Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call continued second reading debate on Bill 10. In section A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call the continued estimates on the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 10 — INCOME TAX
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

Deputy Speaker: Members, those who don’t have House duty, maybe you would like to leave.

S. Furstenau: I thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 10, the Income Tax Amendment Act. I started yesterday afternoon, and I’d like to recap some of my comments and then continue.

This bill aims to bring the NDP’s liquefied natural gas framework into force. It details the publicly funded handouts that are being offered to industry in exchange for the expansion of natural gas development in this province. It trades tax breaks for the construction of the single biggest point source of greenhouse gas emissions in the history of Canada.

My caucus colleagues and I have been clear. We will never support an expansion of taxpayer-funded giveaways to help support the fossil fuel industry. We will not help the B.C. NDP implement an LNG regime, and we will not be complicit in our silence. We will use our votes and our voices to say no, because this is the wrong decision and the wrong direction for our province in 2019.

[2:45 p.m.]

We will not — not now, not ever — vote to advance major fossil fuel expansion, and we will continue to work to instead advance strong climate policy for this province. Because communities are already facing significant impacts from climate change. Whether it’s wildfires, floods, droughts, species extinction or crop failures, B.C.’s communities are at the front line of this fight.

By pursuing LNG, we are tying our communities to an industry that is contributing to these challenges while failing to invest in a sustainable low-carbon future. The world’s leading climate scientists have warned us time and time again that if global emissions do not start to dramatically decline in the next few years, many millions of people, including British Columbians, will be at severe risk.

Ecosystems, plants and animals are facing widespread extinction. The future of humanity, as we know, hangs in the balance. We only have until 2030 to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees, beyond which, even half a degree will significantly worsen the climate change impacts and drag hundreds of millions of people into poverty.

This is not new information. Scientists have been raising concerns about what their data has shown for decades. What is new, however, is how urgent and dire the scientific warnings have become. In recent years, the consequences of rising CO₂ and temperatures have been painfully clear. We are on target to see ocean surface acidity into a realm for which we have no known comparison in the history of the earth.

Coral beds that have been around for millions of years will go extinct. In Canada, overall precipitation will increase, but it will come in fewer, more extreme events, interspersed between longer periods of drought. There will be an increased risk of flooding, and then there will be wildfires, as we have already seen summer after summer in British Columbia.

Think for a moment about the massive crop failures, economic collapse and millions of climate refugees desperate for safer homes. Our growing consumption levels are unsustainable on an earth with finite resources, and the limit is clearly in view. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the last 650,000 years. And it is still rising very quickly because of decisions like the one before us today.

Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have made it painfully clear that we have only a few short years to steer away from catastrophic climate change by dramatically reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, starting now. Yet in the face of all of that, the vast majority of members in this House are selling out to score a fossil fuel project that plans to drastically increase our emissions from 2023 through to the year 2060.

LNG Canada, a project set to become the single biggest point source of emissions in our country’s history, will pollute until after your children have retired. It will pollute the province your grandchildren are born into. Choosing to take action on climate change is a luxury that is expiring. Soon the realities of climate change will come flooding in through our front doors. We must not squander this opportunity.

This legislation, Bill 10, steers B.C. in a direction that we don’t need or want to go. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can write a new story for our province. We have such enormous potential in B.C. to be a leader in clean energy — geothermal, wind, solar, wave, on top of our already established and stable hydro energy. We have everything we need to rise to this challenge, if government truly sets us in the direction of a sustainable future.

Sweden, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Scotland, Germany, Uruguay and Denmark are all showing leadership by shifting to renewables. Tanzania is launching a massive tree-planting effort and has a national climate change strategy built on the acknowledgment that all countries have a role to play and they, too, will do their part.

[2:50 p.m.]

Nearly 50 countries around the world have committed to being 100 percent renewable by 2035, including many countries that are most impacted by climate change due to droughts, floods and rising seas — the Philippines, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala — 100 percent renewable by 2035, right around the same time that LNG Canada will be ramping up fracking across northern B.C.

What are the implications of jurisdictions setting these ambitious goals? Cleaner air and safer water, for a start. While we reshape our energy, we can reshape our communities in ways that help us live better. Transportation that incorporates more multimodal ways of getting around. Economies that focus on local food, local manufacturing and local benefits staying inside our communities.

Consider the temporary jobs for the LNG industry, people having to be far away from their homes, their families, their communities. We should be focused on creating an economy that keeps families together and keeps communities and well-being at the centre of all of our decision-making. The money that’s been promised by these fossil fuel corporations, $20 billion over 40 years? That will pale in comparison to the true cost of climate change, the emergency funding government will have to funnel into communities that are underwater or up in flames or unable to produce food.

Ensuring that every British Columbian has the conditions to live a healthy, fulfilling life in a flourishing, supportive environment should be the government’s most important responsibility. Our job is to make people know that they are safe.

I don’t know if any of you were at the students’ climate strike ten days ago, but over a million and a half children around the world, and over 1,000 on the lawns of this Legislature, were telling us that they do not feel safe. What a mark of our failure that children are telling us that they do not feel safe because of the decisions that we are making. I saw dozens of children at the strike with hand-painted signs that said: “The seas are rising, and so are we.”

The change in the tide is coming. Young people are standing up, demanding a new story for our world. They were joined, I noticed, at the climate strike by their grandparents and their parents. Our youth and elders joined by a clear vision of what is right, too young and too old to feel enslaved by the rules that we have invented for ourselves. They know the story that has guided the last 100 years in this province is failing us.

The story of separation and accumulation, above all else, has driven us to maximize individual production and personal self-interest. It demands continued consumption and economic growth and ignores the fact that infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet. It is a recipe for despair, but adults have been fully steeped in it. We absorb it and act like it is the only way. If you don’t believe that we are all separate — separate from each other, separate from nature, that more for me is less for you…. It drives competition, a failing urge to control and dominate.

To paraphrase the writer Charles Eisenstein, we need a new story that recognizes interdependence, a belief that my well-being is directly related to your well-being, to the well-being of the river, the forest, the salmon, and to the well-being of children — an understanding and acceptance that what we do to the world, we do to ourselves. Even if we can physically survive after the last orca or the last caribou or the last steelhead has gone extinct, when life around us withers and dies, what kind of life have we left for ourselves?

Why is it that people with more than their fair share of money and power still feel depressed and empty? Deep down we all know what is actually important. It is love, it is connection, it is family, it is community, and it is life. But despite this wisdom, we make the most important decisions in our province from a place of indifference, separation, degradation and desperation.

[2:55 p.m.]

I can see that our confidence in this system is falling apart. It is eroding from the inside. I know it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good to protect caribou at the same time that you’re seeing the destruction of their habitat. It doesn’t feel good to work towards reconciliation at the same time that Indigenous newborns are separated from their mothers. It doesn’t feel good to advance climate action at the same time as voting to support the biggest point source of greenhouse gas emissions in the history of this nation.

I know it’s not easy. You feel powerless to the larger powers. Never mind the fact that most people think that we are the larger powers. You feel caught in a system that leaves you no choice, tied to a vote that is truly not your own.

It doesn’t have to be this way. A more beautiful world is possible. We get glimpses of it every now and then in love, in nature, when we are with our children — experiences that make us feel alive, that remind us that a brighter future is actually within reach. These feelings don’t have to be scarce. They can guide how we govern.

It looks hopeless, as we near the end stages of the old story. But it is also an opportunity for us to write a new story. Our new story can be enriched with the lessons that we’ve learned from the past. We can have a revolution for life, for a province that is prosperous and healthy, for a province that is safe for our children and for their grandchildren.

Voting to support Bill 10 is not just voting for more money, the story that we’ve been told over and over again. It is also voting for all of the additional hard decisions associated with expanding major fossil fuel extraction in a climate change future. It is voting to push our province to the brink. I, for one, along with my colleagues, will vote against Bill 10. I choose to stand with the children and the elders who believe in a brighter future instead. It’s not too late for every member in this room to stand with us.

We can go all in on CleanBC, implementing first phase of policies, fully and urgently, while we detail where the remaining 25 percent emissions reductions would come from, a task made much easier without LNG Canada in the equation. We can set ambitious goals for our province, joining the other leaders around the world who have committed to being powered by 100 percent renewable energy by 2035.

We can export our expertise and experience and help other jurisdictions follow suit. We can be leaders, rather than the laggards who will be looking out from B.C. and looking out from Canada at the rest of the world reaching their climate goals while we double down on the energy of the 20th century and a fossil fuel industry that needs taxpayer support in order to survive.

We can support British Columbians as they find a sustainable job that is right for them and their communities. We can learn from local and traditional knowledge.

We will continue to work on the many initiatives that matter to us: protecting salmon and protecting the watersheds that they depend on; bringing a new vision forward for forests for B.C.; continuing to track the progress and changes to environmental assessment and professional reliance that begin to restore trust in government decision-making; pushing for better policies and initiatives that will address the humanitarian crisis of the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in government care; working to bring forward the possibilities that abound in CleanBC and to truly transform B.C., changing everything from how we build buildings to how we get around our communities and around the province.

With that, I would like to move an amendment:

[That the motion for second reading of Bill (No. 10) intituled Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019 be amended by deleting all the words after “that” and substituting therefore the following:

“Bill (No. 10) not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.”]

On the amendment.

[3:00 p.m.]

S. Furstenau: I am moving this amendment because I believe it is essential that we exhaust every opportunity to hear from the communities and the people across our province on this issue. I think it is important that everyone understands the choices that we are making, and that in passing this legislation, we are choosing to pursue a taxpayer-supported expansion of the fossil fuel industry instead of pursuing a new vision for our province. If the student protests of a couple weeks ago are any indication, there is much this government needs to hear.

I’m going to speak for a few minutes to the amendment, and I’m going to reflect on something a little bit different than what I’ve been talking about so far. I’m going to reflect on the Westminster parliamentary system.

I spent many years studying medieval history, and it was during the Middle Ages that the origins of our system came from — the system that we work in right now, the traditions that we work within. Today the Lieutenant-Governor occupies a largely ceremonial role most of the time. But the foundations of parliament came from a desire to put a check on the absolute powers of the King or the Queen.

The idea was that parliamentarians would represent the interests of the people and that, while in the beginning stages of the Westminster parliamentary system “people” may have been rather narrowly defined at the time as male landowners, the foundations of parliamentary democracy have within them both an extraordinary opportunity and an enormous burden of responsibility. The opportunity is for representation of the views, the wishes, the perspectives and the well-being of constituents within the halls of parliament, a true reflection of representative democracy. The burden is that we all have to do our best to balance the differing views, wishes and perspectives of our constituents while keeping the well-being of all citizens at the forefront of our minds.

I would argue that the parliamentary democracy in our province and our country has become distorted by partisan, party-oriented politics. How does this translate? It means that MLAs not only have to consider the differing views, wishes and perspectives of constituents as well as the well-being of all citizens; they also have to put the interest of their political party into their deliberations.

In Canada and in B.C., this has increasingly translated into a concentration of power in the office of the Prime Minister or the Premier — the exact opposite of what parliamentary democracy was originally created to do, which is to put the power into the hands of every member of parliament. This leaves MLAs and MPs in a position where they need to vote with their parties even if they don’t agree with the position being put forward.

Now, let’s look at what’s happening in Britain right now. I checked right before question period. MPs are voting on a variety of options for a path forward from the quagmire that they are in because of Brexit. They’re choosing from eight options, including having another referendum.

How is it that they’ve gotten to this place? Well, the Prime Minister kept bringing forward her plans for Brexit, and the parliament and the parliamentarians within her own party and outside of her party disagreed with her and disagreed with the plan that she put forward and said: “No, we’re here to represent our constituents and the well-being of this entire country. We are not going to vote with you just because you’re the Prime Minister.”

They have demonstrated the way that a Westminster parliamentary system is supposed to work, in that every member of the parliament has exactly the same power as every other member. Whether you’re the Premier or the backbencher in the opposition or the backbencher in the government party or one of a three-member caucus, your vote is exactly 1/87 of the votes in this House.

[3:05 p.m.]

I say to each of the 83 MLAs in the other two parties: understand that you as an MLA have the same amount of power in this chamber as every other member, and you have every right to exercise your vote and your power exactly the way you want to do it. You should exercise that vote and that power in a manner that reflects the many views, the opinions and the perspectives of your constituents, while also putting the well-being of all citizens and all future citizens at the centre of your decision-making.

I’ve made an extensive case for the need for us to choose a direction for our province that leads us to a clean, prosperous, healthy, safe future — a future that we can be proud to leave as a legacy for future generations.

I’ve made the case to recognize that adding the single biggest point source emitter of greenhouse gases in the country’s history in 2019 makes no sense. We will be remembered for this moment. We will be looked back on in this moment, and it will be recognized that we made a choice that does not serve the well-being of every citizen of this province, and it certainly does not serve the well-being of every future citizen of this province.

It’s 2019. The science is clear. There’s no debate. We need to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions starting now, not dramatically increase them by giving government funds, taxpayer support, to an industry that only survives if it is subsidized.

It feels like we’re in a topsy-turvy world right now. It feels hard to believe that we’re even debating this. It feels like an enormous burden that we are trying to explain this to young people around B.C. and around this world that we are making this decision knowing what we know.

I am putting forward this amendment to refer this bill to committee, and I am making the case for every MLA to recognize that you can exercise your responsibility. You can exercise your power. You can choose to do what you know is the right thing.

Eighty-five percent of Canadians want to see their governments take action on climate change. That is an overwhelming majority of Canadians who are asking us as the elected representatives to do what they know needs to be done. We must act quickly. We must take this threat seriously.

I put this amendment forward. This is an opportunity for everyone in this House, everyone in this chamber to say, “I can do the right thing,” because we know that the right thing is not to increase our emissions at this time.

A. Weaver: I rise to speak in support of the amendment brought forward by my colleague from Cowichan Valley, the amendment to send Bill 10 to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for further review and deliberations.

Let me see if I can articulate in the words of the Minister of Agriculture exactly why this is important to do so. The Minister of Agriculture, back in April 6, 2016, said this — and this was in reference to the B.C. Liberals at the time: “They’re creating reckless legislation, which, in my mind, as someone who has always been an environmentalist, is absolutely reckless, irresponsible and disappointing. They’re creating this reckless legislation. They’re sweetening the deal as much as they possibly can, treating LNG like a loss-leader in a department store.”

Oh, how those words ring so very true right now. Those words ring so very true, but no, it is not with reference to the B.C. Liberals. It is with reference to this government of which the Minister of Agriculture is a member.

[3:10 p.m.]

We go to others who have spoken forth. We go to the Mini­ster of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, who has come up with some remarkable zingers while she was in opposition. “It’s just utterly ridiculous and irresponsible and reprehensible to sell out British Columbians for the next 25 years, not just for this industry but potentially others as well,” she says.

“People in my part of the world” — that would be Nelson — “view the environment and long-term environmental sustainable planning as one of the top priorities that any government should be considering, and that is not reflected in Bill 30,” at the time. “What is reflected, rather, is a desperate, desperate grasp at any deal put in front of them because promises were made in an election.”

Now, as I articulated yesterday, in further deliberations at second reading, and in support of both my reasoned amendment and my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands’ attempted amendment — an unsuccessful one — to hoist this, what is before us now is an amendment to send this to committee.

To send this to committee is important for a couple of reasons. We’ve heard a lot about the so-called benefits of LNG. We’ve heard about $23 billion of investment. And we’ve been told to “trust us. We know that’s true. But we’re not going to share that publicly because we’ve signed an agreement with a company.”

The government is not willing to put before this Legislature the detailed agreement that we are supposed to be supporting. We know that by going to committee, and only if this were to be sent to committee, would we be able to reflect and further quiz, as a Legislature, the government and proponents about the details of the plan. It’s an eminently reasonable suggestion. We’ve waited for so long, yet now we’re being rushed, in two days, to try to deliver what Christy Clark couldn’t. In essence, that’s the stick.

Here’s what happened. After the last election, I’m sure LNG Canada was a little antsy because the Liberals left and they were the champions of LNG. Unicorns, tooth fairies — all in your backyard. Maseratis for each and all of us. A $100 billion prosperity fund — that was the Liberal dream. When that election happened, LNG Canada was probably a little hurting.

Here’s what I’m pretty certain happened. A bunch of executives walked into the newly formed NDP government office and said this: “We’re going to leave unless you do this, this, this — that and this and this.” The NDP government’s response was: “Okay, let’s just do it. Let’s not reflect upon what the numbers are that you’re suggesting. We’ll believe it at face value.”

Here now we have before us a motion to send this to committee to allow, for the first time, this Legislature to probe the proponent, to probe government as to the numbers and the rhetoric that’s thrown out there, to probe to see to what extent those numbers are actually grounded in evidence.

To the credit of the B.C. Liberals, we actually had that opportunity with the Petronas agreement. As I recalled yesterday, time after time, MLA after MLA hurled abuse and vitriol at the B.C. Liberals. These were NDP MLAs doing that, because they didn’t like what they saw in the Petronas agreement. Yet here before us, the B.C. NDP take that corporate welfare to a whole new level.

The blog post that I’ll be writing later today describes it as this: this is corporate welfare on steroids — on steroids. We’ve already given $6 billion in deep-well royalty credits to the natural gas producers. We already know that this is an industry for which there’s a glut of natural gas globally, where Iran has 20 times all of Canada’s supply, where Russia has 20 times all of Canada’s supply, where Australia already has LNG fields that are not being developed because the market is not there for them. We know that the U.S. has three times the shale gas of Canada alone. We know that Louisiana already has clean compression, electric compressions.

[3:15 p.m.]

We know that this government doesn’t really like that because they want to refer to LNG Canada as the cleanest in the world and exempt them from the carbon tax increases above $30. They’ll redefine what “clean” is and forget about the fact that there are electric compressions elsewhere.

Most importantly, what this committee needs to reflect upon is not just the so-called benefits but the actual costs. What is the cost of the decertification of southern Europe? What is the cost of 80 percent of species on this planet being committed to extinction by the end of this century?

These are the questions that MLAs in government need to look at and ask themselves. They can put their faces in their paper. They can stay away from the chamber. We don’t even have quorum here on the government side in the chamber because they’re afraid to hear the truth. We have quorum in total; we don’t have it on the government’s side in terms of the number of people. We do have quorum. I’m not calling quorum, hon. Speaker. It’s there.

Frankly, we don’t have the government MLAs here that are supposed to deliver us the quorum because they’re afraid to actually have to listen to the cold, hard truth about what they’re going to support.

Eighty percent species extinction this century globally because of global warming. Commitment to a six-metre sea level rise because of global warming. Vector-borne diseases moving northward because of global warming. Forest fires like we’ve never seen before because of global warming. Drought, famine because of global warming. Frankly, the end of western civilization because of global warming.

Yet here in this chamber, we think it’s a balancing act. We need a couple of jobs, a hundred jobs, and we need to subsidize a multinational fossil fuel company that has no interest in British Columbia but is interested in filling the coffers of the shareholders in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, perhaps in the Netherlands. Yet this is being done for the goodness of the people of British Columbia.

Nobody talks about the cost. Nobody is talking about the cost. And let us be very clear: this is what B.C. NDP MLAs will be voting for today. They will be voting for putting this province on the pathway to join the biggest subsidizers of the fossil fuel industry in the world and to put us on a path from climate leaders to become climate laggers — a very serious accusation.

You do not tell British Columbians that you must cut your emissions by 98 percent by 2050. Every British Columbian must cut their emissions by 98 percent by 2050 to meet our target. “But, LNG Canada, you’re good, because we are going to let you add four megatonnes.” And then they’re going to add another two trains later this decade. This is what we’re doing.

All of the good hard work of every British Columbian in this province is for naught. It’s for naught because this government…. These NDP MLAs stood in the last election and had the gall — yes, the gall — to look British Columbians in the face and say: “We are environmentalists. We care about your future. We care about the climate. We care about the children’s future.”

Yes, I am invoking the children’s future because that is the very reason why I got into this building in the first place. I could not stand by in 2013 after witnessing the now Finance Minister, who was the former leader of this party, run the Axe the Tax campaign in 2009, a cynical, cynical campaign to undermine efforts to move us forward to cut emissions. I could not stand by and watch what happened in 2013.

It was tough running as a B.C. Green. It was tough, because the NDP sent in their hundreds of union workers to door-knock in Oak Bay because they didn’t want a beachhead. They switched — the famous weathervane switch — on Kinder Morgan because they were about environmental support. They’re going around meeting with environmental groups, saying: “We’re here for you.” But when actual legislation is before us, the true colours of the B.C. NDP are revealed.

They are not interested in the well-being of future generations. They are interested in the well-being of their friends, their union workers and, frankly, their re-election. I say to the NDP MLAs who vote for this, shame on you. Don’t you, for one second, ever come to me and say you are supporting climate change action in this province.

[3:20 p.m.]

This vote today — this singular vote today — will undermine all of the good efforts contained in CleanBC. We will add four megatonnes of emissions, the single biggest point source of emissions in Canadian history, to British Columbia’s emissions trajectory. We will add a 15 percent increase in emissions because of a four-train LNG facility. Don’t get me wrong. The pretence and the half-truths being told to the B.C. public about this being only a two-train facility are nothing more than idle rhetoric, because we know the environmental assessment process has already approved four trains for LNG Canada, and that’s eight megatonnes of emissions.

Any NDP MLA who stands up and votes for this…. There will be a day of reckoning, not only by the electorate but also by history. Historical books will be written, and this time will feature big and large in the history books, this time in British Columbia where we had a choice to make. We have two paths and two roads. One road is the road that we’ve tried so very hard to get the NDP to get behind, and they have in some sense — the road to recognize that innovation in the 21st century is the foundation of a vibrant, resilient, strong economy for that 21st century. That is where our strength is at. We build on our strategic strengths. We don’t chase the weaknesses of others.

It is only through sending this to committee that we will be able to explore this in further detail, which is why this amendment must be supported by the B.C. NDP and, hopefully, some B.C. Liberal members. I know there’s discomfort over there as well.

We’re not asking much here. My colleague from Cowichan Valley is simply asking that we as legislators do our due diligence. We have a duty and responsibility to future generations to ensure we reflect upon the true costs of what’s coming before us. Not just the idle rhetoric that is untested with no foundations and no evidence that somehow this is $23 billion. Not because the Premier gets to stand up and say: “I got to do what Christy Clark couldn’t.” Those are not reasons.

History will not be kind to this government. This government will be short-lived, and history will judge it accordingly. They’ll judge it as betraying an entire generation.

What we saw today in question period is really a microcosm of the bigger issue. We saw in question period haggling back and forth across the aisle. “We didn’t do ride-hailing. You didn’t do ride-hailing. You’re bad. We’re bad. Oh, make fun of you. You make fun of us.”

The reality is none of the people in this place did anything about ride-hailing. It’s only because of the B.C. Green caucus that we got to where we are and the countless hours we put in to drive this government to insist upon standing committees meeting, to insist upon bringing in regulations that will allow ride-hailing, to insist upon the introduction of an amendment that my colleague brought forward in the fall. If that amendment had not passed, we wouldn’t even be here talking. We know that both major ride-hailing companies would have walked if it were not for that amendment passing.

We continue to work hard with this government to try to advance good public policy, but here we throw up our hands. We throw up our hands in disbelief at the cognitive dissonance embodied by the NDP right now as they stand up and claim to be there for the environment.

They claim and have the gall to talk about the future generations. To see NDP MLAs clamouring over each other to get stuck in a photo shoot with the young children demonstrating here on the steps is enough to make you want to throw up. It honestly is. It is sickening to the core — the hypocrisy of the B.C. NDP MLAs standing with those children pleading for decision-makers, pleading for them to look out for their interests. We have a global movement of youth calling upon our leaders to stand up and actually put their interests in the decision-making, because they’re not here to be able to vote. They’re not part of our decision-making process, yet they live the consequences of the decisions we make.

None of us in this room — not a single one of us in this room — will have to live the consequence of the decision we’re making today. That consequence will manifest itself on the future generations, and God help them with the world we are leaving behind because of our irresponsible and utterly reckless approach to energy policy.

[3:25 p.m.]

I had hope for this government. I had a hope, when I saw CleanBC, that this government actually got it. But what I see now is they are no different. I would pull out a coin and flip it, but that would be considered a prop. What I would say by that is we have one coin in this House. We have one coin with two sides, and they’re exactly the same on both sides.

Ironically, the B.C. NDP take the Liberal giveaway to a whole new level. I might add some additional colour to that and suggest we have a fiscally irresponsible version of the same LNG cheerleaders over here, because they’ve taken the level of corporate welfare to a whole new level.

That, again, coming back to this motion, is precisely why it is so critical that we send this bill to committee — to ensure that the Legislature, all of us, can actually reflect upon the decision we’re making. Has there ever once in the history of this Legislature been an expert climate scientist pulled in front of a committee and told: “Tell us. What are the ramifications of our decision on future generations?” I safely say no. How many times have you pulled in an economist and said: “How much would our GDP change three years from now?” I’d say a lot.

How often, in decision-making that happens here, do we think about: “Will I get re-elected because of this?” An awful lot. In fact, I feel it’s fairly safe to say that most people in this place, sadly, are more interested in their re-election than they are in actually putting in place good public policy that will ensure that future generations inherit the quality of the environment that we were blessed to inherit from our forefathers.

Here today we are at this pivotal moment. It’s a moment that I ask each and every MLA to reflect upon, as my colleague from Cowichan Valley so beautifully articulated. Why are we here? What is a Westminster parliamentary democracy? What is our role as MLAs? Is it to dutifully stand like sheep because our Whip tells us we must vote this way? I’ve sat here for six years now and probably seen people vote against the party two times. Three times, maybe. One of them was when my colleagues and I shared a difference of opinion on a vote. No other time.

Why do we elect 41 NDP MLAs? Why bother? We should only elect three of them. They all say the same thing. They all do the same thing. They all stand like sheep and sing out…. I mean, we don’t see any kind of negative rhetoric coming about this bill, even though, again, I could go on with my 20 pages of quotes here. I could read more quotes, but I’m not going to because we’ve got the point. The point is hypocrisy like we’ve never seen before.

This government should be ashamed of itself. Those NDP MLAs who vote for this should be ashamed of themselves.

Interjection.

A. Weaver: The member opposite says I should be heckled. No, I think that that’s unfair. This is a very, very serious point that’s being raised. I’m appealing to you as well. Why are you not standing up? Why are you, the member from Delta North, not thinking…? You’re a farmer.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member, no….

A. Weaver: Through the Chair. Thank you. I understand.

Why are we not having the agriculture community…? The Minister of Agriculture, of all people — I’ve already read a quote — would stand up and argue in an election campaign: “No, no, no. You’ve got to vote NDP, because we’re there for the environment.” The Minister of Transportation, same thing.

I don’t know how many times on the campaign trail I had to listen to the vote-split narrative. “Oh, I’d love to vote Green, but I’m voting NDP. You know what? They’re good for the environment too.” Well, today is that day of reckoning. Show us. Show us what your real, true colours are. Are your true colours that you are a progressive party, one that cares about the future generations? Or, really, are you no different from the B.C. Liberals, just the other side of the same coin? How do you want to be remembered?

I’ll leave it with this: how do you want to be remembered in history? Do you want history books to pick up and turn the page and see the NDP member from this jurisdiction or that…? I know in which jurisdictions you’re feeling it from your constituents, because I’m getting copies of every single email going out. I know there are some MLAs who are hearing it from their constituents. I know that those same MLAs, if they actually voted their conscience, would stand up and support their constituents and vote with this motion to send it to a standing committee, because we know that that’s what their constituents want.

Not all. I suspect the member for Peace River North is on pretty safe ground. There seems to be cognitive dissonance out there in terms of the fact that we’re talking about forest fires, we’re talking about the caribou preservation, and we’re not putting the dots together. Why do you think we’re having forest fires, for goodness’ sake?

[3:30 p.m.]

In 2004, I wrote a paper with Nathan Gillett and Mike Flannigan. It was the first time we were able to detect that forest fires were already increasing because of global warming. We knew that in 2004, for heaven’s sake — 14 years ago. What’s the government’s response? “Oh, we need more money to fight fires.” No, you’ve got the wrong response. What you should be doing is recognizing that climate change is a very, very real threat.

Fighting fires is no good. You must prevent fires in the first place. But we don’t think that way in this place. We’re too narrowly focused on re-election, short-term decisions, and we’re too narrowly focused on: what’s in it for me, and how do I get a quick win? Nobody, other than these three here, is thinking about the long-term consequences of decisions here on future generations. That is a shame.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

With that, I hope NDP MLAs and Liberal MLAs do some soul-searching here as they think about this amendment and ask whether it is really that big a deal to send this to committee, to allow the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to actually reflect upon it. Call in some expert testimony. Make a recommendation as to whether or not this is actually, in the triple-bottom-line sense, good for British Columbians, because I suggest to you that it’s not.

I suggest to you that it’s hard to have a vibrant economy on a dead planet. I would suggest to you that we are putting ourselves right on that pathway, and rather than recognizing the opportunity, we are doing the very best we can to put us on this pathway to extinction. Is that what we want here?

I know it’s a big reach from one LNG facility to extinction. I recognize that. But what is important is to recognize that Canada is a signatory to the Paris Accord. The Paris Accord says that the global leaders, of which Canada is a signatory — our Minister of Environment was very proud to fly off to Paris and have photo ops — are going to take steps to commit warming to substantially below 2 degrees. Forget 1½ degrees. That’s long toast. But substantially below 2 degrees.

What does that mean, as I said yesterday? The direct translation of that policy statement is that there can be no new investment in fossil fuel infrastructures effective immediately, because you don’t build a two-to-four-train LNG facility to tear it down in five years. We have a legislated target of 80 percent greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, and we want to add four megatonnes, which will go to eight when you get four trains, by 2030.

That’s a 15 percent increase on all B.C. emissions, yet we have a legislated target to take us to 80 percent reductions. That means every British Columbian must reduce their emissions 98 percent. I’m pretty close to zero emissions as it is. But I challenge you to find every other person in the province to go to 98 percent emissions. It’s going be tough, and we’re making it tougher.

Let us look upon this upcoming vote. Let us look upon this upcoming vote, and let’s think about this with sombre reflection. A vote to not send this to committee is nothing short of a betrayal of future generations, nothing short of a betrayal to the voters of British Columbia and nothing short of a betrayal to the fiscal well-being of this province as we put another corporate subsidy on steroids to a fading fossil fuel industry that would not otherwise go on here in British Columbia, while at the same time, and this is what is so sad about it, missing out on those incredible opportunities for innovation in the north — incredible opportunities that we could have.

I don’t know how many times we’ve brought forward ideas for the north. Thank goodness we’re actually getting broadband redundancy in Prince George now. We waited for the B.C. Liberals to do that for years. We’re finally getting investment in broadband redundancy. We should be getting the tech sector together with the resource sector. We should be building on our forest sector. We shouldn’t be giving away our resources. We should be thinking about all of this through the lens of climate change adaptation and mitigation, because that is the defining issue of our time, that many of you will be judged, and you will be judged negatively.

With that, I ask and I plead with the members of this house. Vote in support of this amendment. You’re only sending it to committee for further deliberation. Thank you for your time.

[3:35 p.m.]

A. Olsen: I think that it’s important to acknowledge that my colleague from Oak Bay–Gordon Head comes to this place with more time spent with spreadsheets showing, painting, a picture, than perhaps all of us and maybe all legislators in this country combined. The numbers have been showing a picture for my colleague from Oak Bay–Gordon Head that has created the sense of urgency that you see here today, the desire for us to take just a few more months of time to take a look at this, to perhaps maybe review some of the things that my colleague and, in fact, his former colleagues and maybe some of his current colleagues, but former colleagues in this field of climate change.

What we’re asking for here today is but a brief pause, a brief moment to take a breath in this place, to not rush headlong into insanity but to maybe pause just for a few moments to take a look at some of the numbers that my colleague from Oak Bay–Gordon Head has been trying to make sense of. He’s been trying to tell the people of this province, the people of this country, the people of this world exactly what we have and what we’re being faced with.

It’s tough to sit in this place. It’s tough to hear this message. This is not a happy message. This is not a message that you deliver with a big cake and say: “Congratulations. You are about to make a decision that is going to take us one step closer to an extinction narrative that nobody wants to hear anything about.” But that’s the decision. There are all sorts of really feebly crafted and, in fact, very dangerous narratives that are being spun out in order to distract from this. I hear some of them.

I hear bits and pieces of them, that this is a more complex decision than the one that, in fact, we have to make today. I want to assure the members of this House that the complexity has been manufactured by humans. It’s not really that complex. There are not really labour issues that we need to deal with in this. There is not really a jobs narrative that we need to deal with in this. There’s not really a vote-counting or an urban-rural divide split narrative that we need to be dealing with. That is a construct. It’s a construct of political science. It’s not even science. It’s a pseudoscience. Political scientists have created those constructs.

The only conversation that we should be having here today is one about making a decision or not making a decision about sending us one step closer to less biodiversity, a more dangerous world. We heard in question period here today big, big words being talked about in this place about safety. “We need to make sure that we’re safe. All British Columbians need to know that they’re safe.”

Where is that conversation in the context of climate change? It’s nowhere to be found. We don’t care if our children and our grandchildren are safe. That is being spun under the rug in the discussion around labour. That’s being spun under the discussion on the jobs narrative, which became very, very popular under the former government.

It grew in popularity. It grew in popularity around the former federal government. It’s the one that I heard Donald Trump talking about this morning on the news. Jobs, jobs, jobs. What good are jobs going to do in a world that you can’t live on? You can’t eat money. You can’t eat jobs, and you can’t grow food in a world that has hostile growing conditions.

[3:40 p.m.]

I want to do a little bit of correcting the record. Yesterday in one of my speeches in the response to the amendment that I moved yesterday, I attributed a quote that I heard to some chiefs from the Nicola Valley. In fact, the quote that I heard came from a Democrat presidential candidate, or maybe a future presidential candidate for the Democrats, Pete Buttigieg.

Now, Pete Buttigieg is 37 years old. He’s a millennial and will be the first millennial to run for president. He’s the eight-year mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He’s gay, came out during his mayoral re-election. It shouldn’t be an interesting fact, but the reason why it is an interesting fact is because he’s a Democratic mayor in a red state, in an industrial Midwest town in the middle of Trump country — in fact, in Mike Pence’s state, the Vice-President.

He’s a pretty serious dude, for sure. He’s a pretty cool guy. I was watching a clip on one of the social media networks of Pete on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Some of the things that Pete was talking about — maybe President Buttigieg one day — were pretty in line with the kinds of things that we’re talking about today.

He was asked a question by Stephen Colbert. “You know, you’re a young man, Pete. Why would you run now? Why not wait for a little bit of salt and pepper” — till you looked a little bit like the member for Saanich North and the Islands? “Just wait a few years, and maybe you’ll look a little bit more tired and have a little bit more cynicism in you.”

He said: “You know what? Look, the reality here is that I have more experience than the current president, and it’s my generation that’s going to be on the business end of climate change. It’s my generation that’s going to be on the business end of climate change, so why shouldn’t I be here at this time? It’s not about how old you are. It’s about what the office needs at the moment and what you bring to the table.” That’s the same challenge that I think we are faced with here.

He also pointed out that economically, the millennials are the first generation that are going to make less than their parents’ generation did. Now, what does that say about their parents’ generation? I think it says a lot less about millennials than it does, say, about the parents and the grandparents.

What it says is that there has been a pretty devastating philosophical approach here, just cleaving to short-term decision-making — the kinds of discussions that have been going on and are still going on in this place, despite the fact we don’t want to think about it. We don’t want to actually agree that that’s what has been going on. He finishes that little bit by saying that no one has more at stake right now than the young people, so why not elect the young people.

Why did I go through that? I go through that because he says in this…. He gets asked a question at the very end of the interview. Colbert references President Trump, and he says that President Trump is about to call a national emergency right now about the border wall.

He says: “Pete, what would you consider a national emergency?” And Pete Buttigieg says this: “What I consider a national emergency is the two incidents that happened 18 months apart in my town. One was for a 1,000-year flood, and the other was for what we were told was a 500-year flood, which means either I have preposterous statistical luck, or we have a problem with climate change that’s not just happening on the North Pole. It’s happening in communities like mine. That’s an emergency.”

[3:45 p.m.]

So why would I confuse that with chiefs from the Nicola, you might ask? It’s because we were standing on the side of their river, and they talked about the preposterous statistical luck that they have, where they also experienced back-to-back, multigenerational floods in consecutive years, devastating their community, shutting their community off. In order to get from the Lower Nicola Band to Merritt took five hours because they had to drive all the way around. It’s a five-minute drive, for those of you that know the geography. This devastated their community for weeks.

The reason I got confused was because within the space of a week, I’d watched this video and I’d met with chiefs, and they basically told me the same thing. One was in South Bend, Indiana. The other was in rural British Columbia.

Those of us who are defending rural British Columbia, the defenders of rural British Columbia need to open their eyes to the fact that this is happening in our own backyard in rural British Columbia. We think that we need to deliver the people of rural British Columbia jobs — a jobs narrative. What we need to deliver the people of rural British Columbia is the same level of safety that is being purported by this government through their decision on ride-hailing and the defence that we heard earlier today in question period.

I’m glad that I was able to correct the record on that, and I’m sorry to the Chief of the Nicola. I’m sure that he may not mind me mixing up him with a presidential candidate. But nonetheless, I want to point out that what we are hearing here is we’re hearing from chiefs who have done an incredible job of leadership and another incredible leader down in the United States, a young man who’s running for president at 37. I’ve not seen anyone in this province with the kind of leadership qualities that I see in many of the chiefs, as they do more with less in their communities.

I think that it’s important, as we look at the amendment that we have in front of us, to ensure that we have the opportunity to be thoughtful in our processes here. I’ve been quite happy with the processes that are undertaken in the committees, where multiple parties can get together and have this conversation, ask the questions, bring the experts in and ask them to provide us advice. It’s still up to government to heed the advice. They may or they may not, but at least we can say that we’ve done the work. At least we can look the children in the eyes and say: “Yes, we’ve done the work.”

There’s another aspect of this which I really want to highlight; that is, somehow we have allowed the oil and gas industry here to hijack the word “industry.” The two have become synonymous. They are not synonymous. The reason I know they’re not synonymous is because I have industry in my riding that’s not oil and gas and that does brilliant work. In fact, I’ve been going on a tour of the businesses in my riding — in Keating Business Park, in the Sidney–North Saanich industrial park.

The combination of those two business parks generates about $1 billion. Again, I want to emphasize the “b” in “billion” because we hear that we need to do that from the oil and gas industry, to emphasize what kind of impact they’re having. But there’s $1 billion worth of economic activity that is being generated out of two business parks in my riding. We’ve got high tech. We’ve got medium tech. We’ve got low tech. We’ve got clean tech. We’ve got every kind of company that you can think of.

We’ve got companies that are making stuff out of plastics. Yes, I understand that that starts as a fossil fuel. We’ve got companies that are making innovations in MRI machines.

Absolutely, my riding isn’t the only one that has industry. Thank you to the member for Cowichan Valley for reminding me of Pacific Energy Stoves and Live Edge, industries in the riding of Cowichan Valley. We look at the ridings across this province, and I’m sure that we can have a discussion about the incredible businesses that are generating revenue there.

[3:50 p.m.]

I want to do everything I can. If we are going to fracture conversations here — good word, “fracture” — then let’s fracture the connection that’s been made between industry and oil and gas so that the two are just synonymous. Meaning that we can actually have a conversation about industry in this province and it not be only in the context of oil and gas, because there’s a level of an absurdity there.

We’ve got manufacturing companies, design companies. We have critically important job creators, innovators, investors, entrepreneurs. These are people that create jobs, that are creating jobs in this province right now, that are making the difficult decisions about whether they feed themselves or create the next opportunity for their employees to eat. We know that, as entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs make decisions that sacrifice their own well-being often in order to be able to support the families that they have hired.

What’s so frustrating about this? In addition to…. Not only have we allowed the oil and gas industry to hijack this word “industry,” but those industries on the Saanich Peninsula have been asking the government, for the last decade, to help them out. So it doesn’t matter what brand of government has been in place. They have ignored those industries.

When I was on municipal council, district of Central Saanich, those businesses came to us, and they said: “We need help from the provincial government in better transportation services, transit, to connect where people live to where people work. We need more affordable housing in the area, and we need to be able to attain housing. If they can’t attain housing, then we need to be able to get them transported out to here, and we need access to better skilled labour.”

Now, what’s fascinating about this is that all levels of government — it doesn’t matter whether it would be the former B.C. Liberals or the current B.C. NDP — have talked about better transit, have talked about better housing and have talked about increasing investments in skilled labour. Yet for years, a decade, those businesses on the Saanich Peninsula have been asking for the government’s support to get access to those three things, and the pleadings of those companies have fallen on deaf ears. Why, after a decade, are they still asking for the same thing, the same three messages?

I did a podcast with a friend of mine, John Jurisic. He’s been leading that charge. We talked about how frustrating it has been that the same message be delivered over and over and over again and nobody do anything about it.

Instead, what are we doing? Instead, we’re up, chasing LNG companies, chasing gas down well holes, chasing them all over the province in order to be able to land the big unicorn in this province. We’ve got people who have invested in this province today asking for the support of their provincial government, asking for access to the resources that they need to be able to not just get by but to thrive, to hire more people, to create more prosperity in this province.

We’ve got this jobs government and anti-jobs government narrative that’s been going on, us versus them, black versus white, good versus evil — the ongoing long-standing narrative of humanity, good versus evil, in this place, split by this aisle that goes right down this place.

Not once have they had anybody come out and offer a solution to help them make their companies more prosperous. Not only have they been ignored, but it goes a step further than that. They’ve had further obstacles put in their way. They were hit with the employer health tax.

“You know what? Thank you for doing what you’ve been doing. Thank you for helping us out. Now, by the way, guess what. We are going to do a giant tax shift. We’re going to take the MSP,” which nobody wants to pay and needs to be gone…. It’s a regressive, crazy-making tax on people. Wouldn’t call it a tax, because the last government didn’t do taxes. They did other things. But nonetheless, it was a tax. “We’re going to take that, and we’re going to shift it right onto businesses, because it’s a great place to hide this tax. We’re going to call it employer health tax. By the way, you need to remain competitive by assuming that tax.”

That’s what they got. That’s the thanks that they got.

Interjection.

A. Olsen: That’s fine, but that’s the thanks that they got. It’s worse than that, though, Member, my friend. It’s different than that.

[3:55 p.m.]

It goes further than that, because not only did they get hit with the employer health tax, but they were hit with increased corporate taxes. That happened. They were not given the break on the PST that the LNG golden child was given. “Oh, don’t worry about it. You just don’t pay PST. Everyone else: you compete with this PST.” LNG golden child, big unicorn — no PST.

Carbon tax. “You don’t like that. Don’t worry about it. It’s all good. We’ve got you covered. No worries. Electricity, hydro — no worries. You know what? You can play a bunch of mathematical games and stuff. That’s fine too. We’ll let that slide.”

The companies in my riding, not quite so lucky. They’re covering on all of that. You know what makes me really just uncomfortable about this whole thing? That LNG Canada not only had the gall to give that list to British Columbia, but they said: “We also want a break on tariffs of aluminum and steel from the federal government or else we’re not going to come. We’ll throw a little fit over here in the corner if you don’t give it to us.”

At a time when tariffs on steel and aluminum were being slapped all over the place and the Prime Minister of this country was in Dofasco or Stelco out in Hamilton with the steelworkers all around him, getting pats on the back, saying, “I’m standing up for you,” they were talking about letting LNG Canada off the hook for aluminum and steel tariffs.

Those companies that are manufacturing state-of-the-art products in my riding are telling me: “You know what? Those steel and aluminum tariffs are a real burden on us right now.” Maybe not even in the way you think, but because aluminum and steel from Asia is not coming on the boat to the United States, it’s costing us more to get it, because we have to have special shipping to get it here. It’s hurting them in a bunch of different ways.

Not only do we give them that whole tax break, the $6 billion of corporate welfare that we gave them to build housing and transit and to train more skilled labourers, we’re also saying to them: “You’re going to have to compete in a marketplace where you don’t get the kind of steel and aluminum breaks that the golden boy gets.” I almost want to do like a Ric Flair — whoo! — but anyway…. Well, I just did.

Compete away in a marketplace that’s tough and that we continue to make tougher. We’re not going to help you out. We’re not going to do what you want us to do. But we are going to celebrate you. We are. We’re going to celebrate you. We’re going to celebrate the Viking heirs of the world. When we need you, we’ll do a ribbon cutting there. But really, we’re going to just allow this LNG, this massive project, to be built by the partners in Asia and floated in chunks here.

Every single time they come to the table and say, “Give us more; give us more; give us more,” we say: “We give you more; we give you more; we give you more.” The people who’ve invested in this province are looking at it and going: “What the…?” You fill in the blank.

I’m going to end with this. There’s a lot of misinformation about what the B.C. Green caucus is — anti this, anti that, against this, against that. It is misdirection. It’s misinformation, and it’s wrong, because we are for the economy.

I think I just demonstrated that we are for a strong, vibrant economy. We are also for a sane economy; a resilient, sustainable, diversified economy and a modern agile, flexible economy, not one that goes all in on grandpa’s technology. My late grandpa, may he rest in peace.

[4:00 p.m.]

We are for social justice. Some will say: “You don’t support labour. You don’t support social justice issues. You’re Greens. You can’t support those because there’s another party that already does that.”

Well, I want to tell the people of British Columbia and the people in this room that yes, we do. Yes, we do believe in social justice issues in this province. Yes, we do believe in protecting workers and making sure that we look after our people and that we do it with love. And we do it with compassion and that we’re empathetic. That is who we are.

And yes, we are for healthy ecosystems, which is just absolutely insane to even be saying those words out loud. We like clean air. We really like clean water. We like plants and animals, and we like other humans. We like biodiversity. We take great pleasure in walking through healthy forests and standing on beaches that are not covered in plastic. We like those things, and we support them.

We are a pretty balanced, thoughtful group here. This is not insanity that you’re seeing coming out of us. We’re not throwing a fit here for some small reason. We are making statements here. We’re asking, through this amendment, to ensure that there is a thoughtful process in this and not that we just usher this thing through, that we don’t just accept the 18-page, or whatever it is, PowerPoint presentation — the pitch that sold us this — and that we actually take some time and think about it.

As a wise Indigenous proverb said: we didn’t inherit the earth from our parents. That’s right. We are borrowing it from our children and our grandchildren.

I want to come back to our children and our grandchildren. I want to come back to those kids that were standing on the front steps. I want to just say this. It’s not right that the children, our children, are being turned into activists by the decisions that we make in this room. They should be in school learning or in nature learning. My daughter often learns in nature, not in a classroom. They should be feeling that their learning matters.

As I made a comment in my previous statement, it’s a pretty sad state when our youth are, like: “Ah, whatever.” I mean, I skipped school for a lot of reasons. Well, a couple reasons, primarily. I didn’t skip school because I didn’t think my learning mattered. That’s pretty sad. They should be able to trust that their leaders are going do what they said they’re going to do. They should be able to trust us. They should be able to take the words in this place and recognize that there’s some consistency from year to year, from session to session, from parliament to parliament. And I can say that on this issue, that’s not been the experience of the members of the current government.

I want to just finish by acknowledging, as we wrap up our talking points, our talking on this issue, the work of our staff downstairs. They have done a tremendous job. We have a small team. They are a powerful team. Evan, Claire, Aldous for keeping us all here and in place, and the rest of the team: thank you, thank you, thank you for the work that you’ve done to prepare us to be able to come and stand in this place, to stand for the kids, to stand for British Columbia and to stand for a future worth living in.

HÍSW̱ḴE.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the question is on the amendment proposed by the member for Cowichan Valley.

[4:05 p.m. - 4:10 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: Members, it’s been moved: “That the motion for second reading of Bill (No. 10) intituled Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019 be amended by deleting all the words after ‘that’ and substituting therefore the following: ‘Bill (No. 10) not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.’”

Amendment negatived on the following division:

[4:15 p.m.]

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

On the main motion.

M. Morris: It’s interesting. I sit here and listen to members of the Green Party pontificate about the virtues of no LNG, no fossil fuel use. The member talking about the businesses on the Saanich Peninsula and on Vancouver Island in general…. We can look at that.

If it wasn’t for the fossil fuel industry, the industry wouldn’t be here on Vancouver Island in the first place. The fuel that the industry relies on all the time — the plastics, the components, just about everything that we need in order to survive and make a living for our families — hinges upon the fossil fuel industry that we have, not only here but around the world.

You know, we’re strong supporters. The B.C. Liberals have been strong supporters of LNG. We’ve heard that many times from government members when they were sitting across the hall here. It’s been our focus for years, and it needs to have a strong focus in order to move these strategies forward and make these things come to fruition at the end of the day.

LNG should be a major component of any poverty reduction plan. I didn’t see that in the poverty reduction plan proposed here, but LNG, natural gas, creates jobs. We have a $40 billion investment in the LNG plant and the pipeline. That’s just the start of a major industry. LNG is jobs. Jobs are a poverty reduction strategy.

There are jobs created by government, based upon our tax dollars that we pay, and there are jobs created by private investment, which is exactly what the LNG industry is. We have approximately $1 billion in benefit agreements the entire length of the pipeline leading from northeast B.C. to the coast. That $1 billion worth of agreements, those investment strategies are benefiting First Nations communities. It’s going to draw those communities out of poverty. It’s going to give those people an opportunity. It’s going give them a chance to participate in the economy in British Columbia.

These First Nations communities are desperate for these opportunities. They’re desperate for these opportunities. They’re looking for economic development opportunities so they can put the men and women in their communities to work. They’re looking for opportunities to make their residents welders, fabricators. In the transportation industry, they’re training them to be equipment operators and truck drivers. They’re training them for the service industry, which flourishes with investments like a $40 billion liquefied natural gas plant — hotels, restaurants, retail outlets.

There are opportunities for people that have never had an opportunity in northwest B.C. before throughout the entire central Interior, throughout the entire northeast part of British Columbia where we have the supply side. Who in their right mind would turn down an opportunity like this? Who in their right mind would turn down an opportunity to lift hundreds and thousands of people out of poverty with something like this? B.C. needs natural gas.

You know, what I find amazing is…. I’m very pleased to see that government, the NDP party, has come around to supporting the B.C. Liberal natural gas strategy that we started many, many years ago. It just astounds me to see this transition that has happened in such a very short period of time, just over the last couple of years.

I listen to the Green Party members when they reflect upon NDP comments. I know the Green Party leader had pages and pages of NDP comments that he captured from Hansard, criticizing just about everything that we did when we were in government, when we were trying to push the LNG portfolio forward, explaining the virtues of LNG and the opportunities that everybody in British Columbia would get as the result of an LNG industry in British Columbia.

[4:20 p.m.]

It’s just such as an amazing transition to see NDP members now sitting in government supporting the same things that we supported in the LNG industry when we were in government ourselves. They’ve come around to our way of thinking. It’s just absolutely amazing.

There’s an article I happened to read this morning in Bloomberg. It’s a media outlet. It was published two days ago. It was saying that electricity demand rose 4 percent globally, around the world, in 2018 and was responsible for half the growth in the overall energy demand that we saw globally. So 4 percent — that’s a pretty significant increase in global demand.

Here’s a quote from that article. It says: “Global coal demand grew for the second consecutive year in 2018, driven by Asia’s appetite for the dirtiest fossil fuel. Even as coal’s share of the global energy mix declined, it remains the world’s largest source of electricity. Natural gas use rose 4.6 percent, its fastest growth since 2010.”

Here we have an opportunity. We have B.C. gas in abundance up in the Montney play in the Dawson Creek area. We have B.C. gas that’s available to help shut down these coal-fired generators around the world, whether they be in China, India, wherever they might be. Natural gas is a much cleaner-burning fuel, and it will significantly mitigate the amount of GHG emissions once we shut these coal plants down.

For the Green Party and those who might be opposed to it to say that we don’t want to ship our natural gas out of the province here…. We are doing the world a favour by doing this. We are doing the world a favour by shutting down these coal-fired electrical generation plants around the world, wherever they may be, and providing a cleaner fossil fuel for them to burn.

But the benefit of that is that we have probably one of the most rich liquid natural gas fields in the world, with the Montney play. And the liquids that we have up there are some of the components that we see in modern transportation throughout the world that keep our world functioning, keep everything working.

Even the member for Saanich North and the Islands…. Even his folks down there benefit from the natural gas liquids that we have. The polypipes that are in the ground carrying water to your home are because of the natural gas industry. The polypipes that carry the wastewater from your home into the waste treatment centres are from natural gas, a derivative of natural gas.

The polymers that we use in plywood, in chipboard, in vinyl, in all the plastic pieces that we have in society, come from the natural gas area. Just looking on line this morning at a statistic — I don’t know how accurate it is, but I’ll throw it out there — that 50 percent of the fuselage on a Boeing aircraft today is polymers, comes from natural gas derivatives, the liquids that we have in the natural gas.

Here we are, shipping natural gas across the world to try and reduce GHGs by reducing the amount of coal-fired generators that we see, and then we’re taking those same liquids and we’re contributing to a modern transportation system. The electric cars that some members may be driving, thinking that…. They are contributing to lower GHGs by driving electric versus gasoline-powered vehicles, but a lot of the components in those cars are plastic and are made from the derivatives of the liquids in natural gas.

Tires. All of those components are parts that we need to appreciate when it comes to natural gas. So that’s the, I guess, bonus part. Here we are, shipping the natural gas where we’ve got a land-locked supply good for 150 years or more. We ship it over to countries that can use it to help lower their GHG emissions, and then we can take those liquids, and we can transpose them into petrochemical products that the entire world can use. We can’t exist without these types of products.

[4:25 p.m.]

B.C. Liberals recognize the important and crucial role that B.C. natural gas has in the economic security of British Columbia in reducing the global GHG emissions. We took that seriously. That was part of our planning. And other than the Greens, I haven’t heard anybody opposing that. Again, I go back to this wonderful transition that I’ve seen with the NDP coming around to the B.C. Liberal way of thinking when it comes to the LNG strategy. I think that’s fantastic. It’s good news and good to see that everybody is supporting it on the NDP side.

But we have concerns. I looked at the bill, Bill 10, and we do have some concerns with Bill 10. One of the things that I looked at…. And we’ll dig into it a little bit more when we have the opportunity at the committee stage to pop the hood open and just see exactly what makes this LNG tax bill tick. I don’t have a problem with corporations — and perhaps government, but corporations more — protecting their proprietary information that they have, the information about how they operate and how they run. But I’ve got a problem with the public — this is a public-owned resource — not being able to see exactly what this agreement is all about.

Part of that bill is repealing the previous legislation that we had in place where these project agreements on LNG were made public. And in this particular case, it’s not public, and it’s cause for concern for us on this side of the House. It’s cause for concern with the public. They want to know exactly what this bill looks like and what this agreement looks like. Have they sold the farm? I think that’s a very important component that needs to be addressed, and we’ll look at that at the committee stage.

The other part of it is that there’s nothing in the bill and nothing that we know about in this agreement that’s so secret that guarantees that it will be B.C. natural gas that is liquefied and shipped to Asia or wherever these other markets are. There’s nothing that we can see that guarantees it’s B.C. natural gas from the Montney that is used in this. It could be Alberta gas. It could be a number of different sources because of the pipeline construction that we have in the northeast part of B.C. and on over to the west coast.

There are a couple of other issues here as well. The bill talks about a corporate tax rate at 9 percent. What’s stopping another jurisdiction like Alberta or elsewhere in undercutting this 9 percent rate that this bill stipulates? I think this is an issue that needs to be addressed as well. There’s a number of factors because of the secrecy behind this that will cause us to raise our eyebrows as we go through the committee stage. And we’re going to be asking a lot of these hard questions at the committee stage to try and obtain the numbers and the facts of these agreements to make sure that British Columbians are getting the deal that they deserve.

Notwithstanding, we do have a $40 billion investment that is being built in British Columbia, the largest in Canadian history from what I understand. We have a pipeline that’s going to connect to it. There’s an opportunity for a couple more trains to be added to this LNG plant at some particular point in time in the future. Again, more investment, more jobs, more people lifted out of poverty, particularly in our First Nations communities, more benefit agreements for everybody that will be involved in that whole process.

I can also see the development of a very significant petrochemical industry in the province here that will be able to use those liquids and put them to good use to further the technology and the various advancements in transportation systems and household goods right around the world here.

At the end of the day, we do need LNG in this province. We do need the jobs in this province as part of a poverty reduction strategy. But I’m curious. There’s really no transparency in this bill, and I think that when we pop the hood open, I’m hoping that government will reveal some of the details in these agreements so that British Columbians know that they’re getting a bang for their buck out of this.

I wait with bated breath and perhaps will be participating in the committee stage when we get there.

[4:30 p.m.]

T. Stone: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise and speak to Bill 10, which is a critical piece of legislation that will essentially enable the LNG industry to firmly plant itself here in British Columbia. It certainly will be no surprise to, I think, any member of this House and anyone who knows me well outside of this House that I have been a very strong supporter of building a brand-new industry in British Columbia, this liquefied natural gas industry.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

I was very, very proud to have served in the former government, which did so much good work in laying the foundation for this new LNG industry here in British Columbia.

I’m very proud of the efforts of our former Premier, Christy Clark. I’m very proud of the efforts of the former minister responsible, the current member for Langley East. I’m very proud of the work from the member from Abbotsford, the former Finance Minister, and all of my colleagues, all of the men and women in our former government that really banded together and worked in partnership with First Nations, local communities, the federal government, obviously all of the regulatory agencies and, indeed, industry, to put in place the framework and the policies and the protocols that would enable this new industry to not just be established here in British Columbia but, indeed, to hopefully flourish and grow.

This industry will exist and will grow and will play a significant role in the lives of thousands of British Columbians and the economy of this province for decades to come. That really begins with this reality. That is, that we are very fortunate as British Columbians to have a massive abundance of natural gas, particularly in the northeast region of our province.

This huge resource that we have in natural gas has the potential to create thousands of jobs, to generate millions upon millions of dollars of net new revenues for the provincial government to invest in services. It has the potential to change people’s lives, to change entire communities for the better, to provide hope in places where hope has been a rare commodity for far too long. So again, I’m very, very proud that as a member of the former government, the former Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, I was able to lock arms with people that also understood the promise of this vision.

The work hasn’t been easy. It hasn’t been easy for the current government either. The regulatory realities, rightfully so, here in British Columbia and in our country, are tough. The regulatory requirements that must be met by industry, the environmental reviews and assessments, both provincially and nationally, that have to be met, are stringent.

The engagement and the consultation that’s required for these projects with First Nations and local communities is very, very important. In fact, it’s critical to these projects actually being able to move forward. Indeed, there is a requirement for collaboration amongst all levels of government that has to be a signature on the front end of these projects.

[4:35 p.m.]

That certainly was a tremendous amount of the effort that went into putting the roots down for this new industry by the former government and by countless First Nations communities across British Columbia — local communities, as well, and many British Columbians.

The benefits of this particular project, which have been extolled by members on both sides of this House in this particular second reading of this piece of legislation, are significant. There is no question of that.

We talk about the $40 billion capital investment. I believe about $23 billion or $24 billion will be invested here in British Columbia in the plant and in the pipeline. When we talk about the $23 billion in net new revenues over a 40-year time frame, these are revenues that will be critical for health care and education, for skills training, for environmental protection programs, for investments in a more sustainable economy and for helping this province and our country do our part towards transitioning to the renewable energy sources of the future — and doing so more quickly.

In addition to the capital investments I’ve just outlined and the net new revenues that are anticipated, this particular project in Kitimat — LNG Canada’s project — will also result, likely, in the requirement for tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars of additional investment in the years ahead upstream, in the gas plants. This project will result in an estimated 10,000 construction jobs and 950 permanent jobs.

There is also a very likely upside potential in the years ahead. You talk to energy analysts, and you review the material that is available that projects demand for different energy sources, including natural gas. The projections for the years ahead is that demand will continue to increase. That will result in an uptick in the royalty revenues that we will see flow into the coffers here in British Columbia.

We certainly hope that that’s the case. We certainly hope that that is what transpires. But that is certainly what independent energy analysts and those that are up close and personal with this industry, and with the energy industry generally, are indicating. That should be good news that will flow to British Columbians as a result of this project.

Of course, there is tremendous value in the liquids that will be extracted from the natural gas — ethane, propane, butanes and natural gasoline. These are valuable commodities that are being extracted and sold. The natural gas will then be piped to the terminal.

This particular project does hold out significant promise as a foundational investment for this new LNG industry. Some have referred to this particular project as almost an anchor tenant. You want to think about it in those terms. This project has the potential to attract other investments, other LNG projects, whether that be the Woodfibre project or others that are well down the path in their regulatory and approval processes.

I’m certain, however, that while I don’t know for sure which of those additional projects may happen and exactly when, what the ownership groups will look like and what the total capital investments will be, some of those projects will happen if this first one goes. I’m certain, however, if this project were not to go, it’d be less likely that we would see other projects.

I think that there’s a tremendous amount of potential here, within the context of this brand-new industry, that will flow from this initial and very significant investment — an investment and a statement of confidence that this company is making in moving forward in British Columbia.

[4:40 p.m.]

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the contributions of the member for Skeena, the former chief of the Haisla people. This is a gentleman who I first met back shortly after I was first elected in 2013, on one of many tours I was privileged to partake in, in the Kitimat area — and a number of different potential LNG projects, including LNG Canada’s. Chevron was one of the first ones in there.

I was struck, immediately upon meeting the member for Skeena, when he explained to me that the pursuit of these projects, and the LNG Canada project in particular, was a game changer for his people. It was a way for his people to embrace the tools of economic development, to embrace the opportunities that flow from creating a bunch of family-supporting, high-paying jobs. It was a way for him to help break the cycle of poverty in his community.

He set about to work hard on behalf of the Haisla to negotiate in good faith with the province, with the federal government and with regulatory authorities. He will tell you, as I believe he did earlier this week in his comments, that it was not easy, and it was not always pretty. Having gotten to know him quite well, he is a tough negotiator.

Underlying those negotiations, underlying those tough moments of back-and-forth and underlying those many moments, I’m sure, of the member for Skeena, his colleagues, negotiating team and his people wondering if any of these projects would ever happen, if they would ever be able to actually realize the potential on behalf of their kids and grandkids…. It’s all coming to fruition.

I again want to thank the member for Skeena for the leadership, the vision and the unwavering commitment that he has demonstrated to not just his people but to all Indigenous people and, indeed, to all British Columbians, that, again, the best poverty reduction plan strategy to meet the objectives of a poverty reduction plan is to have people working, to create good-paying jobs for people.

Now this brings me to, again, my time in Transportation and spending a lot of days and weeks up in the northwest and along Highway 16 and in Terrace and Kitimat and right through to Prince Rupert, meeting with mayors and councillors, meeting with First Nations chiefs and councils, and being introduced to their communities, and being told over and over again the realities that they were experiencing in their communities, which was generally no growth.

That was generally reflected in their young people graduating high school and then leaving town, leaving their community. It was largely reflected in small businesses struggling to barely make ends meet.

It was largely reflected in walking down through downtowns like in Terrace and certainly in Kitimat and in Prince Rupert — and every second or third door or window reflected a vacant space because the town had clearly seen better days — and talking to these folks about what life will be like when these kinds of projects finally get the go, when people are finally put to work and when people can finally see that there is a reason to be hopeful and optimistic about the future in their particular community.

[4:45 p.m.]

I remember going in to meet with the Lax Kw’alaams. It’s a nation about 30 kilometres north of Prince Rupert. I believe I visited there first in July of 2015. I was there, again in a context of good faith on behalf of the province, to announce a number of projects we were partnering on with the Lax Kw’alaams.

I remember the journey in, on Tuck Inlet Road. It was a gravel road, but it was pretty dusty. It was full of potholes. The bridges were one-lane bridges. You really didn’t want to probably go over them at night, certainly not in fog. It was a challenge to get goods, not to mention their people, in and out of their community on a reliable basis.

We were there to work in partnership with them, which resulted, in part, in a sweeping benefits package, a benefits deal, that was signed. We were there to announce that Tuck Inlet Road would be paved, and it has been. We were there to announce enhanced ferry service for the ferry that takes people to the start of Tuck Inlet Road. Those improvements were all made.

I remember talking to the mayor of Lax Kw’alaams at the time. He was trying to express to me how important those infrastructure investments were for his people. He was trying to impress upon me the importance that jobs represented to his people. He said: “Let me take you down to the fish-processing plant, and you’ll see what opportunity looks like.” So we did, and there were a whole bunch of his people working hard, making some good money.

He then took me to the recreation centre. I was immediately struck. It was this beautiful building, complete with basketball courts and a huge swimming pool that rivalled anything that I had seen in my own community in Kamloops. This was, again, a small community of barely 3,000 people. He said: “You know, those jobs helped pay for this swimming pool.”

The swimming pool was important because, frankly, as he said to me — and this is me paraphrasing: “We had a very serious issue of suicides, our youth in our community, because our kids were hopeless. Their parents weren’t working. The kids had nothing to do.” They had tried all kinds of different things, but the community made a big, bold decision in supporting his idea to put this rec centre up and this pool. He said: “You know, the best part of it is when those doors opened, in the several years since, we haven’t had a single suicide in our community.”

That’s the value of people working. That’s the tangible benefit represented in investments in a community that are possible because people are working. That’s how you can change lives in a community, a remote community.

Now, of course, that particular project, didn’t go — Pacific NorthWest LNG. It may still one day. It didn’t go. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t go. But I use that experience that I had in that community to reflect the experience that I had in so many First Nation communities and non–First Nation communities throughout the northwest, as just a way to underline the importance of moving ahead with these kinds of projects, the importance of doing what it takes to ensure that there are projects like these that will provide good-paying, family-supporting jobs, particularly in rural and remote communities across the province.

[4:50 p.m.]

Now, I know this government is making a series of investments in different areas and different types of infrastructure in northern B.C. The former government did as well. I was very pleased to announce and then open the Northwest Regional Airport in Terrace and Kitimat, which was bursting at the seams back in 2015, right in the epicentre of all of the excitement and the energy of multiple LNG projects that were well down the path in their various regulatory and FID processes.

We partnered with the federal government on a lot of different projects to invest in the kinds of infrastructure that would be needed to facilitate the capacity that was being driven in this region because of these projects. Those kinds of investments in infrastructure will continue to need to be made — in the roads and in the bridges, eliminating road-rail conflicts, and in airports.

We will be holding the government to account to ensure that outside of this particular agreement or this bill that deals with LNG Canada’s agreement with the province, the government continues to also invest in the community infrastructure that’s needed to support the economic growth that is going to take place in this beautiful part of our province.

We have an opportunity, as part of this particular piece of legislation, to also scrutinize what the government has actually agreed to in the agreement. Now, the agreement is not part of this bill. There are aspects of the agreement which have been made public. There are many financial details which have not been made public.

We will be exploring very thoroughly, in committee stage on this bill, a broad range of questions that we have about the actual financial details contained in the agreement that the province has signed with LNG Canada. That’s important. It’s important for British Columbians to know what has been agreed to. It’s important, we think — and we think British Columbians agree with us — to understand what the puts and takes were, what the impacts are of what has been agreed to.

We want to make sure that B.C. natural gas will be the priority in this project. Our former government had built a financial structure through our negotiations with Pacific NorthWest LNG, an agreement that was brought, in its entirety, into this Legislature for scrutiny of all members and all British Columbians. We built into that agreement mechanisms to ensure that it was B.C. gas that would be used by the proponent in this project. That doesn’t exist, as best as we can tell, in what the government has agreed to.

We’ll have some questions around that. We’ll have some questions around what guarantees the province of British Columbia, the New Democratic government, can provide British Columbians that B.C. gas, B.C. molecules will actually be the priority.

We will be spending a fair bit of time asking questions about who will actually be working on this project, who will actually be building it. Where are the commitments, the guarantees that British Columbians will be first in line for the jobs, the 10,000 construction jobs that will be required, that are estimated for this particular project?

We had built into our agreement with Pacific NorthWest very specific requirements around hiring British Columbians as a priority, then hiring Canadians and then, of course, recognizing that, yes, there are others from outside of the country, certain expertise in certain areas that will need to be brought in. But British Columbians needed and still need to be the priority in this particular project.

We don’t see those same commitments or guarantees detailed in this arrangement that the government appears to have entered into with LNG Canada. So we’ll have questions around that. British Columbians are depending on us to make sure that they will be first in line on this project.

[4:55 p.m.]

The same goes for procurement generally. We spent a tremendous amount of time, in our former government, to assist small businesses, medium-sized businesses and some large businesses in British Columbia — British Columbia–based businesses built and grown here in this province of ours — to help them build the capacity that they need in order to be able to successfully bid on procurement opportunities for the various aspects of this project, LNG for B.C.

Sadly, we don’t see those kinds of commitments or guarantees in this particular agreement. We don’t hear the government talking about or making those kinds of commitments to the small and medium-sized businesses in British Columbia. So we’ll have a series of questions about that reality.

Of course, we’ll want to make sure and British Columbians will want to make sure that they understand the government’s intent by including a 9 percent floor for the corporate tax in this agreement. To understand what life will look like if…. Let’s just go out on a wild limb here and suggest that there’s a reasonable chance of a change of government in Alberta. The UCP party leader is promising to lower Alberta’s corporate tax rate from what it is today to 8 percent. That would be a full percentage below the 9 percent threshold or floor set in this legislation.

What guarantees are there for British Columbians that revenues booked by this project will actually be booked here in British Columbia and not in a lower tax jurisdiction next door, like Alberta? Very valid questions that we’ll be asking on that theme as well.

We’ll be canvassing the impact and the analysis that surely the government has done with respect to the broader implications of a $30-per-tonne cap on the carbon tax. When I say the broader implication, I’m referring to all those pulp mills and sawmills and mines that are operating today, not to mention other proponents that may be in varying stages of regulatory approval that are going to be asking this government: “Well, what about us? Why don’t we get the $30-per-tonne carbon tax rate?” We all know that it’s going up to $40 per tonne on April 1, and it’s scheduled to go up again to $50 a tonne next year.

There are significant implications for business competitiveness as it is with the carbon tax and the planned increases. But there will be an equity issue here with this particular corporation receiving a cap at $30 per tonne that would appear not to be available to any other businesses, not to mention British Columbians.

I live in Kamloops. I drive a pickup truck. The costs to heat your home, the costs to drive your truck, the costs to work are far more expensive the further away from the Lower Mainland you get. Mr. Speaker, you know that.

Last but not least is the issue of transparency. We will be canvassing very thoroughly in committee stage the rationale in this bill for basically eliminating the requirement to bring an agreement like this one to the floor of the Legislature in its entirety for all MLAs to see and all British Columbians to see. We believe, as a fundamental principle, that that requirement for transparency is important and must be respected. That is why we brought forward the Pacific NorthWest agreement into this chamber, and it’s why we think that this agreement with LNG Canada and any subsequent agreements should also be brought before this House.

[5:00 p.m.]

With that, I say this is an important moment for British Columbia. We’ve got to get this right. I am proud to have long supported the LNG industry. I look forward to the debate that’s going to take place in this House in the coming days and weeks of this particular bill with respect to LNG Canada’s project.

P. Milobar: It gives me pleasure to rise and take my place in the debate of Bill 10 around this great and important topic for the province of British Columbia.

As a party which has long supported LNG — in fact, the only party in this House that has long supported LNG — we’re obviously happy to see that an LNG project is proceeding and moving forward. But as the member before me said, we do have concerns and questions, as any responsible opposition should have, as to what is actually encompassed in this deal.

It’s a little disconcerting, given the long history of commentary from the government on this particular topic, how many questions are actually still hanging out there and the lack of information that we seem to see out for public consumption with this deal and this bill in front of us.

This deal should have full transparency for British Columbians. It’s not good enough to say: “Trust us.” We’ve heard that in the past from this government. Not so long ago, in fact, the Premier said: “Just take a leap of faith with me.” It didn’t work out so well; 62 percent of the people didn’t want to take a leap of faith. We should be worried when we see similar actions being taken that there may be more to this than meets the eye.

We have serious concerns. We want to make sure things are done in a very transparent way. We want to make sure that the project can proceed, absolutely, but we want to make sure we do that with full transparency and full exposure of the deal to the public so they can weigh out the benefits to this agreement, versus what is being given up with this agreement.

There are benefits. That’s an absolute. No one’s disputing that. Well, perhaps the Greens are disputing that. But others in this House seem to have an agreement around the fact that this will help, especially, the northern area of our province be able to have more economic self-sustainability for themselves. Especially for our Indigenous communities to be able to have their kids in school see a viable career path that doesn’t involve moving down to the southern quarter of the province, to let those younger students see that gainful employment — that there’s a reason to stay in school, a reason to continue on and to get training.

Much of the training actually happens much closer to where the work happens, because these resource companies have realized, over time, that if you can train somebody that was born and raised and grew up in the area and wants to stay in that area, and pay for the training for that person to get their skills in that area, they’re much more likely to become a lifelong employee in that area. They’re not going to be a transient employee that will still require a fair amount of training for that particular jobsite. They will be very dedicated to the company that they’re working for.

Their community will see that benefit. Their community will see that benefit in people feeling that pride of a hard day’s work. Their community will feel that benefit of them walking home and coming in the door with pride on their face, seeing their kids. Their kids will see that pride. Their kids will stay in school more. This is all well demonstrated.

I think sometimes when we live in the southern quarter of the province, we lose sight of that. We forget that that’s a very real action that happens in our own households on a daily basis. I’m sure every member in this Legislature sees that at home within their own families or modelled themselves after their parent. They see their kids starting to model themselves after themselves.

That’s to be expected, and that’s a good thing. That’s how we start to break some of these terrible problems that we hear about all of the time, as the member for Kamloops–South Thompson touched on. It’s not the cure-all. It’s not going to make an absolute. It’s not an absolute in the bottom quarter of the province either. But it sure makes a huge difference. It moves that needle in a way of public good and societal good that you can’t just do by dumping government money in and saying to people, “Here you go. We’ve done this for you, but now we’re gone again” — as government.

[5:05 p.m.]

There are definitely aspects of this agreement that are absolutely supportable, and that’s why this side of the House has spent the better part of a decade or more developing the conditions to keep moving forward with a project like this. There were some swings and misses, but without the attempts, we wouldn’t even be here today.

It is a little disheartening to see…. You know, I wasn’t here for the last four years, but when I’m reading through the Hansard, the comments from the members that are now in government, and seeing what their attitude towards a project like this would be, it’s astounding to me, when you consider all of the other societal good that can come from it, and then when you look at this agreement.

We do have concerns. We have concerns about whether or not there will be rigorous enough requirements around local jobs and local job procurement. I mean, it seems to me that it would be even more important for a Premier, if they were really looking out for British Columbia, to make sure that there were jobs for British Columbians written into this agreement. I agree 100 percent with that statement. It’s not my statement. That was actually the now Minister of Finance back in July of 2015.

Let me repeat that for you. Back then, the Minister of Finance, a little less than four years ago, said: “…it seems to me that it would be even more important for a Premier, if they were really looking out for British Columbia, to make sure that there were jobs for British Columbians written into this agreement.”

That’s why we have questions. Right now there is no transparency on this agreement. In fact, we should make sure that if we invite someone to take that product from the ground, they hire British Columbians and Canadians to do that. Again, I agree with that statement to as much of an extent as possible in terms of sometimes you do need offshore expertise that you can’t find. But those aren’t my words. Those are the Premier’s words back in July 2015: that we should make sure that if we invite someone to take that product from the ground, they hire British Columbians and Canadians to do that.

That’s exactly what this side of the House intends to do as we get into committee stage. We want to make sure that the government, if they’re inviting someone to take that product from the ground, is ensuring that there’s a hire of British Columbians and Canadians to do that work to the absolute maximum extent possible. That’s what we’re going to be doing. We want to be getting answers to these questions.

These aren’t gotcha questions. These aren’t questions meant or designed to embarrass the government. The only reason we still have these questions is because the government has been very quiet on these topics. They’ve been very silent on these topics. You start to wonder sometimes.

I was in the House yesterday as a few members of the government spoke on this bill. Talk about a lack of enthusiasm. Talk about a lack of any joy or any celebration or any other type of word you want to insert there that says that they’re happy with the deal that they’ve cut. Absolutely none. The minister responsible — zero energy, zero enthusiasm for the single largest investment in Canadian history.

That is troubling to me, because that makes you wonder what has actually not been shown to the public, what has not been shown to this House. That is why we, as opposition, have these questions. It’s been very hard to get any actual direct answer out of this government on things in relation to LNG, on things in relation to the climate plan, the CleanBC plan, on things in relation when it comes to carbon tax.

We’ve had three budgets now: the partial budget, the update budget and two other budgets. Still not a lot of clarity for carbon tax for industry, as a whole, on how that’s going to be implemented as we march to $50 a tonne. Yet we see, with LNG, a very clear path for LNG at $30 a tonne.

[5:10 p.m.]

Now, if anyone thinks that the government is going to cap out at $50 a tonne when the Minister of Environment is a former executive director of the Sierra Club and has the Sierra Club demanding $100 a tonne minimum in the same time frame that we’re going to $50 and other environmental agencies asking for that same rate…. We have serious questions that need to be answered about the carbon tax being locked in at $30 a tonne. When people, four days from now, see the price at the pumps go up yet again, when they will see their home heating bill go up yet again….

Right now in Kamloops, people are paying more in carbon tax than they are for the gas in their furnace. In fact, that’s before the hike on April 1 this year, that’s before the hike in April 2020, and that’s before the hike in April 2021. So homeowners have been told to expect a hike every year, yet in this agreement, we see a lock-in at $30. Now, it may be explainable. There may be some logic to it. It may be tied into some other areas, and we hope to get some clear answers from the government. Right now, we’ve seen precious little.

To the whole comment I made around body language and energy, the fact, frankly, that the government is treating this much like their throne speech and seem unwilling to speak to their own bill of the largest single investment in Canadian history…. I think that silence speaks volumes. Again, it’s like pulling teeth to try to get any answers on very simple questions. So it does make one wonder, as we get into these more complex questions, how hard it’s going to be to get answers. But we’re the opposition, and we will definitely put our best effort forward to do that.

If I may, I want to try to take us all up to the balcony. It’s a phrase I’ve heard before. Let’s get some more current type of quoting going here.

This was from May of 2018, and I’m going to use this to illustrate why I have concerns about the transparency of this deal and the transparency, more importantly, of this Premier, given the litany of broken promises we’ve already seen from this Premier, and where we will wind up as we get into committee stage on this bill and the lack of transparency the public may actually see.

There have been many waypoints along the way here for as much a sincere duration that the Green Party has flung at the government today — and certainly some at us today and yesterday…. There were many waypoints along this journey that they could have stuck their hand up and said: “We don’t agree with this.” Yet they didn’t. We wouldn’t even be here today. So I think everyone needs to keep that in mind.

I’ll touch into that statement as well as how hard it is to try to get an actual answer, to try to get an answer.

Bill 34 was introduced in May of 2018, and that is the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act, 2018. Other than changing the title and essentially updating target dates for the greenhouse gas emissions to make it more in line with where we’re at in the calendar, the end targets are the exact same as what we had as the B.C. Liberals. The GHG reduction targets are the exact same, at the exact same years.

The only real, substantial change to Bill 34 last May…. I’ve had NGOs on the environmental side of things agree with me, actually, that the only change to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Amendment Act of any consequence was actually section 2(b)(4) being amended, saying: “The minister may, by order, establish greenhouse gas emission targets for individual sectors.” It’s a very, very light bill. There’s not much to it, and I thought: “Okay, we’ll get through this in committee stage pretty quick. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

Now we move to the quotes, which are much more current and recent. In May, when we went to committee stage…. This was third reading on May 17 and royal assent on May 31.

[5:15 p.m.]

When I started to question the minister on this particular clause, because I realized that it was probably about the only substantive change to anything…. After we went through and confirmed that all the targets were the same as what we had for GHG emissions and reductions as previous, and what CleanBC is actually built around, I would add…. At about 2:35, I asked, and I said:

“Another question I would have around this section is the addition of: ‘The minister…by order’ establishing ‘greenhouse gas emission targets for individual sectors.’ My assumption is — the minister can correct me if I’m wrong — that this would give the minister the ability, through regulation, to be able to set targets for individual sectors.

“If an LNG final decision was to come forward this summer, would that give the minister the ability to provide reassurance and targets that LNG would expect to be held to, for them, as they’re making their final investment decision? Does that give more certainty for the minister and the LNG proponents, regardless of where they may be located, to know, whether or not, what their targets would be moving forward as they’re making their investment decision?”

I was simply asking if this change to the rules was going to enable the minister, by way of regulation, not legislation, to bring in GHG emissions targets for LNG. It seemed like a pretty straightforward question. That was at 2:35.

Five questions later, to the extreme ridiculousness even at one point where the minister insisted they didn’t know yet legally whether that’s what it meant or not, even though we were debating the bill in front of us, and they didn’t have the general drafting people around to ask…. That was at 2:35.

Sorry, it’s going to take me a couple pages to get through to where it actually shows back up in Hansard with the answer.

He said: “I’ve spoken to the member about the intent of the government, not just this minister but the government, and the reasons why the legislation was drafted the way it is. The member seems to be looking for a yes-or-no answer, so the answer is yes.”

It took about the better part of a half-hour and five questions on the exact same topic to get the minister to agree on something that will actually get even more interesting why it took him so long to answer that question when I get to this next part.

Then I followed up, and I said:

“So to summarize” — this is where the Green Party might want to pay attention — “if section 2, without further amendments, is passed, those voting in favour would be voting on essentially the same targets that we saw laid out in 2007, with updated dates, with the relevant target numbers that would have been on about the same trajectory — actually, I guess it was a 33 percent different trajectory now, in fairness — to try to catch up.

“We would also be voting in favour of allowing the Minister of Environment to be able to make an industry-specific promise or assurance to some industry, like an LNG industry, of what their sectoral targets would be, even in the absence of an updated plan in the fall.”

You know what the minister’s answer was? “The answer to the second part of the member’s question, with respect to ministerial orders, is as I’ve said previously: yes, just as it is in almost every piece of legislation that contains provisions for future standards, future limits, future numbers to be set by order-in-council or by ministerial order. It’s a common practice.”

Not only with the Greens, heretofore the vote, did we vote to allow the minister to have these extra powers to deal with LNG; it took the minister over half an hour to acknowledge what is, by his own words, a common practice. We went all the way around and around and around from, “Well, I don’t have legal counsel here to advise me, essentially,” to “Well, it’s common practice. Yeah, it gives me the power to do that.”

That’s where we start to have problems about this deal and the transparency around it. If it takes us that long to get a very simple, basic question answered…. At one point, I think it was question 2, I actually said: “I’m not trying to get you out on anything here. I’m just trying to figure out what ministerial powers any future minister would have with this section in the bill.”

[5:20 p.m.]

Ministers come and go, and governments come and go. Sometimes it takes over 16 years for a government to change, but not always. So you need to make sure what is actually…. Not the intent. You need to make sure what the rule of law is and how the bill has been worded. That’s all I was trying to get to. It took us over half an hour to get there.

When I see some of these provisions in this bill, I start to question how forthright the government will be when we get to committee stage, trying to move forward on this. Because, after all, if instead there’s an agreement that gives money to the company, that gives tax breaks to the company and gives royalty concessions to the company — good deal for Petronas, not such a good deal for the people of British Columbia.

Promise made, promise broken. That’s the Premier back in July again. Well, boy, in these last 18 months, has he become an expert on promise made, promise broken.

The bigger problem we have around some of the other sections of this bill…. We don’t have the NDP telling us what is going on with the whole PST. We know it’s front-end-loaded in terms of the years. We know that there are back-end balloon payments. But we don’t know where exactly that will fit in. We don’t know what the net costs will be. And we don’t know if this is open to other industries. We also don’t know that around the carbon tax. We don’t know, as the homeowner will be paying $50 a tonne for carbon, whether or not all industry will be allowed to be at $30 a tonne or not.

We don’t know what any of the intentions of the government are around this, because when you ask a simple question that’s a normal matter of practice for ministers to deal with within their legislation, it takes you 35 minutes and five questions to try to get at it. I think we all know that at the pace that some of the legislation comes forward in this place and how long it can take some ministers to answer even one question in estimates, we don’t have that kind of time. There just isn’t enough time. We’re going to run out of time trying to get to the bottom of questions if this government is unwilling to actually come up with any forthright and succinct answers to our legitimate questions on behalf of the citizens of British Columbia.

When we’re asking questions…. The government seems to have forgotten. You would have thought that after it being ingrained in their minds for 16 years in opposition, they would have remembered, still, 18 months in as government, that when they’re asking a question as opposition, you’re asking on behalf of all of your constituents. You’re asking on behalf of all of B.C.

You want to know that things have been thought through in a piece of legislation. You want to know that things in a negotiation have actually been negotiated properly and thought about. It doesn’t mean you’re always going to like the answer, but you’re going to want to know that things were actually rationally balanced off, and the answer sometimes comes back and says: “Yes. We agreed to this because we got a concession over here.” You look at that, and you say: “Okay. Fair enough.”

If it takes you 35 minutes to get the most basic answer on the most basic, routine adjustment — by the minister’s own words — to a piece of legislation, it does make one wonder, on a deal as complex as this, how forthcoming this government is going to be. And that, underlying it, is our big concern, because when we’ve questioned on other topics, we have members get called whiners. Members get told to stop whining when they ask questions on behalf of their constituents, when they ask legitimate questions about employment in their area.

There are legitimate questions about employment in the northern half of our province with this deal. Are we going to be called whiners when we start asking legitimate questions about people from British Columbia working legitimate jobs on a legitimately permitted pipeline? I sure hope not. I sure hope the government realizes that we’re doing our job. We’re trying to make sure that British Columbians understand the benefits that will be with this agreement and also understand the trade-offs that came with this agreement and the extent to which those trade-offs were.

[5:25 p.m.]

The only reason I can think that the government is leery about having as much transparency as we had in the past is, as their body language would indicate, they are less proud of this deal and excited about this deal than maybe their words would convey. And I think that’s a pretty sad statement if that’s true, because one would hope that the government would be excited about the employment opportunities in the north, excited about the Indigenous opportunities this pipeline is going to bring, excited about all of the future growth and technology that comes with projects like this. Technology does come with the resource sector.

In Kamloops, we’re a supply centre to the resource sector. Prince George is a supply centre to the resource sector. There are a great many tech companies that have started from the ground up in Kamloops to supply the mining industry, to supply the forestry industry, to supply the oil and gas industry. So make no mistake about it. There is massive spinoff for the whole province with a project like this if it’s done properly and implemented properly by the government.

We have a lot of questions for the government about how they intend to implement this, how they intend to maximize benefit for British Columbians. Remember that we’ll be asking those questions against the backdrop of the government’s own so-called four conditions. Again, I know the Premier doesn’t like it when we try to actually hold him to his own promise and his own words, but one of his own conditions and one of his own promises was around British Columbian employment.

We want to see that. We want to see that there are protections to ensure that the majority of the gas is actually coming from British Columbia so we can maximize revenues to British Columbia. We already know that there were projections off the hop, long before this agreement, that 25 percent was going to be coming from Alberta, and therefore, that 25 percent doesn’t count towards the GHG cap. See, we’ve got some people perked up.

That’s the type of thing that we need to get answers to: that the 25 percent that’s coming in from Alberta won’t count towards the GHG cap because it doesn’t originate in British Columbia.

We need answers to that. We need answers to how a CleanBC bill that wraps up with this, a CleanBC bill that was celebrated by not just the Minister of Environment but by the Premier and the leader of the Green Party as being groundbreaking and revolutionary, all the while, with this hanging in the background…. There should be nothing in this that is shocking, that CleanBC may be in jeopardy for their targets, especially when you consider that CleanBC is missing 25 percent of their emissions. They can’t even account for 25 percent of where the final emissions are going to come from.

In fact, if we’re going down memory lane here, when I asked the minister about that, the minister actually acknowledged — this was back in May, long before CleanBC — that the first emission targets are the easiest ones to hit. As you get closer and closer to your end target, it gets harder and harder to find the emissions. It is interesting that now, we would be surprised that LNG might not actually allow CleanBC to meet its targets.

I raise that because I think that speaks to the type of scrutiny we need to bring to this bill. We don’t need a marketing exercise by the government. CleanBC was very clearly a marketing exercise. We need to know what the actual numbers are. We need to know what the actual numbers of this deal are. We need to know how they truly impact CleanBC. We need to understand what the true targets are and makeable targets within those areas. We need to know how it truly is going to impact British Columbians, both positively and negatively.

That’s what we will be committing to do through committee stage. That’s what our job is. It’s not because we want to stand here and whine. It’s because we want to stand here and make sure that British Columbians understand fully what is in this deal.

[5:30 p.m.]

We do have serious concerns about the very last area of this deal where the government, after saying they wouldn’t be repealing this — I’m pretty sure they said it in question period — suddenly want to repeal the requirement to actually disclose things.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

Talk about putting a red flag up about how willing this government is to be transparent or not.

It’s going to be very interesting as we move through committee stage, Madam Speaker. I thank you for this time to air my concerns. I look forward to the rest of the debate.

R. Coleman: Just for history’s sake to start, with just one piece. Shell and LNG Canada told me three years ago they would make their final investment decision in the fourth quarter of 2018, which they did.

The challenge for me today is to decide whether or not during committee stage there is any credibility to supporting this legislation, given what we knew or we didn’t know, but also because it doesn’t meet the standard that was set by the government itself when they were in opposition.

I want to read a quote:

“We, on the opposition side, move freely among our communities, talking to people without fear of consequence, and they’re saying to me: ‘How is it that you didn’t get a 25-year deal on taxation? I mean, I just phone the Premier? Can I just phone the Premier and say: I’d like to do a deal for my taxes for the next quarter century? I’m having a bit of a bad patch right now. International prices for what I do are low, so I’d like you to do a deal. That’s okay?’ Well, I can’t do that. My colleagues can’t do that. My constituents can’t do that.”

That person is now the Premier of this province.

In 2001, a government made a very smart decision on the advice of a guy named Richard Neufeld, who was the MLA for Peace River North. He came to us, as the Minister of Energy and Mines, and said: “We have a part-time energy industry in my area of the province. Maybe 8,000 to 10,000 people work half the time a year or less. I believe that if we brought in some incentives and we could actually look at taking the new technologies in drilling that we might be able to find a way to have the industry operate year-round.”

Well, we did that, and something pretty major happened. The discovery is what is considered today one of the best natural gas reserves on the planet, full of liquids, valuable and enough to supply the entire continent in North America for a hundred years and still have a hundred-year supply left over. That’s what we have in British Columbia. But the North American price of natural gas in the mid-90s went down, so the thing was: where do you take this resource and move it?

Under the vision of the former Premier, Premier Christy Clark, it was decided that we would pursue an LNG industry. In 2011, from a standing start, to 2015, we went everywhere: Korea; Japan; Kuala Lumpur; in the United States, to Houston and other industry places; and all the other countries that may be interested in our business, which would be Singapore and China.

We had to start from a standing start to build the foundation of an industry from every single piece — legislation, financial, all the work that had to be done — and negotiate and work with industry globally to make sure that we could be a place where you might want to invest. In 2015, the industry said to me, at a 5,000-person conference in Singapore: “We’ve never seen a jurisdiction move as professionally or as fast or as quickly to actually attract an industry to its jurisdiction.”

That was my colleagues on this side of the House. That was the leadership of my government on this side of the House that allowed that there was even a discussion going on with regards to liquefied natural gas in this House today. As we built those relationships, we had to do a lot of things and learn a lot of things. And it wasn’t easy, because we had to understand what the numbers were, what the price of a plant was, what the inputs were — all the aspects of an industry.

The interesting thing about it back then was we had lots of critics. Lots of critics. Critics, like the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, about the fact that the Finance Minister of the day put in an up to 7 percent LNG tax in his budget, which was then cut to 3½ percent because we saw the competitive side.

[5:35 p.m.]

There are some very raw figures that we have to address in the February budget, as I mentioned. We’re going to have a 7 percent tax, up to 7 percent tax. Today we’re going to have 3½ percent, and even then, there’s a catch to this. There are two tiers to this tax. Tier 1 is 1½ percent. Soon we’re going to be down to nothing, and I kid you not. I’m not going to foreshadow.

The member for Vancouver-Kensington did foreshadow, because they got rid of all the tax. There is no LNG tax. From 7 to zero. She was doing the foreshadowing, but foreshadowing for the incompetence of her own government as they started to build a deal.

The irony around that is this. The art of the LNG tax was because we have a royalty regime in British Columbia and we built a royalty curve to smooth out royalties over the life of a project, we were in a position to offset the tax against royalties if the company that had an LNG plant in British Columbia used B.C. gas.

With what they’ve done here, they’ve said Alberta gas and Saskatchewan gas, without paying carbon tax, can move their molecules through British Columbia, and there’s no stock. It says even though we thought 25 percent of the gas could come from Alberta in the normal regime, as we built out our gas fields, now there is nothing to stop them from not paying any carbon tax and sending their molecules to British Columbia from a jurisdiction next door, when we have the best natural gas resource in the world. So you have to wonder what they were thinking about.

The other thing is that as we went through this with the tax and the structuring, we had to do a whole bunch of other things. One thing that we knew for sure was that we needed to build a relationship with First Nations in British Columbia, with the companies that wanted to come here and with the government that was in place.

I was given a job by the Premier of the day, in addition to being the minister responsible for natural gas. It was to be the person that would negotiate government-to-government relationships and deals with First Nations in the northeastern part of the province, right across to Kitimat and Prince Rupert.

I’m going to tell you something. This was a lot of work, a lot of commitment and time from people in government. But without having an agreement along a pipeline route today, there would be no conversation about an LNG Canada in British Columbia today.

The Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council was seven bands, and I had to sit down and build relationships with those seven bands to actually get a deal with them on pipeline benefit agreements with government and then help them work with the companies to get theirs there too. To do that, it wasn’t simply about going to Prince George. It wasn’t simply about showing up in some remote village and saying: “Why don’t you sign on to a benefit agreement?” You need to sit down and understand the social and economic challenges of each individual group, whether it be the Carrier-Sekani or the other bands across, right through to the Lax Kw’alaams, outside of Prince Rupert.

You go to their villages. You get to know their Chief. You get to know their people. You get to know their council. In actual fact, over time, as you build that relationship, you build some friendships and relationships. It’s the friendships and relationships you build over a number of years and actually get to where you sign a deal, and they get a benefit that they can look forward to.

The challenge is this. It was so important on the natural gas file…. These guys on the opposite side that were government at times said we shouldn’t be doing it. Some of them actually said we shouldn’t do LNG at all. As a matter of fact, the member that is now the Minister of Energy and Mines, to paraphrase her, said: “LNG is no good for anyone anywhere in British Columbia.” She’s now the minister.

But I can tell you, you should go and see 60 or 70 percent youth unemployment in a First Nations village in northern British Columbia. You should go see four or five families living in one home because there’s not enough accommodation for them to live there in a home. You should see the fact that they’re dealing with addictions and suicide and concerns with regards to the outcomes for their people.

[5:40 p.m.]

You should also see when a deal gets done and there’s an economic benefit going to flow and starting to flow to them and the training that they can get to get trades and opportunities to work in the LNG industry and work on a pipeline and do the environmental assessment work on a pipeline — how important it is to those people.

Interjection.

R. Coleman: I know that the person over here — who I never heckled, by the way — from Saanich North and the Islands has an issue with this. Well, he can have his issue. I can tell you this: even in the budget this year, there were things relative to exploration and natural gas, and the Green Party still voted for that budget. So on the foundational basis of having a right to comment, to even think they should take some stance just on one bill, it means they’ve missed the rest.

It’s important, of course, that there would be some jobs for British Columbians. Jobs for British Columbians are important when you start to think that you’re going to take your resource and you’re going to actually use it for the benefit of people in British Columbia. The present Finance Minister criticized the last discussion with regards to it, and I have quotes. But it’s pretty simple to say. She said: “There’s no guarantee of jobs. We would never do a deal without jobs. We would never do something without a commitment. These guys have sold out the province.”

She’s the minister with a bill before the House. Guess what. There’s no jobs guarantee, not for British Columbians and not for Canadians. There are no training guarantees, not for British Columbians, not for Canadians. There’s no buy-B.C. program to actually connect people and jobs and opportunities to supply the industry, because they killed all that.

The idea of what trades were needed to actually have a plant operate and get built in B.C. was done. The work for what trades they were short of was done. The training plans were done. And what did the government do? They canned all that. Then they have the temerity to have criticized a previous deal where there’s no — no — guarantee whatsoever about jobs.

This deal has some interesting challenges. First of all, LNG Canada gets a $30-a-tonne carbon tax. Now, since we brought in the carbon tax and I support it, I think $30 a tonne should have stayed where it was. It was working for B.C., putting money back into the economy to get it cleaner because it was a tax that wasn’t used for general revenue. It made sense to me that you would reinvest it in the economy to build a clean economy in the future.

The challenge here is this. Every other British Columbian will pay $40 of carbon tax on everything they buy, as of April 1. The transportation that brings their foods to market; the gasoline price, which will be over $1.62 a litre in the Lower Mainland as of April 1; the pulp mill that is actually operating and invested in this country generationally for maybe 50, 60 years; the sawmill; and the mines will all be at $40 a tonne. That part’s wrong. It’s wrong because the person that’s filling up their tank at a gas station should not be having to subsidize a $40 billion investment in British Columbia.

What are you going to do about that? You can answer that question to your own constituents, because I’m sure they’re going to ask: “How come?” And as you go through that, you have to ask yourself: “What does it mean for everybody else? What does it mean for future investment? What does it matter for competitiveness? What does it mean with regards to how we do business in the future?”

If you have a mine in B.C., you pay $40 a tonne on April 1. If you’re in forestry — that’s a sawmill or a pulp mill that actually employs people and has for generations in B.C. — you will pay $40 a tonne in tax. So $40 a tonne.

By the time this plant is built, according to the NDP’s own projections, they will have that carbon tax at, at least $50 a tonne. But somebody will be paying $30.

Now, I remember the criticisms. The last time we had a conversation about this, they were making comments about different aspects of the situation, but the biggest one was: “Well, you gave away the farm when you went from 7 percent LNG tax down to 3½ percent. Why would you do that? That’s terrible. You sold out.” What have you. Now there’s none, so I guess that’s one thing.

[5:45 p.m.]

When I was briefed, a line was used. There is a PST benefit, I think it was called, in the briefing with regards to the PST on a plant of this size. I knew the individuals or the senior people in finance because, obviously, of my time in government. I sort of said: “Would you please stop calling that the PST benefit.” It’s $596 million of PST that should be paid on the plant and that is basically deferred for 20 years — zero percent interest. I asked: “What’s the interest rate?” Zero percent.

The interesting thing about it is that the minimal payments are there for the first 18 years, and then there’s a balloon payment in years 19 and 20. Well, do the math. If you could just make 5 percent on $600 million interest-free for 20 years, you’re certainly not going to have any trouble paying your balloon payment at the end of 20, because you’re going to have double that amount in the bank, all pure profit to you.

Now, the industrial rate of power has been given to this project. I don’t have a real big objection to the industrial rate of power, because other industrial customers do it. But it was given to the Woodfibre project in Squamish because they wanted to go full e-drive. Full e-drive means there are no emissions of any kind in the production of the LNG simply because you’re not using natural gas to compress to make the LNG.

It wasn’t very long after the briefing piece came out the other day that I got a note from Singapore, from the people who are involved in investment in Woodfibre, wondering: “Do we now get $30-a-tonne carbon tax? We’re e-drive, you know. We’re cleaner. Do we get $30 a tonne? Do we now get a 20-year PST benefit, which is zero percent interest for 20 years on the PST on what we buy to build this plant in British Columbia?” What will the deal look like for them versus the deal we have here?

The biggest challenge with that latest comment is this. Back in the day, I remember the debate in July of 2015, I think — somewhere thereabouts — when we actually brought the legislation and the project development agreement for Pacific NorthWest LNG to this Legislature.

Boy, did we get criticized. I don’t have enough time to give you the comments at second reading about “selling out” and “It’s a pipe dream” and “You’re never going to see LNG” and “You’re not doing a good enough deal for B.C. Where are the jobs?” All of those things. We listened to that, but what we did do is we, in the full light of day, debated the entire agreement. Every piece of the agreement was made public.

What this legislation does is it gets rid of the piece of legislation that says you have to have the deals in public. They don’t want to debate it. I think British Columbians deserve to know.

Beyond the $30 carbon tax, beyond the PST piece, beyond how they’re not going to do royalties in a certain way, what else does it do? Is there anything hidden, which we don’t know, that affects British Columbians long term, financially? Is there a deal on payroll tax of any kind? Is there a deal on any type of taxation with regards to outside pieces that might come in?

Is there a deal on steel and aluminum parts that come in from Asia? Is there a deal — who knows? — maybe even on something like the employer health tax, because a lot of people won’t be coming from B.C.? What income tax will be paid by workers at this particular location if they come from Newfoundland or Alberta or Saskatchewan or somewhere else in this country?

We deserve those details. We deserve those details because the people of British Columbia need to understand why something gets a 20-year baked-in $30-a-tonne carbon tax, something gets a $690 million interest-free write-off and other aspects of the legislation with regards to this particular deal.

[5:50 p.m.]

Now, we all know that before the NDP came into power, the corporate income tax in British Columbia was 11 percent. In the last piece of legislation we did — because we really felt it was important to identify where revenues would come to British Columbia long term from our resources — we made the decision that companies that would normally, for the most part, house in Alberta, could get, in the oil and gas industry particularly, a corporate level of taxation of 8 percent. That’s because if they located in Vancouver or somewhere in British Columbia, even in northern B.C. or central B.C., they would pay the corporate tax to British Columbia.

As you know, across this country, you are allowed to pick which province and jurisdiction you actually report your tax in. So the big discussion, or brag, on this particular presentation the other day in the House that I listened to with interest was that we’re going to go from 12 percent to 9 percent. That’s great. That should really, really attract some head offices with regards to paying corporate tax in British Columbia just after the provincial election in Alberta, where they’ve committed to go to 8 percent.

Overnight, in the next few days, B.C. won’t be competitive on the corporate tax rates, so they’re not going to locate here. The profits of corporations, whether it be a gas plant, drilling in northeastern B.C. or taking liquids off and dealing with those liquids, will go into the coffers of the province of Alberta and not into the coffers of the province of British Columbia. We’ll just forgive our PST, interest-rate free, and then we’ll let those guys over there get the benefit of those types of investments.

Now, I still believe that liquefied natural gas is important to the future of British Columbia, but also, I’ve always believed, to the future of our planet — that moving a cleaner product than coal to Asia to reduce GHGs over there actually helps everybody globally across the world. I believe it’s important. I believe it needs to be done in a way that isn’t full of hypocrisy. And I believe that some of the comments that have been made coming into this, that are now being put together, by people who literally had a different comment only three years ago, need to be at the forefront.

Here’s a classic one. Minister of Labour, October 22, 2014: the LNG tax legislation introduced today “was written by industry for industry.” Now, I can tell you this. At the time the legislation was written and the negotiations were going on, going back and forth and working on this, industry wasn’t writing that legislation. The negotiations were tough, led by the Minister of Finance of the day, who’s the member for Abbotsford West — brilliantly, I might add — to get to where we could actually get him to understand.

The same Minister of Labour sent out a revenue projection there. They have now cut it by half, so it is a pathetic attempt to find excuses for the weak bargaining position they created for themselves. That’s the Minister of Labour. Imagine. It’s pathetic. What’s pathetic is that you got rid of the LNG gas and went to zero, and you want to tell us that the negotiations were pathetic back then.

The other one was interesting. I can’t remember the member. He’s from Surrey, anyway. “You have started off by giving away B.C. tax revenue. What’s next — jobs?” That was a person that used to be the Labour critic. He’s now a minister. Wow. I wonder what he says now. There’s nothing in here about jobs. There’s nothing in here about training. There’s nothing in here about building those opportunities for British Columbians.

You’ve got to understand that there is an interesting way to look at this thing. You could start out with hypocrisy, but then we all know that, in different roles and Legislatures over the years, we have had debates.

[5:55 p.m.]

As the Premier pointed out to my colleague from Kamloops–South Thompson earlier today — he used one of his quotes to take a shot at him during question period — he realized we probably had a few more quotes on him. And that’s true. Very, very true. And the truth of those quotes was, if you put them in the context of what’s being done here now and how it’s being presented, you have to wonder.

Now, the other thing is this is a 20-year deal. I think you’ve got to give business certainty if they’re going to spend $40 billion in your jurisdiction with pipeline and plant. I think you’ve got to do that. But the government that is doing it now and the Finance Minister that is doing it now said, “For 25 years: ‘Don’t worry; no changes. It won’t matter. We’re not going to make a difference to anything that you have to pay.’ It’s certainly not a good deal that British Columbians can ask for” — Minister of Finance, July 13, 2015, when we were debating the very bill and the very agreement that set an LNG tax, a royalty curve and the structure for LNG in British Columbia. So that’s where you’re at with that type of hypocrisy.

The important thing is to understand this. The victory lap that the NDP want to take around LNG was basically this: somebody set a worldwide route together, took it, built it, organized, structured it, did the First Nations discussions, built relationships with First Nations across an entire pipeline, brought in people worldwide that understood that British Columbia was a good place to invest in, set the table, knew that in the fourth quarter of 2018 that LNG Canada would be making their final investment decision, stayed in contact with them even when we were no longer in government to make sure that they were moving along in a way they made sense because we care about LNG and we care about British Columbia.

Take your little victory lap, but I know how we got here. I know it wasn’t because of the work you did. Take your little victory lap and claim success. Explain to people back in your constituency, when their gas goes to a buck-62 a litre on the Lower Mainland on April 1, that that’s not an April Fools’ joke. That’s just you charging $40 a tonne when somebody else is going to pay $30.

Take your little victory lap when you explain to somebody else why they have to pay PST on a corporate investment or industrial investment in British Columbia when somebody else gets interest-free for 20 years and doesn’t have to pay until the last two. Those are the things that will be part of the questions that come out of this decision as we come through this legislation.

We can all take a victory lap if we do pass this legislation, but only, quite frankly in my mind, if we get a chance to actually debate the actual deal as part of the debate in committee stage in this House. That’s a very important point and line for myself and for my colleagues. We can also take a victory lap if we can make this happen in the right way, not for LNG Canada but for the 13,000 people, because of our early changes to exploration stuff in northeast British Columbia, that work in the oil and gas industry today and for the thousands of young people in First Nations communities that will get jobs and careers and opportunity and lift themselves out of poverty to have a great future for themselves.

And a victory lap for the fact that somebody had vision to actually make this opportunity come here, starting with Dick Neufeld back in ’01-02, saying we should change how we drill and explore and going to Premier Christy Clark, who said: “Here’s a vision. Let’s go chase it. Give the job to the minister from Abbotsford West and the member for Langley East.” And the other members of the whole team here that actually worked for hours and focused a government on a way to create and sell a climate of investment in British Columbia, one that also actually sold and stabilized the thought of a climate of investment in Canada.

[6:00 p.m.]

Take your victory lap. The only thing you have to understand…. You weren’t in the race. You didn’t win anything. LNG Canada made their decision. We set the table, and the fact of the matter is that British Columbians and people that deserve it and deserve good government to do this will judge the pieces of the deal I’ve talked about. Unless we actually get a chance to discuss the deal, there is going to be some significant heartburn on that side of the House as we go through committee stage.

M. de Jong: Well, it’s an interesting situation. I should say, parenthetically, on a matter that, if you believe the communications documents that we have seen issued over the last number of months by the government, a topic and a bill that I would have thought would have elicited a more robust and enthusiastic response from the government benches…. I’m somewhat surprised at the lack of enthusiasm and the lack of participation that we’ve seen thus far.

However, maybe I can provoke a bit of a response from some quarters. They say that you reap what you sow, and that may be true in farming and lots of other areas. It’s not always true in politics. The work is never done, and what one MLA begins often another MLA, a successor MLA, completes. What one minister begins is often left to another succeeding minister to complete, and such as it is with governments as well.

The situation we find ourselves in today is — the legislation before the House — a government and a party that once stood, as my colleague from Langley pointed out, diametrically opposed to a particular economic strategy now seeking from the House support for legislation and an agreement that would facilitate the establishment of an industry they once dismissed and rejected outright.

Now on this side of the House, an official opposition party that toiled long and hard in government to secure the type of investment that we are considering today, we are obliged to review, analyze and critique the framework and agreement around which the investment and the job creation is going to occur and to do so from the opposition benches.

The roles may change, but I want to assure you, Madam Speaker, and the House and the people of B.C. that the principle and objective that will guide us, in the official opposition on this side of the House, are the same as what guided us during our years in office. We will measure what is being presented to the House against one question: are the interests of British Columbians adequately protected, and are the overall interests of British Columbians advanced?

To secure answers to those questions, we’ll need to ask some questions of the sponsoring minister, of the government, and I’ll be happy, over the course of the next few minutes to share with the House some of the issues we intend to explore, and I guess, ultimately, we’ll see to what extent the government is able and willing to disclose the information and the details that British Columbians are entitled to in order to form their own opinion on the matter that is before us.

I will confess that along the way, we’ll do one other thing. We will take some time, from time to time, to compare what the government, the Premier, the Finance Minister and others within the government today stated were absolute, essential elements of an LNG agreement and compare that with what they have brought to the House this week.

[6:05 p.m.]

I don’t think that will be a particularly enjoyable exercise for the government. The last time this House turned its collective attention to these matters, they had some very specific things to say. They had some very unflattering things to say, and they at times viciously attacked even the motivation that was guiding the government of the day and the members of that government that were advancing the proposition of establishing an LNG industry in B.C.

I’m not going to attack anyone personally. I don’t see the merit in that. I do think there is merit in considering whether the government has agreed to terms that are consistent with the standard they demanded of others. I think there is genuine merit in posing that question and ascertaining whether or not the government presents legislation and agreements that embody terms that are consistent with the standard that they demanded of others.

I should also acknowledge the obvious. We have a clear and, I think, comprehensive understanding of what members of the government’s measure of acceptability for an agreement is or was, because they laid out their test. They laid out their test in detail when we debated, in its entirety, clause by clause, an LNG project agreement 3½ years ago.

It does have to be acknowledged, and I will, that in addition to whatever other substantive differences distinguish the two agreements, the one to which Bill 10 applies has ultimately secured a final investment decision. The agreement that the House considered 3½ years ago, in 2015, regrettably did not. I don’t, in any way, shape or form, shirk from acknowledging that fact.

I wonder if I might begin by speaking for a few moments about the process we are engaged in. Others of my colleagues, the member from Langley, have touched upon this: the structure of this debate. The previous agreement to which I referred came before this House formally and in its entirety. Along with the enabling legislation, all of the documentation comprising the agreement was tabled and subject to review, criticism and questioning by members of the opposition.

We called a special session in the height of the summer. Some members weren’t particularly pleased about that, and it wasn’t simply the Leader of the Third Party. Members on both sides of the House expressed their views on that matter. But we thought it was important.

We thought it was important that the House, on a matter of such importance, a matter that had such long-term implications for the government, convene and have an opportunity in a focused way to consider all of the documentation, all of the agreements, all of the legislation necessary to breathe life into what was being proposed at the time. In fact, the legislation of that day actually codified the requirement that subsequent agreements be disclosed publicly.

[6:10 p.m.]

Now, today the government is purporting to repeal that legal requirement for public disclosure for reasons they have deliberately chosen not to share. I have heard no explanation. I have read no explanation for why it is the government feels compelled to repeal legislation that would ensure that this government and future governments that purport to enter into agreements of this sort fully disclose the contents of those agreements to the public. I’ll have more to say about that a little bit later in my presentation and remarks.

The then opposition did have some very specific things to say about the need for legislative involvement and oversight. Someone who has featured prominently in the debate, not necessarily by virtue of her participation but by what she has had to say on other occasions, is the now Energy Minister.

I should say, and I may repeat this a few times, that the role of the Energy Minister, the Finance Minister and the Environment Minister — though I suppose it might seem obvious, as members of the executive council — is further amplified by the fact that on the actual agreement that this legislation pertains to, it is the Energy Minister who has the lead signature on behalf of the Crown in Right of the Province of British Columbia. It’s her signature on this deal. It’s also the Finance Minister’s and the Environment Minister’s.

Interesting, then, that back on July 14, she would be critical of that government by stating the following with respect to the legislation. “It gives,” she said, “government the authority to enter into project development agreements, to negotiate those agreements, to not have to bring them back to the Legislature and not even share any of the details with the public until it’s been passed by an order-in-council by cabinet. All those discussions and everything will happen behind closed doors with absolutely no input, no view, no review from the public. That’s a concern.”

Well, it apparently was not a sufficient concern to guide the now minister’s behaviour when she was actually in a position to do something about it, because she behaved very, very differently. It won’t be the first time that I make the observation that it is a classic case of saying one thing, demanding one thing of others, and then doing precisely the opposite themselves.

I will interrupt the Finance Minister for a moment and try to secure her attention, only because the Finance Minister…. I want to be fair to the Finance Minister. The Finance Minister has provided me with assurance. My remarks talk about the agreement. To be fair, the Finance Minister, after, I think, consultation with the Government House Leader, who is also here, has provided assurance that we will, during the course of committee stage, have an opportunity to pose questions about the agreement I referred to a moment ago, the operating performance payment agreement. I take her at her word, and I have no reason to doubt that will be so.

I will say this. On a matter of this magnitude, and given what she and her colleagues have had to say in the past, it shouldn’t be necessary. In my view, it shouldn’t be necessary to rely upon procedural generosity from a minister. I’ll say that again. I’m grateful and gratified that the minister has provided that assurance. But surely she agrees — based on what she and her colleagues have said in the past, I don’t know how she would disagree — that on a matter of this import…. I only have to use the adjectives that the member and the government have placed in their own communications document: “unprecedented, historic.” Yet the minister has not chosen to formally table the agreement before the House.

[6:15 p.m.]

I think that’s unfortunate. I think, quite frankly, it adds to the suspicion, coupled with the provisions of section 4 in this bill…. I’ll come back to that. It adds to the suspicion that the government is attempting to hide something, either now or in the future.

If that’s not the case, then I think it was negligent on the part of the government not to recognize the importance of formally attaching a document of such importance and tabling it before the House. And on the first of many issues, in light of what she said, one is compelled to ask how the Energy Minister purports to reconcile the fundamental hypocrisy of what she demanded in opposition with the approach and terms she has lent her name to in this agreement.

I’m going to go through parts of that agreement, and I do so wishing to highlight for the minister…. I think the Finance Minister will certainly be on the front edge of answering questions about the tax provisions of this agreement. I’m not sure which of the signatory ministers will be answering questions about the agreement itself, although we are assured that we will have that opportunity. But I will highlight for the government and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Energy some of those areas that we will be expressing an interest in.

We have, as the member from Langley pointed out, had a briefing. We’ve heard about some of the revenue forecasts, and the government has touted one number. I think $23 billion. Presumably, one pursues an industry like liquefied natural gas to secure benefits for British Columbians — jobs, revenue. We’re told that that revenue will be in the neighbourhood of $23 billion. I think the government is talking about direct revenue to government, though it’s unclear.

We’re not provided with a breakdown — any member of the House, any member of the public provided with a breakdown. One is left with the impression from the briefing that we’ve had that the bulk of that is accounted for via royalties and carbon tax, but we don’t know that. The LNG income tax, of course, is gone. That’s a function of the legislation and the repealing sections. The PST is forgone for a period of, well, not quite 20 years. I guess 20 years, but it starts to come back after 18 years. It’s an interesting repayment schedule, and we’ll ask the minister about the logic behind that.

In the days when the minister and her colleagues were lambasting the previous government, I remember them being able to wave around graphs, charts, materials that broke out what those revenue projections were in detail. Why were they able to do that? Because the government produced them, and the government released them. Yet we have nothing. We have nothing from the government in terms of a breakdown on what will account for those revenues, what the source of those revenues….

Look, I’m the first to acknowledge that it’s not an exact science, and I’m also the first to acknowledge, as will the member from Langley, that numbers can change. And they certainly did in the period from 2015 to 2017. You’ll get no argument. But to be left with nothing…. Actually, more than that, we were told specifically that it is a conscious decision on the part of the government. They have the material, they have the forecasts, they have the projections, they have the breakdowns, but they are unwilling to release them.

All right. They’re unwilling, apparently, to release them to their political opposition, but surely the public is entitled to know. Surely the public is entitled to have that information as it grapples with the agreement that is before us and that the government is commending to them.

[6:20 p.m.]

One of the members of the government who has participated in the discussion, and I’m glad he did, is the member for Surrey-Whalley, now the Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology. He, like many of his colleagues, wasn’t shy a few years ago to talk about where he saw deficiencies. He had this to say about those charts and graphs and projections. He characterized them as the “dubious and tentative nature of the revenue projections” and: “It’s not revealed in any of the briefing documents what the long-term pricing assumptions were.”

He had some very specific criticisms. What he did also have were extensive charts, extensive forecasting and extensive breakdowns of where the government of the day felt the revenue would flow from. And I am curious and mystified and, quite frankly, somewhat troubled that the minister and the government would be reluctant to provide similar material and information, and we’re told that we’re not getting it. I’m hopeful that the minister, between now and when we come to committee, will have a change of view around that.

Others in this debate have talked about the carbon tax relief that is provided as part of the agreement. A special rate. It won’t be available, we’re told, to citizens who are scheduled to pay significantly higher rates in the future. Today members of the government say the proponent needs certainty to advance a multi-billion-dollar investment. Well, I’m not going to argue with that. I think that argument has some merit.

I hope the minister and members of the government will detect that I’m being a little more generous to this government on the question of certainty than they were in opposition. I still bear the scars of the accusations that were hurled across the floor as we endeavoured to create a mechanism by which certainty could be achieved in the face of a similar investment.

I would say, having recognized the merits of the argument around certainty, what has equal merit is the entitlement of the public to know the value of that concession. And it is a concession. Let us not be cute about…. It is a concession that presumably arose out of conversations between the government and the proponent. How much forgone revenue does it represent? Which other industrial sectors will qualify? And why not ordinary British Columbians, as my colleagues have asked? Why not ordinary British Columbians?

Those are questions, of course, that we will wish to pursue with the various ministers in the committee stage.

The carbon tax relief is built, I believe, around the prerequisite of operating the cleanest facility in the world. Leaving aside, by the way, how dismissive the Finance Minister and her colleagues were when the notion of having the cleanest LNG sector was advanced a few years ago, I’m curious to know and will be asking the minister about that notion.

I’m not going to argue the principle of using economic levers to incent environmental best practices. I’ll tell the minister that right now. I won’t argue — I don’t think we will argue — the notion of using economic levers and levers of taxation to incent best practices. But I will also say that the people of B.C. are entitled to know the mechanism methodology by which that threshold is met. So far, we’ve seen nothing.

[6:25 p.m.]

We’ve got some pretty ambiguous and general statements around the principle, and I’m hopeful that at the committee stage, the government, whether it’s the Finance Minister or one of her colleagues, will offer up answers and information on some pretty key questions relating to relief and concessions that have been given.

My colleagues, the member from Langley and from the Peace River, have talked about the importance that one attaches to the question of where the gas is going to be sourced from. It can be B.C. gas. It can be Alberta gas, or even Saskatchewan gas. The government says that the bulk of the direct revenues to government flow via royalties and the carbon tax. Where the gas is sourced acquires an obvious level of importance, if that is true.

The previous government established a taxation royalty regime that directly and purposely incented the use of B.C. gas. The present government has chosen to dismantle that framework and eliminate the included mechanism for the promotion of B.C. gas.

I’m inclined to refer back to the pages of Hansard, where members of the present caucus lambasted the previous government for what they described as an overly generous taxation royalty regime. As others have mentioned, if I endeavoured to do that, it would take too long, and we’d probably be here for a couple of days, given the nature of the comments that were made at the time.

I again acknowledge that the agreement that came before the House in 2015 did not mature into a final investment decision. This is the second time I’ve said that. I understand the fundamental distinction.

This one, happily, has, but it is still incumbent upon the government to demonstrate, in my view, what steps have been taken and what terms have been embedded into this agreement to ensure that the LNG coming out of one side of the plant represents the compressed, liquefied version of B.C. gas that has entered the other side of the plant. We are at a loss, on the basis of the scant information we’ve received thus far, to ascertain what the mechanism, if any, is to ensure that that is so.

My colleagues have commented upon the corporate tax rate and the question of income allocation. The government is eliminating, through this legislation, the LNG Income Tax Act and the LNG income tax and creating a mechanism by which a company can significantly reduce the rate of corporate income tax it pays down to 9 percent. I presume the objective there is around income allocation and to incent allocation to B.C. for corporate income tax purposes.

In principle, the minister and the government shouldn’t anticipate great howls of protest from the opposition benches around the principle of incenting income allocation. But there’s an election going on in Alberta, and I have, at least, a sneaking suspicion that there may be some changes.

Interjections.

M. de Jong: I take nothing for granted, particularly from this seat.

[6:30 p.m.]

Look, we know that the minister’s own officials are alive to the fact that, in a matter of months, there may be a corporate income tax rate in Alberta that is well below the lowest rate that the minister has embedded in this legislation. She should anticipate some questions around what plan B is.

Maybe there are rules around income allocation that are relevant to this that she will want to bring to the committee’s attention. But the strategy seems to be rooted around a set of numbers that could change very directly and be beyond the control of anyone in this House. The minister should anticipate questions.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

That brings me to another aspect of the agreement that the minister and her colleagues should anticipate some questions on in the committee stage. By that, I’m referring to both the term and the certainty mechanism, if I can call it that. As soon as I use the term “indemnity,” I think the minister is going to look up and say there’s no such thing. I’ll talk about that for a moment.

The term, we’re told, is 20 years. As, again, the member for Langley and others have mentioned, the government should not anticipate great howls of protest around the notion that the company consortia looking to invest multi-billion dollars is going to want certainty for an extended period of time. But at the same time, I don’t think the minister and her colleagues should be allowed to so readily dismiss or ignore or forget the kind of commentary that they levelled when it was their job to analyze and critique.

The previous agreement from 2015 was a 25-year deal. No less than the member for Langford–Juan de Fuca, the now Premier, had these pithy comments to make. A “25-year, no-cut contract” was how he described it. “You don’t see that in the NHL these days — very rarely. In fact, we’ve just gone through the free-agent season, and everybody is signing for a one-year contract. When I renew my mortgage, I don’t go to the bank and say: ‘Tell you what. I’m going to just lock in for 25 years, because I’m sure that interest rates are going to stay about the same over that period.’”

Referring to people in constituencies, the now Premier said: “They’re saying to me: ‘How is it that you can get a 25-year deal on taxation? I mean, can I just phone the Premier? Can I just phone up the Premier and say, ‘I’d like to do a deal for my taxes over the next quarter of a century?’” I guess happily, in his case, he can answer the question himself now. Maybe he got a new agent.

Again, we could do this at length, but the Finance Minister herself and her colleagues added their own version of that ridicule. And it was ridicule. They come to the House today with, admittedly, a slightly shorter term, a 20-year term. But surely it behooves the minister to explain in some measure of detail — and we will ask her in the committee stage what it is that distinguishes — why 25 was ridiculous but 20 is reasonable. She’ll have that opportunity to do so.

[6:35 p.m.]

The question of the certainty mechanism is an interesting one because, as I think most would acknowledge, an agency making this kind of investment is going to want protection against future rule changes. Again, members opposite were positively apoplectic. I mean, the rhetoric was extraordinary in response to the development of a certainty mechanism that was an indemnity. It was a legislated indemnity. We didn’t want to leave any doubt.

Today the minister and the government say: “Oh, no. We haven’t done an indemnity.” I think, by the legal definition, they are correct. I think the legal definition of an indemnity requires that it be a sum of money that is paid out. That is not the case here.

There are a couple of distinguishing features. Again, maybe the minister will…. I haven’t been particularly complimentary thus far, but I will acknowledge a second thing. In this case, it’s not moneys that are paid out. It’s forgone revenue. There is $600 million — $596 million — forgone PST that is paid back. But in the event that rules are changed in certain areas, the proponent is forgiven the obligation to pay back that deferred PST to the tune of what the damage is calculated to be.

Well, others can decide how different that is from the indemnity. It is different in this sense. Again, I want to be fair. It is limited. At least that’s what we’re told, and we’ll explore that with the minister and her colleagues. It is presumably limited to that estimated $596 million, $600 million, but it is, for all practical purposes, the same mechanism.

Again, we don’t have time, and I’m not entirely sure what benefit would be served by reviewing in detail the absolute over-the-top rhetoric that came from the minister, the now Finance Minister, and others about how irresponsible that was or that is. The minister will have an opportunity to point that out.

The other area that others have commented upon that…. Again, besides the certainty mechanism, the term, there was one other area that I sat back a couple of years ago and heard the minister and her colleagues talk about at length: job and procurement guarantees.

I’m going to give the Minister of Finance the benefit of the doubt, first of all. I’m going to ask her during the course of the committee stage to show us where they are. In light of what was said, in light of what her and her colleagues said, they must be there. I don’t believe my own colleagues. My own colleagues have convinced themselves that they’re not there. I don’t believe them, because I cannot believe, in light of what the Finance Minister and her colleagues had to say about this a scant few years ago, that these guarantees are not there.

Lest people have forgotten, here’s what the Finance Minister said on July 13 in this chamber — maybe from this seat for all I know: “…it seems to me that it would be even more important for a Premier, if they were really looking out for British Columbia, to make sure that there were jobs for British Columbians written into this agreement. But no. There are no apprenticeship quotas, there are no training quotas and there are no job numbers that are in there.”

[6:40 p.m.]

I am certain, or as certain as I can be, that during the course of the committee stage, the Finance Minister is going to lift up a document…. “No, no. You’ve missed it. All you guys in the opposition have missed it. I wasn’t kidding. It will be in the agreement.”

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Here is what the Energy Minister had to say about that question. She referred to Australia and the preferred model followed by the clever Australian governments, those wily Australians, whom, if she was ever given an opportunity to do such a deal, she would follow. She would abide.

In Australia, their project development agreement guarantees to hire local labour, to use local services, to buy local and to fund conservation. In B.C.’s project development agreement, where are we on hiring local labour? No. Do we have a commitment to use local services? No. Do we have a commitment to buy local? No.

She is now the minister who signed this agreement, and I am hopeful, at a minimum, that during the course of the committee stage debate, she will prove me right and my own colleagues wrong. That I am right that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Energy couldn’t possibly sign an agreement, after saying that, that doesn’t include those provisions.

There is a section in this legislation. It is the second final section of the bill — section 4. It looks innocuous enough. It’s a pretty short bill. It’s only a five-section bill. Most of the substantive provisions are in section 3, and they deal with the establishment of the tax credits that are part of the agreement.

Section 4 purports to do two things. It purports, in subsection (a), to repeal the Liquefied Natural Gas Income Tax Act. Now, given the direction the government has decided to go, that makes sense. They have decided to replace it with another mechanism. But what makes less sense — and what I alluded to earlier — is the attempt, in subsection (b), to repeal what was Bill 30, the Liquefied Natural Gas Project Agreements Act.

The reason it doesn’t make a lot of sense is it really only does two things. That bill, to which the previous agreement, what we call the Petronas agreement, was attached and debated in detail in this House, created an enabling power around an indemnity, but it is enabling only. There’s no requirement that the government draw on it. The previous government chose to. The existing government, the present government, has chosen not to. But it is enabling only. It creates no obligations at all.

The only obligation that is created in that short bill is to publicize, to make public agreements. The government wants to repeal that, and they have offered no explanation for why that is so. I find it staggering. I find it troubling. I can tell the House this. We have posed the question to the proponents, LNG Canada. They have not asked for this. They have clearly asked for sub (a), for the repeal of the LNG Income Tax Act, but they have not asked for the repeal of the legislation that requires agreements to be made public.

[6:45 p.m.]

Why is the minister and the government purporting to repeal it? To avoid any notion of surprise, I will — I’ll either do it now or give it to the Speaker — be tabling an amendment. I’m tabling an amendment to strike sub (b) from section 4, because I can think of no rational reason for repealing a piece of legislation that requires only one thing, and that is for the public to be made aware of agreements.

For all of that, we stand on the cusp of, perhaps, establishing an industry that a lot of folks have worked awfully hard to see become a reality. And yes, there are differing views. Someone asked me: “What about the opposition?” I hope it’s not a surprise. I said: “I hope it’s not a surprise that we remain enthusiastic supporters of the establishment of an LNG sector.” My goodness, the work, the miles that were logged by people like the member for Langley…. Is it Langley East?

Interjection.

M. de Jong: I’ve been here through so many iterations of riding boundaries that he’s still the member for Aldergrove, as far as I’m concerned.

There’s no surprise there. What is, perhaps, more surprising to an observer is the degree to which we are presented with an agreement that, on the surface at least, seems so at odds with what the government and the members of the government were demanding of others when they were in opposition.

Happily, we have a committee stage debate forthcoming where the government will have an opportunity to explain or try to reconcile some of what, on the surface, again, seems to be such blatant hypocrisy. But we will get to that in due course.

I have taken more than my fair share of time and look forward, as the House and the members of government may know, to the committee stage debate, when, perhaps, we will get answers to some of these great mysteries that reveal themselves in what the government and its members once said and what they are now purporting to do.

Hon. C. James: Seeing no further speakers, I’ll close debate on second reading.

I want to thank the members for taking part. I know it’s been a heated discussion. It’s been a discussion where we have agreed to disagree. But I think one of the things that I’ve heard all members of this House talk about is the importance of representing their communities when they come forward and make their comments. I think that’s a role that everyone in this House takes seriously — making sure that we’re bringing forward the views of our constituents.

Certainly, as a government, we take our role very seriously to govern on behalf of all of the people of British Columbia. That’s a lens that we use in everything we do, including bringing forward this historic project — balancing B.C.’s economic, social, environmental and reconciliation priorities. That’s critical as we look at this.

The Premier was clear, as I said in my opening remarks. The four conditions must be met: guarantee a fair return for B.C.’s natural resources, guarantee jobs and training opportunities for British Columbians, respect and have a true partnership with First Nations and meet the province’s climate commitments. We did work with LNG to make sure that those conditions were met, and Bill 10 represents one of those final pieces in the historic investment.

I know there will be many more opportunities as we go into committee stage to talk about the specifics. I know there was discussion around indemnification — the agreement, etc. I know we’ll have the chance to be able to explore those as they go on.

With that, I move second reading.

[6:50 p.m. - 6:55 p.m.]

Second reading of Bill 10 approved on the following division:

Hon. C. James: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Motion approved on division.

Bill 10, Income Tax Amendment Act, 2019, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

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

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:57 p.m.