Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call, in this chamber, second reading on Bill M206, Residential Tenancy Amendment Act. In Committee A, the Douglas Fir Room, I call Bill 26, the Financial Services Authority Act. In Committee C, the Birch Room, I call the continued estimates debate on the Ministry of Health.

Just to remind people, in Committee A, Douglas Fir Room, that is committee stage on Bill 26.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL M206 — RESIDENTIAL TENANCY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

S. Chandra Herbert: I rise to resume my place in the debate of the legislation brought forward by my colleague from Oak Bay, the amendments to the Residential Tenancy Act.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

These amendments make it so that currently, if you and your partner are in an abusive relationship and one of you needs to get out of that relationship, potentially breaking a lease, you’re not going to be held to pay the entire lease and be stuck in that location. That’s the way the legislation is currently, and I think it’s a good thing to have.

When that amendment was made, a number of us argued that such protection should also be extended to…. Maybe it’s a neighbour who has been abusive. Maybe it’s the landlord, a building manager. Maybe it’s a roommate. There are a number of situations now, particularly as housing is so unaffordable for many people, where you have multiple people sharing a house. So I think the amendment puts in place a situation where, if you are stuck in that sort of abusive, violent relationship with an occupant of the same home or a building that you’re living in, you can leave that situation. You’re not stuck.

I think one of the things that often, I’m told, keeps people trapped in these relationships is (1) they have no money to be able to go out and seek other housing and (2) they don’t have the money to be able to pay two rents. So paying the rent for the home you’re leaving, the abusive situation, where you’re having to leave from somebody who has made it unsafe and untenable for you to be there…. You don’t have the money to pay for both, and you’re just stuck in a horrible situation.

[1:35 p.m.]

I know that constituents of mine have raised issues where they’ve been in situations that they want to be able to leave but feel that they can’t for reasons of finances, for reasons of being able to get a new place. If you break a lease, sometimes that gets you a bad name, and then you don’t have the reference to be able to move into other housing.

I want to thank the member for bringing this forward. It’s a good amendment. I think it will make people’s lives a bit better in situations that can be absolutely horrendous. No question.

Obviously, we as a legislature have a duty and we as a society have a duty to be doing more to reduce violence and to help people figure their way through situations without the harassment, the abuse and the kinds of things that people too often are subjected to. Also, unfortunately, some people have only learned that way because of growing up in abusive households as well.

We have a duty to educate. We have a duty to enforce the law to make sure that people realize that there is no excuse. There’s no “get out of jail free” card, so to speak, for abusing a partner.

We do need to create a situation where the victims have a chance to escape that violence too. It’s not enough to just focus on the perpetrator. We also need to be looking to make sure that the people stuck in these situations have a clearer pathway to freedom, a clearer pathway to a better life and a clearer pathway to get away from that violence so they can rebuild their lives.

Thank you to the minister, who I understand will be speaking later on this. I want to thank her for her work to improve the Residential Tenancy Act in general. This is a very specific amendment which will help a very specific group of people, but the minister, I know, has been looking to the bigger sequence of rental housing and everyone involved. We’ve been able to make great changes together to help renters, and I think this is yet another in what will be a long, long, long list of changes that have improved lives for renters and, actually, improved lives for landlords as well.

I thank the member for raising this. I thank the minister for her work and the House for, hopefully, supporting this legislation.

S. Cadieux: I’m pleased to take my place and speak to Bill M206, the Residential Tenancy Amendment Act, 2019.

If we go back a few years, as the member from Oak Bay stated during his opening statement today on the bill, the former government passed an amendment to the Residential Tenancy Act to allow tenants that were fleeing family violence to end their fixed-term tenancy early. That was, I think, a good step and a good change.

At that time, it wasn’t…. Despite requests and the urging of the anti-violence sector, the measure wasn’t extended to victims of sexual assault or other forms of violence. I think, perhaps, that was an oversight, and I think that it is time that this amendment be made, this adjustment to the act. The reality is that most sexual assault takes place at a home. Therefore, for those victims, home never feels safe again.

This amendment to the Residential Tenancy Act that was made in 2015 essentially, then, created a hierarchy of victims, supporting one over another. I don’t believe that was the intent at all, but I do believe it was the result.

The B.C. Greens have introduced an amendment — I believe this is now twice they’ve introduced this bill — to right the wrong, adding sexual assault, as it ends up in the bill, under the definition of “occupant violence” to extend the opportunity for victims to end a fixed-term lease early so that they can feel safe in their home, which I think is immensely important.

We know that 40 percent of women in Canada have been sexually assaulted. We know that less than 8 percent of women typically report that assault to the police. We know, therefore, the numbers that are reflected in our crime statistics are not always reflective of the actual circumstances.

[1:40 p.m.]

A lot of women still suffer in silence. We know that those victims suffer a multitude of issues stemming from that trauma: not feeling safe, not trusting, difficulty concentrating, difficulty maintaining their employment. They may have physical scars as well and need medical treatment — all of this while dealing with the fact that they have been violated and there is a fear that sits with them, in many cases, forevermore.

Not feeling safe at home shouldn’t be one of those things, and the ability, financially, to not leave a circumstance should not be a burden. So I would say, ultimately, that we support this change. We support the idea that tenants should have the right to end a tenancy to escape violence and abuse. While we do that, I think it’s also important that we are cautious and that we ask all the right questions in moving forward with such an amendment. So there are, I think, things to consider when we add something this significant to the bill.

We need to think about…. Are there appropriate administrative supports for those who are going to seek what will be a legal option to end a lease? Has that been considered? What will that look like? I think that we’ll want to seek, perhaps, some clarity at committee stage on how the rules will apply practically. How have they applied practically with the amendment that was made in 2015 for victims of domestic violence? What supports will accompany the legislation to ensure that people can, in fact, take advantage of this should they have a requirement to do so, and do so, again, safely and without adding additional burden?

I think that’s really important when we’re talking about doing the right thing for victims, the right thing for women, who are most usually the larger proportion of victims in this circumstance. But as the definition of occupant violence is quite broad, there may be other circumstances that expand who might be eligible and who might choose to use this. I think we should take that seriously and think about what the consequences are and what the costs associated with this are. Are, in fact, those supports available to people through a mechanism that is readily available and that people are going to be aware of?

It would seem unfortunate if we were to make a change to assist people only for them not to know that that change exists and that they could, in fact, take advantage of it, should they need to. I think that’s important, and we’ll have some questions at committee stage related to that, certainly.

On the whole, I am supportive of the amendment and the bill that’s before us, brought forward by the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, and I appreciate that he has done so.

Hon. S. Robinson: I rise in the House today to support Bill M206, the Residential Tenancy Amendment Act, 2019.

Everyone should feel safe in their home. If you’re not safe in your home, then it’s not a home. This piece of legislation before us is an example of an issue that everyone…. Regardless of which side of the House they sit on, I know that all members care deeply about this.

Currently under the Residential Tenancy Act, a renter can end a fixed-term tenancy if they are at risk of family violence or have been admitted into long-term care. For women who are trying to leave an abusive relationship, we know that this is the most vulnerable time for a woman, especially for a woman with children. It is when they are most at risk of harm. It is when there is the greatest risk for fatality. It is when she decides to leave an abusive relationship.

[1:45 p.m.]

That’s the time when we need to be doing our utmost to help these vulnerable women. So that currently exists, but I do want to take a moment to express gratitude and appreciation for the Leader of the Third Party, because this bill would expand upon those provisions for people who experience physical, sexual, psychological or emotional abuse from a non-family member. So it’s others. We know that violence can occur outside of a family situation — or the risk of vio­lence — and a sense of personal safety could be threat­ened by others.

This bill serves to address that. This amendment serves to address those sorts of situations. What it would do…. It would allow renters to end their fixed-term tenancy if staying in their rental unit is at the risk of their security, for their safety or for their physical well-being. It would expand the current provisions to address violence against roommates or their dependents. We know that under the current living situations, people are taking on more roommates. It’s part of how people are getting through a housing crisis, a crisis that ran rampant for a number of years. So in order to make ends meet, people are taking in roommates. That can create a bit of extra risk.

I appreciate the fact that the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head is paying particular attention to that particular issue. Now, this bill, I have to say, aligns with government’s commitment to take a stand against violence, to strengthen protection for vulnerable people here in British Columbia. I also want to thank West Coast LEAF and the Ending Violence Association of B.C. for their work on this bill. I know that, as stakeholders, they were consulted, and this was some of the work that they’d put forward.

I also want to thank them, those particular groups, for the opportunity to suggest further ways to strengthen the Residential Tenancy Act so that we have further protections for renters in British Columbia. When we’re all living through a situation where there’s a near-zero vacancy rate, it’s really important that we find ways to make sure that people are safe in their tenancies and that they have a real sense of security — not just of tenancy but of their personal safety, which is critically important. So I’m really pleased to support these amendments. I know our government is very pleased to support these amendments brought forward by the member.

I also want to take this opportunity, hon. Speaker, to thank several other members who’ve done significant work around residential tenancy in general. In particular, I’d like to thank the member for Vancouver–West End, the member for Courtenay-Comox and the member for Saanich North and the Islands.

These three members toured the province and really listened, listened really well, to what tenants and landlords were saying about the important relationship between landlords and tenants and where those relationships were breaking down, making some recommendations about how we fix that and how we identify ways to make sure that that relationship is working as best it can, because they’re in an interdependent relationship. Renters need landlords, and landlords need renters. Together, there’s real opportunity to have a good life for everybody.

They went around and listened to people right across the province and made 25 recommendations. I’m proud we’re addressing all of those so that we can make this relationship work better. We’re going to continue to identify ways to make this relationship work as best it can.

Now, I heard from…. The previous member had talked about, was querying and will bring up at committee stage the administrative support for this. I’m very proud of our government’s investment. When we got this ministry, one of the first things we did was infuse significant resources into the residential tenancy branch, which was completely under-resourced. We brought forward $7 million, and with that, we’ve hired a significant number of information officers as well as an enforcement and compliance unit. Through these information officers, we’ve reduced wait times on every single front at the residential tenancy branch.

These information officers are tasked with making sure that everyone understands the rules. In this case, I want to assure the member that these information officers will absolutely be available to make sure that everybody understands what the opportunities are to enhance their safety, making sure that should this bill come to fruition, there is a way to make themselves safe. They can leave their fixed-term tenancy. That’s because we made sure that there are people to help others navigate what can often be complex legislation.

[1:50 p.m.]

With that, I look forward to hearing others participate in the debate.

S. Furstenau: I’m also grateful and proud to be speaking to the second reading of this Green caucus private member’s bill, the Residential Tenancy Amendment Act, 2019.

As noted by my colleague, the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head, this amends the Residential Tenancy Act to provide tenants with the ability to end their fixed-term lease if staying in their rental unit is a threat to their safety or security. It expands on the family violence provisions that currently exist for victims of domestic abuse to include, for example, someone who is sexually assaulted by their roommate or neighbour so that they also have the right to break their lease so they can move to a safer home.

The 2015 addition of family violence to the Residential Tenancy Act was an important amendment made by the B.C. Liberals, and they did a great job of drafting the supporting regulations. As noted at its introduction by members from all parties, however, by focusing specifically on family violence, others were left out.

Family violence describes violence inflicted on those in relationships or living within a family unit. While vitally important to protect anyone who might be in that situation — family violence makes up approximately 25 percent of all reported crimes in Canada — we must also ensure we correct the unintentional hierarchy of victims’ rights that was created.

Other forms of household violence remain prevalent in B.C. and disproportionately impact marginalized communities. The Ending Violence Association of B.C. estimates there are approximately 60,000 incidents of sexual and domestic violence in British Columbia each year — over 1,000 cases a week. In the majority of cases, that violence happens in the home.

Regardless of who the perpetrator is, whether your husband or your neighbour, you should have the right to break your fixed-term lease and seek safety. Based on comments made during the 2015 debate, I’m sure all members will agree, and I’m glad our office could be of service in moving this forward. Although simple in its structure, this bill will have a significant impact on the people who need it.

When I was 20 years old, I moved to Victoria. I didn’t know anybody here. I used the newspaper classified ads to look for a roommate situation because I couldn’t afford an apartment by myself. I did indeed find an apartment and had come out with my brother before moving here, and we interviewed the roommate, who seemed like a very nice person. He worked as a youth worker. It was a two-bedroom apartment.

For the first month or so, everything was just fine. Then about two months into the rental arrangement, I woke up in the middle of the night, and this person was in my room. I no longer felt safe in my home, and I needed very quickly to find a way to get into a new home where I would feel safe. Fortunately, I had the support of family to provide me with the resources that I needed to be able to pay what I needed to get out of that lease and to find a new place to live where I could feel safe and secure. So I have a very personal experience with a situation like this. While nothing happened, I certainly lost a sense of security in my home, and a home is not a home if you cannot feel safe and secure there.

For people who are assaulted in their home, the implications of that shift from a home to the scene of a crime are profound. A space that was once a comfort can come to feel haunted with flashbacks of the crime and visions of the perpetrator lurking and quick to surface. Worst-case scenario is fraught with risk of a repeated assault or death; best case is filled with nightmares and panic attacks. Some victims are able to reclaim their space, but many others will need to move to start again. At the very least, they deserve the right to choose which option is best for them.

I’m proud to be supporting a bill that will give survivors the freedom to seek safety, security and the space needed to heal. No one should be forced to live in close proximity with their perpetrator, and this bill supports survivors.

M. Dean: I am very proud to rise and speak in support of this amendment, Bill M206. I thank the leader of the Green Party for moving the amendment.

[1:55 p.m.]

What the bill does is it amends the Residential Tenancy Act. It provides tenants with the ability to end their fixed-term lease if staying in their rental unit is a threat to their safety or their security. It gives, for example, someone who’s sexually assaulted by their landlord or their neighbour the right to break their lease so that they can move somewhere safe.

Before I speak in more detail about the amendment, I do want to say thank you, in particular, to the organizations that have helped us move towards this positive amendment as well. In particular, West Coast LEAF and the Ending Violence Association of B.C. Because of their work, because of their ongoing research, because of their ongoing connection with stakeholders and understanding of issues related to interpersonal violence, sexual assault and sexual violence, we’re able to actually really have a good basis of evidence and proposals and solutions to be able to move forward on as legislators.

Even LandlordBC was also contacted and expressed support for the policy. And I’m hearing, in general, support in this House for this amendment.

Ultimately, no one should have to choose between shelter and safety. Nobody should feel that they have to stay in a vulnerable, revictimized, targeted or exploitative situation just because of a financial impact. Anyone can be a victim of abuse. We have to recognize, as well, though, that particular populations are targeted more to be abused.

Violence and sexual assault occur close to home. Everyone is entitled to feel safe in their own home, yet we also know that the home is the most dangerous place for women. It’s where women do experience violence. They do experience sexual assaults. Across their lifetime, the majority of women will experience some kind of sexual or physical violence.

What we need to do here, in our duties and our roles in this House, is to be able to create choices, to create protections, to identify vulnerabilities and to be able to make sure that we can offer alternatives so that people aren’t revictimized and re-traumatized.

Victims of violence and sexual assault are already struggling with the harmful impacts of those experiences. They’re often struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. And being in close proximity with someone who has abused you can cause you increased anxiety, lower functionality. It can be retriggering, make you more vulnerable, make you feel less confident. It could potentially impact lots of areas of your development and your self-esteem.

When making decisions about what pathways might be available after having been assaulted, people should be empowered to be able to make healthy choices. They shouldn’t be tied to financial dependency. That increases the risk of revictimization and exploitation.

This amendment provides that opportunity. In fact, we know in cases of domestic violence, for example, that risk of injury or death actually increases if a violent partner learns that their spouse has contacted the police or is planning on leaving. So we have to offer very safe routes and options for people to be able to make safe choices.

This is the moment when we need to use the powers that we have in these chambers to ensure that we offer protective opportunities. This amendment offers renters the opportunity to cancel their long-term lease without penalty when their safety is at risk. It offers them a healthier and safer choice.

I’ll give you an example, hon. Speaker, as well, when you look at the affordability crisis and the housing crisis in our province. Recently people have actually been taking in roommates and may be living in closer proximity with people, and more and more British Columbians are doing this. Yet that can also increase the risk, because people can be targeted. People see adverts for sharing a room and becoming a roommate with someone else. That’s where there can actually be an increase in risk because some people will target vulnerable people and people who are clearly vulnerable because they need some support and some help in paying the rent for where they want to live.

[2:00 p.m.]

Anyone could be a target for sexual assault in their building. For example, there are over 1,000 incidents of sexual assault a week. And anyone abused would be at risk close to their home and vulnerable and not feel safe in their home if they had been abused close to their home.

There’s also a section that aims to make it explicitly clear that the regulations listing which professionals and practitioners are authorized to provide a confirmation have the same powers in cases involving household violence. The written third-party verification can be provided by police, listed medical practitioners, counsellors, First Nations support workers, victim support workers, among others.

Having regulations that extend verification powers beyond law enforcement is vital, because not all survivors will be able or will be willing to report to the police. We know most abuse is not reported when it happens, so verification shouldn’t be reliant on police professionals or even on having reported to the police.

I’d like to take this opportunity to reinforce the work that our government is doing to empower women to reduce violence and to create safer communities. We’ve increased funding for services supporting people experiencing inter-partner violence. We’ve been investing in modern sexual assault centre services. So my support for this amendment is reinforcing our commitment to actually creating safer communities in British Columbia.

Again, to conclude, I’d like to thank the Ending Violence Association of B.C.; West Coast LEAF; the Leader of the Green Party; the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who has been listening to people from British Columbia and who has opened her mind to ways that we can improve the Residential Tenancy Act; and the member for Vancouver–West End, as well, who has advocated strongly and supports this amendment too. I’m very proud to support this amendment.

R. Leonard: I wanted to rise in support of the amendment to the bill. Having sat on the Rental Housing Task Force, it was a very interesting experience to go around the whole province and listen to people who are renters and people who are landlords and the various concerns that they had. The amount of information that we got and the issues that people raised were myriad. But interestingly, we didn’t hear a lot about this very issue around violence and safety in the home.

That’s not unexpected, really. As the previous speaker just said, this is something that’s kept secret. This is something that’s kept hidden. This is an issue around how people try to live their lives in the best circumstance that they can. We have this opportunity to help victims of violence to find a way forward.

I move adjournment of the debate.

R. Leonard moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 26 — FINANCIAL SERVICES
AUTHORITY ACT, 2019

Bill 26, Financial Services Authority Act, 2019, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

[2:05 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call, in the Douglas Fir Room, Section A, committee on Bill 23, Land Owner Transparency Act. In this chamber, I call continued second reading debate on Bill M206, Residential Tenancy Amendment Act.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL M206 — RESIDENTIAL TENANCY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

R. Leonard: I’ll try to return to where I was. We want to return to the fact that we are dealing with a matter that is of concern but is not often brought to the surface, and that’s around the safety in the home.

This is an opportunity for us to focus on that and provide that avenue for people to seek the help that they need without fear. They’ve already got enough fear in their lives, so this is a great opportunity for us to move the dial for safety, particularly for women and children but for others who are experiencing violence in the home. It’s a place where we should feel safe and secure. We have enough stresses in life. It’s a pretty exciting time.

I wanted to just make mention of a couple of the things that are going on with the residential tenancy branch with the recommendations from the Rental Housing Task Force, which will have something to bear on this particular initiative. That’s around public education.

When people have issues and those issues grow and grow, and the number of people that have them grow and grow, then that makes our ability to regulate, to have the responsibility to adjudicate that much harder, and so many more resources are required. But our government has taken the time and put the resources in to make sure that we are looking at people’s concerns more quickly — reducing the wait times from 45-minute phone calls to five minutes. They’re working very hard to streamline the ability for people to get information, and they’re doing the outreach, too, so that people understand what their rights and responsibilities are.

That’s going to be a step after this amendment, after this bill passes. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean that people know that they have that access to help. So I’m pretty excited to see that we’ve taken some other steps that are going to be supportive.

The other aspect of it…. A few years ago, when housing first was coming on stream big time…. This is providing supportive housing to folks who are having trouble with substance use, mental health challenges, providing them housing first with the wraparound supports. There was a real emphasis on scattered housing so that people could live out in their communities.

After a year or two, the reports were coming back from some of the helping organizations like transition houses. I can’t remember exactly which one it was, but the CMHC did a report on it, saying how women were put into places where they were more vulnerable, where landlords — what’s the word — who were less than honourable, could leverage their power as landlords over some more vulnerable people.

This particular amendment helps to deal with beyond the violence that can come within a domestic situation. It can take into account others who might perpetrate violence against women in whatever form it takes.

We also have the first actions from our Rental Housing Task Force around investigation and enforcement. I can see that we have all of these tools that are starting to fall into place to give people the security that they need as tenants and, at the same time, providing the balance so that the landlords will continue to provide supply and we continue to grow our affordable housing stock.

I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to speak on this, and I look forward to the vote.

[2:10 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Leader of the Third Party will close the debate.

A. Weaver: Thank you, hon. Speaker, and thank you to the members who spoke and rose in support of this bill, in particular the member for Courtenay-Comox, who just finished; prior to that, the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, who’s the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity; the member for Cowichan Valley; the member for Surrey South; the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs. I heard all of the comments that were raised — the member for Vancouver–West End, of course — and the comments that were raised showed a remarkable agreement.

This is done in the spirit of non-partisanship, in the spirit of trying to build upon the good work that was done in 2015, when the previous government introduced protections for people seeking to flee from domestic violence. The member for Surrey South built upon that, and we’ll be debating some changes, hopefully, at some point, in an amendment in the Employment Standards Act as well.

With that, I move second reading of Bill M206.

Motion approved.

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

Bill M206, Residential Tenancy 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. B. Ralston: Acting at the moment as Government House Leader, I’m calling, in this chamber, second reading debate of Bill 30, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2019.

Deputy Speaker: This House will be in recess for five minutes.

The House recessed from 2:12 p.m. to 2:17 p.m.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

BILL 30 — LABOUR RELATIONS CODE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

Deputy Speaker: Resuming adjourned debate on Bill 30, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2019.

J. Thornthwaite: I’ve just got a few remarks on Bill 30, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act. I’d like to concur with our colleague here on the other side, the member for Chilliwack, who spoke on the bill. He’s our critic for Labour. These employment rules need to be balanced. They need to have a fair playing field for both employees and employers. Any abuse or intimidation on either side can’t be tolerated.

We’ve already seen, with legislation that has gone through with regard to the community benefits agreement and the low-wage redress, that there is an emphasis now on unionizing employees or even to force people to join a union, even if somebody doesn’t want to join a union. This bill also lacks specific details. Again, I’ll reiterate the concerns that our critic had with regard to leaving a lot of these details to regulation.

There are industries that are concerned — namely, the construction industry. I thought I would just read out an email that I got from one of my constituents, who is a businessman. Apparently, this letter has been going around courtesy of many of the chambers of commerce. Many of the businesses in British Columbia are very concerned about this bill.

I’d like to just read into the record, on behalf of my constituent, what his main concerns were. They are related to the sick leave and statutory holiday pay. “Businesses like mine have been facing mounting costs over the last two years. Increases in the minimum wage, the new employer health tax and other business costs are stunting growth and reducing businesses’ capacity for investment in our local community. Further costs to businesses resulting from gratuitous sick leave and statutory holiday pay laws would only serve to reinforce these negative trends.”

[2:20 p.m.]

He goes on to say, with regard to the B.C. Law Institute’s Employment Standards Act reform project, that the cost associated with the change to ten paid sick leaves is extremely worrying to employers like himself. This would not only go well beyond the standard across Canadian jurisdictions, but could also discourage employers from hiring additional workers and instead opt for contract arrangements. To that end, he firmly supports the current sick leave policy and asks that it remain unchanged or similar to its current incarnation.

He also wants to express his opposition to the recommendation by the committee to relax the eligibility requirements for statutory holiday pay. The new law would only require employees to work or earn wages on 16 of the 60 days preceding a statutory holiday to be eligible for statutory holiday pay, as opposed to 15 of the 30 days preceding statutory holidays that is in place currently.

Finally, he says: “Statutory holidays and paid sick leave are expensive for employers. To improve B.C.’s investment and business climate, a proper balance between promoting employee welfare and reducing business costs is crucial. When businesses do not thrive and are faced with cutting labour costs, the employees are the first to feel it. I urge you to consider the above input so that businesses in B.C. can continue to drive our economy forward with strength.” And he signs his name.

Thank you very much for allowing me to read that into the record. I wanted the minister to hear those comments from my constituent.

G. Kyllo: It’s always a privilege to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the hard-working constituents of Shuswap, specifically talking about Bill 30, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act.

I rise today to speak to Bill 30, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act. All of us in this House certainly support workers’ rights, the ability and the right of workers to come together and to associate and to bargain. It’s a fundamental value of our society. On this side of the House, we just want to be certain that the rules that are set around the labour code are right, are fair and are balanced.

The rights of workers to unionize as well as the rights of employers to inform workers about the impacts unionization could have on the workplace need to be balanced. I certainly — and I think all members would — agree that workers have the right to associate, but workers should also have the right to choose not to associate, should they choose.

Now, there are a number of pieces to Bill 30 that I think should be of concern to British Columbians. There are specific items with respect to workers’ rights to come together, to associate, the fundamental values of our society, the need for fair and balanced rules to associate and to provide the opportunity both for workers as well as employers, in order to ensure that fairness is always at the forefront and that that fair playing field is available for all.

Now, one of the concerns, I think, that we certainly have with respect to fairness…. If we have a look at some of the current undertakings or initiatives by the current government when it comes to fairness in the workplace, one example where I feel that the government is failing British Columbians when it comes to fairness is around the community benefits agreement. This is something that British Columbians should be very concerned about. As I mentioned earlier, I think that British Columbians…. Our Charter sets out the right for workers to associate, but also there should be the ability and the opportunity for workers to choose not to associate.

What the government has done with the community benefits agreement is establish a new Crown corporation that will be the employer for all workers that are working on the Highway 1 improvement projects from Kamloops to the Alberta border. This takes away the rights of workers to choose not to associate and, more specifically, sets out 19 select, handpicked unions by which any worker working on a construction site on Trans-Canada Highway 1 for a period of more than two weeks would actually be required and be forced to join one of the government’s handpicked unions.

[2:25 p.m.]

It’s no secret that those unions that have been identified are all well-known contributors and supporters of the previous government. There are specific unions that have been excluded from that opportunity to actually participate on these highway projects.

These projects are very important to British Columbians. A number of projects are going to be undertaken in my riding of Shuswap. Some of these projects were announced back in 2015, others more recently, in 2017. I think that British Columbians should all have the right to choose whether they can actually work on these very important highway projects that are in such high need right across our province. But, unfortunately, the current government is taking away the right of those workers to choose either not to associate or to choose to associate with a different trade union.

One specific trade union is the Christian Labour Association of Canada, otherwise known as CLAC. This organization represents literally tens of thousands of workers across Canada. They provide great training opportunities for their workers. Unfortunately, the current government has decided that CLAC is not one of the unions that would actually be included, and workers would not have the opportunity to actually participate with unionization of CLAC on any of these highway construction projects.

When we look at a fair and balanced approach, the current bill before the House does not provide fairness or balance when it comes to the government’s high-handed approach of actually forcing private sector companies to join one of these 19 select, handpicked unions. It also comes down to the opportunity, I think, for private sector companies to participate on these projects.

Now, government will share that private sector companies that are non-unionized have the opportunity to bid on these projects, but here, I think, is the piece that the government is failing to share with British Columbians. That is, if you have a construction company with 100 workers, and they currently are not associated with any union in the province — that’s a choice both of the company and of the workers — and if that company chooses to actually bid on one of these Highway 1 construction projects, the government is taking away their fundamental right of choice, the choice to choose not to associate.

They’re going to force that company to take all of their workers and force them to join one of the 19 select unions that the government has identified. Again, they’re just select unions. It’s not all unions in the province.

The real challenging factor is that for this company with 100 employees, they cannot guarantee work for all of their 100 employees because the hiring practices are such that when the project actually commences, the company can bring their senior management. They can appoint them. They also have the ability, then, to select off of a union list, which their employees would sit on, along with many other union members. They would be able to choose one member of their liking from that list, which I’m assuming would be one of the company’s former employees. Then they’ll have to take an employee off the list.

Let’s just think for a second about the mechanics of this. A company, a private sector contractor, that’s bidding on a project…. One of the most fundamental aspects of developing and issuing a quotation on a project is understanding the productivity and the safety record of your workers. But under this scenario that the government has actually forced upon British Columbians, the company does not have the guarantee of taking their full 100 employees.

Of their 100 employees, let’s assume they take all their management and supervisory staff. Then they’re picking one of their employees, and then one off of the union list. Let’s say they end up with only 60 of their 100 workers actually working as part of their crew. So 40 workers — they have no understanding of their productivity, their previous safety records. And 40 of their employees are now going to be sitting on a union list waiting for yet another project and hoping that they get called.

[2:30 p.m.]

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

This is absolutely so fundamentally wrong, where government’s high-handed approach is actually forcing private sector companies to join specific unions, unions that have actually supported and made financial contributions to the current government. They’re also precluding the opportunity for this company, or a company, to provide work and employment for up to 40 percent of their crew.

When we talk about fundamental rights of workers, fairness and balance, I do not see anything in this bill that in any way approaches or in any way addresses the high-handed approach, by this current government, that they’re undertaking with respect to Highway 1 construction projects. It’s absolutely offensive. Let’s flip this on its ear. Let’s just think for a minute. Could you imagine a government making a determination, for any publicly funded Highway 1 construction project, that any union organizations are unable to actually work on the jobsite?

It’s outrageous. People would be rioting in the street if a government took such a high-handed approach and actually took away the right for workers to associate or to choose to associate. But this government is actually doing the exact same thing, on the flip side of the coin, by taking away workers’ rights to have a choice, to choose either not to associate or to choose to associate with a different trade union — a trade union that may not have been necessarily so supportive of this previous government.

At the same time, we also have to look at the disrespect to the taxpayer. Government cannot give to one anything that it doesn’t first take from somebody else. It’s not government dollars; these are citizens’ dollars. These are dollars of taxpayers across British Columbia. By the Transportation Minister’s own admission…. Last fall she advised British Columbians that in her estimation, CBA requirements will add between 4 and 7 percent in cost to projects in B.C., yet we know it’s going to be significantly more than that.

If we go back to the 1990s, the Island Highway construction project was also undertaken under a similar community benefits agreement — a project labour agreement, as it was referred to in those days. The project was 27½ percent over budget. So it’s interesting that we see Bill 30 brought before the House for debate. It speaks of many changes — some of which I support — but the most important, fundamental piece of Bill 30 is the need for fairness and a balanced approach. We are not seeing that, because the government’s own actions, with respect to CBA agreements, are not reflected in this bill and, I believe, are offensive.

Yet another example: 17,000 community care workers in our province. Workers should be treated equally. Workers should have the right to not be discriminated against, yet what have we seen? Recent announcements by the government with respect to wage redress are now creating further disparity in the wages between private sector employees and unionized employees that are providing exactly the same level of care, exactly the same level of work, yet this government has discriminated against the private sector employees by providing a significant wage increase only to the unionized employees.

I have no way of understanding how the government can, in any way, justify the discrimination, the mistreatment and the disparity that they’re creating between classifications of worker by providing increased wage increases to the unionized sector and a reduced level of increase to the private sector workers. In addition to that, the government recently announced that they’ve chosen to move 4,000 private home support workers — 4,000 workers. They are not going to renew the existing contracts with the private care providers.

[2:35 p.m.]

They are going to force those 4,000 workers…. They’re not going to have a choice. They’re being forced to join the health authorities. They’re being forced to unionization and becoming part of Vancouver health, Fraser Health and Island Health. Where is the fairness? Where is the balance?

We see a government that is providing significant pay equity increases to unionized employers to the detriment and discrimination of private sector workers. They are taking another classification of workers, 4,000 workers, and forcing them, not through choice, not through an open and transparent voting system…. Government is forcing those 4,000 workers to join the unions for the various health authorities, three of which I mentioned. This should be of extreme concern to British Columbians.

Again, I go back to the respect for the taxpayer, the value for money. With these 4,000 workers that are being moved over into the health authorities…. The care that they are going to be providing will be very similar to that which is provided in the private sector. However, as soon as they move into the unions, they’ll have significant additional, increased costs for all of the benefit plans and the pension plans.

If government is looking at moving 4,000 workers from the private sector into the unionized environment…. We know — and I’m sure that the government will also have to agree — that there’s a significant increased cost associated with that, yet there are no additional dollars that are flowing with it. So what will end up happening is that there will be a reduced level of care largely for British Columbians.

As I look to Bill 30, I’m certainly looking for fairness and for balance. As I mentioned, generally speaking, I’m supportive of some of the initiatives that Bill 30 is trying to achieve. But as an official opposition, we have concerns about the lack of balance, as I’ve indicated, and some of the specific changes that are being put forward. We are, again, troubled by a piece of legislation that lacks specifics in some of the proposed changes.

Now, one of the easiest parts of the bill to support is something that actually isn’t even in the bill. That has to do with taking away the secret ballot. That’s something that I know the government was certainly quite eager to address, and I’ve got to give thanks and credit to the Green Party members and the Leader of the Third Party for the work that they have done in order to try and encourage the government to see the light on how draconian it would have been to have taken away workers’ fundamental right to have a secret ballot with respect to their choice to either unionize or not unionize.

A message came through loud and clear. There was little support, outside of traditional unions, for government’s plan to return to a card-check system, subject to abuse or worker intimidation. By listening to the input, the Minister of Labour has ensured that the democratic right of workers to choose or to reject membership in a union is protected.

The secret ballot ensures a proper balance and the protection of workers and the protection of employers. I truly hope that the government will see this as the last time for consideration of the removal of the secret ballot, and we don’t see this type of legislation try and reintroduce itself and appear next fall or in future years.

Now, the one concern we do have has to do with the reduced timeline for a certification vote. Organizations that are moving forward with respect to a union raid or that are actually looking at unionization have the benefit of timing on their side. The current regulation requires or allows for ten business days. Once a union certification vote is called, there are ten days. That provides an opportunity for the employer, who may not have had advance notification that this was forthcoming, to weigh the pros and cons and to have a respectful conversation with their workers about how a change from a non-unionized to a unionized environment may impact the business and the relationship between the workers and the employer.

[2:40 p.m.]

I did not see anything that supported the reduction in timeline from ten to five days. There have been concerns raised that during that time period, there may be an opportunity for employers to maybe strong-arm employees, but there’s regulation that sets out and clearly entertains the fact that employers are not allowed to do that. And should they be caught in undertaking any high-handed approaches, union certification would move forward.

When the benefit of timing is fully with the folks that are trying to move forward for unionization with respect to the timing, I see the reduction in timelines from ten to five days as a retraction, further emboldening the opportunity for unionization and taking away the opportunity for a more fair and balanced approach and consideration by the employer.

Now, another tilt in favour of unionization comes with new powers that are now handed to the Labour Relations Board. The minister, through this bill, seeks to provide that body with the broader ability to impose union certification when an employer is found to have unduly interfered with the certification process. But there is no balance here.

Clearly, this is stacking the deck in favour of unionizations. Where union organizers may misrepresent information to the workers or take high-handed approaches to encouraging unions to sign a card to actually move forward and encouraging them to join a union…. If those practices are uncovered of those that are actually driving the union, there’s no reciprocal agreement.

Again, if this bill is about finding a fair and a balanced approach, there should be a quid pro quo where the enforcement ability of the board should be the same, whether it’s for dealing with the union drive or with the employer. But, again, there’s no balance here. There are no powers to change the outcomes of an employee vote if the unions are, again, found to have broken the rules in the certification process.

When we talk about Bill 30 and the rights of workers, we also have to respect the right of the employers. These aren’t all big, international corporations. Many companies are small, family-owned businesses that we all have in our many communities throughout the province, small businesses where husbands and wives or family members have second-mortgaged their homes to have the funds to buy that piece of equipment or to maybe lease that business and to start that business and to provide the opportunity for employment.

We do not see a fair and balanced approach with Bill 30 in providing that equal opportunity for employers to also be protected under some of the conditions that are set out in Bill 30. We believe this is unfair. It’s dangerous. It’s at risk of 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. What an employer can communicate is now being redefined in an extremely restrictive manner.

There is not the same language that’s being applied to the union organizers, only the restriction placed on the employer. Employers currently have the right to communicate with employees, with the freedom to express his or her views on any matter, provided the person does not use intimidation or coercion. That’s reasonable. It has been in the code for many years.

I certainly have not heard from any of my constituents having any concerns with respect to this particular wording. But the government has taken it upon themselves to change the rules, to further restrict the voice and the communication of the employer. But there isn’t the reciprocal restriction on the union organizers.

[2:45 p.m.]

That’s a pretty solid interpretation of the freedom of expression. But the 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.” Again, this is a restriction. It’s a reduction in the ability of the employer to properly communicate with their workers. It’s a world of difference, and it’s quite restrictive.

At the same time, the minister is pushing for an expansion of how unions can communicate on a picket line. Picketers are now being provided the opportunity to hand out leaflets.

Well, I certainly support the right of workers to choose to picket or to strike. But where it may interfere with the business’s opportunity or for clients or for the general public or for British Columbians in order to access in and out of a business…. It’s one thing to have people standing there and expressing their concerns or their views with respect to their right to associate and to unionize, but the business also has the right, in order to put food on the table, to continue to operate. Anything that would impede or restrict the ability of that business to continue to operate functionally is of concern, and it should be a concern of all British Columbians.

The right to picket and to be present is one thing, but providing the opportunity for the workers to be thrusting leaflets into the hands of customers or potential customers…. We know what will happen. Customers will just be…. They’ll be concerned. They will not want to interact. They will choose to take their business somewhere else. So who wins? Where is the power? The power is being shifted, instead of being fair and balanced.

I state again I do not have any issue with the right of workers to picket, to strike, to have the opportunity to express their views to British Columbians. This has been in place for many years. Why is there a need to provide, again, a further shift in the balance of power over to the picketing workers in order to be able to actually pass and thrust leaflets into the hands of customers? This is appalling.

The concern this raises is one of intimidation of those that may be choosing to cross the picket line. They can no longer just walk by, through, around a throng of picketers. Now they’re being forced to engage under the guise of receiving a pamphlet. We know what this is about. This is about the ability of striking workers to more negatively impact the continued operation of that business. That’s not fair. That’s not balanced. It is stacking the deck, and I believe that British Columbians should find this as offensive as I do.

Employers, by the way, again talking about fairness, have no related right to hand out pamphlets stating their side of the story or what they may feel their customers should actually be made aware of.

This bill also has the same challenge we’ve seen in so many pieces of legislation: new powers created for the minister, with details to come later.

This bill seeks to extend successorship in a number of sectors, including building cleaning, security, bus transportation, food, and non-clinical services in the health sector. But what’s really troubling is the fact that new sectors can be added by OIC.

The minister will have the ability to apply successorship rights to any other industry sector. Not through open debate in the Legislature, in the people’s House; not the opportunity or the requirement for debate like we’re having here today; but by the stroke of a pen in the cabinet room, the minister has the ability of applying yet further successorship rights to other industry sectors.

[2:50 p.m.]

If we look at the construction sector as an example, construction — it’s a fairly broad definition — includes roadbuilding. One of the areas that the bill also does is it moves the right of workers to unionize, which previously was available and restricted to the months of September and October. It now moves them to the months of July and August.

Let’s just consider for a second that you’ve got a roadbuilding construction crew. The primary months of construction are May through until October. The heat of the construction months, when there’s the most pressure on any construction company, is during July and August, during the summer tourist season when the highways are loaded up with tourists trying to get to and from different locations. That is when the contractor is under the absolute most pressure. Weather has a significant impact on the construction timelines.

To consider that now we are going to move the opportunity for a raid from September and October into the heat of the construction months — it is clearly shifting the balance of power, which you might almost say was not fair and balanced even previously and may have been clearly in favour of the worker. It is further emboldening the power of the worker. An opportunity to actually raid a construction company during the months of July and August….

I see that I’ve run out the clock. I certainly am opposed to many of the sections outlined in Bill 30.

S. Furstenau: I’m happy to be speaking in support of this bill today, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act. In my remarks, I will discuss some of the core elements of the bill and why I think they are important to support, but I also want to speak more about the broader reality facing people today. I don’t think that gets nearly enough attention, which it deserves in these kinds of conversations.

The reality is the increasing precarity of jobs and the erosion of income security for many British Columbians. The reality facing workers today, especially young people just starting out in the labour force, is extremely different from the reality that faced their parents and grandparents when they were starting out. Young people today face a much less secure working life and have to contend with significant financial hurdles that have real impacts on their sense of security and well-being. Many are saddled with high levels of debt right out of graduation from university or college, and they’re facing housing prices, particularly in our major cities, that have far outstripped local incomes.

I’m glad to be part of the Green caucus and to have supported this minority government in the steps that they have taken to deal with some of these issues — for example, reining in the runaway housing market and cracking down on hidden ownership and the influx of foreign money and illicit cash that has been distorting housing prices in B.C. Eliminating interest on provincial student loans is also an excellent step. And taking steps to create universal early childhood education will make a huge difference to young families. These changes matter, and they will make a real difference in the lives of people across B.C.

While we must continue to build on these initial steps, we also urgently need to have a conversation, as legislators, about what the economy looks like today and what it means for the health and well-being of British Columbians into the future. We need to stop simply talking about economic growth and job creation and start talking about what types of jobs are actually being created — the quality of jobs, their impact on the quality of life of British Columbians and their families — and how the economy is serving the needs of British Columbians and, also, how it isn’t.

Before going further, I’d like to make some remarks on the specifics of the bill before us today. This piece of legislation makes a number of important revisions to the labour code. The changes before us today are moderate, but they also will make significant differences to improving fairness and balance in workplaces and a tangible impact on the lives of workers in B.C.

[2:55 p.m.]

I believe that one of the most important changes is the extension of successorship protections to workers in a number of sectors that are impacted by contract flipping. We debated some of these issues in the fall when we repealed Bills 29 and 94, better protecting health care workers from contract flipping.

The bill before us today extends successorship protections for workers in a number of sectors particularly affected by contract flipping, including janitorial services, security, bus transportation, food services and non-clinical health sector services. The wording perhaps sounds dry and technical, but the existence of successorship protections under the code, or the lack thereof, can have a profound effect on people’s lives.

When contract flipping occurs, often the same workers continue to do the same work at the same location with the same equipment. However, because the contract has flipped, these workers lose the benefits of their collective agreement. They have to reapply for the jobs that they already had and often face significant deterioration in wages, benefits and working conditions.

There have been many stories that make this reality crystal-clear. I want to cite the review panel here who said: “We heard examples of workers with 20 to 30 years of experience having their wages and benefits significantly reduced by contract re-tendering. One care aide related that although she’d been employed under a collective agreement for many years, when the contract for services was re-tendered, she had to reapply for employment. She was then re-hired by the new contractor with a 50 percent reduction in wages, and only her service with the new contractor was considered for seniority purposes.”

I don’t think we want to live in a society that treats people this way. We can all imagine the circumstances of suddenly earning half of what we earned the day before, or the week before, for the same job that we are doing. That is a devastating impact on people’s lives.

It is also important to note that this is a racialized and gendered issue, with minority women bearing the brunt of these impacts. This change will have a profound impact on the well-being of many people. It will remedy an injustice that has been allowed to carry on for too long and that has accelerated over the last 20 years since it started to arise as an issue in the 1990s.

The issue in this legislation that has received the most attention by far is the question of how certification occurs. In this instance, my caucus colleagues and I have decided to stand behind the review panel’s recommendations, which maintain the secret ballots while strengthening the code to better protect workers from interference during the voting period. It wasn’t a simple decision. We heard many calls from workers and organizers across B.C. to implement card check, regardless of the panel’s recommendation. We heard stories of pressure and misinformation during the voting period, designed to scare people away from unionizing.

What the panel recommended to government was a moderate path forward. I believe the changes to the process will be impactful and will no longer allow for conduct that undermines the integrity of secret ballot votes and undermines the right of people to unionize. This bill will shorten the window for the vote from ten days to five days to bring it in line with other jurisdictions in Canada. It will also restrict what can be communicated during an organizing drive, to clamp down on campaigns of misinformation. And it will give the board more latitude to offer remedial certification in cases where there was improper employer interference during the voter period.

Together I am hopeful that these provisions will provide real protections enabling workers to exercise their right to choose whether to unionize in an environment free from interference. To quote the panel: “The secret ballot vote can only be an effective mechanism for employee choice if the code deters and prevents employers from engaging in unfair labour practices and provides meaningful consequences for such practices.” So it will be critical that we monitor the effectiveness of these changes and ensure that they are having their intended effect.

Another important change this bill makes is removing education as an essential service. This reverses a change implemented by the last government almost 20 years ago. British Columbia is the only Canadian jurisdiction to include education as an essential service. This is unnecessary, as the board already has the ability to deem a service essential if the health, safety or welfare of B.C. residents is endangered. It’s also not in keeping with the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in 2015 that the right to strike is constitutionally protected. The court limited the permissible scope of essential services to “clear and imminent threat to the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population.”

[3:00 p.m.]

This change brings us in line with the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada and still allows for restrictions on strikes when education services are truly essential under the board’s discretion. This might be the case, for example, with grade 12 exams.

These changes and others are important and progressive changes that make the code fairer and more balanced. I also hope that since they are moderate in scope and recommended by an external panel that they may have more endurance than past changes — that we have taken a step towards ending the pendulum swing between governments that has characterized labour policy in this province for far too long.

I’m happy to be supporting the bill before us today. Yet I must say that while this bill makes these important changes and more, I believe, as I said earlier, that the conversation is missing some crucial considerations. We are still proceeding on the assumption that work looks much as it did 20 or 30 years ago, but this is simply not the case. We are seeing some alarming trends in the labour market — a growth in temporary and part-time, precarious jobs.

I’d like to cite a few statistics from the C.D. Howe Institute that they recently published. They found that over the last 20 years, Canada has seen 1.5 million more precarious workers. Temporary employment has grown at a faster rate than total employment, and the number of Canadians doing contract work has almost doubled. When people are forced to take temporary jobs, this creates a huge amount of uncertainty, inhibiting their income security and their ability to feel secure in planning for their future. This uncertainty, we know, is delaying people’s decisions to start a family or to buy a home.

This shift in the labour landscape requires the urgent attention of legislators. We need to ensure our laws are keeping up with these trends and that we are providing workers with the supports and protections they need as they navigate a rapidly transforming job market. The C.D. Howe Institute noted that trends in precarious employment are driven mainly by the need for flexibility in business affected by globalization, technology development and economic circumstance.

The panel that reviewed the code echoed this assessment. In their words, our economy today is defined by both globalization and a “fissuring of the economy” as capital has become more mobile and companies are using outsourcing and contracting to reduce costs and achieve more flexibility. The result, according to the panel, is “a continuing erosion of middle-class jobs, increasing precarity and polarization between relatively low-paid, precarious work and highly paid skilled workers, and fewer middle-skilled jobs.”

This is not a sustainable situation. We know that employment is a critical social determinant of health — that those who earn higher, more stable incomes have better access to safe and secure housing, food and medical care that provides for better health outcomes. Insecure work, on the other hand, leads to poor physical and mental health and higher levels of stress.

What is more, these trends are directly tied to increasing inequality that is taking hold, not only in B.C., not only in Canada, but around the western world. And there is nothing more destabilizing to society and democracy than inequality.

As journalist Paul Willcocks pointed out: “The erosion of work quality, security and incomes has been a big factor in increasing inequality in Canada. And somehow, we’ve paid too little attention to the slowly unfolding crisis and the solutions that could be implemented. The labour code changes are a start. But what’s really needed is a public demand that governments quit ignoring the steady, grinding decline in the quality of work available to Canadians.”

We have a situation where according to our traditional measure of GDP, our economy is doing well. Yet by other measures — by work quality, income security, inequality — we are coming up far short. This is why we need to go beyond GDP and start using a much more holistic measurement of how the economy is performing through developing a genuine progress indicator. To reiterate the point George Monbiat forcefully made recently: “Since when was GDP a sensible measure of human welfare?”

[3:05 p.m.]

A genuine progress indicator directly integrates the well-being of people and the environment implications of economic activity in measuring the health of the economy. Painting a true picture of the health of our economy through using a genuine progress indicator is one critical step to remedying our current situation. What we measure we will value. And what we value, we will make policies towards increasing those outcomes.

Another is the need for governments — all governments, including this one — to grapple with substantial and complex questions about government’s role in the new economic landscape. How do we provide real income security for British Columbians trying to navigate a gig economy? How do we embrace innovation and innovative approaches to business while also ensuring that we don’t lose the hard-fought gains that workers have seen over the last century?

How to do we continue to be competitive and attract investment in a globalized world, and ensure that companies want to stay and grow here, while also avoiding the race-to-the-bottom economics, where people lose out while ever-increasing profits flow to fewer and fewer hands. How can we ensure our prosperity is truly sustainable and recognizes the ecological limits that we have spent way too long ignoring? I ask these questions not to suggest that there are any easy answers but to say that governments like this one urgently need to be engaging with these questions and crafting forward-looking policies to address them.

As the labour review panel pointed out, the traditional concepts of employment may no longer be applicable in the gig economy, with companies’ increasing reliance on contractors instead of employees. Implementing basic income, to ensure that people have real security as they navigate the changing world of work, is a critical part of the solution, and it is being embraced by economists around the world as an important step forward in the 21st century.

We must consider how our employment laws are keeping up or are falling behind new modes of work. We need to do more to foster innovation that aligns with our values, innovation that helps to build resilient communities that support clean prosperity and that support the health and well-being of British Columbians.

What we must also always keep at the forefront of our minds as we have these debates is how we can best ensure that every British Columbian has the conditions to live a healthy, happy, fulfilling and dignified life. We need to ensure that people are not just a factor of production working for the economy but that the economy is working for people. We should strive to create the conditions where every British Columbian has a livable income and is free from the anxiety that income insecurity causes, where communities are strong and resilient and people can look forward to the future with hope.

With that, I will reiterate my support for this bill and my belief that we need to start a much broader and urgent conversation today.

R. Coleman: I’m pleased to get up and have some comments with regard to Bill 30 this afternoon. I came out of high school, so I won’t count the jobs working in the orchard and having a newspaper. My first jobs were actually as a roofer and, shortly after that, in a factory, in a unionized environment. So I have worked in a unionized environment as a member of a union. I went into the RCMP, which would not be called a unionized environment. Nor would it be called a normal environment, because in those days it was somewhat militaristic in its operational side.

I left the RCMP in 1980, and I started a small security company in the Okanagan, which grew over the next two years to almost 300 employees across three provinces in Canada. The reason I say that one is because I think it’s important for us to understand that there’s always this push-and-pull that takes place when we have a conversation around labour legislation and what have you. We have a tendency to have these divides among people who have an opinion on this. There’s the non-union and the union environment, and ne’er the two shall meet. Somebody is always bad, and somebody always thinks it’s the employer.

During the two-year period when I first had the 200 employees, interest rates went from about 10 percent to 21 percent. The only goal we had as a company was to do two things, basically. One is to make sure we made every payroll, because we were in a labour-selling business.

[3:10 p.m.]

If people didn’t get paid, we didn’t have the guards, the supervisors in department stores, the audit supervisors, the people who do the investigations and those sorts of things — and, of course, the benefit plan. Ironically, back in 1982, I made sure that I had a full benefit plan for my employees across all of western Canada, which even in my industry at the time was unusual, for whichever environment you lived in.

The other benefit we maintained during that period of time, for those two tough years particularly, was that we always gave our employees a day off on their birthday or a day off in lieu for their birthday, with pay. It was something that I believed in, because you have to build good relationships with the people who work for you, particularly in an environment where you have a significant amount of labour involved in the business you’re in.

It’s different in today’s environment, and this is the challenge in the labour code. Today’s environment for labour is completely different. I was in a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week business. But back in the day I was in that business, department stores still didn’t open on Sundays in some places. They had restrictive hours with regards to how the community wanted to see what their workers would have to do. Today we are a 365-day-a-year retail operation, which has an effect on those people and how you do business. In addition to that, as you adapt the labour code, you have people who want to work remotely from home and other environments because of the technology that they have.

We’ve seen the economy change dramatically. It really has changed, except in some of the fundamental businesses. So although you can actually augment, for instance in the security business, with video and surveillance and that sort of thing, you still, in many cases, do need the physical presence of a security personnel at an event or at security of a construction site or whatever.

The challenge is still the same. It’s shift work, and the labour environment is tougher. It’s a lot of work for the company to try and even stay afloat most of the time, because in selling labour, the margins are narrow. We always have to remember that labour codes need to understand the businesses, sometimes, that people are in, and that’s why I use that as an example.

I think all of us support the right, in this House, for workers to come together and bargain. I also support the right for employers to have a conversation with their employees. I think oftentimes people get this wrong idea, particularly around a small or medium-sized business, that because they’ve managed to get a small or medium-sized business, there’s this huge amount of money being made. Oftentimes, it is the income of the owner and the owner’s spouse that is actually coming out of that business, and maybe a small amount of profit which has to be reinvested in new equipment or upgrading equipment, especially today.

As I watch some of the businesses I know evolve, technology costs are going up. Even if you’re in the automotive business, your computer diagnostics are changing. You have to add more equipment, and it’s very expensive. You need to be able to make that happen and, in the same environment, understand what you can charge the customer and what you can do with regards to how you train your people.

It is a fundamental value of our society that workers have rights, and I support that. I think it’s really important. I just want to make sure that…. We want to set a certain set of rules that sit around the right — are balanced and fair — and as we go through committee stage of the bill, maybe talk about what the future of labour and relations look like in the next five or ten years, as the entire economy as we know it changes.

One of the things we’ve seen in our economy…. For instance, everyone would be surprised to know that the largest hotel chain doesn’t own a single room in the world. It’s actually just an on-line app called Airbnb. It’s changed the hotel business. It’s changed how that business operates in the world and how they actually ply and deliver their services.

It affects the workers, because the Airbnb doesn’t include that. Yet we still need people from Local 40, who are very important to the food and services business in Vancouver, to be able to work in that environment and continue to give the service needed and, frankly, have those jobs somewhat protected, because they’re important to the society and important to those people and their families.

The rights of workers to unionize, as well as the rights of employers to inform their workers about the impacts unionization could have on a workplace, need to be balanced. I don’t think it needs to be skewed one way or the other. I don’t think it has to be so that we’re trying to make it difficult or hard either way.

Generally speaking, we should all be supportive of what this bill is trying to accomplish. I think there are some weaknesses and strengths, just like there would be in any piece of legislation I’ve seen, both in opposition and in government, over the last 23 years.

[3:15 p.m.]

As an official opposition, our concerns are about a lack of balance in some of the specific areas. I’m not troubled as much as I just think there is some lack of specifics on how we would work through the regulatory process to make this thing work in the job place for all workers.

The thing is that some…. It’s just a balance that you have to think about. Each business is different, and how it operates is different. In some cases…. We tend to say it’s in a box with these four sides on it, and this is how we’re going to deal with labour. In actual fact, it’s a whole lot different with regards to whether it’s a tech industry. The changes that have taken place in our manufacturing sectors with technology taking over for people and those effects and actually having…. Today, for instance, in the forest sector, it’s about 2.5 to three jobs in the bush to one in the mill now because of technology and the changes there.

I will say — and kudos to the minister — that the easiest part of this bill to support is something that’s not in it, and that is not taking away the secret ballot. I do think people do have a right to express themselves and not be intimidated when they want to vote on something. I think it’s an important, fundamental thing.

We may differ on that with regards to each other. I think it’s an opportunity to maybe…. If you have the secret ballot, which you’ve kept, it allows for less bullying and the opportunity for people to actually make up their own minds sometimes when they’re not just being pressured to do something. The fact of the matter is that by listening to that input, the Minister of Labour has ensured that that democratic right of workers — to choose or reject membership in a union — is protected, and I think that’s important.

Other changes in the bill put balance at risk. The biggest one I’m concerned about, Minister…. It really never came to me until I sat down with a friend of mine that has a chain of stuff in one field. I won’t give away who he is, but it’s a field. He has operations that operate, basically, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week, in three communities. So he has three operations, one company.

For an employer not to have the opportunity of more than just five days to actually talk to or discuss it with employees with regards to a certification vote…. I think it just makes it really difficult. The reason I say that is because….

My friend is working, at the same time, in one of the shops. Spouse is working in another shop at the same time. They do their dailies when they get home at night. They take the dailies — you check off all your sales to make sure you’re balanced on the day’s receipts — so that they can then be in a position to send those to the accountant at the end of the month. They’ve got to keep up on that. Then they pull shifts when somebody is sick or can’t be at work. In the meantime, they’re trying to run the company.

Five days is really hard when they have three cities that they’re in. They have to move around, and they’re trying, at the same time, to do things with their employees. These guys are pretty good with their employees from the standpoint of bonuses and recognizing special days for them.

They’re also a company…. I think there are a lot of companies like this, and I think we should recognize this in all companies. There are a lot of pretty good companies out there that really understand their employees. If an employee loses somebody, like a loved one, some employers say: “Well, you get so many days, and you’re back.” Others understand the emotional impact of something like that and go further. These guys do. I would like to think that we did too. They try and make things easier for people by trying to make sure that there are plans for their future — training and development and those sorts of things — and working with them.

If you could just allow some education and conversation. Sometimes you can run into a situation where the company’s cost structure needs to be, I think…. Frankly, I don’t think…. I never had a difficulty with telling my employees what I made on a per-hour basis with regards to labour I sold. I had costs that were related to that, and I always felt it was important to them to know.

The five days concern me. It also concerns me because these operations, taking a type of three-shop operation into account, mean people are not, in some cases, working for five days. They might be part-time employees that come in on a weekend. There are others who work between two communities. They work in one three days a week and in another one two days a week.

[3:20 p.m.]

The opportunity, in a five-day period, even to communicate with employees that are actually working shifts in places over a seven-day period because it’s a seven-day-a-week operation…. I think it truncates the time too much. It’s just my opinion. I think it does, and I think it’s something that we should consider.

As this comes along and new powers are handed to the Labour Relations Board, you seek to provide to the body a broader ability to impose union certification when an employer is found to have unduly interfered with the certification process. If you leave it balanced and allow them to be part of the certification process and discussion, I don’t think you get that imbalance. I think it’s when you try and tilt it away from the balance that then you get into that sort of circumstance.

As you come through this, it just sort of works in a place where I think sometimes we take a hammer to fix a problem when we could have taken a lot softer shot at this. I think it’s important that we understand, as we walk through this, that it’s about the employee, union and non-union employee. It’s about the benefits that are available to them, and it’s about cost in some cases.

I know one small company that has to spend about $30,000 in employer health tax. What they had to do, because their bottom line was tight already, was they’ve had to sit down with their employees and say: “We may have to give up dental in the group plan because we can’t afford both.” These are things that you have to understand when you deal with labour relations, because it’s not always that there’s a big whack of cash sitting somewhere for people to be able to deal with it.

It also changes 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.” I think this legislation seems to do that, and I want to talk about that in committee stage. Or our critic will. I think the strongest companies that I’ve ever seen, union or non-union, are when the employer and the employee actually have a working relationship and communicate. Without it, you actually are headed down a road of failure.

I met a man many years ago who owned a number of sawmills. The first time I met him, I went into his office, and he had this huge bookcase of little tiny notebooks like that. Every single week he would walk his entire mills on payday and deliver the paycheque and take his little notebook with him. He would get ideas on how to improve things from them, and he kept every book for, like, 30 years. He put that information in. Then he’d have his management meeting every two weeks, and he’d say: “So and so over on the millwright side thinks that. What about that?”

That type of thing actually built a pretty good relationship between employer and employee, because they felt like they were part of a family and a part of the company. I think that’s important in a relationship in labour. And I think that can be fostered, but not if you can’t have the opportunity to actually communicate when people are going to make a decision about things like this.

You know, it has the same challenge in many pieces of legislation we create, which always comes with legislation. I recognize it because I was — not in that particular portfolio but certainly on that side of the House — a minister and heard it from the NDP when we were government. That is, the new power is created for the minister, with details to come later. Those are the regulatory-making powers.

Now, I recognize that it allows for some flexibility for the minister, but obviously, when you do this, you’re always going to get that question in committee about what regulatory powers you have, what you think you might do. You might be ready for some of those questions as we come along, which I always was. I think it actually sometimes is important.

I think some of the successorship language in here, we’ll have some conversation over. I mean, in some cases, there’ve been some issues around successorship that I think people should look at from time to time in a modern labour world. I’m sure we’ll have conversations on that. And, of course, new sectors can be added by OIC, and I’d like to understand what the consultation process would be along that if you were going to add a sector relative to that successorship in an industry.

Industry has a right to be concerned, but they always are, because business is tough. It’s not easy. Business has capital investment, usually with personal guarantees attached to your own house. You have a payroll to meet. That means you’re always chasing the income to make sure you’ve got enough money and your margins are good enough to pay the bills.

Every time somebody tinkers with labour or costs, it always can come to some…. Sometimes it has a negative effect in some industries. It’s important to make sure that we discuss that as we come through it.

[3:25 p.m.]

I do believe that in B.C., we need to have some bit of balance come back into the relationship, even within the union movement, with regards to unions that are competitive with each other. I get that — but also recognizing that there is more than one group of unions, whether it be building trades or craft unions or whatever the case may be. Quite frankly, they represent their workers too, and they should be considered to be, on balance, the same as equal with regards to their unions and their operations for their members.

As we go through this, the other one that really jumped out at me…. I know our member for Shuswap mentioned this and a couple others have. I’ve been in the construction development business as well. I know, as he said, that the period of time from…. July and August are pretty critical months to the success of the construction or project, simply because, in a lot of places in B.C., it’s weather-dependent. In other places, it’s just simply because you have the ability to move more goods and services during certain groups of time because of certain types of year and weather.

I think the change on the construction sector is going to be problematic. If it’s going to be a disruptive back-and-forth and the fact that you don’t have to wait two or three years to go back and do another raid, certification or whatever, it could put that industry into significant stress.

I think it’s important that the minister understands that, as we go through these debates, because he would find some communities were very concerned because there’s a lot of employment there for people. They really don’t get a lot of work sometimes in the months of December, January, February. And in the months in the summertime, the less disruption, the better, because they can keep the project under control, keep it on cost, on time, but also make sure that people can be shifted and do the work. So that concerns me with regards to an interruption of the business model that they may have with regards to it.

The minister…. We’ll discuss these. I know he’s rejected some things in and around that, and I totally respect that. I think we do need to know that when we have legislation before this House, we’re thinking past 2019.

Over the next decade, I would think, as things change, and maybe even two decades, the mechanic will probably disappear in many circumstances — people with a trade and skills — because the cars will change or the machinery will change. Robotics will come into play. What happens to the future worker in those cases when the robotics change? As we build this foundation for the future, we need to make sure that we’re building into our labour relations how we’re going to train the next generation of people to work.

Food services, in some cases, will even change, because we’re now seeing robotics used in food services to make hamburgers and deliver food and what have you.

These are all going to have an impact on the next generation, which is coming behind us, and how they will be able to work and what that means. Labour codes and things will also have to change in order to adapt to a new emerging market of worker and how they’re actually going to work and where they’re going to actually work.

I’m kind of concerned for the next generation. I think we’ve had the opportunity, for most of us, to have gone through a generation enough where we’ve had the experience of labour, we’ve had the experience of professional development, and we’ve had the experience of taking a career. We’ve had an experience that would take us to where we look and say that that wasn’t a bad mix, as far as experience and employment and stuff, over our lifetime.

The next generation’s lifetime is going to be different. I’ve seen employees…. I know one of my friends that has a business says he’ll have employees come in to apply for a job who are only 23 or 24 years, and they’ve already moved to six, seven, eight, nine, ten jobs.

That’s discouraging for me, because I’d like to think that they could find a place to stay, get training, build their skills and then grow from there into their next job and opportunity. Labour legislation is a big part of that — or labour operations. The legislation is the law, but the labour relations are the important piece about how you build that future together.

On this side of the House, we believe that a balanced approach is the most successful approach for labour relations — I think successful for workers, successful for employers, successful for our province and successful for investment. To get that investment here to create the jobs for our people to go to work is critical.

[3:30 p.m.]

As we move through labour legislation, particularly the things the minister might do by OIC or whatever, we have to keep in mind that we don’t push out the investment we’re looking for, for the future worker in British Columbia.

Our committee stage debate should be balanced, should be informative, and it should be us all looking at what we can do best for the future worker of British Columbia.

Hon. S. Simpson: I’m pleased to have the opportunity to join the debate on Bill 30, the amendments to the labour code.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

This has been a long time coming. We haven’t had a meaningful review and effective change to the labour code since 1992 — over 25 years since we saw the kind of work that went into the changes that are being advanced in Bill 30. That was the last time that you saw the kind of panel, the kind of discussion where employers and unions and expert independents came together and looked in a deep way at the code and looked at fundamental issues in the code and looked at where changes should be considered and be contemplated.

It was long overdue for that review to happen and long overdue for Bill 30 to be in front of this House.

We know that over the time of the previous government, we saw reduced resources going into the board, reduced dollars, reduced supports going in. We saw a situation where things in labour relations became much more litigious. It did become about the lawyers all too often.

Sadly, we saw a situation where the board — and, I think, reflected by the code — was in a place where it was less about problem-solving and about trying to find solutions that were meaningful. The result of that — and you can see that if you track the past number of years — is that not just unions but both unions and employers were stepping outside of the process of the board to find alternate ways to address issues, because they didn’t feel that the board was responding in a way that was supportive, quite frankly, of employers or unions or workers. So it was important to begin to effect that change.

We know that whenever you talk about the labour code, whenever you talk about these issues, the issues that involve unions and employers, it generates lots of interest, it generates lots of passion, and it generates challenges. There is no doubt about that. So when you want to look at how you make changes to a code, I do believe you need to be careful and you need to be thoughtful about how you advance that process in a way that is meaningful.

In this case, the minister put in place a review panel, a panel that had three individuals, all of whom are highly respected in their fields, all of whom have significant expertise in the field of labour relations and union-employer relations: a representative for the labour movement, a representative for employers, and the chair, who is a respected independent who has worked for a significant period of time in the field.

That committee, that panel, went out and spoke to people across the province. They spoke to people….

Deputy Speaker: Minister, please take a seat. We have a committee to report. Just move the motion to adjourn the debate and save your place.

Hon. S. Simpson: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I move to adjourn the debate and reserve my right.

Motion approved.

Reporting of Bills

BILL 23 — LAND OWNER
TRANSPARENCY ACT

Bill 23, Land Owner Transparency Act, reported com­plete with amendment, to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

[3:35 p.m.]

Hon. S. Simpson: I would call Committee of the Whole, Bill 24, the Business Corporations Amendment Act, 2019, in the Douglas Fir.

Deputy Speaker: The Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction will continue with the debate on Bill 30.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 30 — LABOUR RELATIONS CODE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

Hon. S. Simpson: Now I’ll try to remember exactly where I was before we got through that whole maze.

What I was talking about was the work of the panel. The panel — again, a representative for the labour movement; a representative for employers; and the third, a respected independent acting as chair. This panel talked to people across the province. They received 108 written submissions from interested parties and 83 presentations from stakeholders and individuals at a series of ten public meetings that they held around British Columbia.

In addition, the panel met directly with several groups including the B.C. Federation of Labour, the B.C. Business Council, the Arbitrators Association of British Columbia, the labour subsection of the Canadian Bar Association and the B.C. Labour Relations Board.

The panel took their work very seriously and, in fact, moved forward to come to a series of 29 recommendations that were reflected in their report. Those recommendations drove four significant changes that you see reflected in Bill 30. But it very clearly was the work of the review panel that the minister was looking at as he developed this legislation. He took the advice of three thoughtful individuals with significant expertise who were able to provide guidance on where the code should go at this point in time.

What I want to do in the few minutes that I’m going to take is talk a little bit about the four significant initiatives that are really reflected in these changes in Bill 30. The first of those, and there has been some discussion about this, is around the certification process. As others have said, there has been a long-standing debate about where the certification process should go and about how it should unfold.

There is evidence, and we’ve seen that evidence, that in fact, in too many cases, there were undue pressures on the certification process on workers who were considering whether in fact to join a union, workers who had signed cards and then went into the certification vote process and often felt pressures that I would hope most people in this chamber would consider as unfair or undue processes. So the question was how to address that.

[3:40 p.m.]

We’ve seen the debate in this chamber and the debate elsewhere about how to approach that. The minister chose to move forward with a process that continues the certification vote, the secret ballot, but says that that ballot’s going to happen in a way that reflects what happens in most jurisdictions in this country, which is to shorten the time frame from ten days to five days, to change some of the language so that, in fact, it doesn’t put undue obligations on the union to represent whether it does or does not have a majority of cards — because we are going to have a vote, and at the end of the day the vote will reflect the numbers — and says that the board will be the arbiter in deciding whether employers have acted fairly in their communications with their workers.

Now, we’ve heard debate back and forth about that and about whether that’s a good thing to do. I would make a couple of observations about that. The first observation I would make is that there are lots of workers who are not unionized, who don’t necessarily make the decision that they want to give a portion of their paycheque to a union in dues. They do that because they feel that they aren’t being valued, or they aren’t being treated fairly, or they’re feeling the need to be able to strengthen their voice in their relationship with their employer. That’s when we see unionization happen. It has to be the right of those workers, without undue influence or pressures, to be able to cast that vote.

Let’s be clear. Unions don’t decide whether workers unionize. Employers don’t decide. Governments don’t decide. The only people who decide are the workers, and that is their right, and it should always be their right to make that decision.

In terms of the discussion about whether five days is too short a period of time for there to be an engagement and a discussion with the employer, well, I would suggest…. I know in the comments, I think, from the member for Langley East, he was talking about experiences that he’s had or experiences of people who are colleagues of his who have businesses. He talked about their relationship with their employees.

Well, what I would say is that if you have a good working relationship, as an employer, with your employees, you didn’t develop that relationship in five or ten days in a certification process. You developed that relationship over time, and you developed that relationship by building an environment of respect with your workforce and an environment where the workers felt that they had some ownership of the process, as well, moving forward.

If you’ve built that relationship and if you’ve shared information with your employees and if you’ve worked through a partnership that makes the business successful, where the workers are a true partner in that, then you’re going to have the kind of relationship that you want. And that may or may not reflect the result of a vote for unionization.

The reality is that when the decision is made, when workers sign those cards, when the union comes and says, “We want to invite you into our union. We want to make you part of our union family….” When they do that and they sign those cards, those workers then have expressed their interest in making this decision and having this vote. What becomes important, I believe, is to take the amount of time you need to get that vote cast and move that process forward.

There is no advantage in having an extended period of time that will do nothing but create animosity. If it’s a difficult certification, if the employer is particularly opposed to the unionization, if they are reflecting that in their commentary with their workers, there’s nothing about that that’s going to be positive.

[3:45 p.m.]

I think the notion of being able to move forward is very positive, to get that vote done. Five days is enough time, as it is in most jurisdictions, in many jurisdictions in this country. Five days is certainly sufficient time to be able to organize the vote and make the vote happen. When those cards are submitted to the board and the certification vote is asked for, I think it makes sense to expedite that vote as quickly as is reasonable, allowing the time to do the logistical work to make the vote happen, moving forward. It’s important that workers have that right and that they have the ability to move forward.

The second piece that’s reflected in this bill, and that’s a very significant piece, are the changes around successorship and around how successorship works. We know the challenge that’s in front of workers. In too many cases, contracts are flipped, and the only people who suffer the consequence of that are the workers. The outgoing company and the incoming company — their situation is what it is. If they’ve sold contracts, their situation is what it is. But the workers pay a price if they don’t get to keep their collective agreement and their working relationship.

If we truly believe that work is about partnership, if we truly believe that the success of our economy is about a partnership between the entrepreneurs, the investors, the business owners and the people who do the work every day to produce the product, to manufacture, to deliver the services, then it has to be a partnership. The question you have to ask yourself is: when workers make that decision to unionize and, through free collective bargaining, they bargain a wage-and-benefit package and they bargain working conditions…? If that, basically, with the flip of a switch, with the flip of a contract, can disappear overnight, where is the fairness in that?

I heard members on the other side talk about balance and fairness, and I think those are important words. Where is the fairness in that? What did those workers do that they don’t have the right to be able to protect their interests as well? What this legislation, Bill 30, does is to look very clearly at those sectors where these are real issues — in building, cleaning and janitorial services; in security services; in bus transportation services; in non-clinical services in the health care sector; and in food services. These are the areas that today we look at and know that this is essential.

Members on the other side have talked about the nature of the legislation that would allow the minister to add to that list. I think that’s a positive. The reason I think that’s a positive is because — as members on the other side also have spoken about — we have a changing economy. We have an economy where we are seeing sectors that are moving and shifting.

It’s a good thing to be able to look at that — if we see the evolution of other sectors that are reflected, like those that are covered by this legislation today — so that the minister has the opportunity to provide those workers with the protections that this bill identifies for the workers in the current services that are included in the bill, in this legislation.

It is important. It’s important for workers. We talk, in this place, a lot about affordability. We talk about people’s rights. We talk about family-supporting jobs. We talk about local economies and what happens when the economy shifts in regions and impacts people. All of those are critical discussions.

[3:50 p.m.]

Why wouldn’t we look to provide protection to workers who go to work every day, work hard and build a relationship where they are partners in the relationship and it’s reflected in a collective agreement that gives them a wage rate and a benefit package that they negotiated? Why is it okay that that can be torn up in a minute? It shouldn’t be okay. It shouldn’t be okay to anyone.

Investors who come in and invest in those businesses and want to take those contracts should come knowing they are getting a skilled, experienced workforce. It doesn’t come free, and it doesn’t come cheap. It comes with a collective agreement. It comes with rules, and those rules are in that contract. If they truly want to be partners with their workers, they should be prepared to respect the contract that they have with those workers.

The third piece that gets covered by this is the issue of raiding. Raiding is the process where workers are unionized under one union and where another union wants to move those workers over to their union. It’s the process by which the workers make the choice. Again, it’s not the unions that choose. It’s not the employers that choose. It’s the workers, ultimately, who make that choice. The question that is raised by this — and it’s absolutely a legitimate question — is: what should the rules look like that create the environment for that to happen? What should that look like?

Currently raids can occur every year in the seventh and eighth months of a collective agreement. What Bill 30 does is effect changes that reduce the frequency of that process but, certainly, protect the integrity of the process. For collective agreements of three years or less, raids will be permitted in the seventh and eighth months of the final year. For collective agreements of more than three years, raids will be permitted in the seventh and eighth months of the third year and in each subsequent year.

For unions and employers, both are supportive of this process. As has been spoken about here, these can be very, very challenging times, when a raid is involved at a worksite. They can be disruptive. They can be difficult for everybody involved in that process. What this ensures is that those rights remain for workers to ultimately be able to make that choice but put some limit on the frequency in which it can occur and how it can occur.

The one area where there is some difference here is around raids in the construction sector. I’ve heard members on the other side raise concerns about how that would happen and about where that would occur. The change that happens here, which we’ve been talking about, is moving those raids to be permitted in July and August.

One of the really, I think, important reasons for doing that is when you’re going to do this…. If you’re going to effect that change, potentially, where construction workers are going to decide to move from one union to another union, it seems to me that it should probably be decided at the time when most of those workers who are members of that union, in fact, are on the job, are there and are available and ready to cast the ballot for which union that they want to be members of.

I think that’s important. I think it’s important for them to have that right. July and August, of course, are the months when they are probably most active, when most construction is most active in this province and the time when that opportunity is in front of people.

The last of the four significant changes here is around what I think is almost a housekeeping matter, in some ways. It’s removing the essential service designation in education. What we are doing is reflecting the situation in the rest of the country, essentially. It reflects what the Supreme Court said in 2015.

[3:55 p.m.]

It doesn’t remove all of the rights for protection around education services by any means. What it does do is ensure that what the Supreme Court said is what we adhere to. What the Supreme Court concluded in 2015 is that the scope of an essential service is limited to an immediate and serious danger to the health, safety or welfare of the population. That’s what the Supreme Court of Canada deemed to be an essential service. Education is a critical service, a very important service. There is no doubt about that. But education does not meet that bar. It is a good thing to do to make that change, I believe, at this time.

What Bill 30 does is, I believe, it brings back a balance that has been missing in the labour code. It brings it back at a time when the changes that are reflected in this bill, the changes that are reflected also in the Employment Standards Act legislation that was in front of this House — brought forward by the Minister of Labour, it went through second reading very recently — begin to look at the reality of labour relations.

Members on the other side, in their debate on this issue, talked about the changing nature of work and what that does to labour relations. I think that that’s a serious discussion that has to be had, most of that probably reflected in the employment standards legislation and the Employment Standards Act, more so than the labour code.

At the end of the day, it has to be about the right of workers to make the decision for themselves as to whether they want to be in a union or not, about the right of workers to be able to protect their interests. If they believe the protection of their interests is most ensured by joining a union of their choice, negotiating a collective agreement, having the protections of the union and the benefits of the collective agreement, then they have a right to do that, and we need to protect those rights.

Those rights have been fragile for some number of years. What Bill 30 does is take us some significant steps down the road to putting those protections back in, I believe, a more stable and balanced way. It does not do everything, by any means, that the labour movement would have liked. It certainly doesn’t do everything that employers would have liked. What it does do is provide protections that are important to working people.

When you talk about building an economy, I would argue that the labour movement is a core part of the success of our economy. The economy succeeds when you have entrepreneurs, investors and businesses that are stepping up and producing product and producing services and when you have strong unions that are ensuring that workers are protected, that workers are realizing the societal benefits of a strong economy through a fair paycheque and a benefit package. That’s when you start to see the economy we want.

Let’s be clear. If you want people to come into your shop and buy your goods and services, they have to have a family-supporting income to do that. They have to feel confident in the security of their employment. Economies go up and go down. They have to know that if the economy is moving, they are, in fact, going to have the opportunity to be protected in that discussion and to have representation in that discussion through their union.

I think unionization is an important part of a strong economy, but I do think it’s ultimately the workers who make the decision on whether they unionize or not. What this bill does, Bill 30, is it provides opportunities to protect people who are in unions through successorship. It provides a process for certification that removes the potential for abuse of that certification process.

[4:00 p.m.]

It sets the rules around raiding so that workers still will always have the choice as to what union they want to be part of, but it will be done in a way that is less disruptive to the workplace and the worksite. Those are important steps.

It’s important legislation. It has been a long time coming. I want to thank my colleague the Minister of Labour for the work. I want to thank the review panel for what was an extensive and thoughtful piece of work to come up with the 29 recommendations that led the minister’s work in the development of this bill, Bill 30. I think we’re taking a significant step forward, and passing Bill 30 will take us a long way down that road. I’m very pleased to stand and support this bill.

A. Olsen: It’s an honour to be able to stand today and speak to Bill 30, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act. I thank all of the speakers who spoke before me.

It’s interesting. Before I get into my prepared comments, I just want to make a couple of comments on some of the language that we use here.

I recognize that we often use the terms “workers” and “taxpayers” and the importance that both have in our economy. I want to, I think, draw us back to the fact that what we’re talking about is people. It’s easy for us to classify and characterize the taxpayer and the worker. In a way, we separate the humanity that’s in that and the people that are in that. I just want to draw us back to this, because I think that so often the rhetoric in this place reaffirms that disconnect that can happen.

I’m happy to rise and take my place in the debate on the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act. In addition to speaking to the changes of this bill, I want to focus on the context in which this debate is taking place and appeal to all of us in this place to look more deliberately at the changes in front of us today and those that are on the horizon.

We need to have a modern, evidence-based conversation about the state of our economy and how to adapt to the profound changes that are before us today. We’re not being responsible legislators if we continue to have the same debates that we’ve been having for the past 30 years and automatically just adopting the same positions that we’ve always taken. We cannot continue to simply break down along the old partisan lines, accountable to the same stakeholders, without talking honestly about what has changed in our economy and how we need to adapt our laws and policies to best serve British Columbians.

The panel that reviewed the labour code and issued recom­mendations…. I, along with the previous speaker, would also like to thank them for their work and the minister for putting in place a panel to take a very deep look at the issues surrounding labour. They issued recommendations to government that made the shortcomings in our approach to date abundantly clear in the introduction to their report.

They highlighted how successive governments have politicized labour legislation for their own partisan gains. In their words: “There have been a number of pendulum swings in important code provisions over the past 30 years, largely depending on the governing political party. This is not consistent with predictability, certainty or balance.” Instead, the panel made a case that it is essential that we avoid pendulum swings by implementing balanced changes that are sustainable.

They pointed out that certainty and predictability are critically important considerations for investment decisions and the competitive position of British Columbia in a globalized economy. And we know it’s increasingly globalized.

To that end, I’m supportive of the legislation that we have in front of us today, which is moderate and reasonable and makes some important and long-overdue changes.

[4:05 p.m.]

I hope that this time we’ve managed to avoid another extreme swing, as was pointed out by the panel, and that when a new government comes into power in the future, they simply won’t think that it’s their job to repeal these changes and implement their own — that instead, we’ve created a stable foundation that can be built on as things continue to change. Instead of going back and forth between left and right, we need to continue to move forward.

In 1973, when the code was established, the economic landscape, the nature of work and the way business operates were all fundamentally different than they are today. Yet the legislation that governs our labour relationships in this province has not substantively changed to reflect the new reality.

Many of the shifts we’ve seen in the first decades of the 21st century are profound. As I describe some of these changes, I’ll draw on the work of the labour code review panel, who did an excellent job of clearly framing our new reality.

The modern economy is defined by both globalization and the fissuring of the economy. Since the 1980s, markets have become increasingly globalized. Capital is becoming more mobile, meaning we must compete like never before in a global scale of investment. As this globalization has been accompanied by the fissuring of the economy, companies have increasingly started to use outsourcing in contract relationships to reduce costs and achieve greater flexibility. Companies are using more part-time, agency, contract and temporary workers.

The fissuring of the economy places downward pressures on wages and increases the precarity of work. These shifts are having a profound impact on peoples’ lives. Just ten years ago, the world of work looked very different. According to Forbes, workers currently stay in a job for an average of 4.4 years — a number that has been steadily declining for decades. It dramatically declined from just my grandfather’s generation, as he did the same kind of work for his entire career.

Young people starting out in their careers can no longer count on permanent, full-time positions with benefits. Instead, they’re looking at cobbling together different positions over their lives and dealing with the drawbacks and the fundamental insecurity that that creates. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has even told Canadians to get used to “job churn.”

We’re also seeing technological change in an unprecedented scope and scale. The review panel points out that the gig economy has been accelerated through the use of technology to connect workers with consumers for one-off jobs performed on demand. Moreover, many companies today are using independent contractors instead of employees. Sarah Kessler, the author of Gigged, gives an example of this, what the gig economy looks like.

“You probably don’t think of Sears as a gig economy company. The store outsources its customer service to a specialized company, which contracts that work to a small business. That small business hires independent contractors who have no direct connection to Sears to answer phone calls about broken air conditioners and heaters. It’s technology that enables this odd nesting doll of employment, from the unpaid, weeks-long, on-line training courses freelance representatives are required to take, to the digital platform, where crowds of workers claim shifts for the coming weeks, to the on-line databases representatives use to look up information about appliances.”

Maybe I shouldn’t make a comment about the situation that Sears is in, in this country now, as they are no longer on the landscape.

The review panel says: “This kind of work makes it difficult to determine who the employer is and where the person works, which are necessary preconditions for a collective bargaining relationship under the code. The traditional concepts of employment may no longer be applicable in the gig economy.”

[4:10 p.m.]

This is a fundamental problem. If the employment relationships on which this legislation is based are no longer the reality for a growing number of British Columbians, then we need to have a far bigger and deeper conversation about how we deal with this new reality. CIBC observes that the quality of Canadian jobs is undergoing “a slow but steady deterioration” and that “the share of workers who are paid below the average wage has risen over the years to just under 61 percent in 2015.”

Seeing that the Chair from the committee is here, I’ll adjourn and reserve my right to continue.

A. Olsen moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 24 — BUSINESS CORPORATIONS
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Bill 24, Business Corporations Amendment Act, 2019, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Farnworth: In Committee A, I call Bill M209, Business Corporations Amendment Act (No. 2), 2019. In this chamber, I call continued debate on Bill 30, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2019.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 30 — LABOUR RELATIONS CODE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

Deputy Speaker: The member will continue with the debate.

A. Olsen: The review panel warns us that the “continuing erosion of middle-class jobs, increasing precarity and polarization between relatively low-paid precarious work and highly paid, skilled workers and fewer middle-skilled jobs….”

This isn’t a reality that we can allow to continue. Now, I want to be clear about one thing. I’m not against change. Innovation can be a driver for sustainable prosperity, and we should welcome and harness innovation. We, in the Green caucus, are enthusiastic about an innovative and sustainable private sector. We know the health and well-being of British Columbians is tied to the economy.

However, government needs to ensure that people are not just a factor of production, working for the economy, but that the economy is working for people. We are not having an honest conversation in this place about how the world has changed and what we are doing to help British Columbians in this new reality. We have fallen way behind, continuing the debates of 30 years ago. We will fail our responsibility to British Columbians if we don’t change this approach.

There are a few principles that should serve as a starting point to guide the work that needs to happen in this place from all sides. First, our values. It should go without saying, but people should be at the centre of every decision that we make. We are dangerously close to a type of capitalism where companies can operate without any rules; where, in fact, they set the rules, and governments are left to play catch-up.

Second, we can’t be stagnant. We should encourage and harness innovation and change in line with our values. We have to actively look to the future, consider the world we want to create and map out how we are going to get there. This means that our approach to innovation should be aimed at advancing the needs of British Columbians and of our communities. It should make lives better and communities stronger and more resilient.

Third, we should be led by expertise, not partisan inte­rests. We should unleash the civil service, the experts who work in this place, to attack these problems ahead of us. We have an emerging economy task force, tasked with starting to look at the future of business in British Columbia, and they’re providing recommendations to government on how best to position B.C. for success. This, incidentally, was an idea from the B.C. Green platform. Their expertise will be invaluable in informing the way we go from here.

[4:15 p.m.]

This leads me to the work of the review panel and their recommendations, which are behind most of the changes before us in this bill. We are happy to see that government chose to model this legislation on the recommendations of the panel, including on issues like successorship and union certification.

Extending successorship protections to workers and people in sectors vulnerable to contract flipping is an overdue step that will have a real impact on people’s lives. When contract flipping occurs, often we see the same workers continuing to do the same work at the same location with the same equipment. However, because the contract is flipped, these workers, these people, lose the benefits of their collective agreement and have to start all over again. I am proud that we’ll be ending this practice in these key sectors and providing more income security for people vulnerable to this practice.

On certification, where we’ve seen swings between secret ballot and card check, depending on the government of the day, the panel again provided a moderate and reasonable way forward, and one that I am happy to accept. The panel made clear in their recommendations to keep the secret ballot, that it must be paired with other changes that effectively limit and fully remediate unlawful interference. This is critical. The law should be creating an environment where people can exercise their right to choose whether to unionize, free from pressure and interference.

By implementing their recommendations, shortening the time frame for voting from ten days to five days, strengthening the power of the Labour Relations Board to order remedial certification in cases of unlawful employer interference, I believe that this bill strikes that balance.

It will be important to monitor this going forward to ensure that these changes are having their intended effect. On these changes and others, the review panel provided thoughtful, balanced recommendations on how to update the labour code. In their words: “Labour relations in B.C. should not result in a binary, mutually exclusive choice between the protection of fundamental workers’ rights” — people’s rights — “productivity and business success. Economic growth can be achieved alongside flexible, innovative protections and practices under the code.” I believe we’ve taken steps toward that goal today.

However, we urgently need to have the broader conversation, the bigger conversation that I have alluded to in these remarks. We need to consider the profound changes taking hold of our economy today and have a deeper look at how we need to adapt our laws, regulations and policies to this new world.

I thank, again, the minister for putting this bill forward and for this opportunity to stand and speak to it today. I’ll take my seat now.

Hon. R. Fleming: It’s a pleasure to follow my colleague from Saanich North and the Islands. There have been many thoughtful comments on Bill 30, which is quite an achievement for our Labour Minister, the MLA for Surrey-Newton. An achievement because the reports that have come in from major employer organizations, from those who are involved around the labour relations community and from trade unions themselves, are a unanimous thumbs up.

There may be some slight quibbling with the interpretations of the recommendations. But to have that unanimity in a province that is often described as polarized — like British Columbia is — I think is an exceptional accomplishment for the Minister of Labour to be proud of and, indeed, for the independent panel that not only conducted the hearings and received the submissions but made very thoughtful recommendations to government that are now part of this legislation that we’re debating, which by all appearances, may even have the unanimous support of all parties in the Legislature.

I’ll remind listeners at home that this is British Columbia. A labour code amendment, the first one in 25 years, may have the unanimous support of every single party in the Legislative Assembly. Do not change the channel. It’s happening right now, right here in British Columbia. Again, I take my hat off to the Minister of Labour for being able to say that he led such a legislative effort.

Look, my comments are both general and specific. I want to speak, as the Minister of Education, towards the essential service designation which will bring British Columbia into line with the rest of the country.

[4:20 p.m.]

I want to speak more generally, though, just around where the bill enhances and protects and builds upon labour rights in our country and our province. This is a positive thing. I think we recognize around the world that labour rights are, in most cases, synonymous with human rights. In many parts of the world, the most dangerous job a person can have is to be an elected trade union official or an organizer. There are countries we could list off where targeted assassinations, death squads, have been operating, and some of these are former trading partners of countries like ours.

It was well said by a member of the International Labour Organization at the United Nations, whose name escapes me at the moment, that if you wanted to look at one of the most accurate barometers of how civilized a nation is, you should look at their labour code. He said that in the context of looking at how that society treats women and girls, and how that society treats minorities, and then you should also look at how it treats working people through the labour code.

Societies that have evolved, as we have over many decades and generations, mature relationships that respect free and fair collective bargaining, are, generally speaking, those countries that can boast the highest level of prosperity and the largest, most stable middle classes in their economy.

I say that because that is our history. That is the trajectory that we took in this country, particularly after the Second World War, when the right to join a union and collective bargaining was encoded. Labour codes were modernized. Innovations like the Rand formula were brought into being, and the middle class enjoyed the longest, most sustained boom in world history.

Canada has never turned its back on labour rights, even though there are some fringe voices on the right from time to time that urge that labour rights be rolled back. By and large, Canadians have enjoyed free and unfettered access to collective bargaining and independent, fair tribunals and boards to govern that free of political interference.

Again, I go back to my main point at the outset of this debate and my short contributions to it. My hat is off to the MLA for Surrey-Newton for being able to shepherd a bill that expands upon this long, great tradition in British Columbia and Canada of respecting workers’ rights, of seeking input from employers about how the labour code could be worded and enforced and made fair. That’s something that has often failed in British Columbia. Today we are witnessing the success of this government and this minister in being able to forge a consensus around what modernizing the labour code looks like.

This is the first time in 25 years, as I mentioned — more than that; 27 years, since 1992 — that we’ve had a substantive package of labour code amendments, so to say it’s long overdue would be an understatement. We’ve heard many members talk about the changes in the economy: the gig economy, the so-called sharing economy, the new innovations around web-based services and contracting that can both make things more convenient and also open for greater levels of exploitation in circumventing rules. We have to be alive to changes in the rules and the mediums for delivering services and the exchanges of goods and the sale of labour in our economy.

That’s why I think part of this bill that is extremely supportable is the requirement for government to review the labour code every five years. It may not lead to legislative packages, but it obligates government to look at its labour law and whether it’s keeping up with the pace of change in the 21st century. I think that is a very good feature of this bill.

Overall, what we’re seeing in this bill is greater protections for workers, an emphasis on job security in the current 21st-century context, labour rights and stability for employers. That is all part of the amendments that we’re seeing.

I think there is the restoration of a workable, ethical successorship clause in this agreement. When we look at the destabilization of health care and community care that we experienced in British Columbia, to see successorship in food services providers and other subcontractors in the human care industries is long, long overdue.

[4:25 p.m.]

It has been subject to abuse and dismissal of thousands of employees with skills, who enjoy working with patients — and some part of the patient care team now having the same kind of job protections as others who work in that sector. That is extremely positive.

I commended the minister for finding the right balance. Obviously, the employers councils and organizations have given their support for the independent panel’s report and the legislation that has flowed from it. There is balance in here. There is clarity around the right to communicate. Employers are allowed to state facts to employees who may be considering joining a union. There’s a test for that: the opinion must be reasonably held. There’s also clarity around workers’ rights to offer consumer information if they’re in a dispute with an employer, but it is clearly not picketing, and it is not a strike action.

This will reduce, I think, frivolous Labour Relations Board complaints around that and enshrine freedom of speech, quite frankly — reasonable interpretations of freedom of speech for workers as it relates to companies whose activities may be objectionable, in the views of their union organization, and their ability to exercise their free speech. I think that’s entirely positive.

Let me just say a few things about the essential services. There may be some people that are tempted to see this as significant, or even potentially harmful, to kids in the school system, by removing the essential services designation. What I will say in this debate — and, I think, what every member in this House will understand — is that even though education has been, on-again and off-again, deemed an essential service in British Columbia, the legislation has been entirely ineffective.

It started as a very ideological, blunt instrument in the late 1980s under the Social Credit government. It did not prevent — in fact, it encouraged — further destabilization and chaos in the education system. We had hundreds of thousands of lost instruction days between 1988 and 1991, when the government changed. In 1992, in the previous last substantive bill to amend the labour code, as I mentioned, essential services were taken out of the code. It was brought back in 2002. Between 2002 and 2015, by way of illustration, British Columbia lost a record number of teacher instruction days in B.C.

Even though it was officially an essential service, no labour board ever enforced this provision. It did not meet the test of what “essential services” are defined as in legislation around the health, safety and well-being of citizens. So it never proscribed any strike or lockout activity under the previous government. It was there, really, as a fig leaf, designed to sound good. In effect, education is governed, like all disputes are, on a case-by-case application, according to the strict terms of the law, in terms of serving notices and those sorts of things.

What I think is that in the context of this bill, not only is British Columbia joining every other province — Tory, Liberal or otherwise — that does not have an essential service designation for educational workers….

What I think it shows is that our government is not only removing legislation that didn’t work, that was redundant, perhaps even offensive to some. We’re showing a different belief system, in the sense that we believe that if you sit down with a group of workers — whether it’s teachers or support staff — negotiate in good faith and have a respectful conversation, you don’t need legislative blunt instruments, even if they were ineffective and unusable. We can take a gamble on having greater success by trying to build a new relationship on the past, fractious history of British Columbia where the school wars and the politics in the school system have often been chaotic.

[4:30 p.m.]

Better is what Bill 30 charts forward, which is to build a relationship of trust, shared goals and mutual understanding and see if British Columbia, by removing the essential service designation — after all, we’re the only province in Canada that has it — can be more like the other provinces in Canada that typically achieve negotiated settlements with education unions without losing any school days. That’s what I think the Labour Minister and the government have in mind with this amendment. We don’t have to be an outlier in Canada with something that is unworkable. In any event, too, it’s time to modernize this clause around essential services as it relates to the school system.

The Supreme Court of Canada has spoken loud and clear in 2015 in the Saskatchewan case. The only time that this legislation has ever been tested — and this will not change in any way — around an interpretation of the essential service as it relates to the school system was under the welfare provision. The test was met. Grade 12 students who are writing exams should not have their university or employment careers disrupted by a labour dispute, either a strike or lockout by teachers or support staff. That was honoured. We were able to regulate strike activity in the context of not suspending grade 12 exams.

With that, I will mention…. That will not change under Bill 30. This is a comprehensive package that will modernize labour relations in British Columbia.

Again, I commend the minister. I, again, commend members on all sides of the House who have found reasons to support this. It will be, I think, truly a great day for British Columbia to see unanimous support for this from all parties, all perspectives in the House, when we get to a vote.

Thank you very much for the time to speak to this bill.

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

Hon. H. Bains: It is quite a pleasure to stand and listen to the debates. I thought the debates were very, very thoughtful, and many objective opinions were shared. I think it’s a good thing.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

I must say that what we tried to do with this bill — and I think most members have recognized that — is create a right balance and make sure that the workers’ rights are protected at the same time that it supports a strong, sustainable economy for people. We also understand that a strong, sustainable economy is built upon a strong foundation of fair labour laws, both for workers and for businesses. I mean, that’s the driving force behind it.

I think the panel that went around and consulted widely, all across British Columbia, all different parts of British Columbia, came back with a very, very reasonable, thoughtful and, I think, modern approach to our labour laws to deal with and meet the needs of a growing economy and changing workplaces. I also, once again, want to thank that panel for doing such a thorough and a comprehensive review of the labour code, which hasn’t seen a review since 1992.

Twenty-seven years have gone by, and a lot has changed since that time. Workplaces are not what they used to be, and we need to…. I think our labour laws must reflect and deal with those changing workplaces.

Now, I must touch on some of the areas that some of the members have brought up. I’m impressed that some of the members actually read the panel’s report. I’m really, really happy that their commentary was very well researched and based on what the panel has offered with their own research. I think it’s really good, and I’m happy that they took the time to read the reasoning behind the recommendations that the panel came up with.

Also, there were others, I think, maybe for ideological reasons, maybe for a lack of timing…. They didn’t have time to go through the panel report. They raised some questions. The answers lie in the report very clearly, the reasons behind those recommendations.

For example, the member for Shuswap was talking about: how could you allow workers to leaflet at an employer’s gate? I think had they had the opportunity to read the report…. It’s very clear that we are trying to meet the requirement of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision, which was between the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1518, and Kmart.

[4:35 p.m.]

The court ruled that the consumer leafleting constituted an exercise of the freedom of expression protected under the Charter. As the code definition of picketing encompasses consumer leafleting, it was overly broad and unconstitutional. So we are trying to react and deal with the Supreme Court ruling to bring our laws to make sure that we meet the test of the court. That is that one area.

The other one was about construction. What are we doing by allowing raids to take place in July and August? I think the panel, again, came back and recommended that July and August was the right time for a raid in construction because of the uniqueness of the construction industry.

I think if we are talking about democracy…. Many members talked about democracy when they talked about card check during certification versus a secret ballot. I think this is also…. If we are really affording and providing the opportunity to those workers who wish to change from one union to another, you would think that the majority would have their say, and the majority are working during July and August.

I think that’s the reason behind why the panel recommended that July and August is the right time to give the true reflection of the workers, the majority of the workers. That’s the time when they’re working.

The seventh and eighth month, as existed in the current code, sometimes falls in January and February. You know very few workers are working during January and February. That would not be a true reflection of the true wishes of those members in that unit. That is the reason why we had to do that, what they recommended, and we are adopting their recommendation.

Again, the member from Langley and others talked about that the law should be balanced, the law should be, you know, moderate. I think that’s exactly what the panel have recommended. That’s exactly what we are trying to achieve here, so that the pendulum swing that we have seen going back to….

I can recall, going back to the late ’80s, when Bill 19 was brought in. It was called the Industrial Relations Commission. You know what? It was so one-sided that the labour movement boycotted it. They never used the labour board, so what’s the point of having a law when half of the stakeholders are staying away from it? That is that extreme.

Then again, I think when you go back to 1992, when the review, the true review, took place…. A very comprehensive review took place. Again, they called them the three wise men. There was an independent arbitrator. There were two lawyers, one representing the union side and one from the employers’ side — very, very respected lawyers. I can tell you, even today, if you talk about those people, people have a lot of respect for those lawyers. They came back with recommendations, and I think that labour code stayed and worked very well during the 1990s.

Talk about a pendulum swing again. Early 2001 and 2002, the previous government just gave that duty to one person. “You go out there, and you make these changes and come back with those recommendations.” They did that without any consultation. That’s not how you do business.

You are talking about two very, very important stakeholders who have a key role to play in our economy. When you shut out one side of it, obviously, you will see the reaction. What we are trying to do here is listen to the panel who have listened to the people of the province — all the stakeholders, the workers, the unions. And labour law practitioners came back with recommendations.

This is another thing. They have 29 recommendations. Almost all of them are unanimously agreed to. I mean, that’s unheard of. There’s one where there’s a minority and a majority, which is on the certification, and there are a couple of other areas. That just shows that both labour and unions…. Those are the two labour law practitioners, very respected lawyers. They, along with the independent arbitrators, came back with recommendations.

[4:40 p.m.]

Through their research and looking at our economy today, they have come down with recommendations that meet the test of today’s economy, meet the test of today’s labour law — to make sure that we have labour laws that are modern, labour laws that are fair, labour laws that are going to deal with today’s changing economy and even looking forward. I think that’s why we brought what we did, and no wonder.

I think, to answer the member for Langley here, the reaction that I’ve seen from very, very different places…. In the Daily Courier in Kelowna, Pat Bulmer, a reporter, writes this: “That old pattern seems to have been disposed of with the modest and largely commonsense changes the Labour Minister introduced Monday and Tuesday.”

He went on to say: “After a lot of study and input and with a nod to his government’s minority status, the changes” — he put my name in — “brought in have mostly widespread support. The NDP’s labour allies liked most of the changes, although they were disappointed some items on their wish lists weren’t included. Business spokespeople also said they supported many of the changes.”

Then you look at our own press gallery, Les Leyne. He said this: “The pendulum-swing analogy usually used to describe B.C. labour law rewrites didn’t apply this week. Instead, the Labour Minister took a radical, disconcerting new approach — moderation.” He went on to say: “They look to be practical changes, rather than the ideological declarations that marked previous efforts by various governments to tilt the field in favour of unions or management.”

I must say that that’s the attempt that this government is embarking on. That’s what the intent behind this Bill 30 is. That’s what we are trying to achieve — to make sure that it is practical, that it is modest, that it is something that reflects the needs of the working people at the same time as it addresses the needs of a growing economy and our businesses. I’m really, really happy with the good debate here. I’m happy that I have this opportunity to bring this bill, which will put us, I think, on a path to have a really strong, sustainable economy with fair laws to support it.

With that, I now move second reading of Bill 30.

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 30, Labour Relations Code 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. G. Heyman: I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 32, the Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act (No. 2), 2019.

[4:45 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.]

Committee of the Whole House

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

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 32; J. Isaacs in the chair.

The committee met at 4:51 p.m.

On section 1.

P. Milobar: Just one question for the minister. I know the member for Fraser-Nicola was wondering, on behalf of her constituents with this, if we could just get to walk through what the exact next steps would be, once this receives royal assent, in terms of the final transfers over to the regional district or the Loon Lake fire department area, and whether or not it would result in basically a lease agreement with the Crown once the park is removed or if it would look to be moving as a sale. My understanding is that it would be more of a long-term occupation thing that would work through FLNRO.

Hon. G. Heyman: Thank you to the member for the question. The lands removed for the fire hall will be transferred to the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, at which point the Thompson-Nicola regional district will need to apply to that ministry for a tenure for the fire hall. Everybody is basically on standby, ready to take the necessary action.

The purpose of introducing this bill in this session, as opposed to waiting for the fall, was so that we could get construction going as quickly as possible in this building season. I can’t give an exact date, but I anticipate that it will be timely.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

Title approved.

Hon. G. Heyman: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 4:54 p.m.

The House resumed; R. Chouhan in the chair.

[4:55 p.m.]

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

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

Bill 32, Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act (No. 2), 2019, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. G. Heyman: I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 16, the Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act, 2019.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 16 — PROTECTED AREAS OF
BRITISH COLUMBIA AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 16; J. Isaacs in the chair.

The committee met at 4:58 p.m.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On section 3.

A. Olsen: I’d just like to give the minister, maybe, an opportunity. I had a couple of emails with respect to the name change at John Dean Park. I’ve responded in the local media, explaining that it’s an additive process, where the name John Dean is not being removed from the park, but ȽÁU,WELṈEW is being added to the name of the park.

Maybe, to the minister, if he’d just like to provide a few brief remarks. I know that this is not the first time that this has happened, where a name has been added and nothing has been lost. I’m just wanting to maybe give you an opportunity to highlight the thought in that and the opportunity that that presents.

[5:00 p.m.]

Hon. G. Heyman: Thank you to the member for Saanich North and the Islands for the important question. As the member knows, and as I think members of this House know from second reading debate, there is a whole history to the place that was known as John Dean Park. It’s part of an important historical and cultural history and mythology for the W̱SÁNEĆ people.

The students at ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ school requested the name change in a letter to me that talked very movingly about how it felt to go to this place that had so many stories that were important to the history they were learning about their people, their culture and their nation but to not see, in the naming of the place, any reflection, as if that had not in fact existed.

In responding to the request to recognize that rich history and culture and meaning of the place to the children and to the people, the parks branch, B.C. Parks, followed the usual practice, which was to contact remaining family members of John Dean and to indicate what our intention was. There was no objection from the family. As is almost always the practice, the name is now a dual name. So it will be known henceforth as ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱/John Dean Park.

Sections 3 to 6 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

Hon. G. Heyman: I move that the committee rise and report the bill passed without amendment.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:04 p.m.

The House resumed; R. Chouhan in the chair.

[5:05 p.m.]

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 16 — PROTECTED AREAS OF
BRITISH COLUMBIA AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

Bill 16, Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act, 2019, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate on Bill 15, the agricultural amendments bill.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 15 — AGRICULTURAL LAND
COMMISSION AMENDMENT ACT, 2019

(continued)

S. Thomson: I appreciate the opportunity to continue my comments and thoughts on Bill 15, the Agricultural Land Commission Amendment Act.

I had the opportunity to get started on this previously and laid out, at that point, in the initial comments some of the background and the history of the Agricultural Land Commission and the agricultural land reserve legislation and some of my background in terms of involvement in the industry and involvement in working with this particular legislation over many, many years in my career before politics. Although much of that work in the agricultural industry, working for associations and working on behalf of farmers and ranchers, I guess you could say was politics as well.

One of the things that I talked about was when I first started to work for the provincial farm organization at the time, which was known then as the B.C. Federation of Agriculture. Eventually, through a number of changes, that changed into the B.C. Agriculture Council.

Initially, coming out of university and working for the B.C. Federation of Agriculture…. That was in 1974 when I started there. That was a couple of years after the introduction of the legislation and still was initial implementation and establishment of a land commission at that time. I can remember going through many, many of the files and history in the archives and reading the press coverage and everything when that was implemented.

When I first had the opportunity to comment on this, I talked about some of the farm leaders at that time, real leaders in the industry, and what they were fighting to ensure was protected when the legislation was introduced. Just as I said then, leaders like Charles Bernhardt of the B.C. Fruit Growers Association, a longtime orchardist family in Summerland, a real leader, chair of the Canadian Horticulture Council, went on to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

[5:10 p.m.]

People like George Aylard of the B.C. Milk Producers Association, at the time — Island Farms. Their farm continues out in North Saanich. Ralph Barichello of the Fraser Valley Milk Producers Association. Pat Hibbert, a strong farm leader out of the Deep Creek Farmers Institute, a dairy farmer representing a small Farmers Institute group up in Deep Creek, in the Armstrong–Salmon Arm area.

They, along with thousands of farmers, demonstrated against the initial legislation, primarily on a principle of property rights. Over time, the issue of the ALR became accepted, although initially there were lots of concerns that this was an alienation or taking of property rights at the time. Through the process of the implementation of the legislation — it was introduced quickly — there were a number of key amendments that they were fighting for and that got brought into the legislation.

The reason I want to sort of review this is because if they saw what was happening in the current legislation — with the removal of the designation and the recognition of farmers as persons and losing the right to make a direct application for exclusion from the ALR — they would be, I think, as shocked and dismayed as they were when the legislation was first being introduced.

When I reviewed back into the archives, some of the key things that they were fighting for at that time were an explicit exemption of the power of expropriation for acquisition. There was a process where land could be acquired, and they wanted to ensure that that would not have the power of expropriation in order to be able to do that. If there was going to be land acquired, it had to be done through a willing-buyer, willing-seller process, limiting the power of designation without acquisition to the agricultural land reserve — so limiting the power that simply designates without acquisition. Assignment of major responsibility, at that time, was to regional districts in preparation of the initial agricultural land reserve plans.

Most importantly, the thing that they were fighting for in that initial legislation was the right of appeal, including appeals directly to the commission and to the environment and land use committee at the time, by individuals. I think what we need to stress here is that the key provision they were fighting for was for the right of appeal to include appeals to the commission or to the environment and land use committee by individuals and, at that time, municipalities and regional districts. The provision for individuals was clearly there. That right of making that application directly for exclusion from the ALR by farmers and ranchers as individuals, as persons, is now being taken away from them in Bill 15.

The farm leaders would have been shocked and dismayed at the actions of this minister. I expect that even the original architects of the legislation would be dismayed to see that right removed, because at that time, they recognized that this was essential to the acceptance of the legislation.

Now, I acknowledge, and I acknowledged in my previous comments, that over the years, the opposition to the legislation changed from the opposition at that time which resulted in the demonstrations — at that time, one of the largest demonstrations ever on the lawns of the Legislature — in terms of the initial implementation. It has changed now to a recognition of the importance of the legislation and a focus on ensuring that farmers and ranchers can be viable in their operations, have a climate for investment and succession and to seek the needed flexibility in the legislation and regulations to support that.

[5:15 p.m.]

In other words, preserving the farmer along with preserving the land. I’ve always said, when I worked for the industry, that the best way to preserve farmland was to preserve the farmer. But this legislation or the amendments to the legislation are now taking that role or that right of that individual to remove that and not designating that rancher or that farmer as a person.

We know the many challenges that farmers and ranchers face in operating on the land and things. I think that the last thing farmers and ranchers need is to have that definition of being a person taken out of the legislation. I really think that it is insulting to the farmers and ranchers. I really think it is a stretch way too far in terms of this provision of the legislation. I think it is, as speakers have pointed out…. When you look at the numbers involved, it was a process and a tool put into the legislation that really is insulting to the individual farmers and ranchers and addressing a problem which doesn’t exist.

The minister said that this was about trying to stop the wave or the tsunami of applications for exclusions, that there was just this landslide of applications that the land commission didn’t have the capacity to deal with. Then, when you look at the actual details…. Was there this landslide? Were there hundreds? No. Were there dozens and dozens? No, there weren’t. Less than two dozen last year. A total of 39 applications across the province in 2018: 11 in the Okanagan, six of which were rejected; 14 on the south coast, with nine rejected; two in the Interior, which were approved; four on the Island, all refused; four in the Kootenays, all rejected; and four in the north, with two rejected.

It sounds to me, when you look at the numbers and the approvals and rejections, that it’s pretty balanced. I just don’t see how this step taken by the minister in terms of this definition in the legislation, removing the designation of farmers and ranchers as persons, to address a total of 39 applications across the province….

I think we know across the province that there are local governments that don’t have the capacity to do the applications and the processes. In fact, there was a resolution proposed at the Southern Interior Local Government Association that is going to go to UBCM that has asked the government not to move forward with this change and to consult properly with local governments. They are indicating that they weren’t fully consulted on this change and what it means to them as well. So again, we see a process here where I think the minister has stepped way, way too far in terms of the steps that she’s taken in this to address a problem that doesn’t really exist and to take that right of direct application by producers….

I used the analogy in the beginning that this was a little bit like owning a home and your property and saying that you don’t have a right as an individual to apply to local government for rezoning on your home. Now, you know that in many cases, you may want to make that application to your local government. The zoning is in place and all of those things. You may not have a chance in terms of the application being considered positively, but you do have that right to do that.

[5:20 p.m.]

It’s your property. It’s your private property. It’s your home. You can make that application, whether or not you’re going to be successful. Well, I think that farmers should have that same right of application. Circumstances change on farms. There are provisions where the long-term interests of the farmer may be a little bit different than what local government thinks, and the farmer and rancher should have the right and the ability to make that application and make his case.

We know, in most circumstances, if you don’t have local government support for it, it’s not going to get the level of approval or a chance of positive consideration. But you should have that ability with your property, the property that you’ve invested in all of your life and that you’ve worked hard on all of your life, to make that application and state your case and have the decision made by the commission, one way or the other. Very clearly in the legislation it says that that has been taken away. You can’t do that. The application can only be made by a local government, First Nations. The farmer is not defined as a person.

Now, the minister read and made in her comments some support for this from the former chair of the land commission, Richard Bullock. But if you look carefully at what he said…. The minister is saying that we’re wrong in how we’re portraying this, that this doesn’t take the farmer and rancher away as a person. My response to that is: read the legislation. Read it carefully. Look at what it says. That’s exactly what it says, and the comments by Richard Bullock affirm that. He’s saying that this is a change. This is the next logical step. It’s confirmation that individuals can’t apply.

The minister seems to be portraying our concerns about this as fearmongering, as unfounded, as not real in terms what we’ve been talking about here. That really surprises me from a minister who is passionate about the industry, from a minister who has worked so closely with farmers and ranchers across the province.

I’m hearing from those individuals, those farmers and ranchers and orchardists in the Okanagan, who are really perplexed, dismayed and insulted that this step has been taken. These are all producers who understand and support the Agricultural Land Commission, but they’re saying: “I just don’t understand why this step has been taken. It’s my property. Our family has worked on this property for years and years and years. I should at least have that right and ability to make that application for exclusion” — for whatever circumstances or rationale they feel is appropriate. But to be told in the legislation they can’t even do that….

This is what farm leaders, for years and years, since this legislation was introduced, have fought for and have fought to protect. Now, with one fell swoop, in Bill 15, that right is being taken away. I think it’s really disappointing. I think it is shameful in terms of the step that has been taken….

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

S. Thomson: Sorry, I must have talked a little bit longer last time than I realized. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I’ll close with saying I can’t support Bill 15 on the basis of those rights being taken away and will be voting against it. While I stand strongly in support of the ALR, I just can’t support this Bill 15.

I. Paton: I rise today to speak to Bill 15, the Agricultural Land Commission Amendment Act, 2019.

[5:25 p.m.]

As I think members of this House could all agree, agriculture is absolutely foundational to our province. So it should go without saying that those involved in agriculture — the farmers, the ranchers, the producers, the processors — play a pivotal role as well. These agriculture operators produce hundreds of products, more than 200 agricultural products on land and another 100 products out of our oceans. From tree fruit growing in the Okanagan to cattle ranching in the Kootenays and from berry farming in the Fraser Valley to salmon farming here on Vancouver Island, there is no denying agriculture is key to our provincial economy, food security and identity.

What do I know about agriculture? Well, I know a little bit. I’m a third-generation farmer on our farm in Delta. My grandfather purchased the farm many, many decades ago. I spent more than three decades owning and running a dairy farm and our farm auction business.

All my friends that I grew up with are large-scale conventional farmers. I have friends that are on Vancouver Island and Delta and all over the Fraser Valley. Pretty much all over the province I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in the farming industry.

My history with the politics of farming is that before coming here to Victoria to this fine House, I was director of the Delta Farmers Institute. I was on Delta city council, and I was the council liaison for the Delta Farmers Institute. I was a representative on the Metro Vancouver Regional Planning and Agriculture Committee, and I was a volunteer for the Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust.

When we speak of the Agricultural Land Commission and the agricultural land reserve in this province, I’m proud to say that my father, by the same name, was chairman of the Agricultural Land Commission back in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He spent most of his career, with a degree in agriculture from UBC, in the farm industry as well.

Coming from an agricultural background, I understand the importance of protecting valuable farmland. Our family has never applied for any sort of exclusion at our farm in Delta that’s been around for many decades. In fact, I’ve always thought about building a new home for my wife and I on the farm, and I can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to bring in those loads of gravel and sand to preload for a house on my nice hayfield right next to the dike. We take it very seriously about protecting good class 1 soil like we have in Delta.

In my view, this government’s proposed changes to the Agricultural Land Commission have taken things too far. I’ve been around long enough to see the agricultural land reserve and the land commission working just fine, I thought, over the years.

We brought in a gentleman a few years back by the name of Frank Leonard. Frank was told to speed things up, to get applications taken care of so municipalities weren’t waiting forever for non–farm use applications. There was a regional panel system set up where we had three members from each corner of the province that would make decisions, that would speed up decisions on exclusions and non-farm uses.

Everything seemed to be working pretty darned well at the land commission, but a change of government in 2017 and suddenly the Ministry of Agriculture has suggested we need to blow up the land commission. We need to blow up the agricultural land reserve. It needs to be fixed. I have no idea why it needs to be fixed. If this bill is passed, it will take away the private property owner rights to apply directly to the ALC to remove land from the agricultural land reserve.

I have a few quotes here, very interesting, from Vaughn Palmer. Vaughn Palmer said, quite a few weeks ago, when this was first introduced to the House: “The New Democrats are cancelling the right of individual owners of farmland to apply to the provincial Agricultural Land Commission on their own initiative for exclusions from the reserve. At the same time, the bill repeals a section of the existing Agricultural Land Commission Act that says: ‘An owner of land may apply to the commission to have their land excluded from the agricultural land reserve.’” That was part of the original legislation back in 1973.

“So to recap, in future, only governments can initiate applications to remove land from the reserve. Individual owners of farmland will no longer have that option. Instead, they can only proceed through local government from the outset.” Only a local government or First Nations government will be able to apply for changes. To be clear, farmers can currently apply for an exclusion. That doesn’t necessarily mean they will get one, but the NDP is trying to take away their ability to even ask.

[5:30 p.m.]

This is a heavy-handed move that strips away the fundamental rights of landowners in British Columbia, effectively giving the government total control of agricultural land. In fact, the NDP doesn’t even consider farmers persons under this legislation.

I’d like to read another quote from Mr. Vaughn Palmer. I’m sorry. This is a quote from the Agriculture Minister. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen people buying land in the ALR, only to turn around and immediately apply to get it pulled out of the ALR so they can develop it. This volume of applications to review has become burdensome to both local governments and the ALC, since in many cases, exclusion applications are not approved as they are for development purposes.” Now the minister has accused us of fearmongering when we have called attention to this absurd situation.

Bill 15 says: “A person may apply to the commission…if the person is (a) the owner of the land and is (i) the Province, a first nation government or a local government, or (ii) a prescribed public body.”

“People, specifically farmers, will not be persons once the NDP-Green coalition pushes this nanny state vision through.” Nowhere there does it mention individual landowners, and that’s taken right from the legislation. The minister can see for herself. She has redefined person to mean government. It’s just plain wrong. Farmers are people too. I find this change insulting, quite frankly, and its implications are not lost on farmers, who’ve characterized this bill as an attack on their very way of life.

The government is effectively taking control of agricultural land in this province. It’s astounding. “Soon only state entities will be able to apply to remove land, if and when they see fit to judge the property owner’s wishes.”

In addition, under Bill 15, property owners will no longer be asked for their consent when the commission wants to exclude their land from the ALR. This leaves them in a precarious and uncertain situation. The commission can decide to remove their property from the reserve at any time, perhaps to reclassify their land out of the ALR so that they can suddenly push it into some sort of other zoning and increase the tax base on that particular landowner’s property that was in the ALR. They have the ability to take it out if they so choose.

All of this is happening because the NDP is making the unfair assumption that anyone who purchases or owns land in the ALR is a speculator. Notwithstanding the suggestions from the current minister and the former chair, the commission has not been inundated with applications for exclusions. While the minister has publicly stated there has been an increase in land exclusion applications going to the ALC, prompting the changes she’s proposing, the available data simply does not support her claim.

I’d like to read a quote from a media person, Mr. Fletcher:

“In other words, local governments and the ALC continue to protect farmland, as required by the ‘old government’ legislation. I asked the ALC for its latest data on the crushing volume of speculator applications, since it stopped posting archived decisions after the minister took charge.

“In 2018, there was a grand total of 39 applications to remove land provincewide. One of two in the Interior region was approved. On Vancouver Island, four applications flooded in, and all were refused. Same in the Kootenay region. In the Okanagan, the commission grappled with 11 applications, turning away six. On the south coast, there were 14, with nine refused.

“The numbers are even lower for 2017. The ALC annual report shows a steep decline in applications since the 1980s.”

I would say there is not a flood of applications coming into the Agricultural Land Commission to exclude farmland in this province. I fail to see how fewer than 40 applications in a year is burdensome, as the minister has claimed. It is actually the minister’s own fearmongering in suggesting that the ALR is being used as a land bank for development. This is complete nonsense.

[5:35 p.m.]

The figures also show there is a balance of accepted and rejected applications. Last year there were 11 applications in the Okanagan, six of them rejected. There were 14 on the south coast, nine rejected. Two in the Interior were approved; four on the Island, all refused; four in the Kootenays, all rejected; and four in the north, two of those rejected.

I don’t know what numbers the Agriculture Minister is looking at. These ones look pretty balanced, if you ask me. In fact, they show that the policies of our former government, which the Agriculture Minister is trying to overhaul, have actually been working. This reality proves the minister isn’t making changes based on facts. She’s making them based on ideology and activism.

Meanwhile, Bill 15 would also eliminate the ALC’s six regional panels and concentrate decision-making power here in Victoria. This would dismiss the unique local perspective of representatives from B.C.’s diverse agricultural regions. Rather than making decisions where they will be felt, someone here in the capital could be weighing in on agriculture in the Cariboo, the Peace region or the Skeena. The whole show will, again, be run from Burnaby, with token regional appointees on a central politburo.

While the minister has stated the new commission will have guaranteed regional representation, she’s failed to mention that the chair has total authority to choose the panel to review an application. The chair may choose — not must choose — to have one person from that region represented, so there is no guarantee. Removing these regional panels could also increase red tape.

One reason our former B.C. Liberal government brought in the panels was to help relieve a massive backlog of applications. When I was on Delta city council, we had so many applications for secondary homes, homes for hired help, non-farm uses, if somebody wanted to put in a U-pick or corn mazes — different things like that — they were taking forever. I can remember the land commission had paperwork stacked up, and it was taking over a year to get a result on an application from the city of Delta. Well, we cleaned up that backlog. We made it work. Mr. Frank Leonard fixed it. Again, I say: why are we blowing up something that was working just fine — the Agricultural Land Commission and the agricultural land reserve?

The changes proposed in Bill 15 follow another set of reforms in Bill 52, which have also been controversial. Maybe that was anticipated by the minister, considering they got into force on a quiet Saturday morning in late February, of all times. These reforms are impacting multigenerational farm families by making them apply to the commission to prove they are farmers. Bill 52 also removed zone 2 from the ALR, diminishing the opportunity for farmers to set up small side businesses on land unsuitable for farming, things such as winter storage for motor vehicles or for RVs or for boats.

Perhaps a young farmer who was good at bodywork or mechanical work would like to set up a little shop on his farm in zone 2. Perhaps somebody in the horse business would like to set up a little tack shop and sell horse tack, saddles and different things as a business on a farm in zone 2. That has been taken away with the passing of Bill 52. Maybe they offer to do some welding, or maybe a small meat-cutting operation on their property during slow months of the year — nothing fancy but apparently very threatening to this minister and her government. “We’d better shut them down.”

Our former government recognized that farmers and ranchers in zone 2 — the north, the Kootenays, the Interior — deal with a very different set of circumstances than farmers in zone 1 — the Lower Mainland, Okanagan and Vancouver Island.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

There are serious consequences to this one-size-fits-all approach. Farmers with shorter growing seasons have less opportunity to make ends meet. I’ve said many times, when you’re farming in Mexico, California and Arizona, you’re a farmer that’s probably growing and planting and harvesting 12 months of the year. But when you’re in British Columbia, especially in the northern part of B.C. or the eastern part of B.C., you’re probably looking out the window at snow, ice and rain for a good seven months out of the year. You might be actually farming for five months of the year.

There’s a big difference. That’s why we needed zone 2 to give opportunities to people trying to make a living in the north of B.C. and in the east part, the very cold eastern part of B.C., and the Kootenays. Over here in Victoria or in my home in Delta, it can be easy to forget that farmers up in the Peace region or ranchers in the Kootenays are still under snow right up until May 1 sometimes.

M. Bernier: You had to bring it up, didn’t you? Rub it in.

[5:40 p.m.]

I. Paton: Yeah, I did.

The NDP isn’t giving the farming community any flexibility. Local input and knowledge is no longer a part of the decision-making process. This legislation also introduced changes to size of homes allowed on farmland.

As a farmer, preserving our province’s farmland is top of mind for me, but there is no farming without farmers. In fact, I have a bumper sticker that has been on my truck for many, many years. On it, it says “It’s not farmland without farmers.”

This government talks nothing but farmland. “What can we do about farmland? We’ve got to preserve it. We can’t let people do this. We can’t let people do that.” Where, in these two bills, does it say, “We need to help the farmer in B.C.,” or: “How can we make the farmer or the rancher in B.C. be more economical, to make a better living, to have financial success at the end of each year”? The NDP’s home size rules have some pretty negative consequences for farmers.

I openly have stated that there is no place for mega-mansions on class 1 soil, as we have seen for years in the city of Richmond, B.C. By mega-mansions I mean 10,000- to 20,000-square-foot homes with 200-metre-long driveways plunked right in the middle of the farm. However, somewhat larger farm homes for multigenerational farm families should be considered if located on a sensible home plate on the corner of a farm property.

Farmers now have to apply to the ALC before building a house for their family, which increases cost and red tape. These new home size rules have really affected large, multigenerational farm families, many of whom were caught in the lurch and now have to go back to the drawing board on their home plans at great personal expense. Housing for farmworkers and family members has also been put into limbo, another hit to the farmer’s bottom line.

Our caucus suggested limiting the actual footprint of the home, encouraging innovating building practices and building upwards, not outwards, but the government wasn’t interested. This law on home size does not even look at a parcel size as a consideration. You have the same treatment for a two-acre parcel as you would for a 100-acre parcel of land.

These legislative changes come in on the heels of a number of tax increases and other measures that have hit B.C. agriculture operators hard. They’ve seen an increase to the carbon tax, a new employee health tax, increases to the minimum wage and changes to the piece rate for fruit picking.

The employee health tax is also leading to property tax hikes in many municipalities. You can add that to the list for farmers as well. Farmers are also getting hit with increases to their property taxes because of the employee health tax that is being added on to their municipal property taxes.

I’d like to do a quote from a very well-known individual in Delta. He is the executive director and the CEO of BCfresh, Mr. Murray Driediger.

“‘It’s unbelievable that both the provincial and federal government have literally been dumping costs onto businesses at the levels that they have and expect us to remain competitive,’ he said. ‘These are moneys that we use to modernize to ensure that we remain competitive, and they’re doing everything they can to throw sand in the gears.’

“The biggest, most immediate tax hit will come from the new payroll tax that has been foisted onto employers, from businesses to school districts, to replace the Medical Services Plan.”

BCfresh is a huge warehouse in Delta that all the vegetables come into from the different farms around B.C., and then they get shipped out to the grocery stores.

“BCfresh covers MSP premiums for 24 employees. ‘That used to cost us about $15,000 a year,’ Driediger said. ‘Under the new payroll tax, for the exact same services supplied to our employees, the new cost will be $45,000 a year.’ And because the new payroll tax comes into effect one year before MSP premiums are eliminated, it means…BCfresh will have to pay both MSP premiums and the new payroll tax for the first year.

“‘Freight is a major component of getting produce to market throughout British Columbia,’ Driediger said. ‘Fuel costs are a major…component to growing produce. All of these increases are doing nothing but adding on costs to the consumer, and freight costs are going through the roof.’”

I talked the other day about the cost of fuel. We all talk about it in question period, and we talk mostly about gasoline — pain at the pump. But imagine what the price of diesel is now. Diesel has gone up just as quickly, at the same rate as gasoline. Carbon tax has gone up. All these affect farmers.

[5:45 p.m.]

Carbon tax affects the poultry industry. It affects the mushroom industry. Of course, it affects all the greenhouses that have to use fuel to heat their greenhouses 12 months out of the year.

A good friend of mine, Peter Guichon, owns a farm in Delta with his brothers, and they farm a lot. They farm probably 800 acres, between Delta and some land up in Abbotsford. They’re big potato growers. They likely have over 30 tractors on their farm and probably over 15 trucks. They have forklifts, and they have skid-steer loaders.

I said to Mr. Guichon: “What were your fuel costs for 2017?” He told me it was $230,000 in fuel costs to run their produce farm in 2017. In 2018, that jumped to $284,000. With the price increase of fuel all over this province, his projection for 2019 for his farming operation — for his trackers, his trucks, his forklifts, his skid-steer loaders — is $340,000 in diesel, gasoline and propane on his farm.

Farmers on Vancouver Island and throughout the Lower Mainland are also subject to the NDP’s so-called speculation tax. They join more than one million B.C. households that now have to provide personal information to the government this year and each year thereafter to prove they are not speculators.

The employer health tax, the carbon tax and the speculation tax will no doubt have severe impacts on agriculture in this province. But these are just three of the 19 new or increased taxes the NDP has introduced in less than two years. So $5½ billion in new taxation revenue is coming into this province.

The government is hiking gas taxes, which means consumers will pay more for goods transported by truck, such as groceries.

In the farming industry, everything we do is really based on transportation. When you think of the milk truck that comes to pick up the milk on the farm…. Vedder Transport is a huge trucking company. They go all the way to the dairy farms in Smithers, Prince George, and they pick up the milk every single day, from way up in Smithers. There are ten dairy farms up there.

There are also all the dairy farms in the Okanagan — Arm­strong, Salmon Arm, Enderby — including all the Fraser Valley farms. All of that trucking is burning fuel, and the carbon rate going up is going to cost more to the farmer every time. Milk trucks, delivery trucks, suppliers, trucking to the processing plants — all of those trucks are burning diesel, and all of those vehicles are going to be affected by the increase in fuel costs and the increase to the carbon tax.

It’s not just farmers, ranchers, processors and producers who are being hit by the NDP’s misguided actions. It’s everyone who depends on agriculture products. All of us in this House and all of our constituents back home rely on the work of agriculture operators. But together, the NDP’s actions paint a very concerning picture of the future of agriculture in this province.

When I talk about the future of agriculture, I say that with a lot of seriousness. The minister is fond of saying that we need to encourage the next generation of farmers, which is absolutely true. I totally agree with her on that point. But how on earth do you encourage young people to get into this line of work — knowing how difficult it is already — when they know they will face a great number of obstacles this government is placing before them? How can you expect them to dream big and contemplate a real future in agriculture when you’ve hit them with a slew of taxes, fees, paperwork and the sentiment that you don’t trust them because they’re probably speculators?

The next generation of children coming along have been sitting like generation after generation at the dinner table and the breakfast table with their parents. Their parents are farmers. If those kids hear Mom and Dad say, “Boy, things are going pretty good. We’re making a few bucks. Things are all right. I think we’re going to be able to take a holiday this winter. Maybe we can take the kids to Disneyland,” the kids think: “Wow, this is a pretty good business. I work my own hours. I’m working on the family farm.”

But if they hear, night after night after night, Mom and Dad saying, “What do we do? Who do we pay next month? We’re short of money. We need to borrow money. We’re not meeting payroll. We can’t pay the feed company. We owe the veterinarian money….” If the kids hear this, year after year from the parents, do you think those children are going to continue on in their parents’ footsteps in agriculture in this province? Not likely. They will likely go on to pursue some other form of employment, go to university and become an educator, a doctor, a lawyer, an electrician, a plumber, a boilermaker, whatever.

[5:50 p.m.]

If they hear the doom and gloom of farming in this province from their parents, they are not likely to carry on as the next generation of farmers. In fact, I’d argue that increased taxes and costs will actually deter a lot of people from getting into this business, and that is really sad.

I grew up in the 4-H community. I think we all know what 4-H is. I’ve stayed active over the years. Just over the last weekend, I was judging a local 4-H speaking competition. I know what it’s like to be raised on a farm, to fall in love with the land, to respect the animals and to learn how to run a business. I’ve run several small businesses myself, including my own farm. I know how to meet payroll. I know how to deal with employees. I know what it’s like to be a small business owner.

This government sure isn’t making it easy for young people to follow through with those big goals and dreams.

As the members opposite well know, my colleagues and I aren’t the only ones who are concerned. And by the way, unlike the other side of the House, we understand farming over here. We understand land use, and we understand the needs of ranchers. I can tell you, on my side of the House, I’m so proud to say that people such as myself from Delta South, West Van–Sea to Sky, Kelowna West, Abbotsford West, Penticton, Cariboo-Chilcotin, Kelowna-Mission, Kelowna–Lake Country, Peace River South, Peace River North…. These are people on my side of the House that know agriculture and understand the needs of farmers in this province.

A few Sundays ago many of my colleagues and I heard from hundreds of Lower Mainland farmers deeply concerned about the NDP’s impact on B.C. agriculture. Last November there were 400 farmers who showed up at the Aria Banquet Hall in Surrey to voice their opposition to Bill 52 on house size and taking away the rights of farmers to build a secondary house and a third house on the farm. Then, just a few weeks ago in Surrey at another banquet hall, there were over 200 farmers who showed up to voice their opposition to Bill 15. These individuals set aside time during their spring planting season to voice their concerns around the direction the NDP is taking. That’s how important these changes are, and that’s how much of an impact they will have on people who work hard every day to produce our food.

We’re hearing stories from farmers and families across the province who have seen their housing plans scuttled, who sit in limbo, unsure of whether those plans will now proceed, and possibly out a whole bunch of money that they’ve spent on engineering and architectural designs and environmental designs. They anticipated that they’ll be sent back to the drawing board after all that work and all those funds spent, with their families’ dreams dashed and businesses hurt. We have heard so many letters and emails that have come in to us just recently about people whose plans for a secondary home for family members on their house have been scuttled.

Now, with the bill before us here today, the rights of farmers to even ask about making changes on the land they own will be gone. They aren’t persons anymore. I am left wondering what right will be stripped away next in the NDP’s ongoing ideological tidal wave. Nowhere in changes to recent legislation is there anything mentioned about improving the lives and financial prosperity of B.C. farmers. It’s only about controlling the rights of agricultural landowners in this province.

L. Larson: I rise to join my colleagues in expressing concern over the content of Bill 15 and its implications for individual farmers and landowners within the ALR.

In my riding of Boundary-Similkameen, family farms, ranches and agricultural operations build livelihoods for residents and their families, which in turn support their communities. From cattle ranches to fruit trees, my region is one of agricultural diversity. All of my riding depends on some form of agriculture to support the local economies. Many of the more traditional farms are passed down from generation to generation. The farmers and their families know best how to maximize their living from the land on which their homes and farms are built.

I’ve always believed that the most important thing a country can do is to feed itself. But we are free in Canada to make decisions to buy and own land and make our own choices about what we own and what we do with the land.

[5:55 p.m.]

People usually buy farmland to farm it. Occasionally, these owner-operators need to make changes to their land to ensure continued economic viability. There could be changes in family circumstances, perhaps an opportunity to develop a second farm business on site to supplement the income, or to expand a current farm operation, like a cold storage or a fruit packing business.

Prior to the changes first introduced in Bill 52 and now Bill 15, a landowner could personally make an application for the change. Then the local panel of three ALC commissioners would physically walk the land and review the application based on best farm practices and land use options and make recommendations to support or not support the landowner’s application to the ALC. A notice of the application would also go to the local government for comment and recommendations, but ultimately the ALC would make the final decision. This process ensured the best possible outcome for both the farmer and the agricultural land in question. Farmers had the right to apply. There never was a guarantee of success.

It appears that concerns raised in the Lower Mainland about speculators on agricultural land, not necessarily backed up by real numbers, have been used as the basis for a broad sweep by government to put all ALR land under control of some form of government. The only mega-homes in my riding are multigenerational families, who all live together under one roof to share the work of farming. The grandparents babysit the little ones during the day so that the mothers and fathers are free to devote their day to farming. These are grandparents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and cousins all sharing the same mega-home in order to support each other and to continue to farm.

Farmland is expensive in my riding. It takes more than a single person to work the hours needed to support a family unit and produce a farm product in a profitable manner. In the past, in very few applications provincewide, there has been the need for a farmer to expand his living area to accommodate more family. That farmer has always had the right to make the application to the Agricultural Land Commission to make changes to their privately owned agricultural land. While the government will argue that nothing has changed, this is just not so. If nothing was being changed, there would be no need for this bill.

Yes, a farmer can still fill out the application and send it directly to the commission, but the commission will not action it at all and will just send it back to local government. The farmer will now have to convince the local government — regional, municipal or First Nation — that they need a larger house for their family or some other change and ask them to apply on their behalf.

What authority do any of the local governments have that gives them the right to make a decision on what size house this farmer might need for their family or what economic viability this farmer is trying to maintain through expansion? Is that a responsibility that local governments want to take on? Were they consulted about their participation in this new scheme? Having been in local government, I certainly would not want to be responsible for making this decision on someone’s privately owned land. Which local government staff is qualified to make agricultural decisions on private land?

There is added cost to government to create and submit this necessary documentation to the ALC, and once again, the cost will be shared by all of the taxpayers in the community instead of just the individual landowner.

This also opens the door for local government to make applications on a number of things regarding ALR land adjacent to a municipality. Is it now possible — just a question to throw out there — that local governments, with approved community plans that have ALR land identified in that plan, now have the ability to have that land removed from the ALR without the landowner’s consent? Many communities are looking for land to expand their residential, commercial or industrial space but are landlocked by the ALR. Under this legislation, instead of preserving agricultural land, perhaps a local government can now apply for exclusions from the ALR.

[6:00 p.m.]

How does that protect farmland in B.C. or make the land more affordable for new farmers? This bill is complicating and making more expensive what was an efficient process for an agricultural landowner to expand their dwellings or secondary farm operations on their own land or to grow their business by adding value-added production to their farm.

Exclusion for speculation, as the minister has based this bill on, is not backed up by piles of applications. Actually, as the minister has stated herself, only 40 applications for exclusion have been received over the last year or two, and less than half were actually approved under the current system that is being replaced here.

The previous process, which is being eliminated, allowed a local panel of three people with knowledge of the land base to actually walk the land and make a recommendation based on the reality of farming a particular area where exclusion was being applied for. They looked at the soils, the topography, the access to water, etc., and made their recommendations based on the real viability of the land for farming.

Their support or lack of support informed the commission on its decision for all of the right reasons. There will now be one person per region appointed to represent that region at the commission board. That individual will not physically be able to look at land in an application in a timely manner, even if they were actually mandated to do that. This will not smooth the application process through the commission but will actually back up the applications and further delay any decision, creating further costs and uncertainty on the land base.

If one of the purposes of both this Bill 15 and the previous Bill 52 was to encourage and support new young farmers to start farming, this will not have that effect. This bill has the potential to drive the costs of farmland down, which is possibly the minister’s end game. However, the current land­owners are unlikely to sell at a loss. The current land­owners are unlikely to sell at a loss, no matter how much their property is devalued by the policies. No new young farmer is going to put money into land where they do not actually feel they have the full power of ownership.

I’m sure financial institutions will not be willing to loan money to purchase ALR land with the uncertainty of true ownership that this bill and decision-making creates. No one is going to invest in farmland with the amount of government control being imposed on what a farmer can do or not do on privately owned farmland and the uncertainty of government who at any time, with only written notice, can change the designation of all or some of that privately owned land.

This could possibly drop the value of agricultural land in some specific areas. But the uncertainty of any rights as an owner of that agricultural land will not encourage anyone to buy the land to farm. Under this bill….

Interjections.

L. Larson: I believe I have the floor, Mr. Speaker.

Under this bill, the government has decided they know what’s best for farmland, not the farmer. The fundamental right that private land owners have rightfully held is in jeopardy with this legislation.

This is the first time we have seen legislation that seeks to redefine what persons are eligible to bring a land exclusion application forward to the Agricultural Land Commission. Under this legislation, a person is redefined as a local government or First Nations government. The Agriculture Minister seems to be confused about what actually constitutes a person. Under this bill, only government organizations can make applications to the ALC.

What circumstances have afforded the minister the right to redefine what constitutes a person? What purpose does this serve except to remove the farmers’ rights to make decisions on their own land?

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

L. Larson: Mr. Speaker, would you like me to stop for a few minutes?

Deputy Speaker: Just keep the voices low, please.

The member will continue.

[6:05 p.m.]

L. Larson: Thank you.

The government doesn’t own the land, yet the government will now be given decision-making on all ALR land. If you live on land in the ALR, whether you are a farmer or not, you are captured in this bill.

We have been accused of fearmongering by the NDP for pointing out loss of farmers’ rights with this bill, but the minister would have British Columbians believe that there has been a mad rush provincewide to remove good farmland from the ALR and destroy farming in B.C. Was this legislation predicated by thousands of applications? What other reason could there possibly be to remove the rights of farmers from ALR land? Well, let’s look at the numbers. In 2018, there were 39 applications. In the Okanagan, there were 11 applications, and six were rejected; in the Kootenays, four applications, all of which were rejected — not exactly a landslide of activity to trigger such a punishing piece of legislation.

The previous government recognized and was familiar with all of the geography of the province and did not attempt to create one-size-fits-all legislation — instead recognizing the very unique, growing areas of British Columbia with two zones and localized ALC panels who could make informed recommendations to the ALC. Even in the extreme north of B.C., of the four applications to the ALC for exclusion, only two were approved.

This bill has no documentation to justify these extreme measures. It is not based on sound research, and facts do not back it up — just the minister’s personal, activist belief. I cannot support a bill that is a blatant attack on the fundamental rights of private land owners and farm owners and operators in this province.

M. Bernier: It’s an honour to be recognized in this House as a person, to be allowed to speak. I guess if I were a farmer, I wouldn’t be able to. It’s a good thing I don’t own any ALR land right now. I might not be allowed to speak in the House. It’s important, as we….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

M. Bernier: Wow. I always appreciate that when I get up to speak, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has to try to take over the floor. Maybe the minister should actually be talking to local governments. Local governments at the area association meeting which I was at last week — which the minister wasn’t at, by the way, representing local governments — were adamantly speaking against the fact that Bill 15 was a download to local governments. I wonder if she’s hearing that when she’s actually out, hopefully, doing her job.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Let’s have one speaker at a time, please, Members.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, one speaker at a time.

M. Bernier: I love, hon. Speaker, that every time that I get up, the members opposite, who had the opportunity…. By the way, they still have the opportunity, if they choose, to get up and speak. They choose to sit here and just mumble and heckle and say a whole bunch of things, but they don’t seem to have the guts to stand up and defend this legislation. Maybe they should do that.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Member, not using that kind of language.

M. Bernier: Sorry, hon. Speaker. Which language?

Interjection.

M. Bernier: Sorry, I don’t remember that ever being constituted as unparliamentary, but I take the advice of the Speaker. Thank you.

Deputy Speaker: It’s okay, Member. We’ll continue. You have the floor.

M. Bernier: Thank you. I’m sure they’re going to be sitting now, listening very attentively to what I have to say. What’s really important is that they should be listening to the concerns of the people in the province. Now, I’m not going to talk too much about what goes on in the southern part of the province. I’m not going to talk about decisions that are made, mostly, in agricultural areas in the south. I know the critic for Agriculture spoke very eloquently, with a lot of passion and a lot of expertise, on his experiences — not only on this bill but around agricultural opportunities specifically.

I also think it’s a disrespect when someone like myself, from the north, is trying to impose my views and values on the people in the south. In fact, I would also, conversely, say the opposite.

[6:10 p.m.]

This is one of the things that I always hear from people in northern B.C.: why is government, why is the Agricultural Land Commission trying to impose regulations and their views of what they think should work for a small part of the province, geographically, with a large population down south, and impose that view on northern and rural parts of British Columbia that have completely different kinds of agri­cultural opportunities, growing seasons, different crops…?

I appreciate the Minister of Agriculture wants to continue heckling, but you know what? This is one of the challenges. Maybe she should be paying attention to what the people of rural B.C. are actually saying.

This is a challenge. When you have six or seven months a year of snow on the ground, farmers are looking for opportunities to stay on those farms.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: The minister continues and wants to say nothing has changed. Maybe I should read, actually, her own words in her bill to her. The problem is they want to be able to apply as farmers. But right, actually, in this…. The minister is going to have an opportunity to say who a person is. Maybe she’ll be having the opportunity….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. The member for Peace River South has the floor.

M. Bernier: The minister will have an opportunity to change the wording. Right now her wording actually says a person may apply to the commission to have land excluded from the Agricultural Land Commission if they are the province, a First Nation or a local government. Nowhere in there does it say: “or if you’re a farmer or somebody working the land.”

She has an opportunity to change that. She wants to keep trying to correct us in the House — that we’re wrong — when we’re reading the words right out of the bill. She has an opportunity to change that, to make sure that what we’re saying actually doesn’t come to fruition.

The people who live in my area, many of them, fought long and hard to try to ensure that they were being recognized, again, for the stresses that they face up there — and trying to look for opportunities. In fact, five miles from my house…. There is no ALR in the province of Alberta. We don’t see a whole rampage. We don’t see all the agricultural land being overtaken by industry, like the minister and this government want to make people believe. In fact, we see great farming operations in Alberta.

Sometimes people are looking at operations to help accent that farm by making money on the side. Sometimes they look at excluding a little bit of land.

Now, the minister put this bill on the floor. When she put the bill on the floor, she said this was to stop the incredible amount of speculation that was taking place. I challenge the minister to show me all of the speculation that’s happening in rural British Columbia. Where in my riding, where in rural B.C., are we seeing all these people coming in and buying farmland so they can just mow it up, tear it up and start doing whatever they want with it? Well, we know that doesn’t happen.

The minister is going to stand here and say that we’re trying to stop speculation. I guarantee you — the member for Peace River North will agree with this comment — that if there was an opportunity for farmers to start selling their land to make a profit, they probably would be doing that. They’re having a hard enough time making enough money right now farming on that land, let alone looking at opportunities as speculators to do anything on that land. This bill is a complete slap in the face to the agricultural industry, especially in rural B.C.

Now, the minister talks about the abundance and the huge amount of work that’s created by people applying for exclusion applications. The north, which is about Williams Lake north — we’re talking everything from the Alberta border to the Pacific Ocean, Prince George and that whole area — last year had four whole applications. Two of them were turned down. Supposedly, the minister says this is horrible, and we have to change the system.

Where in those four applications can the minister point to that that was all because of speculation? Where can the minister point to, in four applications in all of northern British Columbia, that this was such a huge burden on the Agricultural Land Commission that we have to start changing the process?

[6:15 p.m.]

At the same time, in Bill 52 that we had last fall, the minister, as another slap in the face to rural British Columbia and the agricultural industry, eliminated the two zones. That two-zone approach was brought in specifically for rural B.C., for the north, for areas that were just looking for that little bit of help, little bit of a hand up, to be able to look for opportunities to be able to stay on the farm.

I had an example: a gentleman in my riding who’s a third-generation farmer. His family instilled that hard-work ethic into him, and he does absolutely everything he can to stay on the farm. He has around 3,000 acres of land. So not a small farming operation. But considering the size of the Peace region, it’s just a small part of the ALR. He was looking for opportunities to be able to stay on that farm.

In today’s time, as was mentioned by the critic, it’s hard enough for farmers to be able to stay on the land. I applaud them for that, because of course, more than almost any industry in the world, we need our agricultural industry. So you’d think we’d be looking for opportunities to help these people.

This farmer said:

“Look, I need about five, ten acres. I want to be able to take a corner of my 3,000 acres over by my house, which is bit of a shale pit area anyway, and I want to build a shop there. I employ about ten people in those five, six months that I’m farming, but with this small shop, I’m going to go out and buy some water trucks and keep those farmhands working 12 months a year. When we have six, seven months of snow, I’m going to keep them employed, so I know they’ll be back on the farm working for me.

“I’m going to have some water trucks, and I’m going to apply and try to have some contracts in the oil and gas industry. Since that oil and gas industry is coexisting on the agricultural land, why can’t the farmers coexist and maybe reap a little bit of the benefit of that industry by having some side jobs, as that goes, as well?”

To nobody’s surprise, usually that gets turned down. Why? Because the Agricultural Land Commission doesn’t consider things like that a good use of agricultural land. Even if the studies are showing that it’s not farmable land, it is still turned down. On a map, they draw a circle and say: “This is ALR land.”

If the minister wants to really help farmers, we need to be helping them stay on the land. This bill helps farmland. I don’t see anywhere in this where it actually helps farmers. You can’t have one without the other, unless you’re going to have an industry completely go extinct. We know what that means for the people of B.C. and for the world.

I would have a lot of time if the minister also said in this bill: “You know what? We are going to completely look at agricultural land in the province, at what is even designated ALR land.” The problem was, in 1972, when the commission came in….

I can see now why the former member for Peace River South who sat in this House a couple of people before me, MLA Don Phillips, actually stood in here and filibustered for 12 hours, believe it or not. I found that in Hansard in doing some research. He filibustered for 12 hours — Leather Lips Phillips, there — against the ALR because of the work….

Interjection.

M. Bernier: That’s right. Unfortunately, they won’t let me be the designated speaker. I can probably go that long.

The problem…. When he spoke against it, it was because…. When you’re drawing a circle on a map and saying, “We’re going to protect all this land,” without actually doing the work…. We were setting ourselves up for failure to begin with. Now, 40 years later, we’re running into the same problems, where people are trying to get exclusions in some areas or look at opportunities to use the farmland better where land can’t even be farmed.

I was just down in Williams Lake and travelled through that area and 100 Mile House. The amount of land that we have in the ALR there…. I was shown some land that’s ALR, and it’s not even suitable for ranching. It’s not even suitable to allow our breeders and feeders opportunities on that land, in some of those areas. Yet it’s designated ALR, and we can’t do anything with it.

[6:20 p.m.]

I would have a lot more time for this bill and the minister’s actions if she would stand up and say that one of the things we need to do is actually get rid of a lot of the ALR land in the province that is not suitable for agriculture. Then we’d have a lot more time being able to focus on what is true agriculture land.

The minister can correct me, because I might be wrong on this — and I mean that in all sincerity — but about half of the land, I believe, that’s ALR land is actually Crown land. I’m looking for a nod or not. About half of our ALR land is Crown land.

Maybe we should be actually doing better of using our own Crown land. Maybe free up some of that. I’ve looked at a lot of this Crown land that, according to this government, is land that needs to be protected for agriculture. It’s not being farmed. It’s within an agricultural land reserve. It’s been protected, yet nothing’s happening on that land.

The minister mentioned Crown land for ranchers. I’ll give her that, because I know in my riding, there is some ALR Crown land that our breeders, feeders and cattlemen use for seasonal range land. That is appropriate. I’ve got no problem with that. I support it. The problem is when you have land that’s on the side of a mountain, covered in trees, yet it’s been drawn in a circle and said it’s agricultural land.

That’s where I think we need to do better and actually do a better job of quantifying what is agricultural land. Then there’d be a lot more patience and time to actually say we’re truly supporting the agricultural industry in a holistic way and supporting the farmers on the land.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Bill 15. Again, the challenge with this and the reason why most of us are speaking against it is not only some of the specific wording of taking the rights away from agricultural people and farmers themselves. The minister will have a chance to change that, and I hope she will in committee stage. But it’s again the whole cookie-cutter approach that this government knows best, that a couple of people making decisions know best.

When I was part of the regional district, we had times where it completely made sense to have an exclusion. It was completely supported by the regional district, supported by the communities, supported by all of the people who lived in the area. Everybody dotted their i’s, crossed their t’s. We sent it down to the commission.

Nobody even bothered to come to the region to look at it. They just put a “denied” stamp on it. That’s why, when you have bills like this that are put in place, we need to not only do our job as opposition to scrutinize it but remind the public this is something that should not be supported.

Noting the hour, I would like to reserve my place and move adjournment of the debate.

M. Bernier moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

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

Hon. S. Robinson moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

The House adjourned at 6:24 p.m.