Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued second reading debate, Bill 10.

Mr. Speaker: Members, one more thing I want to share with you. This morning I sent a memorandum on the dress code. Some of the members have now contacted me, asking for more clarification.

[2:25 p.m.]

I want to tell the members that I’ll be meeting with the three House leaders, hopefully in the next day or so. Then we’ll provide further clarification, if necessary.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 10 — SUPPLY ACT (No. 1), 2021

(continued)

D. Clovechok: Mr. Speaker, it’s great to retake my place here. As you recall, we were speaking of the lack of trust and misrepresentation exhibited by this government when it comes to Bill 10. Again, this kind of behaviour was the reason our previous government had to bring protections in, in the first place — protections and laws around accountability and transparency — measures, again, that this current NDP government are trying to circumvent with Bill 10 in front of this House today.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Now, for the benefit of the member for Stikine, let’s talk about a little bit of history again and the government’s success, with us helping over 16 very proud years. One of the many people-centred programs was the brainchild of former Premier Christy Clark, and that was the single-parent employment initiative.

This initiative was focused on giving people a life-changing hand up, not a one-time NDP handout. It was a program that helped single parents on income and disability assistance to get the supports they needed to overcome barriers to employment and build a better future for their families. Supports included up to 12 months of funded training for demand jobs or paid work experience, transit costs to and from school, and child care costs during the training and their first year of employment.

This program was a smash hit, welcoming over 6,000 participants. As one of the thousands of participants said of her experience: “I am really proud of myself now. I am balancing school and motherhood. Without this program, my new life would not have been possible.”

This program is just one example of the many programs that we offered British Columbians over 16 proud years — always giving them a hand up, not a one-time handout. Knowing this, I am confident that the member for Stikine will accept my challenge and retract his comments about our government only caring about some fictitious 1 percent.

I could never in any good faith look my constituents in the eye and say that I was okay giving a government like this a $13.4 billion blank cheque without any checks and balances. That would just not be acceptable, and nor should they have to accept that. As such, I cannot support this bill.

It was President Reagan who said: “Don’t be afraid to see what you see. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.” We all see Bill 10 for what it is, and in my discussion, I have done what is morally right and exposed Bill 10 for what it is not. It is nothing more than a veiled attempt at coercion by the NDP, with no moral base that would inspire any modicum of trust.

Mr. Speaker, mark my words. Just like it was in the ’90s, it will be the people of B.C. who will have to try and pick up the failed pieces, which are always the legacy of the NDP.

S. Furstenau: I’m glad to have the opportunity to speak to this bill. We’ve heard several days of debate on this bill, a supply bill that gives government $13 billion to maintain spending until the budget is approved.

What have been the overarching themes of this debate? We’ve heard from the government members that this is a typical bill that is passed in the Legislature every year, a bill that allows for spending on salaries, essential programs, government initiatives to continue between the time of the budget being introduced and the time that it’s passed in the Legislature. Mostly true. Except this year, as we’ve heard from official opposition members, this interim supply bill is being brought forward before anyone in British Columbia has the opportunity to see this year’s budget or even hear from government its intentions or vision in a speech from the throne. Also true.

Finally, we’ve heard that in order for the $13 billion in spending to be approved, the bill has to circumvent the Financial Administration Act, tying the interim supply not to this year’s budget but to last’s. Also true. Also worrying.

[2:30 p.m.]

How did we get here? A combination of a set of circumstances and a series of choices. Yes, we are in a global pandemic that has created a kind of upheaval and disruption beyond what many of us could have ever imagined. This government made highly political choices while we have been in the midst of this pandemic, choices that have had consequences and that have ultimately brought us to this rather extended debate on what is typically a very routine piece of legislation.

The NDP chose to go to an early snap election in September. We’ve heard many excuses for why they chose this, but ultimately, we can recognize that political parties make political choices. The NDP chose to let go of the remarkable level of cooperation and collaboration that had marked the first eight months of 2020, to try to return us to what has been the status quo of the B.C. Legislature, a majority government that does not need or, generally, choose to work collaboratively with other parties. In doing so, the NDP put themselves into a position where, for ten weeks, government was in caretaker mode.

In the critical fall period when budget preparation work is typically underway, the ministers were not working with their staff to prepare budget submissions. They were on the campaign trail, raising election funds. So when we hear from government members that they want to have the time to fully consult and prepare for this year’s budget, let’s not forget that there were ten weeks of consultation and preparation that were lost because of the snap election. That was a choice, not a set of circumstances that were outside of their control.

Let’s recall also that there were substantial consultation processes, both from the Finance Committee and from government itself, throughout the spring and summer months — consultations that were ultimately used, in large part, to feed the NDP’s election campaign.

Let’s also recognize that this government has demonstrated a tendency to do extensive consultation and to seek input from experts. I will point to the B.C. Utilities Commission report on Site C in 2017, the Basic Income Panel report and the old-growth strategic review panel report — extensive consultations seeking input from experts, and then not heeding that input or recommendations that have been brought forward.

This government has also made the choice to bring the Legislature back in December of 2020 to pass a bill that changed the deadline for the presenting of a budget, pushing it past the end of the fiscal year. That choice is what brings us to the place we are today: debating a two-page bill that in most years is neither controversial nor problematic. The other implication of this choice to delay the budget is, ultimately, a shortening of the time that we will have to ask the ministers, in estimates, about the choices that are made in this year’s budget, after last year’s short estimates.

Indeed, I think we should be concerned by a trend that we are seeing in this Legislature’s ability to have thorough oversight of the budget, with a diminishing number of weeks for estimates debate, year over year. In 2018, the spring budget was introduced February 20, after a fall introduction of a new government and after a budget update that had been introduced in September. The election had been in 2017 in the spring. That provided ten weeks of legislative sitting for members to review, debate and question ministers on the budget.

In 2019, the budget was introduced February 19, and there were nine weeks of sitting that followed. In 2020, the budget was introduced February 18, weeks before our worlds closed down and everything changed. We did have the hybrid summer setting, much thanks to the hard work of the Clerks, Hansard and all of the staff here to pull that together. In the end, there were a total of eight weeks of sitting, after the budget was introduced.

[2:35 p.m.]

Here we are in 2021. The budget won’t be introduced until April 20, three weeks after the fiscal year-end, and we will have a grand total of six weeks left in our spring session to debate and question the budget in estimates. Ten, nine, eight, six.

Interjection.

S. Furstenau: As the former Minister of Finance is indicating, four weeks.

It is a worrying trend, to say the least. Everyone, regardless of which party they are in, should be concerned about this trend. Transparency, accountability and being answerable to parliament are essential to a healthy, functioning democracy. Diminishment of the role of elected representatives — diminishment of the time that elected representatives have to do their work in this chamber, diminishment of parliament when it comes to oversight of government — is a diminishment of democracy.

For the many hours and days of the debate that we’ve been hearing, the government members have defended this bill and spent a lot of time pointing to the misdeeds and missteps of the B.C. Liberal Party when they were in government from 2001 to 2017, and the official opposition members have spent a great deal of time pointing to the misdeeds and missteps of the NDP when they were in government over 20 years ago.

I imagine — which, as a relative newcomer to this place, isn’t that hard to do — what it might be like for members of the public who are watching this debate unfold, a debate that seems to be about the past quite a bit more than it is about the present or, importantly, about the future. The lines are being so clearly redrawn now that we’re back in a majority government — lines and trenches that had been softened, eroded and diminished not just in 2020, as all three parties came together to meet the enormous challenge of the pandemic, but since 2017, when there were two parties in this Legislature that had to work collaboratively.

What’s interesting in the debate that I’ve heard so far is that, for the most part, this period — 2017 to 2020 and, particularly, the period of 2020 when there was a lot of collaboration — has been held up by both sides of the House as something to be proud of. Accomplishments were made. Collaboration and cooperation happened. We rose to the challenge. We were at our best.

Majority governments have no need to work collaboratively. They can choose to do so, but they can also choose to operate completely independently from the rest of the Legislature because they have no need for the support of any members outside of their caucus. With the trenches rebuilt and the lines redrawn, we’ve seen, in the debate around this bill, both sides of this Legislature revert to the age-old, time-honoured traditions of adversarial, conflict-driven debate so typical of majority governments. I think we can do, and we have done, so much better.

I look to New Zealand, which has had minority governments, with two exceptions, since moving to a mixed-member proportional electoral system in 1996. Interestingly, in the 2020 election, the Labour Party, under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, did win an outright majority — unusual in a proportional representation system. But Ms. Ardern decided to maintain a collaborative approach to governance and appointed two opposition MPs as ministers outside of cabinet.

Ms. Ardern reflected what she had learned and what has been learned in New Zealand over the last couple of decades, which is that governments do better when they’re collaborating, when they’re listening, when they’re taking in the perspectives of other parties. Here is an example that we can look to: a recognition by this Prime Minister that different perspectives contribute to better governance and better outcomes and that collaboration contributes to better governance overall.

I think that many of us around the world have looked to New Zealand for their impressive leadership on so many fronts: climate action, reconciliation, antiracism, banning assault weapons in the wake of a horrific murder of 51 Muslims worshipping in their mosques.

[2:40 p.m.]

It with great envy, I expect, that all of us have observed New Zealand’s response to COVID-19, particularly when we’ve seen the images of gatherings and concerts, while we have all had to spend so much time away from those most beloved to us.

I don’t think that there is a disconnect between how people are elected, how our parliaments are formed, how they operate and the governance outcomes that we achieve. Needing the support of other parties puts an onus on governments to consider those perspectives, those insights and the wisdom of other political parties, which of course represent the perspectives, the insights and the wisdom of the people who voted for them.

As I watch and listen to and observe this debate, I lament what we have lost: the collaboration. I also lament that 3½ years of a more collaborative governance in this building does not seem to have had a particularly lasting effect, although I remain hopeful and optimistic. Ultimately, for me, this bill is a case of how we are not living up to the expectations that the public should have of us collectively.

Everybody has had to adjust to the set of circumstances, the global pandemic that is well outside of our control. For so many people, there have been enormous and life-changing losses and sacrifices. In a time of crisis, they look to leaders to guide, to support, to shepherd all of us collectively through these difficult times. This bill, the delayed budget, the shortened time for the Legislature to properly investigate that budget in estimates and the diminishment of transparency and accountability all fall short of what the public should expect of their government.

M. de Jong: Perhaps keeping with the theme that the Leader of the Third Party was developing over the past few moments, I’ll make the observation that it is certainly an interim supply debate unlike any that I have participated in, in this place. I’ve participated in a few of them over the years.

We have, as we’ve just heard, been treated to accusations from both sides of the floor, with the government members that have chosen to participate observing that there’s nothing unusual about what we are engaged in here today, that interim supply is very much a part of the parliamentary tradition and the budgeting tradition and that the opposition needs to simply relax and accept that fact.

Conversely, my colleagues and I — and the members, in a slightly different way, from the Third Party — have commented upon what we see as a violation of some fundamental tenets of parliamentary democracy and the budgeting process that is so much a part of that parliamentary democratic tradition.

What is an observer to make of all this, who is watching, perhaps confined to their home and, having run out of their Netflix offerings for the day, has tuned in? What are they to make of those competing views of what is taking place? Well, I do have a perspective on this that I’ll share. I’m not overly optimistic that it’s going to change any of the minds of people in this chamber or of those who have spoken. Maybe, at the end of the day, that’s not the purpose of the exercise, but merely to provide input, based on whatever insight I have, into these matters.

[2:45 p.m.]

What I have thought…. As I’ve listened over the last number of days, this question has emerged for me: are good intentions an excuse for abandoning good practices? Are those two concepts, good intentions and good practices, exclusive of one another? My answer, my proposition for the House, is that not only can good intentions and good practices coexist, they must coexist. One is a necessary prerequisite for the other.

I was thinking the other day, sitting on the ferry and doing some mental math, about the number of MLAs that I have worked with in this place over the years. It’s somewhere between 250 and 300. I haven’t counted each one. Some real characters, to be sure. I have to say, upon reflection, that virtually all of them…. Maybe, if I’m not generous, there might be one or two I might have my doubts about, but virtually all of them were well-intentioned, motivated by a desire to serve, to do good — do good for the province, do good for their constituencies.

One of the sad realities of this legislative session since the election is that, because of the nature in which it has to be conducted, we haven’t really got a chance to get to know some of the newer members of the chamber. We have learned about them from some of their speeches. I have no reason to doubt that the newest members of this chamber are any different in terms of coming here with good intentions. But good intentions without good practices is what gets governments and, ultimately, societies into trouble.

What is that in the context of budgeting? What are these, what I would deem, necessary good practices, and are they important? Well, they must certainly be important in this context. The parliament we are in — that we have the honour to sit in, stand in, speak in — really exists for two, maybe three reasons.

One is that we create laws. We create laws that govern people’s behaviour and impose sanctions on them if they fail to abide by those laws. That’s significant. That is important.

We provide spending authority to the Crown, in the context of our constitutional monarchy, via the executive branch — the authority to collect revenues and the authority to spend moneys.

A third function, I suppose, worthy of…. I got in trouble once for not immediately recognizing this. It’s the role of the parliament via the opposition to hold the government to account as it exercises those constitutional authorities.

All of that is part and parcel of what goes on here and is really the essence of why we gather and why people are asked to make selections to send people here. The government seeks permission — we call it a voted appropriation in this place — and in seeking that permission to spend, it lays before the members of this chamber a detailed spending plan and the details of what it expects to collect in revenues from various sources.

Members get a chance to ask questions. They get to poke and prod and critique. It takes time. Usually, as the Leader of the Third Party mentioned, it takes a couple of months. At least historically, it has taken a couple of months. As she has pointed out, and others, that time frame is becoming more and more reduced, compacted. That is troubling.

[2:50 p.m.]

While that exercise is taking place — while the members of this chamber, on behalf of their constituents, are posing those questions, seeking clarification about the grand plan, the grand spending blueprint for the coming fiscal year — in the interim, as the fiscal year ends and as spending authority ends, provision is made for the government to continue to operate by granting it interim supply. This is simply a code term we use for a portion of the budget that they have introduced before this House, that is presently before the House, to ensure that the operations of government can continue.

Of course, that’s what’s missing here. But it’s a pretty fundamental piece of the puzzle when we are talking about the spending plan and its absence and the government coming along and asking for permission to spend a portion of a plan that they haven’t shared with anyone. Therein lies the disconnect, and for us in opposition, a very worrisome feature.

I realize that some do not reflect fondly, and I’m not always reflecting fondly, on history. But to make the point, I went back, and I looked, over the last number of years, at the budgets. I didn’t go back far. I went back to 2017. I could have gone back much further than that. I had a certain familiarity with some of the budgets between 2013 and 2017, but I didn’t go that far back. I went back to 2017, which was the last one that I was intimately involved in.

This is the budget. These were the estimates that were tabled. Then, sometime after that, there was an interim supply bill that was tabled that sought permission to take a portion of what was contemplated in these documents, in these spending estimates. It sought permission, and it was granted to spend a portion of that. The same thing happened in subsequent years — 2018, 2019.

Here’s the 2018-2019 budget, budget book, estimates — about 400 pages of material. Guess what. There was another that was tabled in February, and then there was an interim supply bill. In 2020, same thing. Budget estimates. Again, another 300 or 400 pages of material that members could go through and had before them and could study in considering the government’s request for interim supply.

What do we have this year? This is going back four years, most of which were under the watch of the present party in power. Over the past four years, we had this, as members of the House were considering interim supply. We have this, versus this, for $13 billion. This is what the government — the Premier and the Finance Minister — believe is sufficient for members to have before them. It’s actually one page, if it’s double sided. It’s one page, and that’s not enough. It’s not enough for the opposition, but it’s not enough for British Columbians, whose money it is in the first place.

[2:55 p.m.]

I thought to myself: if we applied that standard to circumstances that might be more familiar to British Columbians, what kind of reaction would we get? What about the family that goes in to negotiate the mortgage for their first home purchase? They go into their credit union. They sit down, and at some point, the loans officer at the credit union, if they’re like my credit union, says: “Well, that’s all well and good, but we’re going to have to get a bit of a picture. We’ve got to get some information from you about your financial circumstances.”

That family says to the credit union loans officer or the manager: “Yeah, well, we’ve had a bad year this year. We can’t get you all the details just yet, but we think we’ll be able to get it to you in a month or two. We promise we’ll bring it to you in a month or two, but in the meantime, could you give us 25 percent of what we asked for? Could we get an advance on the 25 percent? And we promise we’ll bring in the other stuff that you want to look at.”

By the way, just because he’s here, the minister of Jobs and Economic Recovery…. He is in charge of a program, a small business support program. I just thought of this. I wonder if the government…. Now, he has received criticism — in my view, legitimate — for other reasons relating to that program, but that’s for another day. We’ll talk about that for another day.

How would the minister, the government and the people administering the small business support program react to this scenario? I’m a small business. I have certainly not had a very good year, and I’m making an application for some funding support.

When the people running the program say to me, “We’d like to get a complete picture of your financial situation for the past year and what you’re forecasting for the year ahead,” I say to the program officials: “Well, I don’t have that yet, but I promise to get it to you in the next month or two. In the meantime, can I have 25 percent of what I’m asking for? Can I have 25 percent of what I’m asking for? I promise you, I’ll give you all the information you want a month from now.”

Well, I know what the response from the minister and his colleagues would be. One of the minister’s colleagues, in fact, the now minister from Powell River–Sunshine Coast, described Bill 10 as “nothing more….” I wrote it down. “A bridge between the previous budget and the new one.”

Well, he’s incorrect on both counts because, if we’re going to use the bridge analogy, it’s a bridge from nowhere to nowhere. Now, some governments have made a mistake of building a bridge that went from somewhere to nowhere. But this would be the first government to build a bridge from nowhere to nowhere, which is what we have.

I say that because if you go to this one- or two-page document, as we heard a moment ago, you see the game that is being played. In section 1(1), the “‘main Estimates for the previous fiscal year’ means the main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021….”

Then, in sub 2, the “main Estimates for the previous fiscal year are to be read as if they were the main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022.” That, in legislative parlance, is the “let’s pretend” clause. Those who draft these documents don’t want me to say that, but that’s what it is. I can tell you, with some experience, that is the “let’s pretend” clause. Let’s pretend there is a budget before us.

Here’s what’s really astounding. What the government is saying is, “Let’s pretend the budget that is before us is a budget that was introduced over a year ago,” that the government itself acknowledged is absolutely irrelevant today — by the way, in this case, for reasons beyond the government’s control. I will acknowledge that, in fairness. But absolutely irrelevant.

[3:00 p.m.]

We are to pretend that it exists, we are to pretend that it has relevance, and now we are to pretend that it is justification in the absence of any other detail than that one line. We are to pretend that it is justification for granting the government authority to spend $13 billion. It’s astounding, really.

Talking about some of those MLAs that I used to work with, I was thinking the other day about a fellow that I liked. I didn’t actually like him as much when he was a political adversary. I respected him. That guy’s name was Dan Miller.

He was an MLA for a number of years, from Prince Rupert. He became a minister, became a premier, and a very worthy political adversary. For those who don’t know, he became an NDP premier. Boy, he was tough to pin down in debate or question period. He was good. I asked him once, after he’d retired, how he accounted for that. You know what he told me? He said: “Never overplay your hand.”

Governing’s tough. God knows, it’s tough. Sometimes you get a pair of twos. When you’ve got a pair of twos, don’t bluff and pretend you’ve got a full house.

The government’s bluffing here. The government is bluffing. The difference is that, again, as we heard a few moments ago, they have dealt themselves this hand. They have largely dealt themselves the hand that is causing the consternation that we attempt to articulate today. They have decided that they do not want to be bound by the same discipline, the same timelines, the same reporting requirements that have served this province well for about two decades.

When the previous, previous government embedded generally accepted accounting principles into the budgeting process, it wasn’t easy. It caused a lot of frustration at times, but it was the right thing to do. It served this province very, very well.

The irony, as I see it, as I’ve listened to the debate, is that government members continue to celebrate the benefits of the things that developed out of that budgetary discipline — the triple-A ratings, the budgetary strengths they inherited — but then they proceed, by virtue of Bill 10 and some other things that have taken place, to do two things that I find both frustrating and puzzling.

They do mock our claims of budgetary discipline in the governments that I served in, the transparency that developed for British Columbia. By the way, as I say this, that is not to discount the right of oppositions to challenge, to chastise, to critique the contents of the budgets and the decisions that were made. But the discipline around timing, the reporting requirements, the transparency developed for B.C. a reputation as the leader in Canada and North America.

That’s not me saying so, although I’m happy to, and I’m proud I can. It is these other agencies who examine, observe and compare. When they mock us, who instituted these rules, they aren’t actually mocking us. They are mocking the auditors general, the rating agencies, the lenders, the investors, who made those favourable assessments free of any partisan considerations. They didn’t care which party we belonged to.

[3:05 p.m.]

They just said that B.C., as a jurisdiction, has rules in place that, procedurally, serve the public well, and they applauded us for that. Now those rules are being flouted and dismantled. Secondly, as they, the members on the government side, tout the benefits…. At the same time they tout the benefits that resulted from budgetary and procedural discipline, they are dismantling that very structure and the safeguards that helped us achieve that enviable status.

I guess this is the biggest irony of all for me, and maybe it derives from a more philosophical approach that I perhaps was not guilty of years ago, when I first arrived here. But I have come to see the cyclical nature of politics. What occurs to me is, ironically, that the government, the Premier, the Finance Minister, the NDP colleagues are ultimately sowing the seeds of their own demise. Sloppy, undisciplined practices will once again be their undoing.

Sadly, the province will pay a huge price along the way, and we will begin to see that very quickly, because we have seen it all before. I had a ring-side seat. I didn’t want to come in here and read chapter and verse from the playbook of the last time the NDP held a majority government in this place. We heard a few moments ago about how that status has altered behaviour in the last few years.

I was around, sitting on this side of the House, the last time the NDP had a majority. I could go through the descent into budgetary chaos that unfolded as a result of that lack, or absence, of discipline.

Maybe the more effective way or, ultimately, more convincing way to do it is by referring to a number. The number is two, because when all was said and done, that lack of discipline, that manipulation, that behaviour left a proud party with two seats, and we’re going down that road again. I suppose one could say, “Well, you should be cheering,” except the price, the toll that exacted on the province, that descent into budgetary chaos, took years to repair, and here we go again.

It’s easy to blame COVID. No one in British Columbia needs to be convinced of the impact that has had. But COVID didn’t force the government to call an election. Quite the opposite. Any reasonable-thinking person would have understood that that was precisely the wrong time. The government thought otherwise. COVID has not forced this government to delay the introduction of the budget. Not at all. Those were decisions motivated by political expediency, nothing more. Well, the government will ultimately be held to account for these decisions.

[3:10 p.m.]

I will say this. In the past, this chamber has had the details, the plan, the blueprint to study, to critique, to support. This government wants us to do it with one page. I think that speaks volumes about the regard the government, the Premier and the Finance Minister have for this chamber.

Good intentions, Mr. Speaker, I would submit to you and the people of British Columbia, are no excuse for bad practices. Bill 10, in my view, represents horribly bad practice — horribly bad practice. If the Premier, the Finance Minister and the NDP members don’t realize that, then I truly do fear for the future of British Columbia.

P. Milobar: I’m glad to be able to rise and speak to Bill 10, the Supply Act. I’ll build a bit on what my colleague from Abbotsford West was touching on as well, because this bill is very concerning.

It’s not concerning, in and of itself, that the government is asking for a supply bill. We understand that that is a regular course of business. Listening to the debate, one would think that this was a regular flow of work throughout this process right now this spring.

I can appreciate that perhaps the newly elected members to this chamber, being handed their speaking notes, would not have known any different. I can understand that. There’s a lot to take in with new information on process and procedure. You’d have no reason to think that this was not something that normally happened. If you were just a passing observer of what goes on in this chamber over the years, you would always hear “supply bill” and you’d think: “Oh yeah, I remember hearing something about a supply bill.”

As the previous speaker from Abbotsford West has pointed out so well, a supply bill comes after a budget. A supply bill comes after those 300 or 400 pages of detail. A supply bill comes as we’re sitting there scrutinizing the budget to make sure that everyone understands how and what programs are going to be initiated, where the spending will go, what the priorities of the government are. Every government, regardless of political stripe, has the ability to set their priorities within that budget, and no one is disputing that. It happens all across Canada.

All of Canada has had a pandemic underway for this last year. As far as I know, all the other provinces have been able to stick to their budgetary guidelines. That’s crucial when you consider that, in this House, the previous Finance Minister asked this House to give the ability after an election to extend the budget cycle by one month. We said at the time that we didn’t understand why it was needed, but it was approved. Fast-forward to just after the election that got called a year in advance of when it was supposed to be called normally due to legislation. Again, government overriding their own legislation: a fixed election law.

We were met in December with a bill that asked us to approve extending for another month when a budget should be implemented. We said at that time that it wasn’t necessary. At that same time in December, we had also been given a request for $2 billion by the Finance Minister — $2 billion with no detail — to provide COVID relief money, mid-budgetary year.

At the time, we said: “Where is the detail? Why do you need $2 billion for a program that, you openly admit, should only be in the $1 billion-to-$1.2 billion range, to push out the door to provide people with their COVID relief money?” Many of them are still waiting for that COVID relief money, I would point out.

At the time, we were told: “Oh, it’s for other COVID programs. Don’t worry. Trust us.” Well, we heard in this House just two weeks ago, as I believe it was, the Finance Minister, in one of her answers in question period, explaining exactly why we should have concerns about Bill 10, as we asked questions in question period about Bill 10.

[3:15 p.m.]

She stood up in this chamber and indicated that the COVID relief money was indeed at about $1.2 billion out the door — and sat down. We still don’t know what happened to the other $800 million we approved. We don’t know what program it went to. We don’t know if it’s going to just get rolled into year-end spending and blown out the door in the next week or week and a half, as a slush fund to make the Premier look like a nice guy with a bunch of photo ops at the last second, bailing people out. We don’t know, because there was no detail with that $2 billion. That was in December.

Let’s go back to March 23, when a blank cheque for $5 billion was given. “Trust us. We’re going to use it for all sorts of good COVID relief programs” — to which this side of the House agreed.

An Hon. Member: One year ago tomorrow.

P. Milobar: Exactly. One year ago tomorrow.

Good faith, unanimous — $5 billion approved with no detail. “Details to come.” And $1.5 billion of that was earmarked for businesses. When did the detail for that come? Six months later, right before the election, which was called a year ahead of when the fixed election law said it would be — a date that this government actually set.

It used to be May. Their first order of business in this House, as a new government, was to pass new election laws to push it to October of this year, to give themselves an extra six months — not to take six months away from their mandate as a minority government but to add six months to it. They changed that law.

This is the second time they’ve changed the budgetary timeline laws. Why it’s concerning is that with Bill 10, the excuse is COVID. COVID seems to be the excuse for a lot of things going on, on the governmental side, these days.

Let’s look at what happened with the transition of power, of those 16 years that the other side likes to talk about so often. In July of 2017, the NDP take minority government status. You know what happened in September? Two months later there was a full new budget presented by a government which hadn’t been in power for 16 years previously, by a Finance Minister that had to figure out how to work with the Finance bureaucracy in a two-month window of time, to get a budget presented to this House.

You know what we did in October, right on schedule, after the budget was presented? We had full estimates debates on that budget.

Instead, we now have a new Finance Minister, post an election, that was triggered a year early by this government and by no one else, and we’re told: “Just trust us.” Well, we’ve tried that over the last year with several COVID initiatives, and we still can’t get any details. We can’t get any straight answers about any of it. “Just trust us” seems to be the line. For $13 billion, we have a bill with more preamble and whereas’s than actual clauses and descriptive language around the $13 billion it’s asking for — a bill that’s so light that we could probably read it into the record, completely, in a two-minute statement.

It’s simply not acceptable that the government feels that this is what passes for adequate information and disclosure. As the member for Abbotsford West said previously, it’s not adequate for this House to properly know what the priorities and the spending is for this $13 billion without a full budget to account for it. I’ll take that one step further. It’s totally inadequate for the general public, for the taxpayers whose funds make up this $13 billion, to have any accountability and transparency with Bill 10 and this government’s actions.

[3:20 p.m.]

Now, the government will keep saying…. We heard member after member: “This is routine. This is routine. This always happens.” It simply does not.

We looked back. As best we could find, 1974 was when something like this happened. When something similar to this happened, with special warrants and budgetary shenanigans going on, it was in the ’90s, in the fudge-it budget. It’s well documented what the now Health Minister wound up having to do in his role as a staffer at the time, needing to resign for backdating memos. We know the Premier was working at that time in the Ministry of Finance. We know the current chief of staff was working within government at a high level at that time. Yet the other side seems to get offended that we bring it up.

The only reason people get their hackles up around the ’90s being referenced, on both sides of the political spectrum, is because it was a disaster. As we heard — wound up with two seats. That’s the electorate speaking at that point. That’s the electorate remembering what happened when the games, like we’re seeing now, started to get played with the budgetary process.

We have a former Finance Minister that was able to deliver a full budget and open it up for full scrutiny within two months of them taking office, and we have a new Finance Minister that, five months after an election, can’t deliver a budget on time. First act of business is actually to call the assembly back in December to buy two more months’ time to deliver a budget.

I’ll point out that if you look at the calendar, yes, the budget will be introduced on April 20. If you look at the parliamentary calendar, those same budget estimates won’t start effectively until the middle of May. The first real scrutiny, minister by minister, of the budget that will be introduced on April 20 will not start until the afternoon of the Thursday right before we go on a break. So estimates will not start in earnest until May 10 of this year. I say that standing here on March 22, where we should have been just about halfway through estimates by now.

The scary part is that the other side doesn’t seem to care. They don’t seem to see the urgency. They just flat-out refuse to acknowledge that on a budgetary scale, this is a train wreck. There is no detail. This supply bill, Bill 10, is built on a pre-pandemic budget, so it’s a quarter of what the government thought they were going to have to spend before they needed COVID relief programs in place.

We’re told by the Finance Minister…. Talk about a shell game. Well, that’s not how budgeting works. It’s not 1/12 and 1/12 and 1/12. “Don’t worry. We can just pull money from the third month forward to make sure we have enough money for the COVID relief payments in the beginning of April.”

I understand that they have a healthy majority, but you wouldn’t think it listening to the Attorney General talk about this bill. That, or the Attorney General just fundamentally doesn’t understand at all how budgets work in our parliamentary system. For the Attorney General to stand in this House and tell people that if we voted against this bill, which we’re not certain we’re going to yet…. We want to see people get their COVID relief payments. We want to see programs move forward. We also want to see some transparency and some disclosure. I don’t think that’s asking too much on behalf of the public.

[3:25 p.m.]

For the Attorney General to turn around in this House, and other members after him, and say that if we vote against this bill, we’re trying a U.S.-style shutdown of government…. The fact that the Attorney General doesn’t know that that’s not actually what would happen is quite shocking. Very shocking that the Attorney General, who’s supposed to be in charge of the laws of the province, is alluding to the fact that government would shut down and grind to a halt if we were to vote against this bill.

First off, if this bill was to be defeated, that would be a confidence vote. One would think the other side, having to govern for the last three and a half years with a one-seat majority based on a deal with a third party, would understand how those work. That would be the first thing. We’d be thrown into an election.

Why would we be thrown into an election? Why would this bill be voted down and an election be triggered? It would only happen if half of the other side decided to take a day off work. The math is pretty clear in the House. I know if I’d said that in a normal chamber, with all 87 here, the thundering applause from the other side would be great.

One only has to look at the plain numbers after the election. I’m not denying it. The NDP have two seats for every seat we have. How did the Attorney General think this bill was going to grind government to a halt if the B.C. Liberals voted against it? Are they taking spring break early?

It’s that type of statement, coming from other side of the House, that gives pause about the confidence that anyone over there actually has a good handle on what is happening. If I was a new member to the House, from that side, I’d be a little embarrassed that the Attorney General prompted you with speaking lines that are patently wrong. They just are.

This Bill 10, as we’ve heard, has so little detail in it that all we get told is that they want $12,305,108,000 towards defraying costs. Wow, that makes sense. Perfectly clear.

You know, the interesting thing is that as the weather warms up in B.C., government services tend to ramp up as well. So for the Finance Minister to say, “Oh, well, it’s just a pot of money. We’ll spend more in April, and then we’ll spend a little bit more in May. But don’t worry. The June money can just cover that off. By then, we should have a budget passed. We’ll still have enough money left in the kitty, and then the rest of the budget will kick in….” That’s the logic for the other side.

[R. Leonard in the chair.]

The reality is that as parks start to open, more staff start to get hired. As other programs start to ramp up in the summertime, more staff start to get hired. This budget is so late, we’re actually talking about the summertime. We’re talking about a budget being introduced April 20 that won’t actually get any scrutiny in this House of any kind, of questions to the ministers, until the middle of May instead of the third week of February.

When we’re told, “Just trust us on Bill 10,” it’s kind of hard to. It’s kind of hard to trust that they’re going to spend $13 billion wisely, with accountability and transparency, when they give you a one-page bill for that. The bill, I believe, in December, actually, for $2 billion — it wasn’t even a bill. It was just a supply bill. We didn’t debate it. We had some estimates on it. I think it had as much if not more detail than this has in it.

You know what had a lot of detail in it and that was longer than this in December? The legislation to extend the ability of when you presented a budget. This government has spent more time and provided more detail to legislation about how to delay things and avoid accountability than they have to bring forward actual, factual information that people can dig into and take a look at.

[3:30 p.m.]

Could you imagine, speaking of municipalities…. We’ve seen what the Attorney General has been like to municipalities in the last couple of weeks. Certainly, he’s not threatening them. You know, telling them that the 42 people that need housing need 1,000 tents and 1,000 sleeping bags provided by B.C. Housing. That’s not threatening at all — that they’re trying to set up a larger encampment if the city doesn’t just be quiet and do whatever the Attorney General says.

Can you imagine the Attorney General’s reaction to those same municipalities if they tried budgeting like this? The Attorney General has made it very, very clear that municipalities are a creature of and exist at the will of the province. They get to do, and have to stay in their lane, according to what the province tells them they may or may not do.

Municipalities have been going through COVID; municipalities have had to deal with COVID. I don’t see them delaying their budget process by two months. I don’t see them saying to the province: “Yeah, well, we’ll figure out our budget in a couple of months. Don’t worry about it.” I know what the province would say to a municipality that tried doing that. As a former mayor, I know the pressure we were under in a municipality, in any given year, to bring forward a budget on time and to have proper public scrutiny and proper public input at the same time, which the province demands by municipalities when they’re developing their budget.

It’s totally lacking in Bill 10 — no detail, no accountability. Shrugs from the other side, telling us: “Don’t worry about it. It’s only a couple of weeks. We only need the money for a couple of weeks.” Well, if you only need the money for a couple of weeks, why did you ask for three months? It simply doesn’t add up; it’s simply not good enough.

When people are expecting COVID relief programs to continue on and aren’t sure where the money is coming from, it’s not good enough. When the Premier talks about a business grant program that has to have the money out the door by March 31 or it’s going to end, and then we magically hear two weeks later that it’s extended to August 31 — outside the window of this bill, too, I would point out — where is the money coming from? We don’t know.

Does the business support program only continue on if the supply bill passes? Is it even part of the supply bill?

The business recovery grant is a COVID program that didn’t exist when the very budget that this was built on, Bill 10, was first introduced. It wasn’t part of the $49 billion budget that was introduced last February and that Bill 10 is based on. The business grant program didn’t exist. It existed as a result of a March 23 vote in this House that gave a blank cheque for $5 billion to this government, which has fiddled around and played games with it and won’t provide any transparency on the $5 billion, and which came to this House again in December, insisting they needed the money to be able to provide COVID relief.

We agree with the COVID relief for people. We didn’t agree with the $2 billion because we said that there wouldn’t be any accountability. “Why do you need that much?” “Oh, don’t worry. Trust us.” Well, we’ve seen what trust has gotten us a few times already, in just a year. We’ve also seen that it’s totally possible for a Finance Minister, in a two-month time frame, to go from being in opposition for 16 years to sitting in the Finance Minister’s chair, presenting a full budget to this chamber and being able to have estimates at a normal timeline for that budget.

Why that’s important is because the pre-budgetary work would have started well in advance of that September election call by the Premier. The bureaucracy of the Ministry of Finance would have been working forward on what the Premier and ministers were advising was the direction they were planning to set, on a February budget. That work would have been underway.

[3:35 p.m.]

That staff is all still there. The only thing that changed is the minister. The Premier is still there. The chief of staff is still there. One would assume that that direction was going to continue in the same way. They would have already been dealing with the pandemic for six to nine months. But no, the first order of business by this new Finance Minister is to delay yet another month and to blame COVID. Unconscionable, completely unconscionable.

Without proper oversight, without the opposition having the ability to properly scrutinize and question the priorities of a government, it makes it very difficult for the public to have faith in what the government is doing. You think back to 25 years ago, when the infamous fudge-it budget happened. You think about the technology and the public expectation around access to documents, access to information, wanting to know what was going on, compared to what it is nowadays, 25 years later.

Think about how all of us have to conduct ourselves with social media, as part of our lives as elected officials, compared to what it was like 25 years ago. Think of how much demand the public has for their right to know, almost in real time, what is going on, and the ease that they can call up our debates and go online and find things. They’re not sitting there waiting for a dial-up anymore. A couple of clicks, and they can call up all the history we’re talking about here. They’ll see it’s all factual. They’ll see how dismal this bill is, in terms of lack of disclosure and transparency.

It’s astounding that the government has been able to pull off this level of hiding what they actually want to spend the taxpayers’ money on, in this day and age. What’s more astounding is that member after member on the government side just stands up and shrugs like it’s no big deal.

There are some interesting quotes, previously, when we were the party in charge, when there was the occasional special warrant brought forward. I say occasional, but there was the occasional time they were needed. They were brought forward with full disclosure and information and vetting by the opposition.

The opposition didn’t like it. They didn’t have to like it. But they had access to the information. They had access to actually ask questions on behalf of the public that we all serve.

You know who stood up in this House and spoke against the use of those special warrants? The now Premier, when he was in opposition. The Minister of Energy and Mines spoke up pretty strongly against it; now it’s just a shrug. The same Premier that was working in the Ministry of Finance back in the fudge-it budget years as well, I might point out. It’s amazing how his perspective keeps shifting as to what is actually appropriate or not for how he conducts himself — more importantly, how he demands his cabinet conduct themselves in terms of bringing things forward, bringing information forward.

Bill 10, we have a lot of questions for. As I say, we do want to see government continue to operate. It’s COVID. That’s why we didn’t think there should be a caretaker mode middle-pandemic, in September, for an election. Interesting how the Premier’s perspective changed on that too. That’s fine. He made his choice. We’ll move forward. But we’re moving forward with a whole lot of questions, and we’re expecting a whole lot of answers.

Last I checked, the clock is ticking. This comes into effect with royal assent. This is our last sitting week. This bill got delayed how many times when it kept coming up? It was introduced right at the very beginning. We could have been having this debate for quite some time already. So we are not going to be bound by the clock on the wall, seeking answers to our questions on behalf of constituents.

[3:40 p.m.]

We’ll move forward with this bill. We’re going to question the heck out of clause 2, because that’s a $12.3 billion clause with no information in it. I guess we’ll just see, at the end of the week, where we land — if this government is prepared to offer actual answers in detail, or if they’re going to continue with what their narrative has been in the debate so far: “Don’t worry about it. You’ll see it in a few weeks.”

Well, we do worry about it. This is $13 billion. The public has a right to have answers to their questions. The public has a right to know how programs are going to continue to be funded after April 1. We’ll seek those answers out. I do hope the Minister of Finance has her team ready to go as we move into committee stage on this bill, because there are going to be a lot of questions. There’s a lot to answer for in a one-page bill that asks for a blank cheque for $13 billion.

T. Stone: I’m pleased to take my place in the debate on second reading, Bill 10, the supply bill.

What an extraordinary couple weeks in the context of what the government is bringing forward in Bill 10, the supply bill. I certainly have listened, with fascination, through the many hours of debate that has taken place from members on both sides of the House. The government side generally has opted to focus on a “there’s nothing to see here” theme, that “this is all standard; this is all normal,” whereas on the opposition side, we’ve said there’s actually nothing normal about this.

I take a great amount of fascination in anyone on the government’s side suggesting that coming to this place and asking for approval of $13.4 billion in supplementary expenditures attached to last year’s budget, with no details, no budget to reference that reflects current circumstances, certainly no details — that anyone on the government side would think that that makes sense. The member for Abbotsford West, a colleague of mine in the official opposition and a former Finance Minister, I think laid it out pretty well today, when he held up in one hand the stack of documents that are typically associated with a budget bill.

There’s the budget document itself. There’s a whole bunch of estimates, details — all of the information relating to the Crown corporations, all of the information relating to virtually every projected penny of revenue and expense that the government anticipates for the forthcoming year. It’s all provided in a great big bound collection of paper every single year. Yet today, last week, presumably through the balance of this week, we will be asked to approve the expenditure of $13.4 billion that’s detailed in a single sheet of paper.

Now, supply bills do serve a purpose. They certainly enable the government to continue to function after a budget is introduced. But that’s the key: after a budget is introduced. Usually, supply bills seek appropriation for funds after the main estimates and the main budget have been presented, not before.

[3:45 p.m.]

This bill — actually, saying it’s two pages is quite generous; it’s really a page and a third — as I’ve mentioned, has no details. It provides for deeming last year’s budget to be the budget that these supplementary estimates will be attached to. As I said, it asks for the defraying of costs, charges and expenses of the public service of the province of $12.3 billion, and additional expenditures relating to capital and other matters. But no detail.

The question, I think, fundamentally, needs to be, “Who does this actually serve?” — coming to this House and saying: “Here’s a 1⅓-page bill that would authorize the expenditure of $13.4 billion. We’re not going to tell you any of the details, as to what that spending actually is all about, what programs and services of government will receive this funding and which ones won’t, how this impacts the overall provincial budget. We’re not going to provide any of that material, but let’s just all agree that we’re in a pandemic, it’s not normal circumstances, and supply bills happen all the time. Let’s just proceed with this blank cheque.”

I would suggest that this approach does not serve the people of British Columbia well. It serves the government well. It serves the purposes of the Finance Minister. It serves the members of the government caucus. It certainly does not serve the citizens of British Columbia well.

We, on this side of the House in the opposition, have tried to put a fence around the protections, shine a bright light on the protections that have been built over many years with respect to the budgetary processes in this province. At the end of the day, it is the fundamental responsibility of this place to approve expenditures of the province.

I mean, right at the centre of our parliamentary democracy is the respect for the people that are elected by the citizens who live here to come to this place, to debate and to vote on bills that come in front of this House, the most important of which is always matters relating to the expenditure of the public’s money.That is absolutely fundamental to our democracy.

It’s long established that the government cannot — should not — change taxation rates, impose new taxes or spend public funds without the Legislature’s approval. But also, as I said, there has been process and rules that have been established around that, that dictate how a government goes about doing exactly that. At the end of the day, it’s about integrity in the budget process.

A number of government MLAs have suggested in some of their comments that their party won the last election; therefore, the government can proceed as it sees fit. This is normal practice. It doesn’t much matter what the members of the opposition have to say.

How dare we, in the opposition, ask questions? What kind of nerve does one have in this place to stand up and ask focused questions of the government that wants approval to spend $13.4 billion?

[3:50 p.m.]

I’ve spoken about my grandfather a number of times in this place. He was a railroader in Port Coquitlam, very active in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, a strong, ardent supporter of the CCF and the NDP. With a great amount of pride, I credit my passion for public service, my love of this place, my desire to want to serve the people that send me here to my grandfather’s influence. But I remember, among many things, my grandpa always said that a government is only as strong as the opposition to it.

Now, it took me a number of years to really understand what that meant. Having now sat on the government side of this place for four years and on the opposition side of this place for four years, I have some experience and understanding of both roles in this chamber. It is imperative that tough, focused questions be asked by the opposition members and by all members. I would hope that there would be members in government that would be curious, be asking questions about the request for the expenditure of $13 billion. But I guess we will see.

The government coming forward with this bill unfortunately adds another proof point to a pattern that appears to be developing with respect to the government’s approach to budget transparency. Certainly, calling an election, a snap election that wasn’t necessary, was not conducive to building trust. The NDP have then gone through this process leading up to this supply bill, and now through this debate, by bringing forward this 1⅓-page supply bill. And a number of other actions are systematically pulling apart at those safeguards that, again, as I said earlier, were built up around our budgetary process.

The Premier went so far as to suggest that the reason this supply bill is needed, the reason the government couldn’t bring in a budget on time, the reason the government needs to expand its use of special warrants, the reason so many of these fundamental changes to the safeguards in place relating to our budgetary practices…. The reason so much of that has to change is because of the election that the Premier called a year early. As a number of members in the opposition have said, this was an election that wasn’t needed. The impetus for it was not brought on by the COVID pandemic. The impetus for it was brought on by a desire for this government to call an election at an opportunistic time.

Well, I guess it worked. It worked for them. But how many British Columbians have paid the price for that snap election? It certainly is not accurate, nor would I suggest it is principled, to suggest that the budget being delayed, the use of special warrants and a $13.4 billion, 1⅓-page supply bill is all predicated upon a snap election. As I said, the uniqueness of what the government is doing here is not only asking us to support a $13.4 billion expenditure with no details and no budget, but they’re attaching it to a budget that was introduced in this Legislature almost a year ago.

[3:55 p.m.]

They’re probably one of the few governments — if not the only government in the western world — that is using pre-pandemic 2020 revenue and expense projections a year later to ask a legislature for a multi-billion-dollar supplementary expenditure of taxpayers’ money. I’m not aware of this being needed in most other provinces, by the way. There are many jurisdictions that have managed to introduce their budgets on time. In fact, in most of these jurisdictions, they’ve said the imperative for doing so was because of the need to get the supports out to people and out to small businesses, in the context of the pandemic. But here in British Columbia, the government made a very different choice. The government decided to call a snap election and delay the budget as a result.

As the member for Abbotsford West went through, families don’t get to do this. Families don’t get to ask for a 25 percent advance on their paycheques. Small businesses don’t get to ask for a 25 percent advance from a financial institution on a loan that they might need. If you’re in the non-profit sector or the service organization sector, you don’t get to ask for a 25 percent advance from your donors. It doesn’t work that way, certainly without having anything attached, any plan or any details or any summary of how the funding will be spent. I mean, even a pawnshop requires you to put some collateral down.

Nobody could anticipate this pandemic. Nobody could anticipate the impacts that it was going to have. I think most members in this chamber, on all sides, agree with the statement that as unique as the pandemic was, certainly in the early days and the unknown that it represented, it was also a moment of uniqueness in the checking of partisan politics at the door and all parties coming together and standing shoulder to shoulder to ensure that this Legislature was doing everything it possibly could, as quickly as it could, to be there for the people of British Columbia. I was proud, as were all members in the opposition, and I know in the government as well.

On March 23 last year, we came into this place in a very limited fashion, and we unanimously approved a $5 billion aid package for businesses and for people. Of that $5 billion, $2.8 billion was for people and $2.2 billion was for business. The $2.2 billion was later revised by the government down to $1.9 billion. We’ve asked for accounting of that. We haven’t received those details. That plays into trust.

We then consistently asked question after question, whether we were in this place or outside of this place, for the government to tell us when the economic recovery plan would be launched, the $2.2 billion in supports for business, small businesses in particular, that had been revised down to $1.9 billion. Where was that plan? When were we going to see it? It was approved again on March 23 last year. Month after month after month there was no response other than: “It’s coming. We’re working on it.”

Then we get to August, and the NDP decides to pass legislation to delay the budget from its usual introduction in February to March. The then Finance Minister, Carole James, said: “These changes will allow sufficient time for due diligence to be done by the good public servants who work for all us in British Columbia.”

[4:00 p.m.]

At least in August of 2020, Carole James, the then Finance Minister, had confidence in the ability of the government and the public servants who really do the hard work behind the scenes in bringing forward the budget, albeit not in February but in March.

Then we fast-forward to September. The Premier, along with the then Finance Minister, hold a big press conference here in Victoria to announce the economic recovery plan of the government. StrongerBC, it’s called.

The only problem with this was this was a week before the provincial election was then called. So it was hard not to look at this as it was happening and realize that the StrongerBC plan that had taken the government from March to September to presumably prepare…. It was hard not to realize in that moment that this was really just an election document. It was a springboard for the government to go into an election campaign. That’s exactly what they did.

Again, trust. Trust is eroded. All through this time, from the call of the election to the election itself to the period after the election before a cabinet is sworn in and members are sworn in, we are talking about several months of additional time, during which time there weren’t supports and services rolling out. There wasn’t an active government in place, other than in caretaker mode. I’ve been there, done that. I know how that works. Cabinet only meets in matters of an emergency.

You have all this money approved in March, an election called in September, people still waiting for supports. Again, trust. The Premier then makes the commitment during the election campaign that the recovery benefit will be in everybody’s pockets by Christmas. We still have people, thousands of people, that are waiting. They’re still trying to navigate the system and work through the red tape. They’re still waiting for their five hundred bucks.

The small business supports that were part of the economic recovery plan that the government announced just before the election only included one grant, only one item that represented putting cash into the pockets of small and medium-sized businesses across British Columbia — the small and medium-sized business recovery grant. I think all members of this House can agree that small business has been hit extraordinarily hard — in some sectors, a lot harder than others. But in community after community, we all have the stories of people that just can’t make it. They’ve already failed or they’re just barely hanging on.

The government, presumably, had $1.9 billion to work with. They come out with the small and medium-sized business recovery grant. Small businesses initially get excited upon hearing that this program is coming. After all, small businesses at that time were hit with all kinds of added costs like making changes their floor plans to adhere to WorkSafe and health requirements, rightfully so. The purchase cost of personal protective equipment — we called upon the government to help small businesses with the cost of that. There was no support forthcoming. Small businesses had to shoulder all of that.

[4:05 p.m.]

You talk to businesses on a day-to-day business through those really dark months, through the spring and into the early summer. You hear the stories of revenues being down by 50 percent or 60 percent or having to lay off dozens of employees. Small businesses were excited at the prospect of a grant program, but nothing could have been more botched than this particular program. I’m not sure that the government could have botched it any worse than they did. I’m still trying to figure out if this was by design or if this just truly reflects a level of incompetence that is breathtaking.

The government announces a $300 million small and medium-sized business recovery grant program. This grant program is announced, again, in September, right before the election. It’s put on pause through the election period, and so forth. We point out to the government that there are some significant flaws with this program that need to be addressed immediately. Surely the government was receiving the same emails and frantic phone calls as we were receiving in the opposition from small business owners worried that they’re not going to be able to keep their lights on.

The eligibility criteria was originally set up so restrictively that tens of thousands of small businesses just couldn’t apply successfully, because they wouldn’t be deemed eligible. So we said to the Minister of Jobs and to the Premier: “You need to make some changes.” And we walked through what those changes are. Do away with the requirement to have been in business for 18 months on the date of application. Do away with the requirement for a 70 percent revenue loss at some point in the months of March and April for 2020. Do away with the requirement, under every circumstance, that you have to have been profitable in 2019, no matter what, in order to be eligible for funding under this grant program.

We said to the government: “You need to make these changes.” Did they make the changes in those couple months leading up to Christmas? No. Did they make the changes in December? Well, the Jobs Minister did make a couple tweaks. It wasn’t enough. Inexplicably, the government decided to waste another two months before further changes were made to the program, along the lines of exactly what we were calling for, in an effort to ensure that more small businesses — the true mom-and-pop businesses in communities across our province — actually get the support that they need, that they actually get that support in a timely fashion.

We do know that the Jobs Minister doesn’t seem to want to tell us directly how the numbers are progressing, so we piecemeal it together based on media reports and so forth, but the latest count that I have, to this point, is that only 25 percent of the program funding has actually gone out the door.

You know, I’m sure it’s gone up a few million since the other day, but somewhere in the $85 million-to-$90 million, maybe $92 million, range, on a program with $345 million, from a program that was announced six months ago, from money that was approved by this Legislature a year ago — 25 percent of the money is out the door. Again, it’s a matter of trust. This is why we’re having difficulty with a 1⅓-page supply act that has no details attached to it.

We’ve all talked, at times, in this place about the sectors that desperately need help and that have been hit the hardest. I think of the tourism sector. Tourism is a $20 billion industry in British Columbia. Its greatest output in recent memory — $20 billion. One would think that the government would move with a greater degree of urgency in supporting the tourism sector.

[4:10 p.m.]

The tourism sector puts a proposal on the government’s table, like last spring, and says: “We need $680 million to make sure that this industry is able to survive.” This isn’t about nice-to-have stuff. This is about must-have stuff to keep businesses afloat in this difficult period when borders are closed and people can’t travel and you can’t eat in a restaurant and you can’t go and stay in your favourite hotel, wherever you happen to choose to vacation within British Columbia.

The government takes a whole bunch of time and then comes back with a $50 million proposal, a counter-proposal, a $50 million cheque, and the launch of a task force — in the midst of a pandemic. There was nothing new that came out of this task force in terms of recommendations or ideas or solutions that the tourism industry and businesses within it need. It’s all stuff that the tourism sector had already been pleading with government to address, to put on the table.

They waste all this time and make all of these small businesses and all of these hard-working British Columbians…. Not just those that start these businesses, that take the risks and that step up every day to pursue their dreams and create opportunity for themselves and for other British Columbians. It’s about all of those other tens of thousands of British Columbians in the tourism sector that are now not working or are only working a much-reduced number of hours or shorter amount of shifts.

It’s unfathomable why the government hasn’t done more to support the tourism sector. No matter what they stand up and say they’re doing, it’s not reaching the small businesses, the operators and their employees. We’re losing businesses day by day.

The restaurant sector is operating at 63 percent revenue losses right now. The hotel sector still has tens of thousands of people out of work. You know, I mentioned a moment ago the small and medium-sized business recovery grant program. There are still a bunch of businesses out there that really need the help, but they’re not getting it because they’re still not eligible.

I’ll give you one example. I have a hotel, a small boutique hotel, in the city of Kamloops. It’s called the South Thompson Inn. It’s been around for decades. It’s a unique experience along the South Thompson River. There is golf right next door. There are horses in the area. You can go up into the hills on trails. It’s absolutely spectacular. The owner, who has invested everything into this property over those decades, decides in 2019 that he’s going to undergo a significant renovation of his property. So he undertakes to do that.

Guess what happened. Two things. One, he didn’t have a profit in 2019. Two, shame on him. He didn’t know that there was a pandemic that was going to hit the following year that was going to drive him practically out of business.

This government then sets up this grant program and says that if you aren’t profitable for 2019, no matter what your circumstances are, you’re not eligible to receive any of the funding from this program. Why? Where is the flexibility? Where is the compassion for that business owner and his hundreds of employees?

This is, again, back to the matter of trust. This is why we have a lot of questions about this supply bill. It’s why we’re very concerned at what the government is wanting this Legislature to proceed with.

[4:15 p.m.]

There’s a small business, a little deli up at Sun Peaks. It’s called Ohana Deli Market. This deli is owned by a young woman by the name of Bobbe Lyall. She opened up her deli with great anticipation in time for Christmas Eve of 2019.

She immediately ramped up to 12 to 14 full-time employees. It has been her dream to start her own business. She’s lived up at Sun Peaks and has worked for all kinds of others in the hospitality sector. It was her dream to start a business of her own, and she did it. But again, she didn’t have the foresight to see a pandemic coming the following year. She’s not eligible for the small business recovery grant program because she hasn’t been in business for 18 months as of the date of application. How does that make sense?

Let’s go to the other end of the spectrum. There’s an event business in the Comox Valley that has been around for quite some time, been around for a decade and a half. She writes to me, and she says:

“I applied for this grant on January 15. I’ve emailed twice to find out what’s going on with the application. I’ve received the basic ‘we’re getting to know you’ responses. It’s been two months. If I’m going to make it through this, I will need that grant now to prep for my summer season.

“I’m in the event rental business, and if I don’t make enough in the summer, I won’t have anything to carry me through the shoulder season. If I knew now that this government wasn’t going to approve this application, I would seriously consider cutting my losses and close the business. I might, in that scenario, be able to keep my house.”

What do we say to this business owner, again, in the Comox Valley?

We’ve asked the government to implement the remaining recommendations of the Tourism Task Force report, the most important of which, we’ve said, is that government needs to seriously put some relief on the table to help businesses in the tourism sector with fixed costs. I’ve heard from countless businesses, particularly hotels, that are getting a property tax bill that in many cases is higher than the actual revenue that that business has made or that that hotel has brought in for the past year. That makes no sense. They can’t make those numbers work. They’re at grave risk of closing as a result.

Many businesses are receiving hydro bills. Again, speaking of hotels, hotels are deemed by B.C. Hydro to be large industry. There is no consideration for the size of the hotel, which means the small and mid-sized hotels are categorized in the same way as the large ones. They’re therefore not eligible for certain relief when it comes to hydro utility costs. They’re getting these bills now. There is no relief to help them make it through this.

I could go on and on and on. Take one community out of the sentence and put a different community in the sentence. These stories are happening everywhere. It’s what cuts back to the sadness, the disappointment, the frustration that so many people feel when they hear the government talking about all the great things that the government has done for small business, all the wonderful programs. Then you realize that there are just so many that are not receiving the supports that they need, that are still falling through the cracks.

On the point of supports, the Jobs Minister makes a great big deal about how we support business in this province greater than any other province in the country. Generally, I want to take people at their word. But I’m also curious, and I have a job to do in the opposition, so I went and did a little research on that.

[4:20 p.m.]

The fact of the matter is that nothing could be further from the truth. B.C. is actually spending the least per capita out of all major provinces when it comes to direct grants-in-aid. Direct grants-in-aid to small and medium-sized businesses in British Columbia are not the best in the country and not the most generous in the country, as the minister likes to say so often.

Ontario, to this point, has spent $507 per person on grants-in-aid to business; Alberta, $485 per person; Saskatchewan, $454 per person. British Columbia? British Columbia, to this point, has invested $196 per person in grants-in-aid to small and medium-sized businesses. Now, the source of this information is important. I will disclose that the source is that bastion of free enterprise, that pro-capitalism, free market organization called the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

That’s the reality of what’s actually happening in this province. We have to do a heck of a lot better. The saddest reality are all the stories that we’re all continuing to hear. I read some into the record there, of businesses that are really struggling and not sure they’re going to make it. Every time I read social media or I get that email or phone call from a business owner that says, “I’m done….” You know, it’s sad. It didn’t have to be this way.

Just yesterday, on the weekend, I profiled a small business in Langley, Lisa’s School of Dance, in business for 35 years. As soon as this season of dancing is over, she’s shutting her doors forever. The lack of government support and the expediency of support is a significant reason why.

I want to know what’s in this $13.4 billion. I want to make sure that there is appropriate and timely support for people, for small businesses, for local governments and for all kinds of organizations in this province. That’s why we’re hesitating in just saying to the government: “Yeah, no problem. Let’s just do this. We should be able to expedite the approvals on all this, just like we did back on March 23. Let’s just get her done.” We’re not going to do that.

It has been fascinating to listen to members opposite talk about the great job that the government has done over the past four years but, in particular, through this pandemic. I’ve heard comments like, “Unparalleled growth taking place in British Columbia,” and: “All of the jobs that were lost during the pandemic have been recovered.” My favourite comment from a member opposite was: “Our credit ratings are incredible.” It must be an NDP economic miracle. It must be a miracle.

Of course, none of the ability for members to trumpet the underlying foundation of fiscal strength that this province has, albeit eroding rapidly, is owed to the previous government — to the credit ratings that existed then, the competitive tax structures we had in place, the balanced budgets and the commitments to respecting the taxpayer’s money and stretching every dollar as far as we possibly could. Of course, none of it is owed to that.

[4:25 p.m.]

They talk about their strong record of growth. I suppose if you consider 23 new and increased taxes and the growth in take from people, if that’s something that you’re proud of, then go to town. If you’re proud of the massive expansion in the size of the government and the shrinking of the private sector in British Columbia that’s taking place right now, that’s your prerogative.

“Jobs have all been recovered.” We hear that every other day. But as I say, in response to the comments that are often made by the government on the jobs picture in British Columbia: “Well, the devil is in the details.” It’s ironic that there are, again, no details for us to sort through with respect to this supply bill, but the devil is usually in the details, and it certainly is on the jobs market in British Columbia.

The jobs market is really soft. The recovery of jobs, to this point, has been largely based on part-time jobs and a significant increase in the number of public sector jobs. Since the pre-pandemic period, in February of 2020, part-time jobs are up 17,000 positions. Part-time jobs are up 17,000; full-time jobs are down 33,000. Private sector jobs are down 79,000 since February of 2020. But good news. Public sector jobs are up by 63,700. I said the devil is in the details.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

I often talk about hidden unemployment, and we’re going to talk about it a lot more, because it really matters. There’s the more commonly referenced unemployment number, in the last update from StatsCan, had that at 6.9 percent, but the hidden unemployment number for the same period is 11.2 percent for this province.

The hidden unemployment matters. It includes those that are unemployed, that 6.9 percent, plus all of those thousands of people that have just…. Well, darn. They’ve given up. They’ve given up hope. There are no jobs in their particular profession, in their field, in their sector or in their town, so they’ve given up. Plus, it includes all of those people that are working far fewer hours and/or far fewer shifts, so they’re underemployed. When you add those up, we’re at 11.2 percent unemployment in this province.

I want to know: is there a jobs plan that’s attached to this $13.4 billion supply bill that is in front of this House? That really matters. The final piece I’ll say about jobs…. Again, these are the kinds of detailed topics or questions we’re going to get into in committee stage, but I think we can all agree that women and youth, especially women, have been hit predominantly hard in this pandemic. They have been hit harder than men have. Women have lost two times as many jobs as men have, and women have recovered those jobs at a much slower pace.

There are all kinds of reasons why. Women tend to be the majority of those employed in sectors like hospitality, tourism and restaurants, and so forth, and there have been a lot of job losses in those sectors. There’s also a lack of access to the child care that women need. We profiled that earlier today. Government promised 24,000 new child care spaces within three years, and they’ve delivered less than 4,000 in four years. I could go on.

[4:30 p.m.]

What we want to see, and what we want to know: is there a plan to create good-paying, family-supporting jobs, predominantly private sector, and with a particular emphasis on women, youth and minorities? I can’t tell, in looking at a 1⅓-page supply bill that’s in front of us here today.

There’s so much more. We could talk about housing, we could talk about mental health, we could talk about addiction and the overdose crisis and the need for investments in areas all across the province — and talk about it in the context of not seeing it specifically mentioned in this bill. Basically, operating from a place of being in the dark on this, not knowing.

I will not go there for today, other than to say there is a tremendous amount of detail that we are going to be asking for. There’s a tremendous amount of detail that we’re going to be looking for with respect to what this $13.4 billion is actually for. Is it going to go into the kinds of investments that are needed to create those good-paying private sector jobs? Is it going to help women recover their job losses? Are these dollars going to help small businesses stay afloat? Are some of these dollars going to help to position British Columbia for a strong, robust re-entry into the world economy?

At some point, hopefully sooner than later, the doors are going to open. Is this government doing the work now and making the investments needed now to make sure that we’re able to take advantage of that the moment it happens? That the businesses in particular, small and mid-sized businesses, are going to be ready for that? I certainly hope so.

I will say this. This supply bill that is in front of us today is not normal. Any suggestion otherwise is just factually inaccurate. This is not a normal process. I completely will give the newer members, those just recently elected and are government members, the benefit of the doubt. I discovered when I arrived here eight years ago there is no user manual for being an MLA. You just sort of absorb, you ask questions, and you figure it out. I’m willing to give a whole bunch of the first-time members opposite the benefit of the doubt on this.

There are a whole bunch of members over there that do know better. They do know what’s an accurate depiction of what’s happening here. They do know what’s normal and what’s not normal when it comes to budget transparency and accountability practices in this province. This is not it. This represents yet another weakening, another effort by this government to weaken our budget transparency and accountability rules. It doesn’t need to happen. Frankly, it’s an abuse of the long-standing rules and accountability mechanisms that have been in place for a long time.

When we see that there’s no detailed accounting of moneys approved, not just from last year’s budget but the $5 billion in March 23 of last year, the $2 billion supplementary ask that was approved in December…. When we see that the government’s incompetence in supporting small businesses is seemingly continuing…. When we see how this government looks citizens in the eyes and tells them that we’re doing a really good job of recovering all of these jobs that were lost when, in fact, most of those jobs are part-time or they’re public sector. They’re not private sector, and they’re not full-time.

[4:35 p.m.]

When we see how many British Columbians have paid the price for the Premier’s call of an unnecessary snap election — and all of the delays that that caused, the ripple effect of that through everything that government does — you’ll have to excuse me and all of the members of the opposition for not being inclined to, just on a whim, trust this government with a blank cheque for $13.4 billion.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I’ll call the question, then.

Minister, welcome.

Hon. S. Robinson: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thought that there were a few other speakers, but I’m glad that I happened to be in the House so that I could close off debate on this bill.

I just want to take a moment to thank all the members of the House who participated in second reading of Bill 10, interim supply. I did find it quite fascinating to listen to many of my colleagues, certainly from the government side of the House, speak to the heroic efforts of so many on the front lines of the pandemic and the importance of continuing to ensure that workers continue to get paid while we do our important work of putting together a budget that takes into consideration the reality that we are still in a pandemic and that we need to ensure that government continues to be there for people, for businesses and for communities.

I also found it fascinating to listen to the opposition inaccurately describe what this bill is about. I’ve noticed just how quickly they have forgotten how frequently we have been updating British Columbians on our finances. We have continued to report on government finances throughout this pandemic, always within legislated time frames and even when it was not a legislated requirement.

Last March we released our COVID-19 action plan, less than a week after B.C. declared a state of emergency due to the pandemic, to help to ensure that people and businesses could get help immediately. Then again, on July 14, we released an economic and fiscal update to provide a summary of COVID-19 spending and other measures to date, along with three economic and fiscal scenarios for British Columbia. This report was not required by law, but we knew that it was important that British Columbians see how government was responding to the pandemic and what the future of our province could look like.

We released and reported out on public accounts on August 31, detailing government’s 2019-20 audited results as a vital part of transparency and accountability. We released our first quarterly report on September 9, well within the legislated deadline, which was September 15.

In the first quarterly report, we provided extensive details on the pandemic measures announced to date. After Q1, we released the economic recovery plan, StrongerBC, to continue supporting people, businesses and communities through the pandemic and toward a future economic recovery. In December, we released the fall economic and fiscal update for 2020, which detailed over $10 billion in COVID-19 response and recovery measures that are supporting people, businesses and communities.

As government, we will continue to work from a foundation of transparency and accountability and report out to British Columbians as we move into economic recovery together.

Having said that, we need to remember that Bill 10 is for temporary funding, for three months, to cover expenses from April 1 to June 30, while the budget is presented and debated. As the new budget will be presented on April 20, this request before the House is for temporary funding. It is based on the estimates tabled last year in terms of calculating the total amount being advanced.

The purpose of how this money will be spent is already described in the various vote descriptions clearly laid out in last year’s estimates. This includes Health estimates, Education estimates, estimates that provide social services to people throughout this province. Everything is described in those estimates from last year. This bill before the House continues those absolutely critical services while we continue our important work here in the Legislature.

When I hear members from the official opposition state that they are not in support of this supply bill, a supply bill that has all the details in it, based on last year’s estimates, I want to know why they oppose spending on things like education, as teachers continue to keep kids learning during a difficult time, or why they oppose spending on child care, where workers are enabling parents to go to work and keep children safe.

[4:40 p.m.]

It sounds to me that the B.C. Liberals oppose spending on health care workers who are undertaking the largest mass immunization program in our province’s history. Based on what I heard from the B.C. Liberals, they oppose spending on the doctors and nurses and other health care workers who are making significant progress on eliminating the backlog of surgeries from the early months of this pandemic. On top of that, B.C. Liberals are opposed to spending on long-term-care homes to support frail seniors.

British Columbians need their government to be there for them. It’s why we’ve put in a yeoman’s amount of supports for British Columbians. They continue to rely on these supports, and this bill ensures that those supports continue to be there for British Columbians.

With that, I move second reading of Bill 10.

An Hon. Member: Division.

Deputy Speaker: Division has been called. Pursuant to a sessional order adopted on March 1, 2021, this division will be deferred until 30 minutes prior to adjournment this evening.

Hon. S. Robinson: I ask for a five-minute recess.

Deputy Speaker: A five-minute recess it is.

The House recessed from 4:41 p.m. to 4:46 p.m.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call third reading, Bill 4.

Third Reading of Bills

BILL 4 — FIREARM VIOLENCE
PREVENTION ACT

Bill 4, Firearm Violence Prevention Act, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Just awaiting the arrival of staff for committee on Bill 5. I move that we take a five- or ten-minute recess, and then we will proceed to committee stage.

Deputy Speaker: Which one would you like, five or ten?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Do a ten, to be sure.

The House recessed from 4:48 p.m. to 5:03 p.m.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call committee on Bill 5.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 5 — INSURANCE CORPORATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

(continued)

The House in Committee of the Whole on Bill 5; N. Letnick in the chair.

The committee met at 5:03 p.m.

On clause 2 as amended (continued).

M. Lee: I just wanted to take us back, before the break, on this bill, to my last exchange with the minister about the process between the fairness officer and the board of ICBC.

When I asked the question relating to what that would look like for an individual complaint filed by a British Columbian, how that would be escalated and the matter of review under section 56 of clause 2, the minister confirmed that it would be both, in terms of…. The fairness officer has the ability to deal with the individual unfairness, in terms of policies and procedures, and also has the authority to look at the potential systemic unfairness in policies and procedures.

I’m trying to get some clarity and understanding about the nature of the fairness officer’s role, the relationship with the board, and when the fairness officer is to escalate individual complaints to the board. I’m quite curious as to how this is going to work.

[5:05 p.m.]

The fairness officer, when they receive a complaint from an individual, may conduct the investigation under section 56 (1). Then, the minister is suggesting, that individual complaint would be taken up to the board.

To the minister, has ICBC done an estimate as to the number of individual complaints that the fairness officer will be processing and escalating to the board, on an individual basis?

Hon. M. Farnworth: First, I just want to reconfirm that the fairness commissioner will investigate a complaint. They determine whether or not there is an issue there. If there is no issue, then it does not go any further.

In fiscal ’19-20, for example, there were 411 complaints to the fairness commissioner. All but 44 of them were resolved internally without the need for the fairness commissioner to take them any further. Past practice is often an indication of future performance, and I think that’s where we’re starting from.

[5:10 p.m.]

M. Lee: Just, perhaps, if we can look at the past practice…. I know that the member for Prince George–Mackenzie spent quite a bit of time talking to the minister about the past practice, the existing function within ICBC.

Hearing the minister suggest that that might be a useful exercise, perhaps I could then just ask the minister, for the benefit of the House here, to give us a sense as to the nature of the 44 complaints that were not resolved out of the 411, if that’s what I heard. So therefore, 44 would be escalated to the board.

First of all, what was the general nature of those complaints? Secondly, how were they resolved by the board? And thirdly, what policies and procedures…? Here I’m making a jump, because this is the new system. Assuming that I’m correct to think that the policies and procedures revisiting and correction and adjustment were the same mandate of the current structure, what policies and procedures were changed as a result of the resolution of those 44 complaints?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I just want to further clarify for the member — a couple of points. First off, it’s not an escalation, and it will not be an escalation. It is making a recommendation.

Of the 44 cases, the fairness officer investigated 42 of them and found that no unfairness had, in fact, taken place. Only two had been…. Then recommendations would go to the board.

M. Lee: Just a bit of clarity at the end. Only two were brought to the board. What happened with those two complaints?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Recommendations were based on the two. If the member wants, I can give him the example, which is that the customer complained to the fairness commissioner, “explaining ICBC treated his son unfairly in alleging his son’s vehicle was involved in a motor vehicle crash.”

The commissioner’s recommendations were:

“ICBC’s initial investigation had found the son responsible for the crash. The son provided further information to ICBC to contest the initial decision. Upon further review, ICBC reversed its decision to hold the son responsible, issued a written apology and reimbursed certain costs the son had incurred.

“The fairness commissioner found that the initial investigation by the corporation and the conclusion it reached was unfair in two aspects. The investigation was quite cursory and seems to have reflected a bias against young drivers when cases of this sort arise….

“The fairness commissioner found, while the initial decision of ICBC is unfair, the corporate response was appropriate. In these circumstances, he concluded it did not require any further action on the part of the corporation.”

That is an example. That’s one of the two cases that the member asked about.

[5:15 p.m.]

M. Lee: I really appreciate the minister taking the time to walk us through a specific example. I know that the Leader of the Third Party, in the previous committee session, also provided an example and invited the minister to respond.

The minister is quite correct. Past practice is somewhat helpful in this case, in this instance.

If we could just take this example from what I understood…. Here’s an example where an individual complained. You mentioned “son.” So perhaps there’s a parental relationship here involved. But there’s a complaint regarding…. The words that I heard were “responsibility for the crash.” Responsibility.

The challenge with this fairness officer arrangement under this bill, of course, is that there would be a change under section 57. Let me ask the minister: in this case, using the example the minister just provided, would the fairness officer be able to make any comment or any recommendations under section 57? By my plain reading of the bill as proposed, that fairness officer would be precluded from making a comment or a recommendation relating to the fairness of the fault of the son as being responsible or not responsible for the crash.

To the extent that that individual had a complaint relating to how ICBC determined his responsibility for the crash and the fairness — whether it was too quick and all of that…. Under this bill, this fairness officer, under section 57, would not be able to make any comment or any recommendation relating to the fairness of that determination to the board or to the corporation. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The fairness commissioner comments on the process, not the outcome. That’s what this example is. He comments on the process. That’s what 57 is all about, and that’s the same, going forward, in this particular piece of legislation.

M. Lee: Thank you to the minister for that response. This, I think, is really the main nub of the concern relating to the process.

Again, using this example — I think it’s a fair one to use, given that it’s a live example that has been reviewed — what policies and procedures relating to fault determination were reviewed or found to be at issue in this instance or in this case?

Hon. M. Farnworth: We don’t have that level of detail on the particular case, on the specific case. But what I can tell you is that where the fairness commissioner looked at, he found, in the initial, that there were two areas of unfairness.

[5:20 p.m.]

One, he determined that the investigation was cursory and that there may have been bias because the individual was a young driver. So he looked at the process. That’s what he or she, they, are supposed to do. It is that process that they look at to determine whether or not it was fair or unfair.

M. Lee: I think this is the challenge when we’re fundamentally changing the insurance system in this province and we’re relying down to, in the absence of a civil resolution tribunal that has been determined to be unconstitutional by the courts, the high bar on any ability of an injured British Columbian to bring any claim in the courts. The criminal bar, that is.

We’re left with the fairness officer. I’m hearing from the minister that when you go to your insurance company, you’re giving a report on what happened in the accident. Part of the reason for that, of course, is to determine who is responsible. Now, there’s also the importance of what benefits, what coverage, you’re entitled to. But responsibility and fault determination is a core element of this.

Again, what I’m hearing from the minister is, in this instance, the process was found to be cursory and perhaps biased in light of the young age of the driver.

I am still asking the minister how you separate the policies and procedures that are to determine fault that ICBC is following from the actual determination itself, because the steps that are being taken — let’s say cursory. You get the incoming report, and the ICBC staff member that’s looking at the report has determined that individual looked at it in too short a time. There’s still a result of that determination. If it’s a clear review where there’s clear evidence and witnesses, I presume, there would be a clearer determination in a fast manner.

What is it that leads to the fairness concern? I would suggest it’s the result. In the absence of being precluded from making any comment on the extent that the person is responsible for an accident, or any recommendations, you’re separating the result of the decision from the policies and procedures that are intended to get to that determination.

Again, I think it’s very helpful for members of this House, including my colleagues here, to understand how we separate the actual policies and procedures for fault determination from the actual result itself. To the minister, if he could please clarify the distinction between the two.

[5:25 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: There are a couple of points I want to make, because I note that my hon. critic has made it a couple of times, and that is reference to the court decision.

The fact is the CRT decision has no impact on enhanced care. It was related to the legislative changes, which I know he’s aware of, that were made in April to the civil resolution tribunal. There are two areas that are under dispute but one that is not, and that is the ability for the civil resolution tribunal to determine the entitlement of accident benefits.

That brings us to the fairness officer. They are looking at a process that was used, not the outcome. This is not a challenge, to be able to distinguish process from outcome. Courts do it all the time. ICBC has adjusters, people in there who determine what that fault is.

The critical area is that process, and that’s what the fairness officer will look at, which brings me back to the number of cases that I mentioned before — 411. Of those, 44 were examined by the fairness officer. As I said, there were 42 not unfair. There were two that showed how that worked, that process. The others were referred back to the internal processes within ICBC and were resolved at that level.

At the end of the day, they are dealing with that small number who felt that they were treated unfairly. It gets to the fairness officer, and in many cases, it is an example of…. It’s not the settlement; it’s that they felt they weren’t heard. They weren’t treated properly.

[5:30 p.m.]

That’s what that fairness officer will look at — as I said, and I’ve given the example of how that was outlined — and then they make that recommendation to the board if they believe a recommendation needs to be made.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

M. Lee: In terms of the example that has been provided around the number of past cases: 411, 44 and then two…. That is under the old regime, so to speak. This is now a new no-fault regime that’s coming into effect in about five weeks, on May 1.

In looking at the bill and this particular clause 2, what’s being suggested, of course, is that the restriction on jurisdiction, on the fairness officer, would not preclude procedures and policies that relate to fairness determinations relating to the amount payable by the corporation or the responsibility determination.

Perhaps we could go to further discuss the amount payable by the corporation. Perhaps I could just ask the minister: what are the policies and procedures that will be utilized to determine the amount payable by the corporation?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Under enhanced care, those are set out by legislation and regulation. That was done in Bill 11, so they are outside of the scope of this bill. That’s not what the fairness commissioner deals with. As I’ve stated, and we’ve discussed, the fairness commissioner does not deal with those issues of amounts.

M. Lee: Just to clarify. To the minister: is the fairness officer able to deal with the policies and procedures relating to the determination of the amount payable by the corporation?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes.

M. Lee: For the purpose of this debate, there is a dividing line between the powers and duties of the fairness officer relating to policies and procedures, and then there is a fundamental restriction on the fairness officer’s jurisdiction under section 57.

[5:35 p.m.]

In the absence of the minister’s willingness to talk about what those policies and procedures are, we are left with some lack of clarity in terms of talking about this particular section, section 56.

Let me come back to the process that the minister suggested, which was, were an individual complainant to have a concern relating to the fairness, and if that individual had a complaint relating to the amount that ICBC awarded that complainant, that individual would not be able to make a complaint to the fairness officer. At least, the fairness officer would not be able to engage on consideration of that determination. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Farnworth: No, the fairness commissioner does not engage on the amount. The fairness commissioner engages on the process that was used in the determination of the amount.

M. Lee: That is consistent with some of the previous discussion.

I guess the question is: how does the fairness officer make that distinction when they’re not able to make any comment on the amount that is payable by the corporation? If there are the policies and procedures for that determination that the fairness officer is able to review, are there not components of the amount, as that is structured and determined by ICBC, that will effectively form part of the amount?

Where is the distinction between the elements for which the review is being done, through these policies and procedures, and the actual end amount itself? Is there not any restriction on the ability of the fairness officer to actually review those components?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The fairness commissioner — and I’ll repeat again — has the ability to look at the process that determines the outcome. It’s not about the outcome. The fairness commissioner does not comment on the outcome.

What the fairness commissioner does, in examining the processes and the procedures that went in play, may result in a recommendation that could come out with a new outcome or may come out with the same outcome. What the fairness commissioner is concerned about is the fairness of process and procedure. That’s their role.

[5:40 p.m.]

M. Lee: Just in the example the minister provided in terms of the possibility that, as the fairness officer makes a recommendation relating to how policy or procedure was….

I think in the first example he provided, it may be that it wasn’t the policy and procedure that was wrong, that needed any changes. It was, actually, the execution of that policy and procedure, where it was viewed to be cursory, or there was some bias involved, for example. That’s one example.

The second one, of course, is where there needs to be a change in the actual policy and procedure, in which case I would expect that under either one of those two alternatives…. What the minister is suggesting is that there is a possibility that there would be a new outcome that would be arising from the adjustment, either to the policy and procedure, in the second case, or more appropriate execution and following of the procedures and policies of ICBC.

In terms of new outcomes…. What will that process look like, in terms of the board directing ICBC staff to rerun that process? If the minister can just walk us through what that process will look like.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I’ll use the example that I provided to the member. The fairness commissioner looked at that, determined that there wasn’t unfairness and made a recommendation to the board. That resulted in a different outcome for that individual.

At the same time, the fairness commissioner may then say: “As a result of this case, I suggest ICBC review its policies in this area.” That may require, for example, additional training. Or the fairness commissioner may notice that as complaints come in, there seem to be a number of them that clearly indicate there is a systemic issue at play here and, therefore, make a recommendation to the board that there needs to be some change in the policies and procedures because this keeps cropping up.

There’s a number of different ways in which they’re going to be able to ensure that fairness takes place but also in terms of the recommendations that they make. This comes back to what we said earlier, in terms of the role, which is to deal with the individual case. They also have the ability to come forward with recommendations that may, for example, deal with issues that emerge that appear to be of a systemic nature.

M. Lee: I appreciate that we’ve had the opportunity to talk through what this looks like, in terms of the interaction between the fairness officer and the board. We’ve walked through a number of different examples. I will turn to the length of time for the reliance of individuals on ICBC for their treatment and their benefits over the course of their lives.

Just to probe this a little further, I’m quite concerned about the lack of clarity, in terms of this government and how they’re proceeding with this office. We know that the Attorney General has said, as I’ve said before here, that what the government is trying to accomplish is peace of mind for British Columbians — that they will be treated fairly after they’ve been injured.

[5:45 p.m.]

In the absence of decision-making authority by the fairness officer to deal with the fairness complaint, which cannot relate to the amount or the responsibility of the fault determination, we’re left with policies and procedures. Those policies and procedures need to be — this is my word — escalated to the board.

The minister thought that wasn’t a good use of the word. But the thing is that every single complaint by an individual that is investigated by the fairness commissioner we’ve heard will either individually be brought to the board or it will be…. In a macro sense, there’s a pattern. There’s a pattern of some deficit in the policies and procedures of ICBC that are showing to be unfair, in the view of the fairness officer.

In either case, we’re talking about a massive shift in reliance, where British Columbians’ primary source of fairness, or a review, is this Fairness Office. Past practice, with the 411 cases….

Clearly, although it’s good for discussion purposes, it’s not going to be the volume. With this massive shift that’s happening here, one would expect, reasonably, that the Fairness Office will likely be flooded with complaints, not necessarily because of the challenge with ICBC staff members but because it’s a new system. It’s a new system that has no other outlets, no other opportunities to challenge, other than the Fairness Office.

I would ask the minister: does he not see the concern as to how the ICBC board will function, in having to deal with these individual complaints as they’re tabled by the fairness officer? How often will that review take place? Is that at their quarterly board meetings or more frequently than that?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The member is absolutely right. This is a shift to a new system. It’s a shift to a new system that is already in place in other provinces — notably, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

We have every confidence that the fairness officer — first off, they are going to be hired on the basis of a significant skill set requirement — will have the ability and the resources they need to set up their office in a way that will be able to deal with the issues that arise in a situation of change such as this. I have every confidence that the board will be able to deal with the recommendations that come from the fairness officer.

[5:50 p.m.]

The report, as I’ve already outlined, is tabled here in this House. It will be a public report.

The final comment I want to make on this…. This is something that I think is important, and that is that the CRT is also the other outlet. It is scaling up, and it will be ready May 1. It will be doing the work that it is going to do. So that is there as well.

ICBC is absolutely aware of the importance of the change that is taking place, working within the corporation at the current time to ensure as smooth a process and transition as possible. There is a significant amount of work that is being done, a significant amount of expertise that will be in place to deal with issues or complaints as they arise. The fairness officer is an important part of that transition, and the individual will have the requisite skill set and resources to do that job properly.

M. Lee: I just want to come back to, as I mentioned earlier, one comment that the minister did provide — I appreciate that this has been over a series of truncated or abbreviated sessions on committee, on this bill — in one of the responses relating to benefits.

We know, of course, that under the no-fault regime, there will be a lengthy time for which an individual, injured British Columbian will need to rely on ICBC as their health condition, hopefully, improves, of course. We all want people to get better. Under the care of ICBC, there will be a great dependency on ICBC for reviewing and ensuring that that ongoing care is received by that individual British Columbian.

Here, the minister made a comment — in relation to this position being legislated and mandated in the way that it is under this bill — that this is a critical component of what happens on May 1 and how people can expect to be treated, in terms of receiving the care that they need, for as long as they need it. That’s a direct quote. Not to put too much of a fine point on it, “…how people can expect to be treated in terms of receiving the care that they need for as long as they need it.” That sounds like a reasonable statement by the minister responsible for ICBC. That would be a desired outcome here.

As we look at policies and procedures, and the restriction on amount, it causes me to wonder. In this case, in this scenario, where it’s really important that British Columbians can expect to receive the kind of care they need for as long as they can…. Again, the amount is determined of what an individual will receive from ICBC. That’s not just a moment-in-time determination. That is going to be a determination that affects the care that that individual will receive from ICBC as mandated, as authorized, for the length of that individual’s injury and, perhaps, for their entire life.

To the minister, how will that work? The policies and procedures that relate to amount determination can be looked at, but the amount cannot be commented on, or there can’t be any recommendations for the fairness officer. What happens here? Does the minister not expect to see that there’ll be further complaints to the fairness commissioner as to how that individual might be treated through the course of their treatment plan, their care plan, from ICBC? Does this restriction not unduly restrict the ability of the fairness commissioner to ensure fairness for that individual?

[5:55 p.m.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: We think that the legislation, as it’s presented and as it’s written, does not unduly restrict the fairness officer in their determination of what is fair. They have the ability, for example, to ask, let’s just say, in the case of someone who was injured: “Are there any policies or procedures that may impact decisions, in terms of determination?”

Again, as I’ve repeated many times, the fairness officer does not comment on the outcome but on those policies and procedures.

In terms of the level of those benefits and the requirements of what you need, that will be the physician and the specialists. The health care providers will be the determining factor on the level of care that you’re going to need.

M. Lee: I appreciate that, certainly, there will be a variety of health practitioners involved in providing determinations to ICBC as to the benefits.

Of course, as I noted in my second reading speech on this bill, as well, we have the benefit of 108 pages of regulation — the Permanent Impairment Regulation. There are lots of ways. That’s 108 pages, of course, of technical, dense reading that deals with particular injuries, spinal and renal function, reproductive organ disruption, bladder impairment — the whole range, of course — loss of limb, eye injuries. All of that is amount determination.

When we’re talking about the complexity of traumatic injuries in motor vehicle accidents, which are life-changing, no doubt the reliance on ICBC is going to be severe. That’s the reason why the detail that’s set out here…. What I continue to hear from the minister is that there’s a very limited scope in which the fairness officer makes any comment or ability, even on the benefit scheme, because there is a significant buildup by others within ICBC.

[6:00 p.m.]

Let me just ask: in terms of this impairment regulation, are there any policies and procedures under which the fairness officer can make any comment on the application of this permanent impairment regulation in the case of injuries for British Columbians?

Hon. M. Farnworth: As I’ve said and will say, first off, there is the civil resolution tribunal that has the ability to determine the benefits that will be received. The fairness officer, as I have said numerous times now, comments on or investigates, or looks into, makes recommendations on — however you wish to phrase it — the processes and the procedures that were involved, not on the outcome.

If I hear the member’s question, I would also say that if there is a definition or a benefit of — I don’t know — for example, let’s say for the sake of argument, $500, and you’re asking, “Can the fairness commissioner say that that should be $800?” the answer to that would be no, they can’t.

I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:02 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

The Committee of the Whole, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Mr. Speaker: Members, pursuant to the sessional order, a deferred division will take place shortly on the motion for second reading of Bill 10, Supply Act (No 1), 2021.Pursuant to the sessional order, the House stands recessed until 10 minutes from now.

The House recessed from 6:04 p.m. to 6:14 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: Members, the division will proceed in five minutes.

[6:15 p.m.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 10 — SUPPLY ACT (No. 1), 2021

(continued)

Mr. Speaker: Members, we will now proceed with the deferred division. The question is second reading of Bill 10, Supply Act (No. 1), 2021. I would like to remind all those members participating remotely to have your videos on, please.

[6:20 p.m. - 6:25 p.m.]

Second reading of Bill 10 approved unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings.]

Hon. S. Robinson: I move that the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 10, Supply Act (No. 1), 2021, 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 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 6:26 p.m.