other machines. So we’re still looking in the neighbourhood of a $500,000 mark. This butt-n-top loader will pick the logs up and put them on the truck.

When you look at the massive size of this equipment and the dollars that we have involved in this kind of equipment to move the product into the sawmills…. It’s supported by the operators in those machines. It’s supported by the service sector — the service, the mechanics, the shops, the diesel fuel.

There are a number of people that are behind those particular pieces of machines that are operating there — the number of drivers that we have in the trucks that are hauling the logs into the sawmills. There’s a lot of revenue generated by this particular industry at that level.

But that’s only part of the picture. The other picture is the mills that we have. We’ve got four pulp mills in the area. We’ve got three in Prince George. We’ve got one in Mackenzie. They consume a lot of wood chips and a lot of wood every year to make the pulp, to make the cups that you drink coffee with at Starbucks and the different coffee shops that we have down here. They produce pulp, and they send it all over the world. That is converted into other paper products.

We have bioenergy plants that we operate in Mackenzie, in Prince George and other places throughout the province that consume a lot of the bioproducts that we have from the logging area. We also have these supermills. We have mills that will consume one million to two million cubic metres of wood each sawmill. One mill will produce enough 2-by-4s to last the housing industry in British Columbia for a year — just one sawmill. So they produce a lot of wood.

There are a number of these sawmills in the Prince George area, probably a dozen or more of them. Then there are some smaller ones that specialize in custom cutting and employ a lot of people.

[2:55 p.m.]

Provincewide, we have over 50,000 people employed in the forest sector. They bring in a lot of revenue. I was looking at the StatsCan stats earlier on today in preparation for this. Forestry, fishing, mining, and oil and gas produce the highest weekly salaries in British Columbia. This is the 2018 data that we had here. On average, the median weekly wage rate was $1,538.40 for people working in the forest sector, mining sector and oil and gas — pretty significant investments and dollars coming out of that.

What we have, and what I didn’t hear in the budget speech — and I didn’t hear a word of it in the throne speech — was any forward-looking observations by government as to what they’re going to do as a result of the lack of fibre that we have in the province.

We already have the forest sector talking about curtailing sawmills, shutting down. They’re going to be right-sizing the forest industry as we move forward here. Fibre has disappeared in this province as a result of pine beetle, the spruce beetle, the fir beetle, the balsam beetle and our wildfire situations that we’ve had. It’s had a significant impact on the availability of fibre in the province here.

As a result of that, we could see a 20, 30, 40, 50 percent decline in forest revenues during the life of this budget. I didn’t hear that projected in the budget figures. When we look at the folks that are involved and employed in this industry, making the kind of money they do, that’s going to be a significant hit on the income tax levels that folks pay.

In addition to that, we look at the $6 billion that government has projected to come in from carbon tax alone in this province. We look at the fuel that these machines use. These dozens-of-million-dollar machines that we see throughout the Prince George–Mackenzie area consume a lot of diesel fuel. The carbon tax revenues will drop significantly just from the forest industry downturn that we see.

That’s an issue that I think…. It was negligent, in my view, for government not to include something in their budget projections to look at that. That’s going to have a significant impact on the province here.

The other resource area that is of concern for me…. I’ve got mines in my area and throughout the province here. Mount Milligan employs 450 people just between my riding and the member for Nechako Lakes. There are a couple of mines close by in the Quesnel area that employ hundreds of people. We see Mount Polley being shut down because of low copper prices and commodity prices. Everybody’s familiar with Mount Polley. It’s gone through its issues over the last few years here.

When you look at thin margins…. I’ve talked to miners over the years as to how they balance things out and how they run. I lived in Fraser Lake for a number of years with the moly mine that was there. They look at the commodity prices, and they say: “Well, we’ve got pretty thin margins here. But we can still operate because we predict an uptick in the commodity prices in two months, three months, six months or a year.”

Their main goal is to maintain the employees that they have so they’ve got that expertise all the time and they’re not laying people off. They’ve got families to support. Again, mining is one of the industries in British Columbia where people would make, on average, about $100,000 per year.

The Mount Polley situation, with the low copper prices and some of the other expenses they’ve had to look at there, I’m wondering whether they could have idled through the downturn in the copper prices if they hadn’t been faced with the employer health tax, if they hadn’t been faced with the carbon tax and some of the other tax increases that we’ve seen some of these small and larger businesses have to absorb in their day-to-day operations there. As a result of that, we’ve got a couple hundred people that are out of work from that particular mine. We may see others throughout the province here.

I spoke about oil as well. We’ve got an oil pipeline coming into Prince George, actually through Prince George. It used to go on down to Kamloops, but they don’t ship any product south of Prince George now. We have a refinery in Prince George that Husky owns, but they’ve currently got it up for sale. I’ve met with Husky, and we’ve had a bit of a chit-chat on what their intentions are there.

[3:00 p.m.]

That refinery puts out about 12,000 barrels of oil per day. It produces all the diesel for the logging industry and the mining industry in the interior of the province. We don’t have to bring any in from Edmonton or anywhere. The refinery in Prince George provides that. But with the downturn in the forest sector and the downturn in the mining sector, we’re going to see activities at this refinery probably impacted by this as well.

You add that to the thousands of logging trucks that haul those 270,000 loads of logs every year into the sawmills in Prince George and Mackenzie and the diesel that those trucks consume; the diesel that the trucks that haul the finished products out of there, the lumber; the trucks that haul the chips from the sawmills to the pulp mills. There is going to be a significant reduction in the consumption of diesel fuel in that area, which is going to impact the operation of the refinery.

We also have natural gas pipelines coming into Prince George. I’ve met with some proponents right now. They’re talking about building a liquefication plant in Prince George, a $4 billion or $5 billion plant. We’re talking about a number of things, but we have some opportunities with natural gas in British Columbia. When we look at the world around us and the increased use of polycarbonates, we don’t really know what is coming down the pike as far as advancement goes in our aircraft and aeronautics, in the design of vehicles, in the design of a lot of the new technology that’s out there that uses polycarbonates.

Polycarbonates. A big portion of that comes from the liquids that we have in our natural gas sitting in the Montney play north of Dawson Creek. Some of the richest liquid natural gas that we have in the world, we have right here in British Columbia. We have an opportunity to develop a petrochemical industry in British Columbia that would eclipse what is in Alberta and elsewhere in the country. Yet there was no forward-looking mention of what we’re going to be doing to ensure that our economy stays strong in British Columbia, whether petrochemicals play into that or not, whether expansion of our natural gas shipments will play into that.

What’s going to replace the downturn in the forest industry? What’s going to replace the 50 percent of the sawmills that may have to close here over the next two or three years, the employees that will no longer have that income coming in? It’s bothersome to me when I see that. There’s nothing in the budget and there was nothing in the throne speech that talks about how they’re going to maintain the money coming into the province to support all these things that this government is doing.

There are some good things in there. I look at Community Living B.C. Home providers are going to get an increase, family-based caregivers. Good stuff. There’s some good stuff in this budget. There’s no question about it. But a lot of it is not affordable when we look at some of the other things that are on there. From a risk perspective, I shake my head.

The ICBA came out. They were saying that in order to cover the debt that this province is going to accumulate over the next three years, they’re going to have to be borrowing $400 million a year. That’s a lot of money. The tax increases that this government has indicated in their budget…. Spending is going up 26 percent in the next couple of years. We can’t do that in our own homes unless, of course, we get another job that pays a little bit more. But that’s a pretty significant increase in such a short, short period of time.

There’s no mention in the budget about small business, the job creators in the province here — no mention whatsoever in there. They’re the backbone of this community when it comes to revenue generating and small business. They employ the lion’s share of people in this province. We’re going to see that decrease when we see the downturn in forestry, we see the downturn in mining, and we see the downturn in a lot of the other resource sectors that we have here. We look at the last quarter. I was looking at those stats here as well.

[3:05 p.m.]

Public sector jobs increased 10 percent more than private sector jobs just in the last quarter in the province here. Those are taxpayer-supported jobs. We see the private sector job numbers decreasing and the public sector jobs increasing. In the last year alone, self-employment in B.C. dropped by 1.2 percent, despite the fact that B.C.’s population grew quite significantly.

When I look at these tax increases and the way the budget has laid things out and who’s not paying for the different things that we have here, I go back…. The Minister of Citizens’ Services brought it up. She said that a family of four earning $80,000 will pay 43 percent less tax. Hmm. Forty-three percent less tax for a family of four earning $80,000. That’s about $2,400.

I look at who’s paying the taxes in this province here. I brought up the Stats Canada stuff again and spent a little bit of time looking at that this morning. Folks in British Columbia…. This was 2016 data; I couldn’t find anything newer than that. But the 2016 data for people earning $45,000 a year and less in British Columbia was 2,457,490 people. They’re the ones that are going to receive a lot of the tax breaks.

When you look at population of British Columbia, we’re at 4.7 million people. We’ve already eliminated 50 percent of the people from contributing to the tax base. Then you look at the second bracket. The second bracket is folks that earn $45,000 to $90,000. Our sons and daughters, a lot of them, will be included in that. A lot of professionals are included in that — the nurses, police officers, teachers. Those folks are included in that. There are 915,000 people in that tax bracket that will be paying some tax.

Then the third bracket, those that are earning $90,000 to $140,000. It probably includes everybody in this House. So 209,000 people in the province will be paying taxes within that tax bracket itself — the people that are contributing to these taxes and paying these taxes to make life affordable. For who? I haven’t really figured that out yet.

This mantra that the government is using: “Making life more affordable….” I haven’t found anybody that is really finding that life is more affordable to them. Even the ones that are making the $45,000 and less a year have to pay their carbon tax on their home heating at home in Prince George. We’ve had the coldest February on record, I’ve heard, since they started keeping records. I’ve had a lot of constituents come in and present their natural gas bills to me in the office. The price of gas for the month might be $100, and the carbon tax attached to that will be about $120, so they’re paying more in carbon tax than they are for the actual gas itself. That’s impacting the folks.

People drive cars. In Prince George, we don’t have the benefit of having electric cars up there because the weather is too severe, and the electric cars don’t work all that well in the winter. Some people have the hybrids, which is a mixture of gas and electricity. But people are driving cars. They pay the carbon tax on the gasoline or the diesel that we put in the tanks of our vehicles, and it adds up.

I’ve heard members in government say: “Well, you know, we talk about the employer health tax….” I’ll talk a little bit more of that later on here. I’ve heard them say: “Well, the employer health tax, even though it impacts a city like Prince George to $1.4 million, that’s only an extra 25 or 30 bucks on your property tax bill at home.”

Well, it might be $20 or $30 extra on your tax bill at home. And what the heck, when you look at the carbon tax, it’s only an extra $50 or $60 or $70 on your monthly or bi-monthly gas bill. And you’re going to pay a few bucks extra when you fill up your car or pickup truck because of the carbon tax there as well. They don’t understand that, accumulated, that makes a significant difference in people’s wallets. It’s a lot lighter as a result of this government’s taxing scheme.

[3:10 p.m.]

The MSP. Yeah, it has morphed into this employer health tax. Like I said, it has cost the city of Prince George an extra, I believe, $1.4 million. But it’s costing Northern Health, the largest employer in the northern three-quarters of the province. It’s costing them millions of dollars to cover that off.

Our school districts — school district 57 in my area but school districts throughout the province — are paying millions of dollars in the employer health tax as well. So any of the services that we have will have to reduce their operations, reduce their level of service because of the impact that the employer health tax has on that particular operation.

We just heard it on the news with Victoria, where Victoria is going to have to lay off seven police officers because of the employer health tax. So it’s pretty significant when we have the city of Victoria that has not had an increase in their policing since 2010, yet their population has increased. The tourism has increased in the greater Victoria area here, the cost of doing business has increased, and the complexities of investigating criminal offences have increased.

This has had a big increase there. I hope that council revisits that particular issue. They’re going to have to increase taxes a little bit in Victoria — thanks, again, to this government — in order to cover those costs off. Every single municipality in this province is doing the same thing. They’ve had to scratch their head.

I’ve heard the Finance Minister say in this House when this was posed to her before: “Well, they just have to absorb it.” You can only absorb so much. Every municipality knows exactly where every nickel is going, and when some other level of government imposes things on them like the em­ployer health tax, it hits everybody.

One of the other issues I want to talk about that impacts my riding, as well, is…. We talk about electricity. We’ve got the hydro transmission lines coming through Prince George and coming down from the Williston reservoir. The Williston reservoir supplies water for Site A, which is the W.A.C. Bennett dam; Site B, built just a couple of miles downstream from there, which is the Peace Canyon dam, completed in 1980; and we have Site C that is under construction right now.

Site C will utilize the entire Williston reservoir to pro­vide power, and that power comes down through Prince George. So the amount of electricity used in Vancouver and throughout the area has an impact on the Williston reservoir.

I got some stats. I get regular updates from B.C. Hydro on the water levels in Williston Lake. I just had an update today that Williston Lake is going to be drawn down sometime this spring to one of the lowest levels that it’s been in a long time. It’s partially because of the dry seasons that we’ve had over the last two or three years but mostly because they’ve had record usages of power throughout British Columbia and down in the Lower Mainland. They’ve had to be cranking the water out to spin those turbines to provide the power for people down here in the Lower Mainland.

The Williston reservoir provides about 35 percent of B.C.’s power down here. When the water levels get down that low, it affects the sawmills that are working in Mackenzie to the point where…. Are they going to be able to get their logs in? The logs are brought down Williston Lake by tugboat in the summer. Canfor operates a big barge year-round that hauls about 100 loads at a time. Are they going to be able to get close enough to shore with that machine now with the water levels down that low?

It will have a significant impact on the people down here. The province is providing these rebates for these electric cars, and the rebates, I think, are around $6,000 per car. Then they provide all of these free plug-ins so people can charge their electric vehicles that they get for the significantly reduced price from government, and it’s free electricity.

The people in the north are not only losing forestry jobs and mining jobs and paying carbon tax and paying taxes on the high income that they get, but they’re also contributing to the subsidies that government is providing to the Vancouver area for the electric cars.

[3:15 p.m.]

I’ve had some constituents talk to me about this in the past. They’re a little bit concerned about this and the impact that it has upstream. There’s no benefit upstream for British Columbians. The benefit is solely within the urban area here in British Columbia.

All in all, rural B.C. punches above its weight when it contributes to the overall economy of British Columbia, and it has for decades. But those days are…. There’s going to be some significant changes here. I think government needs to wake up, sooner than later, to deal with the downturn in the forest sector.

How are we going to change? How are we going to replace the thousands and thousands of jobs that we currently have in the forest sector when we have to shut mills down because the fibre is no longer available?

The forest sector has complained about the competitiveness internationally and throughout the North American market. The wood is getting further and further away from the sawmills, but it’s getting less and less as well. With the supermills, we don’t have the volume of logs anymore to maintain that same level.

Hon. G. Chow: It’s my pleasure and privilege to rise today to speak in support of the 2019 budget.

Before I do that, I’d like to thank the voters in my riding, which is Vancouver-Fraserview. Quite often people confuse that with Fairview. We are at the southeastern corner of the city of Vancouver, whereas Fairview is also in Vancouver, but it’s further west. The boundary is bound by Fraser Street — as the name implies, Fraserview — or to Boundary Road, which is next to Burnaby. It’s also from 49th Avenue down to the Fraser River along Marine Drive.

I’ve been elected 20 months now. It’s been a very exciting time but a steep learning curve. I’m depending on the staff that I have at the constituency level as well as here at the Leg building to help me in order to do this job.

Of course, I also like to say thank you to my family for the sacrifice that they have made. They have really had to do the work that I used to do at home, when I also chip in for House duties and all of the other stuff that I have to do. Now it’s fallen on the shoulders of my wife and my kids, so I’d like to thank them as well.

I’d like to once again thank the staff. They are very dedicated, very creative, but we also now are working together so that we know each other’s working style and working habits.

Vancouver-Fraserview is predominantly a residential com­munity, with a lot of single-family houses as well as some low-rise apartments. The riding has the highest proportion of seniors in the city of Vancouver, according to the study that I was aware of in 2008. But I would think that, ten years later, it would be the same. I would say the seniors population, people who are over 65, in Vancouver-Fraserview would number about 5,000. We have many seniors homes as well as full-care facilities for seniors.

I see this budget, following up on the budget of 2018, as a tremendous boost to the seniors in our riding. I heard the Minister of Health saying that they are devoting $5 million to help to train more workers for seniors homes in order to get the average hours per resident up to the provincial level. That is a practical way that we are helping our seniors, who have contributed so much in their lives in terms of building British Columbia and providing us the standard of living that we have right now.

[3:20 p.m.]

Affordable housing is another big issue. We have a lot of co-ops in our riding, a lot of rental housing as well. That is the housing that we need to build: co-ops and affordable housing for everyday British Columbians.

Transportation is a big issue. This is nothing more than bus service, because now we have an area at the southeastern corner that is rapidly growing with a lot of apartments. In the next ten years, the population will have an increase of about 10,000 to 12,000 people. That’s putting a lot of pressure on the bus service that runs along Marine Drive. People need to take the bus to work. As well, people are travelling north from Marine Drive up to around 49th Avenue to use some of the facilities and do shopping. Our investment in infrastructure rose, and transit service is going to really help with that as well.

Budget 2019, as I said, builds on the groundbreaking work of Budget 2018. It will put B.C. on the path of shared prosperity, delivering better services and making life more affordable for people all over the province. Budget ’19 continues on this important path but is also moving the province forward in several new ways, including in the areas of environmental sustainability, revenue-sharing with Indigenous people, poverty reduction, child care affordability — some of the items that I just mentioned, particularly for my riding. Budget 2019 reflects the values that we share as British Columbians.

I was just listening to the previous speaker, from Prince George–Mackenzie, about how he was saying that the power generated from the north is really to the benefit of the people in the Lower Mainland. I think we want to reflect on the fact that we are all British Columbians, that we share a common goal as being Canadian and being British Columbian. I’m sure that we are working towards that, so that we wouldn’t say: “You’re from the Interior or from the north, so you’re being taken advantage of.” We also recognize that it’s people who power the economy, and it’s the people who deserve the opportunity so they can enjoy a secure and sustainable future.

In the budget highlights, business and the community leaders across the province have called for affordable child care and housing. The reason why is that businesses and business leaders are realizing that we are short of skilled workers — skilled trades, in general. We need to invest in people in order to fuel the economy. The affordability issue with labour force attraction and retention is important, because without affordable housing it would be very difficult to attract workers to come to B.C., whether it’s in high tech or in the trades — welders, carpenters, machinists, doctors or lawyers.

In order to have a good economy, we need to invest in affordable housing, also allowing all members of the family…. Nowadays you need two parents to work, so affordable child care is very, very important, in order to allow people to go to work. Because of that, we are making record investments in child care, housing and transportation to make life more affordable for workers in British Columbia.

For example, to help parents to make ends meet, Budget 2019 is expanding the early childhood tax benefit. Now, this new child opportunity benefit will provide more support for children, not just to an early age but right up to the age of 18. That is a tremendous improvement over what we had before, in order to help children and young families.

[3:25 p.m.]

This will put nearly $400 million a year back into the pockets of hard-working families. This is a tax reduction for families, in fact — right in the actual spending pockets of the family.

The other way that we are also helping the family is to eliminate the MSP premiums. That also puts more money in people’s pockets in order to afford the other stuff — to pay for tuition, to pay for rent and to buy food. With regard to the MSP premium, that is equivalent to putting $800 million tax cuts in the pockets of British Columbians.

Coming this spring, our government will launch a poverty reduction strategy that will cut B.C.’s child poverty rate in half and cut the general poverty by a quarter by 2024. By 2024, we hope to reduce the poverty rate by a quarter.

Now, we know more needs to be done to make income and disability assistance more accessible. Beginning this April, people who rely on income or disability assistance will receive $50 more each month.

We have already seen housing prices beginning to moderate, in part due to the measures our government implemented as part of Budget 2018. But as my colleague the Minister of Finance points out, these problems weren’t created overnight, and they won’t be fixed overnight. So we’re embarking on this important initiative.

We’ll continue to tackle housing availability and affordability in this budget, and I’ve already seen it in our riding since we formed government. We have announced two projects in the riding. One is a rental project. The other one is affordable housing for ordinary British Columbians.

We are also taking care of the renters. In the city of Vancouver, we have over half of the residents that are renters, so certainly, providing rental housing is important to the people in Vancouver. We are creating a new rent bank for those who need immediate, short-term help to stay housed. If they have an eviction notice and they couldn’t really pull it off financially in the short term, we have this rent bank that we can help them with.

We are also helping the students. We are providing financial relief for students attending post-secondary institutions. By eliminating interest from B.C. student loans, young people will not be facing such crippling debt when they graduate and begin their working life.

Of course, I went to post-secondary education here as well. When I was going through university, I also had to take out a loan, but back in those days, tuition was more affordable. Life was just more affordable then.

I think our young people need some help in order for them to be educated, to actually have a good future in the new economy. Because in the new economy, most of the jobs require post-secondary education — post-secondary education not just in university but in trades as well. We need welders and machinists. We need millwrights. We have all kinds of skilled trades that also need post-secondary education.

This Budget 2019 reaffirms the government’s commitment to true and lasting affordability for all the people.

We are also partnering with First Nations in order to create legislation to implement the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, UNDRIP, so the First Nations in B.C. will have a stable source of funding through a historical $3 billion revenue-sharing agreement over the next 25 years.

In terms of attracting business and creating jobs, the province is moving forward with more than $800 million in business tax reduction to support the investment in new plants, machinery and equipment, joining the government of Canada to boost our competitiveness and also creating new jobs.

[3:30 p.m.]

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

Budget 2019 also introduces several changes to modernize and enhance the small business venture capital tax credit program. We recognize that venture capital tax credits play an important part in providing early-stage capital for emerging small businesses in British Columbia. Effective for the 2019 and subsequent tax years, the annual tax credit limit that an individual can claim for investment made after bud­get day — that is, February 2019 — is increased to $120,000 from $60,000. In other words, we’re doubling the tax credit limit in order to spur investment that would create good jobs for British Columbians.

The maximum amount that an eligible business or corporation can raise through the tax credit program is increased also by 100 percent, from $5 million to $10 million. Whether they’re an individual investor or a corporation, they’re going to get a tax decrease.

To support business outside the Metro Vancouver regional district and capital regional district, advanced commercialization has been added as an eligible business activity within the small business venture capital tax credit program.

Budget 2019 also moves forward on our CleanBC climate action plan. The CleanBC plan puts our province on a path to a cleaner, better future, creating opportunity for all while protecting our environment in clean air, land and water. Through CleanBC, our government is making it a priority for B.C. to be a leading global destination for industry planning to drive low-carbon economic growth and opportunities. Putting British Columbia on the world stage as a leader in clean energy products and services will open doors to new investments in established companies and start-ups, delivering more good jobs for British Columbians.

From my experience as an engineer…. I have a colleague who went into chemical engineering and has done really well in terms of pulp mill engineering and the pulp mill process. He has a process that he has patented — it’s also manufactured here in B.C. — that he has already been sell­ing all over the world.

Those are the practical examples of spurring innovation in clean energy and clean energy techniques as well.

As Minister of State for Trade, I can see that we’d like to diversify our trade as well. This is a way to make people’s lives better, creating better job opportunities and creating better jobs for the people. It’s also important that when we diversify in our trading relationships, we build a better, healthier economy.

B.C.’s unemployment rate remains the lowest in Canada for the 17th month in a row. Private sector jobs have been fuelling employment growth in the province, with an increase of almost 65,000 jobs in the past year. Following many years of wage stagnation, B.C.’s average wages are the highest among the provinces and territories. It is clear that putting people first is working on the economic level here in B.C.

I’d like to talk a little bit about how it’s working for B.C. business around the world. As Minister of State for Trade promoting trade and investment, a critical part in building a strong and sustainable economy, we have, in 17 regions in the world, 65 offices of a trade and investment rep located all across the globe in order to assist people who want to export, as well as people who want to invest in British Columbia.

[3:35 p.m.]

In 2017, the total B.C. goods exports were valued at $43.4 billion, which is an increase of 12 percent over 2016. It’s a performance that we should be proud of, because it’s 12 percent over 2016, and it also outperformed the Canadian average of 7 percent export growth.

Since that time, we have signed the so-called CPTPP, which stands for Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. This would be a great potential for us to diversify our trade. So far, we have seven nations who are signed onto this agreement. This includes Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, Mexico and Japan, and other nations will sign on as well. Of course, Japan, being the third-largest economy, is also the third trading partner for British Columbia. So we look forward to working with the TPP nations in order to diversify our trade.

Total exports to Japan in 2017 were more than double that of the next leading Canadian province. Of course, being situated on the western Pacific, we are trading a lot more with the Asian nations across the Pacific, and we are looking to increase this trade with some of the other nations that I just mentioned.

The fourth-largest trading partner with B.C. is South Korea, and it is becoming an important economic partner to B.C. Last year we made a visit to Korea and Japan, as well as China. Particularly in Korea, we are raising our profile in terms of what we can offer the Korean nation in terms of lumber exports, building energy-efficient homes, helping them with seniors living in traditional ways, like in our Canadian homes — that we are exporting.

The exports to South Korea were almost $3 billion in 2017, which is 30 percent more over 2016. So that’s certainly important — making Korea our fourth-largest goods export market and Canada’s third-largest trading partner in Asia.

This relationship has clearly been strengthened by the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which came into effect on January 1, 2015. This agreement has a lot of benefit for B.C. business in multiple sectors, levelling the playing field among Canada’s competitors in the Korean market.

Even though this is early days, we are also seeing positive results with the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA. As of November 2018, year-to-date exports from B.C. to the EU were $2.4 billion, which is a 19 percent increase compared to the same period in 2017.

We do have companies that really want to sell into the EU. For example, we have a company right here on the Island, in Nanaimo, that makes a very unique, precise product that you would normally find in the eastern heartland of manufacturing, such as Ontario or Quebec. This company builds compressors, and they not only sell to the U.S. market; they would like to expand to the European market. Our trade ministry is helping them in order to surmount the different technical requirements in order to be able to sell in the EU market. So we are looking to expand to that as well.

[3:40 p.m.]

My mandate as Minister of State for Trade is to look outward to the Asia-Pacific nations such as China, Japan, South Korea, India and other key markets. Of course, the U.S., being our largest trading partner, is still our main trading nation, but we are also looking elsewhere in order to diversify our trading, particularly with British Columbia.

We do all this not just for the sake of material things. We do this because we want to put people first. People need to have good jobs. They need to have a job that they can feed their family with. This is very important. I’ll emphasize it, even though my mandate is in terms of material goods. It’s really for the people so that we can have good jobs and a good economy in British Columbia.

Some of the issues that I already have covered…. One thing I would like to mention is that in terms of helping people, I’m very happy, as an immigrant myself, that our government is putting back free tuition for adult education in the English language program, because that is also helping immigrants to adjust to Canadian life. They could become productive members of our economy and help our shortage in terms of the workers that we need.

I’m proud to share with you my thoughts, and I’m proud to support Budget 2019.

Deputy Speaker: Chilliwack-Kent. [Applause.]

L. Throness: Thank you, my generous colleagues.

It’s always a pleasure to stand in this House and respond to the budget. I’ve done it six times now. How times flies.

First, I want to begin by thanking my staff in Chilliwack. They are Sheila Denis and Kathy Miki. Dagmar Lucak has been off for a while, and Sheila and Kathy have been filling in. I want to thank them for stepping up to the plate. I never worry about what happens in the office as long as Sheila and Kathy are there, so I very much depend on them and appreciate the work that they do.

I also appreciate my staff here in Victoria. I think of Wendy King, my legislative assistant, who does a fantastic job, and Karen Bill, who researches for me. She’s a much better researcher than I am, and she keeps me working hard.

Finally, thanks to my constituents. It’s a joy and a privilege to serve them, and I hope they’ll allow me to do that for some years yet.

I want to begin talking about the budget, as I have for six years now, by talking about the American debt and deficit. Every year I’m astounded and dismayed by its growth. It’s sort of the elephant in the American room. It appears the people of America have decided that the number of zeros behind a number doesn’t really matter anymore. They’re never going to be able to pay it back, so it doesn’t matter anymore. So why not keep on racking up debt?

In 2018, the U.S. federal deficit — not its debt — was $779 billion, and their debt is now $22 trillion. That’s over 100 percent of their own GDP. In B.C., by comparison, thanks to 16 years of good B.C. Liberal fiscal management, our debt-to-GDP ratio is just 15 percent — still.

There was a great article in the National Post about America’s utterly unbelievable scale of debt and deficit. It offered some comparisons that I’ll share with the House. Every American now owes $67,000 in the national debt. It’s more than the total value of all the Fortune 500 group of companies. It’s almost triple the value of all the gold ever mined in history. The richest man, Jeff Bezos, with his $136 billion in treasure, could only fund government spending in America for 11 days and stop the deficit from accumulating for just over a month. The list goes on and on. It’s staggering.

We in B.C. need to be ready for the consequences of that debt, because it can’t go on forever. That means that someday it has to stop. And it will impact B.C. when it stops. That’s why I find it disturbing that there is so little thought in this budget given to growing our economy, diversifying our markets, increasing our international trade, reducing our dependence upon the United States as an economic partner. While we were in power, the B.C. Liberals did a lot of that. I’m proud of the work that we did, and I will continue to exhort the present government to insulate B.C. as much as possible against economic shocks from our neighbour to the south.

[3:45 p.m.]

Now, there are things in the budget that I like. I want to mention them quickly, because there are not many.

I like the interest relief on student loans, as long as it doesn’t give students an incentive to get higher student loans. I know what it’s like to pay interest on student loans.

I like the raise in support for foster parents. I advocated for that a year ago, so I congratulate the government for doing that. I like more funding for mental health and addictions.

I like that the NDP felt a sense of obligation to balance the budget. There are few other governments in Canada that do that presently, and it’s really not in the NDP DNA to do that. It’s not natural for them to do that. But the wise economic leadership of the B.C. Liberals in tabling five balanced budgets in a row created a culture of prudence that even the NDP feel obliged to observe. In that way, the B.C. Liberals have left a great legacy for this province.

There were a number of things that were not in the budget that I want to mention. There was nothing said about repairs for the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge. I believe that the repair estimates for that bridge are increasing, so I need to find out from the minister if she is still on board with it. I will be approaching her about that.

There is no widening of the No. 1 freeway in the budget, and I’m astounded by that. There can be no better illustration of the NDP’s lack of regard for the economy and the economic well-being of this province than to continue to allow the No. 1 to be a parking lot. That is the main thoroughfare for the third-largest city in B.C. Almost all goods and services move in and out of that city on that road. So it’s hugely important, but the NDP have ignored it for another year.

There’s nothing in the budget for agriculture. There’s nothing for Chilliwack but a reannouncement of the southside school. We appreciate that. It’s a good announcement, but it’s not new. It’s old. There’s nothing new for my hometown in this budget.

As I was thinking how to characterize the budget, I was flipping through TV channels the evening of the budget. I happened upon a French channel where the news ribbon at the bottom of the channel had this phrase, virage à gauche, with respect to the budget. That pretty well summed it up for me. “Virage à gauche” is a French phrase meaning “left-hand turn.” To me, that’s an apt description of this budget, because it’s a classic NDP budget.

It’s a lot of spending, a lot of increased revenue, a budget made to grow government, a budget that tries to please everybody but the taxpayer — especially public sector unions. I’m sure the minister had a lot of fun putting it together, because it always feels good to spend somebody else’s money. It looks big-hearted and generous, and the minister gets to play Santa. She had no hard decisions to make in this budget.

It’s like the fun of using your credit card at the beginning of the month and the dismay of getting your bill at the end of the month. We’re at the beginning of the month, the beginning of the NDP’s term right now. Right now, they’re in the happy phase, but the bill is yet to come.

Let me talk about the big picture for a moment, the big numbers. First, this budget has increased spending by 4½ percent in a single year and by 10 percent three years from now. Will the economy grow by 4½ percent this year? No. Their own forecast is that it will grow by only 2.4 percent — altogether over the next three years by 6.7 percent. So spending is growing by 10 percent, but the economy is only growing by 6.7 percent. It doesn’t make sense. The numbers are diverging.

The long-term direction of the government means that it will have to either end in deficit or raise taxes. It will be one or the other. We can expect maybe both.

When I was elected in 2013, the budget was $44 billion. In three years from now, spending will go to $62 billion, an increase of 40 percent, or $18 billion more spent every year on a permanent basis. When we were in government, B.C. Liberals increased spending by 14 percent over four years. The NDP, over its four years, will have increased spending by 23 percent, almost 6 percent a year. That’s just unsustainable.

What about revenue, $59 billion in revenue this year? I must say I’m amazed that our economy can continue to put out this kind of money. It attests to the enormous value of a free enterprise economy. It’s amazing that 2½ million taxpayers in B.C. can sustain that kind of spending.

We have to take enormous care not to kill the engine of our economy. We need to coax it along. We need to tune it up. We need to feed it. But there is precious little fuel for our economic engine in this budget, nothing about becoming more competitive with other provinces and, especially, the States, nothing about growing our exports or international trade, nothing about job creation.

[3:50 p.m.]

No goals or targets, no help for companies wanting to invest in B.C. It’s just not there. But we do have taxes, and I want to highlight a few of the more egregious ones.

First, there’s the carbon tax, which has turned into an enormous cash cow for the government. Under the B.C. Liberals, the carbon tax was purely meant to change behaviour. The revenue from the carbon tax flowed back into tax relief. But under the NDP, the carbon tax will amount to $5.9 billion over the next three years. Only $900 million of it will go to green initiatives, and a third of that has not even been decided yet. They’ll think of something.

In the public sector, it’s the opposite of the private sector: demand always rises to meet supply. I think it’s a big mistake to hold out $300 million in an open hand and say: “How do you want to spend the money?” We are begging for it to be squandered with a million different ideas.

Let’s talk about the speculation tax for a moment. Chilliwack is one of those unlucky areas that was declared to be a haven for all those nasty speculators. I had to talk my constituent Harold down yesterday, on the phone, to calm him down. He was determined to ignore the speculation-tax letter he received. He was insulted by it. I told him that he’d better avoid a lot of trouble by coming down to our office and getting our help to make his declaration.

There’s a great deal of resentment in my riding and across the province, where up to two million British Columbians received this letter, which really amounts to an accusation that they’re bad people. They have to declare: “No, I’m not a speculator; I’m really a good person.” They have to give their intimate, personal information, even though the government already knows enough to send them that letter. Why do we need to register anyway? I’m suspicious about that. Why the request for private emails, social insurance numbers, telephone numbers? Why does the government need all that? Well, I gave mine, because I want to see what the minister is going to do with it.

In the end, 20,000 British Columbians will have to fork over up to $5,000 each. What an enormous waste of resources — to cast a net over two million people to catch a few thousand. But a lot of money will be raised by this tax next year and every year thereafter — $185 million a year. Of course, it’s not about speculation in the end. It’s a cabin tax. This is about entrenching and establishing the principle of taxing people’s assets, their wealth. It’s a rich new vein of tax dollars to tap into that will only be opened up further in the future, because the only NDP principle about taxation is that there is nothing that they will not tax.

Now, let’s talk about the employer health tax for a moment, the third egregious tax, the tax that is paying what once was known as the medical services premium. This year, it’ll raise $464 million, which is already an enormous sum, but next year, it’ll really bite. It’ll raise $1.85 billion and just go up after that by about $80 million every year.

Let me read to you part of an email a parent received from a child care provider on February 9. This is a child care provider, providing care for our children. “Our employer health tax for 2019 is estimated at just under $45,000. This is not an expense we are able to wholly absorb while continuing the quality child care programs we are committed to providing our students and their families. Unfortunately, this has forced us to apply for approval to increase our tuition fees. This is not a step we wanted to take, but it has become a necessary one.”

Every parent with that child care provider is going to get an increase of fees because of the employer health tax. Child care fees are going up; it’s happening all over B.C. Prices on goods and services are increasing. Municipal taxes are increasing because of the EHT. We were going to get rid of MSP premiums through economic growth, not through any new tax at all. But the government wanted to raise that money so that it could spend it on other big-government programs. Everyone from parents of kids to consumers to municipal taxpayers are suffering as a result. What a terrible idea.

I want to go on to talk about the signature program of the budget, in my place as child care critic: the B.C. child opportunity benefit. This refundable tax credit will be paid monthly to everyone who has children and who files a tax return, even if they have no income. There’s nothing, by the way, for seniors living right on the edge; I see that all the time. There’s nothing for childless couples or for single people. I find it quite remarkable that the signature program in the budget won’t even begin for a year and a half. Even more surprising, no one seems put out by that. The media seems to be fine with that. The benefit is just a theory. It’s just a notion; it’s a wish.

[3:55 p.m.]

If it happens, it will eventually cost $375 million a year and amount to $133 a month for a family with one child. Of course, it will help that family, but will it ever come about? It could be like the promised rental subsidy of $400 per year for every renter in B.C., which hasn’t happened yet and, I presume, never will. Neither will the 114,000 social housing units that the government promised. These were very serious promises, well publicized. The NDP won an election on these promises. But I don’t think the NDP are too worried about the opportunity benefit, just like the others. October 2020 is a long time away.

It’s sort of like $10-a-day daycare. We have no idea if that will ever come to pass, and maybe the NDP don’t either. It’s not that they’re against it. They hope it might come about, but they’re not really married to it. They’re just feeling their way forward on these kinds of things. I would call the B.C. child opportunity benefit more of a marketing strategy. It’s a way to sell the budget. It’s a slogan. It’s a brand, as the Pre­mier once said of $10-a-day daycare. It helps the NDP to shape a narrative and develop a persona, an image. But it won’t help any children at all for the foreseeable future.

In next year’s budget, having reaped the goodwill and the headlines for a year, the Premier might say: “Well, economic times are now worse than they were” — or maybe the government has changed in Ottawa, and they’re not as cooperative — “so we’re just going to postpone that benefit a bit. We’re not cancelling it. We’re just going to study it. We’re going to take a real hard look at it. We’ll consult, and we’ll do some other things, take some other baby steps to throw toward children.” That will mollify the press and the interest groups, and everything will calm down again.

That’s how it works. It’s a pattern. The NDP make huge promises, and then they back away from them, inch by inch, little by little. That seems to work for them. On the social side, everyone gives them a pass: “They’re such nice people, with such good intentions.” But I want to call out the government on this benefit. Why did they announce it in this budget if it will only come out in October 2020? Why not announce it in the next year’s budget, when it would take place in that year? I think it was a cynical marketing ploy to sell this year’s budget. They needed something in the window.

They will give the excuse that it’s a tax credit, that they have to work with the federal government and that it takes time. But they have the money right now, as $300 million was designated from the carbon tax to green initiatives that they don’t even know how to spend. They have the cash right now. They could’ve just sent a cheque from the province. That was a choice they made.

I think the NDP postponed the benefit because people can do without it, so they’re not under any political pressure to deliver. If people don’t need it now, why give it to them at all? It’s irresponsible. If they do need it, why dangle it in front of them like a carrot? Why tease lower-income people, in particular, with this benefit almost two years off in the distance? If the children of B.C. need the money, give it to them now, right now. Why make them wait?

You know, 290,000 families cheered when they saw the headline of this budget, and then they groaned when they saw that it won’t be around for nearly two years. This, to me, is deeply cynical politics. It is profoundly disingenuous to sell a budget on the hopes of children and families and then let them down when it comes to the fine print.

Now, I want to go on for a few minutes about child care, as part of my critic role, and give an evaluation of the first year of the government’s rollout of their child care plan. In a word, I would say, it’s disappointing. They have fallen far short of expectations. They have so far failed to deliver what they said they would deliver. They’re not on track, and there are many, many disappointed and frustrated parents and providers as a result.

The big goals of the NDP over the next three years are as follows. Let me list them. Spend a billion dollars. Create 24,000 new child care spaces. By the way, they always use the number 22,000, but in their original budget documents, it was 24,000, and I’m going to hold them to that. Find 12,000 new early childhood educators. Give 86,000 families an affordable child care allowance. Provide fee reductions for almost all families, as delivered through providers, and make meaningful progress toward $10-a-day daycare and a universal public system.

How have they done in the first year? Let’s go through them one by one. Remember, they were elected on this promise. This is a big deal, so let’s go through it. As to spending, we really don’t know how much they have spent. It’s all very opaque. I note, in the budget, that the money for the fee reduction initiative ran out, and they needed $90 million more. Maybe they have spent their limit on the fee reduction initiative.

[4:00 p.m.]

On the other hand, I counted seven press releases on their signature program, the childcare B.C. new spaces fund, which is $221 million over three years. But the press releases total just $7½ million, or 3 percent of that total. I really don’t know how much they’ve spent, and we need to take a close look at that during the estimates process to come. It’s possible that they have left much of that third of a billion dollars this year unspent, and that would be a huge promise broken.

Parents would want to know if they’re being shortchanged. I hope the minister will be ready with transparent, clear facts and figures on these items.

How many new spaces have been created? They should have created about 8,000 this year to meet their goal of 24,000 over three years. In their press releases for the new child care spaces fund, which is their main program vehicle for creating new spaces, they have only announced 1,600 spaces.

To try to get a better idea of the number of spaces created, we took the complete list of child care providers from the beginning of last June. It’s a public government list. It’s on DataBC. It’s updated every day. We compared it to this February’s list. So it’s a nine-month period that began not long after last year’s budget.

We found that 568 providers have been added to the list, but 326 have also dropped off, for a net total of 242 more providers than there were a year ago or nearly a year ago. If we assume six spaces per provider, that’s a total of 3,000 spaces created this year, far short of 24,000 and far short of even this year’s goal of 8,000 spaces. It is a promise 13 percent fulfilled, and I think that’s falling far short.

Here I’d in some ways caution the government in reporting their new spaces — in three ways. First, they need to be net new spaces. There are hundreds of providers leaving the business, so any count of new spaces created must take account of ones that closed down. Otherwise, at the end of three years, we could have 24,000 so-called new spaces but really have no more net spaces available for children.

Second, the minister must not double count in claiming new space creation. Its prototype sites, for example, convert existing spaces to $10-a-day spaces. There are no new spaces there. Its start-up grant program persuades existing unlicensed providers to become licensed. There is no new space creation there. We will hold the government to account for its creation of new, incremental, never-before-seen spaces.

Third, they need to be needed spaces. It’s easy for the government to pad their number with after-school spaces. That’s the low-hanging fruit, because they’re low in cost. They’re just a few hours of the day, the kids are older, and they require less attention. It’s easy to create thousands of those spaces. But that’s not good enough.

The real need, the real demand, is for infant-toddler spaces, certainly for children under five. In fact, the government has already been padding its numbers. Under its prototype sites, 1,800 spaces were to be allocated for infants and toddlers, ones that are really needed. But for some unknown reason, the criteria were suddenly broadened, expanded, to include any child, including older children who only need after-school care, and suddenly, presto — 700 more spaces. Suddenly we have 2,500 $10-a-day spaces. That’s the easy way, and it won’t wash for the parents of B.C. who are desperate for infant and toddler spaces.

If you take away these padded spaces and leave the really needed ones, $10-a-day care exists for just 1.7 percent of the 106,000 spaces in B.C. Or if you want to be more conservative and take a number of 60,000 spaces that are eligible for fee reductions, that’s 3 percent $10-a-day. That’s no material difference, and it falls far short.

Now let’s talk about labour supply, the supply of early childhood educators. There was an interesting tidbit in last year’s budget, and I want to quote from it. It said: “There are currently an estimated 11,000 ECEs working in licensed child care facilities.” That’s 11,000 provincewide. It goes on to say that they need 12,000 more.

In a labour market report called Investing in our Early Childhood Educators, from last September, it said that 18,000 early childhood educators are qualified to teach. But there are only 11,000 working in their field. For whatever reason, people who are qualified as ECEs are choosing not to work in their own field. This is a huge problem, and it imperils the possibility of success for the government, because you can open all sorts of new physical spaces for children to be in, but if you don’t have people to work and take care of children, you can’t actually have those spaces functioning.

I have not been able to find out how many ECEs are now working in the field a year later nor how many are registered today. Has the government made progress? I doubt that the minister has made any progress at all, because I have heard nothing but complaints as critic over the past year about the desperate labour shortage in this field.

[4:05 p.m.]

Let me read some comments on the Facebook site of the B.C. Child Care Owners Association from yesterday. I’ll leave out the names of the providers. One provider in Nanaimo announced that they’re shutting down until they can find staff. This is this week. In Port Moody, a provider has cut down their class size by about 20 children in two programs because of staff shortages. The parents were given no notice at all, and another provider found out because the parents went looking. Another provider said yesterday: “I’m closing at the end of the school year after 17 years. Staff is nowhere to be found. I am in burnout.”

Let me read a few other emails I have received, and I have received many emails. A provider from Courtenay writes this: “This staffing crisis has become chaotic, and we desperately need something to happen now.” Another provider says this: “The government is giving a major capital grant to 24 infant-toddler spaces in Salmon Arm, yet two centres closed this month as they didn’t have staff. Great use of taxpayers’ money there.”

A provider from Burnaby says this: “Obtaining a work permit for an overseas-trained ECE is so difficult, slow and frustrating. My application was declined because it was deemed that I was not an urgent enough need. I then had to operate my child care without any other staff support for six months. I almost burned myself out, had no quality time with my family and nearly decided to close my child care, because I had to do everything by myself for those six months.”

I could quote for the rest of the afternoon. Finally, a provider from Cloverdale writes: “The $1 an hour this year and another $1 an hour will not give me the ECE staff I am so desperate to hire. I am interviewing another temporary foreign worker tomorrow, but the process takes at least four to five months, and I need staff now.” All caps. On and on it goes. There is a structural problem here that the government must address, or it cannot be successful.

Let’s move on to the affordable child care benefit, which replaced the B.C. Liberals’s child care subsidy of the former government. The government promised that 86,000 families will receive the benefit in three years. How have they done after the first year? Well, on February 6, the minister tweeted that 38,000 children are now on the benefit, but the Performance Management Report of 2017 reported the old child care subsidy as already serving 37,000 children. So these people were already on the renamed program, and only 1,000 more children — or maybe 700 more parents — have been added to our totals. They are falling far short.

There’s all this new money floating around — up to $1,200 a month. How could it be that no one wants it? How could someone fail at giving away the money? How could the NDP even fail at giving away money? I may have made a mistake here, and I would invite the minister to correct me, but it would seem to me that 86,000 parents would have signed up immediately on the day after the money became available. But I’ve heard that parents are actually waiting up to six weeks to be processed for this benefit. Maybe it is a failure of administration.

Let’s move onto the fee reduction initiative. It appears, as I said before, that the government has spent their budget here, because the minister needed $9 million more in this budget, and that was all the money there was for child care in this budget.

The budget also points out that 12 percent of all providers never did opt into the fee reductions. To me, this is another failure. Why would all providers not want free money? It’s because of the coercive nature of the government’s contracts, by which market-based providers must agree to allow the government to control their business — even to stipulate their fees — in return for the fee reduction money. Twelve percent of providers is not a small number. It is a big number of providers. The government needs everybody on board. It needs to get them there with carrots, though, not with sticks.

Let’s talk for a minute about the universality of the system, by which the government means a universal public system — something like the health care system. I want to quote from the 2017 NDP platform, which said: “The B.C. NDP endorses the work of the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. and the Early Childhood Educators of B.C.” This plan calls for a completely non-profit child care system. Although the minister won’t say so, she won’t deny it either; in the long term, this is the NDP goal.

The evidence I would lay before this House is the favourable treatment that they give non-profit providers over market-based providers. Let me count the ways.

[4:10 p.m.]

First, in major capital grants, now called the childcare B.C. new spaces fund, $1 million can go to a non-profit, but only $250,000 for market-based. In major capital grants, it’s $10K annually to non-profit group care but only $5,000 to market-based group care.

Fee reduction initiative. Family-based care gets less — and that’s almost all market-based — than licensed care. Market-based providers who don’t opt into government control do not get fee reductions. Seventy-five percent of child care spaces in prototype $10-a-day sites go to non-profit providers, and a $13.7 million fund controlled by UBCM will only go $1 million per project to non-profit providers.

That’s why we think the government plans to push out market-based providers. In fact, this concern has generated the creation of a Facebook site this year, called the B.C. Child Care Owners Association. It already has 500 market-based members, and they are very concerned.

Regarding their progress on $10-a-day day care, the government has created 53 prototype sites. Just 2 percent of spaces out of 106,000 existing spaces are $10 a day. The Finance Minister stated this week that in a year, they’ll stop them. They will evaluate them and go from there. They may ditch the idea. We don’t know. So the $10-a-day dream may be just an illusion.

That’s the budget for this year. It’s a forgettable budget. I congratulate the winners in the budget. Life will be better for some. But I pity the losers — the poor employers, the business owners and a couple of million hard-working taxpayers, who will have to pay the bills being incurred by this government.

I welcome the budget in a way, because every NDP budget that comes forward just builds the case, builds the evidence, that the province needs the B.C. Liberals back in government to build the economy, keep government small and keep taxes low.

Deputy Speaker: The Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Hon. C. Trevena: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and congratulations on your new position. I hope that you enjoy it. It’s a very interesting job to have. So congratulations.

I am very proud to stand in this Legislature to speak in favour of our government’s budget, proud to be able to talk about a budget that is really working for the people of British Columbia. I’m also very honoured, as I always am when I stand in this place, to be representing the people of North Island. I’ve been able to represent them since 2005 and continue to do so. I hope that I’m serving them well.

I know that while I’m down in Victoria much more than usual because of now being a minister, my staff in the constituency are working very hard on their behalf. They always have done, but I’d like to acknowledge that.

Our budget. It’s with a real sense of pride that I stand here and talk about this budget. I’ve talked about when the B.C. Liberals were in government for a number of years — 12 years when I was on that side of the House and 12 years of budgets that I railed against. So there is a true pleasure, I think, on this side of the House now to be able to stand up and talk about the good things that we are doing — the good things we are doing for the people of B.C. and for the economy of B.C.

I’m pleased to be speaking after the member for Chilliwack-Kent, who was talking a lot about our child care plan. I think this is a signature for our government. It is so important, not just for families. It is important for families. We know it’s important for families. But it’s also important for our economy, because having high-quality child care will really help our economy.

The opposition always talks about growing the economy, but you can’t grow an economy without people. You can’t grow an economy when people can’t work because they can’t afford child care. And the number of times that we’ve heard stories of people who had to either give up work because they couldn’t afford child care or couldn’t find child care…. Our plan is a long-term plan, but it is addressing it, and it’s addressing it quickly.

The member opposite railed against it, talking about how the prototype was going to be a very short-term thing. It is a prototype. I’m really pleased that there’s one in my constituency, up in Port Hardy, Rainbow Daycare in Port Hardy. The families who go there are paying no more than $200 a month for child care. That is extraordinary. That frees up money for those families. And Port Hardy is not a wealthy community. Many families are struggling. That frees up money for other things that they may need. It frees up money for basic things like rent. It frees up money for food, for clothes, for being able to participate in sports.

[4:15 p.m.]

It is so important that we can help parents have a break. But while we’re doing that, we are investing in our future, because it also means that people can go to work. We’re ensuring that we are giving young people — the people who go into child care, those little infants and toddlers, right the way through — the good supports they need for their future.

We’re also not just doing the prototypes, obviously. There are fee reductions in a number of child care centres. Families will be saving about $4,200 a year by reduced fees. With the affordable child care benefit, also introduced in last year’s budget, people will be saving more than $1,000 a year. It is an extraordinary amount of money that people will be able to save. This is for people who are earning a joint income of $110,000; it is a good middle-class income.

I was actually talking not long ago to somebody who runs a child care centre and who said that nearly every family whose children are at her centre is eligible for this. It has made such a difference in every single family’s life, because it gives them not just the ability to work but the ability to have that bit of extra money to spend on things that people want to take for granted, that people in middle-class lives hope they can take for granted. They can do that now.

I am also extremely proud about our new child opportunity benefit that will come into play next year. This, I think, is going to be a game-changer for many families — the fact that there will be a benefit for every child up to the age of 18.

Again, there’s going to be a cap. I believe that $110,000 or $114,000 a year of joint income will be the cap. For those many, many families in B.C. who’ve been struggling so hard, to know that they will automatically get a benefit for their children up until that child is 18…. A child doesn’t stop needing things when they’re six. Everybody who has been a parent, or even an aunt or an uncle, knows how important it is, and how children, as they grow, need more and more. That benefit is going to be, I think, a game-changer.

So much of what we have been doing in our 17 months, laying the foundation and continuing in this budget, has been instrumental in making life better for people. I really do believe that we are making life better, whether it is in housing, in our commitment for thousands of new housing spaces in British Columbia, or…. Again, in my own constituency, we’ve seen provincial money invested in areas that wouldn’t have been invested in before — Indigenous communities, First Nations, both on and off reserve.

In Port Hardy, the Gwa’sala-Nakwaxda’xw will have money for 24 homes to be built, $4.8 million. That’s significant for an Indigenous community that is really struggling and has a huge housing crisis. In Fort Rupert, the Kwakiutl are getting $1.2 million for six homes on reserve. Again, this is groundbreaking. It’s going to be so important that we are able to work with Indigenous communities and build housing on reserve.

In Campbell River, we’ve got another 40 homes — these are only ones that have been announced recently — being built for the transition society. For women who are escaping abuse, women fleeing violence, there will be extra space there. Ann Elmore House has been doing the most amazing things, as has Rose Harbour, supporting women in our community — right down to the smaller communities. Cortes Island is getting, through the assistance of government, four new homes for seniors, individual homes, so that seniors can stay on the island, supported — not having to leave for Campbell River, which is a long way from Cortes, to have care.

There are so many things that are making a difference for people in their everyday lives. I think we’ve talked a lot in the past 17 months about the importance of removing the medical services premium payments for people. That will happen this year, and people will no longer have to pay that regressive tax. Again, that will make life so much more affordable for people. People will be saving up to $1,800 a year by the removal of MSP. Again, it’s something that is a great game-changer for people, who will have less stress and more money, then, to invest in the economy, who are able to get to work.

[4:20 p.m.]

The final area I’d like to talk about, really, that I think is going to be a very real game-changer for my constituency — because I’m talking a bit about my constituency here — is the announcement of the coast forest sector revitalization. North Island is a forest-dependent community.

Since I’ve been MLA, we’ve seen three mills close. We’ve seen jobs go. We’ve seen communities recreating themselves, but we know that there is still a strong industry to be had there. So I’m so pleased that we’re going to be committing to rebuilding secondary industries so logs and fibre will be processed here in B.C. and hopefully on the Island and that we’re going to be making sure that fibre is available for mills and not shipped out.

We’re also going to be restoring, we hope, public confidence in how forests are managed, through amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act and looking at how private managed forest lands are managed. So these are going to be very significant in my constituency.

The other thing that is always significant is the environmental sector. We were very, very pleased to work with our colleagues in the B.C. Green Party to develop CleanBC and have that initiative. We announced it last year — a major initiative this year. We are investing almost $1 billion in it.

In my own ministry, the Ministry of Transportation, we are keeping a very strong focus on green initiatives. Obviously, transportation is one of the big emitters of greenhouse gases. We are putting investment into transit and active transportation. We get people out of their cars, less time in congestion, more time at home with their families. On top of the money that is going through green B.C., the nearly billion dollars, we are investing in B.C. Transit with $23.1 million more over three years in B.C. Transit compared to last year.

We’re investing in Bike B.C., which is the program where municipalities and regional districts can have assistance in building bike paths and helping active transportation. We’re investing significantly in that, as well as continuing in our plan for electric-vehicle-charging stations and active transportation infrastructure. We’re going to be talking more and more, through my ministry, about active transportation in the coming months, as we see people leaving their cars, even if they’re electric cars. Getting out of gridlock, getting onto buses, getting on bikes, walking and engaging in other ways of travelling is a key.

One of the focuses for my constituency and for me as the minister is obviously B.C. Ferries. I’m very pleased that, in this budget, we’ve been able to continue to keep the fares at the levels that we introduced last year. Last year, in Budget 2018, we rolled back fares by 15 percent on most routes and froze them on the major routes. Again, this was to make life more affordable for people so people can afford to travel. They can afford to get to work without worrying about their pocketbook. They can go and see family. This was also one of the reasons we reintroduced the seniors discount, Monday to Friday. We see lots of seniors really picking up on this. So we are absolutely committed to continuing this in this next year, and the budget allows for that.

I think that there are 22 million passengers who travel on B.C. Ferries. I know B.C. Ferries is an arm’s-length organization, but they are all — these 22 million people — benefiting from this government’s measures to improve affordability.

We are spending, in 2019, another $681 million investment in B.C. Ferries and their operations. Obviously, there is money from the federal government. I always say it’s never enough, but there is money from the federal government — $19 million from the federal government there too. But it is significant.

It’s very easy to roll off figures when we’re talking about the budget, obviously — the amount we’re investing here and there. But we are, as a government, investing historic levels. We’re investing historic levels in our operating costs. Our budget in the ministry has increased by $35.5 million, which is investment in public infrastructure across this province.

[4:25 p.m.]

I mean, the role of our ministry is to work on the road network. It’s to work on transportation. It’s to ensure that people and goods can move safely and efficiently. So that budget lift is significant, but also absolutely significant is the capital plan, which….

We’ve heard from the Finance Minister of billions of dollars in a capital plan that is an investment in the economy of B.C. In my ministry, we are carrying $5 billion of that capital plan. It’s a significant amount, but it is investing in the transportation of the future for this province.

I’ll rattle off some of them. I think people are well aware. The Broadway subway. The Pattullo Bridge. Continuing and trying to accelerate the Highway 1 four-laning up to the Alberta border. Working on highway rehabilitation on side roads. The transit improvements and some of the capital there as well as improvements for our trade networks and improvements for safety. Safety drives everything that our ministry does.

We are, obviously, still committed to the 40 percent of the mayors’ vision, and that has been included in our transportation investment plan.

One of the ways that we are investing is…. I know it has been contentious, and people have questioned this and wonder why. I am very proud to stand up here and say that a number of these projects will be done through community benefits agreements. We’ve announced that the Broadway extension, the SkyTrain extension there, will be through community benefits. The Pattullo Bridge will be through community benefits. The four-laning out to the Alberta border…. Also, some of those projects will be included in the community benefits.

Community benefits are an investment in our province. They ensure that when we are investing these billions of dollars in infrastructure, the whole province benefits. The province will benefit because we’re going to be dealing, unlike the opposition when they were in government…. They knew there was a looming skills shortage. We’re actually going to be tackling it by ensuring that when we are building our infrastructure projects, we’ll be training apprentices.

We’ll be training the next generation of people. The next generation of people includes Indigenous people. They include women. They include people who may not traditionally have looked for jobs in construction, who may not have looked at jobs in the trades. These will be the people we are training to make sure that we have, going forward, that really strong, very healthy workforce that our province so needs, that our communities need.

Community benefits agreements will help with training. They will help ensure that people who are not usually working on projects such as this have the opportunity to work on projects like this. They are a true investment in the future of British Columbia, and I’m very proud that we have been working so hard on this and that we are seeing this coming to fruition.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

We’re going to be seeing soon the work starting on the Illecillewaet. We’ve got out for tender on that. We’ve got…. As I say, the Pattullo is going there, and the Broadway extension is going there. So I think we’re going to be seeing a huge amount of growth there when things move on.

The other area that has been…. I stand up often in this House and talk…. I’m regularly asked questions about a number of issues. The one that has already garnered some attention — and it garnered attention during the last year, when we introduced the legislation — is app-based ride-hailing and the question of: how is this going to work? Are we going to have it?

We are absolutely going to be having it. We know that this is something that people in B.C. want to have. We introduced legislation last year to ensure that it can happen, and we’re looking at the fall of 2019. It is a milestone legislation, and we want to make sure that we get it right for the people in B.C. — to give them options for getting around. So in the 2019 budget, we have dedicated $9 million over the next three years towards ride-hailing, towards the supports, to make sure that we can have that in place, as we said, and make sure that it goes forward smoothly.

We’ve got to also be very cognizant…. I’m very pleased that we’ve got…. The committee has been hearing from people, and we’re working on regulations now. We have to be cognizant of the issue of congestion. We have to be cognizant of the issue of safety. As I say, safety is the driver of this ministry.

[4:30 p.m.]

We have to make sure we get it right. We also know there is an appetite, and that’s why, with our demand-driven approach, we are investing that $9 million.

Other things that we are doing. We also are very cognizant of our role as a ministry to ensure that it’s not just people who are moving, whether they’re moving around the Lower Mainland, whether they’re moving up in Prince George or in 100 Mile. We want to make sure that people are moving, but also, we have a responsibility to make sure that goods are moving.

We are responsible for the trade corridors that come through. So I sit down with my colleagues from Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Alberta. They all need our corridors. They all need our corridors working, and they need to work effectively. This is one of the reasons, obviously, we are investing in the Highway 1 expansion — making sure we’ve got a safe part of the Trans-Canada Highway as we go out to the Alberta border. This is fundamental for us. But also down here in the Lower Mainland and the south Island, making sure that we are keeping people and goods moving.

As I mentioned, we’re working on the Pattullo Bridge. It is going to be a modern bridge. It’s going to be four lanes. It’s going to be modern, wide four lanes. As I mentioned, Broadway…. We’re working in North Vancouver, and we’re working around the province, whether it is in interchanges in North Vancouver, work on the Trans-Canada, work in Mackenzie, throughout the province, to make sure that we are getting people moving safely and goods moving safely.

There is a huge amount that this ministry does, a lot that people just really aren’t aware of. They see the road crews, particularly in the winter. “Is my road being cleared? Is the highway safe?” But this, too, is something that is extremely important. Sort of the small things. It’s the intersection improvements. It’s the livestock fencing. It’s the snow and avalanche infrastructure that we’re working on. These, too, are part of what we do as a ministry.

It is an extraordinarily diverse ministry, as I say. It’s not just the guys in the graders, but how we are dealing with avalanches and what impacts the winter will have on the spring when we are doing maintenance. There is a huge amount we’re thinking of, as well as making sure, as I say — I keep coming back to it — that people are safe.

This budget, Budget 2019, focuses absolutely on making life better for British Columbians. My ministry is working on making life better for British Columbians through transit systems; through active transportation; through ensuring that our road network is safe, our highway network is safe; and ensuring that we can get goods to and from market easily and safely so we can continue to build our economy and build our economy in a sustainable way.

We have already contributed in a large way in making life more affordable. Back in 2017, one of the first actions of this government was involving my ministry, when we got rid of the tolls from the Golden Ears and the Port Mann bridges, making sure that life for people south of the Fraser was immediately more affordable. It was immediately better. People immediately had up to $1,800 a year in their pockets. These are significant things.

As we do go forward, we’re going to continue investing in our infrastructure, investing in the people who will build our infrastructure, ensuring that everybody gets opportunity and ensuring that we really are making life better through the infrastructure work we’re doing. Whether it’s through the child care that I’ve talked about, the removal of MSP, improving our basic industries, such as our forest sector…. Throughout all of this, this government is going to be making life better for people.

[4:35 p.m.]

I’m extremely proud, as I said when I started my remarks, to be speaking to this budget, speaking as both the Minister of Transportation, representing the work that our ministry does, but also as the member for North Island, representing the people of the north Island.

With that, I’ll say that I will absolutely be supporting this budget, and I’ll take my place in this debate.

A. Olsen: I am honoured today to stand and take my place in this debate for Budget 2019.

I would like to start by thanking the staff members who support the work that I do in this place, that support the constituents of Saanich North and the Islands. I’d like to thank my constituency staff: Ryan Clayton, JoJo Beattie and Laura Parker, who work long hours to support our constituency. As well, our staff in our legislative office here: Evan Pivnick; Sarah Miller; Claire Hume; Stephanie Siddon; Judy Rendek; Aldous Sperl; and our latest addition, Macon McGinley. I’d just like to take a moment to thank them.

My campaign began in the summer of 2016. It was a long campaign. There were hundreds, probably thousands, of interactions with my constituents. The message I heard was overwhelming: people had lost confidence in their government. It did not matter if we were on the top of the mountain or on the sea’s shore; the message was the same. Confidence in government was shaken. Scandal after scandal was brushed aside. Internal reviews found nothing, and people were told not to worry. But there was a growing anxiety. Confidence in government was bruised.

Housing was out of reach for many of my constituents. The industry was in full meltdown. It was left unregulated, and people were displaced from their homes and their communities.

There was a growing sadness in British Columbia, and people blamed their government. Unchecked political contributions fuelled decision-making. Trust in government was in tatters.

I’m standing in this chamber today because I promised to address these issues. On each and every doorstep, I promised to be bold and courageous. I promised to take action where the previous government refused to act. I was given that chance. On election night, 60 percent of British Columbians voted for something other than the former government.

People were tired of the growing gap between the wealthiest few and everybody else. They were crippled with student debt. Shut out of the housing market. Having difficulty raising their family and caring for their children. Struggling with mental health and addictions. Overwhelmed by MSP tax increases and underwhelmed by government action on the climate crisis. Those doorstep conversations remain with me today.

I stand here with the honour to respond to Budget 2019, this government’s second full budget and the culmination of their third budget process, and I stand here with pride. I’m proud that I and my B.C. Green colleagues are successfully navigating territory that very few — maybe no other MLAs in this province and country — have ever navigated. As a caucus with only three members, our impact on British Columbia’s political landscape has been substantive and positive.

Do we get everything that we want? No. But that would not be right for us — to get everything that we want. We have proven to have an impact, a positive impact, on our priorities over the past 20 months. That is the way life is. It’s shades of grey. It’s not the black-and-white polarized construct that this chamber’s two sides create. Real life is complex. It’s messy. It requires a willingness to negotiate, compromise, bend and not break.

As I and my colleagues learn and grow in our experience, as we test the buttons, knobs and levers in this place, we grow in our effectiveness. It’s with a sense of accomplishment that I reflect on the past few months. I’ve spent very little time celebrating our achievements. This place is always moving, flexing and pulsing. Time in here moves very quickly.

[4:40 p.m.]

There’s been a good start on a number of policy initiatives that were part of our 2017 Green platform. We banned big money, passed new environmental assessment and professional reliance legislation, reformed lobbying, and the Agricultural Land Commission Act, just to highlight a few.

Budget 2019 is a good budget. It’s not a perfect budget. Nor is it an awful budget. It’s a good budget, and it’s a smart budget. It continues the work of restoring trust, restoring confidence in government. It again features many initiatives that were in our platform. CleanBC represents meaningful action on climate change. But it also has investments in education, mental health, PharmaCare and child care.

As I reflect on this work of our small but mighty team, on the list of our accomplishments, there are a number of firsts. Top on that list is the confidence and supply agreement. We’ve always had the challenge of partnering with government while maintaining a separate and distinct identity. On that front, we’ve had mixed results. But it’s really uncharted territory. This document — and the relationship it helps regulate — is unique. It’s unique here, and it’s unique elsewhere in this country. It provides an excellent reference point for our evaluation.

As I opened this speech, confidence and trust in government was and is very low. Transparency and accountability are words in this place, not action. So despite the ups and downs of the confidence and supply agreement, we have built a relationship with government on common ground to deliver a policy agenda that puts people back at the centre of their democracy. We have a long way to go. But we have made a start. With Budget 2019, that work continues.

Meaningful climate action has never been more important than it is right now. With the CleanBC plan and the $900 million investment in this budget, it’s a great step forward to putting British Columbia back on track.

It’s not good enough. We need to push further, faster. But every journey begins with a single step, and CleanBC is that first step to putting British Columbia on the pathway towards a cutting-edge, low-carbon economy.

I pause here to acknowledge a warrior in our office — not the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, although his advocacy and expertise in this area are critical. I’m talking about Claire Hume. She’s going to be very reluctant to hear her name mentioned in this place, but it’s an honour to work alongside her. Her passion and love for this work and these efforts does not go unnoticed.

I raise my hands to you, my friend. This is the least effort that I could do to ease the burden of your heavy lifting on this file.

Meeting our emissions targets are just one part of addressing climate action. We must balance our thinking. We cannot address climate change through cutting our emissions alone. We must stop the liquidation of our forests, ecosystems and critical habitat.

Rationalize it however you will, the decisions to continue our ravenous destruction of the landscape has only one disastrous end. This has become my mantra. We must protect habitat as our first course of action. That needs to be followed by habitat restoration. Finally, we must organize government to minimize the fragmentation that exists today.

Every single expert stakeholder that has come through my office has confirmed these three priority initiatives. Yet government remains stubbornly defensive of its current organizational structure. This structure is all that is left from the former government, organized to deliver the decisions and policies of a bygone era. It is insanity to do the same thing and expect different results.

Over the next 2½ years, I hope government will take the opportunity that it has to create a new organizational structure with new policy and processes to achieve new results. They are greatly needed.

[4:45 p.m.]

In this, I must express my disappointment that I see no substantive investment in wild salmon. This is an issue I spent a considerable amount of time on through 2019 with the Premier’s Wild Salmon Advisory Council. It is my hope that government steps forward soon with their commitment to this work.

As was outlined in our options paper, our budget submission and in my countless utterances, our priority is habitat. Our focus is protection, restoration and a government that is organized so it puts salmon policy at the centre of our decision-making in this House. I stand by my previous statement. Good salmon policy is good environmental, good social and good economic policy.

A central focus of our campaign platform…. Frankly, as a parent of young children, my focus is on education in our house and in many households in British Columbia. It’s also a central focus of our agreement with government. Recognizing lifelong learning and making post-secondary education more affordable and accessible is important if we are going to continue to lead the country and, indeed, the world.

Budget 2019 takes tremendous steps in that direction. I applaud the $550 million investment in public education and the $31 million investment in independent schools. I must say both systems are important for students in British Columbia, and it is important that the government has a voice at both of those tables. I celebrate the investment this government has made in helping post-secondary students in this budget, helping them out from under the crushing debt by eliminating the interest on the provincial student loans.

On the Saanich Peninsula, like many communities across the province, we have a growing youth mental health crisis. There’s not enough resources to help our youth who need a hand up. I’m thankful to the Ministry of Children and Families, who invested in our youth clinic in Sidney last year. I’m thankful for the work of Ryan Painter, who brought this issue to light during the most recent school trustee elections in school district 61. I’m thankful for the $70 million investment in Budget 2019. These are all important steps forward.

Indigenous leaders have long been asking for access to gaming revenues, and $3 billion over 25 years is a remarkable advancement in the government-to-government relations in British Columbia. I’m thankful that this government is willing to work with Indigenous communities and leaders and to step out of the box to make substantive investments like this one.

It’s more than just handing over money to Indigenous communities. These funds are an asset. They are a stable source of predictable revenue that communities can borrow against and invest on. This would be the first time that communities, Indigenous communities, in our province have access to this kind of economic power. It’s an incredible acknowledgment that we need to be doing things differently in British Columbia, and this is a courageous initiative. HÍSW̱ḴE.

High-speed internet connectivity is a challenge in many rural communities. The beautiful Gulf Island communities that I represent have substantive challenges with connectivity. We saw the very real impact of a lack of connectivity in the winter storm in December. We now, from that experience, have a better understanding of the threats that our rural communities face because they lack the connectivity of urban communities.

The $50 million investment in high-speed internet connectivity is just a start. I know that Gulf Islanders will be eager to have part of that investment, and it will improve our communities. I’ve had many meetings with the Minister of Citizens’ Services on this issue, describing the challenges facing the southern Gulf Island communities and the lack of connectivity. I’ll continue to strongly advocate that we have a part in this investment.

But I fear that the investments that have been made on innovation are not enough. They don’t go far enough. We are facing disruptive technologies and innovations with the sole purpose of turning status quo markets upside down. When I think about the impact that automation is having on our workforce — small, medium and large businesses — I can’t help but fear that we are being left behind.

[4:50 p.m.]

When I hear the government talking about minimum wage, instead of a deep investigation into a guaranteed annual income, I can’t help but fear that we are trying to solve 21st-century problems with 20th-century solutions. It’s time for government, labour, business and politicians to wake up to this new reality that we face together. The playing field has shifted, and we are no longer in the game. In fact, I fear that we are being gamed. We must stop tricking ourselves with the old arguments that have any value and embrace the reality that we need to change or we will be changed.

I stand here today because people in my riding lost confidence in government. I promised them that I would be passionate, bold and courageous in my work to rebuild that trust. It’s not a perfect budget. It’s not an awful budget. It’s a good budget, and it’s a smart budget. It begins to make the investments in people and in environment that signal that this government is interested in rebuilding trust in this democratic institution.

I will continue to be both an active, productive partner in this work as well as a critic. I will continue to push forward on innovation, habitat protection, restoration and less bureaucratic fragmentation. I will continue to demand deeper, more thorough action on the allegations of corruption and bad behaviour. We can go further, faster.

I will continue to advocate with a loud and respectful voice for the interests of Saanich North and the Islands. I thank all of my constituents for this opportunity to represent them in this chamber.

B. Stewart: It’s a pleasure to be here today and to rise on the occasion to speak about Budget 2019-2020.

I just want to thank the constituents in my riding of Kelowna West for what I would consider to be a tough and confusing last year getting through many of the changes that have been brought about by the change in government. We’re trying to work with them to get the answers that they seek. I know that the staff in my constituency office have been hard-working in trying to find those solutions, and also the people here in the Legislature, the research and the communication departments, and all of my personal supporters as well as my family.

I rise today to speak on the 2019 provincial budget. I, like countless people across this province, had high hopes for the budget, hopes that the bold actions and platform promises that the NDP offered to British Columbians in 2017 may finally come to light — things like $10-a-day daycare and the $400 renters rebate that many have been waiting for with bated breath since 2017. I thought that at the halfway point in their mandate, this government would move beyond politics and engage in governing on behalf of all British Columbians.

Sadly, this is not the case. In fact, there was very little bold action in this budget. It was cautious, almost as if those smart and qualified civil servants and bureaucrats in the Finance Ministry were finally being heard as they shouted from the rooftops that the economy is slowing down. NDP policies are slowly winding down the momentum gained from a strong 16 years of fiscally responsible government focused on growing the economy and creating an opportunity for all of B.C.

I think of NASA when it launched rockets heading to the moon and having to break Earth’s atmosphere. You know, they have to get up to almost 18,000 miles per hour, and it’s funny that when the rocket engines shut off, it keeps going. That’s kind of what we’re seeing. We keep hearing about the best performing economy and low unemployment, but those things do ebb and flow.

[4:55 p.m.]

I’ve seen it firsthand, as housing starts have plummeted and the construction industry declines in my riding and hometown of Kelowna. We’re ground zero for the effects of the NDP’s controversial, half-baked speculation tax, a tax that fails to actually address speculation in any meaningful way.

Of course, we introduced a bill last year that would have tackled real speculation in our housing market, but the NDP were having none of that. They preferred to label out-of-province Canadians as foreigners and forced 1.6 million British Columbians to prove that they aren’t guilty of speculation. A shocking example of negative billing that has not been seen since the federal government banned the practice that was widely used by the telecom giants. And 1.6 million pieces of mail. People — speculators until proven innocent.

People like Tanya in my riding. Her 88-year-old mother owns her own home in Glenrosa. She lives there. Her mom was advised to put Tanya as her sole heir and trustee, with power of attorney, on the title to facilitate transition should her mother pass away. Tanya’s mother followed that sound advice of the lawyer who prepared her will and, as a result, was responsible for her estate planning.

Tanya is now considered a speculator by this government, forced to pay a tax on a home that is neither vacant nor subject to speculation. This is disgraceful. Tanya contacted the government regarding this situation on February 6, seeking clarification. She was told to expect a reply within two days. Then nothing. She sent a second request a week later on February 13. Nothing. Today is February 21. Tanya has still not heard back from the government, a government that purports to be working for her.

Tanya is not alone. Thousands of British Columbians are finding themselves unfairly targeted by the NDP’s attack on their assets under the guise of stopping speculation.

The speculation tax is not only a misleadingly named initiative; this government has also introduced a school tax that doesn’t go to schools. It brought in a community benefits agreement that benefits a single community, the specific trade unions that funnelled millions of dollars into the NDP during their years in opposition. The twists on language are positively Orwellian, as are the twists and mental gymnastics required to call this budget balanced.

Yes, spending this year is slightly less than forecast revenues, but the long-term forecast shows storm clouds on the horizon, and the spending committed to by the NDP this week is not sustainable. This budget is barely balanced. This government shows no care as to whether they can afford tomorrow what they are buying today. Growth is slowing down, housing starts are down, and 19 new or increased taxes are having an effect on the wallets of British Columbians. Nothing in this budget is focused on growing the economy or attracting investment to our province. That takes real work.

Spending taxpayer dollars is the easy part and where the NDP positively exceeds and excels. Companies from around the world have a choice when it comes to investment. B.C.’s strong economy has attracted investors from all corners of the globe, looking to take part in the prosperity offered here. What this government fails to understand is that you have to work for that. Other countries don’t just invest in B.C. because of demand for our natural resources. We have to earn their trust and confidence.

I know firsthand, as British Columbia’s special representative in Asia, the amount of hard work that goes into building the relationships and attracting investment to grow our provincial economy. In the entire 46-page strategic plan for the budget, the word “trade” is only mentioned once. There’s no vision for trade in the budget or the throne speech, aside from building a train to Washington state, a pet project of the governor, who has already taken over $600,000 of British Columbia taxpayers’ money just to study the idea of a train.

In the 2019 service plan, the target number of substantial trade deals supported by the ministry has been deleted. The performance measures for foreign direct investment and the number of offices established in B.C. by foreign organizations have also been completely removed from the service plan — no more metrics, no more plans for growth.

[5:00 p.m.]

This attitude in an economic downturn will drive away foreign investors. There is the old adage about how it’s harder to win a customer back once you’ve lost them. It reminds me of a poem.

If I possessed a shop or store

I’d drive the grouches off my floor.

I’d never let some gloomy guy

offend the folks who come to buy.

I’d never keep a boy or clerk

with mental toothache at his work,

or let a man who draws my pay

drive customers of mine away.

I’d treat the man who takes my time

and spends a nickel or a dime

with courtesy and make him feel

that I was pleased to close the deal,

because tomorrow who can tell?

He may want stuff I have to sell.

And in that case, then glad he’ll be

to spend his dollars all with me.

The reason people pass one door

to patronize another store

is not because the busier place

has better silks or gloves or lace

or cheaper prices, but it lies

in pleasant words and smiling eyes.

The only difference, I believe,

is in the treatment folks receive.

It is good business to be fair,

to keep a bright and cheerful air

about a place and not to show

your customers how much you know.

Whatever any patron did,

I’d keep my temper hid

and never let him spread along

the word that I had done him wrong.

Never assume that you have a captive customer or a guaranteed revenue. As a result of the NDP failing to take heed of that wise advice, we have a barely balanced budget and zero sustainability.

The lack of foresight is astounding. There is no concern for the future state of the B.C. economy, no planning for any downturns. The members on the other side may not have much experience with ever running a business, but they at least understand the concept of unexpected expenses in their daily lives. You cannot have gotten this far in life without having to deal with a personal budget. What happens when your car breaks down or a pipe bursts and you have to call a plumber? Life is full of unexpected costs, and it’s why — and we can — we put money aside to accommodate our future needs.

Take, for example, supplemental estimates for 2018-19 that have already been revealed and that clearly demonstrate that the Finance Minister and her party know all about unexpected expenses.

We heard that from the member for Langley East earlier today, in the response to the budget speech — his personal experience. I know, for myself, personally, after the 2008 financial crisis…. We were sitting here with a balanced budget, and we, all of a sudden, were faced with an over $2 billion projected loss in the 2009-10 fiscal year.

What the NDP is doing with this budget is spending almost every dollar that they’ve made, as well as almost every dollar they’ve optimistically planned to make over the next three years. Budget 2019 is irresponsible, and it is not sustainable.

Even their sustainability initiatives are ineffective. This government has abandoned our revenue-neutral carbon tax in favour of utilizing it for yet another NDP cash grab. John Horgan is now responsible for a $6 billion tax….

Deputy Speaker: Member, no names.

B. Stewart: Sorry. I retract that, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier is now responsible for a $6 billion carbon tax push into the bottom lines of people and businesses all across B.C. And of that $6 billion carbon tax, only 15 percent is being allocated to green initiatives.

You’d think that the junior partners in this coalition would have stood up on the principle and opposed such a small slice of the pie going towards environmental issues. But no, the Leader of the Third Party stood in this House yesterday across from me and applauded that oh-so-generous 15 percent.

The former B.C. Liberal government introduced the carbon tax as a revenue-neutral levy that would be invested in green initiatives like the ICE fund and many other activities that still are very real today. Instead, the Greens have allowed this government to abandon the revenue neutrality, abandon the carbon tax’s dedication to the environment and max out the 2019 budget spending based on an economic forecast that is based on a foundation of fantasy and unicorns.

[5:05 p.m.]

I think I heard that from the Premier yesterday. They say ICBC is going to be out of debt in a year. They say housing starts, a key driver of jobs in our economy, are only going to drop 25 percent. They say resource revenues are set to fall 30 percent. Looking at that forecast, you would not expect a spending spree, yet we are here. Spending has increased 26 percent since the NDP took office. That’s 13 billion new dollars, and it’s coming from the people of British Columbia. There’s only one taxpayer, and the NDP is taking them for a ride. Balanced budgets aren’t tax-and-spend frenzies.

This will cost 2,500 new dollars per family over the next three years. How is that making life more affordable? It’s milking people for more cash, failing to use it to create the climate that grows the economy for everyone. They’re extracting $6 billion from the carbon tax over the next three years. Money coming from the pockets of hard-working, everyday British Columbians every time they fill up at the gas pump. When you drive your kids to soccer practice, you’re sending money to the NDP simply because they want more of it.

This budget, as I said before, is not sustainable. They’re balancing the budget on the backs of people, businesses and municipalities.

Nowhere is that more evident than the double-dip of the MSP and the employer health tax. Together they will rake in $2.89 billion this year, a blatant, unabashed tax grab. Many small businesses are struggling to find a balance between paying the double tax hit and keeping prices competitive for their customers, forced to raise costs and lay off employees. Many municipalities are simply hiking property taxes to cover the employment health care tax loaded onto them by the province.

Homeowners and landlords helping the Premier and the Finance Minister balance their budget. In the case of the landlords, those increased costs still have to be passed on to renters. Here in Victoria, where the Finance Minister has one of her homes, half of the 4 percent property tax increase was directly attributed by the mayor to the sudden imposition of costs of the employer health tax.

Recently in the Victoria Times Colonist, the police department reported that it’s going to have to cut nine officers or civilian staff because city council won’t give them the budget increase to help cover the new employer health cost. The chief, as well, said that the police board, headed up by two local mayors, have all declared that the Finance Minister’s hometown of Victoria will be less safe as a result of these cuts.

Our party pledged to phase out and eliminate the MSP. The NDP said they would as well. But then they concocted the employer health tax and continue the tax grab. How is this all making life more affordable?

Many were taken in by the NDP’s promise in 2017 for $10-a-day daycare. It’s still not here. It’s 2019, and we thought we would finally see it come to fruition. Instead, it’s been watered down and reshaped into a child benefit tax. It’s something, I suppose. But when I learned that it won’t come into effect until almost the end of 2020, it’s hardly a gift. By now, if you’re paying the high cost for daycare in 2017 and you voted for the NDP hoping that that would change, your child will have already left daycare by the time that this child tax benefit kicks in. No $10-a-day child care, no $400 renters rebate, no poverty reduction plan. The promises that swept the NDP into government in 2017 are nowhere to be seen halfway through this mandate.

So what’s to show for the mid-mandate crisis? Lots of taxes, lots of spending, with no plans to grow the economy to ensure fiscal sustainability, something especially important in this turbulent global economic reality.

B.C. depends on trade with the world. There’s instability in the western world’s relations with China, whose economy is slowing. In Europe, Brexit continues to threaten economic disruptions with Europe. Here in B.C., this budget does absolutely nothing to safeguard us against a potential downturn or promote areas of strategic growth. The only hope in this budget is the hope of those who drafted it, that things get better so that we can afford everything over the next three years.

[5:10 p.m.]

It won’t be the NDP or their cronies who pay the price for the economic downturn here or globally. It will be the taxpayers who will face even more taxes and even more raids on their wallets and their homes. British Columbians deserve a budget that creates opportunity for all of us. We deserve better.

Hon. B. Ralston: It’s a pleasure to rise in the House to speak in the new session of the Legislature and address Budget 2019.

I’m always grateful for the opportunity to talk about the government’s plan to make life better for everyone in this province and about the way our government will deliver better services to people in the communities they call home and how the government is investing in a sustainable economy that works, so everyone can enjoy a good quality of life. I’ll also take a few moments to reflect on some of the work being done at the Ministry of Jobs, Trade and Technology to fit into that vision.

At its heart, Budget 2019 is focused on creating opportunities so that we can make life better for people. The other side seems to be determined to find a rain cloud on a sunny day. That seems to be the theme that we hear from the other side, although I thought rhetorical excess was really evident yesterday when I think the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke referred to life in British Columbia as hell, which I thought was probably some sort of theological licence. But maybe that’s sanctioned by the members on the other side. I’m not sure whether that’s their view. It would seem to me that to really mistake reality for something else…. But I’ll leave that aside, and perhaps the members internal to the opposition caucus can interrogate each other on what that might mean.

I’ve lived in Surrey’s Whalley community for many years, long enough to see it grow into a city of choice for newcomers from many diverse cultures around the world. It’s a place for people to raise their children — as I have raised my children in Surrey-Whalley, all three born at Surrey Memorial Hospital — for businesses to take root and for communities to gather for celebration.

Let me talk a little bit about the view of what’s required or what’s requested from government from the perspective of the residents of my riding. Like the chambers of commerce, like the Surrey Board of Trade, like many municipalities throughout the province, there’s been a call for affordable child care and affordable housing for many years. When I speak to people in my community, those concerns are shared.

People wish better access to services and, in particular, health care at the very busy Surrey Memorial Hospital. In fact, the Minister of Health has embarked on a plan to take the first steps to underwrite a business plan to build a second hospital in Surrey, given the demands of the growing population in Fraser Health, which is fully one-third of the population of British Columbia.

In addition, traffic congestion throughout Surrey and the entire Lower Mainland is something that concerns people. There are plans that have been announced by the Minister of Transportation to deal with some of that congestion as we move forward.

People in my community are concerned about public safety. The Solicitor General has embarked on a number of initiatives that will address those concerns about public safety in the communities throughout British Columbia.

We have listened. Certainly, I listen to the people of my constituency regularly, and one wouldn’t get very far in this business if one didn’t listen to one’s constituents.

Throughout this budget, our government is tackling real-life challenges that people are facing every day. The budget is the next step to make life better for people in every region of the province. We’re taking the steps to create more opportunities for British Columbians so they can continue to call their community home.

In my travels, in my portfolio, I talk with many businesses where the issue of housing for the people that they wish to hire or the workers that they wish to retain becomes a real business issue.

[5:15 p.m.]

It’s something that businesses have looked to government for — at least assistance in a solution, not an entire solution. Some businesses are moving towards their own solutions, such as workforce housing. But that is not always the preferred solution or the financially available solution, particularly for small business, of which there are 493,000 in British Columbia. Not all of those are able to offer that kind of opportunity for their employees.

In addition, people are looking for long-term, stable jobs so they can afford to pay a mortgage or pay rent. It involves investing in child care, hospitals and schools so people are getting the public services they need. So as part of our commitment to deliver safer and more affordable child care, we’re expanding the early childhood tax benefit into a new B.C. child opportunity benefit, starting in October 2020. This program will support children up to the age of 18, lifting it from the previous age of six in the former program, improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and their families, with the largest supports going to those in the greatest need.

We have an ambitious capital program that will see the construction of new hospitals, schools, post-secondary institutions, roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects. For example, in the city of Surrey, Sullivan Heights Secondary — in the biggest public school district in the province, the Surrey school district — will receive a $40 million, 700-seat expansion, 29 new classrooms and a new gym for school and community use. At its completion in 2021, the school will have room for nearly 1,700 students.

Budget 2019 moves forward with the elimination of MSP premiums, saving individuals $900 a year in taxes and families $1,800 a year. That $2.7 billion is the revenue that the tax took in under the last year of the B.C. Liberals. This is one of the largest tax cuts for people in the history of British Columbia.

The budget also makes plans for improved public transit to reduce traffic congestion. The less time you spend in traffic means more time doing the things you wish to do, rather than the things that you can’t do because you’re sitting in traffic. Delivery of these projects will create tens of thousands of jobs and training opportunities in our workforce for years to come.

We’re also making life more affordable for people who are just starting out in their chosen careers by eliminating interest on student loans. Further, we’re funding B.C.’s first poverty strategy, which involves new investment in programs designed to reduce homelessness and support people who can’t afford a place to live.

Budget 2019 will provide B.C.’s First Nations with over $3 billion in provincial gaming revenue over 25 years. This is an important step towards self-determination and will give these communities a stable source of revenue and the ability to invest in the services they need to make life better through improved health, housing, infrastructure and skills training.

Perhaps most significantly, we introduced the CleanBC climate action plan that moves us closer to a cleaner, better future. This budget takes us down this path with over $902 million over three years to make sure we can meet our climate commitments by moving to clean, renewable energy. I would just say that from the perspective of an economic ministry, which I’m the minister of, the business opportunities that come from the CleanBC strategy are immense.

Whether it’s clean technology…. British Columbia enjoys leadership in the field of clean technology. Over seven companies in the top 100, global 100 clean tech companies are British Columbia–based companies. So British Columbia is a leader, and given the financial incentives that will come from this program, those companies and others in that sector, in that cluster, will continue to grow and do better.

These are some of the highlights of Budget 2019, which the government is delivering during a period of economic stability. Now, we’ve heard from the members opposite in their search over the sunny horizon for a rain cloud that somehow, at some point in the future, things are going to turn down. I think it’s common sense, in the sense that in a resource economy, there are always ups and downs. Commodity prices are not controlled by the government and not controlled by a relatively small jurisdiction of five million people. British Columbia has always been subject to the ebb and flow of global resource prices.

[5:20 p.m.]

To say that this is somehow new or unpredictable or unexpected or not thought of is just simply…. Well, I suppose when you have to make an argument and you have none to make, you invent the best one that you can. That’s a very weak one, I must say.

The Globe and Mail, for example, responded to Budget 2019 by calling British Columbia Canada’s new economic power. The Economic Forecast Council — which is appointed by the Ministry of Finance but is composed of independent economists employed by the major banks and credit unions and independent, self-employed economists — has predicted that British Columbia will lead the country in growth, not in the next year but over the next two years: 2019 and 2020.

They have calculated…. These are people that the government doesn’t control. They are completely independent. They’ve taken an independent look, based on their knowledge, expertise and training about the future of the B.C. economy, not over the next six months but over the next 2½ years, and that’s what they came up with.

The members opposite may choose not to believe what the Minister of Finance says. Of course, I believe what she says, because I think she’s very sincere and accurate in everything she says. But the Economic Forecast Council, I think, is a body which, independent of government, can perhaps give the members the assurance that they might be looking for to maybe reconsider some of the arguments that they seem to feel forced to make here in the chamber.

British Columbia continues to add full-time jobs. In 2018, British Columbia added 26,800 jobs. The year ended with a record 2.54 million people employed in our province. Aside from that gain of full-time jobs, that was 92 percent of the total employment gains. British Columbia’s unemployment rate was the lowest in Canada and the lowest in ten years.

People are sharing in the benefits of growth. In 2018, British Columbia had the highest wage growth in the past decade at 4.1 percent, leading all of Canada. I think that’s significant because wage growth had stagnated for many years under the previous government. But that was part of the design.

The Leader of the Opposition wrote the election platform for the B.C. Liberals in 2001, and part of that platform was to freeze minimum wage rates, and that persisted as a policy of the government for ten years. That was their commitment to the lowest-paid workers in the province: freeze the minimum wage for ten years. The Leader of the Opposition was the leader of the B.C. Liberal Party at that point. He wrote the platform. That was what they campaigned on, and that’s what they did.

B.C.’s economy is expected to outperform the rest of Canada over the next three years, as I’ve said. These positive results show that people are at the centre of our strong and stable economy, and my ministry is committed to keeping us ahead in the nation.

The business community recognizes the strength of our economy. Investments made by both local and international companies demonstrate that confidence is high. For example, a leading tech company, Traction on Demand, is expanding from the Lower Mainland, adding tech sector jobs to Nelson, British Columbia.

The last speaker spoke of international trade and attracting investment to British Columbia. Let me give what I think is an illustrative example of just that process taking place recently.

In January of last year, the Premier, the Minister of State for Trade and myself travelled, among other places, to Tokyo, where we met with Fujitsu, which is a Japanese company, as the name might suggest. We met there with Naoko Yoshizawa, who is the CEO of the Fujitsu Intelligence Technology section of that company. It’s a global company.

We talked about the opportunities that existed in British Columbia. There was some contact through their investment in a company called 1QBit, so they were aware of British Columbia.

[5:25 p.m.]

What they decided…. And she gave a speech to 100 businesses at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo explaining why this particular unit of Fujitsu…. The future of the company…. The leading unit in the company made a very unusual decision for a Japanese company to move out of Japan and locate in British Columbia.

She explained in that lecture why she had decided to do that. One was very strong support from both the federal government and the provincial government; the educational institutions in British Columbia being of very high quality; the kind of talent that’s available here in British Columbia being very high; and business costs, in a series of charts, were very competitive and, in fact, lower than most major centres in North America.

They made that decision to locate here. She has, herself, moved here. I met with her just recently. They’ve hired 20 employees so far, and their projection is that by the end of the year, they will have hired 200 people here in British Columbia. So rather than companies losing confidence in British Columbia, as the opposition would have it, the momentum of companies wishing to come to British Columbia is accelerating.

This company, I think, is a very good example — a company in a leading sector, artificial intelligence. They have a quantum-like product which they are developing, and they are very, very keen on British Columbia and on Canada.

There are other companies. A Korean-based company owns a subsidiary here in British Columbia called Kabam. Netmarble is the Korean company. They will add hundreds of jobs in their impact by building a new office tower in British Columbia.

Of course, there are other examples that I can give: SAP Labs, one of the world’s largest companies, a 70,000 square foot expansion of their offices; Swire Group’s decision to establish Vancouver as the North American headquarters for their deep-sea division; Amazon coming here.

Stemcell, a partnership with the federal government. The province made an investment in future growth in Stemcell, which is a really impressive company with 95 percent of their revenue coming from outside Canada — hiring, I think, largely masters of science and PhDs from UBC and Simon Fraser, a 50 percent female workforce. They’ve made a commitment to create 675 good jobs in Burnaby by 2022.

Sumitomo made a major investment in northern British Columbia with a 48 percent purchase of a wood pellet plant in Prince George.

The AltaGas export terminal, 250 jobs in construction and 50 permanent jobs. There’s a list that goes on and on.

For the opposition members to claim that there’s a lack of investment interest in British Columbia is just not factual. It is just not factual. I suppose that serves their political purpose. I think they mistake…. Their claim of decline is really autobiography. They are in decline, not the economy of British Columbia and not the future of British Columbia.

One of the other areas that my ministry focuses on is keeping British Columbia on the leading edge of economic growth by making British Columbia a preferred trade and investment destination. I have given the example of Fujitsu, but we are focusing more on trade diversification.

The federal government has renamed…. Minister Carr is now the minister of what they describe as the ministry of trade diversification. I’ve had conversations with him, and we work closely with the federal government and their trade commissioner network. These agreements that the federal government has negotiated will benefit many people working in B.C.’s economic sectors.

We are a year and a half into the new CETA, the new agreement with the EU, and seeing positive results. Year-to-date exports from B.C. to the EU were $2.4 billion, a 19 percent increase compared to the same period in 2017.

[5:30 p.m.]

Looking south, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement was signed, as I think most are aware, on November 30, 2018, although there is an important step in ratification that still has to take place on both sides, but particularly through the American Congress. Nonetheless, that was a signal of relative trade stability and a very hard-fought negotiation led by Minister Freeland and her team at Foreign Affairs Canada. Axiomatic to the success of that agreement was the retention of section 19, the trade dispute mechanism for resolving issues.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

Canada is also in discussions with Mercosur nations in South America and the Pacific Alliance.

Canada and South Korea enjoy a thriving two-way trade. In fact, the consul general for Korea was here in the building today. I introduced him this morning in the Legislature. That relationship has been strengthened by the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement.

Last but certainly not least, there are huge opportunities represented by the comprehensive and progressive agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, now in force after seven countries have ratified. Significantly, it means that British Columbia will benefit from improved access to key markets such as Japan. The agreement has come into force at a good time for our province.

We have three trade and investment representatives in ASEAN countries — the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore. Our representatives are working hard to help B.C. businesses take advantages of new opportunities in this important region.

Certainly, trade for a small, open economy is a really important ingredient of future prosperity. Trade — it’s estimated that every billion dollars exported is responsible for four jobs, with two jobs in supplier industries. Exports were directly responsible for approximately 173,000 jobs in B.C. in 2017 and supported 86,000 jobs in the supplier industry.

More access to global markets means more exports and more jobs. We are certainly committed to helping B.C. businesses get their goods and services to new markets.

It’s not simply a big company gain. It’s also important for small and medium enterprises to get this kind of assistance and focus on export markets. Indeed, there is a program called export navigator which helps small businesses take the first steps in moving beyond a local or regional market and considering the opportunities to export. It’s an individualized program in the sense that each business that participates in it gets access to individual coaching and preparation. That’s a program that was developed several years ago, and it is a good program. It’s been tested. It’s working and will be continued.

British Columbia also has an extensive network of trade and investment representative offices. They connect B.C. businesses with new export opportunities around the world and promote the province as an important and attractive place to invest. The trade representatives work hard. I’ve had the opportunity to meet with a few of them. They assist awareness of the opportunities in British Columbia and Canada, working closely with the Canadian trade commissioner network. They are important ambassadors and emissaries for British Columbia and Canada.

Looking north-south, down to our friends in Seattle and San Francisco. There were some disparaging comments made by one of the members opposite about Washington state and the governor of Washington, which is regrettable. That’s an important relationship. The similarities, the commercial connections, the cultural connections, particularly in the technology sector, between British Columbia and Washington are very important ones and bring us a present prosperity and the harbinger of future prosperity.

A couple of weeks ago, the Premier and Washington state Governor Jay Inslee announced plans to study the further possibility of connecting the Lower Mainland, Seattle and Portland by ultra-high-speed rail.

[5:35 p.m.]

One of the contributors to that study — a significant financial contribution — was Microsoft. They’re obviously very active. Their global headquarters is in Seattle, but they have significant operations in British Columbia. They are very anxious to draw our two jurisdictions together, and that’s partly why they’re interested in funding high-speed rail.

There is already an experiment, which is well supported by the tech sector: the flights between Kenmore and Harbour Air between Seattle and Vancouver harbours. That has been very successful and is a sign of what that transportation link might look like were high-speed rail to come into existence.

Obviously, there are challenges in creating a high-speed rail network. Probably the most difficult is to secure a corridor that is not susceptible to intrusion. That, in a busy and a populated Lower Mainland and northern Washington state, would be a challenge, but I’m convinced that it’s not insurmountable.

The tech sector is booming, just to talk about that. It grew and continues to grow. It accounts for significant revenue and more than 114,000 employees. I think also, when I talk about British Columbia’s technology sector, I’d like to make sure that people understand it’s something that goes beyond Yaletown and Gastown in Vancouver.

There’s a significant tech hub in Kelowna. In Kamloops, there’s the Kamloops Innovation centre, working closely with Thompson Rivers University there.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

In Prince George, Canfor has a biofuel investment with an Australian company called Licella, where they’re actually developing an alternate fuel out of pulp company black liquor. In Victoria, where we are here, there are a 1,000 companies, and there’s a growing sector up the Island in Nanaimo and in Campbell River.

The technology sector is not simply an urban phenomenon confined to the Lower Mainland. It’s a sector that is dispersed across the province and is, indeed, transforming many very traditional industries.

When I talk to tech companies, they talk about talent. We are investing in future tech talent and making sure capital is available for tech companies.

Our federal workforce and labour market development agreements have provided additional supports to, sometimes, workers who have been excluded or not the first thought of for that sector — persons with disabilities, women, Indigenous people and groups that are generally underrepresented in the workforce.

Given the low unemployment rate, employers, I think, are now probably more than ever prepared to consider employees that might not have been top of mind previously. It’s an opportunity to draw more people into the labour force to get the skills to build their own lives and enjoy the benefit of full-time employment, with all that that implies for their own futures.

It looks like the light is coming on fairly soon, so I’m going to have to wrap up here. There’s just so much good news that I can’t get it all in, in half an hour.

I do want to talk a little bit about Innovate B.C., which is the Crown agency in charge of innovation — recently appointed a number of really excellent directors, I think. There’s a new CEO who’s been hired there, Raghwa Gopal. I mentioned the Kelowna tech sector. He comes out of the Okanagan accelerator in Kelowna and was hired into the new position, a very capable, dynamic CEO who will drive that organization and innovation forward in British Columbia.

I know that there is interest, particularly from our legislative partners, in the emerging economy task force. That is doing its work, meeting throughout the province.

[5:40 p.m.]

The opportunity there is to look beyond the horizon, beyond the typical political electoral cycle, to look at the real challenges for a small, open jurisdiction of five million people and how we can ensure a future prosperity, given the changes and the disruptions that are coming — whether it’s to traditional patterns of work to traditional patterns of settlement to the challenge of digitization, changes in how work is done, the export profile of the province and the emerging new economy.

They are, I think, a really exceptional group of British Columbians who have agreed to take the job on and who will be coming forward with some recommendations to help the policy development process here.

I also want to talk about a sector that is sometimes a bit undervalued and undermentioned.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Hon. B. Ralston: Oh, I see the light has come on.

Thank you very much. It’s always a pleasure to talk in the House about the great prospects for British Columbia and the budget that will assist that process.

M. Stilwell: It’s my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak on behalf of the people of Parksville-Qualicum and respond to Budget 2019, to take that opportunity to thank some of those people who make it possible for me to be here and represent the people of Parksville-Qualicum.

Of course, first and foremost that would be my husband, Mark, and my son, Kai, who hold the fort down at home and give me all the support and wrap me around with words of encouragement as we do the work here in Victoria and spend many hours away from each other. I certainly couldn’t do it without their support and encouragement each and every day.

The constituency office in Parksville-Qualicum wouldn’t be functional without the incredible staff that I have working each and every day. Tamara Rook and Tamie Nohr and Shayne Blandin make things operational for a very busy office in Parksville-Qualicum to help support the amazing constituents that I have, who were gracious enough to elect me, to allow me to take my place here in the House.

I note that we are rounding the end of the day, and noting the hour, I think it is best to save my remarks for our following session on Monday. So noting the hour, I reserve my place to speak again and move adjournment of the debate.

M. Stilwell moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. C. James moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 5:42 p.m.