Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call second reading of Bill 32, Protected Areas of B.C. Amendment Act (No. 2). In Committee A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call committee stage on Bill 11, Civil Forfeiture Amendment Act. In the Birch Room, Committee C, I call continued debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 32 — PROTECTED AREAS OF
BRITISH COLUMBIA
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 2019

Hon. G. Heyman: Mr. Speaker, I move that this bill be read a second time now.

The proposed amendment to the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act will remove approximately two hectares from Loon Lake Park to enable the Thompson-Nicola regional district to apply to build a new community fire hall on the site and to accept two segments of road from the park. Loon Lake Park is an 8.74-hectare class A park comprised of two separate lots, 7548 and….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Minister, can you hold, please?

Members, if you don’t have House business, maybe you can be quiet.

The minister continues.

Hon. G. Heyman: Loon Lake Park is comprised of two separate lots, 7548 and 7547, but all park facilities were removed in 2002, and the park was closed due to a steady decline in park visitation. The entire park was damaged to varying degrees during the 2017 Elephant Hill wildfire. It also destroyed the Loon Lake community’s fire hall. The previous fire hall location is not considered adequate due to insurance requirements for maximum response distance from the most populous area of the community.

[2:40 p.m.]

The amendment will remove the land on the north side of Loon Lake Road and 7547, and the portion of Loon Lake Road traversing 7547 will also be removed to provide a more definable boundary. A short segment of Loon Lake Road and lot 7548 will also be removed from the park.

The Thompson-Nicola regional district carried out public consultation respecting the proposed boundary change to the park, and there is strong local community support for removing the land from the park to enable the construction of the fire hall. The local regional district will work with local First Nations to complete a cultural and archaeological assessment of the grounds before development.

This amendment will assist in providing a new fire hall, for a community in need of one, in a timely manner.

J. Tegart: It’s with great pleasure that I rise in the House to speak in favour of Bill 32, Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act (No. 2), 2019.

The 2017 Elephant Hill fire destroyed the Loon Lake fire department and a critical piece of infrastructure for the small community, as it was the community’s only fire hall. The fire covered over 191,000 hectares and destroyed landscapes, livelihoods, homes, businesses and the entire Boston Flats Mobile Home Park.

The Thompson-Nicola regional district has been working closely with the community of Loon Lake and myself to secure land for the new building for the Loon Lake fire department. In June of 2018, I wrote a letter to the Minister of Environment, outlining the challenges that the Loon Lake community was facing, trying to relocate their fire hall to a location more central for the population of the community. This location was part of a closed provincial park that had not been used for a number of years.

I asked the minister to assist in expediting the process to enable the community to get shovels in the ground. I want to recognize the work of this minister and his staff for bringing this bill to the floor of the House, in this spring session, to ensure that the community of Loon Lake has an opportunity to move forward with this build. This bill adjusts the description of Loon Lake Park within the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act by removing land from the park for the purpose of providing a viable space for the construction of the new community fire hall.

As you can imagine, the community was devastated by the wildfire. Local volunteer firefighters stayed behind during the evacuation to protect as many structures as they could. Many homes and cabins were burnt to the ground, along with their own fire hall.

Since the fire, support for this small rural fire department has come from across the province. I would like to mention some of the people and organizations that have donated $1,000 or more to the project. I ask your forgiveness for taking time for the long list, but I think it’s really important that people get recognized.

The following is a list of those who donated $1,000 or more towards this project: the Rotary Club of Kamloops; Michael and Marjorie Milaney; Elizabeth Harrison; the Lakeside Resort; Interior Savings, Ashcroft; Country Lumber; Muni-City Services; Anthony McGill; Pan-Cam Developments; Karen Stark; Jack and Irene Giesbrecht; Canadian National; Enbridge; Clinton and District Community Forest of B.C.; Ashcroft and District Lions Club, who made two donations; Steve Pecchia; Integris Credit Union in Clinton; PaintNite; Oliver fire department; Ted and Valerie Mark; Patrick Devlin; Vaughn and Marny Kenney; Laurel and Med Eldridge; Cache Creek volunteer fire department; Red Cross; Royal Bank of Canada.

[2:45 p.m.]

Fraserway RV deserves special mention because they donated $275,000 towards this project. This is a company that does not live near Loon Lake, and they were donating dollars from every RV sold in B.C. — 10 percent of retail parts, 10 percent of rental bookings and $750 from every RV sold in each of their seven dealerships. They offered $1,000 credit on an Adventurer Group cash card for displaced residents purchasing an RV, and they matched donations, dollar for dollar, by 800 employees. Mr. James Epp presented this news of a significant donation to the Loon Lake fire department.

I would like to acknowledge…. You know, when we’re in times of trouble, people step forward, and the Loon Lake people are most appreciative. The replacement of the fire hall is an important step in the rebuilding and recovering of that community.

I would like to personally thank the minister and also say that I am pleased to support Bill 32, Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act (No. 2), 2019. I look forward to participating in the committee stage.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the minister to close the debate.

Hon. G. Heyman: I’d like to thank the member for Fraser-Nicola for her comments as well as for her very important advocacy for her constituents in the community of Loon Lake, for working with our ministry staff to achieve this sensible result. I also want to thank her for recognizing the volunteers, the people who came together in the community to offer support, finances and resources to rebuild the fire hall, and for recognizing the important work of all firefighters, including volunteer firefighters, in protecting and caring about communities.

We don’t make changes to provincial parks lightly in British Columbia, but in this case, it makes sense, and there is no compromise to ecological or conservation values. The community, as we’ve all pointed out, is strongly supportive.

With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 32, Protected Areas of British Columbia 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. H. Bains: I call second reading of Bill 8.

BILL 8 — EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Hon. H. Bains: I move that Bill 8 be read a second time now.

Bill 8 is a set of very, very important changes for British Columbians and to British Columbia’s Employment Standards Act. For those who would be wondering what the Employment Standards Act is, the Employment Standards Act is the law that sets minimum standards and conditions of employment for most workers in the province. Workers and employers in the province rely on employment standards to protect their rights and to reflect their changing needs, to ensure workplaces remain fair and efficient.

For far too long, the province’s Employment Standards Act had not changed, even as other jurisdictions updated their standards to better protect workers and even as the working environment had changed dramatically through globalization and technology. Fifteen years have gone by without significant changes to the Employment Standards Act in B.C., and 25 years without a significant review.

With Bill 8, our government is taking action to make changes that are overdue — changes that will better protect children and youth from dangerous work, make it easier for workers to get help when they feel their rights have been violated, provide more job protection to people dealing with difficult personal circumstances and ensure that employees are paid the wages they are owed and that employers and others that violate the law don’t have an unfair economic advantage over good employers.

[2:50 p.m.]

We’re making these priority changes as a significant step towards fulfilling my mandate, as Minister of Labour, to make sure that B.C.’s employment standards are applied evenly and enforce and reflect the evolving needs of our workplaces.

Working people will be better protected and supported through these proposed amendments to the B.C. Employment Standards Act. Why? I believe that working people are the lifeblood of this province, yet we see working people struggling, because our employment standards do not protect them.

In developing these amendments, we have considered recommendations from several groups, including the B.C. Law Institute, the B.C. Employment Standards Coalition and the B.C. Federation of Labour, along with input from workers, employers, the public and academics.

The B.C. Law Institute’s independent and comprehensive review — which was funded in part, I would tell you, by the province and included the Ministry of Labour as an observer — plays a significant role in informing some of these changes. Specifically, several of the proposed changes in this bill align with the unanimous or majority recommendations from the B.C. Law Institute. It is important to know that the B.C. Law Institute did extensive public consultation before finalizing its report, which provided workers and employers, stakeholders and others an opportunity to provide their views on how to modernize the Employment Standards Act.

As well, during March of this year, we invited the public to give their feedback on the area we’re discussing in Bill 8 today, as well as on hours of work and overtime and on fairness for terminated workers. We received over 1,200 submissions and took this input into account when finalizing the amendments to Bill 8. The input from public engagement will also be considered as we look to make potential further future amendments to the act.

I would now like to speak about some of the specific changes to be made in Bill 8. The amendments we are proposing fall into four categories, four areas of improving the employment standards in British Columbia.

The first of the priority areas is to raise the working age for children and better protect them from dangerous work. For too long, B.C. has lagged behind the rest of Canada when it comes to protecting children in workplaces. Changes made in 2003 have allowed children as young as 12 to do virtually any kind of work, including in dangerous sectors like construction. As a result, there have been many life-altering injuries in workers 14 years old or younger.

I move adjournment of debate and reserve my right to speak again.

Hon. H. Bains moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 11 — CIVIL FORFEITURE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Bill 11, Civil Forfeiture Amendment Act, 2019, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I apologize to my colleagues for the interruption. There may be one more yet to come.

In this House, I call continued debate on Bill 8. In the Douglas Fir Room, Section A, I call committee stage on Bill 7.

[2:55 p.m.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 8 — EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

Hon. H. Bains: I was just talking about protecting our children from dangerous work — their health and safety at workplaces. I was talking about changes made in 2003 that allowed children as young as 12 to go and work any occupation in British Columbia. Many of them have life-altering injuries as a result of that.

This is not just anecdotal numbers or a speech. WCB data confirms that over $5 million was paid to children under 15 who worked and were injured. Those were the numbers paid in injury claims: $5.2 million over a ten-year period. It clearly shows that our children were getting hurt in workplaces. Workplace data also shows that every year between 2007 and 2017, workers were being injured, and that is simply unacceptable.

These proposed amendments will better protect our children by raising the age that a child may work without an employment standards branch permit from 12 to 16, allowing an exception for 14- and 15-year-olds to do light work that is safe for their health and development, prohibiting children under 16 from doing dangerous work.

What we heard from people and what we learned from B.C. Law Institute recommendations was that 14- and 15-year-olds want to be able to participate in the workforce. The proposed amendments will allow 14- and 15-year-olds to do certain forms of light work, with the consent of a parent or guardian, like stocking shelves in a convenience store, working their family farm while helping their parents. Other forms of work will require a permit from the director for anyone under the age of 16. Defining exactly what should be considered light work will be laid out in the regulations following a transparent consultation process.

Perhaps more importantly, young people under 16 will be prohibited from working in dangerous industries like mining, forestry, pulp mills, heavy construction. Dangerous work is anything that is likely to endanger a child’s health, safety or morals — for instance, working on a construction site or in a factory with heavy machinery. Setting out exactly what should be considered dangerous work will come at the regulation stage. These changes to our employment standards for children will bring B.C. into alignment with international child employment standards.

I must remind the House here that when those laws were changed in 2003, allowing a 12-year-old to work in any work in B.C., we were cited by the International Labour Organization of the United Nations that that is not in line with their convention. That is not in alignment with the international law about our children and workplaces. But the government of the day ignored all of that, and like I said, children continued to get hurt. Now we will put an end to B.C.’s reputation as the only province without meaningful legal restrictions by making sure our kids are not employed in work that is unsafe for young persons.

Children are our future, and we need to give young people the time to develop and mature before joining the broader workforce. Above all, we want to keep them safe. Everyone wants our children to be safe and healthy, and we know that children can often provide helpful age-appropriate support for family businesses, including family farms, as I said earlier. The changes we are making with Bill 8 are about keeping our children safe while ensuring that young people can continue to help out in family businesses.

As I indicated earlier, the details for new child employment law will be set out in regulations. Before these regulations are established, government will consult broadly and will want to engage extensively with stakeholders for their input on how we can work together to better protect children in diverse workplaces.

The second priority is the area that we are addressing at this time to provide more job protection to people dealing with difficult personal circumstances. Bill 8 proposes two new job-protected leaves that will allow people to take time away from work to deal with personal hardship without having to worry about losing their job.

[3:00 p.m.]

The first new leave is for victims of domestic violence. Workers who have experienced or are the parent of a child who has experienced domestic violence will be able to take unpaid, job-protected leave. This change allows workers to take up to 15 consecutive weeks and up to ten non-consecutive days for things like therapy sessions, medi­cal appointments, finding a new home or a new school for their children.

B.C. will now join most other provinces in bringing in this important domestic violence leave to better support women, children and all workers who have been impacted by domes­tic violence.

The second leave is critical care leave. Workers who need to care for a critically ill family member will be able to take a job-protected leave while using federal employment insurance benefits. The federal government introduced this protection in December 2017, and B.C. needs to align the act to provide corresponding job protection.

The leave allows workers to take up to 36 weeks to care for a critically ill child under 19 and up to 16 weeks to care for a critically ill adult family member. People shouldn’t have to choose between their job and taking care of their family during times of personal difficulties. We must balance the needs of employers with the needs of employees in these difficult personal situations.

The third priority is to ensure employees are paid the wages they are owed and that employers and others that violate the law don’t have an unfair economic advantage that makes for an uneven competitive playing field. Everyone deserves to be paid wages that they have rightfully earned. Whether you are a server relying on tips or you haven’t been paid your full wage by your employer, the proposed amendments aim to ensure all workers are able to recover what they are owed.

Bill 8 will add new provisions that would regulate tips and gratuities. Employers will be prohibited from withholding tips or other gratuities from workers, deducting an amount from them or requiring them to turn them over to the employer. Tip pooling will be allowed, but employers will not be allowed to share in the tip pool unless they perform the same work as other workers.

These changes are based on the tip regulation system in Ontario, which the B.C. Law Institute report recommended for British Columbia. We have been hearing about unfair practices around tips for years, and it’s time for that to stop.

Bill 8 will also extend the wage recovery period under the Employment Standards Act. Workers who are owed wages by a current or former employer will be able to recover up to 12 months of back pay, up from the current six months. The 12-month recovery period will apply to complaints currently before the employment standards branch if a determination has yet to be made. The federal jurisdiction, along with New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Saskatchewan, has a 12-month wage recovery period already.

The proposed legislation also gives the director of em­ployment standards the discretion to extend the recovery period to 24 months in circumstances to be prescribed by the regulations. For example, the ministry is considering circumstances where infractions are seen to be wilful or severe. As a consequence to the extended wage recovery period, Bill 8 will change the record retention period from two years to four years to ensure that the payrolls and other records are available if there is a complaint or investigation about unpaid wages.

Through Bill 8, government is also strengthening several other provisions within the act to ensure that the workers recover as many wages and other amounts owing to them as possible. Significantly, we are restoring the Employment Standards Act as a floor for new and renewed collective agreements.

In some areas, variations from the standards in the act will be permitted but only if the collective agreement provisions meet or exceed the requirement in the corresponding provisions of the act. These changes for collective agreements ensure that the unionized workers have the same rights and standards as other workers, that minimum employment standards cannot be negotiated away and that there is a level playing field.

There were complaints where some employers and some unions were trying to go around the minimum standards and negotiate inferior agreements, and that put their competitive employers at a disadvantage. Not only that; it cheats the workers out of the rightful wages that they are owed under the act.

[3:05 p.m.]

Many collective agreements already, on the other hand, meet or exceed the standards of the act, so this change should not impact many unionized workplaces. For those few that it may impact, this change will not affect collective agreements that are in force when the changes come into effect, allowing employers and unions time to align their agreements with the new minimum standards. Bill 8 will permit employers and unions to continue operating under the provision of current collective agreements until an agreement expires and a new or renewed agreement comes into effect.

Another change is a new requirement for employers to provide employees with information about their rights under the Employment Standards Act. Employers will be responsible for providing the information to workers they employ, since they have direct knowledge of and access to their employees. This requirement is intended to protect workers by ensuring that they have information about their employment standards entitlement. It will also support compliance by ensuring that the employers are familiar with the requirements of the act and the obligations they have to workers.

Another improvement is that Bill 8 will require temporary help agencies to be licensed. Temporary help agencies employ people to assign them to perform work on a temporary basis for clients of the agency. With the exception of farm labour contractors, temporary help agencies are currently not required to be licensed.

My ministry has reviewed research from other jurisdictions that shows that employees of temporary help agencies are often in vulnerable and precarious work situations that warrant special attention. The proposal to extend a licensing requirement to temporary help agencies will assist the employment standards branch in addressing compliance issues in a sector where vulnerable workers are often employed and potentially exploited.

To further support the recovery of unpaid wages to workers, Bill 8 will restore corporate officers’ and directors’ liability for unpaid wages in bankruptcy situations, similar to what existed prior to 2002. No other Canadian jurisdiction has a bankruptcy exception for directors’ and officers’ liability for unpaid wages.

Another change in Bill 8 adopted the recommendation made in the B.C. Law Institute to provide some flexibility in the issuance of mandatory penalties imposed for non-compliance with the act. This amendment will provide authority for the director of the employment standards to waive a monetary penalty in certain circumstances. Currently, monetary penalties are mandatory, and there’s no authority for the director to waive a penalty.

The circumstances in which a director may waive a penalty will include situations like, for example: a person pays all wages owed to the employees, as determined by the director; the contravention was not deliberate or due to negligence; the person had a good basis for contesting the issue that reflected an arguable interpretation of the legislation or a valid dispute of the facts; or other situations to be prescribed by regulations.

The amendment addresses employers’ concern about the inflexibility of the existing system and recognizes that while mandatory penalties are an important incentive to support compliance with the Employment Standards Act, in some instances it is fair or appropriate to waive the penalty.

A small but important change will be to replace the existing occupational title of “domestic,” which is an outdated and potentially offensive term, with the more contemporary title “domestic worker.” The definition of “domestic worker” will repeal the existing requirement that domestic workers must live at the employer’s residence. This is in response to the live-in requirement being abolished under the caregiver streams of the federal temporary foreign worker program.

The live-in requirement was contributing greatly to the potential for abuse and exploitation of temporary foreign workers by increasing their dependency on employers. By repealing the requirement to live at the employer’s residence, domestic workers will receive the full protection of the act, whether or not they reside with their employer.

Finally, the fourth and the last priority area that we are recommending and proposing through this bill, but certainly not the least, is to modernize the employment standards branch to make it easier for both workers and employers to access the services they need. The employment standards branch helps workers and employers understand B.C.’s employment laws and ensures that those laws are followed.

[3:10 p.m.]

For too long, B.C.’s workers have not received the level of support they deserve, facing barriers accessing justice when they have been mistreated by an employer, knowing what their rights are or how to get help.

We’re improving how the branch delivers these services, which all clients count on, by eliminating the self-help kit to make the complaint process more accessible and to facilitate a worker’s access to justice; requiring a preliminary review, followed by an investigation of all complaints accepted by the branch; improving on the current process of forgoing investigation in favour of speedy resolutions; and ensuring fairness and transparency for employers and workers by providing them the opportunity to respond to a written report on an investigation of all complaints before a final decision is made. The director of employment standards may also conduct a broader investigation of a workplace if a complaint shows a systemic problem.

These amendments to improve the complaints and investigation process at the employment standards branch, along with other operational improvements, will be supported by a budget increase of $14 million over the next three years. I’m especially proud that part of improving services for workers will be doing away with the self-help kit, which for too long has been a barrier to workers seeking help. As we implement these improvements, the employment standards branch will become more accessible and the complaint process more streamlined and effective for all clients.

I’m aware that some people and some groups have been asking why government is bringing forward these particular amendments in Bill 8 but not other important issues that they also believe should be addressed. For years, we have been hearing from workers and employers that the amendments being proposed in Bill 8 are priority items that urgently need to be addressed. These are areas that will have an immediate impact on the well-being of workers across a wide range of industries. Further, as I have indicated, the B.C. Law Institute’s extensive review of the act recommended many of the changes being proposed.

We know, though, that there are many areas of concern that people still want us to change. I can advise that further review of the Employment Standards Act is underway to look at all the B.C. Law Institute recommendations, as well as feedback from stakeholders and input from our recent public engagement.

I would like to thank the B.C. Law Institute for their detailed review and recommendations that have guided and continue to guide our work on updating the act. The B.C. Employment Standards Coalition and the B.C. Federation of Labour also deserve recognition for their valuable input on this work. And I would like to thank all workers, employers and members of the public who have taken the time to give their input as well. Their voices have been heard, and we are working to make life better for them.

As I said, working people are the lifeblood of this prov­ince. When we strengthen protection for workers, we strengthen our economy. Our government is taking steps to make life better for people, and this includes putting in place laws that will provide better protection and support. I’m tremendously proud to be leading Bill 8. It is important to note that these proposed changes are aimed at ensuring that workers’ rights are respected and are fair to the vast majority of employers who abide by the law. As well, they are aimed at levelling the playing field for good employers so that unscrupulous employers don’t gain an unfair advantage.

I just want to re-emphasize this point. These changes not only are to provide better protection for the working people in this province. I’m talking about 70 to 74 percent of the workers in this province, most of them very, very vulnerable. They have no protection of a union — no other protection. Many of them don’t even know what their rights are and how to get those rights protected. But at the same time, the vast majority of the employers who abide by the law pay their workers according to the law and respect their health and safety. We want to protect them as well.

[3:15 p.m.]

We want to be on their side so that those unscrupulous few — those who do not respect their workers’ rights, those who do not pay according to the law — don’t have unfair economic advantage over the good employers. That is the whole point here. We have gone for far too long without making these changes.

Workplaces have changed since the last review took place in 1992. We didn’t even have Google at that time. This is how far we have come. Workplaces have changed. The needs of the workers and employers also have changed. We have the gig economy. We have workplaces that are very precarious. We need to look at those areas so that our laws are reflecting and reacting to the changing world of workplaces. That’s what these changes are all about.

I’m so proud to be part of a government…. I’m so proud to be part of my colleagues who, I know, have been lobbying for the last at least 16 years and have been listening and bringing those issues to my attention and to our government’s attention so that we could make changes for the better for those people who have been waiting for so long.

Many employers have been waiting for so long, because many of those few bad employers were taking so much advantage of their honesty. We want to stop that and be on the side of good employers, be on the side of the workers, because as I said, the workers are the lifeblood of our economy. These changes go a long way in addressing those areas.

I am so proud to present Bill 8. I know that there are other members who have much, much, much interest in this. I will wait, listen and, hopefully, get full support from all members of this House.

J. Martin: Thanks to the minister for giving an overview of the Employment Standards Amendment Act, which I’m happy to rise and speak to this afternoon, this being Bill 8.

There’s a lot to support in the changes being brought forward in the bill. However, there are parts that do lack the detail and solid definitions that one would expect from something that is potentially going to become the law of the land. In reality, this means leaving details out, cooking them up in the bowels of government and then imposing them without proper debate at a future point in time.

This is where things are a little bit disappointing, and I will review this later in my remarks and, certainly, during third reading. But I’ll begin by speaking to some of the changes that we do support as the official opposition.

We certainly welcome the new protection for workers facing difficult personal circumstances. Up to ten non-consecutive days of unpaid leave will assist workers fleeing domestic violence or seeking medical treatment with their situations. And the possibility of up to 15 weeks of consecutive unpaid leave will provide the time for those escaping situations to do so without worrying about their job.

This bill also introduces a worthwhile change by aligning the unpaid job protection for workers taking care of critically ill family members with EI benefits available to them: 36 weeks for a critically ill child and 16 weeks for an adult.

We also support changes that will ensure that workers are paid properly. The bill before us protects what most consumers expect when they’re dining out: the tips go to the person providing the service and not to the employer. We certainly support disallowing employers, other than those who are doing the very same work as those in the tip pool, from getting access to that tip pool, that revenue source.

New rules prohibiting employers from withholding tips, from deducting amounts from the top or requiring workers to turn over their gratuities will ensure that customers’ expectations are met. I can certainly say that when I leave a tip, my expectation is that all or, certainly, at least the bulk of that tip is going to the person providing the service and not to someone who owns the particular company.

Also in this bill, workers will get enhanced protection through the doubling of the period during which they can recover owed wages, from six months to a year. I totally support that. These are small steps, and we do back them.

[3:20 p.m.]

We’re also generally supportive of the bill’s change to how worker complaints are handled by the employment standards branch. We support a worker’s ability to directly bring a complaint to the employment standards branch, but we do have some concerns about how some of the changes will actually be implemented.

It’s a bold commitment to require the director of the employment standards branch to investigate all complaints accepted for resolution, but this begs the question, to be explored more fully in committee stage, of if the resources are in place to actually make this happen. We know that investigations can be pricey, and they can be time-consuming. They require an awful lot of work, and they need the resources in place.

If these resources are lacking, the outcome is generally going to result in delays to a dragged-out process that just breeds frustration and resentment. I do look forward to the minister detailing how this will be prevented when we get to the committee stage.

Bill 8 also provides flexibility for the employment standards branch to waive or raise penalties. This, too, while certainly an acceptable idea, comes with challenges that need to be addressed. There’s nothing in the bill that indicates, for instance, how this policy will be applied in a way that avoids unfair or haphazard applications of increases or the waiving of penalties altogether. And there are no clear criteria of how this will be applied — yet another case of details to come at a later date outside of the debate in this House.

The most troubling section of the bill is the one bringing in changes related to young people working. Everyone in this House, obviously, wants young people to be safe, whether they’re at home, at school, at their after-school job or on weekends at their part-time job. But the problem is that these changes here stem from an all-too-typical, Victoria-knows-best approach taken by the government, partnered with an absence of details on how the new rules will be implemented.

The bill offers some confusion, rather than the clarity needed to ensure that we’re protecting young workers while, at the same time, not discouraging them or preventing them from having the ability to access the life-changing opportunity of an after-school job or a weekend, part-time job.

These opportunities come in many different forms. It could be as simple as helping out and getting paid on the family farm. It could be working the cash register at the family corner store. It could also be the pure entrepreneurial spirit of a young person mowing lawns for neighbours or maybe shovelling snow in the wintertime.

The legislation leaves doubt. It’s very vague about just what is, and what is not, possible for families and for young workers. For instance, the bill allows light work for 14- and 15-year-olds. Bureaucrats will determine what’s considered light versus heavy work when they get around to it. Does this simply mean that young people will be able to babysit and maybe stock shelves? What about mowing lawns? What about some landscaping responsibilities?

Is working in a restaurant at the cash register or busing tables acceptable? And at what age is it acceptable? I know that often I’ll go into a small restaurant and a child maybe as young as 12 years old will be the one that will come and bring some tea, drop the menu off and run errands throughout my time there as a visitor.

None of this is clearly defined. We have to seek clarification from the minister when we do get to committee.

For those 16 to 18, there’s a restriction from doing hazardous work, which everybody supports. But we don’t have a reference or a description or a definition to determine what that actually constitutes. So it’s another case of putting legislation before the House without the pertinent details. As legislators who have been put here by our constituents, we’re the ones that should be front and centre during this debate. It should not be left up to bureaucrats down the road to supply the actual definitions of what’s constituted here.

Also lacking in this legislation: we don’t have specifics around impacts in the agricultural sector, which is one of the areas where so many young people — in my riding and the ridings of many other members in this House — get their first opportunity to go to work on a part-time basis or a summertime job. It’s one of the largest employers of young people. It supplies opportunities for young people to work in the summer, work in the season and gain some financial rewards.

[3:25 p.m.]

I’d like to tell the story of when I was 13. I picked berries in Richmond virtually every day for the summer so I could buy my first ten-speed bike. If I was 13 years old today, and this legislation becomes law, would I be allowed to do that? That is a question that we’re not able to answer yet because we don’t have the definitions.

There are so many young people in my riding and other parts of the Fraser Valley working on the family farm. They’re asking me and my colleagues: “Can you please provide some clarity about this legislation and what it actually means?”

When the minister launched this bill, he told the media that the changes that he was presenting would not prevent kids from getting their chores done as long as they’re not getting paid for them. This is a little bit awkward because when a young person can run the family tractor after school and they’re not getting paid, it’s okay. But if they were to run the same tractor in the same field for pay, now all of a sudden, it’s prohibited. We certainly need a little bit of clarity and maybe a rethink on that one.

Farming families — really, not just in the agriculture sector and not just farming families but any family with a business — typically have countless advantages to having their children help out after school, paid or otherwise. This benefits the family, and it certainly benefits the young person, who gets the on-the-job training learning about a work ethic.

They’re developing skill sets that they might not otherwise get. They’re certainly getting a sense of pride and accomplishment. They might learn how a business works. They’re dealing with some of the practical applications of what they’re learning in school, building some strength, building some character, testing responsibility.

Of course, we all agree young workers deserve special protection. They deserve a chance to work if they can and if they want to. But the legislation fails to recognize that many teens are mature enough at their age and are more than capable of handling themselves appropriately and safely in certain circumstances. It would be helpful for us, as legislators, to be able to define what those circumstances are.

We all know kids who — I mean, let’s face it — probably shouldn’t even be around anything related to a job site. They’re not ready. They’re too careless. They don’t have the attention span. Certainly, we want to make sure that young people are not put in a position where there could be an accident or something could go wrong.

This legislation is imposing very vague, very nondescript restrictions based on chronological age and completely discounting the discretion of parents of those aged 14 to 18. I mean, I know that some people will disagree with me, but parents know much better than bureaucrats and elected officials how mature their child is, what responsibilities they can take on and what type of workload is going to be appropriate for them at that point in their life.

I’m not too convinced that Victoria knows best. And bureaucrats who maybe have never, ever, ever worked an hour outside of being in government are going to be the ones who set the terms and conditions of what work a young person may or may not be involved in. It’s not encouraging.

Perhaps Victoria may want to look to some other jurisdictions for ways to bring some clarity, to bring some specifics, to the restrictions we want to impose. For instance, in Ontario, 14-year-olds can work in offices, stores, arenas, restaurant serving areas and a multitude of other venues. At 15, they can work in most factory settings, including restaurant kitchens and automotive service garages, produce and meat preparation or shipping and receiving areas in grocery stores, laundries and warehouses.

These kinds of regulations are specific, and everyone knows the rules because they are more specific than some general term such as “light work” or “hazardous work.” Let’s just give the definitions some clarity so we all know what the ground rules are and we can all abide accordingly.

In Manitoba, young people, 13, 14, and 15 years of age, cannot work on a construction site, which makes perfect sense; in industrial or manufacturing processes; in pruning, repairing, maintaining or removing trees or shrubs; or at heights more than 1.5 metres.

[3:30 p.m.]

That is specific. That is laying out exactly what work a young person, 13 years of age, can and cannot do. And it would be helpful if the government in British Columbia was as thoughtful as the one in Manitoba about giving that clarity and specificity to the legislation.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

In Manitoba, those 13-year-olds can still work in food preparation areas doing tasks such as washing dishes, mixing salads, filling drink orders and a variety of other chores in the kitchen area. This isn’t an exhaustive list. We don’t need to go into that, but it’s an example of how other jurisdictions have brought about specific situations where a young person may or may not work in a particular facility. It ensures that the legislation works for families, for young people and for safety. It would be nice to be doing likewise in British Columbia.

I think back to, probably, everywhere from, like, grades 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, kind of those ages, 13, 14 — and up to when you graduate, 17, 18, somewhere around there. I think about all the people that were working at gas stations and would pump gas. They would change your oil and check your tires. Would they be allowed to do that? I know one buddy, Larry. He was doing that when he was 14 years old. He was probably the first one of us in my peer group that was able, a few years later, to purchase his first slightly used vehicle. He did that by pumping gas. Would he be allowed to do that today?

What about young people that work in the orchards in the Okanagan, where they’ve been doing it for generations? Will they be allowed to continue doing that and learning a little bit about earning a paycheque, seeing some of the taxes that get taken away, maintaining a budget and a savings account, getting some economic experience as well as the work experience?

I do look forward to canvassing these specifics as we move forward to the committee stage, as this session slowly winds up. I hope that coming through this at the end, we can ensure that the legislation protects young workers, protects them every step of the way, without denying them or their families the kind of life-changing opportunity that after-school work can bring. I know so many of my colleagues in this House benefited from that experience, and I hope we’re not about to deny this generation the opportunity to do likewise.

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak in second reading to Bill 8, Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2019. The member from Chilliwack covered many of the points I was going to address, so a bit of a “me too” would probably summarize where I’m going to go with my remarks here at second reading. I share the same concerns but also the same thoughts with respect to those aspects of the bill that are relatively straightforward.

The bill makes a number of changes to the Employment Standards Act. It improves fairness for workers and ensures a balance in workplaces. Frankly, part of our confidence and supply agreement actually stated that we would take steps to improve fairness for workers and ensure balances in the workplace. In essence, you could say that government is delivering on a commitment in the confidence and supply agreement.

Our caucus’s position and how we approached this was from the starting point of focusing on good public policy that puts the health and well-being of people at its core. Our goal has been, at all times, to try to stop the pendulum swings that have been going on in British Columbia labour policy for decades, from one extreme to the other. We wanted to see a thoughtful approach to policy development that actually is something that we can all be proud of and is not something that will change the second the next government changes. Always, government changes at some point in the road.

This bill actually does a very good job, in my view, in listening to stakeholders and in coming up with a very reasonable approach to modernizing our employment standards in British Columbia. Many of the steps are indeed very positive, and we’re delighted to support them. A key element to this legislation is to better protect the health and well-being of some of the most vulnerable people in our community. In particular, the changes will give job security to workers fleeing domestic violence and protect children from dangerous work. I’ll come to that in a minute when I address the issue of light work versus dangerous work.

[3:35 p.m.]

The bill also modernizes the employment standards branch complaint resolution process and ensures that people are paid the wages that they are owed — again, welcome additions in this amendment act. It implements commonsense, reasonable changes to improve fairness and balance in the workplace. I’m glad it’s been receiving support from both the employer and the labour community. You know you’ve done something right when both of these groups of stakeholders are supportive of the change, so the minister deserves some credit in this regard.

Jock Finlayson, for example, is not known to be someone who’s advocating for tighter labour code changes. He’s from the B.C. Business Council. He said that they generally agree with almost all of the changes proposed in the bill, while labour advocates are also celebrating these changes. That’s a good thing.

I’ll speak to the changes the bill makes in a little more detail as we come up. Let me start with child employment. This was an issue that the member for Chilliwack focused extensively on.

In sections 6 and 7 of the bill, it’s changing the rules regarding the hiring of children. Right now in British Columbia, children under 15 can be hired with written parental consent, and the director, the so-called director, must permit the hiring of a child under 12. But under the new rules in this bill, there are different criteria for light work, for hazardous work and all other non-prescribed work. Non-prescribed means those jobs that are not listed in the examples that are given.

The definitions of “light work” and “hazardous” work, of course, have been left to regulation. Therein lies, I think, some of the concerns of the member for Chilliwack, which I share. We hope — and I expect, and I’m sure the minister will do this — that during committee stage, he’ll flesh out some of the examples of what he’s thinking in terms of what this means. That will give the public a sense of comfort that the directions he’s proposing are, indeed, common sense and not more draconian, as some people might assume it’s going.

Under the new rules, as I mentioned, there are different definitions of light work and hazardous work. The act raises the age that a child may work with the director’s permission from 12 to 14. Children aged 14 to 15 will be able to perform light work — which will also be defined, as I mentioned, through regulation — with the written consent of their parents.

Children aged 14 to 15 will be able to perform other non-hazardous work only with the director’s permission, and children under 16 now will be prohibited from being hired in a hazardous industry or for hazardous work. Children aged 16 to 19, who have not attained a prescribed age in respect to a specific hazardous work, will also not be able to work in those industries.

Hazardous industries and hazardous work will be defined, as I mentioned, through regulation, and they’re likely to be harmful to the health, safety or morals of a person under 16.

In theory, this is eminently sensible. I think I heard that from the member for Chilliwack, and I heard the intent from the minister. The danger, of course, is that given the fact that we have not seen the regulations, there are examples that one could conjure up that are somewhat troubling.

My first job was, indeed, at the age of about 13, cutting lawns. I was actually quite a big guy when I was 13. I grew fast. I was the big kid in the class. For me, pushing a lawn mower around would have been like a 17-year-old. I didn’t grow much from about 13 to about 18, but I was very large at the age of 13.

I know many people have done…. I would hope that lawn mowing would be considered something that we might open up. Because for many, doing some light gardening work or helping out their aging neighbours, which I did as a child too…. You often don’t even do it for work. You do it just because you’re helping out your neighbour, who happens to be a senior, who’s not got the same physical abilities that they used to have. You go and cut their lawn, maybe, and maybe you do some grocery shopping for them or maybe you fix something or even change a lightbulb. These are things that you may not get paid for. You may even get paid, but you may not have asked for pay.

Again, I hope, in the committee stage, we get a fleshing out of the minister’s intention. I feel quite confident…. I’m not worried too much that we’re going to be too draconian here. But that will give him the opportunity to clarify this.

Our current rules don’t actually comply with the International Labour Organization’s standards. In fact, the ILO, as it’s known, sets international standards for minimum age of employment at 16, except for light work. Canada ratified the convention in 2016.

[3:40 p.m.]

Hon. Speaker, I believe the House Leader for the government needs to make a brief interjection. I move adjournment of the debate, and I’ll reserve my right to continue in a few moments once we proceed further.

A. Weaver moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Reporting of Bills

BILL 7 — BUSINESS PRACTICES AND
CONSUMER PROTECTION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Bill 7, Business Practices and Consumer Protection Amendment Act, 2019, reported complete with amend­ment, to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call committee stage on Bill 27, and in this House, I call continued debate on Bill 8. I thank the member for his indulgence.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 8 — EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

A. Weaver: I’ll continue. I was talking about the International Labour Organization standards and the fact that the minimum age of employment was 16, except for light work, according to their standards, which Canada ratified in 2016. We are signatories of this. However, we’re not in line with ILO standards. So the legislation is bringing British Columbia in line with ILO standards. Frankly, B.C. is the least restrictive jurisdiction in Canada with respect to child employment, possibly with the exception of Yukon. I’m not sure. But it seems that we may be behind Yukon.

Anyway, disability claims. The statistics show that over $1 million was paid out in job-related claims for workers aged 14 and under between 2007 and 2016. Think about that. Over $1 million paid out in job-related disability claims by workers age 14 and under. In fact, every year between 2005 and 2016, workers aged 14 and less have been injured seriously enough on the job to qualify for a long-term disability pension. Imagine that. Thirteen years old, doing some hazardous work that you probably shouldn’t have be doing, and you get injured. Now you’re on long-term disability and a pension for the rest of your life.

I would suggest that this legislation is designed specifically to ensure that these children are not working in such positions so that we’re not actually having to deal with disability pensions being offered to 13-year-olds. There will always be freak examples. Hopefully, we’ll actually take this to the same level as the rest Canada and meet the ILO standards, internationally, that Canada is a signatory to.

If we continue on then, in our view, it’s important that the policy work to define the types of work children may do is undertaken carefully. That’s as raised by the member from Chilliwack. We’ve heard, as the member from Chilliwack has also heard, from people who are worried that the changes to child employment will actually prohibit their children from doing the jobs they’re already doing, like working at their corner store or, perhaps, McDonald’s. One of my first jobs, I was working at an equivalent in England. It was like a McDonald’s. Beefeater it was called.

Again, is flipping at the grill considered hazardous work, or is it not considered hazardous work? The grill is hot. If you put your arm on it, you can get third-degree burns. However, I would suggest that we need to flesh this out a little more to get an idea of what the minister is thinking.

You know, these sorts of jobs are quite important for young people to get experience and financial independence. For me, it was the ability to actually have some spending money to do things that I wanted to do with my friends. I think it’s good training for youth and young teenagers to actually have a paper route, for example. Is that considered hazardous? I suspect not, but we’d need to get some clarification as we move forward.

We’ll be exploring this in committee stage. Well, I’m hoping I’ll be able to explore this in committee stage. It’s quite difficult in light of the fact that, as I’m speaking here today, I’m supposed to be in three places. The civil forfeiture bill, which we’re discussing — clearly, I couldn’t participate in committee stage. Also, estimates for the Ministry of Energy and Mines is happening now, and I can’t participate there. So we’ll try to participate in committee stage, but unless I clone myself two other ways, it’s going to be difficult if it’s happening at the same time.

A second aspect of this bill that we support is the job-protected leaves for critical illness and domestic violence. It’s in section 18. It creates unpaid critical illness or injury leave. This is important because it grants leave for up to 36 weeks to care for a critically ill child under 19 and up to 16 weeks to care for a critically ill adult family member. This is important. I have a personal story that I’ll come to.

[3:45 p.m.]

It also expands the definition of immediate family to include a parent or child of the employee’s spouse. It requires a certificate from a nurse practitioner or medical practitioner to actually do this.

In my case, twice I’ve had to deal with this. In both times after our children were born, my wife, sadly, spent an awful long time in hospital — one month, in fact, in hospital after the first one and similarly with the second one. The chair of my department where I was working was very open-minded. He recognized — and he didn’t have to — that with a brand-new baby at home and a wife in critical condition in hospital, this is not exactly the type of time that you want to be demanding 9-to-5 working. I was given, because of the grace of my employer, the time off to actually look after a newborn.

That was because my direct employer, my direct person that I reported to, was a good person. He, basically, talked with my colleagues, and people juggled the situation around to cover my teaching and to cover my other stuff so that I could be with the family. It was simply not an option for my spouse, who was in hospital, to care for a brand-new child. Let me tell you, I can redefine that the definition of stress is when you have a new child and your wife is very ill in hospital.

So I’m all for this — 100 percent. At the time, of course, I could have done the same thing with parental…. Well, actually, there was no parental leave. I wasn’t able to take that because back in the day, there was no parental leave for fathers. That’s also new legislation that’s been brought in. We’re modernizing, and we’re doing it here. These kinds of changes are bringing us into the 21st century, and it behooves us to support them and celebrate the successes we have.

To give some more information here, this change that we’re doing is actually important because it’s aligning British Columbia with the EI benefits that were introduced in December 2017 by the federal government. It provides financial support there to those caring for a critically ill child or adult family member. We’re coming into step with the federal legislation. The change, here in B.C., ensures that workers are able to take advantage of EI without the risk of losing their jobs. Of course, I think most people in this House would support that.

Section 19 of the bill adds some important changes to create leave in the case of domestic violence — physical, sexual, psychological or emotional abuse by an intimate partner or by a family member. In this case, it’s going to be up to ten days of intermittent continuous leave and up to 15 weeks of continuous unpaid leave.

I note that the House Leader of the government has once again entered, and I suspect that he’s wishing to move forward one of the committee stages. I would like to move adjournment of the debate for the second time and reserve my right to continue forward in the debate when it is next called.

A. Weaver moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 27 — TICKET SALES ACT

Bill 27, Ticket Sales Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Again, I thank the member for his indulgence. I am pretty sure that this will be the last time his speech gets interrupted. I thank him for that.

With that, I call, in this chamber, continued second reading debate on Bill 8. In Section A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call the estimates for the Ministry of Health.

[3:50 p.m.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 8 — EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

A. Weaver: I’m delighted to rise and continue, but let me say that I’m thrilled to have taken my place to allow Bill 27 to move and be enacted. Bill 27, of course, is the Ticket Sales Act.

The only thing I’m troubled by is that I wish we’d done that two months ago, because I recently acquired two tickets to Paul McCartney in Vancouver. I had to pay far too much money for those tickets because I got them on a resale site. Had this bill passed two months ago, my Paul McCartney tickets — he’s coming to Vancouver in June or July; I can’t remember — would have been an awful lot cheaper than I had to pay. But you don’t get to see Paul McCartney very often in your life. I figure this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, so we forked out the dough. We may live to regret it but hopefully not. Anyway, thank you for passing this bill.

I continue on with section 19 in the Employment Standards Amendment Act that we’re discussing. This was the section that created leave for domestic violence for physical, sexual or psychological or emotional abuse by an intimate partner or by a family member. I mentioned that it created up to ten days of intermittent or continuous leave and up to 15 weeks of continuous unpaid leave. I also was about to say, and now I can complete this section, that it clarifies that a child who is an employee or eligible person is also deemed to have experienced domestic violence if they are directly or indirectly exposed to domestic violence experienced by an intimate partner or family member of the child.

This requires the employee to request leave for specific purposes, including medical attention, victim services, counselling, relocation, law enforcement or prescribed purposes. Such prescribed purposes come forward in regulations. The bill requires the employee, if requested by the employer, to provide reasonably sufficient proof that they are entitled to the leave.

This mirrors a private member’s bill that I brought in, which is on the papers, where we were attempting to provide an ability for people to break a lease if they are subject to domestic violence. In this spirit, obviously, I and my colleagues support this.

To give some background, the Parliamentary Secretary on Gender Equity…. She cannot be here now because, I understand — I shouldn’t be commenting on this — she’s in another committee, just like me, and you can’t be in two places at once. With that said, she recommended the domestic violence leave but recommended that it be a mix of paid and unpaid leave.

The B.C. Federation also advocated for paid domestic violence leave. The B.C. Law Institute, which the minister referred to, did not recommend further changes to leave entitlements and didn’t explore this type of leave specifically, although, as pointed out by the member from Chilliwack, both Manitoba and Ontario have enacted similar leaves. In Manitoba, it was 2016, and in Ontario, it was 2018. But in both of those cases, they provided five days of paid leave in a 52-week period.

Unpaid leave is a good start. It’s important to ensure victims of violence have job security — that’s the critical aspect of this — and are able to take the time they need to address medical, psychological, legal and other issues. But the leave should be paid, frankly, I would argue. It’s unlikely that many people could afford 15 weeks unpaid leave from their work. I’m hoping that as we move forward and as we start to improve this benefit, it expands to protect people for longer periods.

The requirement on the employee to provide sufficient proof of their entitlement raises some questions about privacy. If I’m able to be here, I will be exploring that a little more at committee stage, although the member from Chilliwack seems to be following similar lines of questioning.

Also, we want to ensure and explore why this leave is only granted to survivors of sexual assault in an intimate relationship and why those who are assaulted outside of an intimate relationship are not receiving similar protections. An example I could imagine, of course, is the case of somebody living in the same building as you. It may not be intimate, but it may be a situation whereby you have somebody in your apartment building and there has been a sexual assault from somebody in the building. There may be issues there that need to be dealt with as well.

Changes to the employment standards branch. This is coming under section 25. These changes are how the director must deal with complaints under the act that are brought to his or her attention. It requires directors to review all complaints as long as they are made within the required time period. Previously, the director could refuse to accept to review complaints if they didn’t meet certain criteria. Now they must review these complaints but may cease to continue forth with the review if they meet the criteria — i.e., if it’s decided that the complaint is frivolous or if there isn’t enough evidence.

[3:55 p.m.]

This bill, then, removes the requirement that employees use a self-help kit — that was quite prohibitive to many people, this so-called self-help kit — before they’re able to access the branch for complaints. Why this is important and why it’s sensible to make these changes to improve fairness in the complaints resolution process is that the complaints noticeably declined with the introduction of the self-help kit. In fact, in its 2003 employment standard changes, the previous government required workers to use this self-help kit and present it to their employer before they could submit a formal complaint to the employment branch.

Imagine. If you believe you haven’t been paid for something and you want to go to the employment standards branch, you have to go through the self-help kit. Then you have to take your complaint to the employer first. At that stage, you have to meet face-to-face with the employer and hash it out a bit before you can even take it to the employment standards branch. Clearly, the data will show this was prohibitive to actually moving forward in many cases.

This change proposed by government was a unanimous recommendation by the B.C. Law Institute. They did not like the self-help kit, and they did not believe it should be a prerequisite to accessing the branch. In fact, in the consultation paper they wrote, they stated that a “marked and suspicious decline in the number of complaints filed” was noticed after the introduction of the mandatory self-help kit.

The data they provide is that complaints declined from 11,311 in 1999 to 2000 to 4,839 in 2003 to 2004. What’s the difference there between 1999 to 2000 and 2003 to ’04? Of course, in the 1990s — the so-called dreaded 1990s that we heard about for so many years — was a previous NDP government. In 2003, we’re in the 16-year period that we’ve also heard a lot about. The government changed, the act changed, and the number of complaints declined from 11,311 to 4,839. That’s not because employers were suddenly not having complaints. That’s a direct consequence of the introduction of the self-help kit, which for many was prohibitive.

The B.C. Law Institute found that cases of employees being dismissed after presenting the self-help kit to their employer were rather troubling. You fill out this self-help kit, you take it to your employer, and you’re summarily dismissed. Then you have to go through the process to continue to fight. For many people, it’s just too much. The B.C. Law Institute also found the mandatory self-help kit to be a barrier, as I mentioned, to accessing the employment standards branch.

Moving to wage recovery and rules for gratuities. These are other changes in the act. The bill makes a number of changes in this regard. It expands the wage recovery period from six months to 12 months and creates a director and liability officer for wages in bankruptcy and insolvency situations. It’s in section 15 that the rules respecting gratuities are set out. What they’re doing here — and again, this is an important change — is prohibiting employers from withholding gratuities, making deductions or sharing in a gratuity pool. And it sets rules around redistributing gratuities.

We all know examples of people who have worked in restaurants or bars where the employer collects the tips on behalf of everyone and redistributes them in a fair manner to ensure that people like the cooks, the bus people, the hostess or hosts, the bartenders, everybody, has equal access. Because in a restaurant, you rise and fall collectively. The success of the restaurant is based on everybody, not just one. So it’s not uncommon to pool tips, in a fashion, and redistribute, but it’s also not uncommon for certain employers to believe they have a share in that tip process. This bill is saying: “No. Not unless you’re participating.”

If the owner of the bar is actually the bartender, sure. You can participate, under this legislation, in the tip sharing and tip pools. But if the owner of the bar is sitting at home in Vancouver while the bar is in Victoria, no, you can’t. It’s obviously not happening everywhere, but it cracks down on any specific examples in this case. It also provides that the employer may share in gratuities, as I mentioned, if they regularly perform, to a substantial degree, which will need to be defined, the same work performed by the employees.

There are a number of other changes. These are more minor, in general. Section 3 of the bill sets the Employment Standards Act as the floor for collective bargaining. It provides that collective agreements replace the act only if their provisions meet or exceed the provisions of the Employment Standards Act.

Now, this is fine. It only applies to collective agreements now once they are renewed. It doesn’t go back and supersede existing agreements. But after they’re renewed, and once this section comes into force, then it will apply moving forward. Under this change, if the provisions of an agreement do not meet or exceed the act, then the act prevails.

[4:00 p.m.]

The B.C. Business Council, in this case, has raised some concerns, noting that this is the only change that they have some significant troubles with. The reason why is not so much what’s in the act now. It’s about what’s enabled through regulatory power or what may come down in the future.

Right now the Employment Standards Act, providing the floor, is a provision that existed under the NDP in 1994. It was one of these pendulum-swing things that was eliminated when the B.C. Liberals came in 2002 — from one extreme to the other. What Jock Finlayson noted in his analysis of this was that he was concerned that if government makes major changes to the act in the future — such as to hours or coffee breaks or overtime changes — this will have a significant impact on collective agreements.

I concur with him, but I would suggest that as it stands now, the bill before us does not go that far, so as it stands right now, I’m less troubled, and I would continue to mirror and watch, moving forward, what changes government is proposing. But certainly the bill as written now is not leading to a situation that I think is overly concerning. Those might be famous last words. We’ll see where government plans to take this in the months ahead. The provision we will look at very carefully, as I noted, and will be watching for future changes in this act to ensure that this doesn’t occur.

Section 5 in the act is going to require employers to make information about employees’ rights available to employees. Perfectly reasonable. Employees should know what their rights are, and now employers are required to let them know. Section 9 of the act requires that operators of temporary help agencies must be licensed. That, too, is important because we want to ensure that fly-by-night operations are not operating without the proper regulatory oversight. The B.C. Employment Standards Coalition and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives called for this change, arguing that employees of these agencies are often in particularly vulnerable and precarious work situations.

In conclusion, in my view, all of the changes in this bill are common sense. They’re important. They’re needed. They incorporate recommendations from the B.C. Law Institute, which undertook a consultation on updating the act and issued a final report. It also takes into account recommendations from the B.C. Employment Standards Coalition, the B.C. Federation of Labour and feedback from workers, employers and the public at large.

The upcoming months will require government to engage in a thorough consultation process to establish clear, fair and balanced regulations that businesses can follow and to give parents of teenagers clarity about what work they will be able to do in the future. That is the single most important thing missing from the bill itself now. It’s the clarity that parents of teenagers want in terms of what is considered light work versus hazardous work. We look forward to that being expanded upon in committee stage.

The ministry has indicated that it’s planning to do a more comprehensive review of employment standards and introduce more transformative legislation later in their term. We’re looking forward to see where government is planning to go with this. I’ve received a number of questions from people about this bill and particularly issues that are missing from this bill. For example….

I’ll just note quickly here, hon. Speaker — I believe I will finish before the light goes on — that I am designated and only speaker. If I go 30 seconds over, I’m designated speaker on this.

The example I wanted to give was the Supreme Court of Canada rule in 2016 that federally regulated employers cannot terminate employees without cause. Why hasn’t this legislation created any improved protection for workers who are fired without cause in British Columbia? Why aren’t we updating our legislation to reflect the Supreme Court of Canada ruling? These are questions that we have that might be addressed in future amendments to this act. I hope government will consider such amendments as they move forward.

It’s extremely important that we start in earnest to do the work to modernize our laws, to better support workers as they are forced to adapt to the changing nature of work and the growth of the gig economy. Our laws need to be respon­sive to the changing world of work that people are dealing with. How are we supporting people as they deal with the most precarious of work? How should the laws be updated to deal with the increasing use of independent contractors?

[4:05 p.m.]

One of the cases we’ve heard is Uber, which has used independent contractors as drivers. Are they employees or not? What are the laws, and how should we update these? Or should we update these? These are questions that are missing in the debate, and hopefully, as we move forward, an extensive analysis of our labour codes will start to reflect upon the changing nature of work and, in fact, the growth of the gig economy.

Another example is how can we be supportive of innovative business models and support emerging business realities, ensuring we retain our business competitiveness in the 21st century? But at the same time, how do we protect against the erosion of rights and the deepening of inequality as this shift happens?

There’s no doubt that the growing inequality between those who have and those who don’t have is troubling. It’s troubling in that we know that in human history, each and every example of such growing inequality continuing unbounded has led to the collapse of that society. I would suggest that it’s much more prudent for us to recognize that fairness and equality are important values and attributes that we want to ensure follow through in our employment standards and labour code.

So these questions and others need to be grappled with carefully as government considers further changes to the act, and we look forward to the committee stage and participating in that in the days ahead.

S. Malcolmson: I’m pleased to follow the leader of the Green Party and the very thorough review of our Labour Minister’s changes to the Employment Standards Act.

This is Bill 8 that we are speaking to today. I’m going to focus my remarks on issues related, I would say, in particular, to summer employment. This is the time of year we’ve got a lot of young people moving into the workforce. In my work as Member of Parliament, one of our favourite things to do as an office was to try to match the Canada Summer Jobs grants to the front-line community organizations that were doing a great deal of work in our riding and help generate a lot of youth employment throughout Nanaimo-Ladysmith. We saw the real benefits of that.

Thank you to all the students that would write me letters at the end of the year, letting me know what they had done and how they were going to take that work forward.

I know how much workers and employers rely on employment law in order to protect them — to protect their rights, to reflect the changing needs that we see in workplaces to make sure that they remain fair and efficient.

Now, the difficulty we’re in is for too long this province hasn’t changed standards, even as other jurisdictions across the country have updated their standards quite seriously to protect workers. International organizations like the International Labour Organization, ILO, have called out concerns about B.C.’s legislative, sort of, neglect of this particular legislation — and especially as the working environment has changed dramatically.

We’ve got ourselves into an overdue situation, and I’m delighted that it’s being dealt with now. Fifteen years went by without significant changes to the act. Twenty-five years went by without a significant review.

Today with Bill 8…. This is, I believe, our second day of debating this legislation. The Labour Minister’s changes that he’s making now are certainly overdue. The changes will, in particular, better protect children and youth from dangerous work. This will be done by raising the age to 16 to work without a permit and adding tough new regulations allowing them to perform dangerous work.

In 2003, the previous government lowered the age of work to 12 years. And what effect did that have? I had a really tough conversation back at home a couple of weeks ago with the Nanaimo, Duncan and District Labour Council. This is what they said to me. Bringing the year of allowable work to as young as 12 meant that 12-year-olds could work in most industries, including food service, accommodation, farming, construction and even manufacturing. They said this is a serious health and safety risk for these young people. Commercial equipment is dangerous, not appropriately sized for children, and safe operation requires extensive training and supervision.

[4:10 p.m.]

These are not conditions in which our kids should be working, and doing this type of work has had real consequences. Kids are getting hurt. They told me that since 2003, over 2,000 children in British Columbia under the age of 15 have claimed work-related health care costs due to injuries. These are physical injuries on the job. I had no idea this was happening.

The Labour Minister says that is $5.2 million in claims from children for workplace injuries over a ten-year period. In fact, the labour council said: “This number only reflects the number of reported injuries. We know that many injuries go unreported, especially where the employer is the child’s own parent.” They finished by saying: “The government must do more to protect children by prioritizing their schooling and health and safety, not work. When youth are ready to go to work, there need to be rigorous rules in place to ensure they are protected from injury or death.”

That is the work we are doing today. This legislation will broadly raise the age that a child may work from 12, as it is now, to 16, and will better protect the safety of 16- to 18-year-olds by putting tough expectations and restrictions on the type of hazardous work they can be asked to perform. Also, the legislation provides exemptions that allow 14- and 15-year-olds to perform light work that is safe for their health and development. An example could be stocking shelves at a grocery store.

The legislation will maintain existing regulations that allow children to work in recorded and live entertainment with parental consent. And a lot of the work that I’ve heard the Labour Minister talk about includes parental consent.

Dangerous work is anything likely to endanger a child’s health, safety or morals — for example, working on a construction site or factory with heavy machinery. Defining exactly what will be considered dangerous work will come at regulation stage. Again, the intention is to keep kids safe, recognize that children want to work, and there absolutely is….

There are kinds of work that are quite appropriate for kids to carry out. This is not about doing family chores. This is about workplace situations where there are power dynamics and where a young person may well be pushed into doing work that they should not.

I think of my own community. Nanaimo has got a centuries-old relationship with coal mining. We heard terrible stories about children lost in the workplace. I just had no idea that this was still happening in this day. So I’m very glad that our government is moving, with encouragement and advice from a lot of both employers and labour advocates on the ground, to do the work.

Here’s another piece of change in this legislation, Bill 8, which will also benefit students this summer. If you’re a server relying on tips, proposed amendments in this legislation will ensure that all workers are able to recover the hard-earned wages that they are owed. Employers will be prohibited from withholding tips or other gratuities from workers. They’ll be prohibited from deducting amounts from them or requiring them to be turned over to the employer.

Tip-pooling, of course, is allowed. There are many people in an operation that don’t necessarily get to pick the $1 bill or, say, the $5 bill off the restaurant table. But employers will not themselves be able to pull from that unless they also are an actual worker delivering service in the workplace.

These changes are based on the tip regulation system that has been in place in Ontario for a little while, which includes the same provisions as above. We’ve had some working experience there.

There are a couple of other changes that we’ve made. They’re not in this legislation, but they are also going to benefit young people working on the ground this summer. The cut that this government brought into small businesses — the small business tax cut of 20 percent. Knowing how much small businesses are the job creators, that is going to help.

We’ve got a new program to support young farmers’ access to farmland with the B.C. land-matching program. I hear a lot, in my community, about how many people want to be farming but are not able to access it, given the high cost of land.

Youth that have been in foster care are getting free tuition — also a great affordability thing and a piece that we’re just so proud of having been able to bring in. Eliminating interest on student loans is also going to make it easier for students to put more of what they earn this summer directly into their education.

[4:15 p.m.]

Then all kinds of pieces are going to help them get to work easier. The bus pass for people with disabilities was returned. We’ve got lower ferry fares. We’ve got ride-hailing coming in the fall. Replacing so many of the Greyhound bus routes for long-haul transport across the province…. When Greyhound pulled out, then our government moved in and replaced a lot of those routes, about 80 percent of the routes. So that’s helping.

Then maybe just a final piece that I’ll end with — this is not about students, or we hope not about students — is long-time pressure to have domestic violence leave included in the employment standards legislation. We know that women making the very brave choice to leave an abusive relationship are always thinking of their children. Often, leaving a marriage puts the woman and her children into poverty. It’s just an unfair part of the economics of our country, something that we are chipping away at and trying to make change, but it is an extremely vulnerable time.

This isn’t just sexual violence generally. This is about leaving the home. We know that sometimes the workplace is the safest place for a woman to be. It’s sometimes where they have their biggest support systems. If they have their employer saying: “Don’t worry. Take some time. You need the time to find a new place to live and get your kids settled….”

My understanding, from the experience with Manitoba, which was the first province to bring in domestic violence leave provisions…. I believe they had provided eight days. Most women actually use something like two and a half or three days. It was comfortable and reassuring for them to know that they had a bigger window that they could use, but in most cases, it was actually just the mental security that came with that. They wanted to get back to work. They wanted to normalize their lives. But they did want to have some time to get the kids settled in and to try to find accommodation.

Many other measures in this bill, especially around being able to take leave for a family member who needs palliative care, are all absolutely vital things that are good for workers, good for workplaces and, obviously, work for their families.

I raise my hands, in particular, to the Labour Minister. I know he had a lot of backlog to deal with. I know he had a big, long wish list from a lot of us. We want to see more, and we know more is coming. But to include that first provision for domestic violence leave in Bill 8 is something that I particularly applaud — just one more measure towards women’s equality and workplace safety.

With that, I’ll turn it over to a long list of others that I know are eager to speak on this bill. Thank you for your attention.

L. Throness: It’s always a pleasure to stand in this House and speak to bills. This particular one is Bill 8, the Employment Standards Amendment Act. I will say from the outset that it’s not a bill that’s entirely without merit. There are some things that I agree with. I want to name a few of those things that I agree with, because I’m happy to vote for those things. There are some things that I disagree with in the bill as well, and I want to point those out on behalf of my constituents.

Up to ten non-consecutive days of unpaid leave will help workers who are fleeing domestic violence or seeking medical treatment deal with their situations. I agree with this. This is deficient in that there is something that is left out, and my colleague is going to speak to that in a moment. But even though deficient, I can support this as it stands. The possibility of up to 15 weeks of consecutive unpaid leave will provide the time for those escaping tragic situations to do so without worrying about their job. That’s fine with me.

The bill introduces a worthwhile change by aligning the unpaid job protection for workers taking care of critically ill family members with the EI benefits available to them. I can agree with that.

The bill before us protects what most consumers expect when they’re dining out or riding, say, in a taxi — that tips go to the person providing the service, not to the employers. Of course, we can agree with that. This bill would disallow employers from getting access to the tip pool, except perhaps when they’re doing the same work. New rules prohibiting employers from withholding tips, from deducting amounts from the top or requiring the workers to turn over their gratuities will ensure the customer’s expectations are met. This is all fine.

[4:20 p.m.]

Workers also get enhanced protection through the doubling of the period for which they can recover owed wages from six months to a year. I can support that. I can support a worker’s ability to directly bring a complaint to the employment standards branch. There are probably a few other things too.

There is a big issue with respect to the labour of young people. Here, I’m representing, in particular, the agricultural families and businesses in my riding. I’ve heard from them on this. Agriculture is the biggest economic driver in my riding. Probably, agriculture is the biggest employer of under-aged people in the province, so I want to speak to that. Broadly speaking, the bill raises the age a child may work from 12 to 16. It provides exemptions, allowing 14- to 15-year-olds to perform light work, and restricts the type of hazardous work 16- to 18-year-olds can perform.

Now, I realize that the government can pass this bill. It has the numbers to do that. It has the votes. But I hope the minister and his officials who are listening to the debate today will take my remarks as a plea to apply some common sense to this piece of legislation.

I want to begin with a little bit of my own experience. When I was 12 and 13, I delivered papers for $1 a week and babysat for 50 cents an hour. It was paid labour. Not very much pay, but it was paid labour. Under this law, I would need the director’s permission to do that. I think that’s simply an unreasonable restriction on the freedom of a young person and, certainly, the freedom of a family to make that decision. It’s a discouragement to them — to pursue work early on, which, I think, is a good thing.

When I was 16, I got my first job. I found work on a dairy farm in the summer, near Edmonton. During that summer, I got up early at five in the morning. I got the cows. That’s not very hazardous. I helped with the milking. That’s not terribly hazardous, although a cow can kick you when you’re milking. I shovelled a great deal of manure. I rode on a hayrack and threw thousands of bales. I suppose I could have injured my back then. I drove tractors unsupervised. I hooked up big silage wagons, full of silage, and towed them around. I climbed up an 80-foot silo and threw silage with a pitchfork. Pitchforks can be dangerous. I shovelled grain inside a grain bin, near a grain auger.

I was near lots of machinery in the normal course of daily life on a dairy farm, but it was a great opportunity. I learned about all about farming and milking and how to work hard. I learned how to drive things and became more handy with tools. It was an invaluable experience, learning and growing up on the farm. But I might not have been able to do that under this legislation, because under the regulations, hazardous industries will be listed, and anyone 16 to 19 years of age won’t be able to do that kind of work without special permission.

Perhaps an 18-year-old will be able to do some job listed as hazardous that a 17-year-old is not allowed to do. This is without reference to the abilities of the person. I can think of a young guy who, at 15, was more competent on the farm than I was at 18 or 19 — or 25, for that matter. But this bill ignores the individual competencies of the worker.

We already, even as this bill is tabled, have uncertainty in the industry — enough uncertainty that the minister had to go out and publicly reassure people that nothing would change in the short term. We have thousands of young people and hundreds of employers, particularly in the agricultural sector, in my riding, as I said, yet the agricultural sector was not broadly consulted on this problem. The minister has said publicly that anyone under 16 working on a farm, or something like that, can continue while the government works out its regulations, but who knows how long that will take? Everyone is in limbo in the meantime.

Farm families are in limbo too. The minister said in a press conference that kids on the farm can still do the chores as long as they’re not paid. How is that fair? Why is work okay when it’s unpaid, but prohibited if it’s paid? It just doesn’t make sense.

When this bill was introduced, almost immediately, I received a call from a berry producer in my riding. He said: “I have 150 young people who work on my farm every summer. What am I supposed to do? Will they each require the explicit approval of the director that’s listed in the bill?” The very survival of his business hangs in the balance, while the government takes its time. Young people won’t know if next year they’ll be able to work. Employers won’t know how to plan their business — if they’ll be able to find workers or if those workers even will get permission to work.

[4:25 p.m.]

I want to question the timing of this bill. Why now? All of this is happening right now, while the job market is extremely tight and getting tighter all the time. The biggest complaint I have from employers right across the board, whether it’s child care or truck driving or anything else, is finding workers. Even finding students to fill programs at the University of the Fraser Valley Trades and Technology Centre is difficult. Now, at this crucial point, the minister decides to constrict the labour market and make it even more difficult for young people to enter.

Young workers 15 to 24 comprise 13 percent of B.C.’s workforce. This is not a small number. This bill could cause a serious disruption in labour, particularly farm labour. My concern is not just about disallowing some young people from the job market but the bureaucracy that will be required to administer the new system of permissions and the time it will take to get permission from the director for all the myriad of job possibilities in today’s economy.

My next question that I want to move on to is: why at all? What is the problem? The bill assumes that we have a real problem in B.C., where we have forced child labour, like some countries where child labour is the order of a day. Sometimes it’s a matter of survival for a family in some countries.

We are different here in Canada. In fact, child labour is already tightly regulated. Do we have children toiling in the mines and pulp mills of B.C. now? Of course not. Do we have them operating heavy cranes and working 50 floors up, building skyscrapers? Of course not.

There is a risk analysis company called Maplecroft that does a periodic report on global child labour, and it ranks 198 countries in degree of severity. The ten worst countries are these: Eritrea, Somalia, the Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Yemen — all, of course, very low-income countries, countries with huge human rights issues. I don’t have the full report, but I do know that Denmark was at the very bottom of the list. It was the best in terms of child labour, number 198. I suspect that Canada is down at the bottom of that list as one of the least risky countries for child labour in the world.

For example, every child, by law, has to be in school every day. The first child labour law in Canada was passed in Ontario in 1891, almost 150 years ago. We have a strong culture in Canada and in B.C. of protecting children from forced or hazardous labour. But our government seems to think that we have a huge problem that needs solving. The minister has not demonstrated that this is the case. In fact, he has submitted nothing, no data, to this House, not even an anecdote. Keeping up with the Joneses. Keeping up with the international standards, when most international standards are far lower than ours. To me, this is regulation for regulation’s sake.

In fact, a constituent brought to me a very good argument. He said if the government is worried about health, maybe they should ban sports. The B.C. injury research and prevention unit — I looked at their website — says that sports are the highest risk to 15- to 19-year-old youth, not work. In one year, 2010, which is listed on the website, here are the medical costs of sports injuries. Falls from skates, skis, boards and blades: $79 million. Falls in playgrounds: $36 million. Falls while diving: $4 million. Pedal-cycle accidents: $99 million. ATV and snowmobile accidents: $55 million. Struck by or against sports equipment: $25 million.

From the magazine Today’s Parent, from June of 2014, I want to give a quote. “One in every five kids who is involved with a sport or activity will suffer an injury over the course of a year. That’s about 1.2 million kids who have anything from sprained ankles to more serious injuries like broken bones and concussions.”

The leader for the Green Party said that over $1 million was paid out in job-related disability claims for workers aged 14 and under between 2007 and 2016, and the member for Nanaimo just mentioned that over a ten-year period, $5.2 million in workplace costs came as a result of youth workers. But just counting up the numbers here, there is more than $200 million just in sports injuries alone. If the government was concerned about safety, maybe they would want to consider encouraging employment instead of sports, because employment is much safer than sports. But they’re saying nothing about sports.

I want to move on to defining “work.” How can you define “light work” for 14- to 15-year-olds? Just babysitting, maybe paper routes and stocking shelves, nothing more substantial than that? Well, government will have to prescribe what light work is, according to section 9 of the bill. I would encourage the government to do so in a principled way, rather than simply listing occupations.

[4:30 p.m.]

For example, perhaps a child should not be required to lift a certain amount of weight when compared to the child’s own weight. That would be a principled way to approach it. The government is going to severely restrict hazardous work for young people. What does hazardous mean? Is the whirling blade on a lawnmower hazardous? I would say it is. Should a young person be allowed to mow a lawn? If it’s not allowed as paid, why should it be allowed as unpaid? I’ve been through that already.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

How about working in front of a hot grill in a restaurant or a hot coffee machine at Tim Hortons? Is that more hazardous than working in an industry with some kind of a heat process? Many young people get their introduction into the workforce by standing over a grill at McDonald’s. The definition of these terms is going to be difficult, so I would encourage the minister, once again, to base his definitions on principles, rather than the simple listing of certain occupations.

I want to move on to talk about minors for a moment and a contradiction in government policy, because I see that we don’t trust minors in certain situations. I want to bring to the Speaker’s attention section 17 of the Infants Act, which talks about the consent of an infant to medical treatment. This brings into focus the concept of a mature minor, someone under the age of 19 who exhibits, on an individual basis, maturity beyond their years.

Right now a child who is a mature minor may make their own health care decisions independent of their parents’ or guardian’s wishes. In our province, there is no set age when a child is considered capable to give consent. This means that they can be very young, indeed.

As long as a health care practitioner has explained the need for the treatment, what it involves and its benefits and risks, a child can consent to any treatment involving the health care system. This includes treatments to do with sexual health and other related, highly sensitive matters that can have important life consequences, but also any other kind of treatment, like mental health counselling or take any prescription drug or choose any other treatment offered by our health care system.

A child can choose to change his or her own name. But when it comes to work, suddenly there is no such thing as a mature minor. A child is not capable of making any decisions on their own, it appears, because the government doesn’t trust the child to make any kind of decisions.

Let me give an example. Is a 13-year-old deciding that he or she wants to pick eggs off a conveyor belt of a hatchery after school — and I’ve seen that — more risky than that same child deciding to take a powerful prescription medication for something like depression? I think not. But the government might decide that a child shouldn’t pick eggs because farm machinery might be considered to be hazardous. That same child would be able to decide, on his or her own, to take prescription medication and not even inform their parents.

We all know that a child who is mature for their age is more capable of handling themselves appropriately and safely in particular environments thanks to their on-the-job experience and training. We also know that there’s a child a parent can’t even trust to watch a pot boil, let alone get a dinner preparation done before the parents get home.

Bringing in age-based restrictions eliminates the discretion that parents use when determining whether their child is capable of certain responsibilities and instead allows the state to dictate when a child is ready by virtue of chronological age and not mental acuity. I disagree with that.

I want to move on and say that the NDP doesn’t trust parents either. The NDP is sort of a helicopter government, just like a helicopter parent.

Right now a letter of permission from the parent consenting on behalf of any child aged 12 to 14 to do work is required. By this legislation, a 13-year-old wanting to pick eggs, which is the example I gave, would need the permission of the director instead. The director’s opinion replaces the parent’s opinion, which simply doesn’t matter anymore. Parents will only be able to give permission to 14- or 15-year-olds for light work. Parents will not be able to give permission to any young person for any kind of work deemed hazardous by the ministry. Again, the government is substituting its own opinion for that of parents.

Well, first, if I know the work arrangements of a younger person, usually you have an interview one day, and you start work the next day. It’s not like finding a CEO of a big company, where it’s a six-month process. How long will it take to get permission of the director — a director who will now be besieged with similar requests from all over his or her region? Since he or she is responsible for the decision, the director, and perhaps a staff of one or two people, will have to investigate every one, because of course, they’re taking the place of the parent, and that takes time. It takes attention.

The opinion of a parent is a hard one to beat. The government will have to place at least as much time and attention on the issue as a child’s parent would.

[4:35 p.m.]

Why would the government trust the word of the director more than the word of the parent? The parent is just a human being, but the director is just another human being as well. He or she has no supernatural knowledge or expertise.

The parents know the child intimately and know his or her personal level of expertise and maturity; the director doesn’t. The parent has an interest in contacting the prospective employer and talking through, in detail, what the child is going to do; the director won’t have that kind of time. The parent has one file on his or her desk, that of their own child; the director has many files. The parent can give a quick answer; the director can’t. Most importantly, the director may be a very good and conscientious employee, but the parent has special love and affection for their own child that the director doesn’t.

We’re replacing what should be left to the discretion of the family and replacing it with the government. That is a bad trade. This is very typical, to me, of our government, the NDP. The government worker, to them, always knows best, and the judgment of the ordinary citizen can’t be trusted. In reality, the government does not know best in this case. In every way, this is demeaning to parents. It undermines parental authority, and it will result in materially worse and much slower decisions than are taken now.

All of these definitions — the definitions of light and hazardous work and who can do what job — will be left to the regulations not addressed in this bill. I hate to think of what will happen when a job that might be hazardous comes up that might not be covered by the regulations. The whole process will grind to a halt, and meanwhile, employers and workers will be left in limbo.

Let’s move on to education, because there are contradictions with existing education policy. Now, in the last few years, under the former government, education became more rightly oriented towards skill development. How is this going to happen unless young students in K to 12 can get some work experience? For example, will shop class in public K-to-12 education, where students deal every day with saws and hammers and drills and spinning lathes and hot things and machinery that could be dangerous, be considered as hazardous work? Will schools have to obtain the approval of a director for each student to work in these dangerous things? The minister has given no indication of how this will be handled.

The education system has taken on the task of developing soft employability skills for young students. This is a good thing. I applaud this. Much of the Ministry of Education’s new career education 10 to 12 centres around students being able to acquire these soft skills.

One constituent who is a teacher said this to me: “The proposed changes will, in effect, not allow students who wish to engage in Youth Work in Trades to start that in their grade 10 year, since many will lose the ability to backdate hours as hidden apprentices, or not at all, because many turn 16 in grade 11. The changes would also impact work experience 12 for unpaid and paid work, as now students must wait until they are 16 — so, more than likely, not until they are in grade 11.”

In his opinion, better mandatory safety instruction in the school system itself and in career education programs, as well as in workplaces, would have been the way to address the concerns around safety, rather than the heavy hammer of legislation. Obviously, the Minister of Labour did not consult with his colleague the Minister of Education when he drew up this legislation.

The Youth Work in Trades program guide defines a youth apprentice as someone between the ages of 14 and 19. They will work in the trades. A trade can be any trade in B.C., including red seal apprenticeship programs. Many of these trades involve work with hazardous materials and machinery. Think of the hazards of electric shock of an apprenticeship in the field of electrician. What will happen to the Youth Work in Trades program when this legislation passes?

In Chilliwack, we have a very big apprenticeship program in school district 33 that’s very successful. Every year there’s an apprenticeship dinner that I like to attend in which all sorts of young people are honoured. They are minors. I think every one of them would be minors. They’re learning the trades, exhibiting every level of competence — indeed, working in fields that would probably be deemed hazardous by this government. I would trust most of these young people more than I would trust myself in their chosen trade. I would like the minister’s assurance that this program will be allowed to continue.

[4:40 p.m.]

I would further point out that the Ministry of Education’s work experience program guide already allows students age 14 and younger to work. It requires employers to give young workers a safety orientation and district staff to assess a workplace. These things are being taken care of already. Obviously, as I said, the Minister of Labour failed to consult properly with the Minister of Education when he decided to draft this legislation. Maybe the program guides will have to be changed, or maybe those programs will have to be cancelled altogether. The minister has given no indication in this regard.

Just in general, to close, farm families — and I would broaden that to say any family with a business — see countless advantages to having their children help out, paid or otherwise. Not only does it help the family financially, but work helps the child. It develops a good work ethic. It develops specific skills and talents. It helps children, for the future, to see what they like to do and what they’re good at, and what they don’t like to do and what they’re not good at. It helps them learn to take pride in accomplishment. It builds confidence and character in them. It teaches the value of a dollar and how to save for what they want to buy, instead of getting a free ride.

Instead, this legislation is rigid. It’s cumbersome. It’s bureaucratic. It’s confusing. It’s ill-defined. It will replace authorities of families with the authority of the state. It will not mean greater safety and less exploitation. No, it will mean less work. It will mean poor decisions. It will mean more waiting, less training. It will discourage workers and discourage employers and cause working shortages as well.

For that reason, I probably will vote in favour of the bill as a whole, but I will probably vote against a clause or two as a symbolic measure to show my disapproval of the way the government has approached the work of children and youth. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the time.

R. Singh: It gives me pleasure to talk on Bill 8. I really want to thank the Minister of Labour for bringing it forward. We know that the workers are the backbone of our community and also of our economy. They need protections at work that will protect them from exploitation and also meet proper safety standards.

I’m so happy that this bill is bringing in changes that will better protect children and youth from dangerous work by raising the age to 16 to work without permits and adding tough new restrictions on allowing them to perform dangerous work. It will make it easier for workers to get help when their rights have been violated and provide more job protection to people dealing with difficult personal circumstances, like those escaping domestic violence and caring for critically ill loved ones.

This bill will also ensure that people are paid the wages they are owed. Hearing the member for Chilliwack-Kent…. He talked in detail about the portion on raising the age for children to work. Being a mother myself, I’m always…. Definitely, I would like my children to work, but I would be very concerned about what kind of work they are doing.

I know the previous government lowered the age to work to 12. As my colleague from Nanaimo has just pointed out, since then — since 2003, when the age was lowered — over 2,000 children under the age of 15 have claimed work-related health care costs due to injuries. I think that number is a really big number, and that does not even give us the complete picture. These are just the reported cases that we have seen, but there are many cases that have gone unreported. I’m really concerned. How many other children got injured at work, and those cases were not reported?

Keeping that in mind, when the Minister of Labour brought this change in the legislation…. I think that it’s very important, protecting not only the workers but also the most vulnerable section of the workers. We know that when young children work, they don’t have a voice. They don’t have the ability to counter or even question what kind of work they are presented with.

They want the jobs. I know a young kid…. I know when my son started working at 16, he was so happy with the work that he was doing. He was really happy with the wages and the money that he was getting from that work.

[4:45 p.m.]

A lot of times, these children, because they’re not aware of their rights, won’t talk. They don’t even have the knowledge about refusing unsafe work. It is very important that we don’t put them in those circumstances that make these conditions even more vulnerable for them. So I’m very glad and I’m very thankful to the Minister of Labour for bringing this up.

Another big change — that is, having worked as a counsellor for women escaping violence…. The changes that the minister has brought in are bringing in the unpaid leave for people dealing with certain personal circumstances at home, whether they’re dealing with domestic violence or they’re caring for their loved ones.

I remember taking calls from many women when I was working as a counsellor, and they were in very, very dire situations. They knew that they had to leave those circumstances and that they had to leave that violent relationship. But many of them did not do this, because they knew that they wouldn’t be able to afford to take time off work. At that time, when you are leaving a difficult relationship, having job protection is very, very important for these women.

The changes that have been brought up, that have been introduced in this bill, I am sure will not only protect those women but also protect their working rights. It is never easy to leave a difficult relationship. It’s not a decision that any person takes lightly. But it will help people get out of dangerous relationships.

Also, when they are caring for their loved ones and also trying to protect their jobs, it’s a difficult balance to make. So with the changes that are coming with this bill, their jobs are protected. I think they would be able to put more time, more energy, into their personal life and do the proper balance.

The third one that I would really like to mention is about the elimination of the self-help kits. When I first came to know about it, in my previous life, I was a union rep. I came to know about the self-help kits. I found it was a big deterrent for the workers to seek the help that they needed.

First of all, your rights have been violated, and you have to fill in that self-help kit. I’ve seen that self-help kit myself, and it was not an easy task to do. It required a lot of time, a lot of energy to even fill out that form. But then to take that to your own employer, against whom you have this issue…. That deterred a lot of workers from even making the complaint. A lot of times, they did not come forward to do that. So I’m really glad about the changes that are coming in that aspect also.

Overall, I would just like to say that I’m just so happy with the introduction of Bill 8. This was a long time in coming. We know that for the last 15 years, there hasn’t been a full review of employment standards, but after a strong consultation with different members of the community, the minister has been able to bring these recommendations. I fully support them, and I really want to thank him for the changes that he’s trying to bring in.

S. Cadieux: I’m pleased to take my place to speak quickly to Bill 8 and the proposed changes to the Employment Standards Act, of which I am mostly in favour, with only a few caveats — generally, for more information. I’m not overly concerned with the changes that are being proposed. In fact, with most, I am, like I say, in favour.

I’ll just speak quickly to the removal of the self-help kit. I actually think that’s a good move. Personally, I’m not in favour of them. I don’t think that they met a need for the people who were most affected by the need to use them.

[4:50 p.m.]

I think it takes a fair amount of sophistication to address issues like this in the workplace and a fair amount of sophistication even to use the self-help kit. In the reality of the types of situations that occur, I don’t think that is usually the case with workers. I think it’s an undue barrier, and I think that’s a fair change to make.

I think that ensuring workers are paid fairly and that tips go to them, when that is the intention of the customer providing the tips, makes sense. I think we all expect that, and for many of us to learn that that’s not always the case actually is fairly disheartening. I think that those are reasonable changes to make.

I’m concerned about the vagueness of the changes to protecting young workers. Obviously, the idea of protecting young workers is a good one. Obviously, any time somebody is injured at work, that’s problematic. Certainly, we don’t want to see young people performing work that they are not trained or prepared to do in a safe way, so as a broad concept, I am supportive. The challenge, though, is the lack of clarity around what we’re actually saying and how that balances against the real-world realities of what people do.

For example, some of the arguments that are being made about why this is important are that: “Well, kids aren’t responsible.” Yet in fact, we as a society regularly entrust youngsters as young as 12, with some training, to care for other, younger children, which is, I would argue, one of the jobs that requires the most responsibility to do. I’m not sure that a lack of responsibility is a fair argument for why we need to protect children in this way.

When I was young, I mowed lawns for neighbours when they were away in the summer. I happened to know, through a family member, that lawn mowers are actually a pretty dangerous tool. You can lose toes and do damage. It’s significant, if you’re not properly trained in how to use them and if you’re not properly attired when using a lawn mower. But I doubt very much that we are going to make it illegal for children or young people to mow the family lawn and do those household chores. I’ve heard the minister say that that isn’t the intent, and I appreciate that. But then how do we square that against what is going to be considered dangerous in an employed setting?

I’m just cautious of the need to create regulations for regulations’ sake that complicate circumstances and make it difficult for young people to do work that they previously have done and that they do with their family to earn some money to pay for their education or whatever else it might be. So I’m curious about how we’re going to define that and put that into clear terms for everyone so that people certainly can and will abide by the law in a reasonable way.

The one piece that I want to talk a little bit more in depth about is the protections for workers facing personal circumstances, which I’m entirely in favour of. I say: “Entirely in favour of.” But I have questions about why it’s been done the way it’s been done.

I question why we are creating two tiers of victims in doing this. I wonder if that is an unconscious error that has been made — something that just wasn’t understood — or whether it’s intentional. I question it because there were two previous private members’ bills from the NDP on this same topic that actually included victims of sexual assault, but this legislation does not, unless that victim of sexual assault was assaulted by an intimate partner or family member. That, to me, is problematic.

[4:55 p.m.]

It’s problematic because I can only imagine that we all here would believe that if a woman or man was raped on their way home from work, they would be ever so much deserving as someone who faced that violence in their own home. My belief is that those victims are no less in need of time away from work to attend medical appointments or, perhaps, to look for a new home. Because we know many sexual assault victims have that assault happen in their residence.

That, to me, suggests that we are unfairly creating two tiers of victims here and not providing the same protections for people who are experiencing the same violence or have experienced the same violence. That, to me, is problematic. It’s why I’ve put a notice of amendment on the order paper, and I do intend to introduce an amendment in committee stage to rectify that in the legislation. I hope that the government will consider that.

I think it’s important to note that it is with good intent that the government puts forward these amendments and has spoken to the need for this, in particular, to protect victims and provide them with support they very much need. I don’t believe that the domestic violence or anti-violence sector was consulted in advance of this, or perhaps this would have been caught sooner. But perhaps the government is going to see fit to consider this amendment to include sexual assault victims in entirety, as the Ontario legislation does. By using the same definitions as the Ontario legislation, we could easily include it here.

I think with that, I will rest my remarks. I’m sure that at committee stage we’ll have an opportunity to ask some more detailed questions of the minister as it relates to damages for children under 15 and what has led to the need to create changes around protecting young workers and what exactly his intent is in terms of defining the types of work that are appropriate for youth and how we will square that against what happens in individuals’ lives outside of a paid environment, because clearly, we have to take that into consideration. Certainly, safety is paramount.

With that, I’ll rest my remarks for today.

J. Thornthwaite: I thought there was somebody from the other side that was speaking, so I wanted to pop up just before. I know there’s another person on our side that wants to speak to the bill.

I’m going to preface my remarks, also, that I think there is a lot to support in this bill. For those that are listening, I’m speaking about Bill 8, Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2019. But I think that there are unintended consequences. Certainly, what has been mentioned before…. My colleague, the critic for Labour, from Chilliwack has mentioned that there are lots of details that have been left out and that, obviously, during committee stage, we will be dealing with those specific questions.

One of the positive things that, obviously, we support: up to ten non-consecutive days of unpaid leave for workers escaping domestic violence to look for a new home, attend medical appointments, etc. I also support my colleague from Surrey South, who mentioned that perhaps it was an oversight…. I hope it’s just an oversight. Perhaps during her discussion during committee stage to include an amendment that includes all victims of sexual assault, not just those that are deemed assaulted through domestic violence….

There’s also the additional option for such workers to receive up to 15 weeks of consecutive unpaid leave. We support that. We also support the creation of unpaid job-protected leave for those caring for critically ill family members that aligns with EI benefits, which allows workers to take up to 36 weeks to care for critically ill children and up to 16 weeks to care for an adult.

[5:00 p.m.]

Other things that we think are a good idea are regulating tips and tip pooling and protecting workers’ rights with respect to tips and gratuities. I have two daughters that are in the service industry. They work in restaurants. I’m always a big supporter of equality with regard to tipping and the tipping pool, because they didn’t always start off as servers. But employers may not share in the tipping pool, except when the employer performs the same work as workers who share in the pool, and it prohibits employers from withholding tips and gratuities, deducting amounts from them or requiring them to be turned over to the employer.

The workers get enhanced protections through the doubling of the period for which they can recover owed wages from six months to a year, and we certainly support that. Some of the concern we do have, and I personally have — I’ll get into my specific situation in a minute — is with the definition of “light work.” What is the definition of light work for those that are 14 or 15 years old? Is it babysitting, paper routes, stocking shelves? Is lawn mowing acceptable, or will moving a blade be classified as “too dangerous?” What about working in a restaurant kitchen? Dishwashing could be acceptable, but flipping burgers in front of a hot stove and running a fryer could perhaps be deemed too dangerous for this age group.

In this particular case, it looks like bureaucrats will decide what is light work. The member for Delta South had mentioned today, in his remarks about the agriculture sector, that certainly, one of the major concerns that have been brought to our members on this side about this bill is the negative effect on agricultural workers and youth. Primarily, one of the main employers of youth is the agriculture sector. There’s a worry that the agriculture sector was not consulted about these pending changes.

We need to balance, obviously, to protect young workers from being abused or not treated well, with the possibility of denying access to good life skills and good working experience for children. That could include children working in a family business — as I mentioned before, mowing lawns and shovelling snow. We need clarification from the minister on the descriptions of what light work is.

Specifically, the feedback that I’ve personally got is for soccer referees. I’ve been contacted from many soccer clubs that are very concerned about the implications for youth referees, both boys and girls. I have letters that have been endorsed by the North Vancouver Football Club, the North Shore Girls Soccer Club, the West Vancouver Football Club, Bowen Island, Sunshine Coast, Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton. Many of these soccer associations have stated that they are very, very worried about this bill.

I’ve been a longtime soccer mom. My daughter was also a referee. I believe she was about 12 when she was a referee. I actually asked her what she got paid way back then. She said that it was about $5 or $6 per team, which means $12 a game. I think they’re getting more than that now. But it definitely helped them out. Certainly, it’s a good experience, getting to the soccer field on time. It’s a responsibility to get ready for the job market. They get a little bit of money that can help them in their day-to-day work.

When I talked to my daughter about this bill, she was very surprised that this might implicate, certainly, the leagues that I’ve mentioned. She also mentioned that there were situations that she knew. A friend of hers who was the same age, in her youth had actually worked at a restaurant to help her mom with rent. This was a serious…. They were a vulnerable family, a single mom, and the child helped because she wanted to. She was part-time as a waitress and helped out with the rent. Would this bill stop her from helping out with the family? I don’t know.

[5:05 p.m.]

Getting back to the football situation, I’m going to read an email that we got from the president of the Sunshine Coast Youth Soccer Association. Certainly, it was shared by a lot of the other associations, because they state their support “for the valuable skills that the kids learn as referees and the benefit they bring to youth sports. This is not an exploitation of child labour, but a real, great opportunity for young people to learn responsibility and leadership while supporting effective youth sports in communities.”

They go on to say…. They are concerned the age is being raised to 16. As I mentioned, my daughter was refereeing at age 12. In this district of the North Shore, “the association trains and employs many youth to work as referees, and they start as young as 12 years old. Under this legislation, this would be prohibited, unless there is an exemption from the director of employment standards.”

This person, who is the president of the North Shore girls’ soccer and who happens to be a lawyer, said: “My experience, as an employer/lawyer, suggests exemptions will be very difficult to obtain. Another option would be to obtain a broad-based exemption for youth acting as referees or officials via an amendment to the employment standards regulation.” There is, currently, an exemption, as he notes, for babysitters.

In conclusion, I really did want to bring the concerns from the soccer associations on the North Shore — and, probably, the soccer associations everywhere in British Columbia — about the possibility of referees not being able to work. They’re being given valuable lifetime skills, getting ready for employment and getting a little bit of cash to help them out in their day-to-day work, in between school. I really think this is something that should be considered as an amendment, perhaps, or at least a consideration from the minister when we come into committee stage.

D. Davies: I rise today to speak about Bill 8. I’m not going to take too much time. I know that the Minister of Labour is ready to close it off, so I promise I’ll be under two hours.

There are a couple things that I do want to bring up. I’m not going to talk about all the merits. There are some merits in this bill. As we have heard, some of my colleagues have spoken about these. But there are some questions that have been raised, certainly — from people up in my riding and folks that I’ve interacted with over the past couple of weeks, when I was back in the riding — around this bill and some of the concerns and issues, not much different than what, again, my colleagues have been talking about.

Some of the concerns, though, that we have around this legislation are, of course, as we’ve heard, around what “hazardous work” is. How does that roll out? What is that going to look like? Who’s going to define that? What are the exceptions in there? This kind of worries us, up in the northeast corner.

I can speak from experience. Some of my friends, when we were 14 or 15 years old…. You usually knew someone whose parent owned an oil and gas service company. You had an opportunity to go out and learn about the industry by working for your friend’s dad for a couple of months in the summer. Reading what…. We look under this as hazardous industry. I mean, as soon as you drive off the highway up in the northeast corner, you’re in oil and gas country. You’re in forestry country. You are, indeed, going into, generally, a hazardous area.

I really have some concerns about clipping the wings on some young people’s great opportunities to go out and make some money in the summer months so that they don’t have to be focusing on trying to work and balance school and home life throughout the rest of the year. The same goes for the forest industry. I know some young people go out and operate some equipment in the bush in the summer — of course, again, under the supervision of trained people, following all the rules within WorkSafe.

[5:10 p.m.]

The same, again, goes for farmers — people that work for a friend’s neighbouring farm to go out to be a farmhand in the summer. A guide-outfitter is another opportunity. I had some friends that worked the summers in their dads’ guide-outfitting area, and that is sometimes pretty challenging work. We start looking at the definitions of what “light work” is. What becomes light work? What becomes hazardous work? I guess this is where there are lots of concerns that I have.

My colleague for North Vancouver–Seymour had mentioned about some of the communications with the school district. School districts around the province — a lot of them are doing some cutting-edge stuff around trades and promoting young people to get into trades.

My school district, school district 60, is no different. One of the projects they have is called Project Heavy Duty. Project Heavy Duty is a program offered by school district 60, where approximately 16 high school students have the opportunity to learn about and to operate many kinds of heavy equipment under the close supervision of qualified operators. Students receive hands-on training with heavy equipment such as crawlers, dozers, excavators, graders, rock trucks and a variety of logging equipment on the job site.

As you can imagine, this is concerning for me and concerning for folks that are planning to go into this program. Is this going to be affected by this legislation? We all know that there is a shortage of tradespeople in this province. These school districts, many school districts across the province, have done some incredible work partnering with industry, partnering with the local colleges and post-secondary institutions to get young people interested in the trades starting as young as 14 years old, so that we can be sure that we do have tradespeople moving into the future.

I’m not going to belabour this debate too much longer. I do echo a lot of the comments that my colleagues have made here. A lot of it comes around, again. What is hazardous? How is that going to be defined? What does that fit in? We’ve talked a lot about cookie-cutter policies. I often worry that what might be good for the Lower Mainland might not necessarily be good for the northeast or the northwest or the Interior or the Kootenays, for that matter. There are different trades. Young people do have different opportunities in the northeast when it comes to jobs, when it comes to work experience, than they do in other parts of the province.

I want to make sure that these points are brought forward and that they’re going to be discussed a great deal. So I am looking forward to committee stage. Again, there are a lot of merits to this bill. I do have concerns around hiring children in the hazardous industry and the hazardous work part of this Bill 8. I do look forward to bringing it into the committee stage where we can discuss it a bit more.

With that, I’ll take my place.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the minister closes the debate.

Hon. H. Bains: I really want to say thank you to all of the members who spoke on this bill. I think all of them were very thoughtful and constructive. I made some notes. They identified certain areas. I think that largely, if I haven’t missed much, it was around the employment of children and youth. I have listened, and I know, as is being said, that it is something that we need to grapple with. There are certain things that are very obvious. There are certain things that are very obvious on the other end. But then there are things in between, and I get that.

The only thing that I will say is that we’re not reinventing the wheel. The whole world is ahead of us in that area. The United Nations, International Labour Organization and all other Canadian jurisdictions are already there. They have already defined what dangerous work is, and what light work is. Of course, every province has different jobs, and they have different challenges. Again, within B.C., as the member previously said, we have a different situation, as far as the jobs are concerned, in the Lower Mainland versus rural British Columbia.

[5:15 p.m.]

My take on this and my response to all of this is that we will be consulting. You’ve seen that we consulted when we put this bill together. We put it out there for people’s input, the stakeholders’ input. We received, like I said, 1,200 presentations on the area that we asked their input for. Almost everyone agreed on one thing: that we must protect our children’s health and safety.

I think members that have spoken agree on that one. All members have agreed on that. It’s just how do we actually implement these changes that we are talking about? I would actually welcome the discussions, and I welcome any suggestions that you may have.

Yes, bureaucracy…. Sometimes they sit down, and they put some things together. Even with consultation, things get missed out. I would encourage all members of this House to send me your suggestions on what you think. In rural B.C., what do you think should be considered for children who are under 15, that you consider is light work, that you consider will protect their health and safety?

We have shown that we listen, and we will look into all those suggestions that will come forward. Because at the end of the day, it is about our children’s health and safety and having that balance to make sure that they are still able to go out and make pocket money, to go out and help on their mom and dad’s farm, at their grocery store, to deliver pizza. I don’t know whether that is going to be part of that or not.

Those are some of the areas that we need to look at how we deal with that issue, keeping in mind the main issue here is our children’s health and safety. We need to give them time to grow, to develop and to become productive citizens, because they will be the leaders of our future who will run this country. Many of them will come here, and we want to make sure that they have all the opportunities of the world so that they grow to their full potential, without hurting themselves.

I think that’s basically what I’m saying. I appreciate everyone taking time to speak on this very, very important bill. I listened to the member for Surrey South as well. There are concerns, and I have made notes of those. I’m really, really happy that we are here and getting good support.

With that, I would say that now I move second reading of Bill 8.

Motion approved.

Hon. H. Bains: 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 8, Employment Standards 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. D. Eby: I call second reading of Bill 30, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2019.

BILL 30 — LABOUR RELATIONS CODE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Hon. H. Bains: It is the second time that I’m standing in this House in the last couple of hours to talk about changing the lives of working people in British Columbia for the better.

We have just finished second reading of the Employment Standards Act changes, Bill 8, that will give much, much better protection to those who have no benefit of unions to support them when they feel that their rights have been violated; or when they feel that they are not getting the wages that they are entitled to; or when their health and safety is not looked after, whether there’s abuse or exploitation.

Bill 8 talked about all that and covered all those areas. I’m so happy and thankful to all the members that spoke on that bill and the good support that I’ve received here, and I want to thank you.

Now we’re moving on to Bill 30, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2019. I move that Bill 30 be read a second time now.

As Minister of Labour, my mandate includes a commitment to review the labour relations code to ensure workplaces support a growing, sustainable economy with fair laws for workers and businesses. The labour relations code, commonly known as the code, is the primary labour relations legislation in B.C. It governs a wide range of labour relations matters.

[5:20 p.m.]

The labour code covers the union environment of employers and unions. It covers a whole variety of areas that govern in that area. The topics it includes: the certification of employees to be represented by a union, collective bargaining procedure, rules for strikes and lockouts, the maintenance of essential services during labour disputes, mediation and arbitration procedures, as well as the establishment of the Labour Relations Board.

B.C.’s code has a long and storied history. Emerging in the early 1970s under the government of Dave Barrett, the basic structure and fundamental principles of the code were designed to achieve a calmer and more constructive industrial relations climate. In the decades that followed, various governments have amended the code. However, the basic structure and fundamental principles have endured and, in fact, have been replicated in jurisdictions across the country.

The last meaningful and comprehensive review of the code was undertaken in the early 1990s. The last substantive amendments to the code were introduced by the previous government in 2001 and 2002 and, I might add, with no public consultation — none whatsoever. Someone decided to sit behind his or her desk, appointed by the government, rewrote the code — the changes that they wished to implement, as directed by the then government — and came down and changed that code. Because they had a big, big majority in this House, hardly much debate took place in this House either. That’s not how we operate.

I want to say that since that time, workers have seen their rights and protections eroded. The previous government tore up collective agreements for workers in health care and education. They treated teachers with contempt and fought them all the way to the Supreme Court, instead of treating teachers with respect and investing in our children. Just think about that. It took 14 years for teachers…. From the day that Bill 94 was passed and Bill 29 was passed in this House, it took 14 years for the Supreme Court of Canada to rule and tell that government that their action was illegal and to go fix it.

Also, it’s not just the labour law that we’re talking about. We’re talking about the gravity of changes that we talk about here, the gravity of that bill. A whole generation of children came in, in kindergarten, graduated from high school after 12 years, 13 years, without the support and resources that were needed. They were taken away. The Supreme Court of Canada said: “Go make them whole.” But that generation will never have that opportunity ever again. That’s how we must take these bills: when we are passing these bills, what are the implications?

We believe, this government believes, that growing a sustainable economy for people is built upon a strong foundation of fair labour laws for workers and businesses. Accordingly, in February 2018, I appointed a three-person expert panel of special advisers to review the code, to hear from labour, businesses, industry, individual people and legal professionals about what long-overdue changes needed to be made to support a growing, sustainable economy and promote harmonious and stable labour relations. That was the mandate.

The panel was chaired by Michael Fleming, a mediator and arbitrator, a former associate chair of the Labour Relations Board. Two labour and employment lawyers rounded out the panel, with Sandra Banister representing union interests and Barry Dong sitting on behalf of the employers’ interests. The panel undertook public consultation, during which it received hundreds of submissions from stakeholders and individuals.

Late last summer my ministry received the panel’s report. The report includes 29 recommendations focused on improving the fairness and effectiveness of our labour relations system. Twenty-two of those recommendations specifically call for amendments to the code.

[5:25 p.m.]

I should note, however, that while the recommendations propose important improvements, they do not call for changes to that basic structure that was set of principles established in the early 1970s. Although the panel recognized the significance of the socioeconomic changes that have occurred over the past several decades, it did not ultimately recommend changes to the broad framework of the code that was established some 45 years ago and which remains as a labour relations model found throughout Canada. This model is characterized by features such as exclusive representation rights granted to unions based on the majoritarian principle and use of controlled strike or lockout as a primary means as dispute resolution.

We made the report public in October 2018 and then heard from employers, unions and individuals who wished to comment on the report and recommendations. Bill 30 is a result of this extensive consultation and review process. Ultimately, the amendments to the code made by Bill 30 follow very closely the recommendations of the review panel. I would like to take a few minutes now to discuss what I view as some of the key significant features of the bill.

First, with respect to the process for gaining union certification, Bill 30 leaves in place the existing requirement for a mandatory secret ballot vote among employees. This decision follows the advice of the majority of the review panel. However, the panel concluded that the secret ballot vote can only be an effective mechanism for employee choice if the code properly prevents employers from engaging in unfair labour practices. I agree with that assessment, which is why Bill 30 adopts the panel’s other recommendations to improve meaningful employee access to certification.

There’s one basic fundamental that should guide us in this particular area. In Canada, we are a First World country. In Canada 2019, I want to make it clear that every worker in Canada, in British Columbia, has a constitutional right to join a union of their choice without the interference of their employer. That’s the guiding principle of why this is what we are doing.

Now, there is always dispute on how we come about that. Card check is one area, and then the two steps that are being suggested here is another area, another way of doing it. But again, what happened during that period of time is what we’re trying to address, and the panel was very, very clear that there should be no interference. And if there’s interference, they’re saying there will be consequences. That’s why they suggested that there should be reduced time between certification and application of the secret ballot vote among employees. We’re moving from ten days to five business days. This shorter timeline will reduce the opportunity for undue interference, in the wishes of employees.

Bill 30 also improves access to certification by reversing changes made in 2002 which effectively allow employers to engage in anti-union campaigns. The review panel advised that a return to pre-2002 provisions respecting employer communication is consistent with other Canadian provinces and strikes a more appropriate balance between employers’ speech and the prevention of undue interference with employee choice.

Another important change that will help ensure fair employee access to collective bargaining are the improvements made to the language in the code authorizing remedial certification. Remedial certification allows the Labour Relations Board to order a union certification as a remedy to an employer’s illegal behaviour, also called an unfair labour practice. It is an important and effective deterrent against employer interference in employee choice. Bill 30 adopts the panel’s proposal to amend the provision in a way that it will provide the board wider discretion to assess and remedy the consequences of the interference with employees’ choice.

Those are some of the key changes in this bill that will help ensure employees can freely choose whether they wish to exercise their right to be represented by a union.

[5:30 p.m.]

Another important feature of Bill 30 is the additional protection it provides to unionized employees who are subject to the instability and vulnerability caused by the contract re-tendering, sometimes known as contract flipping. The amendments to the successorship provisions of the code will extend existing union certification and collective agreement rights when contracts for certain specific services are re-tendered and a new employer takes over.

Currently when contracts are re-tendered, the existing collective agreement ends and workers who have built up fair wages and job security over years of hard work see them stripped away. The employees must often reapply for their jobs, the union is required to reorganize the workforce, and a new collective agreement must be renegotiated with the new employer. The toll this takes on employees can be immense and is fundamentally unfair. In the health sector, we know it can often disrupt the continuity of care provided to so many British Columbians.

This government has recently taken steps to repeal Bills 29 and 94, which we know led to an enormous amount of contracting out of non-clinical services across health care. The contract flipping and turmoil on workers, as well as on many care facility clients and their families, that resulted from those bills were unprecedented.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

On this particular one, we’ve seen that not only the workers lose protection under the current provisions of the code, where there’s no protection from contract flipping. It’s the people that they service in health care. Many times those are seniors, very vulnerable patients. Many times, those workers are their only family. It has a very, very traumatic effect on those patients as well as the workers.

I’m really proud today that we are introducing changes that will provide much-needed stability and certainty for so many vulnerable workers around the province, not just in health care but also the workers providing building cleaning, security, bus transportation and food services. In all of these areas, unionized workers are routinely impacted by contract flipping, and I’m pleased that they will be afforded the protection that they deserve. We are ensuring that the workers who have built up fair wages and job security over years of hard work don’t see those stripped away.

One of the concerns raised by the review panel was that, upon hearing of government’s plans to amend this successorship provisions of the code, certain companies might rush to flip those contracts for the sole purpose of undermining existing union rights held by employees before new provisions come into force. Fortunately, I’m not aware that such actions have taken place over the past several months, but to be fair to all affected parties, the successorship amendments in this bill will come into force as of the date of the first reading in this House, when the details of these proposed changes were made public. The rest of the amendments come into effect on royal assent.

Those are some of the major highlights of Bill 30 that I wanted to raise here today. There are many other aspects to this bill which will have a positive impact on the province’s labour relations system. For example, Bill 30 provides for more regular, transparent review of the labour relations code. It makes improvements to the provisions governing union raids. It improves dispute resolution and mediation processes to facilitate increased cooperation, cooperative labour management relations and successful collective agreement negotiations. I know that the significant changes in this bill will be expedited. The arbitration provisions of the code have received very positive responses from both unions and employers.

Finally, Bill 30 also amends the essential services provisions of the code by removing this reference to educational programs. The insertion of education programs into the code’s essential service provisions proved to be an ineffective, if not counterproductive, strategy by the previous government.

[5:35 p.m.]

I can tell you that I think some of those changes that were put in place in 2003 were the previous government’s ongoing war with the teachers. I think the time has come that we move on to the new era of labour relations in this province. We respect workers. We value their work. We believe it is the employer and employee working together that creates jobs. Working together, they grow our economy. Working together, they can be more productive and have much safer workplaces.

That’s the whole intent behind the labour code. That was the whole intent behind the previous bill that we have just debated in this House.

Further, the review panel confirmed that removing educational programs from the essential services provision is more consistent with the nature and purpose of the provisions, other jurisdictions and with the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada.

To conclude, all of the changes proposed in Bill 30 will improve and modernize the labour relations code. Workers in this country have a constitutional right to collective bargaining, and the labour relations code is the statute that ensures that the rights can be exercised in a peaceful and productive manner. Bill 30 will further that objective by improving the fairness and functioning of the province’s labour relations system to the benefit of the workers, employers and the economy as a whole.

As a final note, I wish to thank the three members of the Labour Relations Code Review Panel for the work they undertook and for the very thoughtful and expert analysis and recommendations they provided. I’m also grateful to all the workers, unions, employers — the parties who live and breathe the code every day — who participated in the review and provided valuable input to ensure that the code remains relevant and effective in the context of our ever-changing economy.

I look forward to further debate on this bill, and I am hoping that we’ll get very good support. I know there will be a good debate, after I sit down, from the members on this, and I encourage them to stand up and speak. With that, I take my seat.

J. Martin: Thank you to the minister for the overview of Bill 30, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act.

I know all of us in this House support the rights of workers to come together and to bargain in good faith. Just as in the previous legislation, we all support the rights of workers to enjoy the safest of conditions. It’s a fundamental value of our society. It’s not a partisan issue. It’s not something that should be discussed in partisan political terms.

However, on this side of the House, we do want to be certain that the rules that are being set around this right are balanced. One of the kinds of casualties of the history, the legacy, of politics in British Columbia — and I’m not saying this is judgmental one way or the other — is that when we do have changes of governments, we tend to see some significant changes back and forth with a number of the issues that do affect workers and such.

In the big picture, this is problematic, because it sends a wrong message about the stability of the workforce in British Columbia. And we know how tense things have been at certain points in time, regardless of who’s been in government.

We’ve always had a very vigorous, full-on debate about the labour code, labour rights in British Columbia. With the recent change in government in British Columbia, it was inevitable that we’d be discussing this sooner rather than later.

Here we are with the second reading of Bill 30. We want to note that it’s important that the rules that are going to come out of this legislation, should it pass, need to set a fair playing field, both for workers and for employers. There are no good guys or bad guys in this situation. We’re all British Columbians, and we’ve all got the bigger interests at stake here.

[5:40 p.m.]

When we have problems with workers and employers, we tend to have problems in the province for many. The rights of workers to unionize as well as the rights of employers to inform workers about the impact that unionization could have on the workplace need to be balanced. Abuse and intimidation on either side are absolutely unacceptable, and there needs to be some very significant measures in place to ensure, as the minister said, that any worker that wants to unionize has a right to do so and any worker who doesn’t want to unionize also has a right to do so.

That’s where we’re seeing something that is a little bit problematic. We’ve got a couple of instances with the present government, particularly with the community benefit agreements and with the low-wage redress in the community care service, where there is a series of measures underway to compel people to unionize if they want to continue to be employed and to ply their trade in this province. That’s problematic, and we need to deal with that.

Generally speaking, there’s much in the legislation to be supportive about. The labour situation, the working situation, is always changing, and the profile of a worker and a worksite and an employer are very different today than they were 25 years ago. That’s going to continue, as we see such drastic revisions of what a work week looks like and what a commute looks like and the conditions that people work in — many working from home, telecommuting, many working short-term contracts as a consultant from one gig to another.

A lot of the understanding and the acceptance that we had of what a workplace and what a relationship between a worker and an employer looked like in the past is no longer particularly relevant. So it’s incumbent on all of us to be flexible and to see what’s coming down the pike so that we can respond, ideally, before we get into much of a problem.

There is, as I say, a considerable number of sections in the legislation — happy to support and believe in what they’re trying to accomplish. But as an official opposition, we do have concerns about balance, and we have some concerns about some of the specific changes that are being put forward. I’m troubled by a piece of legislation that lacks specifics and lacks details in so many places, much like the previous Bill 8 that we just dealt with.

Ironically, the easiest part of this bill to support is something that, mercifully, isn’t even in it anymore. A wide cross-section of British Columbians were very concerned that an ideological government was set to scrap the secret ballot in certifying a union. The secret ballot is a hallmark of the democracy, and it underpins every democratic institution that we know of. To flippantly want to just simply scrap someone’s right to a secret ballot and deny them the right to be in a private place — just like when we go to cast our votes at municipal, federal, provincial elections…. To cast that aside was very problematic.

I certainly want to thank the members of the panel who — majority decision — opted to maintain the secret ballot, and a big hat tip to my three colleagues in the Green Party who basically held their ground. The government ended up doing the right thing and wisely retreated on this very contentious issue.

The message came through loud and clear. There was no real advantage to the scrapping of the secret ballot, other than to some of the traditional unions for government’s plans to return to a card-check system, which opens the door to intimidation, to abuse, and certainly to, if nothing else, subliminal peer pressure. We all know that people behave very differently in private than they do in public. People will say things publicly to a pollster and then do something very, very different when they’re anonymous and they’re in private. For people to be unduly influenced, or in some cases, even feeling physically intimidated or emotionally intimidated is something that never should have gotten as far as it did.

[5:45 p.m.]

At the end of the day, the Minister of Labour and his staff, however the process came about, ensured that the democratic rights of workers to choose or reject membership in a union continue to be protected. There is a legitimate, fair and time-honoured system in place that does work and will continue to work. The secret ballot ensures that proper balance in the protection of workers and employers, and it creates a level playing field. I think it was very much a good day when we could all rest assured that it was going to remain in place.

There are other pieces to the bill that do bring up some similar concerns about balance, though. For instance, the bill seeks to have the timeline for a certification vote — that exercise of a worker’s democratic rights — from ten days down to five business days. Rather than restoring fairness, this tilts the playing field, certainly, in favour of those seeking unionization.

They know that a certification is coming way before the beginning of the clock for those five days. They’ve been in communication with employees about unionization well before that happened. So by having a mere five days between application and the vote for certification, employers have a very compressed time frame to engage with employees about the impact that unionization may have on the workplace.

For instance, one big problem…. This all but eliminates mail-in votes, which for some worksites is going to be problematic. But it’s a barrier to open, two-way, honest debate. Again, it tilts in favour of unionization with the powers handed to the Labour Relations Board.

The minister, through this bill, seeks to provide that body with a broader ability and more discretion to impose union certification when an employer is found to have unduly interfered with the certification process. Okay, I understand making the case. But where’s the balance? There’s nothing in the legislation — there are no powers — to change the outcomes of employee votes if the union has been found to have broken the rules in a certification process or to have acted in an undue manner. So this is, again, tilted. It’s unbalanced. It’s also unfair. In some extreme cases, it could even be dangerous as it risks throwing out the democratic wishes of workers.

The same unfairness is at the heart of changes proposed to the ability to communicate for both unions and employers. The way that an employer can communicate is being redefined in a fairly restrictive manner.

Employers currently have the right to communicate with employees with the freedom to express views on any matter, providing that the person does not use intimidation or coercion of any form — as well there should be a restriction. That’s a pretty solid interpretation of the freedom of expression that we’re all entitled to. But this legislation aims to change this to having “the freedom to communicate to an employee a statement of fact or opinion reasonably held with respect to the employer’s business.” It’s a world of difference, and that’s quite restrictive.

At the same time, the minister is pushing for an expansion of how unions can communicate on the picket line. Picketers can now hand out leaflets. The concern this raises is one of potential intimidation of those that are crossing. They can no longer just walk by, through or around picketers but now must be forced to engage under the guise of receiving a pamphlet. There’s a risk that this could be — I’m not saying it’s going to be, but there is a risk — used to stall or to pressure or to even bully someone out of entering a particular location. Significantly, employers have no corresponding right to similarly hand out pamphlets at that particular scene.

A few other things. The bill also has the same challenge we’ve seen in so many other pieces of legislation: new powers created for the minister, with details to come, regulations to come at a later point in time. We’re seeing an awful lot of that in this particular legislative session.

One area…. The bill seeks to extend successorship in a number of sectors, including building cleaning, security, bus transportation, food, non-clinical services in the health sector. I’m sure it’s just simply a coincidence that these seem to be very NDP-friendly sectors, but I digress. One of the troubling things here, though, is the fact that these new sectors can simply be added by order-in-council.

[5:50 p.m.]

Successorship could be imposed on an industry, no consultation, certainly no debate in this House, no public opportunity for an informed conversation. Industries do have the right to be concerned, particularly the construction industry.

Right now this building sector is the one industry being singled out for changes in the legislation. There’s something very specific going on with construction that is not applying to other sectors. Now, every sector, I guess, at the end of the day, we can make the case, is unique and must be dealt with uniquely. But we’re seeing something that suggests we may have some problems down the road with this. When it comes to unionization rates, the private craft unions in the construction sector have been unable to compete, either with non-union workplaces or with the large wall-to-wall unions that represent so many construction workers in B.C.

The sector has been singled out with a change in the months when unions can try to raid a company, a process for changing or replacing union representation. This process has been controlled by limiting such raids to two particular months — right now it’s September and October — depending what time a contract is signed, the seventh and eighth months. But now the bill will mandate that July and August are the months for raiding for the construction sector.

Wow, what a coincidence. These are the busiest, most important months for construction. This is when we get the extra sunlight, the longer days, the ideal weather conditions for construction, less project-delaying circumstances — an opportunity to get the job done quickly, on budget, on time. We see that moving the raid periods to the summer for construction makes no sense economically, unless it’s a move to punish or inhibit a traditionally free enterprise group of employers, who make up a huge, huge component of this particular sector.

We run the risk of hiking costs and delaying projects, such as condo developments, apartment buildings, residential homes. This certainly will not do anything toward the often-stated motto of this government — that of making life more affordable for British Columbians. In fact, it will go in the other direction.

It’s a disappointment that the minister chose to ignore his handpicked panel to review and make recommendations around this particular area. They suggested a major change to these open borders, when one union could try to go take over another, and the minister has not accepted the recommendation. They wanted it moved from every year to once every three years, which would place the raid period at what is normally the last year of a collective agreement. There are exceptions to that, of course. This was rejected by the minister, and open periods will now come every year after the first contract is renewed.

This speaks to problems with regard to stability. Certainly, one doesn’t have to be too imaginative to contemplate scenarios where there are still several months, maybe two years or more, on an existing contract. And if there’s been a successful raid, all of a sudden, the existing collective agreement is not necessarily the law of the land anymore, and a new agreement can be ushered in. So that’s problematic.

There are other pieces in here that are worthy of exploring further in third reading at the committee stage. There might be issues around, basically, moving education away from being an essential service in B.C. I mean, that is certainly a complex one. But we’ve all gone through way too much for way too long in terms of problems in the education sector. We’ve seen too many arbitrator-imposed contracts. Contracts have to be ushered in under the government, an end to negotiated settlements delivered by different governments.

On this side of the House, we believe that the key word here is “balance.” We need a balanced approach that is respectful to workers, that is respectful to employers and is a successful approach for labour relations. It works for workers. It works for employers. It works for the province and everybody in it. I, for one, look forward to ensuring the conversation continues with an eye toward ensuring that we have a balance when we do get to the committee stage.

With that, I thank you for my time.

[5:55 p.m.]

A. Weaver: It gives me great pleasure to rise and take my place in the debates on second reading of Bill 30, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2019.

Ending the pendulum swings that have defined labour policy for the past 30 years or so in British Columbia has been a priority for the B.C. Greens. The proposed amendments to the labour relations code are, in our view, a step forward in the right direction — a step forward to reaching balance that’s required, while also enhancing the important protection for workers.

British Columbians deserve to expect certainty and stability in labour policy. That is precisely what our caucus has advocated for all along. For the past 30 years, labour policy in B.C. has been defined by pendulum swings between Liberal and NDP governments. Through our consultation with government, we made it clear that progressive changes are needed to protect workers through moderate, evidence-based policy adjustments. We were thrilled and delighted to work with government to move that forward.

The basic starting point for this was the expert panel review that government commissioned. That panel made balanced and thoughtful recommendations on updating the labour code that are reflected in this legislation. We conveyed to government that we support the recommendations of the expert panel in their entirety.

One of the things that the expert panel talked about was the secret ballot. Retaining the secret ballot while shortening the time frame for a vote from ten to five business days and enacting stronger protections against employer interference, in our view, is a reasonable path forward to maintain balance in the workplace and to ensure that workers are protected as they exercise their choice as to whether or not they wish to unionize.

We support the other significant provisions in this legislation as well. They take important steps forward to better protect workers and to ensure balance in the workplaces. The changes we’re seeing here include extending successorship provisions to protect workers in a number of sectors — I’ll expand on that later — reducing the disruption caused by frequent raids by modifying the open periods, and removing education as an essential service — although that, too, I’ll come to later.

Let’s go back to what the bill does. I’ll start with union certification to provide some context.

The bill retains a secret ballot while making a number of changes to strengthen the regime to ensure that the votes take place in an environment free from interference. The key elements of this regime are canvassed below.

Retains a secret ballot. One of the most contentious issues in labour relations over the past three decades has been precisely that — retention of the secret ballot. As the panel noted, there have been four swings on the code on this issue. Basically, every time government switches from one to the other, the secret ballot comes or gets taken out. Ending these pendulum swings, for us, was critical. A reason why that’s important is that if you start to have these pendulum swings, all sorts of other things start to change as well.

Now, I note that not everybody is pleased that the secret ballot remains. We know that the overwhelming majority of British Columbians support the secret ballot. We know — and I know from the exchanges of emails, letters and phone calls and the conversations I’ve had — that a large number, if not the majority, of union workers actually support the secret ballot as well, including some leaders in the field.

We know that the issue of a secret ballot is one that’s very easy to defend. But in that context, we also recognize that there have been examples, particularly with the extended time of ten days, of employer interference and intimidation. This is why we felt that it’s important to retain a secret ballot while supporting the recommendations of the panel to do so, as well as to support recommendations to shorten the time. Clearly, I recognize that certain of the union leadership are really in favour of the secret ballot because, for example, we know that as reported by the panel, the success rate in card check is about 9 percent higher than under a secret ballot. Again, you can imagine….

[6:00 p.m.]

While we hear stories, often, about how the employer has intimidated workers…. It’s true. No doubt, it’s true. There are lots of examples, and these have been brought to me. There are examples of shenanigans that have gone on as certification drives start. We start to have a bunch of new employees hired who vote against it. There are all sorts of shenanigans that have gone on, and I appreciate that. At the same time, I’ve also been conveyed stories of intimidation to actually sign cards as well. So it’s actually a good thing, I think.

The fair compromise we’ve got here is where we shorten the time frame, which mitigates the ability of employers to interfere in a certification drive or a secret ballot but at the same time ensures that workers have the right to express themselves free from external influence as they mark an X.

The panel also noted that secret ballots are integral to our democratic political system. They also recognize, as I do, that certification votes take place in the context of power imbalances between employers and workers. So protections are necessary, as I noted, to ensure the vote is conducted in a fair way and employees are able to exercise their choice to join a union, or not — from all interference.

The panel found, in the majority decision…. It wasn’t unanimous; it was 2 to 1. The majority decision was that the secret ballot “is the most consistent with our democratic norms, protects the fundamental right of freedom of association and choice.” Those are the words of the panel.

The panel said that it’s important to keep the secret ballot, paired with updates to the code that “effectively limit and fully remediate unlawful interference,” and that ultimately is why we supported retention of the secret ballot. Hopefully, as we move forward, we recognize that this is not what everyone wanted and that there are those in the union movement who still, and continue to, pressure for a card-check certification.

We hope that the balance here is such that if government were to switch, we might actually collectively agree that this labour code can preserve, and that would preserve stability in labour in British Columbia, which I think would be a good thing.

The bill strengthens rules to restrict what is lawful communication during an organizing drive or certification application through repealing and replacing section 8 of the act. The current section establishes a broad right for employers to communicate as long as they do not use intimidation or coercion, and therein lies the difficulty. There is process, but actually determining what is viewed as intimidation or coercion can be somewhat difficult and requires some additional oversight.

What’s happening now, of course, is that these words are being replaced with narrower language recommended by the panel, allowing persons to communicate “a statement of fact or opinion reasonably held.” That’s important. We don’t want to limit the ability of free speech or the conveyance of facts and opinions that are reasonable. However, intimidation tactics like, “If you vote for this, you’re going to be fired,” or intimidation tactics whereby, in a workforce of maybe eight people in the place, all of a sudden nine temporary foreign workers show up, and suddenly you’re outnumbered there…. These kinds of things, we believe, are actually forms of undermining the democratic process of allowing individuals to unionize.

The change was a recommendation of the panel as part of their recommendation on restricting employer communication with employees during organization, so we’re pleased that government has adopted that. As I noted, currently the language in the code allows broader employee communications during an organizing drive or certification application in every other Canadian jurisdiction. Again, this is something that we believe is not balanced, and what is happening in this legislation is that balance is restored in British Columbia.

The pendulum is not swinging, and this is what I am most pleased about. I don’t view this as a pendulum swinging from the far right to the far left yet again. I view this as the pendulum stopping in the middle in a balanced fashion to ensure that labour policy changes moving forward are ones that reflect the importance of protecting the workers’ rights to unionize as well as to ensure that the employer has a chance to convey information in a manner that’s factual as opposed to framed in intimidation.

This change, actually, that’s happening returns the code to the pre-2002 language in some sense. In the words of the panel: “This would be consistent with virtually all other Canadian jurisdictions and strikes the appropriate balance between employer speech and the prevention of undue interference with employee choice.”

[6:05 p.m.]

The bill also provides the Labour Relations Board with broader discretion to impose union certification when an employer is found to have unduly interfered with the certification process. That, too, is something we’re proud to support, because, again, of the threat of the big stick. You never want to use the big stick. The big stick is something that you have on the side that you hope to never use. But if there is no stick, often people can move forward, recognizing there are no consequences for their behaviour. But now there are such consequences.

Combined with the shorter time period, retention of the secret ballot, the improved regulations in terms of employer communications as well as the ability of the Labour Relations Board to step in if the employer is unduly influencing the certification process, we think this strikes a fair balance — a balance articulated by the committee, brought forward by government — and hopefully, we can unanimously support this in this House.

Section 5 of the bill allows the Labour Relations Board to certify a union when there has been a prohibited act, if the board believes it is just and equitable. This section also lowers the threshold required for remedial certification. Previously, the board had to determine that the union would likely have obtained the support it needed if not for the prohibited act. That’s a very difficult test.

How can you say…? The employer does something — let’s suppose, hypothetically — through messaging and communication that unduly influenced people. The union would have to prove to the Labour Relations Board that this act, this form of communication, if it had not occurred, would otherwise have allowed the union process to go through.

That’s a difficult bar to set. I, again, don’t believe that that’s a very big stick at all. In fact, frankly, I think it’s not even a twig. That’s, basically, not very prohibitive at all.

Again, we are pleased that the threshold required for remedial certification has been lowered. The board simply has to be satisfied that the prohibited act did occur and that it’s just and equitable to order remedial certification — a fair process, as recommended by the panel.

As I mentioned, the bill also shortens the requirements for the time between an application for union certification and an employee vote. It was ten days. Now it’s going to move to five business days. Five business days. Basically, it has to happen in one week. It also specifies that mail votes can only be conducted if agreed by both the employer and the union and the board is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist to require a mail-in vote.

Again, both these changes were recommended by the panel. The shorter time frame limits the opportunity for improper interference while permitting sufficient time to arrange the vote. It also allows employees time, in a protected environment, to decide whether or not to join said union.

The change actually aligns British Columbia more consistently with other jurisdictions in Canada, most of which have time limits of five business days or seven business days. Ontario recently made the change to five days, excluding holidays and weekends, which is, in essence, five business days.

To the issue of successorship. Let’s start with what the bill does. The bill now extends the issue of successorship protection to re-tendering of service contracts in specific areas or future areas that may be prescribed by regulation. These include building, cleaning, janitorial services, security services, bus transportation services, non-clinical services in the health care sector and food services.

This goes slightly beyond what the panel recommended. The panel recommended successorship protections to most of these sectors, and government also added the food services outside of the health care sector, in addition to the panel’s recommendation. We support that.

A very real example you might imagine is at YVR, Vancouver International Airport. When you have service workers in the food sector being employed by one contractor and then the bidding process comes up again and some other contractor undercuts and wins the bid, claiming it’s going to deliver the services at a lower cost, the only way they can do it is to rehire back the same people at lower wages. This is not fair, nor is this right.

We don’t believe that the tendering process should undermine the ability of the people who’ve been there for many, many years to actually retain their job or build on their seniority. Ultimately, they are the heart of the food sector, and were they to not be given this protection and a new contract comes in, all their benefits are gone. All their salary negotiations have gone. They have to start again. That’s not right.

[6:10 p.m.]

The panel actually recommended a measured approach that addresses the problem in an incremental, sustainable manner. In fact, their exact words were: “…a measured approach that addresses the problem in an incremental, sustainable manner. Successorship protection should be extended to re-tendering of contracts for specified services.”

They gave some examples. There may be other examples that we haven’t thought through, but again, you can imagine security services or janitorial services, health care, food services. To have a new contract bid and having the same workers doing the same job just a day later now, suddenly, having to take a salary cut because the new contract came in at a lower bid…. Ultimately, it threw those workers under the bus. If they want their job, they have to take a pay cut. That’s not right.

The employers recommended a conservative, measured approach to any extension of successorship protections. The code, section 35, already provides that collective bargaining rights and obligations are assumed by a successor employer where a business, or part of it, is sold, leased, transferred or otherwise disposed of.

The changes outlined in this bill will have a huge impact on the lives of many people. Often these are people who are working at the lower end of the wage spectrum. That means that these workers will be able to build up fair wages and job security over years of hard work and dedication. They won’t see those stripped away when contracts are re-tendered.

There was a story from the Globe and Mail where a woman named Mary Jane Bayangos, who works as a contractor cleaning B.C. Hydro’s downtown Vancouver headquarters, said the low-wage workers like her desperately need the proposed changes. Mary Jane said in the Globe article that her wages at her previous second job, cleaning nearby St. Paul’s Hospital, temporarily lowered when the complex’s cleaning contract flipped four years ago, and she was rehired to do the same job for less pay.

She says this. I quote directly from the Globe: “‘It was very stressful, fearing losing our job and our benefits,’ she told the Globe and Mail. ‘I had co-workers who were close to retirement age. If we lose our jobs, they cannot just look for another job that quick.’” Can you imagine? You’ve been working there for 20 years, and you’re the age of 62. That’s just not fair.

According to the review panel, what they said is: “When contracts are re-tendered, often the same workforce continues to provide the same service to the same customers or clients with the same working conditions at the same location using the same equipment. The existing collective agreement ends, the employees are required to reapply for their jobs, the union is required to organize the workforce, and a new collective agreement must be negotiated.”

Several Canadian jurisdictions have realized long ago that this isn’t right, and they’ve enacted successorship provisions dealing with the contracting out and contract re-tendering. For example, Nova Scotia authorizes a successorship declaration where an employer contracts out or agrees to transfer a bargaining unit in order to defeat or undermine collective bargaining rights or avoid collective agreement observations.

For many years — not currently, though — Saskatchewan extended successorship to building cleaning, food services and security services provided in a building owned by a provincial or municipal government or in a hospital, university or other public institution. They unfortunately don’t have it now, but it’s similar to what is being proposed here in B.C.

The Canada labour code provides limited protection for employee remuneration when contracts are re-tendered in security or other designated services. In the case of Ontario, they recently re-enacted successor rights when contracts are tendered and re-tendered in the building cleaning, food services and home care sectors with provisions for extension by order-in-council to other service providers that directly or indirectly receive public funds.

Coming to the issue of education as an essential service, section 16 of this bill removes education as an essential service, instead keeping only the reference to whether a dispute poses a threat to health, safety or welfare of British Columbians. The panel actually recommended removing education as an essential service. The panel found that the reference to the education programs in the act is very vague and overly broad. Instead, they found that: “Restricting essential services to prevent immediate and serious danger to the health, safety or welfare of B.C. residents is more consistent with the nature and purposes of essential service designations; legislation in other Canadian jurisdictions; and the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada.”

[6:15 p.m.]

Those were the views of the expert panel that were so succinctly worded in the document that they provided publicly to government and others.

Education services may well be…. Frankly, all of us would consider them essential to the betterment of the next generation of citizenship. Aspects of educational services would still be captured within legislation. For example, grade 12 exams. They’d still be captured by the board’s interpretation of the term “welfare” in its decision on what constitutes an essential service. That justifies a restriction on striking.

Historical changes. We should note that in 1992, the code amendments adopted the 1992 report recommendations that education be removed as an essential service, and the board subsequently concluded that some elements of educational services could be included in the term “welfare.” For example, final exams for grade 12 students. In 2002, section 72 was amended to expressly refer to the provision of educational programs to students and children.

In conclusion, I would argue that this is a very fair and balanced piece of legislation. It’s focused primarily on implementing the recommendations of the expert panel, and it will better ensure fairness and balance in workplaces in the interests of both workers and employers. However, while these amendments are necessary adjustments, in our view, to existing labour law, they fail to address some of the more fundamental challenges facing our economy. Those will continue, and my colleagues from Cowichan Valley and Saanich North and the Islands will address this in more detail when we get to that section.

What continues to be missing from the conversation is a focus on how we can adapt our labour laws to support people grappling with the changing nature of work. From increases in precarious gig-based jobs to the increasing use of contractors instead of employees, British Columbians are dealing with huge changes to job stability and income security, and our laws, frankly, aren’t keeping up. We continue to look forward to working with government to ensure that we are responding to the changes in workplaces that British Columbians are facing.

I look forward to the deliberations at committee stage of this legislation and supporting the advancement of good, balanced labour code public policy in British Columbia. I want to thank the minister, who was very gracious in his discussions and deliberations with our caucus. I wish to thank the ministerial staff, who we met with frequently, and the many, many thousands upon thousands of British Columbians who emailed us, both in support of and in opposition to the issue of card check versus secret ballot.

I think the legislation has got it right. I’m very pleased to support this. I think British Columbians overall, looking back on this — some won’t be happy, some will be very happy, some will be upset. This is a balanced piece of legislation. We’re delighted to support it. I look forward to further deliberations as we move forward.

Hon. J. Sims: It’s my pleasure today to rise and support the legislation that amends the labour relations code. Before I start, I really want to thank the Minister of Labour for the very extensive and expansive consultation that took place and for listening to the experts who convened and discussed this at length.

We all know that the labour code needed some changes. It’s been pretty stagnant since ’92. We know that legislation, especially in the area of labour and labour relations, always needs to be reviewed as time goes by. That’s why I’m also pleased to see that built into the legislation is an ongoing review every five years. I really believe that is a very, very good thing.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Minister Bains took the job that he was charged with very, very seriously. As my colleague the Leader of the Third Party just said, what he has presented here in this legislation is fair. It’s balanced. It’s well-thought-out. I cannot imagine anybody in the House, on either side of the House, taking offence at the changes that are being recommended here.

[6:20 p.m.]

I’ll start off with talking about the union certification changes. We know that there are two polarities in this. There are people who wanted a simple card check; there are those who felt very passionate about the secret ballot. This goes to the work that was done by the Minister of Labour with all parties — not just labour but the business community and public at large, as well — where he has actually produced what creates a balance.

There were concerns of undue influence by the employer to try to change people’s minds, because there was such a long time for the voting to take place. So that time period has now been reduced to five days, which is a good thing. I think I remember reading an article by somebody in the business community today, acknowledging that this is a balanced approach.

On the other hand, we heard very loud and clear from our colleagues in the Third Party, as well as others, about the importance of keeping the secret ballot. So it’s no secret where many people would have liked for us to have gone on this, but I believe this is a good compromise. It addresses the two polarities, builds a bridge and gives us a spot that addresses the needs of both.

Shortening the timeline between the application and the employee vote taking place certainly will address some of the concerns about the length of time that was there — not that I would ever say that any employer would ever try to influence that secret vote or anything. But I think that is the perception and the feeling that many might have out there, and we have to pay close attention to that.

The two-step process of a card check followed by a secret ballot remains, as I said. And that is, once again, a good thing. It’s a good compromise.

The other idea that really piqued my interest in this is an area that I am very closely aligned to. There is no secret that I’m a teacher, and I come from the teaching profession. I have spent a lot of my time in the world of education. So I do know that when all educational programs were declared to be an essential service, it was very, very hard for anybody to come to fathom that, because the term was so all-encompassing.

Even the Supreme Court of Canada, in 2015, in their ruling, did say that the right to strike is constitutionally protected and that essential services — and this is in the UN declaration, the international labour laws, as well as in the courts — should be limited to “clear and imminent threat to the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population.”

Nobody is as passionate as I am about public education and the importance of public education and how education is the very foundation of our democracy. But I think when we’re looking at legislation, when we’re talking about essential services, we do have to take into consideration what essential service was meant to address.

Let me say that every one of us on this side of the House really recognizes the value of our public education, how foundational it is to our democracy and to our democratic institutions and how important it is for us to invest in public education and make sure that our children get the very best education that is possible — that every child, no matter whether they were born here or whether they come from somewhere else, does get to receive a quality public education that helps them to live their dreams.

With that, Mr. Speaker — I am very good at picking up the signs — I would like to move a motion to adjourn debate and reserve my right to speak at the next meeting.

Hon. J. Sims moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

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

Hon. D. Eby moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:25 p.m.