Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: Before I proceed to orders of the day, I do ask leave to make a quick introduction.

Leave granted.

[2:40 p.m.]

Introductions by Members

Hon. M. Farnworth: I was remiss earlier in not introducing a longtime Port Coquitlam councillor and a friend of mine for many, many years. That’s Port Coquitlam councillor Darrell Penner and his wife, Brenda, who are over here visiting. He does amazing work in our community and has done for a very long time. I would ask the House to make him most welcome.

Motions Without Notice

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
TO SIT IN THREE SECTIONS

Hon. M. Farnworth: I move, by leave, now:

[That further to the motion adopted on February 28, 2019, that this House hereby authorizes the Committee of Supply for this session to sit in an additional third section designated Section C which will sit in the Birch Committee Room as may be appointed from time to time. All rules and provisions of the motion related to Committee of Supply, Section A shall apply to Section C. The Members of Committee of Supply, Section C shall be identical to the composition of Committee of Supply, Section A.]

Leave granted.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call second reading on Bill 29, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2019. In Section A, Committee A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 20, the Medicare Protection Act. And in Committee C, the Birch Room, I call continued debate on the estimates for the Ministry of Environment. When those are completed, it will be the estimates of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation to follow.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 29 — MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

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

This is the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2019. [Applause.]

I thank the Minister of Trade and Technology for the thunderous round of applause.

The Ministry of Attorney General has the responsibility of assembling minor amendments to different statutes within government and putting them forward in miscellaneous statutes acts. This is one of those acts.

Within this bill, there are several different sections related to different ministries. I can advise members that ministers and their staff responsible for each of these sections will be handling those questions that they may have in committee stage on this bill, as we work our way through in committee stage.

I guess, in short, what I’m saying is that credit for this remarkable bill belongs with several different members of this place and would be wrongly placed exclusively on the Ministry of Attorney General.

[2:45 p.m.]

First of all, this bill repeals the Christ College of Canada Society Act and the World Trade University Canada Establishment Act. Both of these acts were put in place by the Legislature in order to establish private post-secondary institutions, and it’s the understanding that we have within the ministry and the Ministry of Advanced Education that these institutions are no longer, or perhaps never were, actually in operation.

One of the pieces of work that staff do within the Ministry of Advanced Education and the Ministry of Attorney General is review legislation to ensure that it is compliant with what’s happening out there in the world. It’s our hope that the repeal of these bills will ensure that when people see that these are laws within British Columbia, they won’t see laws establishing universities that do not, or perhaps never did, exist.

It’s the hope, certainly, of staff and of the members on the government side that these repeals will maintain the integrity of British Columbia’s post-secondary system and protect students who may rely on the existence of legislation as an indication of quality and provincial endorsement where none may exist.

Secondly, there are a number of amendments pertaining to the Integrated Pest Management Act. These amendments fall into two categories.

The first is the collection of information and ensuring consistency in terminology. With respect to the collection of information, members will be fascinated to hear that the Integrated Pest Management Act will allow inspectors to collect information and records about future pest management activities that might be planned but may not be underway. This means that site visits can be better organized and that compliance audits during pesticide application will be more proficient, a value that I’m sure all members in this place share. Currently inspectors have no authority to ask for information about future scheduling of pest management activities.

Regarding terminology, with respect to the Integrated Pest Management Act and pest management activities, the amendments are intended to clear up inconsistencies within the act and provide clarity of understanding for members of the public and for those designated to do inspections and to enforce the act. The amendments are in the section of the act regarding administrative penalties, for those members who wish to look up the original act to reconcile the amendments.

The Personal Property Security Act is also proposed to be amended by this bill. That act allows lenders, sellers and other secured parties to obtain security interests in a debtor’s personal property in order to secure payment of the debt and to establish a priority position in the property used as collateral. The purpose of the amendments is to make changes, clarifications and corrections which promote harmonization of personal property security law. These changes are intended to address changes in business practices and the growing importance of interjurisdictional financing transactions, and these were recommended by proposals ratified at the 2017 meeting of the Canadian Conference on Personal Property Security Law.

It’s my understanding, and certainly it will be the experience of members in this place, that we often look to conferences or organizations that monitor the law in British Columbia related to various specialties, including personal property security law, for example, to recommend changes to government to ensure that the law responds to commercial realities in British Columbia. That is what happened here, and it is our hope that these amendments will improve the law, and business practice as a whole, in the province.

The most significant change among these changes is to correct and bring into force new rules for determining which jurisdiction’s law applies to security interests in movable property. These were enacted in the Finance Statutes Amendment Act of 2010. Saskatchewan and Ontario have corrected their new rules, and we’re catching up with them to some extent here in that respect. The minor changes made by these amendments include a change to the procedure for removing a registration from the personal property registry to eliminate an out-of-date exception which requires a court order.

I can also advise members that there are amendments in this bill to the Motor Vehicle Act and Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, 2018. The intention here is to clarify the review framework for administrative driving prohibitions and make other minor changes.

Members in this place may be familiar with the administrative driving prohibitions which can take place at roadside and be issued by a police officer when an individual is believed to be impaired while driving at a level of .05 or higher.

[2:50 p.m.]

When a person is served one of these driving prohibitions — that’s in relation to alcohol, obviously; it applies in relation to cannabis now, and other impairing drugs — they can apply for a review of that prohibition to the superintendent of motor vehicles on limited grounds.

In an effort to clarify the review grounds, the amendments in the bill will explicitly state that an individual may apply for a review on the grounds that they did not actually operate the motor vehicle. It seems strange that this should be necessary. But in fact, it has been observed by staff within the ministry that this would clarify and ensure people understand, when they’re looking at areas allowable for review, that if they were not actually operating the vehicle and they received a driving prohibition, that would be an appropriate area to request review by the superintendent.

These amendments make the review framework for administrative driving prohibitions consistent with other alcohol- and drug-affected driving prohibitions under the Motor Vehicle Act, more broadly.

As you can see, it’s an array of amendments to various acts of a more minor variety assembled into a single statute by the Ministry of Attorney General for the members here. As I advised members, multiple ministers and their staffs will be coming in to provide support throughout the committee stage of this, to assist the House in understanding the implications of these amendments and the proposed amendments under the act.

I think I’ll conclude my remarks there, and I look forward to hearing what other members have to say in response to the bill in this second reading debate.

M. Lee: I rise to speak generally in favour of what’s been proposed under this Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2019, Bill 29.

Generally speaking, of course, members of this House are supportive of the need to continue to clarify and update B.C.’s laws so that they reflect the current realities in our province and also take advantage of the continued nature of improving and taking into account best practices, in terms of drafting, learnt through experience and also from other jurisdictions.

It is certainly an important task of legislatures, including this one, to look at, across the country, the importance of harmonization of various regulatory frameworks, as is done with the Personal Property Security Act, for example.

However, this is the sixth miscellaneous statutes amendment bill that this government has introduced in their first two years of government. It’s a bill that continues to put forward amendments on top of amendments. We’re seeing that, given the nature of the legislative agenda for this government, they’re going back and forth on various provisions of various acts that they’ve put forward. There’s a tremendous use of resources and time here. I think that this is something that we’ll be reviewing in the committee stage as well.

The changes to the Integrated Pest Management Act certainly provide for additional compliance requirements on reporting and specific details around when an area will be applied with various pesticides. That’s important, certainly, for more high-risk zones and sites, including where there are water bodies involved. As I heard only a few hours ago in the briefing that I was provided, this will enable inspectors and other ministry personnel to be on site to ensure that the buffer zones are met from the application of various pesticides in a sensitive area, in particular.

It does, of course, invite questions around how this new tool of reporting will be managed, the resources that’ll be employed, the nature of the recordkeeping that will be necessary under these provisions and the kind of enforcement personnel that the ministry would have available to itself.

[2:55 p.m.]

As I mentioned, the amendments that are being proposed to the Personal Property Security Act, certainly as we understand, are well recognized in terms of the importance of the harmonization across the country and the timing of those provisions. There are some technical amendments, as well, that we’ll be looking at in the committee stage relating to priority, not just perfection. That’s something, certainly, that many — and some in this chamber — study in law school in terms of the basic principles around PPSA registrations.

If I go forward and look at what’s going to be required in terms of the Motor Vehicle Act, certainly in terms of the administrative driving prohibitions and what’s required to have clarity of the individual that might be going through those prohibitions, to ensure that that person is a person who is actually driving the motor vehicle and the time of evaluation being the evaluation at the time this test is being conducted….

I think there’s certainly a level of clarity that’s necessary there. As I understand it, these amendments are being made to the Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, 2018, which this government has brought forward, and there are regulations that are still to be brought in connection with that amendment act that require these amendments to be made in this miscellaneous statutes amendment bill.

So there’s a piling up of amendments that are to come here in the face of what is a very important security concern for the public here in this province — that is, those individuals who may be driving under the influence. Certainly, whether it’s alcohol or drugs, this is an important area that this government needs to be addressing and, hopefully, is doing it in a more thorough way at this time and in the face of these amendments being brought forward.

With that in mind, those are the kinds of issues that we’ll be looking to have more review of at the committee stage, and I may be joined by other colleagues of mine on this side of the House.

Hon. R. Fleming: I’m pleased to be able to speak to this miscellaneous bill this afternoon, because it does have a number of important housekeeping functions in it, amending, as it does, four different statutes.

One in particular that I’ll speak to is particularly important to me as somebody who oversaw providing some scrutiny on advanced education in this House for a number of years, where we warned the government of the day that it was committing a mistake, that it hadn’t done its due diligence. In fact, they went ahead and created a law allowing an entity that never actually came into being for a number of financial reasons and otherwise, including the fraudulent representations of the proponent at the time.

I would take issue with the member for Vancouver-Langara, who notes that this is the sixth miscellaneous bill that the government has introduced. I would make two points in response to that.

It’s no secret that our government has a number of areas where it has to clean up messes left by the previous government — a number of areas. In some cases, these are Crown corporations, entire programs, and in some cases, it has to deal with flawed legislation that the government was warned at the time was flawed but proceeded to pass anyway.

Where I may agree with the member for Vancouver-Langara about the potential abuses of a miscellaneous bill is if government is tucking in amendments that are substantive and significant, as opposed to what this government has done, which is to transparently advise that — rather than, for example, splitting this into four bills and wasting valuable legislative time that I’m sure that the opposition wants to manage as closely and prioritize as much as the government does — we put it in a miscellaneous bill so that debate can happen simultaneously on things that could be considered by some, perhaps, to be insignificant but nevertheless are substantive enough that they deserve amendment and attention. That’s what a miscellaneous bill is intended for.

So the member for Vancouver-Langara may want to actually qualify rather than just do a drive-by on an allegation that we’re using a miscellaneous statutes amendment bill wrongfully — to acknowledge, in fact, that our government has been absolutely transparent and fair in providing debate time in the use of a miscellaneous statutes amendment bill. If only his government had treated the opposition the way that we treat them — in the same fair-minded way.

[3:00 p.m.]

Let me speak to the area that’s of particular interest to me in this bill, and that is a bit of housekeeping, if I can put it mildly, around the World Trade University Act that was passed ignominiously by this Legislature in 2006 — against the advice of various post-secondary educators’ organizations and faculty associations in the province of British Columbia; against the advice, undoubtedly, of ministry staff at the time who had probably checked out the credentials of the proponent and found it wanting; against the warnings, certainly, from the opposition at the time; and many, many others.

This entity was promised free land at the former CFB Chilliwack site. They were promised all kinds of tax concessions by local government. They were lauded by the B.C. Liberal government of the day as some kind of heroic senior executive management school that would be absolutely free to the taxpayer, even though it was layered with all kinds of tax concessions. They promised us that nobody would be able to operate in British Columbia using the word “university,” which is sacredly guarded, without their quality and reputation being checked.

Guess what. They didn’t do the work. In fact, the proponent of this so-called university was reprimanded — this was public knowledge at the time, as the government was putting its bill through the House — for illegally using and claiming a connection to the United Nations, with which it had no such connection. It was reprimanded for illegally claiming and representing that it had a connection to the World Trade Organization, the WTO, with which it had absolutely no connection.

Guess what they were doing. They were shopping around for investors, many of whom could have been bilked out of their potential investments, using the reputation that Canada and British Columbia have built up over decades for high-quality post-secondary education, using that as a way to suggest that they had been scrutinized and that they were the real deal.

That’s the shame of the bill that we’re repealing today — that this happened in plain sight, with the government’s knowledge at the time and that Mr. Chowdhury, who was the proponent, was somebody who was, shall we say, being chased by the law on several continents and was invited to do business here with all kinds of free tax goodies and incentives in British Columbia. He did not have the authority to offer MBAs and advanced management degrees by the United Nations. He did not have a curriculum that was aligned with any of the international trade organizations to which he claimed affinity.

The reason why that act needs to be repealed here and today is because British Columbia suffered significant damage, reputationally. The United Kingdom higher education supplement wrote all about the debacles in British Columbia and how unusual it was for a Canadian jurisdiction to get it so wrong. The Vancouver Sun wrote an interesting summary of the whole World Trade University fiasco, which went on for several years, and said that in the end, this university only served up “degrees of embarrassment.” It never got off the ground. It cost the taxpayers a lot of money. It could have done even further reputational damage than perhaps it did do in the end.

That brings me to the point which the Attorney General should be thanked for this afternoon: that government needs to clean up a lot of messes from the previous government. To have this statute on the books would invite, potentially, further abuse than we’ve suffered already. It could allow a third party to claim that it would act within the law if this were allowed to stay on the statute books. So it needs to be repealed. In fact, the government had the opportunity to listen for years and years to CUFABC, to the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators, to various university presidents — who would say, both privately and publicly, that what is being done today should have been done a long time ago.

I would hate to see somebody come into this province and examine that — a law that is flawed and that refers to a failed entity, which could somehow be picked up and marketed again to international students. We’ve seen, in the past under the previous government, way too many students lose valuable savings, getting ripped off and not having adequate consumer protection in British Columbia.

We’ve worked quickly as a government to change that and to make sure that international students here don’t have horrific nightmare stories where they’re being ripped off by unsavoury fly-by-night operations. As a jurisdiction connected to other Commonwealth countries that have, over the years, protected who can legally use the right to the word “university,” we must protect that. The amendment bill that’s before us today does exactly that.

[3:05 p.m.]

The Attorney General has obviously considered opinions that the previous government wrongly rejected — those of senior academics, those in the business community, those from the entities that were erroneously linked to the very name of this so-called, fake, university. For cleaning up that mess, among many others, I think the House should thank the Attorney General this afternoon. He’s properly using the parliamentary procedure around what a miscellaneous statutes bill should be. I would say it’s an exemplary example here this afternoon, and I will enthusiastically vote for this bill.

Hon. D. Eby: Just a couple of quick remarks in relation to the speeches on this bill before I move second reading. First of all, I wanted to thank the Minister of Education, because when he was the critic for Advanced Education, he raised this issue that he spoke about — about this university. He explained to the government in several different ways why that bill should not go ahead. So he speaks with some knowledge about that. I want to thank him for his service to British Columbians — drawing it to the attention, at that time, that it wasn’t a great idea — and for giving us a little bit of history about that bill.

I also wanted to respond a little bit to the comments of the member for Vancouver-Langara in relation to the miscellaneous statutes bill and what the government is doing. The member can expect, and should expect, multiple miscellaneous statutes bills. We are doing a lot of work within the ministry and within government — to borrow a phrase again from the Minister of Education — to clean up a lot of problems that were left for us by the previous administration.

Some of them are small, as miscellaneous statutes — all bills introduced that needed clean-up, that people were suggesting changes to, to make things run more smoothly. We’re listening to those, we’re making those changes, and we are prioritizing those changes. We’re very proud to do that. I don’t quite understand the criticism; we’re doing what we were sent here to do. In any event, that’s his position, and that’s mine.

With that, I move second reading of the bill.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 29, Miscellaneous Statutes 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.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 20 — MEDICARE PROTECTION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Bill 20, Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2019, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. D. Eby: In the big House here, I call second reading of Bill M209, the Business Corporations Amendment Act (No. 2), 2019. In Section A, in the Douglas Fir Room, I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 25, the Coastal Ferry Amendment Act, 2019.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL M209 — BUSINESS CORPORATIONS
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 2019

A. Weaver: I move that Bill M209 be now read a second time.

[3:10 p.m.]

It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak at second reading to Bill M209, Business Corporations Amendment Act. I will outline my speech in four different sections. I’ll start by giving a brief introduction as to the purpose and the intent of the bill — what it does — moving on to the process by which it was created, and finishing with a conclusion and the type of economy it’s trying to encourage and build.

This is a bill that my office has been working on for quite some months, since May of last year, and I’m thrilled that we’ve been given the opportunity to debate it today. I’m, frankly, grateful to government for providing us and members of the opposition access to legislative drafters to allow us to bring this bill in the form that we know has gone through the formal legislative drafting process.

I’ve talked a lot about the emerging economy and the fact that the government needs to be prepared and resilient amidst the rapid shifts that are occurring in our society and our economy. These include, but are not limited to, things like climate change, environmental degradation, changes to the nature of work, rapid technological advance, the whole increasing disparity between those who have and those who don’t have, income security and so forth. I believe that, frankly, business must play a central role in helping us tackle these enormous challenges and find solutions. It is not only up to government to find the solutions. It is also up to business.

That’s why we created this legislation to create benefit companies in British Columbia. The idea for this legislation was brought to us from the business community, from both small and large companies that are already using their business to do good and wanted a clearer legal framework under which to operate. I think government, frankly, needs to do more to encourage and support these types of businesses that have chosen to go beyond the pursuit of profit to also pursue critical social and environmental values.

What does the bill do? I want to start by highlighting some of the key elements of the bill. One, it adds a new part to the Business Corporations Act, enabling companies to incorporate as benefit companies. It would provide a legal framework for companies that are committed to pursuing a triple bottom line to embedding social responsibility and environmental sustainability into their companies’ DNA. These companies could take on expanded purpose, accountability and transparency.

The bill would require companies to change their articles to enshrine a commitment to act in a responsible and sustainable manner. This means they must — that’s important, the word “must” — take into account the well-being of persons affected by their conduct and endeavour to use a fair and proportionate share of available environmental, social and economic resources and capacities. They must, again, also pursue one or more specific public benefits of a positive effect on society or the environment.

Another key component of the legislation is that it creates new duties for directors of benefit companies. They must — again I use the word “must” — balance their duty to act in the best interests of the company with the new duties to act with a view to operating their business responsibly and sustainably, as well as to promote specific public benefits. I want to come to highlight this a little bit more because I think this is an important element, a key element, that we need to highlight.

Right now it’s clear. Our case law already makes it very clear that directors may — it’s a very important word “may,” as opposed to “must” — consider broader stakeholders as they consider their duty to act in the best interests of the corporation. The federal government recognized this and is now codifying this into the Canada Business Corporations Act. That’s a very welcome move, frankly, that the federal government is doing in making it clear that all directors have the ability to consider broader stakeholders in their decision-making — that they may consider. That’s based on the case law that arose from the very famous BCE case that enshrined at the Supreme Court level that directors may in fact go broader than just fiduciary responsibility.

We also know that considering broader stakeholders in their decision-making is one thing but also that Canadian directors are not bound by a shareholder primacy rule. This bill does something different. It does something very different. It goes further. It creates a duty for directors of benefit companies to act responsibly and sustainably to promote public benefits. More than this, it requires directors of benefit companies to balance their existing duty to act in the best interests of the company with these new duties to act responsibly and sustainably and promote public benefits.

Again, I come back to this. This was an issue brought to us by small and large business looking for certainty, looking to do a reduced risk as they move forward in these directions.

[3:15 p.m.]

It’s important to note that nothing in this legislation precludes the directors of an ordinary company from also considering other interests, like employees or the environment, when acting in the best interest of the company. This does not preclude any existing company from doing that. But benefit companies must also report their performance against an independent third-party standard which must be developed by a person or entity that is unrelated to the benefit company.

The reporting must be done annually and must be available to the public. This element is important to ensure transparency for suppliers, purchasers and customers that the company is indeed living up to its stated goals. I hope that this requirement will spur innovation in B.C. and that strong local standards will emerge for benefit companies to use, as put forward and adjudicated by strong, B.C.-based, third-party verifiers.

The legislation creates clear expectations about the nature and mandate of the company and provides protections for directors who choose to prioritize public benefits and not only profit.

This legislation would help mission-driven companies stay true to their mission as they grow and protect the vision of the founders of benefit companies by embedding the environmental and social benefits into the companies’ actual mandate.

It would provide more certainty for impact investors, another critical aspect of this bill. The impact investors are looking to invest in mission-aligned companies of the nature and the mandate of a company, but what’s critical to them is that they not have an asset lock that existed in very fine enabling legislation for the creation of what are called C3s in the province of British Columbia, put forward by the B.C. Liberals in the last session. That doesn’t affect that at all.

But what it does here…. The asset lock associated with those C3s precluded impact investors from actually moving forward, because you invest and you can’t get your investment back out. This would allow impact investors to actually know that the company is triple bottom line and is one focused on a much broader mandate than just fiscal benefit for the shareholders.

The act would provide more certainty for impact investors looking to invest in mission-aligned companies, as I said. Moreover, this legislation would provide a simple framework for companies to adhere to that is legally and commercially recognized.

The choice to become a benefit company is completely voluntary. There’s no requirement. There’s no impact on existing corporations and no tax implications at all, although the government down the road may view some kind of change in the way it incorporates tax to benefit companies versus other companies, if a government moving forward sees that this is something they wish to encourage. But that is up to government and not something that we’ll be bringing or discussing in a private member’s bill.

I also believe that the benefit company legislation would be complementary to existing structures in place. I want to recognize again — come back to this — the leadership and initiative put forward by the previous government in creating the so-called C3, or community contribution companies, that I spoke about. I see C3s and benefit companies as different ways, on a spectrum, for government to support socially and environmentally responsible business forums.

Now, I’ve heard, and we’ve consulted extensively, from many businesses that the C3 structure is simply too restrictive for many for-profit businesses, since they would need to fundamentally change their corporate structure and reduce their ability to attract investment. We can and should, frankly, provide another option to support sustainable and responsible businesses in B.C.

The C3 structure works wonderfully if a not-for-profit is looking to create a business arm that is permanently associated with the not-for-profit because the asset lock of the company associated with a not-for-profit is the not-for-profit. So any profits must be flowed back to the not-for-profit. That works well in that case. It does not work well for a for-profit business venture which is seeking to do more than just fiscal bottom line.

I’d fully support any efforts to continue the work started by the previous administration to support C3s. Steps in this direction could include, for example, doing more to promote the C3 brand, enhancing public awareness of C3s and providing tax incentives and benefits for investments in C3s.

This, again, is not something that we believe competes with C3s. It’s something that we believe is very complementary to C3s. But it gives certain classes of companies, those that are looking to the triple bottom line and not have to worry about the asset lock associated with the C3, to actually incorporate and move forward in that manner….

I’d like to take a few minutes on section 3 here to discuss the process that led to the position we’re in now. As many, obviously, who are aware, I first introduced this bill for debate last May with the purpose of starting a conversation of that Legislature. We had a discussion and a debate and passed second reading, and over the following months, we worked as a caucus very hard to consult stakeholders and experts from across Canada, frankly, and elsewhere to make sure that we got the details right.

[3:20 p.m.]

We met with many, many business leaders, as well as leaders in social enterprise and owners of C3s, about their goals for a sustainable economy and how this legislation would fit in or what we needed to do to ensure that we were able to build support. We also undertook an extensive consultation with the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association to get insight from them as to the various legal questions that might arise from this.

Throughout this process, we worked closely with the legislative drafter, the one that we’ve assigned to this project, to craft this amendment in order to ensure that it is legally enforceable and that it works well and is consistent with existing B.C. laws. And, of course, we consulted with government through the confidence and supply agreement secretariat.

In conclusion, I’m very proud of this piece of legislation, and I’m very glad to see that we’re debating it at second reading today. I’m grateful to government for bringing this forward on the order paper to actually allow us to have this debate. I think it bodes well for working across party lines to see private members’ bills discussed in this fashion. I hope we’re able to move forward both with opposition bills as well as other bills from others in this chamber.

We will have a rather interesting and novel process in committee stage. I look forward to articulating that as we move towards that. This hasn’t been done before in this Legislature, as far as we can tell, where an opposition member is in committee stage. That will be a unique experience. I think we might point to some revisions in the standing orders that we might want to discuss collectively as we move forward, as we move to this committee phase, an odd committee phase that it is, in the B.C. Legislature, compared to other jurisdictions.

I believe that, frankly, becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to champion benefit companies is a huge opportunity. We know that Quebec is right behind us here and likely going to follow through shortly thereafter. But we’re leaders here in B.C. We don’t follow others. I think British Columbians enjoy being leaders, and that’s why I’m excited that government has continued to support this effort moving forward.

B.C. is already, like Quebec…. We’re sort of a mirror of Quebec in that regard. We are home to many, many socially responsible companies. It’s part of our, frankly, stellar brand as one of the greenest places in the world. “Super, natural British Columbia” and “Beautiful British Columbia” are monikers on our licence plates, for years have been focusing on our natural beauty and what brings people to our lovely province.

We’ve been seeing, also, shifts in consumer patterns and behaviour, particularly among younger demographics sensitive to social and environmental impacts. We know, again, from our extensive consultation, that the millennial group — the category, however you want to call them — millennials in this area, are very concerned about social enterprises. They’re very supportive of and look, actually, to buy from and invest in social enterprises or triple-bottom-line companies. Benefit companies allow those companies, from small to large, to actually demonstrate, distinguish and be publicly transparent about their overall mission in a triple-bottom-line sense.

Frankly, we’re struggling as a society to adjust and respond to massive technological, social and environmental shifts that we’re facing — whether it be, as I said earlier, from climate change to automation. We need, frankly, I think, to think differently in order to turn our challenges into opportunities. This is one of the things this bill does here.

We need the partnership and to engage with the business community to help us deal with these challenges. Not to prescribe solutions to business but to work with business to allow the innovative ideas in business to flow through in an environment that seeds and nurtures this innovation. That’s how we’ll be successful.

Government and the non-profit sector cannot, by themselves, respond to the challenges that we face before us; frankly, nor should they. Businesses play an incredible and a huge role in our society, and they must be part of any solution to any problem that we see emerging. Companies that pursue a triple bottom line, frankly, are on the cutting edge of rethinking the role of business in the 21st century.

Now, some are doing so voluntarily. Others wish to do so, and they wish to be protected. This legislation gives them protection and gives them the ability to follow a suite of rules that are set out to ensure that what they do is enshrined in their articles and protected moving forward.

Businesses know that acting in the best interests of people and the planet is the best way to build a thriving economy for the long term. If B.C. had this legislation on the books and if companies were able to incorporate as benefit companies, with an explicit social or environmental benefit baked into that purpose, it would send a very strong signal to the market that the government supports this approach to business and that British Columbia is a home and wants to seek and attract new business in this area.

[3:25 p.m.]

We look forward and encourage more companies to incorporate social and environmental values into their own businesses, empowering them to create change in our province and to help us solve many of the challenges that face us all.

I look forward to listening to the other comments and the deliberations at committee phase.

Hon. B. Ralston: I’m pleased to stand in the House today and support Bill M209, amendments to the Business Corporations Act, tabled by the Leader of the Third Party.

Indeed, this is, as he has mentioned, an exceptional example of how the Legislature works best when all sides of the House can come together to work for British Columbians. The values of collaboration, partnership and public good are fundamental to this minority government and to the confidence and supply agreement between our two parties. We’ve worked closely, as the last speaker pointed out, with our partners towards today’s amendments, which will give B.C. businesses a new option to create a corporate structure which furthers the companies’ social, environmental and business goals.

Certainly, there is some tradition of legal interpretation and, I think, public discussion that suggests that a company has to advance only, solely, the interests of shareholders. It’s sometimes called shareholder value. Or the other focus would be exclusively on maximizing profit. Sometimes it’s expressed that way.

Now, that is a matter of legal dispute, whether that is the sole requirement. This sometimes comes up in debates on pension fund administration, where the trustees may wish to invest in a company for reasons other than their ability to maximize profits. There has been some litigation and consideration of that obligation.

What this bill does, and the language of this bill, is make very clear and explicit that the purpose of…. These amendments would allow for incorporation of a legal entity that is a benefit company, where the purpose of the company is expressly set out in its articles of association.

A benefit company is defined as a for-profit company that is legally required to consider its stakeholders — such as the environment, the local community or future generations — in addition to its shareholders. It bypasses that debate and makes it very explicit that the company isn’t legally required…. It’s, in fact, obligated — it’s not an option — if the company chooses to head in this direction, to consider the shareholders or the stakeholders in specific areas.

The new legal framework described in these amendments would require a company to state that it is a benefit company in its notice of articles and to state the public benefit it wishes to promote. So rather than subject to the changes of the board of directors or the whim of the CEO or changing directions in public sentiment, this would anchor that company to those articles, and it would be required to report what its public benefit is.

The company will define for itself what it is. For example, it may state expressly that its interests are climate change, cultural diversity or scientific advances. Each company, then, a benefit company, would report on how it has conducted its business in a responsible and sustainable manner and promoted its stated public benefit.

Many B.C. companies and B.C. businesses are already leaders in building sustainable and socially responsible practices into their enterprise. The Leader of the Third Party certainly pointed that out. In fact, one might argue that in order to be a successful company, in order to attract and retain particularly millennials who are looking for meaningful and purposeful work…. One of the advantages of having a company with a social purpose is its attractiveness to its employees and also its attractiveness to potential consumers of its services or of its goods. Certainly, that’s very evident in the corporate advertising strategies of many companies these days.

[3:30 p.m.]

I think this legislation is reinforcing a direction which is already emerging as a trend, particularly here in British Columbia. Businesses will have a new way to build public responsibility right into their legal framework. People certainly want more choices that reflect their values when building their businesses, and British Columbians, as I said, want to choose businesses that share the same goals. This bill puts forward changes that will help to build a strong, sustainable economy that works for people in British Columbia and helps build a sustainable economy.

As the Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology, I’m happy to support this bill, Bill M209, and to provide businesses with a new corporate structure by which they can show their commitment to the public good.

That concludes my brief remarks.

M. Lee: It’s a pleasure to speak to this private member’s bill introduced by the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head.

In reaction to my last comments by other members in the House about a miscellaneous statutes amendment bill, the sixth one, let me just say that it’s indicative of the kind of dialogue we have this in this House. Clearly, a miscellaneous statutes amendment act is there for housekeeping.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

The concern that was raised regarding the prolonged nature of these exercises and how we keep turning over various amendments and the fact that there’s a sixth one that has come forward in the less-than-two-year span of this government is a concern. That was the concern I made. The fact that there was some language utilized about cleaning up messes…. I think that that is something that was clearly beyond the scope of the miscellaneous statutes, as these statements might be the concern.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member.

M. Lee: Let me say, with the changeover here…. I should say, of course, that there have been 26 private members’ bills introduced by members of this House — not by members of the NDP government or from the Green Party but by members from the B.C. Liberal caucus. In some cases, those bills have been tabled twice — the Safe Care Act, for example; the Equal Pay Reporting Act; the Welfare Payment System Reflection Act; the Vulnerable Adolescents Protection from E-Cigarettes Act.

These are just a few of the various private members’ bills that have been tabled in this House and have not had this opportunity that we are about to have in this conversation around this particular bill. As the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head just noted, he would wish and hope that there’d be an opportunity for those other bills that have been raised by members of the B.C. Liberal caucus to also see the floor of this House.

I certainly stand here, along with my other colleagues, to urge this government to enable that. Because there are other pressing matters as well, good initiatives where private members put in time and effort to go out to do the various stakeholder-type conversations that the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head has done in order to bring forward a private member’s bill. Again, I would say, on behalf of the other members of the B.C. Liberal caucus, that we certainly would urge this government to give the opportunity for members of this House to consider the 26 private members’ bills that have been introduced over the last two years in this House.

Having said that, it’s very clear that the record in this House has been that we need to continue to support the development of a corporate model that allows for companies and entrepreneurs to pursue a social purpose in addition to their business interests. We see that the corporate world continues to evolve in terms of good governance and that it’s important for all stakeholders — including employees, shareholders and other potential investors — to consider the aims of a company and whether they align not just with the notion of dollars but the notion of public good.

[3:35 p.m.]

This legislation certainly would provide a further choice for entrepreneurs, business owners and risk-takers to work forward on a different structural entity. This does, however, follow, as noted by the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, the previous initiative, which at the time was the first legislation of its kind in Canada. This was back in 2012-2013, when the B.C. Liberal government established the community contribution companies act, 3Cs, in terms of the initiatives that were brought forward for amendments to the Finance Statutes Amendment Act and also the Business Corporations Act.

This was to ensure that entrepreneurs could pursue social goods through their businesses while allowing them to generate a profit and provide investment opportunities to like-minded investors. The legislation, as it was originally considered, was designed to bridge the gap between for-profit businesses and not-for-profit enterprises.

As I mentioned, this innovative business model was the first of its kind in Canada, and the 3C status certainly signalled that a company has a legal obligation to conduct business for social purposes and not purely for money gain. The establishment of the structure was built to facilitate companies pursuing social goods and to help them build earned income to secure long-term growth.

One or more primary purposes of a 3C, a community contribution company, must be community purposes, and these purposes were to be set out in the articles. This obligation was in the hope to attract capital that is not readily accessible to the social enterprise sector by appealing to philanthropic investors who still expect some financial return from their investment.

There are a lot of good measures of this particular bill, which we will come back to. But I wanted to also acknowledge what the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head said, which is that for the 3C framing, it’s going to be important that we continue as a province to support that option — that we publicize and encourage and support that so that more organizations can take advantage of what has been a B.C. Liberal caucus initiative in the past.

In terms of the ability of a benefit company to come forward, there are some elements of the bill that we will have to walk through in discussion at committee stage. That will be how we would be working with third parties responsible for managing the standards of benefit corporations — who will do that, how that process will work, whether or not domestic standards will be developed. Additionally, we’ll want to seek to examine in greater detail how this legislation fits into how Canadian corporate law already works. I will make some comments later on in my remarks about that. It certainly will be something that we’ll want to consider in terms of the protection that was there.

The so-called asset lock was really to ensure that those who might invest funds in a 3C weren’t going to find themselves with those assets or those funds being moved to another purpose. If there was a dissolution of a 3C enterprise, those funds would need to find their way into another similar enterprise that had a similar objective or aim in mind. That is an example of how we will be looking, at the committee stage, as to this particular private member’s bill about benefit corporations and what protections there are for investors in these enterprises.

Certainly, there is increased level of transparency in terms of the reporting of benefits on a regular basis that’s contemplated here, as was the case with 3Cs. But in terms of the actual spelling out in the articles of the purposes of, in that case, a 3C or benefit corporation, that’s going to need to be clearly set out.

One thing I would add here to members of the House is that it’s useful, of course, to keep in mind that the evolution of good governance of corporations in Canada has certainly gone beyond ensuring that the interests of stakeholders and shareholders are kept front and foremost.

[3:40 p.m.]

As my colleague on the other side just mentioned in terms of shareholder return, that has been the traditional way of looking at how companies might operate. But we have seen that with greater transparency requirements, disclosure around governance structures, annual report expectations, companies of course that want to ensure that they have the support from local communities, from governments of the day, from their investors, from their employees, operate with the best interests of not just the shareholders in mind, but of all stakeholders. That includes employees, creditors, consumers, the environment — those who are concerned about the impact that a resource company may have on a local community and where people live — and, of course, relationship with Indigenous peoples.

These are the kinds of contexts in which companies must operate and for which there is expectation by shareholders that companies can demonstrate that they’re operating in accordance with best governance principles.

Of course, it doesn’t take the laws of the day, whether it’s through the courts or through government, to tell companies to do that. The dialogue that’s here in this province and this chamber oftentimes is that there’s a separation between the corporate interest versus individual British Columbians. I think that a bill like this…. We need to be careful about the bill, in the sense that we need to recognize that companies today need to operate in the best interests of all stakeholders. That’s in the case of decisions that we’ve seen at the Supreme Court level, whether it’s in Peoples Department Stores v. Wise or the BCE decision.

I know that when I worked in business law, advising many companies about their duties, directors and management teams, those boards of directors and management teams took the responsibility seriously. The laws of the day certainly have provided for greater expectations around transparency, as I mentioned, and also greater requirements around how companies operate. So it’s important, as we look at this bill, that it’s done within the context to understand that benefit corporations will give one further option. But it should not, for some investors who see impact investing vehicles as having a necessary structure, to enable that….

Benefit corporations in the United States certainly have been a movement of sorts. We will see how they adapt and work within the Canadian context. But Canadian corporate governance laws are much different from U.S. corporate governance laws. We are far more progressive and far more accountable, let’s say, in the way that corporations operate. I think it’s important that members of this House continue to recognize that, and recognize, as we consider this benefit legislation, that it is one piece in a spectrum of what’s important as to how we continue to support and work with business owners, management teams and their boards and their stakeholders in terms of ensuring that companies are part of building a better future here in this province.

Hon. C. James: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill M209. Before I go into talking about the substance of the bill, I just want to take a couple of minutes to talk a little bit about the process of how the bill was developed.

I understand that the Leader of the Third Party talked a little bit about that, but because it’s often contrary to what people believe happens in this place, often contrary to what people imagine is always the cut and thrust of debate and discussion in this Legislature, I think it is important to just take a few minutes to talk about the process of developing this bill.

From my perspective, it really underscores what I believe most of the public expects us to do in this place. It underscores the value of collaboration. It underscores the value of partnership, of public good — all the foundations of our confidence and supply agreement that we have in place in the minority government. But I really believe these are the principles that most of the public expects of their elected officials to come to this Legislature and bring to this Legislature. They certainly, I believe, were the values and are the values that helped bring this private member’s bill forward.

[3:45 p.m.]

As we all know in this House, this is not a government bill. When this bill was first tabled, our government felt it was an idea worth exploring. We noted, certainly, that the Business Corporations Act is a very large bill. It’s a very technical foundational piece of finance legislation. It was critical to make sure that any legislation that came forward was drafted in a way that worked with the principles of the bill that were there.

Our government…. The public may not be aware of this, but we have a new policy that ensures that all members of the Legislature — not simply members of the Green caucus but, in fact, all members of the Legislature — and their staff can access the legislative drafter to ensure that as they bring legislation forward, it meets the intent of the existing legislation and that it works. Because ultimately, if we want to make sure that we bring something forward, we want it to work in the Legislature.

I know that the Third Party caucus worked very closely with their drafter to make sure that they drafted the bill in a way that, as I said, made it possible for it to be brought forward. I also know that the members welcomed the feedback from Finance staff. I’ll say thank you to my Finance staff as well. They provided technical advice to make sure the amendments that were coming forward fit within the existing framework of the Business Corporations Act.

There were meetings. There were reviews of the draft legislation. As I said, the work certainly was very much in the spirit of collaboration that was set out. I think, again, that the agreement that we’re seeing today and the debate on a private member’s bill, certainly from my perspective, show that the Legislature works best when all MLAs can bring forward good ideas and when MLAs can come together to actually support those ideas that will advance the public good. That’s really what you’re seeing today in the legislation.

As I said, I highlight it because I think it’s so contrary to the adversarial process that people associate with politics and associate with the Legislature. I think it’s important, as I turn to the substance of the bill, to make sure that we’ve reminded people that in this place, it is possible. It is possible in this Legislature for us to come together. It is possible for opposite sides to collaborate, to bring forward good legislation and to be able to have that debate and discussion in this place.

I’m just going to take a few minutes to look at the substance of this bill. The Business Corporations Act, in itself, is a facilitative statute. It allows British Columbians to create legal entities to help further their business and their social goals. The amendments that are coming forward create a new legal entity, as you’ve heard in the discussion — a benefit company — and give British Columbians a new option when choosing a corporate structure for their business.

A benefit company is a for-profit company with the legal requirement to consider other stakeholders and other issues and areas such as the environment, the local community or future generations in addition to its shareholders. In particular, the directors of the benefit company must exercise their powers in a manner that balances their duty to act in the best interests of the company and their new duty to act in a responsible and sustainable manner and promote the company’s stated public benefits.

Benefit companies are a relatively recent creation in corporate law, first introduced in 2010 in the United States. Since then, we’ve seen significant growth in jurisdictions, with benefit companies now possible under corporate law in 35 of the U.S. states as well as Italy and Colombia.

In line with the facilitative nature of the Business Corporations Act, this bill will enable companies to state the public benefit that they wish to promote. As a safeguard — because, I think, accountability and transparency are critical in making sure that this legislation works and that these amendments work — the benefit company must explicitly state its public benefit goals in its articles of incorporation, which allows investors to determine if the stated public benefit aligns with their investment and their social goals. To measure these goals, every year a benefit company must prepare a benefit report describing how it’s conducted its business in a responsible and sustainable manner and promoted the public benefit specified in its articles.

[3:50 p.m.]

This assessment — I know the member of the opposition will be asking questions in committee — will be performed through the use of a third-party standard that will measure the benefit company’s success in achieving its stated public benefit. A third-party standard is a standard developed by a person or entity unrelated to the benefit company — again, providing that accountability. State clearly up front what the benefit is, report out on that benefit, and have a third party be able to assess whether they have reached the success.

The benefit report must also be presented to the shareholders of the company at the annual general meeting. It must be kept in the company’s corporate records, where it can be inspected by the members of the public, and be posted on the company’s publicly accessible website, if one exists. Again, that’s accountability: ensuring that the public and the shareholders are aware of what the benefits are of this company.

Again, to fit the facilitated purpose of the Business Corporations Act, the benefit company selects the third-party standard through which it will measure its performance in achieving its public benefits commitments. The annual benefit report must specify which third-party standard was chosen and the process and the rationale for its selection or replacement. Another safeguard built in: the bill gives the government the power to specify, by regulation, minimum requirements of a third-party standard.

These amendments allow an existing company to become a benefit company by altering its notices of articles to include a benefit statement and setting out the nature of the company. This has to be done through a special resolution, which generally means about two-thirds of the shareholder votes in favour. Similarly, going the other way, a benefit company can cease to be one by removing the benefit statement through a special resolution.

Lastly, as a conversion to or from a benefit company, there’s a fundamental change to a company. Minority shareholders who disagree are given a right to dissent. This protects their interests by requiring the company to repurchase any shares of a dissenting shareholder for fair market value upon conversion to or from a benefit company — again, providing that support for the shareholders to ensure that they have all the information they need to make that judgment, to make that decision and then an ability, as I said, to have their shares repurchased for fair market value.

I’m pleased to speak in support of this bill to provide British Columbians with a new corporate structure with goals to benefit the public through which they can conduct their business. And in response to the opposition speaker, I would certainly hope that this is just the first of many opportunities to see the kind of cooperation and shared goals on behalf of the public interests that we see come forward in this Legislature.

S. Chandra Herbert: I hadn’t planned to speak on this bill, but I just wanted to, certainly, thank the Leader of the Third Party, the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, for bringing it forward and to congratulate the government on working with him to see this legislation brought forward.

As members will know, I have long brought forward private members’ bills myself in this House. Under the former government, we never had a chance of having any of them debated or brought up for discussion, so it makes me happy to see that a bill like this has come forward in this way. I know the member has worked very hard to prove the case for it, to make the arguments, to ensure everyone understood why legislation to support these benefit corporations should support a different form of business with a social and an environmental conscience.

Congratulations to all for working together to do this. I’m happy to hear it and happy to see it, and I hope we have more opportunities in the future for all MLAs, indeed, to get a greater chance to have their voices and their passions heard through legislation as we see here today.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head will close the debate.

A. Weaver: Thank you to the Minister of Jobs, Training and Technology, the Minister of Finance, the member for Vancouver–West End and the member for Vancouver-Langara for their thoughtful comments on this legislation. I look forward to the further deliberations at the committee stage.

[3:55 p.m.]

A number of issues were raised, and I look forward to discussing them, by the member for Vancouver-Langara. In particular, he referred to the case law under BCE, which, I’m sure, we’ll explore further at committee stage. As I’ve emphasized earlier on in my introductory remarks, we know that Canadian directors are not bound by the shareholder primacy rule that exists in the U.S., and we understand that there is a different corporate law in Canada that means that directors may seek and go beyond the fiduciary requirement under a shareholder primacy rule that exists and that is enshrined in law. Even more so, we know that the federal government is actually bringing it into a bill that’s before the federal House. So I look forward to debating that further.

To the point that the member opposite raised with respect to private members’ bills, I think it’s important just to address it in the context of this bill. We did use, extensively, the access that we have been granted by government to legislative drafters. This ensured that the bill we brought forward and that is debated is one that meets the requirements set out to ensure it is consistent with, legally okay with, other existing B.C. acts.

I would encourage the member for Vancouver-Langara to encourage his colleagues to take advantage of the legislative drafters that we have been given access to, because it allows for us to actually ensure that the bill we’re debating actually has all the i’s and t’s dotted legally, in terms of how it fits into other law in British Columbia.

I look forward to the committee stage. I thank the members for their comments, and I look forward to further discussions.

With that, I move second reading of Bill M209.

Motion approved.

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

Bill M209, Business Corporations Amendment Act (No. 2), 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.

Hon. B. Ralston: I call second reading debate on Bill 18, Workers Compensation Amendment Act.

BILL 18 — WORKERS COMPENSATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Hon. H. Bains: I move that Bill 18 be read a second time now.

As Minister of Labour, it is my commitment and the commitment of this government to make British Columbia the safest workplace jurisdiction in Canada. It is also a prime concern of mine that those workers who put their own safety at risk to keep British Columbians and their properties safe be afforded the best possible protection under the Workers Compensation Act.

To facilitate workers compensation coverage for firefighters, the Workers Compensation Act and Firefighters’ Occupational Disease Regulation have been amended a number of times over the last 14 years to provide better and more expensive presumptive coverage for firefighters, including the mental health disorder presumptions that we added last year.

A presumption under the act provides that if a worker in a specified occupation develops certain diseases or disorders, those conditions are presumed to be due to the nature of the job. The worker is then eligible for benefits under the workers compensation system without requiring additional evidence of proof that their specific condition was caused by their job.

In 2005, the act first recognized certain cancers as occupational diseases that are presumed to be associated with long-term employment as a firefighter. This presumption recognizes that firefighters face exposure to toxic substances that, over the long term, can lead to serious illnesses. Additional cancers have been added since 2005.

In 2013, the Workers Compensation Act was amended to restore heart disease and heart injury in firefighters to the list of presumptive diseases recognized by WorkSafeBC.

In 2018, our government further amended the act to add a new mental health disorder presumption for firefighters as well as police officers, ambulance paramedics, sheriffs and correctional officers. This presumption recognizes that firefighters, along with these other first responders, are often exposed to traumas in their work that can result in post-traumatic stress disorder — PTSD, as we call it — and other serious mental health disorders. These existing presumptions provide valuable support for many of British Columbia’s firefighters if they have the misfortune of developing one of the recognized cancers, heart disease or heart injury, or a mental health disorder resulting from a traumatic event experienced in the course of their work as a firefighter.

As I indicated, these presumptions facilitate the firefighters’ access to workers compensation benefits.

[4:00 p.m.]

All of the existing presumptions are available to paid and volunteer firefighters working for British Columbia municipalities and other local government bodies, and to firefighters employed by the federal government and Department of National Defence based in the province. However, there are gaps in the existing presumptive coverage for firefighters specifically. The cancer, heart and mental health disorder presumptions do not apply to fire investigators, and wildfire fighters and firefighters employed by the First Nations and other Indigenous organizations are not captured by the cancer and mental health disorder presumptions.

The purpose of Bill 18 is to address that gap. For the cancer, heart and mental health disorder presumptions, the Workers Compensation Act currently defines a firefighter to be a member of a fire brigade who is assigned primarily to fire suppression duties. Because fire investigators are not primarily assigned to fire suppression, they’re not eligible for any of those three presumptions.

Fire investigators investigate the cause, origin and circumstances of a fire. Their duties require them to work at the scene of a fire, often while it is still in progress or smouldering, and to sift through ash and other fire debris. In performing this work, they may be exposed to the same toxic smoke, airborne particulates and carcinogens that firefighters are potentially exposed to and, by extension, the same cancer and heart disease risks as firefighters. As well, they may be exposed to dead bodies, burn victims and other horrific scenes, the same potentially traumatic events that firefighters encounter.

Because fire investigators can face similar risks as firefighters, Bill 18 will amend the definition of “firefighter” in the Workers Compensation Act to include members of a fire brigade, who, in addition to fire suppression duties, may also be primarily assigned to investigate the cause, origin or circumstances of a fire or to a combination of fire suppression and fire investigation duties.

This approach recognizes that individuals may perform fire suppression or fire investigation duties at different points in their career as a firefighter — or may even perform both roles as part of the same job — and that they face similar risks at a fire scene regardless of their role. There are precedents in other jurisdictions — Ontario, for example — for including fire investigators in these presumptions.

With respect to wildfire fighters, they were excluded from the cancer presumptions first established in 2005 on the understanding that forest firefighters do not entail the same cancer risk as urban firefighters and on the basis that other Canadian jurisdictions generally do not provide cancer presumption for wildfire fighters.

However, it is now clear that wildfire fighters are exposed to toxic and carcinogenic components of smoke from burning forest and from the increasing number of wildland-urban interface fires that also involve burning houses, other buildings, vehicles, garbage dumps, railways and other infrastructure.

What’s more, as with the work of other firefighters currently covered by the mental disorder presumptions, wildfire fighters perform emergency response duties that can involve exposure to traumatic events in the course of their work.

Wildfire fighters risk their lives to protect the lives and property of British Columbians, our infrastructure and our natural resources. Their important contributions should be recognized in the same way as local government and federal firefighters by extending the cancer and mental health disorder presumptions to them. Bill 18 does that.

To achieve this, last year Bill 9 removed wording from the Workers Compensation Act that explicitly excluded wildfire fighters from the cancer presumptions and established a new definition of firefighter that is broad enough to capture wildfire fighters in the mental disorder presumption.

[4:05 p.m.]

Regarding firefighters working for First Nations and other Indigenous organizations, these firefighters are currently eligible for the heart disease and heart injury presumptions. There is, however, a gap with the other presumption. Specifically, firefighters employed by a fire department operated directly by a First Nations band council or other Indigenous organizations may not be covered by the cancer and mental disorder presumptions. There is no policy rationale for this coverage gap.

The broad definition of firefighter proposed in Bill 18 will ensure that the paid and volunteer firefighters working directly for First Nations band councils and other Indigenous organizations will have the benefit of the workers compensation presumptions on the same basis as other firefighters.

Like firefighters who are currently provided these presumptions, fire investigators, wildfire firefighters and firefighters working for the Indigenous organizations put themselves in the path of danger when others run from it. They save lives, but they also perform work that is physically dangerous, see lives lost and sometimes suffer physical and mental health consequences from the important work they do.

Bill 18 is an important act because it will ensure that the firefighters in British Columbia are treated equally when it comes to the workers compensation presumptions. As government, we must do our part to protect and support these brave men and women. I ask all members of this Legislative Assembly to support this important legislative initiative. I look forward to the debate on this bill.

J. Martin: It’s good to be back here after the break, and I’m looking forward to the next four or five weeks of engagement in this House.

I would like to just say, right off the bat, that I’m here to share the official opposition’s support of Bill 18, the Workers Compensation Amendment Act, and agree with everything that the minister has just so thoughtfully and eloquently put forward.

I’m sure everyone in this House, on both sides of the aisle, recognizes that certain occupations and careers bring with them unique health risks to individuals. I can tell you that when I started studying criminology back in the early ’80s, and even when I went to grad school, there wasn’t a mention of PTSD in a single textbook regarding law enforcement officers. It was completely unchartered territory. There was no mention of it. There was no discussion or consideration of it, so we’ve certainly progressed immensely in the last several decades on this very important and critical subject matter.

The women and the men that take on the challenge and the unpreparedness of this risk-filled work, as firefighters and in other occupations, to keep the neighbours and communities safe, deserve every protection that this House can afford them.

For some, obviously, it is a full-time job. For others, it’s a voluntary dedication of their time. For many of these volunteers, their tenure lasts for decades. I know a person I graduated with in high school, in 1976, who’s still a volunteer firefighter to this very day and has been through maybe six or seven different communities that he’s lived in. Certainly, it’s more than a short commitment in local community volunteerism. It’s something much, much more than that.

There’s always going to be more work that can be done to reduce the risks for the men and women that go into fields such as this. We have to be realistic. We cannot reduce all of the risks. We cannot eliminate all of the risks. Risks will always come with the nature of these types of positions. This is where the presumption that certain diseases are directly related to the firefighting careers comes in and where we need to be responsive.

The legislation that the minister has brought in builds on the changes that were made when my side of the House was in government, in the previous administration. The province first recognized certain cancers as occupational diseases for firefighters back in 2005. This included brain, bladder, lung, testicular cancers, among others. It’s very heartwarming that the present government is continuing with further recognition of some of the hazards of certain occupations in British Columbia.

[4:10 p.m.]

When we recognized that we needed to do something in that regard, back in 2012, our government passed legislation recognizing that mental health impacts can also be work related. So it was a very massive leap and defied conventional wisdom that all of a sudden we’re moving from the recognition — the long overdue recognition — of physical ailments associated with the nature of the job to mental health issues. That is one that I’m sure many people never saw coming. In that recognition, we made sure that workers compensation coverage was included for mental disorders, including PTSD but many others as well.

Then in 2014, the government of the day delivered on a commitment to restore heart disease and heart injury as a workers compensation presumption specifically for firefighters. More recently, in 2017, the government added breast cancer, prostate cancer and other occupational diseases for firefighters. So again, we have seen this as a cumulative growth in recognizing the realities and the hazards of certain occupations.

Now here we are in 2019, and the legislation in front of us, Bill 18, expands the cancer, heart disease and mental health disorder presumptions to include wildfire, Indigenous firefighters and fire investigators. So we’re broadening the net. We’re recognizing that this might not be as limited and as specific a situation as was previously thought.

I do welcome, and my colleagues and the member of the official opposition welcome, this legislation from the hon. Minister of Labour. It’s a welcome step in ensuring that those who put their lives and their health at risk protecting others, protecting their communities, protecting their neighbourhoods get all the protection possible under our workers compensation system.

We look forward to helping ensure the changes in this legislation become law. I have no doubt that it is not going to stop. We will be revisiting this issue, and both sides of the House will be doing everything in their purview to ensure that everybody is treated fairly, that we recognize certain occupations come with certain hazards and that those people will not be left behind.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to Bill 18.

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak in support of Bill 18, Workers Compensation Amendment Act. While this bill is relatively without controversy, the lead-up to the implementation of the bill is not. I’ll come to that in a minute.

The bill before us expands presumptive conditions for forest fire fighters, Indigenous firefighters and fire inspectors, allowing them to more easily claim coverage for work-related illnesses like cancer, heart disease and mental health disorders that, already, a traditional municipal firefighter would be eligible for.

This was really an oversight in definition. I understand the rationale for bringing forward the amendments that we’re discussing and debating today, and of course, I support those amendments. The groups were previously exempt from the ability to claim presumptive clause for the listed illnesses for no other reason than oversight, frankly. The bill expands coverage by changing the definition of firefighter to include a person whose main job is to investigate or to suppress fires.

To put some context into this bill, let’s go back to 2017. As the member opposite for Chilliwack articulated, the B.C. Liberal government added presumptions for breast cancer, prostate cancer and multiple myeloma as occupational diseases for firefighters. This was back in 2017. This added onto several other diseases that fell under presumptive clauses for firefighters. However, forest fire fighters were not included in the definition of firefighter and did not receive the presumption.

Now, one might suggest or say that in fact fires in, say, a city, where you might have a chemical plant or a Home Depot, might be slightly more dangerous than forest fires, which are just traditional wood, etc. However, a carcinogen is a carcinogen, and the forest fires in rural areas are going far beyond rural areas these days.

We only need talk about the citizens of some of our rural B.C. communities and what they’ve had to deal with in the last few summers — and sadly, I suspect this summer, as well, in light of the fact that the seasonal forecasts are for much above-normal temperatures and drier-than-normal conditions in British Columbia, both of which are setting the stage for yet another forest fire season. Let’s hope not, but sadly, it looks like that from the seasonal forecast.

[4:15 p.m.]

In 2018, the NDP government introduced changes to the Workers Compensation Act that would designate PTSD and certain other mental disorders as presumptive conditions that are linked to specific kinds of jobs. The changes applied to firefighters, police officers, paramedics, sheriffs and correctional officers. It did not include forest fire fighters or, more importantly, nurses, dispatch operators, teachers and others. Let me say why that was unacceptable in my view.

We know that there are traditional jobs that are male-dominated jobs: police officers, firefighters — strong lobbyists who come here and meet with us year after year, and they’ve been very effective at lobbying. However, jobs like nursing, teaching, 911 responders — which traditionally or historically have larger numbers of females — have not had the same success in having their working conditions dealt with through changes in law. To me, that’s unconscionable in 2019 that we still consider professions that are predominantly male-dominated as preferential in terms of the offering of amendments or support in legislation than those that are traditionally female.

Unacceptable. In fact, I conveyed as much to the deputy minister of the minister’s file over the last several weeks, suggesting to him that we may not support this bill if the government did not fix the error from the previous bill. And they did. For that, I am very, very grateful. On April 16 of this year, an order-in-council was signed that extended the mental health disorder presumptive clause to “emergency response dispatchers,” which means a worker whose duties include one or both of the following: dispatching ambulance services, firefighters or police officers, receiving emergency calls, etc. It also included health care assistant and included the term “nurse.”

Now, this is really important, because when we talk about workplace trauma, particularly with the issue of mental health disorders, I frankly see very little difference between a first responder who happens to be a nurse in pediatric intensive care watching a child go through the trauma that it’s going through, than, say, perhaps a police officer who sees the same thing in the street. These are traumas.

I go to the teaching profession, and I look at the number of teachers. I know we have very high dropouts in the first five years of teachers because of the overbearing stress that new teachers are put into, the conditions, where they’re not given the support. And if they don’t have support of administrators or administration, this can lead to mental health disorders. Even today, the teacher has to go forward and actually argue that it is caused by work as opposed to have it presumed to be caused by work, if they have the appropriate designation from a professional, and workers compensation could still do that.

I understand the importance of this bill. I understand the importance of fixing the errors that were created, but we must not forget that the errors that were created are not just in the context of the historical context of this bill but are in the historical context of society more generally. We often fixate on errors in a piece of paper, but there are systemic errors in our society that we need to address.

This bill, while going a small way to fixing the errors in the previous bill, and the order-in-council going a longer way to actually bring into the fold nurses, emergency responders, health care assistants…. I still think that in the province of British Columbia, we have an awful long way to go to ensure that labour laws, workers laws, employment standards are actually the same for women and men.

They may be the same for women and men who are forest fire fighters. They may be the same for women and men who are police officers. But where they’re not the same is in historically male-dominated professions compared to female-dominated professions. That’s a problem, and that problem has yet to be addressed in its entirety here in the province of British Columbia.

In April 2019, the NDP government introduced legislation, this bill, that expands cancer, heart disease and mental health disorder presumptions to include wildfire and Indigenous firefighters as well as fire investigators who deal with the aftermath of often traumatic fires. I have no problem with the extension there. I have no problem with the correction of the error that occurred in the previous bill.

[4:20 p.m.]

Through regulation, as I said, nurses, emergency dispatchers and health care assistants were added. That’s also to be lauded, but as I said, there’s been no change or movement towards changes in teachers.

Social workers are yet another example of a profession that historically has been dominated by women. We don’t have the squeaky wheels coming into the Legislature lobbying us daily, so nothing gets done. But as legislators, it behooves us to think beyond what is lobbied and think about broader societal change that needs to occur.

I’ve said in the past that what’s wrong with this legislation is we’re not talking about teachers in this province, teachers who work in environments of bullying and harassment with unsupportive administrators, who struggle and take leave but are not covered by the WCB because they have to prove that their mental illness or disorder directly came from their workplace. Imagine that. Working in an environment, an abusive environment, one where going to work each day requires you to build up the courage to get out of bed, to show your face in that class knowing that you have no support from your administrators, knowing that you have children who you’re seeing in conditions that you cannot control. You know what they’re going through when they go home. You know they may be coming from an abusive family. You know you have a duty to respond. But you know you feel frustrated by an inability to actually get a solution there.

That can lead to stress. That can lead to systemic stress that can lead to mental disorders. Now you have to start to recant this and prove it. It’s devastating for people. I hope that we can move forward as we go on.

Again, last October, this is what I said: “While I’m pleased that B.C. is extending protection for some workers, I’m concerned that others who suffer mental disorders on the job are being left out. In particular, I’m profoundly troubled that professions such as teaching and social work, professions that employ disproportionate numbers of women compared to men, are being left out.”

I’d suggest that, perhaps, a number of us in this Legislature should actually think a little beyond the immediate and start thinking about gender-based analysis with some of the legislation we’re bringing forward. Is the legislation we’re bringing forward to deal with this problem really creating other problems because it’s not dealing with systemic other issues, or is it just dealing with this one here? I think there’s some work that needs to be done.

There’s absolutely no question, as I said, in my mind that we need to have presumptive clauses in place for police, firefighters, correction officers and sheriffs. But there’s also no question in my mind that we need to include more workers. We need to include teachers. I’ve said it probably three or four times. Social workers. Even on construction sites, the Speaker, you yourself — or was it the minister? One of you were on a construction site. Was it construction site union leader? One of you two. I’m not sure. Perhaps it was the Speaker or perhaps….

Can you imagine if you’re on a construction site and you’re a crane operator. The crane falls over, and it’s your best friend. That crane operator falls over, and you’re the first responder there on the ground to scrape the person out of the crane cabin on the ground. Now you have to prove if you have PTSD from that result. You have to prove that that’s a direct consequence of your accident, as opposed to being presumed that it would be coming from that accident. I don’t see much difference there.

During the debate on the Workers Compensation Act last year, I moved to grant the presumptive clause for work to all workers. I actually didn’t get a chance to move the amendment because games were being played by members of the official opposition who, despite an agreement before lunch that they still had further questions to go, decided not to ask any questions after lunch and so shut down debate, which I thought was quite deplorable at the time. I still do. I would hope that we wouldn’t stoop to such levels as we move forward.

I like to think that we could at least bring ourselves to the standards already in place in Alberta or in Saskatchewan. These are provinces where all employees are covered. It’s likely that had my amendment gone forward, it would have been ruled out of order. Nevertheless, the point of doing it was trying to raise it to debate. Why is it we are picking winners and losers in society? Why don’t we recognize that mental illness is an issue that recanting and trying to prove, on the work-related side — that it’s because of your work — can actually be a very troubling process to go through.

[4:25 p.m.]

We know the WCB, the Workers Compensation Board, can, at any time, challenge anything that is brought forward, but at least the presumptive clause is there. In fact, by actually requiring a presumptive clause for all workers, the premium that is based on your claims will ensure that bad-apple employers get their act together to start dealing with some of these issues, particularly in office work, where systemic bullying and harassment can lead to stress, anxiety, mental illness and mental disorders that are not dealt with by the institutions because they’re afraid to create waste. If they start seeing their WCB premiums go up, oh, boy, they’ll have to start dealing with it.

In 2018, the government did not include 911 dispatchers in their Workers Compensation Act. Again, I pleaded with the Minister of Labour, both in question period as well as in the third reading of the bill — the previous Workers Compensation Amendment Act — that they actually be included. I am pleased to see that they have been, through order-in-council.

I read a compelling testimony about a nurse who no longer practised because she couldn’t after the horror she experienced — she was in the audience there as I read her story — being a front-line nurse. Again, a traditional woman’s occupation that we have now included through order-in-council. But surely, as a province that claims to have progressive leadership, we should be taking a card from Alberta. Can you imagine thinking of Alberta as the progressive? Or Saskatchewan? These are the progressive examples of labour presumptive clauses that we’re seeking to bring to B.C. Saskatchewan and Alberta, for heaven’s sake. Surely, a progressive government here in B.C. could extend the presumptive clause beyond what it is now.

While, obviously, my second reading remarks have extended more broadly beyond the actual content of this bill which I speak in support of, I think it’s important to caveat our support in the broader context that we still have a lot of work to do. While this bill is a very fine step in the right direction for those workers it is affecting, there are so many other workers in our economy, so many others that I believe should be considered through an extension of those professions included.

I have no intention of not continuing for it. I intend to continue advocating for those workers to be treated with the same fairness as we treat our firefighters and our police officers. I agree that we need to look after the well-being of our firefighters and our police officers, but we also need to look after the well-being of our teachers, our social workers, our nurses — which we are, to some extent — and so many other professions that often go unrecognized because they’re not squeaky wheels. They’re not here en masse lobbying us, because they’re not organized. I think that’s a shame.

I and my colleagues, I’ll note in conclusion, will be supporting this legislation, clearly. We’ll continue to advocate, hoping we’ll extend the presumptive clause, moving forward, to other professions.

S. Malcolmson: This is just the day after the International Day of Mourning. In Nanaimo, as in dozens and dozens of ceremonies across the country, certainly across British Columbia, people stood together at noon — for us, it was downtown, right at the Bastion — with firefighters, with ferry workers, with representatives from BCGEU, with front-line paramedics, with forestry workers and their families, with commercial fishermen. People have the opportunity to stand at the microphone. It’s the Nanaimo, Duncan and District Labour Council that organizes us, bringing the blue poppy button to remember fallen workers, passing out roses. It’s a very intimate circle of our community where people tell the stories.

One young woman, a B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers Union representative, was telling the story that she is the first — and she hopes to carry this on — in three generations in her family not to lose a loved one on the jobsite at work.

We can never be complacent about our responsibilities. People come to the open mike and tell the story about who has been lost on the jobsite. Increasingly, the stories are not only physical trauma — people lost in the woods or drowned at sea. In Nanaimo, especially, we think of the hundreds of years of mining accidents.

[4:30 p.m.]

We talk now, the stories we hear now, are about front-line workers who keep our communities safe taking their own lives because of PTSD, the trauma that they experienced on the job, and the cancers and occupational exposures that increasingly bring people down — workplace exposures and injuries that were invisible until decades later.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

We are standing today to do one more level of repairs. I raise my hands to the Labour Minister and his team for bringing this work forward, recognizing that the previous amendments for firefighters had not been adequate to capture the full range.

I do hear the comments from my colleague in the Green Party. There is more work to do. There’s no question.

This is something that we can do quickly, because we see people falling right now, whether it’s from PTSD or other mental disorders that result from the workplace or whether it’s cancers and heart disease. We need to be attending right now so that those families and ill people, where the evidence is so absolutely obvious, are not having to fight with paperwork when what they should be doing is fighting only for their own health or their own recovery.

This legislation, this amendment, Bill 18, amends the Workers Compensation Act to include firefighters that are wildfire firefighters; also, those working for Indigenous organizations — a lot of First Nations have their own firefighting teams; and also fire investigators. They will have the same recognition under legislation for cancers, heart disease, heart injury and mental disorders.

This is a request that came from the B.C. Professional Fire Fighters Association and the B.C. Government Employees Union, requesting that these presumptions from previous legislation be extended to make this work complete.

What a presumption means under the act is that if a worker in a specified occupation develops certain diseases or disorders, those conditions are presumed to have been due to the nature of the job. The worker is then eligible for benefits under the workers compensation system without requiring additional evidence or proof that their specific condition was caused by their job. These are cancers that are directly linked by, unfortunately, decades of experience — these occupational exposures.

In particular, we think — in my own community, I hear a lot about this — that the types of fires that are being fought increasingly are full of poisonous gases. No matter the best training, the best equipment, it is in many cases, unfortunately, almost impossible to avoid. If you are a firefighter for X number of years, then you may very well develop very specific cancers that don’t apply to other people.

So in this case, the extension for wildfire fighters…. They were not included in the full cancer coverage nor the mental disorder coverage, and Indigenous firefighters, the same. The previous legislation did not include them in cancer presumption nor mental disorders; and fire investigators, who again are exposed to the same toxins in the workplace that could affect either cancer or heart but as well may well be traumatized by what they see. Now, with this legislation, hoping that it does have the support of the whole House, that will make whole again just this group of firefighters.

There’s work to do in other areas. We are doing the work behind the scenes, and we’ll be bringing it forward. But this is a package that we can bring forward and that will make the life for families and those fighting fires easier. When they have the worst circumstances befall them, they, at least, will have the backing of Workers Compensation Board and of this Legislature.

I do want to just give a particular shout-out, though — because again, my colleagues in the Green Party have raised it — and salute Paul Smith from Nanaimo. He is a nurse who’s worked very hard, a very effective lobby, to remind us that, for some nurses, what they experience in the workplace is indeed PTSD. He has been heard. That cabinet, by order-in-council, has taken his advice and that of others is a compliment to his tenacity and his articulate approach as a spokesperson.

I want to give a special shout-out to Paul Smith from Nanaimo and the many, many other people that are doing this very brave and, in some cases, very dangerous work in our communities. It keeps us safe. It keeps us healthy. We’re grateful for their service.

[4:35 p.m.]

I’m grateful for the work of this Legislature, both in the past and then right now, to make sure that these people that work to keep us safe have the very best protection, the protection that they deserve.

S. Gibson: It’s a privilege for me to rise here in this House on behalf of my constituents of the Abbotsford-Mission riding with regard to Bill 18, Workers Compensation Amendment Act.

I speak with some interest in this, particularly because of my experience as a city councillor in Abbotsford for a number of terms and my privilege to chair, for many years, the Abbotsford-Mission fire department when we had a joint fire department when we were two separate communities. I came to appreciate the challenges and stresses faced by our firefighters in particular. I was privileged to see the growth of that department to a significant service to the people of the community.

As we know, the communities of Abbotsford and Mission ultimately amalgamated, and they have a single fire department, which is doing very well under the leadership of Chief Don Beer. I want to acknowledge Don here today as an excellent leader of the fire department in our community.

This legislation is, I think, kind of a progression, really, from what was started by our government when we took an interest in this and realized that there was considerable empathy needed and understanding of the kinds of challenges faced by firefighters today. As we know, the tensions and, indeed, the health implications are significant.

Now, last spring government did expand the presumptive condition to include a number of occupations, related to mental health — police officers, paramedics, sheriffs, correctional officers and a number of urban firefighters. I might add anecdotally that a good friend of mine was a police officer and experienced an incredible amount of stress on the job. One particular issue where he arrived at a tragic crime and thought that he was going to be fine; however, he wasn’t. He became so stressed out to the point where he had post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s under that kind of overall file that we look today to firefighters.

This legislation, which we will be supporting in the official opposition, applies to both full-time firefighters and what we call paid on call. Throughout the valley, whether it’s in the township of Langley or in my community of Abbotsford and Mission, there are many paid on-call firefighters throughout the province. This legislation is timely indeed and covers these firefighters.

I might say that firefighting is not really just a job; it’s a calling. For all of us in our communities…. I look around this room. Whether it’s Vancouver or Oak Bay or in Surrey or in Parksville, wherever it might be, the firefighters that we have the opportunity to get to know…. We realize that it is indeed a calling, not just a job.

Unfortunately, there are risks that have come with the job, and some of these can’t be eliminated. It’s just a part of the work duties. But where there is a presumption that certain diseases are directly related to firefighting careers, that’s what we really want to address. I think the province has recognized certain cancers as occupational distresses for firefighters some years ago, and that included brain diseases; bladder, lung and testicular cancers, among others. Of course, the tragedy is that when these are diagnosed, in many instances — and this is what, really, the issue is today — they’re caused directly by the stresses of work.

[4:40 p.m.]

In 2012, our government passed legislation recognizing that mental health impacts can be work-related. I think sometimes we can forget that somebody can appear very healthy and stable, performing well, but just below the surface, there are huge stresses and issues. As I mentioned earlier, my police buddy — who actually, subsequently, had to retire early — moved to the Okanagan, to Kelowna, and has a wonderful little business up there with his wife. We made sure that workers compensation coverage would include mental disorders like the ones that I’ve been commenting on.

In 2014, our government delivered on a commitment to restore heart disease and heart injury as a workers compensation presumption for firefighters. One thing we know about firefighters: they do stay in very good shape. I think most firefighters in my community are pretty healthy. The challenge, of course, is that there’s a lot of sedentary experience in the office, and suddenly there’s a challenge to solve a major issue in the community, fire or otherwise — ambulance-related duties as well, on which our first responders are out there. So you’ve got that kind of up and down, which obviously is not very healthy.

In 2017, our government added breast cancer, prostate cancer and multiple myeloma as occupational diseases for firefighters. We were keeping on top of that file. We were showing concern.

The legislation in front of us expands the cancer, heart disease and mental health disorder presumptions. The government of the day did that, and this government, I think, is sensitive to the issues that are being faced by so many of these folks that are out there on the front line.

This government added heart disease and mental health disorder presumptions, wildfire, Indigenous firefighters and fire investigators. That’s a part of the proposal moving ahead, and we welcome that, as do all members of the official opposition.

It’s a welcome step. And I think increasingly, with the challenges of firefighters — and others, frankly — the presumption is that there have been so many cases…. These roles in our society, folks that are needed — they’re the front line out there. They need understanding and legislation to protect them when, unfortunately, tragedy does strike and there are some diseases.

We look forward to helping keep these legislation changes to become law. The official opposition is encouraged by this. And again, on behalf of my constituents of Abbotsford-Mission, it’s a pleasure for me to rise and speak to this legislation. I’m sure there will be other remarks, as well, by colleagues.

B. Stewart: It gives me great pleasure to rise in the House on behalf of the constituents I represent, not only in Kelowna West but in British Columbia, that really look at this as something that is important and necessary. Of course, as my colleague from Abbotsford just mentioned, there is a series of these progressive improvements that have been made to protect professional firefighters in the risks that they face every day in terms of their work.

I can’t help but think about what the front-line firefighters were thinking. I know that there were literally hundreds and hundreds of firefighters in 2003 in the wildfire that ravaged Kelowna. Of course, we’ve seen it in my riding, in both the Glenrosa and Rose Valley fires and many others, and it continues to be a recurring theme where firefighters, whether volunteers or whether professional paid firefighters, are being subjected to all sorts of different risks that were never, perhaps, expected when they first originally took on the task of being a firefighter in their community.

As we found out, they stood their ground. They protected many homes. Frankly, it wasn’t until I arrived in this House about ten years ago…. I often tell the firefighters from my community that the professional firefighters do some of the best lobbying and making certain that we know about their issues.

[4:45 p.m.]

Some of those issues are things that are not necessarily just about what they face in their day-to-day work, but it’s the elements of things that are coming into homes that they are unaware of. They’re faced with toxins that are inside homes, whether it’s furniture, mattresses and things. We try to eliminate those things by trying to develop thoughtful building codes to make certain that we protect people, not only the residents that own the home but the people that may end up subsequently having to fight something that happens. Of course, it continues to be a challenge, I think, for both the firefighting community and the building community to find what would be considered to be a non-toxic fire.

I can’t help but think about the great work that we have made on this file, if you want to call it great work. I say that we recognize…. Presumptive injuries are now being dealt with in the sense that you don’t have to necessarily go back and prove individually why you’ve ended up being sick.

I think about this. On March 4, we had the Fallen Firefighter Memorial. Capt. Troy Russell, from the city of West Kelowna’s fire department, was one of the ones recognized and, of course, leaves behind two young sons who are just getting started in their lives, a wife and family. The bottom line is that that’s not the way that I think starting a career should end.

So I think that one of the things that we’re really looking at is: how do we do better? What is it that we need to do? I mentioned some of the things in the building code and things like that. I do think that the labour code is one aspect. But when it comes to the built environment, what can we do better in terms of trying to make certain that we reduce the risk through pre-planned activities, whether it’s the equipment or scientific evidence that would protect these individual firefighters?

I know that when it comes to mental disorders, etc., there is some suggestion about investing in training as well as during their career to make certain that there’s that opportunity of being able to reach out and not feel that…. It’s that checking in. It’s not just good enough that they’ve become certified to become a firefighter. The fact is that they face these stresses that grow and accumulate.

The fact is that there is more work that needs to be done on that matter to be preventative so that we don’t end up with families like Troy Russell’s that are without their father because of that fact that something…. In Troy’s case, it wasn’t a mental illness. He was one of those people that everybody loved to work with. It was unfortunate that he had another work-related illness that was unfortunate for him and took his life.

So what I really do think that we need to be doing is that although we’re embracing and kind of adding on to that in Bill 18…. And we do support it, as we have throughout the last number of years that we were in government. I know that this government has brought forward changes that were accepted and adopted this year, and this would be a further amendment.

The legislation before us today builds on the changes that were made when I first was supportive of the party that I was a member of and continue to be a member of. In 2005, we added occupational diseases for firefighters. In 2012, our government passed legislation recognizing mental health impacts that can be work-related. As well, in that recognition, we made certain that workers compensation coverage was able to include mental disorders and PTSD.

In 2014, our government also delivered on a commitment to restore heart disease and heart injury as a workers compensation presumption for firefighters. In 2017, our government added breast cancer, prostate cancer and multiple myeloma as occupational diseases for firefighters.

This legislation in front of us expands that to a broader group of people that are in the same occupation. However, their occupation is not necessarily working for the city of West Kelowna or other communities across this province. These are people that are out working on wildfires. We only have to look back at the last two or three years, the last couple of decades, at the wildfire activities in communities. We are having to invest a lot in it, and we need to do better.

[4:50 p.m.]

I know that the minister responsible for forests has a budget to increase fireproofing of communities. We need to make certain that we are doing that. These things are not necessarily preventable, but we need to try to take down the risk, and that’s a positive investment. More importantly, B.C. wildfire fighters are going to be covered by this new legislation for all of this new presumptive protection that’s provided to regular firefighters.

Of course, last year during the multitude of fires that we had in the Penticton riding…. We had the rebirth of the Squally Point fire in Okanagan Mountain Park. I met with these firefighters, along with the former Forests Minister and the incident commanders. I’m looking at these people who have been out there fighting in 40-degree heat, even hotter than that when you’re actually on the fire lines. Squally Point is without any trees; no shade or anything. They’re working in unbelievably tough conditions, coming back just to get cleaned up enough to have a meal. Frankly, I can only imagine what they’ve been inhaling throughout the day, trying to slow this down and protect property.

I’m glad that we’re including the professional wildfire fighters. We’re also including Indigenous firefighters. There’s also a detachment or a group of them that work with the B.C. Wildfire Service. They deserve the same protection. They are a separate group, and I’m glad to see that they’re being recognized in this. I’ll be much happier when, hopefully, I don’t have to attend an incident commander briefing in my riding again, but if it does happen, I look forward to being able to speak to them and talk about these additions — not that they’re looking for these types of problems.

As well, the fire investigators. How many of them go into an incident after something has happened? You know, maybe it’s out, but there’s a lot of this residual residue that they can’t protect themselves against or they don’t even know what it is. They’re looking through the debris to try to identify what the cause is of a particular incident and to make certain…. I mean, what if it happens to be an illegal grow op or a methamphetamine production? These are the things that these people are being faced with. Who knows what the problems are or the risks that they’re facing?

I’m proud of the fact that we’re supporting this legislation and the fact that we have a long history and track record working with professional firefighters. I’m so glad that the minister and the government have seen their way to adding on these other groups, because I think that the reality is that there is a cost to this, and British Columbians will have to deal with that. What we need to do is try and do better beforehand and be preventative.

I’m proud to have been able to speak to this. I look forward to this bill coming to committee stage.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no other speakers, the Minister of Finance shall close debate.

Hon. C. James: On behalf of the Minister of Labour, I want to thank the members who have spoken to this bill. It’s very clear that there is strong agreement and strong support for moving in this direction. I think, as the minister said in the opening remarks, this really is a critical act. It’s a critical act because it ensures that firefighters in our province will be treated equally when it comes to workers compensation presumptions.

We all know how important it is. I often say about firefighters that they’re the people that you always want there and you hope you never see. We all rely on them, and we know that they put themselves in incredible danger, the men and women who work in this field. To have a bill come forward and to see the strong discussion on this bill, I think is a very good day in the Legislature and a good move together.

With that, I now move second reading of Bill 18.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 18, Workers Compensation 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.

Hon. C. James: I will call second reading of Bill 28.

Could I call just a five-minute recess while we ensure the minister is present?

Deputy Speaker: Certainly. Five-minute recess, please.

The House recessed from 4:55 p.m. to 5 p.m.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

BILL 28 — ZERO-EMISSION
VEHICLES ACT

Hon. M. Mungall: I move that Bill 28 be read a second time now.

I’m pleased to present the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act. When I was thinking about what this bill does in terms of going forward into the future, and I’ll speak quite a bit about that, I’ll speak to specifically what it does. First, I just want to maybe offer a bit of a metaphor.

I’ll start with 2015, because a lot of us who grew up watching Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd as Marty McFly and Doc Brown were very disappointed, in 2015, because there were no flying vehicles. They promised us in Back to the Future that we’d all be in flying vehicles, and they’d be powered by fusion. They also promised us a whole host of other things: shoes that did themselves up and jackets that sized themselves to you and all kinds of things. Hoverboards — people who love to skateboard were really looking forward to hoverboards. But they wouldn’t, of course, work over water.

Anyway, before I get too far down the rabbit hole of Back to the Future, the point is that back in the late ’80s, early ’90s, when science fiction writers were dreaming about what the future would look like in 2015 in terms of vehicles, they were a bit off the mark, to say the least. We don’t have flying vehicles. They aren’t powered by fusion. But the future of vehicles is starting to grow today, and that’s with zero-emission vehicles. With this legislation, we’re going to make zero-emission vehicles that much more available to British Columbians so that they can get into those cars of the future — not the cars that were promised to us by Marty McFly and Doc Brown, but very much the cars that are a real part of our future.

To help people do that, we have this legislation. What this legislation does, in a nutshell, is require automakers to meet zero-emission vehicle sales targets. That’s 10 percent by 2025, 30 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2040. That means all light-duty vehicles sold by 2040 — all new ones — have to be zero-emission vehicles in British Columbia.

Now, we’re not the only jurisdiction adopting this kind of mandate. In fact, this very same mandate has been adopted in Quebec, California and nine other U.S. states, so a total of 30 percent of North America’s car market is actually covered by zero-emission vehicle mandate. I also understand that China very, very recently has adopted a zero-emission vehicle mandate, and more jurisdictions are getting on board with this. The reason is that we want to make zero-emission vehicles more available to the various people that we represent in each jurisdiction.

How we do that — how we trigger the market, and how we communicate that to manufacturers — is we create this type of mandate so that it’s in law and so that we actually have an accountability mechanism to get to the point where we want to get to. It’s not just because zero-emission vehicles are cool and really peppy and are actually able to meet the driving needs of today, whether you’re in an urban area or, as where I live, in a rural area.

[5:05 p.m.]

A lot of people in rural B.C. still have a lot of concerns on whether zero-emission vehicles will work in winter weather, and will work in not just winter weather in terms of temperature but also the type of snow that we get. In my area, where I live, we can have a day where we’ll have three feet of snow fall in one day, so how will a zero-emission vehicle operate in that type of weather? Well, I have to say I’ve done the test drives, and many others have done test drives, and these vehicles work fantastic in urban settings as well as rural settings.

How do we make sure that they’re going to be available to us? Right now, for example, only 40 percent of B.C. car dealers have zero-emission vehicles on their lots. That means a lot of us in rural areas don’t even have that. We want to trigger the market through an accountability mechanism, that being legislation. We are putting forward this zero-emission-vehicle mandate today, and I’m very pleased to be doing so.

A lot of people wonder: “Well, is it even possible to achieve 10 percent sales by 2025? Will it actually be possible for 10 percent of new vehicles to sold by 2025 to be zero-emission vehicles?” Well, I think what’s really interesting is that right now in British Columbia, there are 17,000 ZEVs on the road. In 2018, 4 percent of new car sales were zero-emission vehicles. B.C. clearly has the demand. In fact, B.C. has the highest demand in the entire country for zero-emission vehicles. We are definitely lining up for these types of cars and trucks.

But the supply is not necessarily meeting the demand. Again, going back to how we do that, these types of mandates are exactly how we do that. We work with manufacturers to make sure that these vehicles are available and that we have these benchmarks so that we can ultimately get to 100 percent of new car sales being zero-emission vehicles.

One thing that attracts a lot of people to buying these types of cars is the savings. They can be more expensive upfront. I’m going to come back and talk about how we’re going to help people with that. But the savings that people can achieve every year are about 75 percent on their fuel and maintenance costs compared to an internal combustion engine. Some people have come up to me, and they are concerned that maintenance costs for a ZEV will be higher because they’re so new. Actually, what a lot of ZEV owners are finding, and I’m sure we’re going to be hearing from other members in the House who are ZEV owners, is that actually, their maintenance costs are lower. Of course, fuel costs are lower. What people are saving on average each year…. I said it’s 75 percent, so that works out to be about $1,500 per year.

B.C. Hydro predicts that there will be at least 300,000 fully electric cars on our roads by 2030. Looking at the current demand and the current uptake that exists in British Columbia, and forecasting that forward and forecasting how that will actually impact our electrical grid, our load, we’re forecasting 300,000 electric vehicles, specifically, to be on the road by 2030.

I think that what I’m pointing out in all of this is that if the question is, “Is it even achievable to meet these sales targets?” what the numbers are showing us is absolutely, yes. This is achievable. In fact, when I talk to some of the manufacturers myself, they anticipate the demand being so high and ramping up so quickly that they’ll have no problem meeting the 2040 target date of 100 percent new light-duty car sales being zero-emission vehicles.

I mentioned that people see savings in terms of fuel and maintenance. But, of course, the price point for buying a new zero-emission vehicle can be higher than an internal combustion engine, and that can actually be a barrier. So this legislation is actually part of our CleanBC plan to cut climate pollution and boost the economy and make life better for British Columbians.

[5:10 p.m.]

We’ve said that we’re investing $902 million over the next three years into our CleanBC plan. Part of that is actually incentives, rebates to help people buy zero-emission vehicles. Those rebates include up to $5,000 for a new battery, electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle and up to $6,000 for a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

We also have rebates and incentives for people to put in charging stations in public as well as in private venues. For example, if you live in a large condo strata, there are incentives to actually put in some electric charging stations into your strata.

What we’re trying to do is to help people with the price point in terms of adopting these types of vehicles, because we recognize that they are pricier now. But if more people buy them, we increase the demand, and that brings the price down for everybody. Of course, we want to get to those overall sales targets that are very much part of this legislation.

Another one of the barriers that exists for people adopting zero-emission vehicles is not just availability, not just price point, but it’s also: “Can I charge up? I know that there’s going to be a gas station 75 kilometres down the highway when I’m on this long, dark road. But is there going to be a charging station?” Well, I think that what a lot of people don’t know right now is that you can go from the Alberta border all the way to Tofino without losing a charge because there are enough charging stations along the way. That’s because the infrastructure for charging stations is being built out as we speak. There are already over 1,000 charging stations around the province, and that number is just growing.

As I mentioned with, for example, condo strata, more condo strata are putting charging stations into their complexes, into their buildings, because the demand of the residents is so high, and it’s increasing. So with over 1,000 charging stations that already exist, that’s growing and growing and growing and expected to grow by leaps and bounds over the next few years.

Some of the things I’d like to point out that show the support and the demand for this type of bill are that not only does it fill a key commitment made in our CleanBC plan to implement a zero-emission vehicle standard and mandate that every new car sold in B.C. is a zero-emission vehicle in just over 20 years, but British Columbians want greater access to more numbers and types of zero-emission vehicles, and they want it at a more affordable price.

Only 40 percent of dealerships, as I pointed out, have zero-emission vehicles on their lot, and there are also a limited number of models to choose from. So we need to trigger the market to respond to that demand so that we have the supply to meet that demand. And as Clean Energy Canada has pointed out, that’s exactly what this bill will do.

They have said: “British Columbians are excited about electric cars and the chance to cut both their fuel costs and pollution. It’s a win-win for commuters. But British Columbians have had a tough time finding electric cars on dealership lots and often have had to go on long waiting lists.”

I’m going to just interrupt the quote right there. I had an open house about six weeks ago in Kaslo, a village up at the north end of Kootenay Lake. They were telling me about the efforts that this individual had to make just to get a zero-emission vehicle in terms of the travel down to the Lower Mainland and then to get on a waiting list and then travel back down to the Lower Mainland and so on and so forth. If they could have just gone to Nelson, to one of the Nelson dealerships in the area, that would have been much easier. So we want to get more of these cars onto lots all throughout British Columbia.

I’ll return to what Clean Energy Canada said. They said: “This legislation will help ensure supply keeps up with demand, making it easier for people to go electric while helping B.C. cut carbon pollution and combat climate change.”

[5:15 p.m.]

So we’re going to be able to get more of those vehicles and make sure that the supply meets the demand. It also provides long-term certainty and consistency for vehicle manufacturers. They know what the expectation is. They know where British Columbians are going with the cars of the future and when we want to start adopting them. It’s a more achievable goal for them. It’s something that gives them some transparency and some certainty in terms of how they build out these products that they’re manufacturing.

I think that at the end of the day, it’s going to be something we can all be very proud of as British Columbians. We are going to be a leader in the clean energy vehicle sector, which contributes…. Already we are a leader, and we’re going to continue to be a leader. Already this sector is contributing $700 million per year to the province’s economy and includes 198 companies with 3,850 employees. Already this sector is contributing to B.C. So if we can create greater supply to meet that growing demand, it’s going to be an even greater contributor to our provincial economy, and that’s only a good thing.

One of the things our advisory council, who put together our CleanBC plan…. One of the things they said during their public consultation was that no other topic grabbed people’s attention more than zero-emission vehicles and clean transportation. They said that well over half the comments received were ideas and suggestions to make getting around cleaner, more convenient and more affordable. British Columbians told the advisory council that they want more zero-emission vehicles on the road and that timelines for phasing out gas-powered cars should be accelerated.

I think those who participated in our public consultation to develop our CleanBC plan will be very pleased to see this legislation finally come forward, because it’s delivering on exactly what they said they wanted to see. We know that in British Columbia, the primary source for our greenhouse gas emissions is our transportation sector. That we’re going to be able to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our transportation is going to be very positive and make our CleanBC plan even stronger.

One of the ways we are going to be specifically measuring how we are rolling out vehicles but also reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, because that’s a very important benefit from the zero-emission vehicle mandate, is by ensuring what are going to be called ZEV units. Other jurisdictions use this, because not all zero-emission vehicles have the exact same type of profile. For example, a plug-in hybrid is great for a rural area like mine where you can plug in overnight, say, and you can use that vehicle with electric-generated battery to go commute around town. I’ve got to go to the Co-op and do some grocery shopping. I’ve got to drive downhill. Downhill is fine for walking, but uphill is a whole other story. So I drive downhill. I get in my car. I use electric battery to go to the grocery store. I use electric battery to go back home.

Well, my family also likes to go camping, and we like to go to some of the Forest Service campsites that are quite a ways away from any gas station and certainly from any charging station. We would charge our car overnight. We would drive it out, and by the time we get to roughly around Meadow Creek, well, the charge might be lost. If we’re in a hybrid, it would flip over to an internal combustion engine, and we’re using gasoline at that point. We’re out in the back country, and we don’t have to worry. We’ll get home fine, and everything.

These types of vehicles are really great for rural areas, but they also have an internal combustion engine component. They still can produce GHG emissions. They don’t have the exact same type of profile as a fully electric car like a Chevy Volt, for example, or a Kia Soul.

[5:20 p.m.]

How we’re going to be structuring it is that a fully electric vehicle like a Chevy Volt will receive a higher rating of ZEV units than a hybrid, because they will never generate GHGs, whereas the hybrid will. At the end of the year, there will be a tallying of all the ZEV units that manufacturers acquire. They have to meet a certain threshold in terms of their sales, and that will then allow them to proceed going forward into the next year. Otherwise, they would face a fine.

There is a mechanism for accountability within the legislation to make sure that manufacturers are selling a sufficient number of vehicles to meet the demand and to meet those targets. We measure that all with what are called ZEV units, which not only measure the sale of the cars but, ultimately, the GHG emissions that are going to be reduced as a result of these car sales.

I should mention that this type of approach with the ZEV units is…. The way in which they accumulate is not just through the sale of vehicles. That’ll be, obviously, the primary way. Vehicle manufacturers can accumulate ZEV units by selling zero-emission vehicles, acquiring them through trades with other automakers and taking actions to reduce emissions or increase the use of ZEVs in B.C., as well as purchase agreements. This provides flexibility as to how auto manufacturers can meet their targets.

I think this flexibility is really important. I’ll give you two examples why. One might be that car-sharing has gotten a lot more popular, particularly in the Lower Mainland. I know that while my husband was doing his program at St. Paul’s Hospital, he had a Mobi and a car2go membership, right? So he was doing the car-share thing.

Well, car manufacturers are seeing the popularity of car-sharing, and they’d like to get in on some of this with zero-emission vehicles. If they are running that car-sharing program, they’re not actually selling the zero-emission vehicles, but they’re putting more of them on to the road. So we want to have a mechanism that acknowledges that. That’s part of the flexibility in the way in which we’re going to be allowing them to acquire ZEV units.

Another situation might arise where, for example, maybe a car manufacturer…. Car manufacturer X designs a car, gives it a really nice name, and nobody likes it. That just happens sometimes. So they might find themselves…. They’ve done everything that they thought they needed to do, but for some reason, the market isn’t responding. They want to go back to the drawing board and redesign this vehicle for next year, but they don’t want to be docked for being out of compliance on that model year. This mechanism provides the flexibility to acknowledge these different types of circumstances.

So there are a variety of ways to accumulate the ZEV units. We’re doing this to ensure the sales but also to ensure emission reductions.

The mechanisms for enforcement and reporting. To aid in tracking and enforcement, the bill includes provisions for annual reporting and verification. It has administrative penalties and information-sharing. It also ensures accountability every year. Government will be publishing a public report on progress towards achieving our zero-emission vehicle mandate. So there’s that public eye that’s going to be on this every single year so that people know exactly where we’re at and so that we are actually going to be meeting our targets.

I am very, very pleased to have had the opportunity to work on the zero-emission vehicle mandate and to be bringing this forward today. It’s a great step into the future. It might not be the one that I thought would be the case after watching Back to the Future Part 2, but it is something that I’m very proud of.

[5:25 p.m.]

I know that by the time we get to 100 percent of light-duty vehicles sold as zero-emission vehicles, my son will be 22 years old. I have no idea what everything in the future will be for him, but I know that with this type of mandate, there’ll be a cleaner and greener future in terms of B.C.’s transportation sector.

This is a very, very good step in bringing the cars of the future to today.

P. Milobar: It gives me pleasure to rise to Bill 28, the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act.

First off, I’d just like to say that…. Generally speaking, I think it’s safe to say we’re very supportive of people seeking out zero-emission vehicles and government programs to try to incentivize and get people into zero-emission vehicles. Certainly, under our former government, that’s when the whole CEV for B.C. program originated. It was good to see that those $5,000 subsidies and $6,000 for hydrogen vehicles continued on.

However, that said, there are always some concerns with new legislation when you take a first look. I was appreciative of the minister’s staff for providing a briefing to myself and several of my colleagues today so that we could get a bit of a background into the bill. Certainly, we’re going to be canvassing much heavier questions when we get to committee stage on this bill.

Overall, the general premise and the idea and the goal of this bill, I think, are supportable. The reality, though, is that there seems to be, as we’ve seen with other pieces of legislation — especially, frankly, around some environmental measures — a bit of rebranding or repackaging without a real true tangible end goal that will see what I think the general public thinks they’re going to see as an end result versus what will actually happen in reality.

The minister referenced CleanBC. CleanBC, for something as simple…. Well, it’s not simple but a fuel mix change that will be mandated under CleanBC, which will undoubtedly see an increased cost per litre at the pumps for the travelling public, given that one would assume that the oil and gas industry is not producing a product at a higher cost right now than they otherwise could with this other blend. So this new blend that will be mandated under CleanBC, which will add costs to everybody’s pump price per litre, will result in a four mega tonnes reduction by 2030, under CleanBC. That’s what their booklet says.

This program, by 2030, will only see a 1.3 reduction of mega tonnes. So it’s not even a third of what the fuel mixture will actually accomplish. Why I say that and why it’s important is because…. What we see with this bill is people still will have the ability, and I’ll touch on this in greater detail as I move along, to buy vehicles out of province and bring them in, combustion vehicles out of province. They will still have the ability to buy any used vehicle they choose. This legislation only deals with new cars and the mix of new cars that are being sold on a lot. They have to be brand new cars, not a year old, not the quick return vehicle. If it’s classified as a used car under the current system, that’s what will continue on moving forward.

That is problematic when you think of the overall economy of British Columbia. I know from personal experience, when I traded in one of my trucks at a dealership years ago…. The way the dollar was working, there were trucks from British Columbia getting loaded on larger trucks to get taken down. They were getting driven all the way down to Texas for resale. That’s what happens in the used-car market. Cars are very portable. They get loaded up on the haulers, and they get moved to the jurisdictions where they’re needed.

Right now British Columbia already has the oldest fleet of vehicles in the country. That means we have the least fuel-efficient car fleet in the country, as well, when you think of the age of a vehicle and all of the technology advances that we’ve seen in fuel efficiencies and GHG emissions coming out of a vehicle over the years. The older your fleet goes, the more problematic it is.

[5:30 p.m.]

With this bill, essentially, we are creating an environment where if people want a brand-new vehicle, they need to take their business to another province and then drive back home. That’s not that hard to do. It’s not that hard, from the Lower Mainland, to hop on a plane, zip over to Calgary and land, pick up your vehicle and drive across the border. Yes, you have to register it in British Columbia, and you pay the provincial tax like you would when you bought it in British Columbia anyway, but you now have your brand-new gas vehicle to drive around in the province. When you’re talking about used vehicles, though, that opens up literally all of North America to start moving vehicles around and finding a market of people that would like to see that.

There are a couple of other points within this bill that I think we’re going to have to really drill into as we get into committee stage as well. A couple of them. “Light-duty” is defined as anything from a half-ton pickup and smaller. Now, going back a few years, back when they changed what a farm truck status was…. Originally, it was that it was a three-quarter-ton truck or higher, and you wouldn’t have to pay the luxury tax.

When they brought in the luxury tax, it was pointed out that a lot of one-tons were that price of a luxury vehicle, even though these were crew cabs for people working in the logging and mining industry to try to get their crews out to work and be able to haul a reasonable amount of equipment and Tidy Tanks of other fossil fuels in the back, to make sure they could actually get into the bush and work and get back out on the day and fuel their equipment.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Those trucks were then finally deemed to be exempt from the luxury tax. What you have seen — and, certainly, I know in Kamloops what you see — is a lot of people driving a larger truck than they would necessarily need to avoid the luxury tax. The fuel economies are not that different when it comes to the larger trucks, but they have a bigger suspension. They can tow more. They’re a little bit costlier to maintain. But overall, people are willing. On balance, they would rather pay the dealership a little bit more for a slightly heavier-duty truck and feel that much more secure in it than pay extra tax to a government of any political stripe, because people don’t like paying taxes to government in general.

That’s what we’ve seen people do with the workaround. Well, with this bill, a half-ton truck or smaller is considered under this legislation.

Let’s fast-forward to full implementation of this and see how easy a workaround would be. If you’re in the oil and gas industry, you lease your fleet out of Alberta, or you buy your fleet out of Alberta, or you just buy three-quarter-ton pickups for your operation from that point forward. There has been zero done in the increasing of the number of electric vehicles when it comes to that.

When it comes to making sure that those vehicles from out of province are registered properly, as I say, that’s not a problem. However, they’re used, which means we will take what is already the oldest fleet in Canada and are now going to transfer it to be an even older fleet in Canada because this legislation does nothing to address that.

When the minister first started her comments today, she made a point of making sure she said “new” car sales, and at the end, the minister forgot to add in the “new.” That’s a very critical piece of this whole legislation.

I think the average person out there is either applauding this legislation and think it’s the greatest thing ever to hear that all vehicles will be electric by 2040, or they think it’s the craziest thing ever because there’s no way you’re going to have all electric vehicles by 2040. The reality is that this accomplishes neither.

All this does is says to the car manufacturers: “Your branded dealerships that are selling cars in British Columbia by 2040 have no other option than to sell an electric vehicle.” They have nothing that says they have to sell an electric vehicle as a used car on that same lot. They only have to report their new car sales, and that’s it.

I would suggest a lot of dealerships, given that a lot of their revenues are generated these days in the service departments, probably won’t mind selling a few extra used cars that are relatively new — coming out of lease returns from other provinces, that are gas combustion engines — to make sure that they can move forward and be profitable.

Again, overall, the sentiment of this bill, I think, is in the right direction. But the reality is that you don’t need this legislation to drive electric vehicle sales, as we have seen in British Columbia already. Unfortunately, this is a government that seems to feel that they need to be able to tell people how they should live, what size of house they should live in, whether or not they should be allowed to apply for home land use issues and a wide variety of things that government knows best.

[5:35 p.m.]

The reality is that without an incentive program, sales dry up. In Ontario, as soon as the incentive program was removed, sales of electric vehicles stopped. The minister mentioned the CleanBC and the continuation of the incentive program. In British Columbia, from September 2017, when this government was brought in and they brought in their provisional budget, to the end of fiscal four weeks ago, there was $57 million put towards the incentive program. In CleanBC, there’s a one-year commitment, for this year only, of $42 million. The simple math would say that that incentive program will actually run out before the end of this year. There are no commitments for year 2 or 3 in this current budget book.

In fact, the concern I would have with this is that once a piece of legislation like this is enacted, there is nothing mandating the government to be a full partner in trying to get people into these cleaner vehicles, because by law, the manufacturers have no choice but to do it. So there does not have to be an incentive program moving forward, and in fact, we do not see an incentive program budgeted for in the government’s own budget documents over the next two years moving forward.

There is an underfunded program for this year, and this year only. That is a big concern moving forward because every jurisdiction…. Whether they have a piece of legislation like this or have no legislation at all, without a subsidization program moving forward, this will not succeed.

The government can say, oh, they were waiting to see what the federal government was going to do or not do. You cannot count on another level of government providing the funds on a consistent basis year over year over year to try to make this work.

The government will also say: “We’ve talked with the manufacturers, and they feel that the price point is going to be almost equal to other vehicles within the next couple of years.” Well, I don’t know which manufacturers they’re talking to, because the ones I’ve talked to certainly don’t feel that’s going to be the case. In fact, when they’re left with no other option but to try to sell these vehicles here if they want to be able to sell a new vehicle, they will see that they’ll actually be able to charge a premium for that because you won’t have an option as a purchaser going onto their lot at all.

As well, the manufacturers, as we’ve seen in other jurisdictions…. When you have a jurisdiction like California or Quebec, both of which have been doing this longer than us — California significantly longer than we’ve been doing it — and their 2025 target is the same as our 2025 target, I think this might be a bit of an overreach, to say the least.

The problem is that when you get into the detail of how these actually function and work, it really does get to be problematic, when you look at the lack of incentives, at the lack of charging infrastructure, at the lack of clear direction of where that infrastructure is going to come from. How we’re going to be able to power the grid properly with this, when you look at 4,000 hours of hydro needed just to run to 2030…. If you take that out to 2040, that actually means you need 12,000, because remember, we’re only at 30 percent at 2030 after all.

That’s not even the whole fleet of British Columbia. That’s just for new car sales. Imagine, if you will, if this is wildly successful and people stop buying those used combustion engine vehicles, where exactly is the electricity going to come from for our vehicles?

Another thing that people like to do is they like to buy these vehicles right now because of the absolute gridlock that they see, particularly heading to and from the North Shore or heading to and from the Massey Tunnel and the lack of replacement in those areas.

So what do a lot of people do if they can afford it? They’re buying an electric vehicle right now because they’re allowed in the HOV lane. It’s still a commute of one; it’s still a vehicle on the road. But they’re clogging up the HOV lanes now, with the electric vehicle slowing down the commutes for others as well and defeating the purpose of the HOV lane, which was actually to get more occupant vehicles on the road in terms of people sharing and carpooling and getting more people on the road.

What this will eventually do, with the gridlock we’re facing…. That just is, I think, a testament about how bad the gridlock through the Massey area is. Thankfully, the long-awaited improvements and long-constructed improvements on the North Shore are starting to get to near the end so that traffic, hopefully, will start to move a little bit better and flow as has been engineered.

[5:40 p.m.]

Those are large-volume corridors where the commute has gotten so long for people that they have decided to go out and pay a premium for a vehicle so that they can drive a single-occupancy vehicle to and from their workplace in an HOV lane. That, and you also have the other phenomenon where businesses are now sending two people, paying a second person on a service call just so they can use an HOV lane. But I digress on that point.

The biggest piece to this whole bill though, Bill 28, again, is that we really do…. I know that I do support the efforts to try to get as many people into electric vehicles as possible. I have serious concerns around mandating a government-knows-best approach that says that although the market has been finding its way and developing infrastructure and developing a market for their product and innovating, the government is now going to jump in and say: “No, we know better than you, and we’re going to accelerate that.” We need to keep in mind that we are only a market of five million people.

I know that in the British Columbia context, that might seem like a really large area, but California, let’s remember, is larger than the whole economy of Canada. When California says, “No, we need these on our lot,” other jurisdictions that would otherwise have electric vehicles going to their jurisdictions are out of luck. The manufacturers…. There is a backlog in certain areas. It’s not because of the popularity in those areas. It’s because the allotment that the manufacturer has put through is going into the jurisdictions that have legislated it.

I guess if there is one silver lining — the fact that the government is taking the heavy hand of legislating where a manufacturer can or cannot sell a product within Canada…. The good side of that is we’ll be one of those jurisdictions where they’re forced to dump all their electric vehicles into, whether there is a purchaser for them or not, and create a shortage in the rest of the country as they try to keep their manufacturing numbers balanced.

It’s not as easy to say: “Well, just crank up your manufacturing.” They still have a business to run. They still need a viable customer for what they are producing, no different than if you were producing pounds of coffee or if you’re producing pounds of oranges or anything else. You can only produce what you have market for.

We need to make sure, through this legislation, that those types of things have been addressed and, unfortunately, they haven’t been addressed. There is no provision, as I said at the beginning, to stop people from owning a combustion vehicle. I’m fine with that. I’m quite happy that that’s the case, frankly. There is no provision stopping people from buying a combustion vehicle in Alberta and bringing it across the border, or Saskatchewan or Manitoba or anywhere else.

Interjection.

P. Milobar: Yeah, or Seattle. I know some on the other side have much better friendships down in the Washington state area than maybe some on this side do, but I don’t think the intention of this bill is to help prop up the new car sales in the Seattle area. But you never know, I guess.

The reality, in the context of CleanBC, is this is being bundled and marketed for, Mr. Speaker. There is a fuel mix piece within CleanBC that will achieve three times the reduction of GHGs than this bill will. All this bill will do is add red tape. It does nothing to significantly impact the GHG reduction targets within CleanBC. These are government documents with their government’s own numbers attached to them. There is no significant change.

Part of the reason of that is that newer cars keep getting more and more and more fuel efficient. In fact, the province of British Columbia, the Ministry of Environment, has changed the tonne per car that they use to calculate the emissions from a car. It used to be 4.7 tonnes per vehicle is what you would use to use as an illustrative purpose for how many cars of carbon you’ve taken off the road. Because cars are so fuel efficient now, that has been reduced to 2.8 tonnes per vehicle, a significant change to the calculations. When queried, the Minister of Environment confirmed that part of it is because cars are much more fuel efficient. They do not emit like they used to. The gains trying to convert the whole fleet over to electric are just simply not there.

[5:45 p.m.]

The fact that this doesn’t even come close to converting the whole fleet I think speaks volumes to why, even at the 2030 target date on this, there will be three times the GHG reductions by the combustible fleet driving a different fuel mix than there will be from the people who have decided to implement the electric vehicle as a new car purchase. So to think that people will not be moving vehicles around this great country of ours to where there’s a market for them is just folly. To think that those vehicles won’t be older is folly. And to think those vehicles will not run at a higher tonnage emission rate…. You know, we know that to be the fact.

We know, based on all of these types of things, that in fact, this bill does nothing to truly impact and significantly help the overall GHG footprint of our province, let alone the unanswered questions we have around power supply, let alone the unanswered questions we have around bringing in power from other jurisdictions. The minister’s staff confirmed today in the briefing — as well, the Minister of Environment confirmed in estimates earlier today — that there is no mechanism to prevent the importation of power if needed in British Columbia from coal-fired plants or natural gas–fired plants in Alberta.

Here we have clean, green B.C. hydro power available to us, with an unknown quantity needed to try to fully implement this program, and the backstop to it is that people in downtown Vancouver or Victoria or Kamloops can feel very good getting about their daily business driving their electric vehicle while it’s powered up at night by a coal-fired plant in Alberta and while their neighbour is probably on the plane to Alberta to pick up the pickup truck and drive it back across the border the next day as well.

This bill seems to do a lot for the new car salesmen in Alberta. It seems to do a lot to make sure that we are probably going to have to be reliant on coal- and natural gas–fired electricity from Alberta. It definitely is a bill that seems to want to support our neighbours to the east. Probably, after the last two years, they’ll be appreciative of the fact that there might be some positives coming out of B.C. toward Alberta. But I don’t think that helps the British Columbia business person. It certainly doesn’t help the British Columbia environmental footprint. It certainly is something that will give us pause moving forward.

The last piece I’ll speak to on this bill, and again, dive into much more at committee stage…. It’s amazing to me, bill after bill after bill now, how much is left to regulation — how much this government is leaving to regulation after the fact, how many unknowns are out there.

Whenever there’s a question and a query by either industry or an affected party, it’s, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out in regulation. We’ll deal with it afterwards. We won’t deal with it in this chamber. We’ll do it with a quiet order-in-council and take care of it that way and implement things when the House isn’t in session. When, maybe, people aren’t paying great attention on the Friday of a long weekend, we’ll issue the press release,” and that will now be the way things are being implemented.

In this bill in particular, especially when you get into the complexities of trading credits around, when you get into the complexities of reporting and trying to figure out if a car is worth 0.6 of a credit or 0.2 or 1.6 or 4.1 and what that means, to leave it all to regulation when it already has more overlays in it than California or Quebec actually have, is a worry. Because there are things like credits. We touched on this again.

There is a lot of interconnectivity to the Environment estimates. We touched on that — where the public sector organizations have to pay $25 a tonne by law for carbon offsets to the provincial government, to the Ministry of Environment, to make sure that they stay carbon-neutral. So your schools, your hospitals and your universities are paying $25 a tonne by law to the government.

In fact, the government of the day did that. In fact, the current Environment Minister spoke very strongly, as a critic, about that policy. But that policy was confirmed to be still in place. It is not going anywhere. In fact, it is going to stay firm. Why that’s important is because the minister, with this bill…. The Minister of Finance, the Minister of Environment, while they were negotiating an LNG bill around our carbon footprint, made sure that LNG projects would be able to go out to a world market and purchase carbon credits at any price.

[5:50 p.m.]

They can go out and buy $3 credits to receive a $20-a-tonne rebate back from the taxpayers of British Columbia while hospitals, while schools and universities — on a program that the government spoke out against it for many years stays in place — are paying $25 a tonne.

Why that ties into this bill is that there is a credit system in this bill too. If you’re selling more credits than you need to in the early years, before it gets to the 100 percent years, you can turn around to your neighboring dealer, your neighboring manufacturer, and work out a deal to transfer credits back and forth. But there is no cap to that price. There is no minimum purchase price to that. So it’s interesting that when it comes to free market, LNG can go out and price free market carbon credits at will to make their numbers work and get a $20- per-tonne rebate back from the taxpayers of British Columbia, but schools, hospitals and universities don’t get to have that free market.

Now with this…. On the one hand, let’s legislate and tell people exactly not only what you can sell. We’re going to tell the public what you can buy — that you can only buy this. But in the background, the free market will decide what the pricing of these credits going back and forth are. So there are a whole lot of holes in this that we need to get into in greater detail in committee stage.

On balance, as I say, the sentiment, I think, is there. Frankly, I think a lot of people are expecting that by 2040, there will be changes in this legislation anyway as time moves forward. But as a first step — as, I think, a signal to the market — it’s definitely something that we can understand. But it’s not something that…. When you really start to dig into the numbers, when you really start digging into the practicalities, and when you really start to see what its end-goal target is, a best-case scenario is one-third of the result of what a fuel mix change at a refinery will give us for our CleanBC goals. One would have to say that this is a massive under-reach for what it is actually going to accomplish.

I guess the bad pun of the day is that there are enough holes here that you could drive a truck through them, because that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The trucks will be flying off the lot. The 250s and the 350s will be flying off the lot. The 2500s, the 3500s — I don’t want to be just one brand over another — will be flying off the lot, because that’s the easiest workaround of all if you want new and stay in British Columbia.

If you want new, you can just go to Alberta, the government says, and take your business to Alberta. This is the bill from the government that is saying: “Folks, go take your new car sales business to Alberta, and then come on back over, and we’ll be happy to let you drive on our roads.”

All in all, the sentiment of trying to get more and more people into ZEVs is laudable. It’s one that I think we need to keep moving. We have our doubts around this, and we have serious concerns and questions about where the extra money for the subsidization programs are, given that there is an underfunding in this current year, let alone no money in the two years moving forward. That will be something we’ll be watching very closely as well.

I thank you for this time to speak on Bill 28 today.

Deputy Speaker: Member, could you move adjournment of debate, please?

P. Milobar moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 25 — COASTAL FERRY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Bill 25, Coastal Ferry Amendment Act, 2019, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

[5:55 p.m.]

Hon. C. James: In the Douglas Fir Room, I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 4, Witness Security Act, and in this House, I call continued second reading on Bill 28, Zero-Emission Vehicles Act.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 28 — ZERO-EMISSION
VEHICLES ACT

(continued)

S. Malcolmson: I am pleased to stand in support of Bill 28 today, one of the concrete measures in the CleanBC program, North America’s most ambitious plan to cut climate-change-causing greenhouse gas emissions and also to build the new, renewable, sustainable jobs of the future, the high-tech, economy-sustaining jobs that our young people are hungering to be involved in. This is one of many measures being taken, one that puts the onus on automakers, not on the car dealers, to move towards 100 percent of their light-duty vehicle sales being all entirely electric or hydrogen battery.

This is by the year 2040. The legislation before us proposes a phased approach, starting with the first requirements in the year 2020, then moving to 10 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales by 2025, 30 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2040.

The previous speaker had a whole range of complaints that are hard to piece together. I know we’re going to get into that debate. For tonight, I want to say that the impact for British Columbia, particularly, is encouraging to see. We’ve got already, just north of my riding, in the town of Errington, north of Nanaimo, Canadian Electric Vehicles. It has been manufacturing electric trucks and Zambonis for 25 years. The work is already well established and already creating jobs in our region.

On Gabriola Island, when I was the island’s trustee, we were responsible for zoning. We had a requirement that new commercial development had to include electric car chargers in new developments. Now we have two different little malls with coffee shops where, indeed, people can charge their vehicles outside. It’s something now that draws people in. If they will search and are thinking of going to a restaurant or coffee shop that allows them to charge their car, that is a good thing. It’s something that business can attract more people with.

I was at a very compelling presentation with the chamber of commerce some years ago on Saltspring Island where John Stonier and the B.C. electric vehicle association were saying to B-and-B operators: “Look, it used to be that you would market yourselves saying, ‘We have Wi-Fi in our accommodation.’ Now if you market yourself saying, ‘We have electric vehicle charging capability,’ then that will bring in the network of travellers, especially people coming up the whole coast who are planning their holidays out based on which regions have sufficient electric vehicle charging stations.” That was at the time of the previous government when we didn’t have these kinds of supports.

Now to see, under the Environment Minister, a rapidly expanded network of roadside electric vehicle charging stations…. The city of Nanaimo and the regional district of Nanaimo have brought them in over the years. Just last weekend I was able to pull just off the Island Highway, built under the NDP government, at Buckley Bay where the Denman Island ferry takes off, to a four-lot charging station with high-speed chargers. Makes all the difference to be able to get from Nanaimo up to Courtenay.

The networks are expanding all the time. It becomes easier and easier for people, especially on Vancouver Island where we don’t have much access to natural gas. For the most part, we’re heating our homes with electricity. The one thing that we can do to lighten our personal climate change footprint is to not have fossil fuels in our tank but to be able to drive an electric vehicle.

I recognize it’s still very expensive to buy into them, even with the rebate and clunker turn-in programs. You can get up to $11,000 off a new vehicle if you use some of the provincial government programs. It’s still a financial barrier, but the price is coming down. Sales are increasing.

[6:00 p.m.]

Four percent of new vehicle sales in British Columbia are electric vehicles already. To have that network expanding is a point of pride, and it’s one small piece of the broad climate strategy that this government is taking on.

I will just leave you with a story of my very favourite electric vehicle station, which my partner Howard and I visited. Abbotsford has a place called the EcoDairy, where they are generating electricity using waste from agricultural operations, particularly goats and geese and cows — generating power that you plug your car into. There are kids running around eating ice cream and people visiting the barns, patting the animals and, at the same time, charging their vehicles with absolutely a waste reduction form of electricity use.

I’m glad that we’re moving in this direction. To require of automobile manufacturers there be an adequate supply will certainly help overcome the problem that I found with my partner when we were shopping for an electric vehicle nine months ago. We had to wait a month on a waiting list to be able to get one.

We know people want to buy in. This is something that this government is doing in a concrete way that helps consumers keep their price of operating a vehicle down and that helps the environment at the same time. That sounds like a win-win to me.

I’m glad that this bill is before us. I hope that all sides of the House will support it.

L. Throness: It’s a pleasure to speak today to Bill 28, which is called the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act. I want to preface my remarks by talking about technological disruption for a few minutes.

I’ve had an abiding interest in zero-emission vehicles for, really, all of my life. I remember back in 1977 a guy named Roger Billings built a Cadillac Seville to run on hydrogen. He used something called metal hydrides in the tank to store the hydrogen. It actually ran in Jimmy Carter’s inauguration parade, not using hydrogen as a battery but replacing gasoline with hydrogen in an internal combustion engine.

I thought: “Wow, this is the cat’s meow. This is going to take off. We’re in a new age.” But it was not to be. Energy storage was the problem.

Then came, many years later, the computer revolution and lithium batteries. The tiny lithium batteries that went in the computers were taken by Elon Musk, who’s a real genius, an amazing fellow. He built a roadster out of those thousands of batteries. The Tesla Roadster came in 2008 and used the computer technology.

Since then, I have followed Tesla and the electric vehicle industry because I’m really intrigued by it. This past year or two I’ve been really informed by a futurist and a prof at Stanford named Tony Seba. He has a video on YouTube that anyone can watch. My constituents can watch it, if they like.

He lectures on disruption. He begins his lecture with a picture, and that picture is from the year 1900. It’s a picture of a New York City street, and it’s a street filled with buggies and horses. He says: “I want you to spot the lone car on the street.” There it is. In the middle of all these buggies and horses, there’s one car. Then he goes to his next picture, and that’s a picture from 1913. It gives a New York street, rush hour, same type of thing. This time it’s filled with cars. He says: “Spot the buggy, the one lone buggy amongst all those cars.” In only 13 years, the technology flipped. It was an amazing, amazing thing.

I listened to a podcast that was related to this era. There were at that time, around the turn of the last century, about 50,000 horses in New York. Of course, horses produce a lot of waste. Basically, New York was getting buried in waste. It was very active, the economy was booming, so they needed all sorts of horses to bring stuff around. The more horses they got, the more the waste piled up. They wanted to take away the waste using wagons, but to drag the wagons, they needed more horses.

The problem was just getting worse and worse. This was a real problem. It was making the city of New York unlivable until the technology of the automobile intervened. A technological revolution solved that problem in just a few years. It’s an amazing thing.

[6:05 p.m.]

Tony Seba made a rule, a rule of market disruption. Whenever a new technology becomes ten times cheaper or more efficient, there is a market disruption and a very rapid switch to that new technology.

Allow me to go through a few technologies, because I think this is really important. I want to make a big point here. I can think back to 1440. The Gutenberg printing press, with movable type, completely replaced handwriting. It didn’t replace it, but it augmented handwriting and put the book into the hand of the common person.

I studied the Penitentiary Act, in my PhD studies, of 1779. I went to the House of Commons archives in England to find the very first one that was written. They brought it to me in a roll. It was made of sheepskin. It was all written in large, flowery handwriting, because that was the best they could do at the time. It would unroll maybe 100 feet long, the very first Penitentiary Act. If you wanted a copy of something, you had to print it out or write it out longhand.

I think of coal over wood in the 1700s and the steam engine that resulted from that — steamships over sailing ships in the 1800s and railways over carts pulled by horses. I think of looms instead of hand spinning, which caused the movement of the Luddites — which we now know to have been kind of a weird time in English history — where Luddites would destroy the looms because they were taking away jobs from the contractors that would weave wool by hand. In the end, the looms caused more jobs and better jobs for everybody because of technological change.

In more modern times, as I’ve already spoken about, the automobile replaced the horse, which had been the mode of transportation from time immemorial. Mass production, through Henry Ford, brought the automobile to the masses. The tractor replaced horses. My father told me that on the farm, when they bought their first tractor, they sold 20 horses. They didn’t need those horses anymore.

In modern times, I think of the acceleration of change in technology as just going faster and faster. I think of my first pocket calculator that I bought when I was in grade 10. It was in 1973 — 50 bucks at Sears. All those calculators replaced slide rules and abacuses and people bending over pieces of paper with a pencil and furrowed brow.

I think of bank machines that replaced bank tellers. Think of the hundreds of hours that the older people in the room here have spent waiting in line in banks, waiting to go to a bank teller. I think of videos. Think of Blockbuster. Think of thousands of other video stores, replaced in a few years by streaming video, Netflix.

Think of CDs replacing long-play vinyl records. I grew up on them. That now is being replaced by iTunes, and recently I got Spotify. I used to say in the 1980s, a bit hopefully and kind of blowing smoke, that I would one day carry my entire music library in my pocket. Then I got iTunes and an iPod, and I put that in my pocket. But now I’ve got Spotify that replaced my iPod, and I can now play 30 million tunes using my smartphone. It’s an amazing thing.

I think of flat screen TVs and monitors replacing tube TVs and computer monitors. It all happened quietly. It all happened just in a few years, very quickly.

I remember the era of the land line. In fact, I remember my grandpa on the phone, in the country, in Grande Prairie, when I was just a little boy. He would spin a dial to make the phone ring and make it work. It was an amazing thing. I remember the era of the land line, then the era of the cell phone that replaced it — it was big as a brick — then the small cell phone and now the smartphone.

Several waves or generations of technology in our lifetime have been replaced in the billions by new technology — billions of smartphones — within the space of a couple of decades. Computers have replaced longhand bookkeeping and writing by typewriters. Emails have replaced letters so that Canada Post is hardly viable anymore.

Digital cameras have replaced film cameras. I now scan all of my slides and pictures, and I think of the thousands of dollars I spent on film and film development and out-of-focus pictures. I think of Stockholm’s harbour, which used to be very polluted because of Kodak processing film there, but that harbour is now completely clean, and Kodak went into bankruptcy in 2012.

[6:10 p.m.]

The point I want to make in all of this is an important point. None of the things I’ve talked about were initiated by government. They didn’t require government programs, except maybe to regulate their safety. Maybe there were little grants for research for some of them — maybe a bit of a kick-start — but these disruptions, all of them for the better, were driven by the market. The best role of government was to get out of the way and let them happen.

Now, the market in B.C. is far more important than government. Our GDP, run by the market, is $2 trillion every year. The provincial budget is just $60 billion. Only a small portion of that can be devoted to zero-emission vehicles. It is not possible for this government or any other government to effect a transition to zero-emission vehicles. The market has to do it.

I want to cite one more case study, though, in this regard. In 2013, the federal government phased out incandescent bulbs. I remember thinking about that and being kind of irritated about that: “Why is the federal government getting involved in incandescent bulbs and dictating to citizens what they can buy and what they can’t buy?” But it did it regardless.

It turned out to be entirely useless, because today I wouldn’t buy an incandescent bulb. In fact, I stocked up on incandescent bulbs when they were still available, and now I don’t know what to do with them. They’re useless. They’re way more expensive to operate. New LED bulbs last for 25 years and use a fraction of the power that an incandescent bulb uses. Government created an entire bureaucracy to regulate the phase-out of incandescent bulbs when the market would have done it for nothing. It’s a complete waste of money.

I want to move on to talk about zero-emission vehicles — in particular, about their technological development. I’ve followed various iterations of the electric car. As I was saying, in 2008 the Tesla Roadster was created. Elon Musk is an incredible figure, to whom society owes a great debt.

There are still problems with electric vehicles. I think of range. Range is a problem that has hindered the development of the electric vehicle. I think of the time it takes to recharge. In some, you have a 240-volt outlet. It can take all night to recharge your Tesla. I think of operation in cold climates. It’s more difficult for a battery-operated vehicle to operate in cold climates. I think of the recycling of lithium batteries. That’s a real problem. We’re going to have, perhaps, millions and millions of electric cars, and those batteries are going to wear out someday. What are we going to do with those batteries?

There are so many advantages to a zero-emission vehicle. Let me list a few. An electric vehicle has maybe three or four moving parts, as opposed to thousands in an internal combustion engine. It’s an amazing thing. The torque and acceleration in an electric car is amazing — way better than an ICE, which is an internal combustion engine. Think of electric motors that are almost soundless. They’re amazing. Noise pollution will be reduced by an enormous measure.

Cars will last for a million miles, five times longer than vehicles today. I just sold my old gas-powered SUV. It had 200,000 kilometres on it, and it was just about worn out. The biggest expense with an electric vehicle is tires. There’s hardly any maintenance to do.

I’ve heard that service station mechanics are worried about the introduction of electric vehicles, because what are they going to do with their jobs when cars come that don’t need maintenance? Soon, Elon Musk just announced, their newest vehicle will have a 1,000-kilometre range, a 600-mile range. It’s an amazing thing. Superchargers are going to reduce charge times, and solid-state batteries are going to reduce charge times even further, increase range and decrease the time it takes to charge.

Of course, there will be a savings in money through all this. Think: there are no complicated transmissions. There’s no cooling system required. There’s no gas tank and apparatus to support that. There’s no oil needed. There’s no muffler, no heavy internal combustion motor, and soon no steering wheel and no pedals.

We are on the verge of a new disruption, with respect to motor vehicles, that is not unlike the disruption of cell phones, flat-screen TVs and all the other things I just talked about. We’re approaching a new disruption. There is some question as to whether it will be hydrogen or electricity, but I think of the manufacturers that are now all promising to switch. I think of Ford. I think of Volkswagen. I think of Porsche, which has a new e-car. I think of Volvo, which has promised to switch completely in the next ten years or so.

[6:15 p.m.]

Right now a third of Norway’s new vehicles being sold are electric vehicles. There’s a new Audi that’s just out, new pickups being promised, new semi transport trucks which may run on electricity, like the Tesla, or there’s another company which wants to run long-haul trucks on hydrogen.

The next iteration to come after that will be self-driving cars, and that will further disrupt the transportation industry. I just watched a video on the weekend where Elon Musk said that the public will demand that the steering wheel and pedals be removed — not that he likes that or that perhaps many of us who like to drive will like that, but the public will demand it. As Elon Musk said, “Why would we allow people to drive these two-tonne death machines, when a self-driving vehicle will be able to drive without an accident?” as hundreds of thousands of vehicles right now are feeding their learning into a central computer that is teaching every Tesla car how to drive better. Within a year, Elon Musk says you will be able to get into a Tesla and go to sleep. Punch in your coordinates, and the car will take you there more safely than you can drive yourself.

After that, Tesla owners will want to rent out their Tesla as a self-driving robo-taxi, and their Tesla will become an appreciating asset. Auto insurance will be cheaper in the future, as there will be fewer accidents as cars become more intelligent. We will need fewer cars. You’ll simply dial up a car. Why would you own a car and pay for a car when you can just dial up a car? A car will come to your door, and you just pay for the ride. There will be fewer parking lots needed, and we’ll have a lot of space in cities that is now devoted to parking lots, because there will be fewer cars needed.

I had a person email me who talked about class 4 licences and how you ought not to need a class 4 or class 5 licence for an Uber or a ride-hailing system. Well, Uber will be taken over by automatically driven cars. All the involvement with government that will be needed will be to regulate in the interest of public safety. To sum up so far, I would say that Bill 28 is a completely useless piece of legislation. It is not needed, and in fact, it will be a useless expense.

I want to go on to talk for a moment about electricity supply, because I just want to make a point here. The government wants to switch from fossil fuels to electricity. To do that, it will need more electricity, but this government opposed the Site C dam, tooth and nail — tried to get it to stop. This is amazing to me. We will need the equivalent of something like four Site C dams in order to switch our entire vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. Is there a plan for electricity in this bill that will be needed in the coming revolution of zero-emission vehicles? No. There’s nothing. There’s no plan of the government. In fact, they’re still mourning the fact that Site C is being built, including the Green Party, which opposed it in a mighty way.

Let me go on to this legislation to talk for just a few minutes. We have a complete bureaucratic scheme here. We classify vehicles — hydrogen or electric — and we’re picking winners and losers. What if a new technology comes along before 2040? You think of how quickly technology is advancing today. Something else might come along, but we’re picking winners and losers in the market. Maybe we’ll have fusion power by 2040. Who knows?

We identify private suppliers and say that they have to report their sales to the government. The legislation identifies targets which are not soft targets — which is usually the meaning of targets — but they’re hard quotas. They’re backed up with fines and jail time. And the signature piece of the legislation is in section 9, when, by 2040, a person must not make a consumer sale of a light duty motor vehicle that is not a zero-emission vehicle. You will, by the way, be able to get a new vehicle in Alberta or the States and bring it in. And you’ll be able to sell a used vehicle but not a new one.

In fact, the minister said in this House today that it’s not needed, that suppliers have all told her that by this time, the requirement will not be a problem to abide by. So why do we make a law about it? Let’s make a law about other things that we’re going to do anyway. Let’s make a law that you have to look both ways before you cross the road. Or let’s make a law that you have to wear lighter clothing in the summer. It’s something we’re going to do anyway.

[6:20 p.m.]

There’s more to this law. We will have debits and credits and compliance ratios and complicated equations. We will have a director appointed and, I’m sure, an office filled with industrious public servants to whom suppliers will have to submit a report every year with the number of sales and the serial number of every vehicle sold and a supplementary report just in case the supplier left out a dotted “i” or a crossed “t.”

The director will do an assessment and tell the supplier, “Yes, you’ve complied with the law to meet your target.” If not, automatic administrative penalties will apply. The director will make information requests and do audits. The supplier has to maintain records. The director can make inspections, take away samples — including a sample that is a motor vehicle, by the way — will be able to enter premises, inspect, analyze, measure, sample, test and take away videos and other records.

All this is backed up by administrative penalties. Or if the director really wants to get tough, we have an offences section — the offences section is amazing — just for disobeying the command to sell electric vehicles.

This is criminalizing behaviour, by the way, that is entirely legal today. Almost all of our vehicles sold are ICE vehicles, internal combustion engine vehicles. That perfectly innocent, good behaviour will be criminalized in the future. If administrative penalties are not enough, there will be a fine of up to $1 million and six months in jail for perfectly innocent, good behaviour today — it’s incredible — all for something the market is going to bring about anyway, way earlier than 2040, because a disruption is right on the horizon.

To sum up, I cannot imagine a more useless piece of legislation — a more cumbersome, intrusive, expensive and bureaucratic process. A criminalization of good people and totally innocent behaviour is now being set in place by this government, and by the minister’s own admission, none of this is necessary.

Hon. J. Sims moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Point of Privilege
(Reservation of Right)

Hon. D. Eby: I regret to have to do this, but I rise to reserve a point of personal privilege in relation to the remarks made by the member for Prince George–Mackenzie about me earlier this morning, in relation to allegations that I breached confidence in my role as Attorney General.

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

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

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

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 6:23 p.m.