Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate on Bill 35.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 35 — MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 2019

(continued)

Hon. C. Trevena: It is with great pleasure I take my place in the debate on Bill 35, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2) of this year.

I’ve also got to say that it’s with great pleasure that I stand in this House to address the House on legislation. I know that members of the opposition have been questioning the fact that we’re here, that we’re having a fall session, that the only legislation that we’ve put forward is a miscellaneous statutes act.

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

A couple of points. One is that I sat in opposition for three terms and was very aware of those many times we didn’t actually have a fall session, that there was no business important enough to discuss. In fact, the member for Abbotsford West, at the time, described it once as “busywork” and unnecessary to be here. But it is necessary to be here. That’s why we’re elected. We’re elected to represent our communities. We’re elected to represent the people of British Columbia and do the business of the people of British Columbia.

[1:35 p.m.]

This Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act is dealing with many issues that are very relevant to the people of British Columbia. The Minister of Children and Family Development spoke earlier about the importance of the parts of the act that refer to her ministry and the impact that these changes will have, and the impact that changes made in previous legislation are having, on thousands of families. It is extraordinary, the level of engagement, the level of involvement that has been happening and the filling the gap of, as I say, 16 years of not having issues of social welfare dealt with in an equitable way. At last this is happening.

Children and Family Development, Social Development. There are some very significant changes to Social Development, getting rid of some really outrageous regulations that had come in under the previous government, which denied people benefits — heartless regulation. I’ve had people in my constituency office come and talk to me about some of these issues, and they were impoverished by the legislation. The changes in this act are going to change people’s lives.

On that, I’m going to make a segue — I excuse the pun for those who are listening — to changes in the Motor Vehicle Act and the ability to bring in, potentially, Segways. That is the responsibility of my ministry in relation to the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act: amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act. Again, I think they are very important.

There has been a lot of interest in bringing forward these changes, a lot of encouragement. I know, from members opposite as well as the general public and within our own government, we’re very eager to see these amendments come through. People are changing the way they travel, so it’s important that our regulations, through the Motor Vehicle Act, recognize those changes and are modernized to match the reality.

The changes in the act will establish a regulatory framework to help people who use the new and, I think, very diverse modes of personal transportation. We’re not talking about new modes of transportation; it’s oftentimes the weird ones. It looks weird. We see the tourists with the Segways, but people are using Segways. I know it’s a brand name, but it is the upright Segway. It is the e-scooters. We’ve seen, in a number of cities, the proliferation of e-scooters, and I’ll address that. It is hoverboards and electric unicycles. It’s all the ones we’re seeing that are not bikes.

There may also well be the opportunity to look at electric bikes — we see regular push bikes and bike-share programs being used widely — to have a look at where we might be able to expand on e-bikes to ensure the safety of the users of these forms of transportation, as well as all road users.

Currently a transportation device that doesn’t fall under the Motor Vehicle Act’s definition of a motor vehicle, a cycle or a pedestrian is not permitted to operate on highways or sidewalks. Some of these new devices I’ve just been describing struggle to fit in any of the categories. The changes proposed in this legislation will give government the ability to address this gap.

I’m also very proud that the amendments are another step in our active transportation strategy, which we introduced this last summer, in June. They came from some of the conversations that we had through the active transportation strategy. We had about 3,000 engagements in the active transportation strategy, and we heard, loud and clear, that amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act were identified as key — looking at how to better protect vulnerable road users, be they pedestrians or cyclists or these people using the new forms of transportation.

[1:40 p.m.]

This legislation is enabling legislation, so it will allow us to create regulations to clarify how new transportation devices are to be used. I think, very importantly on this, they will also give government a chance to partner with communities to create some pilot projects to research and test how new mobility technologies work best here in British Columbia. I think that there are, clearly, new ways for people to travel. We need to make sure that our laws reflect the needs of our communities.

We have seen, as I say, a proliferation of e-scooters. I’ll use that as an example, because there has been a proliferation. Throughout many cities in the United States, we hear of problems, whether they’ve been in San Francisco, Austin or San Diego — often warm-weather places. But the fact is that there is a proliferation.

People are riding very fast. They may be riding on sidewalks. Maybe in Austin — it’s a bit of a party town — people are riding them, not necessarily abiding by the rules of the law on what they have consumed. So there have been concerns. I’ve got to say that we have, in Canada…. They’ve started to be rolled out in various places in Canada.

If I might just read a little bit from the National Post, in August, about the e-scooters. It says in the introduction of a piece about the potential problems of e-scooters: “When a fleet of nearly 200 electric scooters debuted in Montreal in mid-August, riders kicked up the kickstands and kicked off a week of complaints. The scooters were introduced in Calgary and Edmonton this summer, and the top nuisance has been the abandonment of scooters” in places where they shouldn’t be abandoned, including, as one of the ironies, “the wading pool of the Alberta Legislature.”

What we’re hoping is that by being able to work with communities on pilot projects, we can really, literally, get the ground rules, work out where they will be best used. Whether it be e-scooters, sometimes electric bikes, sometimes these unicycles or other forms of transportation, how can they be used? Should they be on a sidewalk? Should they be on a roadway? What sort of safety measures need to be put in place?

I know that we’ve already had lots of engagement from people. I have effectively had an inbox full of people writing to campaign for these sorts of mobility devices. We’ve had lots of people getting in touch, saying they would be easy. It would help for using transit. You’d just go to the transit station on your e-scooter. It gets you up the hill; it gets you down the hill. There has been a huge campaign to bring them in.

What we’re hoping is that with the amendments and working with local governments, we can create the sort of change that really supports the reality, but supports it in a very realistic way, supports it in the fact that we will be able to assess what does and doesn’t work in communities of different sizes.

I know the member for Kelowna–Lake Country is very, very engaged in this, very eager to see it, and the community of Kelowna, the city of Kelowna, is very eager to see that. I’m sure, as soon as this legislation is passed, if it’s passed, and as soon as we start on a regulatory framework, that Kelowna will be one of those communities knocking at the door saying, “We want to have,” as the member said to me after his speech earlier today, “not just scooters but all the other forms of mobility devices and how we really make sure that they are being used appropriately in our transportation network.”

Victoria, likewise, has been very eager. We’ve seen, in Victoria, the bike-share program of just regular, as I call them still, push bikes, the sort of bike I use. We’ve seen those coming in Victoria. And Victoria, I know, has also been anticipating something on e-scooters.

As the minister, it is my responsibility to make sure we’re investing in safe and efficient transportation networks to really connect people. I have been an advocate for active transportation for many years. I think most people in this House, and others, know that I am a cycle commuter, much less so now that I’m a minister. I don’t actually have the distance to commute, because in Victoria it’s a shorter distance, but at home I cycle a good number of kilometres to my office every time I’m in my office.

[1:45 p.m.]

It really is an opportunity, through these amendments, to have another step to ensuring we have a system that office people…. It depends on the type of device you’re using, but it’s definitely a healthy, hopefully affordable and definitely environmentally friendly way to commute.

Most of what we call active transportation modes, using, I’d say, the officialese…. For active transportation, people think of cycling; they think of walking. They are clean, produce zero pollution and are virtually free once you get your bike. So that will help communities. But what will also help communities is ensuring that we have a system that recognizes the needs of every person on the road or sidewalk.

As I say, how these amendments are going to change road use as we know it today, taking the Motor Vehicle Act from one of the 20th century into the 21st century, is this working with pilot projects, with communities to develop pilot projects. It is ensuring that those projects will give communities a safe framework to regulate the use.

We’re looking at a maximum of three years for the pilot projects. It gives time to set them up, run them for a little bit, evaluate them properly and see what works best for communities and road users. The pilot project regulations can temporarily override some of the provisions in the Motor Vehicle Act. I think that is important to note. So when we’re drawing up our regulations for a pilot project, it might allow a hoverboard or unicycle on a sidewalk — which, at the moment, wouldn’t be allowed because there is no place for them. So there will be some temporary changes through the pilot projects.

I really do look forward to seeing the innovation that communities come up with for these projects, because I think there is a lot to explore. It is really an opportunity to embrace a shifting transportation sector. These pilot projects could include new types of vehicles, so that also includes autonomous vehicles. They could include these motorized personal mobility devices, to use the technical term, which are e-scooters. Or they could also be looking at new approaches to licensing, to driver training or to enforcement and how that is done.

I do believe that by making these changes to the Motor Vehicle Act, working with communities, we will be designing and creating routes that are connected, accessible, safe and enjoyable and giving people the opportunity to choose more active and more diverse modes of travel.

Diversity is a key in addressing what also will be addressing climate change here. Through our government’s CleanBC, we are committed to reducing our impact on the environment. That has become very clear and a lived experience, as it were, through our active transportation policy, “Move. Commute. Connect,” which we launched in June.

When we were consulting, there was a lot of engagement from people right across the province. We had public meetings. We did on-line engagement. We did selected stakeholder engagement. There were more than 3,000 ideas generated during our engagement. People really want to embrace it. We made a commitment to increase active transportation — to make it easier and safe to get around while working on protecting the environment. “Move. Commute. Connect.” is really helping communities to integrate convenient and accessible systems.

We’ve got a very thick — it’s literally this thick — guide that has been embraced by local planners and which helps them plan when they want to build active transportation into their community plans. So I think it really is going to be embraced and taken on. It was created thanks to those hard-working community planners who worked with us and people who believe in choosing active transportation, whether it is these new modes of transportation or the traditional ones, as their first choice, whether they’re getting to work or to school or going to visit friends or do shopping.

[1:50 p.m.]

As part of the strategy, we did make a commitment to review the Motor Vehicle Act to address the definition of “road users,” including these new, emerging technologies. There are other changes still to be made that we’ll be looking at, because I know that there has been, really, a look from, particularly, the cycling community for certain areas that still do need addressing. Everyone really should have that ability to enjoy safe and accessible transportation. So working in partnership, we will be able to get pilot projects off the ground and create a framework for the future and support those transportation projects.

The amendments will create opportunities for government and for local communities to research and test these new mobility technologies, how they best work in our communities, so we can avoid the problems that other jurisdictions have seen. It’s not that we are late to the game, but it’s definitely that we want to make sure that they work well.

In Europe — you read about what’s been happening in Europe. In Germany they’ve been having problems with, again, the proliferation of these devices. I mentioned some of the Canadian jurisdictions where they’ve been introduced. In San Francisco they were brought in, and then they had to rein them back, and now they’re bringing them in, in a slightly different way. So we are looking to see that we can get it right.

We do know that there is, really, a direct link between our transportation networks and climate change, and we all have a role to play in protecting our environment. I think that’s been very clear over the last number of weeks with the climate change campaigns and the activism out there — encouraging people to be able to travel safely without taking out their car or their truck, knowing that they can travel safely, whether they are walking or cycling or using new transportation devices.

It is part of our government’s commitment in making sure that we are dealing with the climate emergency by dealing with active transportation, making sure that the infrastructure investments are designed for convenient and safe use. It’s all very well bringing in the pilot projects and everything else. But what does it look like? How are you going to use it? Are you using a bike lane? Are you using the sidewalk? What are you using? As I say, working in collaboration with communities.

There are a number of more minor changes in the legislation, which I’m sure will be discussed when we come up to committee stage. We’re modernizing the language, and sadly for me, as a lover of the English language, we lose the reference to people afoot. They are no longer there. They are simply pedestrians. But we also shed some rather, I think, pejorative terms such as “invalid carriage.” So we do modernize the language.

We also…. I think this is very important as well. I’ve been looking, highlighting…. There has been a lot of interest in the alternative modes of transportation side of it, the e-scooters and hoverboards and so on, and that’s where I’ve been focused.

Very importantly, in this legislation, it does ensure that people who are using medical scooters — whether it’s for, as a senior, if you are disabled and you need to use a medical scooter or an assistive device — are going to continue to be treated as pedestrians. So they can continue to use the sidewalk. I think it’s very important to underline that while we’re doing the pilot projects of all the new and glitzy and fancy ones that every young person and, sometimes, middle-aged person wants to ride on, we are ensuring that people are protected and they will continue to be.

There is no doubt that we do need to work in collaboration with communities, other levels of government to move active transportation forward in British Columbia. I think that it’s very clear that making life better for people is at the core of this government’s work, which is why this piece of legislation is so important to us. It is, in many ways, really making life better for people. I refer again to the Minister of Social Development, who I know is going to be speaking shortly about the changes this legislation brings. It’s going to have a huge impact on many, many people, and it’s long overdue. It was much neglected by the previous government.

[1:55 p.m.]

It’s what drives us, whether we’re in a social ministry or a ministry such as mine, which is sort of a delivery ministry. It really is what drives us — the need to ensure that the people of B.C. are treated equitably and that there are solutions to the problems they face, that their lives are better and that life is more affordable for them.

I think that this is going to be an interesting debate that I look forward to hearing. I know that members on the other side are largely in support of the changes to the Motor Vehicle Act. I look forward to working with them, working around the province with communities that want to pilot projects and working on that when we get the regulatory framework in place; looking at how we can pilot those projects and make sure that we are giving people the opportunity to get out of their cars, get out of their trucks, try new forms of transportation, try them safely. I can’t underline “safely” enough.

There have been reports in the United States. The certain unsafe use of these vehicles or unfortunate accidents of people not being aware of these vehicles have led to several thousand accidents and, sadly, a number of deaths. We don’t want that in British Columbia.

We want to make sure that when people are using these new forms of transportation, they are doing so as safely as possible, that they know the parameters in which they can work and that the other road users, whether they are bus drivers or car drivers or truck drivers, also know what the parameters are. That’s why I think working with communities, working on pilot projects, getting it right, making sure it works for all our communities is important.

As I say, I very much look forward to seeing this come into being and seeing the first pilot projects get off the ground, whether it’s a hoverboard floating along literally off the ground or somebody pushing along on their electric scooter. Whether it’s one that they own…. I’m sure it will start creating many, many opportunities for businesses that want to come in, as they have done in other jurisdictions.

With that, I’m very pleased to have been able to talk about what my ministry is doing here on the Motor Vehicle Act amendments. As I say, I think it is very valuable to be here for a full session to get on with the good work that the people of British Columbia are expecting us to be doing.

S. Thomson: I’m pleased to rise to make some comments on second reading of Bill 35, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2019. I’ll make a few comments on a couple of the elements of it and then have a little bit more comment, particularly with respect to the amendments that have been proposed around the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act component that’s in this miscellaneous statutes.

As others have commented, miscellaneous statutes usually have a lot of housekeeping and administrative changes and things like that in it. But there are certainly elements in the overall scope of all of this that need to be addressed and need to be probed and asked about, particularly in the committee stage, which is really, in miscellaneous statutes, where you get the substantive discussion going around on what the reason, the rationale, is for the changes that are being brought forward.

I will say, and echo of the comments of my colleague from Kelowna–Lake Country, I’m disappointed in the speculation tax amendments that are in this miscellaneous stats. When the Minister of Attorney General introduced the legislation, when he brought forward and listed this as being one of the pieces that was being addressed in this statutes act, I had that fleeting moment of hope that maybe there was something significant, a change coming to a tax that, obviously, we feel has been misapplied and misinformed.

It was disappointing to see that it’s just simply some very, very minor wording amendments in it. I had this sort of faint hope dashed pretty quickly. I was thinking this morning that it was like the faint hope I had with Canada’s national rugby team against South Africa last night at three o’clock in the morning when I thought…. You had that faint hope, and then 12 or 15 minutes into the game, that hope was dashed. It’s kind of like the speculation tax amendments here as well. But that’s just a bit of a digression.

[2:00 p.m.]

I wanted to again echo the comments of my colleague, as well, around the Motor Vehicle Act amendments brought forward by the Minister of Transportation — obviously something that I’m supportive of, particularly for our community. I think Kelowna, Kelowna–Lake Country and Kelowna West have really been leaders in the whole movement and push towards the active transportation networks within our communities.

Lots of investment being made in the community, including, for example, the $7 million investment that we made when we were in government in the Okanagan Rail Trail, connecting downtown Kelowna with the airport, with the university area and all the way through to Coldstream and up to Vernon.

The partnership that was developed there between the city, between the regional districts, the province and the community, who really got behind that project, did very, very significant fundraising for the maintenance of the trail and the establishment of the trail bed. It has been a huge success already in the community with the number of users on that trail network. But it links, also, to the very active bike lanes and bicycle networks through our communities, which are growing every day.

There’s a new bike lane being put down in the community, so we’ll obviously be very interested in the regulatory framework. I’m sure Kelowna will be one of the early communities that comes forward with proposals and ideas around this once they see the regulatory framework and the processes that they’ll need to go through.

Obviously, the caveats are there around public safety — all of those processes — as the minister outlined. I think that along with that, as you get more and more of this use and the different electronic mobility types that will be used in it, the education side of it is going to be an important part as well, around the responsibilities for people using those, responsibilities of drivers, all of those aspects of it too — an active piece that will be needed as this moves forward and gets implemented across the province.

I wanted to make a few comments around the amendments to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act that are proposed in here, specifically the proposal to amend section 33.1 in the act. This is a technical amendment in a sense but is, I hope, designed to strengthen the protection of privacy and information. Certainly, when we get into committee stage on this, we’ll be asking the questions around what the rationale was for this. What was the gap that is being addressed in bringing this forward?

It provides technical amendments, and it essentially applies to information that is being processed outside of Canada. Obviously, this raises some questions on this. It’s clear in the legislation that it doesn’t apply to storing information and data outside of Canada, which is certainly positive, but it’s about the processing of that information outside and some limitations on it. We’ll want to make sure that those limitations and conditions where that happens are robust and provide for that protection.

[2:05 p.m.]

From what I understand, this is an issue that has been there. This is legislation that is designed to cover something that is already happening or enabling something that is already happening. We know that for universities, health authorities, schools, other organizations that come under the purview of the government, a lot of the data processing and infrastructure that helps do that resides outside the country, even though the data is stored here. So we’re going to want to make sure that these changes tighten up the processes as opposed to provide and enable something that would actually loosen the restrictions or create more opportunity for this.

We’ll also certainly be asking questions around: are these changes something that were recommended by the Privacy Commissioner? Had he identified gaps that needed to be addressed, in the rationale for bringing these changes forward? Was there a privacy impact assessment done on the proposed changes? Again, sort of all getting to the point around: what is the rationale and what is the gap that’s being addressed in bringing this forward?

I think it’s very important, particularly with recent developments around freedom of information and things under the oversight of the former minister. It adds a responsibility around ensuring that, as we said, this increases and streng­thens the freedom-of-information protection with the changes that are being processed.

Some of this, you’ll recall, came up during the debate in estimates, both with the Minister of Citizens’ Services and the Minister of Finance, around the building of the system that managed the speculation tax and the significant concerns from many people about the collection of personal information under the speculation tax — 1.6 million users, a system that was built to handle over 3.1 million users in the system and a system that was built by a U.S.-based company that had had previous data breaches and glitches in their system. Over 1.9 million users’ information was compromised in that process.

It obviously raises some concerns, and we’ll be wanting to question a number of things. Whether this was in response to that, how much of this type of processing that is being covered off here actually takes place, and what the range and the scope of the issue is that’s being addressed here will be questions that we’ll want to pursue in committee stage as we go through it.

There’s also…. It refers to metadata. Metadata is not defined in the legislation. My understanding is that it’s a dictionary term that is being used to define what metadata is. But again, when you have these processing processes and you provide for them, how is the personal information that is in those systems protected and covered when you provide the opportunity for this to take place? As I said, storage remains in Canada, but processing by machines happens outside of Canada. This is enabling something, as I pointed out, that already happened.

[2:10 p.m.]

We’re going to want to, as I said, probe what the rationale was and what gap is being addressed in bringing forward these amendments. What role did the Privacy Commissioner, both in terms of raising this issue, addressing it…? Was it a response to that, and did the Ministry of Citizens’ Services, in particular, undertake a privacy impact assessment in the legislation? I think it’s important.

The one other element in the legislation…. It talks about this all applying where practicable. One of the questions we’ll want to probe is…. That’s a qualifier about where all of this applies, so there are obviously some circumstances where the provisions of this legislation don’t apply because it may not be practical. What are those circumstances? What are those conditions where the elements and the conditions that have been placed in this legislation that you have to meet now…? What are the examples of where it’s not practical to do that? What risks does that provide to the protection of an individual person’s private information and things?

Again, as I said earlier, in terms of the miscellaneous statutes, it is the key issues and the questions that get raised in the committee stage. That’ll be the important part of the discussion. We look forward to raising those concerns and others that may come up over the next couple of days before we get to committee stage — the opportunity to address those in that process.

I appreciate the opportunity to raise those few comments on the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act bill, with particular reference to that section of it. I look forward to the continued debate and the committee stage on the bill as we get into the specific elements of it in the days ahead. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Hon. S. Simpson: I’m pleased to have the opportunity to join debate around Bill 35, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2). In particular in my comments, I’m going to talk about sections 87 through 104 of the legislation. These are the sections of the legislation that apply very specifically to policy and practices in my ministry and work that we’ve done to make significant changes to a large number of policies and practices over the last number of months.

We learned a lot during the consultation before the poverty reduction legislation and the plan for TogetherBC. In that consultation, it will be no surprise, we heard from a wide array of people. About 8,500 people spoke to us, the majority of those folks being people who are living poor today. They talked to us about all the things that you would expect them to talk to us about: about housing, about income, about opportunity, about education, about safety and security — all of those things you’d expect.

They also talked to us a fair amount about the culture of this ministry — the ministry that was, under the previous government, Social Development and Social Innovation and was changed to Social Development and Poverty Reduction when this government came into office. I heard a lot about that. It was about the culture, and it was about how people felt when they interacted with the ministry. It was about how people engaged the ministry and about policies of the ministry that people believed were punitive and often unnecessarily punitive and unnecessary in what they required and obliged people to do.

This was important to me because, as the minister, certainly one of the cornerstones of the work that I’ve been looking to do over the last couple of years — we’re making progress, and there’s always more to do — is to shift the culture of this ministry. Shift the culture from one that….

Well, maybe the best example of what that is all about is…. I can reflect back to when I first took this position and the correspondence that would come from the correspondence unit for my signature: correspondence that would almost inevitably reflect, to whoever the recipient of income or disability assistance was that we were corresponding with, about how this was the ministry of last resort and the last thing that’s available to you.

[2:15 p.m.]

It, frankly, was framed in a way that I believed was diminishing to people, that undervalued people. Quite honestly, I simply refused to sign those letters and sent them back. I sent them back because what I was looking for and what we have focused on over the last couple of years is changing the culture of the ministry to one that says: “How do I support you as an income or disability assistance recipient to create opportunities for yourself and your family to break the cycle of poverty, to be able to move forward, to be able to support yourself and your family and to be successful in the life that you envision for yourself and your family?” That was where we wanted to go.

It became clear to me pretty early on that there were policy issues around how the practices of our ministry worked that were challenging to being able to make that shift.

I took the opportunity to go out and speak to folks in offices across the province. I would take the chance to hopefully come in and sit down with front-line workers, with EAWs and other front-line workers, and spend an hour, an hour and a half, in an office, having a discussion about how they viewed the work they did, where they thought innovation could be had and where they thought we could effect change.

I learned a lot from the people who, every day, go to work to do this work. I learned a lot also about the frustrations they had, about their inability to be innovative and their inability to look at ways to support people who came in, who needed support and maybe just needed to be dealt with in a little bit different way in order for that person to start down the path to effecting the changes in their life that they wanted to make for themselves.

We went away, and I directed the ministry to go and take a hard look at a whole array of policies, many of them that had been brought to our attention by effective advocacy organizations like TAPS here in Victoria and other organizations that work in social justice, legal affairs and legal advocacy, who raised a range of these issues to us. As a result of those discussions, as a result of that work, we came up with the first envelopes, two envelopes of policy, to change.

The first envelopes — and I’ll speak a little bit more about this in a minute — were ones that could be changed through regulation. In July of this year, we changed a number of those policies that can be effected by regulation.

This included reducing the access times for the work search period. Under the previous policy, a new applicant was required to spend five weeks in the work search. We reduced that to three weeks, which is the same amount that a returning applicant would need to look. Part of the reason for doing this is that we wanted to ensure that we got in under a month so that if people had a challenge around how to pay the rent, how to cover those costs, we could get inside of a month and still ensure that that work search happened and be able to ensure that we could provide support for somebody who was in a significant or desperate situation.

We ended the penalties for families providing room and board to a family member. Under the previous policy, this was discounted. It was not valued the same as if an adult was paying room and board to somebody that they didn’t know. We have now said that we will treat people the same way, regardless of whether they are a family member or not, in terms of what we supply in terms of shelter allowance when providing room and board to an adult child or a parent on assistance, and it will be without financial penalty. It will be similar to living in a private room-and-board situation separately.

We expanded access to the identification supplement. We have a big challenge with people around identification and making sure that identification is available for people to be able to support them, as it’s such a critical piece of being able to get the support they need. So we’re providing greater amounts of support now to ensure that people have the ID that they need to deal with everyday life.

[2:20 p.m.]

We extended access and simplified the application process for the persons with persistent multiple barriers category, PPMB. It’s the smallest of the three categories of income assistance — disability assistance, employable and PPMB — but it’s a section that has potentially real value, particularly in supporting people with complex issues. Unfortunately, people with complex issues were excluded from being part of PPMB. We’re effecting changes that will, in fact, allow us to use PPMB as a tool.

We eliminated the transient category to ensure that persons without a fixed address, with no dependent children and who are not considered to be taking up permanent residence in the community still are eligible to receive supports, as other people on income assistance. We’re not penalizing people for their circumstance.

We increased the asset limits for people, increasing asset limits for people around a vehicle. The previous limit was a $10,000 vehicle as a limit on the vehicle. We’ve removed that and said that the primary vehicle that somebody owns will be exempted. This came from people in outlying and rural and northern communities who are on assistance and who need a truck, who have a vehicle that often is valued at more than that $10,000 because of the nature of the vehicle and where they live. We weren’t prepared to penalize people and say, “You’ve got to sell your truck,” when that truck is an important part of how they get around in the north.

We also increased the asset limits for people on income assistance from $2,000 to $5,000 for a single person and $4,000 to $10,000 for a couple. We made relocating easier in terms of moving grants, and we expanded access to nutritional supplements. Those were all things that we were able to do through regulation. We did those earlier this year, and they’ve come into force effective July 1.

What we’re doing with Bill 35 is a number of changes that require legislative changes. They are changes that do a number of things that are critical.

We are ending the requirement for people on income assistance to pursue early CPP retirement benefits. The policy of the previous government was that when you turned 60, you had to apply for early CPP, take early CPP and get off of income or disability assistance. What we know that did…. We know that if you take your CPP at 60, you’re losing about a third, maybe a little more than a third, of your pension. We were ensuring that people, for that very short number of years, 60 to 65, would be poorer after 65 because we’re taking a third of their pension away.

We simply have ended that practice, and with that, we’re very hopeful that we’re going to ensure that a number of people who are getting into their older years and heading for Canada pension, in fact, will be able to collect their total Canada pension after the age of 65 and be in a better place to be able to support themselves, rather than, through provincial policy, entrench them in poverty.

If this legislation passes, we will eliminate the two-year independence rule as a barrier to assistance. This change is particularly important for vulnerable youth. We have a range of situations. The current practice today is that you need to be able to demonstrate that you are financially independent for two years before applying for assistance. Young people are the people who are most hard hit by this.

An example of that. A young woman who met the financial need and other eligibility tests was denied assistance because she’d failed to meet the threshold of 840 hours of work and $7,000 of gross income. She’d been in school during the time, only worked a little bit part-time. The result of this is that she was not eligible.

We know that, in particular, when we talk about young people in this, we’re talking about this putting young people on the street. We’re talking about this creating a situation where young people are susceptible to exploitation. The last thing we want to do is entrench people in poverty, entrench them in homelessness, as they transition from youth to adult.

[2:25 p.m.]

I’m hoping that most of those young people never, ever get to my ministry. But if they do, I’m not interested in telling them we’re going to punish them because they didn’t get two years of independence. We’re going to support them and, hopefully, with creating other opportunities through the work of the Minister of Advanced Education, through the work of Children and Families, through the work of other ministries, be able to create opportunities for them to get the training, the skills they need and to go to work — and to be supported by this ministry if they require that support.

We also are modernizing the ministry’s definition of “spouse.” The law currently says that if you’re together for three months, you are deemed to be a couple. Now, we know that in British Columbia under the Family Law Act, for purposes of family law, it’s two years for a common-law relationship to be recognized. We know that for the Canada Revenue Agency, for financial reasons, it’s a year. We have adopted the practice of the Canada Revenue Agency around financial matters here.

We will say to a couple that we will deem you to be single unless you marry, of course, in a formal way. But for common-law purposes, we will identify that relationship and recognize that relationship, not after three months but after a year. There is no reason for us to treat people differently than we treat everybody else because they happen to be on disability assistance or they happen to be on income assistance.

The second piece that connects to that relationship is that we know that divorces, when they happen, take time and cost money. We know, particularly for people on very modest incomes — like income assistance, like disability benefits — finding a place to live can be incredibly difficult. As a result, not just for people on income assistance — we see this across the board — we are seeing increasing circumstances where couples are separating and sometimes, for a period of time, needing to live in the same house.

This provides singles’ assistance rates to married people who have legally separated, have not yet finalized the divorce and are living in the same residence independently, while it ensures fair treatment between married and common-law couples.

We are seeing an opportunity here to be able to respect the reality of our time, the reality of cost, the reality of housing pressures and not penalize people, particularly not when there is a separation going on and often what is a very stressful time in peoples’ lives as it is, and then we are adding to that stress.

We’re changing the definition of “dependant.” The change will ensure that people retain their status as a stand-alone recipient and therefore do not have their rate reduced or are not cut off assistance unless they are truly in a dependency relationship.

Under the current definition, mostly women have been found ineligible because a roommate sometimes helps out with children and the help is characterized by the ministry as co-parenting, even though that is not necessarily the case.

Here’s an example. In one case, the occasional purchase of diapers and baby formula was enough to deem a dependency relationship, despite the fact that two adults intentionally maintained separate finances and did not support each other financially. The inference from the decision was that the woman would be forced to rely on her co-resident and that the co-resident somehow had an obligation to provide for her and her child because of this minimal, sporadic support.

This change will ensure that that doesn’t happen. It will ensure that dependency really means dependency. It will not be open to some interpretation about somebody who helps you out once in a while creating a formal dependency.

We have also changed the definition of “dependent child.” The current definition does not recognize shared parenting situations where separated spouses continue to live together, which has become more common since the acts were first done in 2002.

[2:30 p.m.]

This provides certainty with this regulation. We’ll make sure that no child loses out on the full range of supports they are entitled to receive. We’ll ensure that the definition addresses varied shared parenting situations, including those where parents are former spouses who live in separate family units in the same home, but they have a shared responsibility around a dependent child.

We’re ensuring documentation requirements do not create homelessness. We have a current situation where when somebody can’t produce the documentation immediately at the time of application, people get cut off.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

We’re changing that practice from cutting people off to one where there is a penalty. There will be a modest penalty involved, but we will support people with compassion by recognizing the difficulty vulnerable groups may have in obtaining all the documentation they need.

For example, a homeless person might struggle to connect with the necessary offices to obtain the documents they require around income that they may have earned. We’re going to continue to support that person while that process of accessing that documentation occurs. Today there is no opportunity to support that person. They’re on their own with no support. And far too often, when it comes to these issues of documentation, it is those people who are most vulnerable and most desperate who end up paying the price.

We’re enabling maximum repayment amounts so that we can bring certainty when there is an overpayment. When we provide a benefit to somebody that is a repayable benefit, and that occurs quite often, we will ensure the minimum amounts or the maximum amounts that are paid back so that it is not a situation that becomes prohibitive to somebody being able to make those payments and still be able to live their lives. When you’re on a very modest income, like income or disability assistance, that becomes a very big deal.

The other changes that we’re making are around evidence on appeals. We currently have a practice under the appeal board that doesn’t allow for new evidence. This is unlike many other tribunals. But the tribunal related to this ministry says that all of the evidence that’s presented initially is all that can be considered. We’re changing that to be in line now with most other tribunals — changes that will ensure new evidence that is meaningful and substantive and should affect the decision and affect an appeal will be allowed to be submitted.

Currently that doesn’t happen. Sometimes appellants have to go back and reapply, because the tribunal couldn’t consider that evidence. They have to go back and begin again. We’re changing that to ensure that if we have evidence that is meaningful and material, why shouldn’t the tribunal be able to look at everything that is meaningful and material and make a decision based on that instead of this bureaucratic limitation? Particularly when other tribunals, in fact, have the practice of being able to review new evidence as it comes forward.

These changes collectively don’t cost a lot of money. But they make a significant difference in terms of how we treat people and what our relationship is with people on income assistance and disability benefits — for the 200,000 people, give or take, who are supported by the ministry that I’m responsible for.

As we move forward, we committed in TogetherBC and in the poverty strategy around four foundational pieces: around affordability, around opportunity, around reconciliation and around social inclusion. What I know is that, particularly around those issues of social inclusion and of opportunity, these changes will make a difference. They will affect people’s lives. They will help people. They will be supportive of people as we move forward.

[2:35 p.m.]

If we want people on income and disability benefits to be able to effect a change in their life…. We talk about breaking the cycle of poverty, and that is about creating opportunity. That means valuing people. It means helping people to create the levels of self-confidence that will lead to their resiliency. Because we all know, in this room and in our lives, many of us…. We’ve all been knocked down and had to get back up again, often many, many times. You need to have that confidence, and you need to be valued in order to have that resiliency, I believe.

If we want to break the cycle, then we need to do the work to instil that in people who are vulnerable and who are struggling. There’s nothing easy about this. There’s nothing simple about it. It’s not simple to measure.

I do know that how we interact with people, how we engage with people, how we relate to them — how we as a ministry value people who come and need the support of the ministry that I’m responsible for — makes a huge difference. Far too often these are people who have been devalued in their lives, who have been put at risk, who have been threatened, who are in a desperate situation. We are doing nobody any favours if we, in fact, make that situation worse. What we’re doing here with these changes — again, a group of a couple of dozen changes over this year — is moving to make that happen.

I’m very pleased that this is moving forward. I look forward to discussion in committee stage around this work. My expectation is, as I’ve heard from people in the community and people who work in the advocacy field that we’ve discussed this with, that this will start to help people, and it will help make it easier for people to be supported. It will also make it easier for people to move their lives forward. I’m looking forward to committee stage.

Thank you for the opportunity to make some comments around this bill. I do believe that this is a very important change for us at a very modest cost and one that will prove very beneficial to people that we need to be paying attention to in this province, people who need our support and need our support to be able to have opportunities to build the lives they want for themselves and their families.

Hon. C. James: I rise to speak in support of Bill 35, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2019. I’m going to speak…. There are pieces in this act that relate directly to the Finance Ministry and to taxation. So I’ll just start with a few pieces related specifically to my portfolio. Then I’d also like to touch on a number of other pieces within this act that are important, not only to our province and to the work that we’re doing as government but also, most importantly, to the public and certainly to my constituents as well.

I think, as people will know, government often proposes minor changes to acts to improve clarity, to give some consistency across legal statutes. Certainly, that relates to the changes that are in this act related to Finance. They are, no question, housekeeping measures, and that’s part of why they’re in this Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act.

I think it’s also important to recognize that these proposed amendments are not unimportant, that these proposed amendments, in fact, are part of good government. While they may not be as splashy as some of the other big announcements that come out, they do in fact ensure good governance, and I think we can’t underestimate the important pieces of this work related to good governance in our province as well.

It is part of our job, all of us in this Legislature, to serve the people of this province. Often when people think about what government does to make their lives better, they think about the services that they rely on. They think about what matters to them, what matters to their family, the kinds of programs and services that they may access. Of course, that’s going to be different for every family, depending on their circumstances.

I think one thing I hear consistently from people is that with the services that they do access, they expect that they get information in a timely way, that it’s clear information and that it’s consistent across programs and services. I think there is nothing more frustrating — and I know all of us in our constituency offices will have heard this from constituents — than when they get pushed from one service to another. They don’t get consistent information. They get differing information from differing places.

[2:40 p.m.]

Part of bringing forward what appear to be housekeeping amendments to a bill often are proposed changes to, in fact, help the public, to serve the public better, to provide that consistency and to ensure that they are getting clear information when they need it, that they’re able to get the programs and services that they want and that they have the opportunity to do that.

The acts that are being changed in my particular area, just to speak a little bit about the Ministry of Finance and those pieces, are proposed changes to the Carbon Tax Act, the Provincial Sales Tax Act, the Motor Fuel Tax Act and the Tobacco Tax Act. The amendments that are coming forward are going to bring clarity and consistency, as I talked about, and they specifically speak to when a tax director and how a tax director will provide documents to a taxpayer.

Again, these may seem like very mundane kinds of changes, but it’s important. If you’re receiving an information bulletin, if you’re receiving a document from the tax director, you want to make sure that it’s consistent, that you’re receiving it in the way that you expect and that you have information around that. Those are the pieces that are coming forward in those particular acts.

There are also some very minor changes — again, minor language changes and consistency with the other acts — related to the Speculation and Vacancy Tax Act as well. I know the member opposite raised his disappointment that he wasn’t going to see more changes coming forward to the speculation and vacancy tax.

In fact, I had a very good meeting with the mayors across the province who are impacted and who live in the areas that receive the speculation and vacancy tax. We had a very good discussion. It would be no surprise to anyone in this House that there are mixed views around the mayors’ table. But it was a very good opportunity to be able to share the data that we had. The mayors shared their data as well.

There are certainly some mayors who are keen to not be part of the tax. There are mayors who asked to be part of the tax and, in fact, are looking at additional support for their own municipalities to look at vacancy rates. In fact, that information will come back now to the Ministry of Finance, and my commitment is that by the end of the fall, we’ll look and see if there are any kinds of improvements that need to be made. That work is underway, and I certainly thank the mayors for the time that they took in what, I believe, was a very productive opportunity to hear from them directly.

Just a minute on taxes. I think people often forget, when you’re talking about taxes and tax acts, what taxes really do for our province and for the people of our province. I think it’s just, again, another reminder about how important it is that we have the opportunity to be able to raise revenues that provide a more efficient program and service for many people in our province.

I often say that I think most people expect their governments to take care of their money well. They expect programs and services, when they need them, to be there for them. Those are kind of the basic principles that they expect.

Again, people need programs and services at different times in their lives. When your kids are going to school, you’re very involved in the education system, and you think about that. When you have a family member or a community member who may be ill and is in the hospital or accessing medical services, you think about your tax dollars to pay for those kinds of programs and services. Post-secondary education, seniors care — all of those kinds of areas are touched by taxes.

I think often “taxes” has become a bad word for people to describe resources that come to the province, but in fact, those provide services and supports for all of our citizens in our province. I think that’s why, again, I come back to the importance of these amendments that may seem small but ensure that people get access to programs and services, timely information and consistent information across the board.

Just three other pieces I want to speak on quickly on this act, as well, that I think are important, that are part of the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act. One of them is the changes to the Assessment Act, which will encourage the use of solar panel plants and expanding solar panel plants. What this piece of the act, in fact, will do is change the definition of “power plants” to include solar. It expands the opportunity to be able to ensure that solar plants will have the same access to exemptions around clean, renewable power and, hopefully, spur on more of an opportunity.

[2:45 p.m.]

This is part of the CleanBC direction that we are taking as a province that we very proudly have been working on with our minority partners to be able to provide a very clear path to say that we have a responsibility, as government, to address climate action, and we are doing that.

Again, while this amendment may not seem like a large amendment, to actually include, in “power plants,” solar power, I think, is a very big step and an important step in looking at how we provide support for industry, for new industry, for the direction where we can both be creating jobs, doing our part to grow the economy, and making sure that we’re protecting our environment and doing our piece there.

The second one that I want to touch on quickly is the issue of the Motor Vehicle Act and the changes that are being made here. These changes that are coming into place are going to establish a regulatory framework to allow increasingly diverse modes of transportation. This is an interesting piece for me because I had a constituent about six or seven years ago now, a senior citizen, come into my community office, who had just moved into the community of Victoria from another jurisdiction across the country and who used a Segway.

I think people might be surprised to think of a senior citizen using a Segway. It might not be the demographic that they might imagine would be using a Segway, but the woman was passionate about her Segway. She was passionate about utilizing it. It provided her with an opportunity to be able to transport herself, to be able to manage in a way that she couldn’t on foot anymore. She wasn’t ready for a mobility scooter yet. That wasn’t where she wanted to go.

She was very keen. We had lots of discussions with the city; we had lots of discussions with the province at the time. There wasn’t any way to be able to work it out, because it didn’t fit in the Motor Vehicle Act around licensing. It didn’t fit. It didn’t have a place to be able to go.

I think it’s, again, a very interesting piece, although people may brush aside miscellaneous statutes bills, to provide an opportunity for those devices that don’t fall within the act right now. To be able to look at pilots so that we can try out those definitions and see if they fit, making sure that we have an opportunity for both pedestrians and vehicles — whatever kinds of vehicles they may be — to operate safely, I think, is a very exciting piece.

I certainly know that my constituent, who was passionate about this issue, would be thrilled to know that we are continuing to look at this as government and that there’ll be opportunities, she would hope, certainly, in the future to be able to utilize her Segway and be able to navigate in Victoria in the way that works for her.

Then the last pieces that I want to touch on are the changes to the Employment and Assistance Act and the Employ­ment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act. The minister spoke very passionately about the work, and I want to say thank you to the minister for the work that he’s done on bringing forward a whole range of amendments, including these pieces that we’re talking about today in this bill.

I think that we can’t underestimate the impact these changes will have not only in substance but, even more than that, in the respect that they show for people who are living in poverty and who are living with disabilities. Often the changes — in fact, many of these changes that have come forward — aren’t huge, huge cost items, but they make a huge difference when it comes to treating people with the respect and the dignity that they deserve and that they haven’t had because of many of these changes in the act.

Again, I come back to my own constituents. I have a constituent named Doreen Gee who has advocated, ever since I became an MLA in 2005, for ending the need for people on income and disability assistance to get early Canada pension. They’re required to take benefits at 60, and that, as the minister has said so well, in fact reduces down the amount that they have for the rest of their life, in their pension. That challenge, that being treated differently, that not being able to make a choice because it was an individual who lived in poverty…. She has done an incredible job of advocating on this issue, along with many others in my constituency who have come to my office over the years to raise their concerns.

[2:50 p.m.]

This Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act changes that. It provides the respect for people that they deserve, and it’s an extraordinary change. I think, again, of the two-year independence rule required for young people before they could access income assistance. Again, I know very few people who could explain to me what kind of sense that made. Most people are coming for income assistance because they’re facing huge challenges, facing difficulties in their lives. To expect them…. Then to say, “Go and fix it for two years. Go and look after yourself, and then come back for services and supports,” makes no sense and certainly doesn’t make sense to the people who are struggling the most in their lives.

Again, people who are cut off assistance because they’re homeless or at risk of homelessness. Basic common sense would say that people are coming to income assistance because they’re having challenges, because they’re struggling and having difficulties. If they were able to have those difficulties go away, they would do it. There’s not a lot of dignity for a lot of people who struggle on income assistance, who end up having to use food banks, who end up struggling. This, again, just provides the kind of respect and dignity that those individuals deserve.

I think it’s also important to note…. Again, I think it speaks to the change that we’ve seen in the government and a change in approach. Again, I say thank you to the minister.

People with lived experience helped create these. People who have lived in poverty or are living in poverty or are living with disabilities helped create these changes. That speaks to that respect for individuals and how important that is and what a difference it can make in someone’s life when they have the opportunity to talk about their experiences and to make a change for the better for themselves and for other people. It’s not going to make a difference for people who had to take early CPP. But those people were fighting for the next generation that came forward and didn’t have to face that.

I think, just in closing, I want to say that I’m in full support of the amendments that come forward. I just want to end with a reminder that sometimes when members on the other side have talked about miscellaneous statutes amendment acts and bills not having the kind of important pieces and important work that we do as members of this Legislature, I think this bill is a perfect example of how important it is to recognize that good government and serving the people of this province, all the people of this province, is part of our jobs.

It may not get the headline. It may not be the top news story of the day. But it can make a huge difference in people’s lives, and it is part of our work. I’m very proud to be part of a government that is doing this kind of work.

S. Furstenau: I’m happy today to be speaking to Bill 35, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act. Before I get to my prepared notes, I just want to speak to some of the things that the Minister of Finance has just raised and to note that I found many of her comments to be quite inspiring. I thank her for them.

The minister was speaking, at one point, of taxes and the role that taxes play in a society. I think that when we are here in this place, and when we are in these roles that we are in as decision-makers, we have to recognize that our work is always about asking ourselves: what is the society that we want to be creating? The decisions that we make in here and the places we put money, where we invest, determine the nature of our society into the future. We have to be constantly grappling with where we want to be going.

And the job is never done. We’re never there. We’re never finished. There are always going to be new issues to solve. There are always going to be reasons for us to be doing better work. There is always going to be new evidence and new data that will help us inform our decisions so that we’re making good decisions and that we’re recognizing that, as a society, as the minister was pointing out, we are made up of individuals, but it is collectively that we do our best. So of course, we want a society that puts education and well-being of all people, particularly vulnerable people, at the centre of our decision-making.

[2:55 p.m.]

I just want to commend her for her comments and to note that I appreciate the thought that has gone into recognizing that, yes, it’s a miscellaneous statutes amendment act, but it does amend important pieces of legislation, and it does bring in important changes that the government has recognized need to be addressed.

The bill before us today does many things. I’m going to speak to just a few of the items that I believe deserve some significant attention.

First, I want to reiterate that First Nations, Indigenous communities, have the inherent right to care for their children in their communities. The government has said that First Nations requested the amendment during their consultation on Bill 26, the amendments that are in this act. As these amendments allow for more flexibility in providing support and preventative services to families in need, it is integral that Indigenous communities have the ability to look after their children and deliver a broad range of services to their communities. For that reason, I’m supportive of the changes to the children and family services act that are in this bill today.

Secondly, the changes to the Employment and Assistance Act and to the Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act make a number of changes to help vulnerable people access social services and assistance. These are changes that are, as the minister just pointed out, long overdue, and many of what’s before us in this bill are the legislative changes that are needed to implement the province’s poverty reduction plan.

Many of these changes may seem small, but they will make a significant difference to the well-being of those who are receiving social assistance. Many of the rules in place today are not based on evidence, and they do, in fact, harm the dignity of British Columbians who are receiving assistance. In particular, I was very happy to see that the two-year independence rule for vulnerable youth is being eliminated. B.C. was the only province to have this rule, and it unnecessarily penalizes young people who are in need.

I also welcome the fact that we are moving to a more humane and commonsense approach to how we offer assistance to those who are experiencing homelessness and those who are at risk of becoming homeless. Since 2002, we have been able to remove people’s income assistance if they’re unable to produce documentation to prove who they are. This can be a huge problem for people experiencing homelessness, who may not have the same records or access to bank accounts that so many of us take for granted. With these changes, there will be more options for ministry staff to work with those experiencing homelessness who aren’t able to produce adequate documentation.

It was already announced in TogetherBC earlier this year, but another major change is the fact that we will now stop penalizing people for failing to pursue early CPP benefits. Right now you have to pursue early CPP, but if you pursue it, you get a reduced rate for the rest of your life. This is an important change that will improve the financial security and stability of low-income seniors.

As I’ve spoken about before, these are important improvements to our system of social assistance. They make it less punitive and fairer. But we still operate in a system where we penalize and micromanage low-income and vulnerable people and where we treat poverty like a problem to be managed rather than to be solved.

We must put the dignity and well-being of people, all people, at the core of our decision-making. That is why I still believe there is a deep need to explore basic income, which is based on the principle that all people should have income security, all should be able to meet their basic needs, and we shouldn’t force people to jump through hoops just to be able to provide for the basic needs of them and their families. So while I support the improvements and I applaud the improvements that are before us today, I will continue to advocate for government to pursue basic income, first through responding to the basic income panel report that we will see later this year and then by using pilot projects to test the idea in B.C.

Finally, there are changes to the Professional Governance Act which will allow regulatory bodies to increase annual membership fees to ensure that they have resources to transition to the new provincial governance legislation during the next year. This is something, I understand, that the regulatory bodies have indicated is needed, and I’m happy to support these changes.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to this, and I appreciate the changes that are being brought in.

[3:00 p.m.]

L. Throness: It’s a pleasure to speak today to Bill 35, which is the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act. I’m going to speak to one section of it, and that is section 19 of the bill, which amends the Trespass Act of B.C. It adds a monumental change to the act. It adds a single word, the word “airplane,” to the Trespass Act. They could not have made a more minimal change unless they had inserted a comma. This is the absolute bare minimum that they could do in opening the Trespass Act.

The passage of legislation in this House is an opportunity for change. There are about 140 hours of legislative time in this fall session. That’s not a lot of hours. House time is precious. It’s difficult to find House time. Yesterday the NDP gave up 2½ hours of House time. That’s almost 2 percent of the entire fall session that they gave away because they couldn’t find anything to talk about. We could have been talking about this yesterday, but we didn’t.

The point I want to make here is that House time is precious. When we open up an act, which is a very seldom done thing, we ought to take the opportunity to make some significant changes to the act. Instead, we’re adding one word to the Trespass Act, and I don’t think that’s good enough.

Today I want to talk about a missed opportunity. I want to address an emerging situation on the ground in B.C. I want to begin by describing a visit I had with a couple of constituents this summer. I visited Creekside Dairy, where Julaine and Johannes Treur operate a dairy farm in Agassiz, in my riding. Johannes is a fifth-generation dairy farmer.

It is a beautiful farm. When I went on the farm, over the door there’s a sign that says: “Certified by the SPCA.” It is the only farm in Canada that is certified by the SPCA, where the SPCA lends its logo and its reputation to this farm as a supporter of healthy animals. These people really care about their animals.

I want to add, as an aside, that farmers across B.C. have a vested and financial interest in caring for their animals. For example, mistreated cows do not give a lot of milk. It is in the interest of dairy farmers to have a herd that’s healthy and happy and well fed.

When I used to milk cows for a farmer in my youth, we had a milking parlour, and we would have soft music playing in the milking parlour. You weren’t allowed to talk while you were milking the cows. The cows got treated better than the hired hands. Why? Because they gave more milk. It’s in their interest to do that. So it’s very unusual for farmers to mistreat their animals.

Anyway, back to my visit. The Treurs are also a certified organic farm. They follow all of the laborious regulations and requirements so that they can certify their milk as being organic. I cannot imagine a better model for a dairy farm that would be acceptable to people who are concerned about animal welfare than Creekside Dairy.

Creekside also appreciates transparency. So Creekside has a Facebook page. They want to be open to the world. They want to open their farm up. They’re proud of what they do. They want to show off what they do. For that, they have been attacked on Facebook by those who are opposed to any farming that involves animals. Julaine showed me some of the messages that she has received on Facebook, and it was shocking. Many of them said things like, “I want to cut you up with a chainsaw,” and things like that — just absolutely unbelievable messages, vicious and violent things. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that.

The Treurs had to block 1,200 Facebook accounts that posted nasty messages on their Facebook page — 1,200. That’s a lot of Facebook accounts. There was an outpouring of vile accusations and insults and threats directed against them, and it scared them. They live at the end of a road in Agassiz. There’s not a lot of traffic that comes by. They have small children. Now they say, they told me, that they’re watching over their shoulders on every vehicle that comes near the yard. They’re wondering: is this a neighbour, is this a friend, or perhaps is this one of the people who commented on Facebook? Maybe it’s an enemy. Maybe it’s someone who wants to occupy their farm or sabotage their farm or wreck equipment or worse.

You just never know, Mr. Speaker. They have good reason to fear because there are farms around Canada and the U.S. that are being trespassed, that are being occupied by protesters who want to shut down animal farming.

I would point out here that we have nearly five million people in B.C. A small minority of them are vegan. I don’t have a problem with vegetarianism or veganism. That’s all fine. That’s a personal choice. I would support every person’s personal choice as to what they eat.

[3:05 p.m.]

In my riding, we supply a good deal of the milk that’s consumed in B.C. We have at least three of the largest dairy farms in Canada. We supply beef and pork and eggs. We raise fish in land-based facilities and an enormous amount of chicken and other birds. That’s important protein, a source of food for well over four million people. A tiny minority of ideologues feel justified in carrying out these trespasses in a moral crusade to shut down this source of protein for everyone, and they aren’t about to engage in the democratic process to do so, probably because their views are not a reflection of a large number of people. Instead, they engage in condemnation and insults. Even more threatening, they are now physically, forcibly intruding onto the private property of farmers around Canada and in the States.

Now, I’m a strong proponent of rights, as you know, Mr. Speaker. People have and should have the right to protest what they want, whatever they want. But everybody has rights, including farmers. Let the right to protest happen on public property and give farmers the right to their private property as well.

I want to give you, Mr. Speaker, a few examples of what has happened just to show you what kind of an opportunity we’re losing here today to make real, positive, significant change in the bill before us.

In Alberta last month, in the early hours of Labour Day, dozens of animal rights activists invaded Jumbo Valley Hutterite Colony, near Fort MacLeod. The Hutterites are legendary in their skill in farming. I used to work for the International Harvester Credit Corporation many, many years ago. People would come in, in Manitoba. Hutterite colonies would come in. They would buy combines, multiple combines at once, in cash. Everybody knew that they were the best farmers around. They care about farming. These people care about their birds — in this case, a turkey farm. This particular farm is a free-range operation.

Some activists stood on the highway, but about 30 of them forced their way onto the farm and occupied the farm and shut down the farm for six hours. The rules of biosecurity were ignored. These activists could have brought any disease at all into the farm, and it could have spread to other farms. They didn’t care about that. They left with five turkeys, which they said they were giving to an animal sanctuary. I think they probably ended up on somebody’s dinner table eventually.

In any case, there were no arrests. As yet, there have been no consequences. Instead, they achieved all of their purposes. There were six hours of negotiation by police. They shut down the farm for the better part of a day. They basically forced the farmers to give them animals that weren’t theirs. They were able to get national and even international media coverage. They were able to trespass on private property with impunity.

This is not an isolated event. This is a movement. Let me list a few other things activists have done. They chained and superglued themselves together outside of a Whole Foods store, not too far from here, in San Francisco on September 30. But in the States, they take trespassing more seriously, and the police arrested those trespassers.

A number of activists chained themselves to a city hall in San Diego, shutting down the building for a number of hours. I want to quote what one activist said. This activist said…. “‘It’s a big step to stop everyone eating animals, so they’re not going to go quite that far,’ said one demonstrator. ‘But what they’re trying to do is at least give those animals the right to be rescued.’” Well, many activists do want to shut down all animal farms, but the right to be rescued is a wide-open door for activists to trespass.

Last year in Utah, five animal rights activists from a group called Direct Action Everywhere took five piglets from a large farm. They say they rescued them. But really, they stole them under the guise of animal cruelty, which, of course, the owners of the farm hotly dispute.

Closer to home, much closer to home in Abbotsford, Excelsior Hog Farm was occupied late last April by about 200 people. They called themselves animal liberation activists. Some people, again, stood on the road, and others ran onto the property and occupied it. In addition, they offered video of the inside of the barns, which proved that they had already clearly trespassed on the farm previously.

Now, Abbotsford is very close to home for me. There are many farmers and farm families I represent. Chilliwack represents the highest farmer seats next to Abbotsford in B.C. — the two largest farming areas. It threatens jobs, livelihoods and families in my riding. It threatens an important source of protein for the people of B.C. This is serious and important, and the government is ignoring it.

[3:10 p.m.]

No one would countenance cruelty to animals. No one wants that. We all agree. But the charge of cruelty is a wedge issue that activists will falsely use to get to their wider goal, which is to eliminate animals as a source of protein.

What’s our government doing about this threat? We have a one-word change to the Trespass Act to add airplanes to the list of things that can be caught by that act. How many people trespass on an airplane? Maybe one every five years or so? But here we have an imminent threat to farms, just from last April, right in B.C., in processing facilities and stores across B.C. The government is ignoring what’s actually happening on the ground so that they can pass a one-word amendment to the Trespass Act. This is a huge lost opportunity.

What are other governments doing? Let me talk about that for a moment. Australia is doing something, and they’re doing something significant. The government made an election commitment to protect the privacy of farmers and has followed up by introducing legislation to make it a criminal offence to incite another person to trespass on agricultural land, with a punishment of a year in prison. Anyone actually caught trespassing on a farm will get an immediate $1,000 fine. They are protecting the rights of farmers. The Australian government is protecting a major food source for millions and millions of people in Australia.

What are other provinces in Canada doing? Well, in Ontario, the Agriculture Minister has publicly said that he is considering protecting farmers and farms through legislation, because there have been several high-level protests there. Ontario is going to move to protect its farmers.

In Alberta, just a few days ago, the Premier announced strong new legislation. He did so on the site of Jumbo Valley farm, the Hutterite colony which was invaded just a few weeks ago. Alberta is going to beef up its trespass act to specifically address trespassing on agricultural land. And he’s going to introduce penalties under the act, up to $10,000 for a first offence and $25,000 for a second offence. Repeat offenders could face up to six months in jail.

Then there’s a section on biosecurity. Penalties for trespassers who breach biosecurity protocols on agricultural operations will increase, up to $15,000 for a first offence and $30,000 for a second, with the possibility of a year in jail, because of the huge consequences of a breach in biosecurity, bringing in a disease which can kill millions of animals, which we experienced in the Fraser Valley some years ago. I’ll talk about that in a minute. It’s a threat to the entire industry.

Alberta is taking real action. As a result…. There may be protests on public land, and that’s fine. But sources of protein for the public and the rights of individual farmers and the rights of individual landowners will be protected by the government of Alberta. I applaud them on that.

Our government is not learning from our neighbour’s leadership, so we get nothing from our government. What we need are amendments to the Trespass Act that do the following.

First, we need to have a separate provision in the Trespass Act for food and food processing, such as packing plants, to address the protection of our food sources and our farmers. Second, we need to put in place strong penalties that will deter activists. We don’t want to levy those penalties. We don’t want to slam anyone with them. We want to prevent and deter that kind of behaviour so that public protests will be confined to public land. Third, we need separate penalties for those who breach biosecurity, because we know that someone who brings a disease onto a farm can threaten the entire industry, not one farm alone.

I was in my riding in 2014 when we had an outbreak of avian influenza that literally went viral in the Abbotsford and Chilliwack area. I went to visit the CFIA war room that they created. They created a war room in Abbotsford. They flew people from all over the country. It was December. People were interrupting their Christmas plans to be there — experts from all over the country. The room was filled with 30 or 40 highly paid people, top officials.

It was a huge issue. They had to create different zones. They had to quarantine farms. There was a huge amount of lab work. There were 8,400 tests of samples collected of different birds from around so that they could diagnose whether these birds were ill. They had people going to farms in hazmat suits. They were destroying birds in large numbers. They were disinfecting premises. In the end, 140,000 birds were destroyed, and countries closed their borders to our trade.

[3:15 p.m.]

The ramifications of a biosecurity hazard are far-reaching for all of Canada. The government needs to address this issue. It was a huge issue at the time, enormously costly to the industry and to the government. We need to prevent that possibility through legislation. Instead, the government is protecting airplanes today. Instead of doing what they ought to be doing, the Agriculture Minister has done nothing. She should be acting in support of the industry. I haven’t seen her get up on this at all. She’s not said a word.

Why would that be? I think I can tell you why the government is doing nothing. The NDP caucus is divided. There are so many environmental activists within the caucus and influences upon the caucus that they dare not disrupt the status quo. So many sympathize with the activists that those activists are able, by far, to exercise hegemony over this caucus to ensure that the government will do nothing. One day the entire farming community, all Canadians, could be sorry because of it.

It would remain to a B.C. Liberal government to take action to protect sources of protein and farms, farm premises, food processing facilities and farm families. I think that farmers across B.C. can rest assured that should we be given the privilege of governing again very soon, we will take the lost opportunity being squandered by the NDP today. We would act to protect them.

Hon. M. Farnworth: It’s my pleasure to rise and to take my place in the debate. I listened with interest to my colleague across the way, to his comments. On many of them, I go: “Okay, yeah. Those are some very good points. Those are some very good points that you made.” But then there were others points that he made that…. Well, to quote my long-deceased grandfather, he would’ve just said, “Bollocks,” because there was a lot of nonsense there. There was a lot of nonsense there.

Division on the idea of protecting against cruelty to ani­mals? Nonsense. Absolute, utter nonsense.

What I really take issue with in the comments of not only my colleague who spoke a moment ago but other members on the opposition who have spoken, in terms of the bill that we’re debating before us, which is a miscellaneous statutes amendment act….

Why is it called a miscellaneous statutes amendment act? It amends a number of different acts that, in a way, require specific amendments to a specific section of a bill but don’t qualify to be introduced as a stand-alone amendment. Yet what we’ve heard from the opposition is that somehow this is a waste of time, that debate time is precious. “Why are we doing something like this? Something should be more substantive.”

Well, I’d like to remind the member — he talked a moment ago about lost opportunities — about the lost opportunities of 16 years that they had when they could have addressed many of the issues that he talked about. I know he doesn’t want to hear, but perhaps he could explain why, for example, in 2016 there was no fall session. In 2013, there was no fall session. In 2012, there was no fall session. In 2010, there was no fall session. In 2008, there was a fall session for three days.

Now, I understand he doesn’t want to hear that, but that’s a fact. That’s a lost opportunity. That was a lost opportunity to deal with the issues that he says are so important. But what was the response of the government of the day? What was the response of the government?

Interjection.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I’ll come to that in a moment, Member.

What was the response of the government of the day about not sitting in the fall session? Well, let me just quote. “The government doesn’t wish to advance any legislation” was the official position of the government at the time. Another year they said: “We’re not going to incur the expense of having the Legislature sit to simply have the Legislature sit.”

Interjection.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Oh my god, listen to that. Listen to that comment. After the passionate speech from your colleague across the way who said that we should be sitting to pass legislation, you then say: “Oh, we shouldn’t be sitting because we’re not spending money.” My god. Talk about divisions in a caucus, hon. Member. It’s illustrated right there.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member, through the Chair.

[3:20 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: Through the Chair.

It’s really simple, Member from Langara. You don’t like to sit in the fall, and when you’re asked why you don’t like to sit in the fall, you say….

Interjections.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I’ll come to that in a moment.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, the Solicitor General has the floor.

Interjections.

Hon. M. Farnworth: The term was “bollocks,” not “bullock.”

Deputy Speaker: Members, calm down.

Hon. M. Farnworth: We’ll do the math.

Thank you, hon. Speaker. As the member said, we’ll do the math. It’s really simple: zero days in many, many years when they had the opportunity to sit in the fall.

Yesterday again…. The member clearly doesn’t know and the other member clearly doesn’t know that when a bill is tabled, you don’t debate it the same day unless by leave. That side of the House is the first one to say….

Interjections.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Actually, you’re incorrect. The bill that was on the order paper was, in fact, what we debated yesterday. Your side chose not to ask…. You chose not to ask the questions that you could have asked.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Member.

Hon. M. Farnworth: By the way, hon. Member, you may want to talk to your House Leader. We both agreed that when we had finished the bill, depending on what time it finished, then we would adjourn. So to hear them say, “Oh my god, we’re not filling the time….” We will fill the time, hon. Member.

I hope you’ll remember those comments come Thursday at…. Let’s see. Usually, what time do you start asking me? About 5:30, 20 to six. “Can we adjourn the House early so that we can catch the ferry or our plane home?” Remember that on Thursday when you start to do that, when you start doing that.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. Order, please.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Order. Order.

Hon. M. Farnworth: If you want to talk about adjourning….

Deputy Speaker: Let’s come back to the bill.

Hon. M. Farnworth: If they want to talk about time not being spent in debate, just remember that on Thursday.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Minister, just a second. Let’s have some order.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Thank you, hon. Speaker. Anyway, back to the main thrust of the bill, which, again, they seemed to have a problem with — that somehow debating a miscellaneous statutes amendment act is something that is a waste of time. They don’t think that it has the gravitas or the substance that they themselves think a piece of legislation would have.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Oh, you most certainly did. Go back and read some of the comments that were made by some of your previous speakers about: “Why are we debating a statutory amendment act like this?” They made it pretty clear that they didn’t think that this was a significant piece of legislation.

I’d like to go through, for the member’s edification, just a number of the key elements of this piece of legislation and why they may not think that they’re important. We do think they’re important, because parts of this act…. One of the changes under the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, which proposes to change amendments to 17 acts…. One of the highlights is the Employment and Assistance Act and the Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act.

Now, what does this do? Well, for example, it includes ending the need for clients to pursue early Canada Pension Plan retirement benefits before the age of 65. You know what? It’s making people’s lives easier, making people’s lives more affordable. They may not think that’s important — and for 16 years, they clearly didn’t think it was important — but we do think that’s important.

Does it require a massive bill to make that change? Does it require a 25-page piece of legislation to make that change? No, it doesn’t. All it requires is some simple amendments to existing legislation, something that they could have done in one of those years of those fall sessions that they never held. Talk about wasted time. Talk about wasted opportunity.

They could have made people’s lives better, but they chose not to. They chose not to, and the excuse usually given was: “We don’t wish to advance any legislation.” Or it was referred to one year as “busywork.” Busywork, hon. Speaker. They may think that bringing in amendments to make it easier for people with disabilities, to make their life more affordable, is busywork. We don’t.

[3:25 p.m.]

Another aspect of the amendments on this particular section is that they will protect vulnerable youth by eliminating the two-year independence rule as a barrier to receiving income assistance. Again, a fairness issue — helping people get on with their lives, helping the most vulnerable.

Again, the opposition likes to talk about how they care about that or they want to make changes, but the reality is that, as we’ve seen in the past, they either took action such as clawing back bus passes or — you know what? — a fall session is “busywork.”

Well, we don’t think a fall session is busywork. That’s why we committed to having a fall session, and that’s why we’re following through on that commitment by having a fall session — the second. We had one last year, in our first year in government, and we’re having another one this year in government. We’ll have another one in the next year of government, and we’ll have another one in the next year of government. And when we get re-elected to a second term, we will have a fall session each and every year.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Now, we can go into a lesson on how parliament works for the hon. member, to an understanding of how the parliamentary system works, but clearly, I don’t think that there’s enough time in this chamber to explain it to the member. That is that — guess what — we won. We’re over here. They didn’t. They’re over there. It’s our intention, through the policy work that we’ve been doing as government, to ensure that that continues. But I digress.

Another element of this particular piece of legislation. Again, the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act — changes which support families by clarifying that child and spousal support provisions in a family law arbitration award can be enforced through the family maintenance enforcement program. Again, is that busywork? Does that strike you as busywork? The idea that somehow you’re going to make a family maintenance award, in the case of child custody, in the case of ensuring that maintenance is paid to children — is that busywork?

To follow the logic of my colleague who spoke previously, he had 16 years to do that. They had 16 years to do that, and they didn’t, because it wasn’t a priority. Because again, as I like to quote, “The government doesn’t wish to advance any legislation,” as the B.C. Liberals said on Sunday, the 16th of September, in 2008, for example — or as they again said in a previous year, referring to the House as “busywork.”

Well, we think these kinds of changes, which are minor in the sense that they don’t need a huge amount of drafting to take place or a significant stand-alone bill but come to this House in the form of a miscellaneous statutes act, are absolutely worthy of the consideration of this House and absolutely worthy of the debating time of this House, which is what we’re here for. That’s why we’re proud to bring this forward.

The Public Interest Disclosure Act — amendments around that. They would enhance whistle-blower protection for public servants and government contractors by clarifying what constitutes a reprisal and confirming the act’s paramountcy over the disclosure provisions of other legislation.

The bill would also add the new office of the Human Rights Commissioner to the definition of “office” and correct cross-referencing errors.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Farnworth: You know what? I listen across the way to the heckling, and again, it comes back to: what are they so opposed to? Enhanced whistle-blower protection for public servants — something that never, ever would have occurred to them when they sat on this side of the House, when we saw what would happen when someone who worked had a computer keyboard grabbed away from them and were told: “You will do as I say, or you are gone.” That was the approach that was taken under that side.

[3:30 p.m.]

[J. Isaacs in the chair.]

I could say: “Delete, delete, delete.” But I know that’s been done to death. So maybe I’ll use the word of the day, which is…. They may think it’s busywork. They may think that making change is busywork. They may think improving people’s lives is busywork. Guess what. We think it’s essential. That’s why this bill is here, and that’s why we’re going to vote in favour of it. It will be interesting to see whether they back up their rhetoric, whether they vote against it or whether they side with the people that this legislation is going to impact and vote in favour of it.

Other areas in this act. The Assessment Act. Supporting clean energy with amendments that would include solar power plants in the definition of “power plants,” allowing them to be assessed in the same way as other independent power producers and ensure they are eligible for the same exemptions. These changes will encourage the future development of solar power plants and tie into government’s CleanBC goals of using more clean and renewable energy.

Hey, again, a simple, small change in a piece of legislation that is going to help this province become even more a centre of clean energy than it has been in the past. Again, that’s not busywork. That’s common sense. That’s working in the interest of the people of the province of British Columbia, not just in the interests of a few.

Maybe that’s why they seem to have a problem with fall sessions. Maybe because if you’ve got the time to do it, you actually could do amendments like this. You could do the kinds of amendments which, not huge in terms of drafting time, are significant in terms of the impact that they have on the lives of people.

Health Care Costs Recovery Act. Proposed amendments would require defendants in class action proceedings initiated in jurisdictions other than B.C. that include health services claims to provide written notice to the provincial government. This would allow the government to be aware of class actions, including those launched outside of B.C. that include personal injury claims of British Columbians.

The Child, Family and Community Service Act. Minor amendments that would clarify the intention that Indigenous communities have the ability to plan for all their children and youth in care. It would also clarify the intention that Indigenous communities are able to deliver a broad range of supports and services to their children and families, as well as to children who identify as non-Indigenous or members of other nations.

If anything is more important in terms of families and kids, it’s ensuring that they have the opportunity to grow up within their families and that the services that they need and require, particularly when they are vulnerable, are there for them.

The fact that it is an amendment in a piece of legislation that is not complicated, that is so important…. Again, the idea that an opposition would be dismissive of a Miscellaneous Statutes Amendments Act, I just find incomprehensible. Incomprehensible.

Again, it’s being done in a fall session. With the fall session, you have the time to be able to do additional legislation. You have the time to be able to do not just major legislation or a budget, as takes place in the spring session, but you have the ability to look at things that — well, let’s be clear about it — for 16 years, were not a priority of the previous government. Sixteen long years. For many people, 16 long and bleak years.

That was the record of that government. The fact that we are introducing legislation to deal with some of the injustices that have been in place for a very, very long time, and we’re able to do it in a way that…. You know what? It doesn’t take a huge amount of drafting time. It doesn’t require a stand-alone bill. It’s a simple amendment. You have to wonder: well, why wasn’t it done before? Why didn’t they do this before?

[3:35 p.m.]

As we heard so eloquently from the member across the way: “People have been waiting.” It comes back to…. I have to go, again, to 2016…. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that in 2001, these things weren’t on their agenda. These things were not on their agenda. They were busy with the 25 percent tax cut. They were busy with other things. It was not on the agenda. First Nations issues were not on the agenda for them.

But guess what. In 2016, a mere three years ago — a mere three years ago — they could have introduced this. But they didn’t. Why? Because they didn’t sit a single day for a fall session. We know what the attitude was. “It’s busywork.” Busywork. Or as was said a few moments ago: “We didn’t have to spend any money.”

Well, what are we here for? What does the public send us here for, other than to address the issues and concerns that they have, on their priorities? Sitting there, to say that if we sat in the fall, we would be expending money. Well, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. That’s what we’re paid to do. People understand that that’s what this chamber is for.

The idea that somehow, and I’ll read it out again, we wouldn’t want to bring in amendments that would clarify the intention that Indigenous communities have the ability to plan for all their children and youth in care…. You wouldn’t want to do that because you might save a few dollars by not sitting. If anything says the difference in why they’re sitting on that side of the House, I think those comments do, without a doubt.

There are other elements in this piece of legislation that I know colleagues will be talking to. I’ve talked about that one. I know my colleague across the way has talked about the Trespass Act, which is something that’s important to him. I’m glad that he rose and spoke on that. He has given some really good points in terms of things that may well find their way into, potentially, other legislation, which may also come in a fall session, because this side of the House is committed to doing fall sessions.

Let’s have a look at some of the others — oh, the Motor Vehicle Act, for example. Proposed amendments would establish a framework that will enable the use of increasingly diverse modes of personal transportation. These amendments will create regulations for communities to test out pilot projects surrounding emerging mobility technology, such as e-scooters, Segways and more. These changes would clarify how devices are to be regulated and are in alignment with the government’s active transportation strategy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and supporting multimodal forms of transportation.

Again, it’s a minor amendment, but what it does is it re­flects the fact that our world, when it comes to technology, is changing so very, very fast, changing very fast. People who were restricted in their mobility before are finding increasing methods of transportation to get around — personal devices.

We have companies coming to us that want regulations to change so that the innovations that they’re developing — many of those innovations taking place right here in British Columbia, in this province…. It would allow them to advance their technology, bring their technology to the public, establish jobs and establish innovation. In many cases, what it requires is a minor amendment, a small tweak here or a small tweak there that will allow something to happen.

[3:40 p.m.]

Again, too often those are the kinds of things that get lost because they get subsumed by…. Well, who can forget Red Tape Reduction Day? Remember that? We have Remembrance Day as a statutory day in this province. We have Holocaust Memorial Day as a solemn day in this province. We have Terry Fox, a solemn day in this province, recognized. And a priority of the government? Something called Red Tape Reduction Day. Not just a proclamation but “a solemn day.” That was a huge item on their agenda.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Farnworth: No. They clearly didn’t think that was busywork. But I ask you. I’d be really interested. If you went out to the public and you asked the public: “What’s more important? Let’s make Red Tape Reduction Day a statutory holiday. Or how about we bring in legislation that protects Indigenous kids? Or how about we bring in legislation that ensures that a family maintenance arbitration order is enforceable?” Which would they say is more important?

Well, if they want to know why they’re sitting over there, I think that would answer the question, because I think the priorities of the public and the priorities of British Columbians would be with ordinary families trying to get by, with ordinary families wanting to make an improvement. Not something that….

I could imagine when they go out and they go to a rally and they stand on the stage and the Leader of the Opposition at the time would be up there. It would have one of those big megaphone things, the ones that echo. It would be, “We’ve introduced Red Tape Reduction Day, Red Tape Reduction Day,” booming throughout their convention, as opposed to: “You know what? We made life better for Indigenous families. We made life better for people struggling to raise kids, to ensure that family maintenance orders are actually enforceable.” Those are the things in this legislation…. As I said earlier, had they had regular fall sessions, they’d have been able to do it. They would have been able to do it.

I know that I have more time, but I also know that there are other things that I have to talk about, other areas of government that require my attention. So I will, in a few moments, take my seat and let other people rise and speak to this bill.

I want to close by saying that just because the title of a bill says “Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act” does not mean for one second that it is any less worthy of debate in this House than a 300-page bill of significant policy work, which is also just as important. Because legislation like this…. While the amendments themselves may seem minor, while they may not be long and verbose and wordy, they can have significant impact on the lives of ordinary families, on the lives of people in this province, on the economic well-being of this province, on the long-term future of this province.

At the end of the day, that is our job, and that’s why we will continue to have fall sessions as long as we are government. It’s unfortunate that they did not have that same approach to governing when we were on this side.

I just want to close by saying one thing. We will never, ever say that having a fall session is about busywork. What it’s about is about people. That’s what this side of the House is all about.

With that, I take my seat, and I look forward to hearing comments from other members of the House.

[3:45 p.m.]

J. Rustad: Normally, I wouldn’t get up for Bill 35, a miscellaneous act, unless there was something in the act that pertained particularly to me as a critic or things that I’m passionate about. But I’ve just heard two speeches, one from the Minister of Finance and one from the Government House Leader. I have to say that they spoke passionately about wanting to be able to support people, passionately about how governments should be there to help and passionately about food banks and treating people with respect. And I thank them. I’m glad that they’re passionate about that.

The reality is this. Just last Friday forest workers, contractors, had to go and hold a fundraiser and raise $6,000 so that forestry families that are being ignored by this government, which we could be talking about this fall, could actually go out and buy some food to feed their families.

How shameful of this government to ignore the plight of forestry workers in this province and the challenges that are being created right across this province because of their policies. They have the audacity to stand up and say that they respect people and they respect workers and they respect families, when that is the pain they’re causing. They’re ignoring it and refusing to talk about it in this Legislature this fall.

Here is what they call busywork or the work that they figure they need to get done. Let me just quote: “We were there helping them.” The member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast…

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

J. Rustad: …who ignores the forest industry entirely, refuses to stand up and actually support…

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

J. Rustad: …the workers that are being impacted in his riding.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Member, come to order. Member, come to order.

J. Rustad: Madam, I would ask that he stand and apologize for that particular comment that he just made. I find that comment that he made in this House offensive. The member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast should stand up and apologize for that.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members, we’ll come to order, please.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

Member, we’ll come to order.

Please proceed, Member.

J. Rustad: Here’s the work that we’re talking about in here. There’s passionate fertilizer being spread around over there. I get it. They’ve got to fill the day. But here’s what’s being talked about.

For example, on page 31: “…the definition of ‘motor vehicle’ by striking out ‘but does not include mobile equipment or a motor assisted cycle;’ and substituting ‘but does not include mobile equipment, a motor assisted cycle or a regulated motorized personal mobility device.’” This is the kind of work that they’re talking about — that is, that they talked so passionately about doing.

Here’s something even better to talk about, in section 87, on page 28. It is amended, the definition of “dependant”, by adding “or” at the end of the paragraph. That’s busywork. That’s good work. I mean, that’s work that needs to be done.

How about on page 20, section 65? And it does this at many different places. It’s striking out the word “provide” and substituting it with “give.” Yes, yes, that’s important work. And the whole time the plight of the forestry workers in this province is being completely ignored.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member, please come to order.

J. Rustad: The reality is really simple. There are people who really are hurting in this province, and they look to government for help. They look to government to be able to step up and to be there. They worked hard all their lives. They contribute to this society. They contribute to this Legislature. They contribute to us as a province and as a whole. They help to improve our quality of life.

They’re struggling, and they need help. They need the support of government. They need people to stand up and fight. That, quite frankly, is what we should be debating in this Legislature — a piece of a bill or a piece of legislation or anything that this government could put forward to provide some support and assistance for people that are struggling, like our forest workers, in this province.

On top of it, I just heard from an endless stream of people in the agriculture sector who are very concerned about Bill 52 and Bill 15 — serious issues that are impacting them and their families. They want a government that’s going to stand up and make some changes, as opposed to creating the problems and the challenge that this government has done. We could be putting that on the floor to debate. Yet it’s not even on their agenda, once again hurting the families that help to feed this province.

[3:50 p.m.]

It is shameful to see that this government is doing that. My hope is, by standing up and raising this issue and putting a finger on it, that this government will realize that they need to step up and provide the kind of support for these workers…. It’s the advocation that we do on this side of the House that’s so important to try to make sure this issue gets raised, that it gets in this highlight, so that hopefully, one day, government will recognize that it actually has to do something to help these people.

Those are all the comments I need to make on this bill.

S. Malcolmson: By the end of our spring session, we were passing, on some days, four pieces of legislation a day. The pace of work was astonishing. I just stepped onto this train while it was already well under speed. It was encouraging to see how quickly we were able to undo 16 years of damage and neglect from the previous government, how quickly we were able to bring, with cooperation along with the Green Party, a lot of legislation into this House.

Now, this is an example of a whole lot of catch-up work — some of the smaller pieces of work, but vital to be able to keep the work of government moving forward and to be caring for people, some of our most vulnerable communities, and to respond to the calls from local government partners on what’s not working, unintended consequences from legislation that we had already passed. It’s quite a collection.

I’m going to run through a couple of the pieces that are accommodated or are achieved by the passage of this miscellaneous bill (No. 2). One is on the theme of protecting B.C.’s most vulnerable people, addressing a number of commitments of B.C.’s poverty reduction strategy. British Columbia, famously, was the only province in Canada with no poverty reduction plan. I’m very proud that our government added a dedicated minister, and his team are doing that good work to put that poverty reduction plan in place.

We recognize that there is a huge backlog in my community of Nanaimo, a lot of people that are really suffering from years of the social safety net being undermined by the starving of funds and cuts to the strength of the programs. I recognize and salute the folks that are working on the front line, that have been really doing hard, hard work — real shoulders to the wheel — while they haven’t had strong government partners in place. We’re starting to see some of those changes come, but there certainly is still a lot to do.

Passage of this bill is going to change people’s lives in a whole bunch of different ways. One addresses financial insecurity of low-income seniors. When this bill is passed, it will end the need for people on income and disability assistance to pursue early Canada Pension Plan retirement benefits if they’re younger than 65. It’s important. It’ll make a difference in people’s lives. A second one: protecting vulnerable youth by ending the two-year independence rule as a barrier to receiving income assistance. Again, with just the passage of an amendment, a one-line amendment, this is going to change people’s lives.

A couple of areas in the definition and interpretation of the word “spouse,” something that has certainly seen a lot of evolution over the last couple of decades. Two changes here. This change will increase the amount of time that two people can live together in a common-law relationship before reducing their assistance to the lower couples support rate.

I’m reminded of my friend Kristal Grace Harm, who took an opportunity to speak with the Minister of Poverty Reduction, to sit him down and say: “This is the impact on me and my fiancé of us living together. We’re afraid to get married because we are barely getting by on the amount of support that we have right now for people with disabilities.” So I love that maybe some of her advocacy has made its way into this. I know how pleased she was to be able to speak with the minister directly about this.

A second change is providing the singles assistance rate to two married people who have separated but not yet divorced. That does sometimes happen in this affordable housing crisis. Sometimes people will end their romantic relationship but still live together. They’re still living in the same residence, but independently. This change was supported by West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund, a fantastic organization doing really groundbreaking work in our province. I’m proud of them.

[3:55 p.m.]

Raji Mangat, the executive director of West Coast LEAF, said: “We are pleased to see changes to the definition of spouse that help in ensuring that support is not predetermined on the basis of unfounded, outdated and gendered assumptions about financial dependency in relationships. This is an important step towards removing prohibitive conditions in social assistance policy that adversely affect B.C. residents experiencing or at risk of poverty.”

Another change in this legislation, again under this umbrella of poverty reduction, is eliminating the practice of cutting people off from assistance who are homeless or at risk of homelessness if they are unable to provide documentation for eligibility and replacing, instead, the practice with a modest monetary penalty.

Another area is helping people receive eligible assistance sooner by aligning the appeals process with other tribunals. In this case, this would allow for new evidence to be presented in an existing appeal process, rather than requiring people to reapply. I hear a lot of this in my office. For people who are already at the end of their ropes, navigating the bureaucracy is still frustratingly difficult. So we’re glad to see this change.

It’s also supported by the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre. Leigha Worth, the executive director and general counsel, provided this support: “BCPIAC is encouraged by this government’s commitment to change the rules of evidence in EAAT hearings to be not only more fair but socially responsible. This is a necessary and laudable step to addressing the numerous systemic barriers that expose British Columbians living in poverty to serious and utterly unnecessary economic, health and social risks.”

These changes have been built and recommended by people with lived experience of living with disabilities, living in homelessness and in poverty. I’m very proud of our minister for advancing these changes through Bill 35.

Another category of changes is in the Child, Family and Community Service Act, clarifying the intention that Indigenous communities have the right and the ability to plan for all their children and youth in care. Even saying it in that way sounds wrong. First Nations communities do look after their own, and that there’s been any misinterpretation of that is a firm commitment of our government.

I see, in my own community, amazing agencies like Kw’umut Lelum doing the work, both on and off reserve. I’m proud that our government has ensured that they’re able to deliver youth services for children living in care and preventing children from going into foster care by virtue of their work. It’s a point of pride in our region that their work is so strong. Again, they have this right. They have this ability and this talent, but the legislation clarifies and solidifies that.

In the area of family maintenance, again, it’s just easing the path, clearing the path for families who are in hard times. This legislation will clarify that child and spousal support provisions in a family law arbitration can be enforced through a family maintenance enforcement program. This helps families who are able to obtain a final determination of family law dispute without going to the courts. That benefits families, keeps it out of the hands of lawyers, when that is the necessary step. This act would allow that change.

In another section, changing the fine language of the Public Interest Disclosure Act reflects that we now have, again in British Columbia, an Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, something that British Columbia has been without — the only province in the entire country that did not have a Human Rights Commissioner. I’m very proud that our government restored that office after 16 years. I was honoured to be the Chair of the committee that made the appointment and for us to have the agreement of the House that Kasari Govender is now the Human Rights Commissioner, just a stellar woman and someone that is going to do fantastic work. This fine print of legislation recognizes that.

In the Assessment Act, removing a barrier to solar power to make sure that solar power plants are included in the definition of power plants. That affects the Assessment Act, but it also ties into our government’s CleanBC program, a commitment to take the most bold action on combating climate change that there is in North America.

[4:00 p.m.]

Then finally, an area that, when I was in local government, I heard quite a bit about: new types of transportation that simply were not contemplated by previous forms of the legislation. E-scooters, electric unicycles and Segways, for example, are now going to be specifically named in the Motor Vehicle Act to make sure that when they are on sidewalks or roadways, everybody is safe.

It’ll also give the ability for pilot projects to be established with some local governments, where the communities want to experiment with new ways of accommodating these no- or low-emission types of active transportation, making sure that they are safe on the roads, both the drivers and then any pedestrians or others that may be close by.

This is, again, something consistent with the CleanBC program and also something that is a commitment that we made with the Green Party when we agreed to work together to form this government.

There is a lot more in the bill, but those are some of the highlights that I’ve heard from my own community — places that they expect this government, given its commitment to working for people and with people, that we are reflecting the advice we’ve had — some of just the few ways that we are clearing the path for the smooth delivery of services and treating people with respect and dignity that will help them live the very best lives possible.

Hon. S. Fraser: Always a pleasure to take my place in a debate here, an important bill before us.

I’m going to just segue this a bit, with Bill 35. I was first elected in 2005, and it’s always an honour to be able to speak in this place, the people’s House, to address issues of importance to the people of British Columbia. It’s an awesome responsibility. It’s exciting, and it’s scary, to be part of a place that makes decisions to try to help people in the province and make life better.

I’ve woken up in the middle of the night worrying about: what if I do something wrong? I’ve been afraid of that. But as we all learn how to work in this place together and the roles of the opposition and government, we know it’s an important check and balance on how we do things.

The only way we do, do things is by being present in this place. We are sent here by our respective constituents, from various constituencies all across the province, to do the good work that needs to be done. Sometimes it seems like there are great bills, with huge gravitas and great names to them, and they’re exciting because of that. We’ve got a big viewership, and it seems like we’re in the midst of massive, cataclysmic change. Sometimes, whoever’s in government, it seems that the work is not as exciting, but it does not take way from the importance of that work.

The bill we’re faced with today, that we’re debating today in second reading, is No. 2 of Bill 35. It’s a miscellaneous bill, so it has kind of an innocuous name to it. For those that are not steeped in this place, it may seem somewhat inconsequential. However, I think it’s important that we all do understand that the work we do here, even the seemingly inconsequential work, is of great importance to thousands and thousands of people in this province.

We are tasked with that work as MLAs, whatever side of the House we’re on. That work is important. It’s of great importance to many people. While it might not seem to be affecting us personally, and sometimes that might be hard to have empathy for what we’re doing, we have to understand that it is important to many, many people.

I’ve been involved in local government also. There was an issue in the government in Tofino when I was the mayor in the ’90s. It turned out that there was a conflict-of-interest issue that was occurring. The way the Local Government Act was written, it was found that the…. We were dealing with the conflict-of-interest issue, and it became a court case.

[4:05 p.m.]

In that case, it was learned that because of one or two words in a five-piece act, the conflict-of-interest guidelines, the prohibition of conflict of interest and the punishment for it were deemed not linked. It was two words. That required an appeal, and then it required the government to step in and change those two words.

The consequences of not changing those two words would have meant that any municipally elected person — whether it’s in local government, whether it’s in school boards or whatever — would have been forbidden from being involved in a discussion that they have a conflict of interest in — rightly so. But the punishment….There would be no punishment. So there would be no way to stop someone from doing that. Two words had to be changed.

I would ask everyone in this House to understand the importance of what we do here, whether it’s the spring or whether it’s the fall. This bill makes improvements. It makes additions and clarifications to various existing acts. Those changes include: support for government’s poverty reduction strategy, which I will talk about in a few moments; additional family law protections; enhanced protections for whistle-blowers; supports for renewable energy; and recognizing new modes of personal transportation.

If you are a person in this province — an individual or a group, in some cases — that is affected by these, the work we’re doing today is essential for them. They’re expecting us to take that seriously and not undermine it.

I don’t want to go into this too much any longer. But the member for Chilliwack-Kent — I came in during his submission here. He said of this work we’re doing today that this is a lost opportunity to make a real, important change with this bill today.

Here’s one of the changes that is happening today. It’s with the Employment and Assistance Act and the Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act. This proposed amendment will support TogetherBC. This is the province’s poverty reduction strategy. Now, I’ve heard this already, but I’ll repeat it. In opposition, we witnessed a time when, for ten years, we had the worst or amongst the worst child poverty statistics in the country. Over and over and over and over; year after year after year after year. We were the only jurisdiction that did not have a poverty reduction strategy.

These changes are helping address people living in poverty, helping lift them out of poverty. It’s part of the strategy that this government brought in and the opposition needs to be a part of because poverty shouldn’t be partisan. It’s everyone’s problem. It’s all of our responsibility to take this seriously. So the proposed amendments will support the poverty reduction strategy. These amendments will better protect the province’s most vulnerable people through changes to employment assistance legislation.

While the actual changes don’t seem major, they will help thousands of people in this province that, arguably, need that help the most. If there’s anything we do as legislators, the most important thing is to help people. I will give you an example. They include ending the need for clients to pursue early Canada Pension Plan retirement benefits before the age of 65.

For those that don’t get what that means — and there are probably many — I’ve learned a little bit about what we’re doing in this place in the last 15 years. Previously, you could be forced to take your Canada pension retirement benefits early to reduce provincial government costs. But the outcome of that means there’s a penalty for the person being forced to take those benefits early, before 65, and it’s significant. Your pension money is cut in a significant way by taking it early, and that is simply unfair.

[4:10 p.m.]

This one piece of this miscellaneous bill, which doesn’t sound very exciting, is helping, again, potentially thousands of people today and going forward to get the full benefit of their pension benefits, as opposed to having it clawed back. This is a good thing for all of our constituents.

I don’t want to see this undermined. For those that are watching, if there are those people that watch this sort of thing, and are affected by this, it does them a great disservice if we undermine the work we’re doing here today. It is, in essence, undermining their issue, and their issue is important to them. It can help people to lift them out of poverty. I can’t think of anything more gratifying that we could do in this place than to help people in such a way.

Another thing this miscellaneous bill does is that it deals with the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act. These changes support families. It’s a clarification that child and spousal support provisions in a family law arbitration award can be enforced through the family maintenance enforcement program. It’s a complex set of words, for sure, but arbitration provides families with a way to obtain final determination of a family law dispute without going to court, which is an intimidating place. It may require legal assistance.

I mean, this helps people address problems in their personal lives. It makes a big difference to those people. So we all need to take the work we’re doing when we’re addressing the changes that are needed for the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act…. It might not seem like much if it doesn’t directly affect one of ourselves, but it makes a huge difference to those people and those families that are caught in a family enforcement issue. This makes life better for those people, and that is why we’re here.

I’m hoping that we’re not going to hear any more dismissive talk about why we’re here and doing our jobs, the jobs that we were elected to do.

A third item that’s dealt with in this miscellaneous bill is the Public Interest Disclosure Act. Now, amendments would enhance whistle-blower protection, which seems all appropriate. When we’re looking south of the line, you hear about whistle-blowers these days. It’s protection for public servants and government contractors by clarifying what constitutes a reprisal and confirming the act’s paramountcy over the disclosure provisions of other legislation. Again, it’s kind of complicated-sounding, but the bill is important because it adds protections for people that are looking out for the best interests of this province, of this place, people that work in this place.

We’re all elected, and we might think we’re bestowed with some kind of wisdom because of our election. But we don’t get any wisdom, Madam Speaker. I’m sure she would agree with that. We learn as we go here, but the public servants that do work in the government — there are 30,000 public servants in British Columbia — have some permanence. We come and go at the whims of the electorate. If we do what’s perceived as a good job in this place, well, we might stick around for a while. If we don’t, we may not.

Those public servants that work, make careers out of public service and are here, are the continuity that we elected people aren’t. That’s what keeps the actual mechanism of the government running throughout the times that we come and go. Their protection is imperative, and it’s our duty. It’s our responsibility to ensure that. That’s part of what we’re doing here today. The role of us doing that job should never be diminished. It should not be understated. It should never be considered busywork.

[4:15 p.m.]

We are elected to come here and do such things. Nobody else can. It’s a privilege. We get elected to do this. Everybody — some 40,000 to 50,000 people, in many constituencies — brings us to this place and says: “Do this stuff.” Some of the members have said: “We should not be here because it could save the taxpayers money.” Well, you could have no government, and it would save even more money. It’s a ridiculous argument. These things are important.

The Assessment Act. Let me touch on the changes here. It’s supporting clean energy with amendments that include solar power plants in the definition of “power plant.” Times have changed. Nobody perceived a need to include solar plants because they didn’t exist at some point in time. Anyway, it allows them to be assessed in the same way as other independent power producers and ensures that they’re eligible for the same exemptions.

These changes act as an incentive to help address the climate change issue, which is important to everybody. There has been some big public discourse about the need for governments to actually step up to the plate and ensure that we are addressing things like climate change. Many believe — I’m not doubting them, and I don’t disagree with them — that there is no more important thing in the world today than to address climate change.

These small changes here would allow that. They will allow for exemptions to occur, which means there are more incentives, then, for those projects to be undertaken. They’ll encourage the future development of those solar power plants and tie into government’s CleanBC goal of using more clean and renewable energy.

I would note that the Leader of the Third Party and the Minister of Environment have won a big award, recognition across the country, for the work, cooperatively, that has brought in the most powerful and progressive climate action plan in North America, if not the world. We should all be celebrating that.

We can’t leave failures in the writing of a bill, not because anyone failed as a legislator when they wrote them. When this stuff was put in, it was overlooked because it just simply wasn’t part of the reality at the time. Because it’s a small change does not mean it’s of small importance. It’s huge.

I missed an issue. I just want to touch on that. Going back to the Public Interest Disclosure Act, the bill will also add the new Office of the Human Rights Commissioner to the definition of “office” and correct cross-referencing errors. Adding the new Office of the Human Rights Commissioner…. The reason that that’s being added is because the government added a Human Rights Commission. It was removed in 2001 by the previous government.

I can’t think of a more proud moment — when this was accomplished. We have a great commissioner. Human rights deserve such a body. Other jurisdictions have never, ever contemplated getting rid of their human rights commission or commissioner, but the previous government did that. We were able to correct that error, and now the people of British Columbia are the beneficiary of having that type of protection and oversight to ensure that human rights are protected.

Again, because this is a newly added body — it’s newly added over the last 16 years, just last year — this correction had to be made. The amendment had to be made. It wasn’t in there because there was no commission in place before. Now that corrects that too. These are very, very important issues we’re dealing with, with this miscellaneous bill.

The Child, Family and Community Service Act. These are minor amendments to that act, but they would clarify the intention that Indigenous communities have the ability to plan for all their children and youth in care.

[4:20 p.m.]

I think of Grand Chief Ed John, brought on by the previous government to make recommendations on children and families. Well, this helps those recommendations become reality. It would also clarify the intention that Indigenous communities are able to deliver a broad range of supports and services to their children and families as well as to children who identify as non-Indigenous or members of other nations — again, hugely important to those families, to those communities. Again, we are supposed to be here doing this. This is our time.

The spring session is packed with back-to-back bills. The fall session allows us — in this case, with this miscellaneous act — to actually address some of the failures or even typos that could be catastrophic or make the acts, as they stand, unworkable. We’re fixing that. I’m hoping that’s becoming exciting now for members of the opposition. It is not busywork.

Hon. Speaker, thank you very much for indulging me. I’ll take my seat.

D. Routley: Thank you to the previous speaker.

This is awesome. I’m really loving this, actually. This is an opportunity to do a whole bunch of great work in one bill. Plus, it’s drawn out of the opposition a very typical and characteristic reaction to things that are important to ordinary British Columbians. They dismiss it. They characterize it as busywork. And if we look back on their record, it’s no surprise.

There is a lot of irony in that word, that this work would be called “busywork.” The speaker from Nechako Lakes said that he would only get up on such an inconsequential bill in response to how he was riled or angered by the Government House Leader’s presentation, as accurate and wholesome as it was. But the previous Forests Minister just could not take the news that we were doing the work that they and he should have done for so many years.

We sat here for so many years, or we didn’t sit here for so many years. It used to be that it was up to the opposition how long sessions would go. They’d start at the budget, and they’d go until the opposition said it was time to go home, sometimes right through the summer. Then a man named Gordon Campbell was elected in 2001. The members opposite might remember that name. He was their leader, their Premier, for — what? — 12 years? Yeah. Ten.

Interjection.

D. Routley: Yeah. It seems like 20.

He brought in a set calendar with set election dates, and that put the spring session to end in the last week of May — to not go through the summer, not have members here for almost a whole year away from their families. Not so hard for me. I’m an hour and a half away. A lot harder for some of these other members who are long plane rides and many days driving away from this place. So it made life better for members.

The deal was that there would always be a fall session. Guess what. There rarely was. I think four were cancelled outright, and one was three days long. So I guess there wasn’t enough work then to keep busy, even though there were thousands of people becoming homeless in this province. People were being struck by the effects of having their services pulled back by this previous government, the B.C. Liberal government, by them rewarding their friends with fabulous tax giveaways.

Madam Speaker, another characteristic aspect of that…. This bill deals with tax implications, our approach to taxation. That previous Premier, Gordon Campbell, came to power and gave a 25 percent across-the-board tax cut worth, in its day, about $480 to a middle-income family. To a family earning $1 million, it was worth $65,000.

[4:25 p.m.]

We just brought the largest middle-class tax break in the history of this province. It had the same total value as Gordon Campbell’s tax cut, but here we have the priority difference. Ours gave that average family $980, that single break.

I think this conversation is really all about priority, and it’s reflected here in this bill. Our priority is to do things that are good for people, good for the people we represent.

The member for Nechako Lakes also admonished us for the forest industry difficulties that we face. Of course, those are very difficult circumstances that families we all know and love are facing, that we represent. For the member to conveniently forget their own record in government, where they lost 45,000 jobs in the forest industry in their time…. Thirty thousand of those jobs were lost before the 2008 financial crisis, during the largest American housing boom since World War II. Those were the market conditions in which they lost 30,000 jobs and over 100 mills.

Now we face inescapable market conditions and environmental conditions because of work that that government never did, because they didn’t sit and they didn’t take the priorities of British Columbians seriously. So we’re having to play catch-up.

One of the last bills passed in the spring gave the Forests Minister the right to consider the public interests in transferring the title of a forest licence. Imagine having to introduce legislation that would allow a minister to consider the public interest, another characterization and crystallization of those opposite values. So how quickly we get it done and how quickly they forget. How quickly they forget what they did and how quickly they forget what they didn’t do.

This bill is a miscellaneous bill, yes, just like dozens of miscellaneous statutes amendment acts that that previous B.C. Liberal government passed. It was important enough for them, and we debated every line. We took it seriously. So it’s a bit of a dismaying moment to see members elected to this House describe any kind of legislation that would affect the lives of British Columbians as busywork. I think it’s disrespectful, and I’m offended by it.

Look, some of the things that this bill does…. The Employment and Assistance Act will better protect the province’s most vulnerable people through changes that will make it easier for them to collect benefits. It will also protect them from having to claim their Canada Pension Plan retirement benefits early. That, over the lifetime of an average person, might be a 30 percent increase in their retirement income, by not forcing them to take the early penalty. How could that step be described as busywork, inconsequential, not worth standing up to?

I’ve been here heading into 15 years. A person can become jaded and cynical, but it helps every once in a while to be jarred. That previous government certainly provides those moments, where — wow — I think I could actually taste that hypocrisy. It’s so bad. When they have failed to do these things that were so essential for people and now have a ridiculing dismissiveness about it when it’s finally being done, I hope people are listening. We’ll be telling them.

This also protects vulnerable youth by eliminating the two-year independence rule, which was a barrier for income assistance for the most vulnerable young adults in this province. They used to have to prove that they were independent for two years before they could collect welfare in this province. It forced young people into homelessness. That’s what that government did. That’s what they did. Now we’re putting that right. The member for Nechako Lakes and several others have described that as inconsequential, barely worth standing up to discuss. I think that’s not only insulting; it’s actually kind of horrifying.

[4:30 p.m.]

The adjustments to the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act. With an over 50 percent rate of divorce, of relationships and marriages ending in divorce, and the clogged courtrooms and the difficulties that families face in trying to manage their most difficult time with a very unmanageable act…. It’s so expensive to pursue in the courts.

This act will allow the family maintenance enforcement program to recognize, accept and collect on arbitration awards so that the families don’t have to go to court, so they don’t have to spend that $980 tax break that we just gave them. We’re saving them more money. But more than that, we’re saving them more stress at a really terrible time, a critical time.

This could save lives. But these members over here think that’s inconsequential. I find that absolutely unacceptable.

Under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, the amendments there will enhance whistle-blower protection. Look what we’re seeing down south right now. Whistle-blowers actually may be acting in a manner that would save democracy in the United States. Pretty important role, whistle-blowers. Very little protection for whistle-blowers in this province under the previous B.C. Liberal government.

It was this government that brought in whistle-blower protection, and now we’re enhancing it. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that worth coming down to Victoria and standing up and having a couple of words about that? I think it’s a high value. I don’t know.

The Assessment Act will support clean energy with amendments that include solar power plants in the definition of “power plants.” Well, I mean, how…? Sorry, but we’re watching our salmon struggle. We’re watching our rivers dry. We’re watching our forests burn. We’re feeling and experiencing climate change. It’s not something to be stopped. It’s here. It’s something to be mitigated and turned around.

This will allow tax assessments of solar plants along with, and in the same way as, other power plants. This encourages the future development of solar power plants, and that ties into our CleanBC goals of using more renewable energy.

I don’t know on which planet that is not an important thing to do, right? I mean, we’ve just seen a climate strike here — around the world but here, within blocks of this building. We see people on the lawns practically every day reminding us as legislators that we are in a climate crisis.

Yet somehow this amendment, which would encourage development of solar power plants…. That piece wasn’t even worth the member for Nechako Lakes standing up, because he was just offended by the Government House Leader’s remarks. It appeared he wasn’t going to get up at all. He certainly didn’t address solar power plants. In a climate crisis, he said that wasn’t worth his time.

Then the Motor Vehicle Act — this one I like, as a cyclist. I like roads being used by more than just cars. I like riding my bike down and smiling at people walking. I don’t like getting passed by electric bikes. I don’t like that. It happens a lot.

Interjections.

D. Routley: No, you draft. It’s just like racing, except that it’s this great big heavy bike that goes way faster than you.

It’s encouraging people to use the roads in a way that’s good for our environment, good for their health, good for community, good for the economy, good for the province. That’s worth standing here for. Those are really important steps that, to me, in my own personal life, mean a lot. That means a lot to me.

This will enable communities to run pilot projects surrounding emerging mobility and technology like e-scooters, Segways and more. That empowers local government. Local government knows which solution works best for them, whether it’s a rail trail down here or a cross-Canada trail up in my riding — whatever it might be.

[4:35 p.m.]

This is an encouragement for local communities to get creative, to look at the options and the opportunities available to them and give them a freer hand in developing those for their constituents, our constituents. Apparently, that’s not worth standing up for, for a lot of the members opposite. I’m discouraged by that.

As a cyclist, I kind of hope that people have enough awareness that they see an evolution of the use of our passageways. They’re not simply for cars and trucks, the business and pleasure of automobile drivers. They are for all of us. Whether we walk, run, ride, scoot or sit, they’re for all of us, and this bill recognizes that.

I read a book recently on the history of the struggle between the automotive culture and the cycling culture and on how long it took — it took almost 100 years — for there to be a clear definition of what a bicycle is on the roads. And still it’s in question. We’re trying to get ahead a little bit, trying to get ahead of the curve a little bit to see: “You know what? There are all these emerging technologies. There are moments and places at which they clash and that could hurt people, and we need to make it better.”

We don’t sit on our hands. We don’t call those things busywork. We get it done. That’s a good thing: getting it done. Get it done. As the loggers say: “Get ’er done.” We’re getting ’er done.

The Child, Family and Community Service Act will be amended. For somebody to call this inconsequential, that ought to be a headline somewhere. At least in every First Nation, I hope it’s going to be a headline that somebody would call this inconsequential.

This amendment will allow Indigenous communities to have the ability to plan for all their children and youth in care, including non-Aboriginal children and children from other nations. This, again, empowers, uplifts the people of British Columbia. This protects children. This improves the life of every single British Columbian, because when some of us experience injustice, all of us do in one way or another, and we are putting it right. We’re doing our best, working in conjunction, partnership, collaboration with communities, First Nations. It’s extremely offensive to have that dismissed by the other side.

I welcome and, in fact, beg every member on the other side to stand up and make their views known on all of these amendments so that they can clearly tell their constituents where they stand. They can clearly tell them whether this is important or not — whether I stand up and have a word or I sit and watch. Just because it’s the red shirts versus the blue shirts versus the orange shirts, they can’t celebrate good work: the number of times that we voted with their government, stood up and applauded bills that we supported.

This is not a game; this is real. These things affect people’s lives and our environment in a real way. We need to put down…. We need to unify and not divide, particularly in these times. Right now the gesture by the opposite side — to be silent or, worse than that, to stand up simply to dismiss this work — is something that disappoints me.

It’s not all red shirt–blue shirt–orange shirt to me. I’m partisan. I’m ideological. I have a lot of friends on the other side, and I have over the years. I know they’re good people. But this stupid red-blue-orange divide…. It’s important to compete for power and present ideas, but when it prevents us, as members, from recognizing good and strong work done in the name of the British Columbians that we represent, that is not acceptable.

[4:40 p.m.]

The Professional Governance Act. I know that the member for West Vancouver–Capilano is in the room. He’s a professional engineer, and I know that for many years, he worked with the engineers in order to empower their association. He was always there, ready to push for amendments, and fought for legislation within his own government. I’ve heard the kind of work that he did on behalf of engineers. I would hope he would stand up and say that the transition that we’re making to new governance models and how this bill will help that transition…. That’s a good thing for his brother and sister engineers. That’s a good thing.

The Provincial Court Act. Proposed amendments relate to the reappointment and term lengths for judicial justices who hear matters such as traffic tickets, municipal bylaw violations, small claims issues, bail hearings and search warrant applications. “Well, that sounds like busywork. Well, that sounds like something barely worth showing up for work to do, really. Couldn’t we have mailed that in? Like, why did they come? It’s so inconsequential.” Or at least, that’s what they said.

How could it be that we have a court system that’s clogged, backlogged, not functioning…? People are being allowed off of charges because there’s a backlog in our court, and these kinds of matters are languishing. So we take steps that will allow us to conserve the wisdom and capacity of the current field of judicial justices so that that great shortage that we’re facing will be alleviated somewhat. That seems to me to be really very important work. Yes, it does.

Then let’s take a look at the carbon tax, provincial sales tax, Motor Fuel Tax Act, Tobacco Tax Act and Speculation and Vacancy Tax Act. These changes will bring greater clarity and consistency across the acts.

Now, even people who might call themselves anti-tax crusaders, who are maybe sitting on the other side because they really…. That’s their primary purpose. I know a few of them, and they would hold that as a much higher priority than I do. I hope it’s an efficient system, but my goal here isn’t just to cut taxes. But there are those who are here for that. Even people who say that will say: “At least make it easier to manage. At least make it more clear and consistent.” Oh, yeah, those are the words here — clear and consistent. Right. That’s what we’re doing.

Many of the people who claim to represent those concerned with the difficulties, vagaries and complexities of tax acts ought to be standing up and celebrating this. I don’t know why they’re not. I could probably name the ridings of members who have stood up in the past and made that a really high priority for themselves, claiming to represent those who really want to see simplicity and conciseness in a tax act.

We do it. What is it, then? It’s “inconsequential.” It’s “busywork.” It’s not worth showing up in Victoria to do, for the former B.C. Liberal government. That seems a little awkward. If I were in their shoes, I’d feel just a little bit awkward. I won’t ask them. Only the wearer knows exactly how the shoe pinches, but I can imagine.

We’re doing really great things that the other side are calling busywork. We are carrying on our tradition. The reason that there’s a fall session? Because you get most of the work done in the spring, right? I’d like to read off some of what was done in the spring.

[4:45 p.m.]

Okay. How many acts am I about to read to you? So 35 titles: An Act to Ensure the Supremacy of Parliament, of course. Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act. Witness Security Act. Budget Measures Implementation Act. Business Practices and Consumer Protection Amendment Act. Employment Standards Amendment Act. Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act. Income Tax Amendment Act. Civil Forfeiture Amendment Act. Supply Act. Community Safety Amendment Act. Heritage Conservation Amendment Act. Agricultural Land Commission Amendment Act. Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act. Environmental Management Amendment Act. Workers Compensation Amendment Act. Energy Statutes Amendment Act. Medicare Protection Amendment Act.

The Forest and Range Practices Amendment Act. That was the one with the public interest being inserted. Not that it should have had to be done, but it was. It was No. 22.

Land Owner Transparency Act. That let us see the money laundering. That’s kind of important. Business Corporations Amendment Act. Coastal Ferry Amendment Act. Kind of important to those of us who….

Interjection.

D. Routley: There is public interest there too. Re-established — there wasn’t before, but we put it in. Imagine having to do that. I don’t know how that’s even possible, but you know, it happens.

Financial Services Authority Act. Ticket Sales Act. Now, anybody who has been ripped off by a ticket seller or who has resented the way tickets were marketed outside a venue…. That probably includes a few of these members. They roll in that kind of crowd. Yeah, that should interest them, and I’m sure it did.

Zero-Emission Vehicles Act. Miscellaneous Statutes Amend­ment Act. Whoops, there’s another one. That affected a whole bunch of acts in a positive way, but I suppose it was busywork too.

Labour Relations Code Amendment Act. Police Amendment Act. Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act. Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act. Okay. That’s 35 acts in the spring.

So why are we here in the fall? Well, because we get ’er done, right? That’s what the loggers say: get ’er done. B.C. NDP gets ’er done. We came in here, and in two years, we’ve completed or started over 22,000 units of housing, when this former government took 16 years to do fewer than that. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. Yes, yes.

NDP math. It goes two plus two equals four. Not three. That’s what British Columbians have gotten out of the previous government. So yes, it adds up. It adds up to the public interest. It adds up to doing things that are good for struggling and vulnerable British Columbians — the people we should be most concerned with, I would suggest. The people most deserving of the attention of this House, as I look at the members who pay little attention to those issues and are not willing to stand up and speak to them right now.

It all adds up. It all adds up. In a final analysis, I hope, when people view this, they’ll see that for 16 years, they had become accustomed to government retreating, leaving them. “Hey, it’s your problem; deal with it” was the way this previous government operated. They also set up a lot of those problems.

They’ll see, where they’d lost faith that government could be an active and positive partner in their lives, that our role in the economy could be leveraged to benefit businesses in this province, that the things we do to affect the lives of children could actually save lives, empower communities and build reconciliation. They will see that the protection of their democracy is a priority. And keeping big money out of that so that they can have a true representation and understanding of what’s happening in their government and to them…. We did that too.

Human Rights Commission. Imagine the previous government getting rid of the Human Rights Commission. My colleague from Delta North did so much great work going around the province and rebuilding that system and allowing this government to be able to re-implement and give the gift back to British Columbians that was stolen from them — that they should have protection, that they should have the kind of uplifting and empowerment that government can afford them, that they are the priority.

You know what they see in the end? They see billions more invested in their children — through child care, education, housing, every possible way. They see billions more being invested in them, and they still see the best economy. They still see surplus. They still see jobs.

[4:50 p.m.]

A healthy community is a thriving community. If you just keep chopping away at it and wringing the life out of it, as the previous government did, you’ll run out. The people run out. In the end, we pay a steep price for that in terms of the cost of delivering services to people who have had their lives decimated or held down. There’s a huge cost to that. We know it innately. We’re so glad we’ve had this moment to prove that our values, applied through public policy, equate to a successful, thriving community, a just economy and a healthy environment. Balance.

I think that those things are well worth showing up in Victoria and standing up for half an hour to have a few words about. I wager that the constituents of the members opposite would love to hear their position on all of those matters, as would I, because I know many of them would agree with these things. They’re good people.

Take off the uniform, just for a moment, and just like we did so many times, stand up and clap when this gets passed. I challenge each one of you who’s here, if you’re listening to me. Just like we did for all those years, when you passed bills that we agreed with, even that we didn’t necessarily agree with but we saw some merit in here and there, we still clapped along with you and voted with you when we thought it was right.

I challenge each one of you to do the same thing now in the names of your constituents. I’m sure they would appreciate it.

Hon. K. Chen: I am really happy to have the opportunity to be here to speak in favour of Bill 35, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act. I just really want to echo a lot of things that my colleague before me has just said. It’s really great to be able to come back to the fall session.

I really want to begin by thanking Burnaby-Lougheed residents and community members who have given me the opportunity to serve in this Legislature and, coming back, to be able to do the work that is very important for British Columbians, for our communities, for families in our communities, to make life better for them and to provide better services.

I think that’s what this bill is about. This is about how everything we do in this Legislature matters to local families, to families that we care a lot about, to our neighbours, to local organizations, to stakeholders. This is something that we have to do to make sure we do the job we are elected to do in this beautiful Legislature. I want to say that this bill is crucial to making improvements, additions and clarifications to several existing acts, which could include support for government’s poverty reduction strategy, the first poverty reduction strategy, which is going to make significant changes and improvements to the lives of many, many British Columbians.

It will make better changes to additional family law protections, enhance protection for whistle-blowers, supports for renewable energy and will recognize new models of personal transportation, which also supports one of our government’s major priorities, which is the CleanBC plan. I cannot thank the Minister of Environment enough for his critical work to put together the CleanBC plan that will really benefit generations to come.

This bill proposes changes to 17 different acts. I’m going to highlight a few. All of the acts are important, but I’m going to highlight a few that are here. The first one I would really like to talk about are the changes and improvements to the Child, Family and Community Service Act.

I want to begin by thanking the Minister of Children and Family Development for her critical work to support a lot of children and youth in care, especially those ones who are from Indigenous communities.

This act will propose minor amendments that will clarify the intention that Indigenous communities have the ability to plan for all their children and youth in care. It will also clarify the intention that Indigenous communities are able to deliver a broad range of support and critical services for children and families in their communities as well as to children who identify as non-Indigenous or members of another nation.

[4:55 p.m.]

This is a critical change. This is a really huge step forward in our goal to achieve true reconciliation. It is going to benefit so many children who really need the support of the government to be able to allow them to stay in their communities, allowing Indigenous communities to have the ability to plan for those critical services and the support for these vulnerable children. So I want to thank the Minister for Children and Family Development, who is responsible for this file, for her incredible work in this area. I think we have a lot of work to do to continue to support vulnerable children and youth, especially those ones in care.

The next one I want to talk about is the Employment and Assistance Act and the Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act. These are critical changes and proposed amendments that will really support our province’s poverty reduction plan, the TogetherBC plan, to support a lot of families in all of our communities — families that count on the critical support from the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.

The proposed changes would include improving the financial security of low-income seniors by ending the need for people on income and disability assistance to pursue early Canada Pension Plan retirement benefits if they are younger than 65. I want to speak on this specifically because I have personally worked with many seniors in our communities who are on income assistance and are close to the age of 65 and are struggling to make that decision to choose between the Canada Pension Plan or continue to be on income assistance. Before, they had no option. They were required to take the early Canada Pension Plan. But now we’re giving them a choice.

That choice is crucial for many seniors who are living on very minimal means. I’ve worked with a lot of vulnerable seniors in our communities who are worried about their next meal, who are worried about being able to pay for groceries, who are worried about being able to pay for their medicines. Those supports and the choice that they have, depending on their situation and their need and their personal circumstances, are really crucial. So this is actually a significant change for many seniors in our communities.

This proposed act and bill also propose changes to protect vulnerable youth by eliminating the two-year independence rule as a barrier to receive income assistance. If our purpose is to support vulnerable youth, removing this barrier would also help a lot of vulnerable youth to be able to get the crucial assistance that they need through our government.

These changes would also help to modernize the ministry’s definition of spouse to better support people entering and leaving relationships by increasing the amount of time that two people can live together in a common-law relationship before reducing their assistance to the lower couples rate and also providing single assistance rates to two married people who have separated but not yet divorced and are living in the same residence independently.

As we all know, nowadays there are many situations. There are different relationship arrangements, especially when it comes to many people who are really struggling with the housing crisis. You know, life has been getting really unaffordable during the past ten, 15 years. Many people are struggling to choose between making ends meet or their housing needs. Couples who are entering or leaving a relationship may have to make temporary or sometimes a long-term arrangement to decide if they’re going to live together, even if they’re no longer in a relationship. Or it could be a couple who decided to live together to save housing costs, but they may not be in a long-term relationship situation yet.

There are so many situations, but our current system makes those barriers for them to be able to get the maximum benefit that they actually should be entitled to. We’re talking about people who really count on the support from Social Development and Poverty Reduction. We’re talking about people who are struggling to make ends meet.

By removing those barriers, it would also help them to have more choices, to be able to choose the housing arrangement that works best for their relationship and that works best for their budget. I think those are critical changes that we are proposing that could make a difference for many, many people’s lives. So these are not small things, as some opposition members may be suggesting. This is critical and would really make an impact on many couples who are relying on income assistance.

[5:00 p.m.]

Through working in the community, I’ve also met some of the families who were really trapped in a situation where they had to decide whether to live together to pay for more housing or trying to get themselves a better rate from income assistance. This would help them to be able to make that choice way better and more easily.

The proposed changes would also help to eliminate the practice of cutting people off from assistance who are homeless or at risk of homelessness if they are unable to provide documentation for eligibility, replacing the practice with a modest monetary penalty. This is huge, especially for people who are facing homelessness, who are homeless or at risk of being homeless — to be able to help them, to support them when they’re unable to provide documentation.

I’ve personally worked with many families who are at risk of being homeless. I remember this family who actually were in social assistance housing and then had a fire at the apartment that they used to live in. They lost all of their documents. They did not have anything to even prove…. I think all they had was a bank card or two, and they were really struggling to apply for any benefit. In those situations, what would those families do? What would those individuals do if they were unable to access social assistance? This would really help to give people more room, under a very difficult circumstance, to be able to get that relief.

The changes would also ensure in helping people who are receiving eligible assistance sooner by aligning the Employment and Assistance Appeal Tribunal with other tribunals in B.C. to allow for new evidence to be presented in an existing appeal process rather than requiring people to reapply. It sounds like a simple systematic change, but it is not. Just think about people who are already going through a difficult time trying to apply for employment assistance, having a difficult situation, having to go to the appeal tribunal with all the paperwork.

I’ve personally seen some of the paperwork that people have brought to either my office or for the work that I did previously as a constituency assistant. It’s overwhelming. It’s a lot of work. If you’re thinking that you have to get people to reapply, that could be very challenging for many, many individuals. So the time that’s saved, the headaches and the stress, the emotional stress that could be saved for people — this is huge. This is not a small thing.

I just really want to add that all of these changes that would help to support the poverty reduction plan are huge for many families in our communities as well, because for far too many years, people are struggling to make ends meet, to pay for housing, to pay for child care and to pay for their food. I’ve met so many families who have to count on a food bank to be able to get by, families with young children, working families, working poor families who are unable to be able to support their children. So those changes will really help, and they also align with our government’s priority to lift people up. When our neighbours are healthy, when our neighbours are being supported, we have a healthy community as well.

I’m also happy to speak in favour of these changes that will help to improve the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act, which will support families by clarifying that child and spousal support provisions in a family law arbitration award can be enforced through the family maintenance enforcement program. The arbitration would provide families with a way to obtain a final determination of a family law dispute without going to court. Again, these are really important changes that will save families a lot of time and a lot of stress and save the amount of paperwork and be able to get things done better for families who really require the support.

On the amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Act, they would help to enhance whistle-blower protection for public servants and government contractors and clarify the act to make it better. It will also, by amending this act, help to then add the new Office of the Human Rights Commissioner to the definition of “office” and correct cross-referencing errors. I just really want to touch on how important it is — and how proud I am as a minority, as a person of colour, as a woman of colour — that our government has restored the Human Rights Commission. It is a critical step for us to create a more inclusive community.

[5:05 p.m.]

Lately we’ve heard a lot of reports on the increasing number of incidents that are based on discrimination and hate crimes. Every time that I hear those incidents and reports, it just really hurts me, because I remember when I first came to Canada 19 years ago, the Canada that is in the pictures and that people had been telling me about. Canada is an inclusive community that welcomes everyone, regardless of who you are, what language you speak, religion, your background, your income. Everybody should feel respected.

However, that may not be the case, and for many of us, racism is something that exists in our daily lives, even in the most subtle way. So by being able to make sure that we restore the Human Rights Commission….

I also really want to thank the member for Delta North, my colleague, who has been working so hard, travelling across the province, listening to stories and engaging with people and making sure that we’re looking, in every way possible, to create a more inclusive community. That is huge.

I came here as an immigrant, but my son is born and raised here. I want to make sure that he can live in a community that is truly respectful, inclusive, and that no one is being judged based on their colour, their background, their religion, their income or their family situation. I think that that’s the Canada that we believe in, and that’s the Canada that we want our children to all live in for generations to come. So I am proud to support these changes to the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

The next one is the Assessment Act, which would help to support clean energy with amendments that include solar power plants in the definition of power plants, allowing them to be assessed in the same way as other independent power producers and ensure that they’re eligible for the same exemptions, which will also encourage the future development of solar power plants and tie in to the government’s CleanBC goals for using more clean and renewable energy.

We know that there is a federal election going on, and there are a lot of conversations about what we are going to do for our future, how we can protect our environment, protect a clean environment for our children and our grandchildren and for our generations to come. So I’m so proud that those amendments would help to support our government’s CleanBC plan that would really, really help to address the climate change crisis that we’re facing at this moment.

With, actually, the same support for the CleanBC plan, the Motor Vehicle Act would also help to provide amendments that would establish a framework that will enable the use of increasingly diverse modes of personal transportation. It would help communities to test out very exciting pilot projects surrounding emerging mobility technology, such as e-scooters, Segways and more. It would really help by doing those pilots and encouraging diverse ways of personal transportation. It would really help us to reach our goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support MOTI model forms of transportation.

I know there are so many other acts that I haven’t touched on here, including the Health Care Costs Recovery Act, the Professional Governance Act, the Trespass Act, the Provincial Court Act, the Judicial Compensation Act, the Carbon Tax, Provincial Sales Tax, Motor Fuel Tax, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Speculation and Vacancy Tax Act.

Those are changes that are important and are able to make sure that we provide better services, higher quality services, faster services, for people, also providing a lot of support for families who have been waiting for a long, long time.

I think, going back to what I said in the beginning about coming back here, this is the first week of the session, and I just feel honoured every day. I wake up in the morning, and I think about how lucky I am to be able to come to this beautiful country, this beautiful province, where I settled as my new home for the past 19 years, having to raise my young family here. I feel thankful every single day for the opportunity to be able to live in this province. And I feel very, very thankful for the trust and the support that I’ve received from my community to enable me to represent them as the member for Burnaby-Lougheed in this Legislature.

[5:10 p.m.]

Every day, while I’m being thankful, I know that we have a lot of work that we have to do, a lot of work that is crucial, even though sometimes some of the work we do may not be known by the public, or some of the work we do is not really discussed in the media. But every little thing we do matters, and all the little things that we do come together as a big impact that can bring very positive changes to our community.

I believe that is what this bill is about: to bring those little actions together to be able to make sure we’re making more positive changes to our community and to build a better future for our children. But also, making sure we are providing, through some of those proposed changes, such as the ones to the family amendments act and to the poverty reduction plan…. Those changes will actually make an immediate impact and provide relief to families who are needing that support right now.

Thank you, hon. Speaker. I’m really honoured to be here to support Bill 35.

M. Dean: I must say it is a real honour and a privilege to stand here in chambers representing my community of Esquimalt-Metchosin to talk about the miscellaneous bill, Bill 35. The bill touches on many other bills. Actually, by bringing it all together, it really illustrates and demonstrates what a difference we’re making in the work that we’re doing on behalf of British Columbians.

I think about my community. My community is beautiful, and it’s diverse. It starts in suburban-urban Esquimalt, passes through the Indigenous communities of Songhees in Esquimalt as well, into the more suburban areas of View Royal and Colwood, out through rural Metchosin and into Scia’new, which is the Beecher Bay First Nation, as well. So it’s very mixed. I have a great mixture of young families living in parts of my community and seniors, mixtures of immigrant and new Canadians and some established families as well. So a real range of people, budding small businesses and larger industries. I also have the base. CFB Esquimalt is in my community as well.

It’s such a mixture of British Columbians going about their daily life, their family life, their work life and their career life as well. And in so many different ways, these amendments will impact upon different aspects and dimensions of people’s lives, which is what we’re about. We’re about actually looking after and taking care of British Columbians, all British Columbians, making sure that we can lift British Columbians where they’re falling behind, where there are gaps that we’re identifying.

It really is an honour to be here. It’s interesting listening to the debate today as well. People are talking about having a fall sitting because that’s unusual. Because there wasn’t always a fall sitting.

Like my colleague who just spoke before me, I’m an immigrant. I’ve said this here before, I know. I have this accent. I’m an immigrant. When I first came here, I lived on a boat. I lived just in the Inner Harbour here. I would frequent the coffee shops when I could. It stunned me, at one point during our first 12 months when I was living here, that we were in the capital city. It was full, and my provincial government wasn’t sitting. Coming from the U.K., Westminster, that really surprised me. I was shocked that it would happen — really, without any kind of reason. At the same time, we had a Conservative federal government that also wasn’t sitting.

As someone who I thought was kind of engaged in the political system, I couldn’t believe that I was sitting here in the capital city of British Columbia with no parliaments or governments actually sitting — running and functioning and doing their job.

So it makes it really special to be here in the fall and to actually be a part of this discussion about how important it is to have a fall sitting. I know, as an immigrant and as a citizen, it’s really important to me that I see my elected representatives working on behalf of not just myself but everybody in the province and in the community — and eventually in the country as well.

Then when I think about this bill and what it touches on, it really does touch on that diversity of the different dimensions and aspects of people’s lives. It makes improvements. It puts in additions. It makes some clarifications. And it lifts, in areas that are needed, in other bills and existing acts….

[5:15 p.m.]

For example, it includes support — and I’m going to talk about this in more detail — for our poverty reduction stra­tegy. It introduces additional family law protections. It brings in enhanced protection for whistle-blowers and supports for renewable energy, and it recognizes new modes of personal transportation. These are things that really impact everybody’s lives, British Columbians’ daily lives — and, also, aspirations and visions. It’s modernizing. It’s helping us in British Columbia get ahead and making sure that we bring all British Columbians with us so that we’re all getting ahead.

The first thing that I want to focus on is…. When we start talking about the acts and the bills, it might sound dry, but the impact is where it really hits the ground.

The Public Interest Disclosure Act. Amendments here are going to enhance whistle-blower protection for public servants and government contractors by clarifying what constitutes a reprisal and confirming the act’s paramountcy over the disclosure provisions of other legislation. The bill, as well, is going to add the new Office of the Human Rights Commissioner to the definition of “office” and correct cross-referencing errors. Now, that might sound like admin. It might sound like it’s just something that is kind of a technical piece of work that needs to be done.

What’s important in this, for me, is the historic work that we have done in bringing back a Human Rights Commissioner to British Columbia. We didn’t have a Human Rights Commissioner for a decade and a half. In fact, the position was taken away. I was so proud that our government has actually made sure that we have recruited a fantastic Human Rights Commissioner, who is already setting up her office and starting out on some work.

As Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity, I can tell you that that is a significant support for work towards making sure that we rule out discrimination, we rule out misogyny, we rule out racism, and we make sure that we have equality in our province. We make sure we protect people against those kinds of harms.

I want to really express my appreciation for the work of my colleague the member for Delta North, who led a very intense, very powerful series of town halls and community meetings to talk about hate and racism in our province — actually naming that that goes on in our province so that we can find out how to prevent it, how to stop it and how to help people, communities and families recover from the harmful impacts of it as well. I know that we have more work to do, and I know that we have committed colleagues who are going to help us with that work moving forward as well.

There are also going to be changes to the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act. These changes support families by clarifying that child and spousal support provisions, in a family law arbitration award, can be enforced through the family maintenance enforcement program.

An arbitration provides families with a way to obtain a final determination of a family law dispute without going to court. What this means is that families who are going through a change in their structure and who need to sort out arrangements in terms of family maintenance and how they’re moving forward can avoid having to go through the court system. They can go through arbitration, and then decisions there can be supported as they’re moving forward with whatever their newly reconstituted family is.

The stress, the time away from work and the risks of arguments, the risks of a power imbalance among different family members, as well as of someone more vulnerable being caused harm — they are all much more amplified going through the court system. The arbitration system is much more supportive. Again, in general, the majority of people who are adversely affected by that are women — we know that — going through the family law system.

[5:20 p.m.]

From a perspective of wanting to close the gap and make sure that we’re not increasing discrimination against any groups of British Columbians…. By providing this support and a more protected route, we’re actually closing that gap. We’re saying: “Yeah. We’re going to make sure that people who go through this system, particularly women, who might then be exposed to much more exploitation, much more of a power play….” We’re not going to put people through that. We’re actually providing this extra level of support and reducing the stress for all family members as well. In particular, in these situations, there are usually children involved. So this is about safeguarding our children in our province of British Columbia.

I also want to talk about CleanBC. Of course, what we did last year was announce the CleanBC strategy after a lot of work between our government, the Ministry of Environment and the Third Party. We came up with one of the most advanced environmental plans in Canada, in the country — a very ambitious agenda making sure that we’re looking at all different aspects of individual living, family living, transportation, different industries and different sectors and setting targets.

We can still improve it. That is something that’s going to happen with this miscellaneous bill by actually making an amendment to the Assessment Act. This is going to support clean energy with amendments that include solar power plants in the definition of “power plants,” allowing them to be assessed in the same way as other independent power producers and to ensure that they’re eligible for the same exemptions.

This is modernizing B.C. This is making sure that we are in the 21st century, that we’re recognizing that our efforts, in terms of energy and reducing carbon emission, are as up to date as they can be and that we can be leaders and role models in this area. What these changes will do is encourage the future development of solar power plants and tie into our goals of making sure that we use more clean and renewable energy. So I’m really happy to see that.

I have to say that matters of the environment are very important. As we know, there have been climate strikes and action taken here locally in Victoria. Yesterday the Johnson Street Bridge was blocked. Recently there have been climate strikes on the lawn here at the Legislature. One of the leaders…. In fact, two of the young people who were leaders of the climate strike action here in Victoria live in my community. They are young people from my community, a 13-year-old and an older teenager who have even been interviewed on the national CBC News. So these are matters that are really important to my community. People in my community want to do their bit as well.

Another aspect of these amendments that’s really important to me is the changes for the Employment and Assistance Act and Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act, because these proposed amendments are going to have a really big impact on our poverty reduction strategy. Our poverty reduction strategy is something that’s really important across my community, because affordability — lack of affordability — is one of the biggest issues in my community. Again, from a parliamentary secretary perspective, women are significantly impacted by poverty. We have to bring those lenses to our strategies and to all places where we can actually create improvements.

I am really pleased to see some of the proposed changes, like improving the financial security of low-income seniors by ending the need for people on income and disability assistance to pursue early Canada Pension Plan retirement benefits if they’re younger than 65.

A major group of people living in poverty are senior women. I have to say, some of my earliest casework was older women coming into my constituency office who were caught in a poverty trap with the systems of pensions and taxes and benefits. They couldn’t get out of the trap. Costs were going up, and much as they might be feeling that another benefit or another door is open to them, suddenly something gets taken away, and they’re stuck in this trap and can’t get out of it.

[5:25 p.m.]

They need to be spending money on food and medicine and self-care and taking care of themselves. Yet, by not having this change at that point in time, they were having to make choices that increased their level of poverty, because they weren’t able to delay taking the Canada pension when it could be at a higher rate as well.

What a major thing that’s going to actually make life more affordable, especially for that group of people in my community. It’s going to provide more independence, more choices. What else is that going to provide? More dignity. Better health. It’s actually going to really support the older women in my community living through their senior years, in spite of all of the other disadvantages and discrimination and wage differences and pension differences that have accumulated and accrued through the whole of their working lives.

Secondly, the changes are going to protect vulnerable youth by eliminating the two-year independence rule as a barrier to receiving income assistance. Can you imagine how precarious that created life for youth, that they had to wait for two years before they could claim income assistance? In my previous work, before I was elected, I met a lot of youth who were living precariously, couch-surfing, living out on the streets and were homeless. A lot of it, a lot of the time, was because they had no access to sufficient independent funds. They’d get thrown out by their family or outstay their welcome at a friend’s house or whatever.

You can imagine. Young people — they were on minimum wage. However many shifts and hours of work they did, they couldn’t get ahead, and they were discriminated against in the rental market. So youth systemically were being put at risk of homelessness. When youth are at risk of homelessness, they’re more vulnerable to exploitation.

By a simple administrative amendment that’s contained here, by eliminating the two-year independence rule, we’re protecting youth in our community. We’re safeguarding youth from harm, from exploitation, from vulnerability and from that impacting the rest of their adult lives, potentially. That harm is traumatizing, and it impacts a lot of their future abilities as well. So we’re providing that net. We’re lifting youth and saying: “We value you. We know that you’re going to be making a contribution. We’re going to support you at this especially vulnerable and difficult time.”

Another change is modernizing the ministry’s definition of “spouse” to better support people entering and leaving relationships by increasing the amount of time two people can live together in a common-law relationship before reducing their assistance to the lower couples rate, and providing the singles assistance rate to two married people who have separated but not yet divorced and are living in the same residence independently.

Well, you can imagine that what I’m going to bring to this is, again, a gendered perspective, because what the system was doing before was creating a dependency. There’s a systemic financial dependency mostly of women upon men, because we still haven’t closed that wage gap. If we don’t systemically dismantle those barriers, then we’re just leaving those women to continue to be financially dependent on men in vulnerable and difficult situations already.

Of course that, in turn, can be abused. That can be taken advantage of. That leaves women without being able to make strong and powerful decisions, in spite of those other circumstances. That power imbalance can’t be exploited if we take away those systems and we create more fairness and more equality. That lifts British Columbians. That makes sure that women can create more self-determination and make safer choices and actually move forward with their lives and fulfil their potential as far as possible.

Then finally, the changes are going to eliminate the practice of cutting people off from assistance who are homeless or at risk of homelessness if they’re unable to provide documentation for eligibility. Imagine that. Imagine you’re trying to keep it together. Think of the affordability crisis that we’ve got in our province, the housing crisis. Think even just…. If you’re not even thinking from a humane perspective, think from a financial perspective: how much more expensive it is once we end up with people on the street, once we end up in crisis mode, having to work with people.

[5:30 p.m.]

People who are at risk of homelessness. If we can dismantle the barriers in the system that mean that they get penalized and end up being homeless, that’s better for them. That’s better for their community. It’s better in the long term. It’s better financially. So these are really important changes in this miscellaneous bill that we’re moving forward with. It’s not just a small administrative measure. It’s going to have an impact on people in my community, in everybody’s community.

We all know people…. We all have people coming through our constituency office doors, saying: “The system is beating me. I’m in this precarious situation. I just need this little bit of safety and security around me, and then, you know, things will get back on track rather than creating a crisis.” I have people coming into my constituency office with that story very, very frequently. It’s a crisis in our province, and we have to find ways, using the system that we’ve got, to support people in their self-determination and in them moving forward with the opportunities and their own potential.

I’m going to finish by focusing on another matter that’s really important to me, that we’re really taking great steps forward with and where we’re, again, making even more improvements with this bill. Already we’ve introduced Bill 26, which is about supporting self-determination of Indigenous children, because our government believes that Indigenous children connected to their community and culture are going to be Indigenous children growing up in a safe, healthy, secure, safeguarded and loving environment.

Bill 26 made changes to the Child, Family and Community Service Act and gave Indigenous communities greater involvement in child welfare decisions to help keep their children out of care, safe in their home communities and connected to their cultures. This was founded on the recommendations in Grand Chief Ed John’s report. His report had been developed over extensive consultation with Indigenous people, First Nations, and called for changes to legislation that commits government to work more collaboratively with Indigenous communities, right at the beginning, where there might be a child welfare concern.

In fact, I was just reading the West Coast LEAF report, Pathways in a Forest: Indigenous Guidance on Prevention-Based Child Welfare. We know we are being told how to move forward with Indigenous child welfare in the most positive way, the best way that’s going to be the most successful for now and for the future. So in this miscellaneous bill there were some proposed changes that are in response to feedback that we’ve already had from Indigenous communities around the implementation of Bill 26.

From taking that feedback and having consultations, it became clear to us that some of the wording in the act was actually too narrow to fully make the changes that we’d been intending and that Indigenous communities have been asking for. The original wording in the act allowed Indigenous communities to enter an agreement with the ministry to plan for the needs of children in continuing care only. This is now being amended to include children in care under any legal status. That is in direct response to the concerns that we heard. We want to make improvements, and this is an opportunity to do that.

There’s so much in this bill. I’ve just spoken to a few of the highlights that I wanted to talk about here today. There are many other acts that are affected by this miscellaneous bill. What I hope I’ve illustrated in what I’ve focused on today is…. I started off by talking about the diverse community and the rich community that I have, and within this bill, there are so many changes and amendments and improvements that, really, this is a very important bill that’s going to affect and help and improve the situation for all British Columbians, for all of the people in our province.

That’s what we’re here for. That’s what our government is committed to doing. That’s why I stepped up, and I said: “I want to serve my community of Esquimalt-Metchosin.” I am so proud to have been able to stand here and speak to this bill today.

[5:35 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: I want to thank the Speaker for the opportunity to speak to this bill this afternoon. I will be brief, because I know, at least on this side of the House, there are a number of people who want to speak to some of the very substantive and important amendments that are part of this miscellaneous bill this afternoon.

Let me begin. I do find it curious that the other side of the House is not taking the opportunity to speak to a bill that has some very necessary components to it, in terms of modernizing a broad range of statutes as well as helping people that we all represent.

There are amendments here that will help tackle poverty, that will help people’s eligibility to get on social assistance, that will help people avoid homelessness and having to live in their cars and that will help, quite frankly, our constituents not have to go through devastating and catastrophic occurrences in their lives. That’s what makes this bill critically important — that we debate it and support it and ultimately pass it — because there are many, many urgent items in Bill 35.

I have tried to follow the opposition’s thinking on their refusal to speak to this bill, and I’m a little bit perplexed. We had the member for Vancouver-Langara earlier in the debate, to my understanding. I wasn’t in the chamber at the time. He certainly made this accusation before, in the spring sitting of the Legislature. He accused the government of too often using miscellaneous statutes amendment bills and presented some statistics about how many times this government has done that and how many times the previous government did that, as if this were a statistic that had any meaning at all. It was not a substantive argument in any way.

I think what is substantive for the public out there is to contrast and compare a hard-working Legislative Assembly, which sits twice annually according to the fixed dates on the legislative calendar, and the record of the previous government, where it happened very infrequently in terms of the number of sitting days. In fact, B.C., for a number of years, held the distinction under a previous Premier — I won’t mention her name — that it became the least frequent sitting Legislature in the country.

So really, the complaint from that member and other members opposite is that this government has too ambitious an agenda, has too much valuable legislation that it needs to pass and has too much urgent business. We won’t apologize for that. If that’s the accusation, they’re absolutely correct that we seek to make reforms and changes that support an agenda that we campaigned and made commitments to the public on and get that business done.

They have the opportunity, as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, to register any objections or support. I’m curious to know how they will vote on this bill when we do get to the end of second reading.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

If this is the argument, that we have nothing to say to this bill, it’s curious that it even contradicts some of the objections I heard yesterday in the chamber, where Bill 13 — again, necessary legislation that had to be passed that was carried over from the spring sitting of the Legislature — was in committee stage.

The House, as we know, adjourned at 4 p.m. yesterday because the opposition ran out of questions in committee stage. They blamed the government somehow, even though they should probably look no further than their critic, who simply ran out of questions and didn’t have the gas and the energy to continue to perform the function of an opposition critic, which is to ask about public safety legislation in this case.

That was yesterday. Now today, when they have the opportunity for full, thorough second reading debate on a very wide-ranging set of comments that might be of interest…. I would like to know what the members opposite think about the changes that are proposed in this bill on employment assistance. I would like to know what they think of the Motor Vehicle Act changes that are seeking to keep up with contemporary trends in transportation.

[5:40 p.m.]

All of these are important things, wide-ranging. I could mention some other statutes, and I will, briefly, in a moment. Lots for the opposition to comment on, yet they do not comment.

Let me get back to the objection I’ve heard previously from some members — the member for Vancouver-Langara comes to mind — that our government uses miscellaneous bills improperly.

We use miscellaneous bills in exactly the manner for which the Legislative Assembly is intended. We use them to make a package of amendments to a variety of statutes, in the case of Bill 35 and other examples, that is transparently disclosed to the Legislature, available for debate.

It is not used abusively in the way that we have seen with federal governments and other provincial governments in the past — and very recent past — where they use a miscellaneous bill to bury something substantive and hidden that is more than just a miscellaneous amendment but something that fundamentally changes an original piece of legislation. We have seen that kind of abuse happen in the House of Commons and other legislative assemblies in the country.

This is nothing of the sort. There is no example, since we have had the privilege of being sworn in as government in July 2017, where this government has repeated any of the examples of the past committed by the previous government and other governments around the country. We use this legislative mechanism because it is a way to have fully participative debate on a variety of statute amendments that can include a wide range of comment. We will get to committee stage. I wonder if the opposition will have anything to say when we get to committee stage, having said very little during second reading.

This is a bill that is timely. It’s necessary — I’ll get into some of the details of why it’s necessary — and it was introduced on the very first sitting day of this fall sitting. It’s a bill that’s before the House, and we still haven’t heard anything of significance from the opposition about it. I wonder if they came back prepared to debate anything over the next 20 sitting days that we have scheduled in the calendar.

What we have with Bill 35 is a series of minor amendments that in and of themselves make up a substantive package combined. You would expect to hear lawmakers on all sides of the House have something to say, even if it is of a housekeeping nature — of which there are admittedly a number of sections in this bill, a number of clauses — or something with greater substance.

One would think, for example, that the opposition might have something to say on renewable energy technologies that are part of the CleanBC government program that will help the province of British Columbia become a leading jurisdiction in cutting carbon emissions.

We had hundreds of thousands of British Columbians on the street the other week, young people in communities right around British Columbia, desperately trying to get governments and elected officials to hear their voices and their concerns and anxieties about the trajectory of Canada and other countries around the world. And we have a bill here today that talks specifically about solar technologies and how they would be implemented and part of the CleanBC program.

Not a word on that substantive change that will, by the way, support jobs in British Columbia, because we have a robust solar manufacturing sector in this province. We’d like to hear the opposition acknowledge that. This is an opportunity for them to do that, and they do not.

The most substantive part of the bill that is of interest to me and that I’ll spend the bulk of my time commenting on is around the changes that support TogetherBC, our government’s poverty reduction plan, that we tabled in the Legislature, that we have supported at every budget opportunity since we formed government, that has included a number of complementary, multilayered strategies to lift those in British Columbia that are living in poverty out of poverty.

I don’t remember the opposition — I could be wrong — objecting to some key components of the plan that have already been adopted by the assembly. We had, for example, the first income assistance rise in over a decade. I guess they did vote against that, because it was in the last budget.

[5:45 p.m.]

We had improvements, on two occasions now, to disability assistance rates in British Columbia — long overdue — to protect those individuals who are on disability pensions from living in excessive poverty and get them out of poverty.

We had an action by this government to raise earnings exemptions for people who are living on income assistance, something that was applauded by people across the political spectrum and critically important to help people who are currently unemployed and living on income assistance have some form of paid work be part of their monthly income. We raised those rates, those exemptions.

We had, most critically — and I can speak to this as the MLA for Victoria–Swan Lake — immediate legislative action on stopping the wave of renovictions that was happening in communities across British Columbia. I can’t tell you — and I have told the House on previous occasions — how many four-storey walk-up apartment buildings were slated for renovictions and what that was doing to pressurize rental rates in greater Victoria and what it was doing, quite frankly, in making people vulnerable to homelessness. We took action on that.

We have supported an opportunity agenda that helps lift people out of poverty. Free adult basic education. My colleague the Minister for Advanced Education, Skills and Training is in the House this afternoon, sitting next to me…

Interjection.

Hon. R. Fleming: Quite right.

…and introduced that, as well as student loan interest-free status, also part of helping low-income and working-class, middle-class British Columbians affordably obtain post-secondary education.

It goes along with the expansion of trades opportunities through the ITA, the expansion of post-secondary programs, the abolition of tuition for kids in the care of the ministry. These are all initiatives that are part of TogetherBC, that are part of a government that is working hard to give people a hand up and avoid poverty, get them out of poverty. And what we see in this bill before us are some additional amendments that further the goals of our government in this regard.

For example, youth who are caught by the two-year independence rule and prohibited from receiving social assistance will now be able to get the help from the social work profession and from the ministry and not be at risk of having to live in their cars or live on the streets thanks to this amendment. That is substantive action that is long overdue, and that is why it is before the House this very day for discussion and debate.

Also, I think, an important change around CPP for seniors who are approaching the age of 60 and formerly were required to reduce their CPP entitlements that they had paid into during their working lives and take that early. That is being changed in Bill 35. I think that’s positive. I think we all have constituents who have fallen into that pool and who really wish they hadn’t had to do that, hadn’t been forced do that. That will no longer be the case.

We have the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act being amended here. That supports the Attorney General’s interest in making divorce proceedings and settlements and child and spousal support payments more orderly, less conflictual, and less involved in using up precious court resources. Those are important amendments that the legal community, the social work community and the family maintenance enforcement program personnel have been asking for, for years and years. It has arrived. It is a thoughtful package. It is in Bill 35. It would be interesting to know what the opposition thinks of this.

Taken together, including the changes to the Motor Vehicle Act that finally catch up with new technologies that are used on our streets and in our communities, this is an important bill for the Legislature to consider and to approve. I will be voting in favour of it, of course.

[5:50 p.m.]

I want to thank all of the ministries that were involved in putting Bill 35 together. It was done in a thoughtful way. It is done in an urgent way. This is our first legislative opportunity, on day 2 of the fall sitting, to be able to debate this bill, and I would urge those members opposite who have forsaken the opportunity to comment on this to stand up, if they will, even at this time. We still have some time left on today’s sitting calendar. But if they choose to continue to forgo that, that will be their loss.

Thank you for the opportunity to make these comments this afternoon.

Hon. A. Dix: I guess I’ll take up the challenge of my colleague, the Minister of Education, at this time and just speak a little bit to this piece of legislation introduced by my colleague the Attorney General.

I think that, as members of the House will know, we’ve frequently had occasion through the years to speak to miscellaneous statute amendment bills. Some are very limited in scope. But I’d argue that while there are, by definition, no overriding themes in miscellaneous statute bills, I think there is one in this case. I think it’s an important one to underline in the second reading debate as we prepare for the clause-by-clause discussion of the legislation.

That is, I think, that these measures, taken as a whole, seek to empower individuals in our society who are relatively lacking in power. They are empowering legislation. There is often a discussion, when we discuss issues around red tape, of the necessary need to ensure that regulations are controlled so that our entrepreneurial impulse as a society can advance. And I support that. We try and do that all the time to ensure, in fact, that there are not things standing unnecessarily in the way, in the regulatory sense, of what people can do and achieve in a society.

Often the red tape we see in governmental systems is not red tape directed at regulating industry but red tape directed at sometimes some of the most vulnerable people in society — the least stable, in fact, to take those challenges on. What we have here in this bill is an effort by the government in a number of areas — particularly with respect to the work of my colleague, the Minister for Social Development, but also the Minister of Children and Families and the Attorney General — of empowering people in a time when, surely, people need to be empowered and empowering people who have, in fact, lacked the agency sometimes necessary — the power, the force necessary, the opportunity necessary — to deal with government bureaucracies.

The use sometimes of regulations to deny people access to the very fundamental benefits that they need to sustain themselves as people — those are at the core here. It’s to give agency to people to speak out against circumstances and against injustice; agency to allow First Nations communities more control of their children and their youth in care; agency to ensure that, as a society, individuals have access to the basics that they need to support themselves and to support their families.

There are many elements of this bill, this miscellaneous bill introduced by my colleague, the Attorney General, that reflect this. They also reflect, I think, the work that we do as members of the Legislature. As an MLA for years, some of the issues addressed by this bill…. For years, people came to our offices. I know they did in Powell River. I know they do in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. I know they do across British Columbia. People came to our office seeking redress against genuine unfairness that had gone on for years — not unfairness linked to one party in power but unfairness in a system that seemed designed to frustrate people who needed disability benefits, people who needed income assistance.

My colleague the minister responsible for poverty reduction, who I think has a unique and profound understanding, has brought forward a series of measures here that will make a fundamental difference in people’s lives, the very issues that we see as NDP or Liberal or Green MLAs in our constituency offices all the time.

[5:55 p.m.]

I am so proud of this miscellaneous legislation and what it reflects about the work that the government is doing in these areas. I just want to underline some of those changes before I come to the health policy changes, because I think they’re so fundamental. They’re all issues that have been in my constituency office — and, I suggest, the constituency offices of members — and that we have all struggled against over the years in order to ensure justice and access to services.

For example, the ending of the need for people on assistance to pursue early CPP retirement benefits. In other words, for people who have…. To qualify for those benefits means you have virtually nothing in this world in material terms. You may have lots of other things, but in material terms, you have nothing. There was a requirement that forced people to take CPP retirement benefits early — in fact, to limit their long-term financial well-being — to grab services. They were forced to do that.

I don’t think we are the only political party, surely, who thinks this is unjust. I’m sure members have dealt with issues like this on both sides of the House. I am so proud. It says in the note, and it’s a very interesting thing, that 360 clients will benefit this year, that 360 clients will not have their benefits clawed back.

Eliminating the two-year independence rule as a barrier to assistance. This change is brought in force to protect, in particular, vulnerable youth. In this case, it’s not a lot of people, but a change was required to the legislation. This is where I so admire the member for Vancouver-Hastings, the minister responsible for poverty reduction. Ten clients this year will benefit from this — ten.

Monitoring the ministry’s definition of “spouse” to allow and support people entering and leaving relationships in two ways. First, increasing the amount of time people can live together in a common-law relationship from three months to a year will give people a fair, more realistic time frame to establish their relationship status. That’s one.

Two, obtaining a divorce takes time and can be costly, and finding housing can be difficult. Separated couples sometimes need to live in the same home as a result. This, as we all know — at an individual level, we all understand this instinctively — is not what we should be incenting in a law. So this is changed, and 1,730 clients are expected to benefit from this change per year, a pretty significant change.

The definition of a “dependent child” changes. The current definition does not fully recognize shared parenting situations where separated spouses continue to live together, which has become much more common since the acts were first done in 2002. So this is a change. Again, it’s a small number of clients, but these are the kinds of things we do as MLAs. Surely, we have a particular insight into this and how disempowering it can be for people who are struggling with low income and the need and the love and the necessity of supporting children. It is a profound change.

Ensuring that documentation requirements do not create homelessness, which is a significant change as well. This change eliminates the current practice of automatically cutting clients who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness off of assistance. Five hundred clients are in those circumstances in British Columbia. That means, on average, six per constituency — six for every MLA who sits here in this House. This significant change in this miscellaneous bill is empowering to people.

Finally, clarifying rules for admissibility of evidence on appeal. This change will help people who are appealing a ministry decision to receive assistance sooner. By being able to bring forward new evidence at an appeal, they will avoid having to reapply for assistance and submit new evidence at that time. Making systems…. Cutting red tape for people who are struggling in the system — that’s what this does. Seven hundred clients a year will benefit from that. You think about that. That’s about eight people in every constituency, knowing that some constituencies will have more people in this circumstance than others.

Taken together, these are profound changes and ones that I strongly support as a member of the Legislature, ones that we live as members of the Legislature in our role of providing service to constituents. These changes all come together, the changes that are supported by the Minister of Social Development, in this bill.

[6:00 p.m.]

They’re part of the government’s poverty reduction strategy, yes, but they are worthy of our support. They say to people in the community that we are not going to put in front of you unnecessary red-tape barriers when you are already struggling in your life, that assistance should be assistance and not put forward unnecessary impediments to transformation, change and support that people need and deserve in our society. I am, as I say, very supportive of those changes.

In addition to that, there are changes brought forward by the Minister of Children and Family Development, changes that are significant. They clarify — this is very important — the intention that Indigenous communities have the ability to plan for their children and youth in care. It’s a fundamental change by the government, one that we have been working on and which is not without very significant challenges.

What this does is ensure, allow for and assist our efforts to allow greater involvement by Indigenous communities in child welfare matters and the delivery of supports for their children and families — in other words, empowering communities. Changes to income assistance and disability empower individuals, get rid of red tape in their way and empower communities to take control and responsibility and to develop their own power and their own agency in an area that’s fundamental to them.

I want to speak briefly, as well, about the changes brought forward by my colleague the Attorney General. I think they’re important changes and, contrary to what was suggested earlier on the opposition side, by the critic, changes that are worthy of continuing support.

British Columbia is one of a few jurisdictions in the country that did not have public interest disclosure legislation. This was recommended and came out of not some current event but one that happened not so long ago. It was sometimes called the health firings matter. These were specific recommendations by Jay Chalke in his extensive investigation on that issue, which the Attorney General implemented in his first year.

Mr. Chalke, as Ombudsman, is working hard now to see them implemented and presumably supports, as we all do, this effort to ensure that this legislation, which protects whistle-blowers, comes into effect. That came out of that health firings experience and out of that very significant report. Empowering individuals and ensuring that they have the ability to express themselves in society, changes were brought in and are being improved by this miscellaneous bill. It’s power — not for governments but for individuals — to achieve and to do what they want to do.

I think what has been brought forward here by the government in this debate is an important one. It’s one that I reflect on — in particular, the changes to eligibility for income assistance and other benefits — and one that demonstrates and reflects the work that ministers and MLAs have done for years. These bills come from advocates. They come from communities. They come from individuals who’ve struggled in the system. Indeed, they come from our offices. I don’t just mean government offices. I mean all offices that have to deal with citizens and with the challenges faced by them in accessing the benefits they need — to have shelter, to eat and to live.

We, of course, have other changes in the bill. Some of my colleagues have spoken to those changes dealing with the evolution and change in transportation, technology, and so on, changes with respect to solar power. I wanted to highlight one significant change that is in this legislation from the Ministry of Health. As the Minister of Health, naturally I brought that forward in the process. In this case, interestingly, we’re supporting legislation that was enacted in 2008. The member from Powell River may remember who was in government in 2008.

It was an act. It was called the Health Care Costs Recovery Act. It was significant legislation at the time. I participated, as I recall, in that debate, at that time, in this Legislature, when it was brought into force. What it does is permit the government to recover from a wrongdoer the costs and expenses incurred in providing health care to an injured person in circumstances where injury is caused by a wrongful act or omission. This can be in a myriad of circumstances.

[6:05 p.m.]

One of the driving facts in pushing this legislation forward was a case involving a drug called Vioxx. We, as a province, were not able to participate in broader initiatives. Because of the need to change the legislation, it was brought forward at that time. It brings forward, for the health care system, about $8 million in revenue per year and so far, since it was brought into force by the previous government, has brought $61.7 million to the health care system and into the treasury to pay for the services and to pay for the costs of services that people require when they’re injured.

In the proposed amendments, two of these changes are relatively minor. As I noted, the legislation was enacted in 2008. These are tweaking, the small changes required to the legislation as experience dictates.

As people know, the act is intended to assist government in recovering the costs of government-paid health care expenses from persons and their insurers when they were at fault for personal injury or death. This is referred to as a subrogation right, a legal right held by most insurance carriers to legally pursue a third party that caused an insurance loss to an insured person. As well, the government is able to join any legal action brought by the injured person or may pursue its own independent claim. At the time it was enacted in 2008, we were late to the party, to this particular venture. British Columbia was the only province without such legislation.

People know that I try a little harder to bring a little bit of historical context to these presentations in the House. As a bit of history, I should say that in establishing federal-provincial agreements regarding health care in the late 1950s — I know the member from Kamloops is very interested in these questions — the federal government at the time expected provinces to recover the cost of insured services where the person injured is legally entitled to recover these costs from another person by way of damages.

However — this is important — the current legislation doesn’t apply to health care services that are provided to a beneficiary in relation to a personal injury or death from a wrongdoer’s use or operation of a motor vehicle if the wrongdoer has basic coverage with ICBC. In other words, there’s a separate agreement — that was started when this legislation came into force, and before — between the province and ICBC.

For years prior to the enactment, there has been an agreement between the province and ICBC, where the Insurance Corporation agreed to reimburse the Ministry of Health for health care costs arising from accidents caused by an ICBC-insured driver. That agreement continues today. Thank you very much, Minister responsible for ICBC. It’s always good to say thank you to the Attorney General, I think.

However, there ‘s ambiguity in situations where the accident is caused by both ICBC- and non-ICBC-insured parties. In these circumstances, legal counsel acting for insurers may argue that the exemption in the act should be interpreted as applying to suspend the operation of the act against all wrongdoers. Section 24(3) of the act currently provides that the act does not apply in relation to health care costs arising from a motor vehicle accident caused by an ICBC-insured driver.

Essentially, there’s a risk that a court will accept this argument, as the wording of the act is not as clear as it could be in expressing what happens when there is more than one wrongdoer and those wrongdoers are not all ICBC-insured.

With all that in mind, these amendments propose to clarify the wording of the exception to ensure that it will apply only to ICBC-insured wrongdoers and not to wrongdoers who are not insured by ICBC in cases where there is more than one party responsible for health care costs and exemptions.

As well, the act also applies in situations of class action lawsuits, as I discussed earlier — for example, where plain­tiffs commence action for damages suffered due to the negligent manufacture of medical products. The province provides health care for injuries suffered by plaintiffs and is entitled to seek recovery from defendants of the manufacturers to compensate those costs.

The proposed amendments to section 4 of the act add a requirement for defendants in class actions outside of B.C. to give government written notice of class action proceedings that include a health services claim. This is because most class actions of this type are national in scope and are typically commenced in Ontario.

These are the changes, and I know I look forward to discussing those at committee stage. I think it’s fair to say, taken together, that while there are some changes in the miscellaneous bill that address this issue, there are some changes that address issues involving transportation and some in various other areas.

[6:10 p.m.]

There is a very important area, I think, which the Attorney General spoke about eloquently at second reading, to deal with a grievance under family maintenance enforcements. Again, significantly empowering for people in those circumstances.

I think, if taken together as a theme, as an idea, this legislation shows, first of all, the government’s commitment to poverty reduction, its commitment to empowering individuals, its determination to eliminate red tape for individuals who are struggling in our system to get access to benefits that they are legally entitled to. Ensure that individuals do not have to give up their future for difficulties in their present. Ensure that individuals who are trying to take responsibility and control of the children in their own communities have the ability to do that. Ensure that for people involved in family maintenance situations, rights are protected.

This is the nature of the kind of legislation we bring forward in this House. It’s the kind of legislation that comes from working with people. That’s why I think the ministers who’ve brought this legislation forward today have done something very important, something that I am very proud of and something that I support strongly.

I look forward to hearing the debate at committee stage. I think that debate will reflect in detail what we’ve talked about in general here. It’s doing the work that we should be doing — empowering the individuals in our society to have access to all of the rights that they need and to ensure that people are not forced to struggle to achieve that for which they are morally and legally entitled.

N. Simons: I just want to offer my few comments on this legislation, this Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act. First, to address the words that emanated from the opposition that somehow this was not important work, I would beg to differ. I think the evidence is clear before you, from the words of previous speakers, that in fact, this is wide-ranging and important. Even if it’s a number of different ingredients, I think the whole of this legislation is significant.

I’m primarily pleased with some of the changes that were made after so much struggle and so much effort on the part of individuals in our community — advocates for people living in poverty, people living in poverty themselves, family members of those who suffered when the previous government enacted legislation and rules around income assistance that were described at the time as mean-spirited and criticized quite heavily by public interest groups as well as B.C.’s own Ombudsperson. That, in fact, some of the restrictions on eligibility for income assistance were too strenuous.

It all came out of a review that the previous government did on income assistance that ended up costing more than it saved in looking for fraud. It spoke to the character of that government in 2003, and it spoke to the character of governance as well. If we could only make as loud a statement with this restoring of some dignity to those individuals who are receiving income assistance…. I hope that they get the message that in fact, our government understands and is more concerned with finding good solutions than it is with labelling and demeaning individuals who are living in poverty.

I think one of the most significant changes that is accomplished by this legislation is that for individuals who are living in poverty, seniors, the requirement that they pursue CPP early if they’re under 60…. That was a punitive rule, and it’s one where I think we’ve made a significant step to say that is no longer required.

[6:15 p.m.]

I’m really pleased about that. I think my constituents understand that their community isn’t uniform. They understand that there are neighbours who are living in poverty. This is important that we share a message, as a community, that we’re interested in raising people up rather than putting them down.

Some of the rules around eligibility requirements for income assistance are also, I think, significant in what they say about our government and our concern for the dignity of all British Columbians. I’m really pleased to see the changes that were made to the Employment and Assistance Act. The two-year independence rule, as I just mentioned, was very difficult on a lot of people. I think the Ombudsperson has talked about that repeatedly over the last number of years.

A number of other pieces of legislation were amended. I don’t remember being in opposition and having absolutely nothing to say. Even when we agreed with legislation, we would make every effort to ensure that the legislation was sound, that it addressed the issue that existed, that there wasn’t any oversight or misapplication or questionable intent. But now I sit on this side of the House, and I wonder.

It’s possible to find fault or to find areas of potential improvement in legislation. It’s possible to express pleasure in the changes that are occurring, to indicate to constituents represented by opposition members that they are in support of these important changes, that they are in favour of allowing people in poverty to live in dignity. I’m quite surprised that the opposition doesn’t feel like it’s their responsibility to really say anything.

One member, from Nechako, decided to talk about forestry. I thought it was interesting that, having been the Minister of Forests previously, he certainly didn’t sound apologetic. He didn’t sound like he regretted the inaction that was characterized by his government. We are in a situation now where I agree we’re worried about our forest sector. We’re worried about the families that are impacted and the businesses that rely on customers who work in the forest sector.

We have important tasks ahead of us. We have challenges, and as government, it’s our responsibility to take those on. As opposition, I’m presuming, it’s their responsibility to ensure we’re going in the right direction, but instead, we’ve just heard very little, except they referred to this as busywork.

I don’t understand that. I think that ministers and those involved in ensuring that these changes to a number of pieces of legislation came about…. The work was good. The people worked hard. I’m hoping that there are questions at third reading and at committee stage. I even have some. It’s an important time to understand what the legislation means in the broadest sense. So I just wanted to highlight a couple of those changes that I thought were particularly important.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention, having worked in the child welfare sector and in Indigenous communities, that I recognize that there is a lot to make up for and there’s a lot to address. There’s a lot required to strengthen the system and make it one that works. I think ensuring that Indigenous communities are central in the planning for their children is key.

We’ve made a few amendments to ensure that for families that are blended — we have blended families — child welfare offices are able to deal with the Indigenous child and the non-Indigenous child in a way that is fair and that it doesn’t…. I remember working in the system where I had to account differently for children who lived across the street from what was designated as a reserve, as opposed to their sibling who lived with the other parent on reserve.

[6:20 p.m.]

I just think there are so many ways that this legislation can improve the lives of individuals impacted as well as those who are working in the sector. So I wanted to say that I think our government is on the right track — a poverty reduction strategy that has a number of elements, including those that are in this legislation that we have before us today.

I’m happy to support this legislation. I hope that my colleagues from across the way are equally supportive when it comes time to stand and vote.

Thank you. I appreciate this opportunity.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, Attorney General to conclude the debate.

Hon. D. Eby: Thank you to all of my colleagues and to the two members of the opposition who spoke to the bill. I do appreciate hearing from even those few members who did find the time to speak this afternoon to this important legislation.

I do accept that it’s a miscellaneous statutes amendment bill, but of course, it does contain some important reforms you’ve heard from many people around — in particular, the Employment and Assistance Act, people with disabilities, dealing with some really draconian provisions that were put in place with minimal savings and with maximal impact on human beings across the province who suffered as a result. So a very historic piece of work and ongoing piece of work by the member for Vancouver-Hastings.

I want to note that I did hear some comments from the critic, the member for Vancouver-Langara. I did arrange a briefing for him, but some of it appears not to have fully sunk in. So I look forward to addressing some of his questions during the committee stage.

The ICBC provision has absolutely no connection to ICBC’s financial situation. It’s related to the province being able to recover health care costs from wrongdoers who are not ICBC-insured. For example, a car manufacturer that makes a defective car and results in a number of injuries in British Columbia. The province would be able to pursue that car manufacturer for health care costs as part of a class action.

There were a number of speculations about the Public Interest Disclosure Act, about why it’s not in place yet. I appreciate the urgency.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

We’ve been working closely with the Ombudsperson. Of course, it’s the Ombudsperson’s office that is responsible for receiving public interest disclosure, and that’s where some of these amendments and suggestions have been coming from over time. Also, we’re working with the public service because they have to implement. They have to designate people to receive these complaints. They need to be trained as well. It just doesn’t happen overnight. I would have liked for it to be immediately effective, but it takes time to get everybody trained up and ready to go and the infrastructure in place. We’re almost there, and it’s very exciting.

The Family Maintenance Enforcement Act provisions mostly related to an understanding that we need to be clear about language and what the authority of the office was. The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act also drew a few comments from the critic. This relates to the processing of personal information not in Canada.

I’ll give you an example that came up during the committee that was set up to study the review of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act in 2016 that I was a part of. I thought it was a very compelling story from Vancouver Coastal Health about an app related to detecting sepsis in patients.

Apparently they hook the patient up to this device. The data of the patient’s vital signs is sent to a server in the United States, which processes it against data collected from other patients that indicates sepsis, and it looks for patterns that indicate sepsis, a very serious medical condition, and identifies that. It’s all done without human contact. It’s all done instantaneously by the server. There’s no storage of the personal information, but it provides an alert in real time to doctors to be able to intercept sepsis.

It was an example, admittedly, given two years ago, so the fine mechanics of the program I may have gotten wrong. The idea in the amendment is that this kind of processing work could be done in another jurisdiction without retaining the information. It would open up an array of different functionalities for various entities like Vancouver Coastal Health, UBC and others, in order to be compliant with the act, which they certainly do want to be, and also deliver the best service that they can, including for the public service as well.

I just did want to respond to those before I wrapped up my comments in the House. I will join my colleagues in noting, with surprise, how few members of the opposition decided to speak to this bill, despite the content, and hope that we hear more from them on the bills that we put forward going forward.

With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 35, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2019, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:25 p.m.