Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call continued debate on the bud­get.

Budget Debate

(continued)

Hon. N. Simons: I can wait a couple of seconds while people exit the chamber in advance of my conclusion. It’s quite all right. I don’t always like to stand up while people are walking out of the room, but it happens sometimes.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I think it’s my first…. Well, I hate to disappoint my dear colleagues from the other side of the House, but I have very few minutes left — 16 minutes. However, I think it’s clear to all members in this House that I’m very supportive of this budget. I’m very pleased that we have a government in place that’s taking care of the people of this province through a difficult time — that is creating resilience in our communities and encouraging all members of the public to adhere to the public health orders. We continue to do that. We continue to make all efforts to get through this difficult time together.

With that, I would like to conclude my remarks. Thank you for this opportunity.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you for your long remarks, Member, very much.

The member for Kelowna-Mission.

R. Merrifield: All right. I was getting ready for a 16 minute…. Yeah, thank you.

It is truly a privilege to rise today and represent the fine residents of my Kelowna-Mission riding. This is my first provincial budget, and I was really excited to get my first one as an elected official. I’d actually been anticipating that day since October of 2020, because to me, budgets are way more than just numbers on a page. In fact, a budget is your road map. It’s your way forward, forward to a really exciting future.

As I watched the Finance Minister deliver her budget speech, I reflected on the amount of work it takes to prepare the budget document. I want to acknowledge the behind-the-scenes staff that worked tirelessly to assemble our provincial budget and thank them for their efforts on behalf of B.C.

I also want to acknowledge that these are extraordinary times. I know that phrase has been overused, but we all need to recognize that we are in the most significant mo­ment in British Columbian history, a moment that will be in our textbooks for social studies and will be analyzed and studied by our students of all grades. It’s humbling to know that our actions today and tomorrow will influence the course of British Columbians’ history.

[2:35 p.m.]

We have never needed a road map more desperately. This pandemic has shown clearly the gaps in our systems, created by a lack of attention, a lack of preparation and so many other factors. But they became even more evident with the pandemic’s light shining through every crack in our society.

History books will, unfortunately, speak of the great inequities of this pandemic: how racial minorities largely had to take on greater risk, as they make up a larger portion of our front-line workers, and how they lost income and risked their health; how youth were some of the hardest hit in the pandemic and how, in numbers of ill as well as their jobs and futures, they were threatened; how women left the workforce in record numbers; how small and medium-sized businesses closed, and are still closing; how our mental health took many of us to our knees; and how, during this time, the greatest divide between the haves and the have-nots has emerged.

As I read this budget, I realized that the other subtitle in our grandchildren’s textbooks will read: “NDP government chooses to go into the largest deficit in history, while not addressing pandemic gaps.” I did pay attention to what my riding would care about. They need economic help for small businesses, which is at the highest percentage of the entire province. They need housing affordability in a desperate way. They need better health care, specifically cancer care, and access to GPs. We need opportunities for our youth. We need sick leave for workers. We need new schools, for the ones that are falling apart, and child care.

Wait. There’s more, starting with the fact that my community, as many across this province, has been devastated by the COVID pandemic. They, just like many in B.C., will need to rebuild — rebuild our economy, rebuild our jobs, rebuild our health care system and, ultimately, rebuild our confidence and our hope. Not only do we have to take care of people during this pandemic, but we also, as a government, need to provide the tracks for British Columbia and British Columbians to move forward.

Let me be clear. There is no plan forward in this budget for any of that. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some half-measures.

Here’s an example of one. First, let’s take our health care system. To say that we have stretched the capacity of our front-line health care professionals absolutely to the limits would not fully express the level of their contribution to our province in the face of COVID-19. Their stress levels are extraordinary, and only getting worse. I have cried with nurses. I’ve heard their stories of holding dying COVID patients’ hands, knowing that they will be the only human touch, as they pass from this life into the next.

Doctors and specialists — how about them? Well, they’re at their breaking point. Radiologists and oncologists are sitting at the brink, staring down the barrel of a cancer tsunami. How about the anaesthesiologists, who are there when we increase the number of surgeries that we want to do, as well as when we need to be intubated for a ventilator to recover from COVID-19? We have asked all of these individuals, and so many more, to put themselves in harm’s way, to work evenings and weekends, on little or no rest. We’ve asked them to isolate from their families and to make enormous sacrifices.

One would think, considering these facts, that a large investment in our health care system, both in people and facilities, would be warranted, given our last year, especially since, during the last election, this NDP government promised to hire 7,000 new front-line health care workers and open a second medical school so that we could educate the next generation of our doctors, nurses and other front-line professionals. Well, right now, based on this budget, it appears they are not going to make good on any of those promises.

[2:40 p.m.]

This government should also be thinking about how it’s going to recruit and retain health care staff that have become severely fatigued as a result of this pandemic. What’s in the budget for them?

I also hear from constituents that they can’t find a family doctor. In fact, there are many in this province that can’t find family doctors, yet we just closed the urgent care centre in Kamloops. But we’re going to open up a cancer clinic in Kamloops, right? Nope. It’s not there.

We know that in a preventative health care system, access and regular visits to a family doctor provide better outcomes for overall health. So what does it say when I tell you that over 750,000 people, or 15 percent of our total population, in B.C. are without a family doctor? Well, it tells me we don’t have a preventative care system. It seems like this should be an important priority for the government, no? Not in this budget.

COVID-19 has also exposed another gap in our health care system. It has been a struggle to get accurate data. And I can only imagine the frustration felt by staff in our public health office as they attempt to assemble the data so Dr. Henry can make important decisions and brief the public. It’s a fact that British Columbians want to do the right thing. They want to listen to the advice of the PHO. Unfortunately, the lack of reliable data and transparency has left many with a concerning level of mistrust and frustration.

We heard that this was a resource issue. Well, what a perfect moment, like a budget, to rectify that wrong and to bring those resources to this desperately needed data. Fund the data collection, the timely reporting, and up­grade the outdated systems that we currently use to track data, like Excel spreadsheets and by hand. This budget would be an opportunity to invest in these processes and start to rebuild that trust.

It would also help us deal with one of the hardest hit in this pandemic: racial minorities. Kulpreet Singh, founder of the South Asian Mental Health Alliance, says: “If we take a look at the demographics of the communities, we can see what we have already suspected, which is that people who are working in essential work — front-line jobs, predominantly from racialized and marginalized communities — are being adversely affected in greater numbers by the pandemic.” Singh goes on to say: “The surge of cases and disproportionate impact the virus has had on the South Asian communities could have been mitigated had there been race-based data collection.”

There is lip service from this government about eradicating racism, but this budget actually shows us that the government doesn’t seem to understand how to fix this gap that’s been shown in glaring form in a pandemic. It doesn’t understand how to correct the wrongs — not in this budget. In fact, the very health authority that controls data has had their budget cut by $1.1 billion.

Another missed opportunity? Let’s talk about Surrey hospital. According to the budget document, there seems to be some internal debate as to whether it’s a new hospital or a net-new hospital or a renovated hospital, completed in 2027, 2028. There’s no spending in the three-year fiscal plan to support construction. So even when completed, it’s only 168 beds — 168 beds in Surrey, our fastest-growing municipality.

Then there’s Richmond Hospital, another promise this government campaigned on. Where is that in the budget? And then cancer care, another election promise by the NDP government — a ten-year cancer plan. Well, I guess the cancer plan starts next year, because there’s not any significant investment from this government. In fact, there hasn’t been any significant investment in cancer care in the last four years of this government. This despite the signals that B.C. is slipping in our outcomes, our recovery rates and our wait times.

[2:45 p.m.]

I’m starting to sense a theme that this government doesn’t grasp the problems that are facing British Columbians, because then…. Let’s talk about mental health. B.C. has a mental health crisis. The next epidemic wave will be this one — parents on the phone with me, desperate to find help for their young adult, seniors dying of loneliness and most of us stuck in an anxious social state. This epidemic also manifests in the number of British Columbians we lose every month to opioid addictions.

Last year 2,000 families lost a loved one — sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends, co-workers. These victims are dying, often alone. Since 2017, 21,000 people have been diagnosed with an opioid use disorder. Of that number, only 5,000 received treatment. According to the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction numbers, they are projecting, targeting, a 2- to 5-percent increase in recovery. Am I reading that correctly? Are we going to see, then, a 2- to 5-percent decrease in opioid deaths?

This despite a $500 million investment. Where is the money going? Well, it’s certainly not the minister’s office. Her budget is smaller than the Premier’s. It’s not in complex care housing, because we’re only getting 195 new treatment beds — 2,000 opioid-related deaths and only 195 new treatment beds. This problem is far worse than we previously thought.

Our children, our youth are suffering with mental health issues. In fact, studies show that two-thirds of all of our youth are experiencing mental health issues right now. They are drowning, and we aren’t saving them. In fact, we’re blaming them for the pandemic. The irony is that we could save them.

Quoting Jennifer Charlesworth, B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth: “Many of the mental health challenges children experience are preventable. All are treatable. We weren’t meeting the needs prior to the pandemic, so we have to ramp up our capacity during and post pandemic.” Yet the budget only included $97 million for mental health supports for children and youth, $53 million to expand the early psychosis intervention program, $14 million for the First Nations Health Authority and $8 million to expand eating disorder care and suicide prevention.

Charlesworth, the children’s representative, said the budget made some good investments in areas such as Aboriginal child development programs, but she also argued that the expansion of the integrated youth teams in schools is only going to reach 24 of B.C.’s 60 education districts. And despite bolstering the popular Foundry centres, which I personally love, that’s only going to be available to a handful of communities.

The new money, she argues, does little to reduce the wait-list for CYMH services. Charlesworth added that we need to have “a fundamentally expansive and more robust child and youth mental system” available to everybody. Something is terribly wrong with the priorities of this NDP government. That’s shown not just in their health priorities but also in their economic ones.

We all know what a hit our small businesses and tourism sector have taken all over British Columbia. In my riding, it’s been felt. It’s ricocheting echoes of destruction amongst businesses, and it will clearly have consequences for years. Many of the attractions that count on tourism are struggling after a year of being either closed altogether or operating sporadically at very re­duced capacity. These aren’t large-scale operations. They can’t absorb the losses that they’re experiencing without support from this government.

[2:50 p.m.]

Given that fact, I should have been able to find a very significant investment to help rebuild that sector. Instead, what I found was half of what they have asked for. Disappointing, to say the least.

What about our support for our small and medium-sized businesses? Surely, given the fact that 98 percent of our business sector is small and medium-sized, there would be a plan to help them get back on their feet. No. There is no new and no significant funding for jobs or for economic recovery, no new money for our struggling restaurant industry that is continually punched back down by COVID restrictions.

Oh sure, there are reworked and re-added grant programs, but that was so botched by this NDP government the first time around that there is little to no faith in it. But $3.1 billion, though, in unallocated recovery funding, with zero plan to deploy when people need help right now…. This NDP government doesn’t understand small businesses and where their needs are at. No clue.

How about a good old-fashioned jobs plan? Nearly 40,000 full-time jobs lost during the pandemic have not been recovered. The private sector alone is behind 42,000 jobs compared to pre-pandemic levels. The only jobs plan seems to be the expansion of government by 60,000 positions. Judging by the response we heard when this figure was brought up in question period, it leads me to believe that this is, in fact, the plan: bloat government, expand government, while failing to provide the necessary supports to the private sector.

The private sector jobs are the ones that actually contribute to our GDP. They don’t cost taxpayers money. But it’s actually worse than this, because there are no supports for these businesses to help people get by immediately, right now, today.

Despite the Premier promising a “made-in-B.C. solution,” there is no paid sick leave in this budget. So essential workers that can’t afford to stay home…. These essential workers, that are typically youth, women and racial minorities…. Well, they can’t afford to stay at home if they don’t feel well, so they go to work. Over and over we’ve heard the Premier tell British Columbians: “Stay home.” But his government has provided no direct assistance to those workers that have no choice. Lack of understanding by this government.

We all pay taxes, right? It stands to reason that we should understand taxpayers. But looking at this budget, by the end of this NDP’s second term, they’re going to add an equivalent of $10,000 in additional debt for every single British Columbian. The revenue to pay that debt comes from only one place: the taxpayer.

British Columbians are even going to now pay a soda tax. That sounds good, doesn’t it? Discourage the over-indulgence in sugary drinks like pop. Promoting healthier habits, right? Not so fast. This tax applies not to just sugary drinks but to all carbonated beverages, including sugar-free alternatives or the most popular beverages, soda water. So this isn’t actually a tax to promote a healthier lifestyle. It’s just a run-of-the-mill tax grab.

So 53 percent of British Columbians are now $200 or less away from insolvency. What does this government do? They add a soda tax. Oh, wait. That’s in addition to the 23 new and increased taxes since they formed government. Something is terribly wrong with the priorities of this NDP government.

Remember the promise for the renters? Election promise, twice over — a $400 annual renters rebate. Nope. Not in this budget. That’s vanished. The NDP promised more rental affordability, and in my riding, that matters. Kelowna’s rents have increased over 5 percent in March versus February. Oh, wait. One month — 5 percent. This despite a rental freeze brought on by COVID. Kelowna is now the sixth most expensive place to rent in Canada. Instead of taking action and working to increase supply across the entire housing sector, this NDP government has abandoned their commitments to renters.

[2:55 p.m.]

Under the governance of this NDP Premier, housing prices are higher than ever, and new construction of homes is down significantly. Low housing supply equals high prices — economics 101. BCREA says the average home price in B.C. is up 20.4 percent, year over year, for March 2021. In the Central Okanagan, the average price of a single-family home is now $829,400; last year, one year ago, $667,700.

British Columbians are discovering that their dream of owning their own home is out of reach. There is no plan from this government to increase the supply of housing, decrease red tape in local housing development or take any tangible action to improve affordability. In fact, the NDP government is predicting continued high pricing in housing, as their property transfer tax revenue line item is predicted to remain the highest in history, not just for last year or this year but for the next three years in a row.

The NDP housing plan has failed. Instead of taking accountability and using this budget to take action, they’re using it as a cash cow, priorities amiss.

I watched with eager anticipation for an announcement on child care. I raised my three kids and built my business at the same time, and it was excruciating. I still remember taking that leap and paying for child care. I didn’t know if I’d have enough money to pay for it. In fact, for the first two years, I didn’t. I paid more in child care than I took home at the end of the day. But I believed in what I was doing, the business I was building, and I kept going.

That is not the case for everyone. I’ve heard from constituents who are moving out of the Okanagan because life is not affordable and there are no child care spaces. I have spoken to others in my riding who are desperate to find quality child care to get back into the labour force. These are highly trained, qualified professionals who are opting out in order to take care of their kids. We know that in order to be serious about rebuilding the economy post-COVID, we have to get parents into the workforce. But without an affordable child care plan, this is not possible.

Despite the NDP’s continued promises, there’s no universal $10-a-day daycare in this budget and no delivery of the 24,000 new child care spaces that they had already promised. There are only 75 $10-a-day prototype sites that will be added, for a total of 3,750 spaces.

We need a clear plan for our province now. When the newly announced federal plan takes shape, we can move in lockstep to create as many spots as we can. And 3,750 child care spaces are barely a drop in the bucket and do nothing to address this immediate problem. We need to get serious, or we won’t benefit from the economic boost of having parents able to be involved in the workforce. Priorities, priorities, priorities.

How about our education system? Teachers, educational aides and admin staff have been strained this last year. We have asked them to do so much to keep our kids safe, to provide an education under considerable stress and to adapt to our changing reality. What thanks do we provide them? This budget cuts $53 million from school districts’ budgets. In Surrey, parents and teachers were promised real classrooms instead of portables. At the start of the pre-pandemic school year, there were 361 portables in Surrey. Nothing in this budget to address this — just a cut to the school district.

In closing, I have to say that my first provincial budget experience was a disappointment. I expected more. I ex­pected a silver lining. I expected to find hope, to find salve for the weary souls amongst us and hope for the future that we have together. I wanted to see a budget that includes measures that every single British Columbian can point to and see how it’s going to help them recover from a year of COVID darkness.

[3:00 p.m.]

We need to fix the cracks that the pandemic shone through and showed us were there and make right the in­equities that this government’s policies have only helped to reinforce. We need to make sure that we’ve learned from the lessons of the pandemic and that this sacrifice does not go to waste. We need to instil confidence in British Columbia, confidence in our ability to fashion our own destiny, to set and achieve goals, to aspire for a better life.

I am by nature an optimist. I really do want to give this government the benefit of the doubt, but sadly, there is not much to celebrate in this budget. This is the NDP’s second term. They seem to just be bumbling through it. No big, bold ideas. Just fancy words and little, if any, follow-through.

I won’t give up. I will keep raising the voices and augmenting the concerns of the residents of Kelowna-Mission and the residents of British Columbia. I’m going to do so here, in this place, and fight to make sure that this government has more to offer us. Right now they are failing to meet the needs of this province.

Thank you, hon. Speaker, for allowing me this time.

B. Anderson: I appreciate the opportunity to speak very much in favour of this budget.

I want to acknowledge that I am on the traditional, un­ceded territory of the Ktunaxa, Sinixt and Syilx peoples.

Before I dive into the investments that we’re making in the people of British Columbia in this budget, I would like to celebrate a life today. That is the life of Lorne Nicolson. Lorne is a former B.C. NDP MLA for Nelson-Creston. He passed away earlier this year.

First of all, I would like to extend my condolences to his family, especially Frances, his wife of 62 years, sons Sean and Cameron as well as his sister Karen, several family members and many, many friends.

Although I did not know Lorne personally, I wanted to highlight the work that he did in the Legislature for all British Columbians.

As the Nelson Daily News reported, August 30, 1972, was a momentous day for British Columbia and for the provincial riding of Nelson-Creston. This was the day the province elected its first New Democratic Party government and the Nelson-Creston riding elected its first NDP MLA, Lorne Nicolson. Lorne served the riding’s constituents for 14 years and was the minister responsible for housing from 1983 until he retired in 1986.

I’m going to share a story that I think depicts the type of leader Lorne was. There was a time that Lorne, who happened to be home in his constituency, snuck into the back of Taghum Hall. Taghum Hall is a little hall about ten kilometres outside of Nelson, just for that local context. The locals there were having a meeting. It was in protest of the Department of Highways’ plan to upgrade the wooden Taghum Bridge. The residents had long complained about the condition and safety of the bridge but did so in the hope that it would be replaced by a new, much more expensive concrete bridge at a different location with better alignment.

Now, the meeting, as some meetings do, started to get fairly heated. At one point, an attendee demanded: “Where is our MLA? Why isn’t he here to represent us?” At that point, Lorne, who had gone unnoticed, quietly stood up and said: “Here I am. I came to listen so I could represent your concerns to the Ministry of Highways in Victoria.”

Now, this completely defused the situation, and Lorne was true to his word. He not only carried the residents’ concerns to the minister but managed to persuade the department to change its mind and to commit to the new bridge, which was completed a few years later.

[3:05 p.m.]

Now, I thought this was a really beautiful short story that depicted what type of a leader Lorne was. I just want to celebrate the life that he had and thank him for all of the service that he provided for the constituency but also for all British Columbians.

Thank you, Lorne, for your service.

Now back to the budget. When I look at this budget, this is the budget that I expected. You might ask why. When I look at this budget, this is directly what we promised British Columbians during the election. This budget reflects what British Columbians voted for. What British Columbians voted for was…. They wanted investments in people. They wanted this government to carry them through the pandemic and into recovery.

When we look at this budget and all of the great things that it’s providing across the province, in every corner of this province…. I really think that all British Columbians are able to look at this budget and say: “This is the budget I voted for. This is going to take me through. We are going to get through this pandemic.”

Now, there are major, major investments in health care in this budget. I mean, how could there not be? If anything, during a global pandemic…. I think all Canadians kind of sat back and realized how very fortunate we are that we have universal health care in Canada and in our province, of course, of British Columbia. I am so grateful to see these increased investments in our health care system.

Not too long ago my dog, who I love very much and who spends most of her time with me, had to get surgery. After her surgery, she was healing up really well. I posted a photo of her on social media. I just said: “Every time I pay my vet bill, I am just so grateful that we have universal health care for humans in Canada.” To which my very dear friend responded: “Every time I pay my vet bill, I wish health care was as inexpensive and as accessible as it is for my pet as it would be for me.” She is American. She spent years without health insurance.

When I look at this budget and I look at the investments that we are making in health care, including mental health care, I think how grateful I am for these investments. You know, we’re investing in cancer care. Today I am wearing…. This is Cancer Awareness Month. I don’t think there’s a person in British Columbia whose life has not been touched one way or another by cancer.

Today actually happens to be my grandfather’s…. Well, it would have been his 83rd birthday. When I was a teenager, he had a long battle with cancer, and he passed away.

Grandpa Dave, I am thinking of you today.

I am so glad we are investing in a new cancer centre in the Interior. This will mean that people from rural B.C. are going to have better access to cancer care. That is going to be so impactful, not only for the patients but also for the families and for the loved ones of these people. Having care close to home is incredibly important for our medical system.

In our rural area, that is one of the things that I hear the most. We want to see investments in these rural areas so that people are able to access health care at home. This is what we’re seeing in this budget by expanding the budget for health care. So I am so grateful to see these investments.

A part of these investments is the vaccine rollout. I don’t know about you, but for every single person in my life, when they let me know they have either gotten their vaccine or have registered for their vaccine or have booked that vaccine appointment, I feel a tremendous sense of relief and hope. Just yesterday my dad was able to get his vaccine, and my mom goes in for her shot probably in a few minutes here.

The more people that we’re seeing getting vaccinated…. We’re going to see those numbers increase and increase, and then we’re also going to see, if we follow the health restrictions, that our cases are going to decrease and decrease. That means that if we all follow the public health orders that are in place, hopefully — and I know every single person in British Columbia wants this — we are able to open up again more. We’re able to visit with our loved ones. We’re able to go out and go to the theatre.

[3:10 p.m.]

Now, I can’t wait to see a live performance again. These are moments that are going to feel so special. I can’t imagine. I’m going to get to dance around.

We have lots of music festivals in the Kootenays, and being outside in the elements and dancing with hundreds or thousands of people is such an amazing feeling. Right now, that feeling feels so far away, but if we follow these health care restrictions, or the public health orders, we are going to get to that point where, when our friend comes to town, we’re going to be able to give them that big hug.

I was hoping to see my grandma here in a few weeks — it’s her 90th birthday — but unfortunately, we’re going to have to hold off on that, too, just a little bit longer. Celebrating your grandma’s 90th birthday seems pretty essential to a family, but it’s not, because it’s not safe right now to do so. We’re going to wait off, and we’re going to celebrate her and the amazing life that she’s had, and the work that she still continues to do, when it’s safe to do so.

When I look at this budget, I see that we are working for people. I just want to thank the Finance Minister for all of the incredible work that it took to pull everything together, to pull our platform together and all of the promises we made, and then create a budget that is going to ensure that British Columbia is resilient, moving forward. With this budget, I absolutely see that happening.

We look at what has happened with our businesses, and some of our businesses have had an extremely hard time. But we have been investing in small businesses. We have more business support for small and medium businesses than any other jurisdiction in Canada. We know that small businesses are the backbone of our local economy, of our provincial economy, but also our local economies. We know that when we spend money at local businesses, that money gets recirculated into our communities. It’s absolutely critical that we support them now so that they’re able to thrive later.

I have been making phone calls and talking to business owners and asking them how they’re doing. One business said if it hadn’t been for the supports that I specifically told them about and really encouraged them to apply, they’re not sure if they would be able to still be open today.

Because our government is investing in small businesses…. They’re small businesses that we know would be doing well, but we’re in a pandemic. Now is the time that we need to support them so that they’re able to thrive in the future, so that they’re there when we all get back to normal. That is something that I am really looking forward to.

One of the most exciting announcements that I think we have recently made is from our Minister of Jobs and trade. Now, in B.C., this investment fund…. This is an absolute game-changer. I’m already receiving text messages from really creative businesses that are going to make change and do great things for British Columbia, wanting to know more about this strategic investment. This investment, the fact that it is triple bottom line…. It’s planet, people and profits, because, of course, we need to be considering these three things at all times for a business.

If you can’t make a profit in business, you’re not a business. You can’t move forward. Profit, of course, is in there. It’s always important. Businesses must make profits. But if we only focus on profits, and we forget about the people and forget about the environment, that’s a huge problem. That’s actually a problem that I think we have seen with globalization: that we are so far removed in many ways from the people and from the environment with some of these decisions that we make, there’s this long chain of impacts that happen.

What this investment does is…. This investment is going to take money and invest it in businesses that are creating environmental change or solving those huge environmental problems that we must face, that we have to face. Or they’re going to be investing in things that are going to be making social change — medication, health care.

I can’t wait to see what some of these investments are going to be. I’m absolutely…. Some of the work that I have seen that British Columbians have done…. They’re so creative, and I think what this money is really going to do is attract a lot of those businesses that might be trying to figure out where they want to work.

[3:15 p.m.]

When they see the quality of life that we have in British Columbia, along with being very business-friendly — and we have this new strategic investment — I think we are going to be the place that people want to start and people want to stay. We know that once people are in B.C., they don’t want to leave. That’s why people keep coming to our province. Most people have dreamed their entire lives to come live in British Columbia, and we are so grateful that this is our home and that we get to call it our home.

I’ve felt so grateful during the pandemic. I’ve lived all over the world, and there is nowhere in the entire world that I’d want to be right now except for in British Columbia. I think that’s because we know that we are taking care of each other. Our communities are stepping up, and we’re taking care of each other. When I look at this budget, this budget is focused on recovery so that we’re able to move forward. The future is going to look bright.

When I talk about economic recovery, I always think that the first piece…. This is something that I heard previously when I was on city council. When the pandemic first hit, what was one of the biggest challenges for families? It was child care. I was hearing from parents, but I was also hearing from grandparents that were all of a sudden moving around the province to try to find child care or try to support their children and their grandchildren.

We know that child care is absolutely critical, not only for the social well-being, the development of children, to get them ready for school, but it’s also really important for the economy. If parents aren’t able to work…. Of course, some parents are able to stay home and want to stay home, and that is a wonderful choice if that is the choice that you want to make. But other parents either have to go to work or want to go to work or both. We need to ensure that there is safe, appropriate and affordable child care for everyone in the province.

What I see with this budget is that we are moving forward again on child care, with our $10-a-day child care program. I know that we’re moving in the right direction, also, when people are seeing what this government is do­ing, and then they’re wanting to stand up and say yeah.

With economic recovery, now the federal government also wants to be supporting child care, and we welcome these investments because we know from the plan that we have developed that this is so important. Having that partnership is only going to mean that, more quickly, we are going to be able to deliver on the $10-a-day child care program and expand it to more families.

We’re very fortunate here in the Kootenays. Selkirk College was able to create a partnership, and we are getting, I think, 24 new child care spaces up at the Silver King campus, which is in Rosemont in Nelson. That was a great partnership between some local non-profits here and the provincial government to increase the number of child care spaces here. Because it’s partnered with the college, there are also going to be training opportunities for early childhood educators.

By having that close proximity, it’s a really well-designed space. It’s great that it’s integrated with the actual education and the program, and it’s going to be supporting not only community members but students, teachers, faculty and staff. This is going to be a great thing for the Selkirk College community but also the community of greater Nelson, sort of, in general.

When we’re seeing these investments in child care, we know that those dollars are then going to be recirculated again and again throughout this community as parents are able to go to work and children are able to get that really high-quality child care experience. I know that we have some absolutely excellent…. I just want to say that I’m really excited about that.

Another thing, in terms of health care, that I want to talk about, which I’m really excited is moving forward, is Mount St. Francis. Mount St. Francis — if you’re not a local, that probably doesn’t really mean very much or anything to you. But if you’re from this area, it means a lot. There’s a fairly large piece of land in Nelson that used to house a facility. It was a health care facility called Mount St. Francis. It closed about a decade ago. When it closed…. There has been no heat on for a decade in that building.

[3:20 p.m.]

There have been groups that are trying to figure out what we’re able to do with this land. There’s a covenant on the land so it can only become another health care space. We know that we’re at a deficit of long-term-care beds in our region. We are going to be getting 75 long-term-care beds in a brand-new facility.

The vision for this facility is absolutely incredible. It’s not just a long-term-care facility. There has been a local group here working. This is something I have never heard of before. They’re working directly with Interior Health and providing…. There’s that back-and-forth between this local group that has been a strong advocate for long-term care and also a health campus. They want to see child care up there. They want to see other services up there — affordable housing, potentially, up there as well. Maybe addictions services.

It’s an entire community of people. It’s not just somewhere where people in long-term care sort of go and are tucked away. This is going to be an absolutely beautiful space. That property, when you’re there, you can see the beautiful Kootenay Lake. You can see the mountains. This is going to be a place where, I think, people are going to look forward to moving into, rather than it being something that people want to resist because they want to stay in their homes.

Particularly, what we saw coming out of other pro­vinces…. It was very scary to be in a long-term-care facility. In some cases, it was scary here in British Columbia.

I think, also now, that the lessons that we learned from COVID…. It will mean that the design of this specific space will be designed in a way that — and, hopefully, none of us ever have to experience anything like this pandemic ever again — we’re more prepared because of the design and the layout. We’re prepared for this, if it were ever to happen again, which will also help protect seniors, of course, for things like influenza season. I’m just really glad to see that this is moving forward — Mount St. Francis.

Another thing that I want to talk about that, for our region, people are very passionate about…. It’s climate change. Our communities…. We’re in a rural area, and one of the things that we love about it is that we have direct access to nature. What that also means is our risk for wildfires is huge. When you go out into the back country, you can see that, and it can be dry.

I was on a hike. I think it was two weeks ago. This is a hike along Kootenay Lake. It’s a pretty easy hike. It’s well-shaded. It’s April. It was powder dry. Normally, I wouldn’t expect those kind of conditions until about July or August.

We know that we need to clean up the forests around our communities to keep our communities safe. Now we’re seeing that type of investment. The Creston Valley Forest Corp., they’re doing operational treatment, and there’s going to be one prescribed fire.

This isn’t a small area. This is 57.6 hectares. But what this is going to do is help to protect the community of Creston and the adjacent communities. You look at Creston and Erickson and the rural area, you wouldn’t be able to actually tell where they…. Where one ends, the other begins. It’s really important that we’re protecting these areas in our community.

Also, the Harrop-Procter Community Co-operative — they are also going to be doing work to protect Harrop-Procter. This is a beautiful little community just across the ferry, across sort of from the Balfour area on Kootenay Lake. They have Harrop-Procter forest products. There are the beautiful community forests there. They’re also going to be doing more work to ensure that that community is protected against wildfires.

We’re seeing the same thing in Kaslo. It’s great to see that across our region, we are getting more investments for wildfire interface protection, which we know is absolutely, critically important.

There’s a great project that’s actually going on. It’s up in the park that is sort of north of Nelson. There’s private land, so it’s the private land owners with B.C. Parks and local logging companies. They’ve all been able to work together to figure out how they’re able to strategically do wildfire…. Logging, but logging to ensure that wildfire isn’t able to sort of sweep through that area. There’s a lot of dead beetle kill.

[3:25 p.m.]

Generally, in parks, there is no logging, but because of the risks and all of these factors, we’ve actually been able to come to a great solution where B.C. Parks is working with the local forestry industry and with landowners to make this all work together.

When I was speaking with them, when I sat down and had a meeting with them…. This isn’t happening across the province, so we’re really lucky that it’s happening here, but I think it’s something that could be modelled in different areas across the province.

We also have Kalesnikoff. They have their mass timber facility, and that facility sits just right on the boundary between Nelson-Creston and Kootenay West, and it’s pro­viding this mass timber facility. They’re doing forestry from seedling or from sapling all the way to these mass timber frame buildings. We’re going to start seeing these go up around the province. The embedded carbon footprint is so much lower than in concrete and steel buildings. So I’m really excited.

We are going to be seeing, hopefully, some going up in our riding shortly but also across the province, really showcasing what the…. I really see this as the future of the forestry industry that we’re taking. It’s the right log to the right mill — that there’s the value-added product, that we’re managing our forests appropriately. This is going to be the best way to build our economy, keep our communities safe from things like wildfire.

One of the things that Kalesnikoff is doing is they are doing some work, again, to protect the city of Nelson from wildfire danger. But they’re actually going to be turning it into an agroforestry project. Now, if you don’t know what agroforestry is, basically think of a food forest.

This is going to be between Nelson and Cottonwood Lake, adjacent to the Rail Trail, which is an extremely popular trail that extends…. You can actually take it all the way from Troup, which is a beach on Kootenay Lake, and go all the way up to Salmo, if you wanted. I have only made it up to Ymir for a beer on that trail before, but it’s possible from Nelson. It’s a great little ride, and if you ever get the opportunity to stop at the Ymir Hotel there, it is a very good time and one of the most eclectic places you’re going to see.

Kalesnikoff is going to be building that absolutely beautiful food forest there. I think that this is going to be a showcase for things that we’re able to replicate across the province. I’m tremendously proud of the work that is done in my riding, because I think there’s a lot of innovation that’s happening.

Some of these organizations, like Kalesnikoff, I think it’s a third or fourth generation family business. It might even be fifth. They’re really invested in this community. So we’re seeing great things happen because of it.

When I look, again, at this budget, I’m excited. We’re seeing transit free for all people under 12 years old. Now, this is a great thing for families. It’s going to be saving families money, but what I also like to see is it’s habit-forming. If kids are used to getting around via public transit and are using public transit, they’re not waiting on their 16th birthday, like: “I want to get my driver’s licence. I want to get a vehicle.” They’re going to be happy they have the freedom to get around on transit.

You’re getting people moving away from this mentality that the only way we move around is sort of one person, or maybe if you’re lucky, you’re car-pooling or you’re with your spouse or your kids in your vehicle. But we see so many people just driving with one person in that vehicle.

By shifting people over to things like active transportation or transit, we’re going to be seeing our transportation GHG emissions start to decrease, which is critically important. When we look at that pie of the GHG emissions in British Columbia, transportation is one of those key areas where we need to start lowering our GHG emissions, just like setting targets, specific industry targets. That’s going to also help reduce our GHG emissions, which is absolutely critical as we move forward and we realize the plan of CleanBC.

We’re leaders in this now, and we’re going to continue to have to push that. We know we’re going to have to reduce our GHG emissions, and there’s going to be innovation. I’m excited because I do believe that this InBC investment fund is going to help fuel some of that innovation so that we’re going to be finding creative solutions to help us and help the planet figure out how we’re going to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

[3:30 p.m.]

The last thing I would just like to say is that when I look at this budget, I see that this budget is focused also on young people. When we’re looking at the StrongerBC future leaders program, that’s going to be 5,000 young people that are positively impacted, that are going to be paid for jobs or for internships. They’re getting their first foot in the door, and that is absolutely critical.

I know, as a young person, trying to find that first sort of “real job” is not easy, but it’s so important. Once you’re able to do that, then you can start to build your actual career. But without that sort of clear pathway forward, it can be a challenge. I’m so thrilled to see our future leaders program. I’m really excited to see how this really changes the lives of so many young people.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

I want to thank, again, the Minister of Finance for all of the incredible work that she did to pull this budget together and the Premier on his leadership to get us through this pandemic. This is the budget that British Columbia voted for. We are delivering on our promises. This, to me, is exactly what government should be doing. We are listening to what the people want, and we’re providing that for them.

We’re going to hit the ground running, once we’re able to get our vaccine numbers up and our rates lower. I can’t wait until we’re able to embrace our loved ones again. I know every single one of us in British Columbia is really excited for that.

I just want to say thank you so much, Speaker, for the opportunity to enthusiastically speak in support of this budget. I am really proud of the work that we are going to be doing together.

J. Tegart: Thank you to the member for Nelson-Creston. Your enthusiasm is incredible, and it’s good to see new faces in the House.

It’s a pleasure to stand in the House to respond to Budget 2021. This is probably one of the most important budgets in our lifetime; 2020 was a historic year in the lifetime of British Columbia. In March 2020, this House recessed for two weeks. During those two weeks, British Columbia declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19 pandemic. The world was in turmoil. We were asked to hunker down, work from home. Schools closed. Long-term care facilities and hospitals were in lockdown. Keep your contacts to your immediate family in your home.

We were stunned. How could this happen? But we were okay. Everyone would obey the public health orders. We were on top of this. But it went on and on.

It attacked our seniors, who were in long-term care and assisted-living facilities. People were dying. They were getting COVID. They were sick, and family wasn’t allowed to visit. They were dying alone, without family with them, surrounded by people in full coverage of PPE, from head to toe. The only contact was their eyes, full of care, support and, ultimately, sorrow.

Families said goodbye over a telephone, on FaceTime or on Zoom. Hearts were broken. People were guilt-ridden. How could this be happening? Moms, dads, grannies, grandpas, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, sons, daughters, grandchildren — COVID did not stop. It took whoever was in its path. No family celebration of life. Limited numbers allowed. They died alone; families grieved alone.

Still, this disease carried on. If you came in contact with someone with the disease, chances are you were the next carrier. Families are sad. Communities are sad. First responders are sad. The world is sad. Still, COVID goes on.

[3:35 p.m.]

As it passes from person to person, it grows stronger. It deviates. It spreads some more, much more rapidly this time round. We have to stop this. It has taken far too many. We pray each day that our scientists will find a cure, and COVID marches on.

Our young people have been so affected this past year. I think about high school children and the effects on their lives: no grade 12 graduation, no family gathering to celebrate this milestone in their lives, no party with friends. It’s like grad didn’t even happen. How can this be? No goodbyes to classmates, to teachers who made such a difference in your life, who inspired you to reach for the stars, who knew you at your best and at your worst but still believed in you.

The younger ones miss their classroom friends. They miss their sports. They missed play dates — six-year-olds expressing their fear of taking COVID home and making Nana sick.

We wonder what the long-term effects will be. Many have lost loved ones, grandmas and grandpas, with no way to say goodbye. They are all sad. When will it be over? We think about our most vulnerable, who often are challenged to get out and be social, who are often isolated, whose supports are now limited due to COVID protocols: “Does this disease not understand how much we need to be together and with each other or how much I miss my social worker and my counsellor? I don’t understand. I just want things to be the way they were. Does anyone notice? Does anyone care?”

I think about each and every British Columbian who says: “I’m okay — just hanging in there. I can’t wait until this is over.” But they’re out of sorts. They haven’t seen family for months, even though they live in the same community — the new grandchild that was born in July that you held once. People are sad. This is so hard.

I think about everyone who showed up to work to provide the front-line services that we need to survive — the medical staff who held the hands of our dying loved ones; the ambulance attendant who ensured our loved ones got to where they needed to be; the staff in our long-term-care and assisted-living facilities who showed up, day after day, to provide services to our seniors in a caring and loving way.

To our first responders, who never, ever imagined being in a situation like we found ourselves in, in 2020…. To each and every one of you: thank you. To our teachers, our special teaching assistants, support staff and administrators who have worked so hard to keep our children safe, ensuring that our kids have routine in their day, trying so hard to meet each student’s needs in these trying times…. From the school bus driver to the janitorial staff, keeping children safe was so important to you. Thank you. You have all given so much.

[3:40 p.m.]

Transit drivers, store clerks, bank staff, grocery workers. You have all gone above and beyond to ensure that we are safe and our communities are safe and that we are all provided for. Firemen, police, paramedics, our front-line heroes. So many who have reached out and comforted a neighbour, a person in their community, even strangers, which is why Budget 2021 is so important in British Columbia’s history.

We have had an unprecedented year, a year of COVID-19 and all that entails. But let us go back to March 2020. We began the COVID journey with all parties in the House giving unanimous agreement to an unprecedented spending bill that allowed the government to address the COVID challenge, recognition that we would have to put partisan politics aside and work together as we fought this pandemic. I was proud to be a member of this House that agreed to that.

It would be naive to think that this would be easy. But we all have a common interest: the health of each and every British Columbian. We were a coalition, committed to serving the health and welfare of British Columbians during an unprecedented pandemic. Working together, we could show that we could put the health of people before our politics. It showed we had built goodwill and trust over the previous three years.

Then, in the fall of 2020, Premier John Horgan took that goodwill and threw it back in our faces.

Deputy Speaker: Member, I’ll just remind you not to use names.

J. Tegart: Sorry. The Premier took that goodwill and threw it back in our faces. The decision to call a snap election ensured that goodwill and trust evaporated in a few short minutes. So much for putting the health and welfare of British Columbians first. So much for collaborating with the three parties in the House. So much for trust.

In the meantime, COVID continued on — more cases, more deaths, more sadness. Politics became more important than people. Government came to a halt. Months passed before government was back in place. The cases rose, and more people died. More British Columbians were sad.

Now we find ourselves examining Budget 2021. I think British Columbians were looking for a budget of hope. Vaccinations are underway. Although seemingly haphazard some days, they are getting into people’s arms.

People are looking for a plan. A plan that addresses the challenges of the past year. A plan that assists young people and gives them hope. A plan that recognizes the challenges facing small and medium-sized businesses. A plan that supports tourism and its associated businesses, which have been hit so hard in the past year. They are on their knees, asking for a lifeline from this government. A plan for economic recovery.

Our people are stressed and worried about the future. They are looking for supports for mental health, stability for the education of their children, jobs and opportunities for our young people, support for our seniors, support for our resource sector, support for our tech sector, support for our job creators, our entrepreneurs. They are looking for a jobs plan.

[3:45 p.m.]

Again, as we sit in this House and discuss, we have more positive COVID cases and, unfortunately, more deaths.

What do we see in Budget 2021? What I see is status quo. No vision. No innovation. Little support for job creators. Cuts in natural resource ministries. Cuts in public education. Cuts in health care. Like, really? Nothing big and bold at a time when we so need hope.

Remember, COVID numbers continue to rise. Too many loved ones are dying. We are now into the third wave. Our youth see little hope in the future. They are often our front-line workers, in our restaurants, in our grocery stores, in our seniors facilities, with a Premier who has publicly blamed them for the spread of the virus. Shame on him. Oh, yes, and they are the last to be vaccinated. How about that as a thank-you for the work you do?

I would remind every representative in the House: you were elected to be big and bold. We are at an unprecedented time in history. We have come through and are continuing to experience a pandemic that is worldwide. If not now, when? When will be the time to think big?

COVID has disrupted our daily lives. It has disrupted how we live, how we interact, how we do commerce, how we educate our youth, how we work.

I challenge every elected person in this House to step outside your comfort zone, to use this time to think differently, to envision a future we have perhaps never thought of before, to encourage innovation, to embrace change, to be the change you want to see, to know there is an end to this year of COVID, to embrace what we have learned through these tough times and to think not only about the next generation but about the next seven generations. Put partisan politics aside, and let’s think big.

I have to say I’m a little disappointed in a rather lack­lustre Budget 2021 at a time when I believe we need bold and innovative ideas and actions. We have come through a very difficult year. Friends that I consider strong, focused and driven are telling me they are feeling out of sorts.

I would suggest that we have no idea what the mental health impact of a year plus of COVID will be on our family and friends, never mind the impact on our first responders, people who have lost loved ones, people who have lost their businesses and people who have lost their jobs. They are looking to government to provide support and hope for the future in Budget 2021, and I’m sad to say that I don’t see that inspiration in this budget.

[3:50 p.m.]

Day after day the COVID numbers continue to be high. People are still dying, and 1,517 have died as of April 26. My hope is that vaccination can bring a halt to the rising COVID numbers and deaths and that we’ll see a better future for us and our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.

This budget shows a significant deficit, one that wasn’t unexpected. But of all the times in the history of British Columbia, this is the time to think big. This is the time that British Columbians need us. Each of us in this House has a choice. I challenge you to think outside the box, to think big and to think bold. There are a number of areas in this budget that have contingencies that aren’t identified. I truly believe that that gives us room for innovation, room to budget for things that we haven’t thought of before.

I remind everyone here that British Columbians are counting on us, and it is up to us to be accountable to them.

Deputy Speaker: Hon. Members, just a reminder. We’re not supposed to be using our telephones, even from home. That includes earbuds. If you’re having a conversation two-way, that’s considered a telephone. You can listen, but you can’t speak. Sorry about that. If you want to speak, stand up, and we’ll recognize you in a speech.

M. Elmore: I’m honoured to be joining you virtually from the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

It’s a great honour to rise as the MLA for Vancouver-Kensington and speak in favour of Budget 2021. I’d like to begin my comments and just appreciate the remarks from my colleague previously, the MLA for Fraser-Nicola. You could really hear just the impact of COVID-19 in her community. I think it really laid it out for all of us to relate in terms of the unprecedented challenges that all of us have faced in British Columbia. Certainly, we’re all in this together.

My remarks, with respect to the budget, are certainly following on many colleagues, remarking on, really, the incredible challenge that we are in. It’s a global COVID-19 pandemic, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, once in a generation, once in a century, that has resulted, around the world, in untold human suffering and death, challenges to the unravelling of social relationships, and individual and societal loss of lives and livelihoods and prosperity.

It’s really strained health care systems and revealed, and also contributed to, widening inequalities. We’re seeing this around the world. What I think when I reflect on our B.C. Budget 2021 is that there are also some lessons that have emerged, I think globally and also reflected here in B.C., and captured within our budget. This is the acknowledgment of the importance of a public health care system and can’t be underestimated.

We heard the remarks from my colleague from Nelson-Creston, talking about her friends in the United States who don’t have access to public health care.

[3:55 p.m.]

The value of public health care, in the context of this pandemic, has become crystal-clear. I think it’s also been really crystallized for folks in British Columbia, across Canada, around the world, the value of our public services and the important role that they play to support all of us collectively, now facing this collective challenge of this pandemic — also, the importance of centering support and the role of government.

I think this is a critical issue in terms of what the role of government is in providing public services, in investing in services that support citizens. I think this is a real contrast in terms of really laying bare, from the previous government, policies of austerity, policies of underfunding public services and policies really shifting public services to privatized interests.

That has emerged globally and, I will say, also across Canada and British Columbia. I think it has shifted attitudes of British Columbia. We have really gone through incredible times and faced incredible stress — individually, families, businesses who have contracted COVID-19, had family members who have been sick and hospitalized — and also just really disrupting all of our lives.

I want to echo, I think, the sentiments of all members in the House about appreciating the dedication and professionalism and commitment of our front-line health care workers, who have really been there to support us, recognizing essential workers who have really stepped up and played the role. Just, as well, that these challenges of our generation….

Also recognize the sorrow as well, not being able to connect and not being able to support loved ones who were in hospital and, unfortunately, who pass away, not being able to grieve. That has impacted many of my friends and folks in Vancouver-Kensington and really had repercussions around the world with family members in other countries. So the challenges have been immense.

Our government, I’m proud to say, in Budget 2021, in unprecedented times, also has an unprecedented investment in terms of supporting British Columbians through this pandemic. We are now in the third wave. The virus has mutated, and variants are becoming more infectious. But we also have a mass vaccination program underway, which is also providing some hope in terms of getting through this. I am very confident that British Columbia, Canada and the world will emerge from this challenge of COVID-19 — with uneven development, but certainly, there’s hope on the horizon.

COVID-19 has also really exacerbated inequalities and income disparity. It’s contributed to that. Dr. Bonnie Henry has characterized that we’re in the same storm, but people are in different boats. It’s impacted people differently, particularly those working in low-wage essential jobs and also racialized communities. So our budget recognizes that and takes significant steps to support British Columbians.

Budget 2021 focuses on our province’s response and recovery from the pandemic. Priority one is protecting the health and safety of British Columbians. That goes hand in hand with supporting people and businesses to continue to manage through the effects of the pandemic and also doing the work moving forward in terms of recovery.

We know that there is a broader economic picture in terms of expecting recovery in the year ahead. We know that British Columbia is poised to have a stronger recovery than the national average, and it really speaks to the resilience of our province. To go hand in hand with that, B.C. has provided more supports per capita for people and businesses than any other province, and that’s reflected in our budget.

[4:00 p.m.]

I’d like to speak to a couple of the key components that are addressed in the budget. The primary issue, I think — the foundation that’s important, that will lay the ground work for our success to make it through the pandemic — is our health care system, which is so important and crucial. We know it’s shown not only in British Columbia, around the world, the value of a strong public health care system.

We know more and more people are becoming vaccinated. Budget 2021 continues to invest in funding for health, as well as mental health, to continue to support folks suffering from COVID-19 and also to expand services that British Columbians rely on.

We know, as well, there is unprecedented investment in the largest-ever vaccination program in B.C.’s history to ensure that every British Columbian can receive their vaccine. I have registered with the online program — it is quite easy — and am waiting for my schedule. I appreciate the efficiency of the vaccination program as well. The funding and expansion for our health care services are critical and key.

Hand in hand, in terms of the challenges, is the need to support folks. It has put unprecedented pressure on folks’ mental health. We know that young people, because of the limited social interaction…. The B.C. government has prioritized keeping schools open. That has shown to be such a critical factor for development for young people. That helps, but we know that there is incredible stress and incredible mental health challenges for young people right across the board. That’s why Budget 2021 makes the historic investment in mental health services and also to address substance use issues.

These are challenges that are unprecedented and so im­portant and critical. I want to talk about a few of the mental health supports and talk about some other components, as well, in our health care system, so critical.

Budget 2021 will invest in new mental health supports for young adults and youth through schools, expanding the very successful Foundry centres which have been shown to be a great model initiated from the previous government. Our government is expanding that to ensure we have integrated child and youth supports. That has been expanded to more school districts.

We are also providing the First Nations Health Authority more funding to further deliver mental health and addictions services to Indigenous peoples and increasing access to the full spectrum of substance use treatment and recovery services, including funding for opioid treatment.

We know that we are facing the dual crises of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and also the opioid overdose crisis, concurrently needing to address those two crises that are taking just an incredible toll on British Columbians now. A key support to help people get on the path to recovery is with new substance use treatment and recovery beds, so key to break that cycle of addiction. Expanding support for health care. The largest, record investment in mental health and substance use services.

Also, ensuring that seniors are supported. We know that seniors were really at the forefront, in terms of being victimized by COVID-19 through illness and through death. Our government took immediate steps to address staffing levels in the long-term-care sector. Previous to the COVID-19 pandemic, we increased the residential care hours per resident per day to bring that up to 3.36 hours a day.

[4:05 p.m.]

Once COVID came in place, we also instituted the single-site order, where staff could work for full-time hours and receive the benefits at one facility. Then we also levelled up wages across the sector.

Part of the contrast, in terms of ensuring that seniors were adequately supported and that they had quality care in the long-term-care sector, was bringing these measures in that had been dismantled by the previous government. Looking at COVID-19 really made it clear, in terms of the importance of a strong and regulated long-term-care and assisted-living sector — the importance of that. We’ve seen other jurisdictions, other provinces, who are still grappling with these issues. Certainly, it’s a key commitment.

As well, with seniors care, we know that seniors, from a policy perspective, prefer to stay in their homes and live in community. Our government recognizes that and has additional funding to support seniors to age in place and to be supported in the community. We are also continuing to support the hiring of staff in the long-term-care sector.

Those are key commitments and really fundamental in terms of ensuring that seniors are supported, that they have adequate care and that we look at quality of life as well. That’s one message that I hear, loud and clear, from seniors. It’s really important to move away from an institutionalized model of care to a quality of care model. Certainly, having adequate staff who are adequately compensated is such a key component of that.

Our government has also made a commitment to building beds and ensuring that seniors have access to their own rooms in the public sector, with non-profit organizations. That’s a key commitment for seniors, moving forward, in British Columbia.

I know I hear, from many folks here in Vancouver-Kensington, of challenges around housing, challenges around child care and challenges around affordability. I’m pleased that Budget 2021 takes significant steps and makes investments to address these key concerns raised by British Columbians. We are on track with our ten-year plan.

We’ve made the single-largest investment in housing in B.C.’s history. To date, we have 26,000 new housing units, and we’re continuing to build on that through the HousingHub, which is an innovative model to bring together developers and non-profits and organizations that deliver housing, to bring them together to build affordable housing. We have an additional $2 billion investment to support thousands of new homes for middle-income families and an anticipated 9,000 new units over the next three years.

In addition to complementing our housing strategy is addressing social and affordable housing; housing for middle-income families, seniors, and Indigenous people; and housing for women and children leaving violence. Here in Vancouver-Kensington, we have a new commitment underway and the building construction of seniors’ housing down Fraser Street. We also have two additional housing projects underway, being built. Those are very positive additions — very appreciated, much needed — that are being addressed with Budget 2021.

We know, as well, the issue that we’ve seen really exposed — the widening and deepening gap of income inequality. Our government has taken steps to address that. Raising the seniors supplement, the first increase in the seniors supplement, doubling that. Also, the largest increase for income assistance. Also, income assistance for people living with disabilities, those who are really needing that support. Those are important commitments as well.

[4:10 p.m.]

Coupled with a priority around addressing inequality, there is addressing affordable housing. We have investments in child care. We have increased supports to seniors through the seniors supplement and also through income assistance. Coupled with that, as well, are investments in really ensuring that there is an opportunity for training and gaining new skills.

We have new training spaces that also have been br­ought in — training spaces in the health sector through the health care access program. New additional funding for training programs through our StrongerBC economic recovery plan, a focus on Indigenous skills training and, also, targeted work-integrated learning placements for 3,000 post-secondary students. This is a focus in terms of bringing together all these pieces to ensure that in these unprecedented times we are providing supports for British Columbians to not only make it through the pandemic but to gain the skills to be successful moving forward.

Budget 2021 supports British Columbians by investing in health care. We’re expanding our primary care centres and urgent care centres across British Columbia, investing in infrastructure with hospitals in Surrey and also Richmond and really laying that foundation.

The component of investing in our capital spending is also integral. Our budget has prioritized supporting public services, providing opportunities for British Columbians, addressing inequality but also looking at investing in our infrastructure, which also underlines and is an important foundation of our economic recovery. It also generates jobs. It generates opportunities, and it’s an important in­vestment moving forward. We know that previous governments haven’t prioritized that. Budget 2021 represents a historic — the largest — investment in capital infrastructure in our province, the largest capital plan, which is significant.

We know that the issue of inequality has really been highlighted during COVID-19 and, as well, accompanied by unacceptable increases in racism across our province — anti-Asian racism and, really, racism against Indigenous individuals as well. It’s really brought that out. We know that in Vancouver, the Vancouver Police Department have reported an over 700 percent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. Burnaby, as well, is reporting an over 350 percent increase in hate crimes.

I recently spoke with a number of seniors. They also raised concerns about not only racism that particularly the elderly face; also a rise in anti-Semitism, a rise in hate crimes against seniors from the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer community — right across the board, concerns about these increases in hate.

As well, partly with the stress from COVID-19 but also because we have institutionalized and systemic racism and misogyny that’s built into our society, we are seeing increasing assault against women, particularly racialized women. That’s a real concern. Reports from organizations, Battered Women’s Support Services, concerns for women fleeing domestic violence — that they have a more difficult time getting out of abusive relationships because of the restrictions on movement.

[4:15 p.m.]

All of these issues are very concerning, and our government takes them seriously. These are issues that are not of a partisan nature and really require all of us across British Columbia — at all levels of leadership in the community, all levels of government — to take a stand. We all have a role to play, to come together to take a stand against ra­cism, for men to stand against violence against women and to really take action.

These issues have really been brought to the forefront and really magnified in the challenge of the pandemic. It also requires leadership from all of us across the aisle, across British Columbia, to take a stand against all forms of hate and violence. On the one extreme…. We know that assault is on the one extreme, and on the other extreme…. Objectification, verbal slurs and assaults, and jokes are on that other continuum. All of these attitudes are important to take a stand on, to really bring an end to these instances of hate.

Today I talked to a constituent in Vancouver-Kensington who had been the victim of a racist slur and attack. It was on Fraser and 41st Avenue. He was sitting in his car, and someone drove up. His name is Steven Ngo, and he has been on media, so I can talk about his story. Two young Caucasian men drove up beside him, shouted racial slurs and then threw some garbage at him. Steven made attempts to report to the police and really talked to me about needing to ensure that we address barriers for reporting hate crimes.

He is also undertaking community efforts to bring folks together across all communities to raise awareness, to encourage people to speak out and to work together to bring an end to this racism. He’s a member of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers and also works with the Vietnamese Professionals Association of B.C. — to come together to talk with communities to break the silence, to really report these instances and to encourage people to intervene and take an active role. That’s a positive example, in terms of how we need to address these issues.

I wanted to raise, as well, just the problems around racism that I’m hearing from across British Columbia. We know that in terms of our vaccination program, because of the disproportionate impact on health and the social determinants of health, Indigenous communities were prioritized for vaccinations. There were individuals who came forward, Indigenous folks who came forward, who faced racism around their being able to get the vaccinations. What’s really needed is for us, as British Columbians, to understand our history and to learn about the history of colonization and why Indigenous communities were prioritized for the vaccination protocol.

Moving forward, Budget 2021 also makes a commitment around reconciliation. At the core is the declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Reconciliation is a journey that each of us takes and that moves forward every day — individually, collectively and also as a government. So I’m pleased with the commitment of our government, in Budget 2021, to recognize the importance of reconciliation and to move forward to address those historic injustices.

We know, as well, that the challenges moving forward will be not only in terms of adequate funding for public services, ensuring that the supports are in place to support our small and medium businesses. We know that the industries of tourism, particularly in the hospitality sector, have been disproportionately impacted, and supports are going to them as well.

[4:20 p.m.]

Hand in hand, as well, and reflected in Budget 2021 is the commitment around the environment, which I wanted to reference. I’ve got a couple of minutes here be­fore I wrap up.

Those are key as well, not only in terms of the continued investment in CleanBC, which looks to reduce emissions from three priority sectors — transportation, buildings and industry — but also in terms of our approach and prioritization for the environment around…. It’s really across the board, in terms of conservation, protecting wildlife. We had the wildlife protection initiative, restoring wild salmon.

It’s also ensuring that our economy transitions to a low-carbon economy and also to a value-added manufacturing economy. We heard my colleague from Nelson-Creston talk about mass timber and how that is a more sustainable utilization of maximizing value from our forest sector.

These are some important components of Budget 2021. I’m going to wrap up with some key highlights. It’s made clear with the pandemic just how vitally important our public health care system is, our public services, and folks on the front line. I know that these are key, and British Columbians recognize that. I think how we’re going to get through this pandemic — we’re just making it through the third wave — is really all of us standing together, supporting each other, and really coming together as communities.

It’s been an unprecedented, challenging time. I want to thank my colleagues and all British Columbians for their efforts. The leadership of Dr. Bonnie Henry and our provincial health officers, as well as our Ministry of Health, has been exceptional, facing this challenge. I know that we will persevere. Budget 2021 takes us in the direction we need to go, supporting people, investing in our communities, ensuring that there are opportunities for all British Columbians to make it through this unprecedented challenge.

E. Ross: On behalf of my constituents of Skeena, I’m pleased to provide my insight and commentary into Budget 2021, this NDP government’s fifth budget in a row, dating back to the 2017 Budget Update.

Firstly, I’m pleased to comment on this budget because it’s in stark contrast to the supply bill, Bill 10, that we just got through debating, which had no numbers. It had no information. It was a one-pager just saying to the taxpayers of B.C.: “We want billions of dollars to be forwarded to the NDP government, but we don’t want to tell you how we’re going to spend it.”

In terms of the budget, at the very least, we’ve got some numbers to talk about. But unfortunately, everybody was expecting a budget that would actually bring us out or actually set the table for getting us out of the COVID crisis that we’re in. That didn’t happen. We don’t have a budget here that is actually looking forward to the time when we can open up our society.

It’s quite surprising, because this government actually got mandated, by their own vote and by their own ask, to have a budget later in April. Normally, we would see this budget in the third week of February. But because the NDP government granted themselves some extra time, they brought in a budget that actually fails British Columbia and fails British Columbians themselves.

If you look around the world and you look around in different jurisdictions, governments everywhere, leaders everywhere, are actually planning to get out of this COVID crisis. They’re planning through the budgetary process, in response to this pandemic — but not in B.C., unfortunately. It’s such a shame, because B.C. has so much to offer.

[4:25 p.m.]

I understand the anxiety, the stress, of what British Columbians are going through, not only in terms of the isolation that we’ve all strived to actually achieve but also the anxiety of losing an income, of losing a job, of not being able to visit our loved ones in hospital or even being able to visit our loved ones down the street, much less across the borders. And now, given this, that we’re where we can’t actually interact — and we understand the reasoning why we can’t interact — this B.C. government comes up with vague, confusing rules on travel restrictions in B.C. — currently, as we speak, right now.

Whereas other governments are actually planning for their recovery, this government is actually going the opposite way, with spend, spend, spend. Yet everybody understands, at least on this side of the House. We understand what it means to get an economy back on track and how important it is to get that economy back on track.

I’ve heard a lot about it here today: “For the people.” Well, what does that mean, apart from the job losses, apart from the revenues that are not coming into government? What does that mean? Ultimately, it means: how do we get our society back on track at the same time? Because that’s what an economy does. A large part of our society, here in Canada and B.C., is actually based on a good, strong economy. I know a lot of the members in here have never mentioned this before, because you’ve had the privilege of having an economy — took it for granted.

Well, talk to any First Nation in B.C. or Canada that has no economy. Come to my village. We have no shopping malls. We have no car sales. We have a small, little gas station, but the biggest employer on our reserve is the chief and council. And it’s not enough. It’s not enough to depend on a job under chief and council. It’s limiting. That’s why you see so many First Nations branching out of their reserves and trying to engage in the external economy outside of their communities.

Their reward is actually some of the answers that any level of government has not been able to address in the last 50 to 100 years. We’re talking about the social issues — substance abuse, suicides, kids going into government care, people going into prison. This is what a strong economy does. This is why so many First Nations signed on to LNG, from Prince George to Kitimat. They were trying to use the economy to address their social issues.

That’s why it was so disappointing, for the whole time I was working on the LNG, from 2004 to 2017, to find out that the NDP were actually opposing it. Nobody came to my office to talk about: what did LNG mean to my community? What did forestry mean to my community? What did mining mean to my community?

No thanks to this NDP government, things have turned around in my village. We’re not talking about those social issues anymore. We’re talking about what’s next. We’re talking about the $20 million condominium that we built right in the heart of the city of Kitimat. We’re talking about how that’s going to be the future for our people, our kids and our grandkids.

It’s really unfortunate to see that this budget actually does not address the economy, because the economy has always been the strong foundation of the Canadian society. Yet when you look at our neighbours, to the south, to the east, to the north, every government and jurisdiction is trying to plan how to recover economically.

[4:30 p.m.]

What this is going to lead to is a very competitive playing field. All these jurisdictions that surround B.C. will be competing for those investment dollars to come to their areas and their regions. They know what it means to the common average citizen in terms of their society, as well as a job to get a mortgage, to go on vacation, to buy a car, to buy a truck. They know what that means. So all our competitors are going to be very aggressive.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

We’ve already set the stage here in B.C. on how not to be competitive. Yet governments all around the world — at least competent governments — at the same time that they’re trying to be competitive and bring back their economies, they understand the threat of no economy coupled with ever-expanding deficits and accumulating more and more debt, with no way to pay that debt.

Every jurisdiction is actually trying to build up their economy so they can actually manage the debt and the deficits that they’ll be incurring. It’s a parallel process. But not in B.C. There’s no plan for economic recovery in B.C.

Even before this pandemic hit us, we knew there were going to be deficits and debt. We knew it. You could predict it. The NDP government ridiculed the B.C. Liberals for having a $2.7 billion surplus. Yet, running a government is just like running your home expenses. It’s the same thing. If you don’t put money away for a rainy day, you’re going to end up paying for it. In this case, we’re going to pay in terms of decades, paying off this debt, paying off these deficits. Our grandkids will be paying off these deficits.

Not only that, we’ll be paying the interest on these debts. What’s that number going to be, just in interest payments alone? Is it going to be $1 billion, $2 billion? If the credit rating drops, if that drops, that interest payment goes up. A responsible government understands this and plans for it. There’s no planning here.

Ultimately, it’s our kids and our grandkids who are going to have to see programs getting cut or like what we have seen in last four years — more taxes. If it’s not more taxes, it’s going to be: let’s increase the taxes that we already have. Let’s spend, spend, spend, and at the same time, let’s tax the B.C. citizen with 23 new or newly created or raised taxes here in B.C., at a time when everybody acknowledges this is the greatest suffering that we’ve seen in the 21st century. Let’s put more pressure on the British Columbian.

We knew it was going to be tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, and there’d be nothing left in case of a rainy day. Now we’ve got the rainiest day in at least my 55 years of history on this earth. That $2.7 billion surplus would have come in handy today.

It’s fiscal responsibility that’s lacking here. There’s not even a vision of fiscal responsibility here. How, currently, do we see the revenues coming in? I know, but nobody wants to admit it. The revenues that are coming in are through the high cost of housing in Vancouver and other urban areas of B.C. I can see why the NDP are slow to address that. It’s revenue for B.C. It’s going to come from logging, with the high cost of lumber. That’s how the B.C. government is going to try to keep up with the revenues. But nothing more than that.

[4:35 p.m.]

There’s nothing really in this budget or anything in the last four years that says to me that the NDP are actually truly concerned about the economy. All I’ve seen so far is tax, tax, tax, and spend, spend, spend. You can’t keep going back to the taxpayers for the revenues while you ignore the economy, while you ignore the private sector. Sooner or later, that taxpayer is going to get tapped out.

That taxpayer, like what we’re seeing today, loses their job. You don’t have that tax base to depend on. Or like what we’re seeing right now, where the taxpayer or the developer or the investor gets fed up with the jurisdictional framework that we see here in B.C., and they take their investment dollars to Alberta, where they have an 8 percent corporate tax rate as compared to B.C.’s 12 percent tax rate. Or they’ll head to the United States. We have seen this before in B.C.

This time it’s taken to a higher level. Now we are going to incur record amounts of deficits, and on top of that, the debt. I suspect that this government is not really putting together a plan on how to address the debt or the deficit. They’re going to leave that to my grandson, which is a shame.

When we talk about this, when we talk about the burden that would be borne by taxpayers — this year alone, just in spending, is $10 billion. That’s what the taxpayer will be burdened with. That represents an additional $10,000 debt per B.C. taxpayer by 2023, by the rate we’re going. I have heard a lot about this, on how we’re going to get our economy back. Well, there’s no proof of that in the budget.

In fact, if anything, when our society opens up, the economy is going to recover naturally. It will. That’s not difficult to predict, but unfortunately, there are some sectors that will not come back. If they do, it’s going to take a long time. A lot of the businesses that have actually gone under in the last year? They’re not coming back. The family businesses, the small entrepreneur, the small business person are not coming back. In most cases, when they lost their business, they lost everything.

This is only going to lead to poorer outcomes for the future of B.C. It’s going to take a long time to rebuild. While you’re rebuilding, you are going to have to actually divert a lot of those revenues towards trying to address the deficit. You are going to have to divert a lot of those revenues towards addressing the debt. You are going to have to divert a lot of those revenues to addressing the interest on that debt. The billions of dollars that you will spend in trying to address the deficit, the debt and the interest payments can be better served for our future generations in terms of highways, hospitals, schools.

But no. Just because of the fiscal irresponsibility and the politics, our grandkids are going to inherit higher taxes and program cuts.

[4:40 p.m.]

Meanwhile, our competitors will take advantage of that. They already are, given the politics of B.C. B.C. could only get one approved LNG project: LNG Canada. A $40 billion project — could only get one approved. What happens in the United States? The United States admits that B.C. has some of the cleanest LNG in North America. So their proposal is to take B.C. LNG and export that same product off the United States’ shores.

If there’s one ask for a shovel-ready project that I’d ask the government to look into, it’s doing an investigation on why Chevron cannot sell their 50 percent stake in the Kitimat LNG project. There’s got to be a reason. It’s been a year. It’s fully permitted. The pipeline is permitted. The supply is there. The market is there. The terminal is permitted. You’ve got First Nations support from Prince George to Kitimat.

Why can’t they sell that project in a world hungry for energy? There’s got to be a reason. If there’s anything in terms of what could actually help the economy of B.C. recover, there it is. It’s ready. Good to go. All we need is to understand why it can’t be sold.

While we are at it, why can’t Cedar LNG get off the ground? Cedar LNG in Kitimat. That’s actually owned by the Haisla Nation. These are billion-dollar questions. I don’t see this government anxious to answer them. Woodfibre, out of Squamish. These are all shovel-ready.

Yes, I understand that there are no PST revenues that are going to come to B.C., because the B.C. NDP actually got rid of that. They gave LNG Canada a PST tax holiday. Understandable. So, you know, we can’t get that in terms of revenues. We also understand that the 3.5 percent LNG tax is gone, thanks to the NDP. So we can’t depend on those kinds of revenues, and we can’t really depend on the revenues coming from the carbon tax above and beyond $30 a tonne, thanks to LNG.

We always hear the NDP talking about how the B.C. Liberals are always playing to the elite and their friends, yet they gave the biggest tax breaks in B.C. history to LNG Canada, to the amount of billions and billions of dollars. I think those revenues would’ve really come in handy today.

Yet we are only talking about two trains for LNG Ca­nada. That’s all we’re talking about. We still have two more trains, because LNG Canada expects to export 6.5 million tonnes annually. But with the additional two trains, they’re actually talking about exporting 26 million tonnes annually. Can you imagine what it’ll do to the economy of B.C. if Chevron gets off the ground? Why are we not talking about this?

I mean, the hard work that was done by First Nations from 2004 to 2017, in partnership with the B.C. Liberals, is actually what made LNG possible. It could’ve made us one of the wealthiest successful provinces in B.C. We still have an opportunity, given that there are more projects ready to go.

How did 20 minutes go by so quickly? I’ve only got ten minutes left. I’m going to cut short on that, because I think there has been enough said about the economy. But the budget does not mention anything in terms of practical initiatives on how to get our economy back, or even stronger, for that matter.

I only have time to probably address one more topic. What I do want to talk about is the treatment of our front-line workers, specifically doctors and nurses. Now, I hear the talk in here. Everyone is acknowledging the hard work that our front-line workers have been doing for us in this COVID crisis. We’re talking about health care workers, whether it be in clinics or hospitals. I even heard the NDP government mention it quite a number of times. But underneath that, this NDP government, for some reason, has undermined our doctors and nurses.

[4:45 p.m.]

In one case, you’re praising them, but on the other hand, you’ve undermined them. For what? For a racism charge. To call the whole health care system…. Putting them under the category of being systematically racist. How can you, on one hand, praise our doctors and nurses and, on the other hand, accuse them of being racist? It’s just a blan­ket accusation. This is not fair. This is not right. The doctors and nurses all across B.C. can’t defend themselves.

Yes, you say the health care system is systematically ra­cist, but what does that even mean? The system for health care in B.C. is not just the hospitals. There’s a number of different organizations associated with health care in B.C. There are committees. There’s the doctors college, the nurses association. There are health authorities. Even us, as legislators, we’re part of the health care system. We actually lay down the rules.

Are you saying all these organizations and all these peo­ple associated with health care are racist? That is unfair, because the face of health care in B.C. are the doctors and nurses. They’re the ones that are taking the brunt of these accusations. For what? For politics. The doctors and nurses, especially in the hospitals in Kitimat and Terrace, have actually become the focal point of the racism charge in B.C. The doctors and nurses there, in Kitimat and Terrace, chose to be there. They wanted to be there.

Now, after an eight-hour shift or a ten-hour shift of trying to deal with COVID, they have to go straight home because they’re afraid for their safety. They go home to cry. Male doctors and female doctors, male nurses and female nurse go home to cry because they’ve been labelled as racists. They can’t defend themselves. That is wrong.

For this government to simply agree, to say, “Oh, yes, the whole system is racist,” and not even deal with any of the specific allegations, not even deal with that…. Even the report that’s going to come out of Kitimat, we’re not going to see the results of that. It’s not going to vindicate Terrace and Kitimat hospitals or the doctors and nurses.

If the report is released, it’ll be redacted, meaning key information will be left out. Mostly what we’ll have to rely on is if any of these cases go to court. That’s going to take a couple years. That’s what most politicians rely on, of course — the amount of time that it takes a case to go through the courts. For what?

We’re seeing this not only in the health care system but other organizations where a blanket statement has been made in terms of racism, and then it’s just left. Yeah, we’ll set up committees. Yeah, maybe we’ll tour the province. But it will not help those doctors and nurses who now want to leave Kitimat and Terrace, because not only do they feel bad for being labelled as racists; they fear for their safety. They also fear for their family. They fear for their kids going out on the playground or going to school or their spouses going to work.

Racism, apart from the political agenda of calling our health care system racist…. We can see real racism in terms of what we’re watching on social media or on the news. That’s real racism. The Asian lady that got beaten up outside a business in the United States — that’s real racism.

[4:50 p.m.]

The Asians, whether or not they’re getting yelled at in the streets or in schools or in places of work, that is racism. You can address that. You’ve got evidence. You’ve got the video. That’s the kind of racism that you can address, not these blanket statements.

Nobody has made an apology to the doctors and nurses of B.C. — nobody. The doctors and nurses that I have talked to in Kitimat and Terrace, who cried, saying that they’re not racists, have also said that they have actually suffered along with their patients for the last ten, 20 years. They’ve sat beside the beds of patients, no matter what their race is, and cried with the families and patients. They didn’t look at skin colour. They didn’t look at anything.

They were following the policies and procedures, but at the end of the day, they’re human. When they witness suffering, they suffer too. They have feelings just like everybody else.

So be careful with the politics. Be careful with the accusations, no matter what it is, but be extra careful when you are accusing an entire profession of being racist. If you do find incidents of racism, deal with it. Have an investigation. Get the witnesses on record. Deal with it, and make sure you put in some kind of policy where it doesn’t happen again.

I’m not naive to think that racism doesn’t exist, but I don’t think it exists in a system. Most likely, it could be in individuals, but I haven’t seen it yet. In my whole lifetime of being a public leader, I have actually been called to three or four racism incidents. Out of those four, two of them came back that I could say, yes, that was based on racism — two of them. But I didn’t condemn a whole system. I didn’t condemn a whole organization. I just pointed out that it was a specific incident, and that was an individual responsibility.

If we are going to support our front-line workers — the police, the health care workers, those young people that are actually working in our grocery stores or in the coffee shops — then it’s got to be unequivocal support. It can’t be with the bad politics. It can’t be that, for the sake of a vote, because like everybody likes to say now, we’re all in this together. If we’re going to get out of this successfully, we’ve got to do it together.

H. Sandhu: I would like to begin my response to Budget 2021 by acknowledging that today I am virtually joining you from the unceded territory of the Okanagan Indian Nations. I thank them for their stewardship of this land.

I thank the staff and the hon. Minister of Finance for their hard work to prepare this budget.

Before I begin my response, I want to express my gratitude and want to thank the constituents of Vernon-Monashee for doing their part and for their patience to deal with the pandemic and for making many adjustments, including several sacrifices in their lives.

I would like to thank and proudly acknowledge, once again, my incredible and hard-working CAs at our Vernon constituency office, Josh and Emily. Both Emily and Josh continue to work so hard and with so much passion to help the people of Vernon-Monashee. I am so happy to share that Vernon-Monashee has such a great team working at our office who are well connected to the community and are always eager to go above and beyond to help our constituents.

I would also like to give kudos to our amazing and hard-working staff at the Legislature, including my LA, Pavanpreet, for their ongoing support.

I express my sincere condolences to the family members who have lost their loved ones to COVID, including some of our health care workers that we’ve lost to COVID and the lives lost in the opioid crisis. No words can describe your pain and the sorrow you’re going through after your loss.

[4:55 p.m.]

This is no secret — that this pandemic disproportionately affected the most vulnerable people, highlighting the inequalities and gaps that exist. Therefore, investing in such services…. These investments are so crucial and urgent. This budget is solely focused on investing in these areas, and this is why I’m proudly supporting this budget.

I acknowledge and thank our front-line workers, first responders, doctors, nurses, therapists, care aides, health care support staff, administrative staff and professionals, who are undertaking the largest vaccine rollout plan in Canada’s history, for doing such an incredible job. Thank you all for doing such an incredible job. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to our essential workers in retail, trucking, farming, trades, hospitality, small businesses and many volunteers with non-profit organizations. Also the daycare workers, social workers and our incredible teachers, for continuing your work and dedication during these unprecedented times.

I am proudly speaking in favour of Budget 2021, as this budget addresses helping everyone, including the most vulnerable and marginalized British Columbians, by leaving no one behind. Budget 2021 is also focused on improving vital services, like health care, mental health, affordable housing, seniors care and safer schools, and focused on economic recovery by creating 85,000 jobs.

The economy grows when people have more and equal opportunities, with fair wages and better services, as people become more productive when their mental and physical health is taken care of. When parents have better and affordable, safer child care, it makes it easier for them to be productive individuals of our economy. It’s no secret that cuts and austerity only benefit the few, and it hurts the economy and services. It takes a long time to fix the years-long neglect.

I have been hearing frustration from some of the members of the opposition. Some ask why members of the government are so proud of this budget. Some advise that we need better writers for our speeches. Let me, respectfully, be clear to my colleagues from the other side of the House. I’m not sure about you, but most of us, including myself, write our own notes, as there is nothing better than authenticity and a message from the heart.

Yes, it is important to get some information from the ac­tual sources, like the Budget 2021 document in this case, so we can share the right information with people rather than making stuff up to mislead British Columbians. We have every reason to appreciate and be proud of the im­provements and additions to the public services. We have witnessed a difference and felt firsthand the results of cuts versus additions to the vital services and the direct impact on people.

I’m not sure why members of the opposition are not impressed with us highlighting our government’s work, and they don’t like when we do the contrast when it’s need­ed. I try not to do too much contrast, to stay more positive. I just question: is this the fear of reminding people why some initiatives are taking longer and how the improvements in services are the steps in the right direction? Or some other reason? I don’t know.

Ironically, many members of the B.C. Liberal caucus still talk about the 1990s, which they can if they want to, yet they get so offended when we talk about 2016 or a few years back. I wonder why. Even many of my constituents also highlighted that during our many conversations.

The other frustration some members of the opposition shared is that members of the government side blame the B.C. Liberal government for their failures on many fronts. It’s not called blaming. It’s contrast, to compare government’s priorities and the impact on people. Contrast is very important in order to fill the gaps and to learn from the previous failures when important and vital services like health care, mental health, housing, child care and student housing were not fully supported.

[5:00 p.m.]

In fact, the B.C. Liberals implemented massive cuts and increased the privatization of services in health care and especially many nursing homes. I won’t go into the details of previous failures, as British Columbians are well aware about those times. I will stay focused on the positive aspects of Budget 2021. I’m not saying that my colleagues on the other side don’t care. They sure do, no doubt, as all of us stepped into this very important role to serve the people of our constituencies. Kudos to all of my colleagues from both sides of the House for all you do.

The only difference is that the various parties, our governments around the world and in Canada, have different priorities and policies, as we have all witnessed in the past. Some governments historically invest in the few interest groups and support privatizing versus adding and improving services. And at the same time, some historically and at present invest in people, focus on marginalized, less fortunate people and embracing diversity, inclusion, environment, and they leave no one behind, as Budget 2021 clearly focused on these key areas.

I am shocked today, hearing one of the headlines I was briefly reading. I want to point out that unlike the B.C. Liberals, we, the B.C. NDP government, believe the public money for services should be spent to help British Columbians, not redirected to election campaigns.

Recently what we are hearing about the B.C. Liberals and the Baldy Hughes treatment centre is shocking. The B.C. Liberals, according to that investigation, gave the facility millions in tax dollars. The opposition leader and Kevin Falcon personally delivered the half-a-million-dollar cheque. Then the executive director, a former B.C. Liberal staffer, forced the residents to volunteer on the campaign of the opposition leader and Kevin Falcon. More details about this can be found online as the Business in Vancouver journalists did their investigation.

Well, coming from a health care background, I have seen the difference and direct impacts of cuts and investments on the patients, seniors and health care staff. Therefore, I welcome this budget, which is investing more in health care. I want to congratulate many of my constituents graduating from the care aide course today, as I have received thank-you texts. People in my constituency and around are so grateful for a government for giving us an urgent care centre in Vernon and an MRI. And now people have faster and quicker access to diagnostic and medical care.

I also thank our B.C. government for hiring many nur­ses in mental health and substance use areas, as I have seen firsthand how helpful it has been. This is a great resource — to refer patients to our highly dedicated teams. We’re also getting eight additional treatment beds in Vernon-Monashee at Bill’s Place to help people in need.

Vernon’s overdose prevention site is saving lives. There were some media headlines sharing such a positive story of these investments. Since the opening of this site in Vernon, we had approximately 3,400 visits. Hundreds of visits were consumption-related, and many were first-time users needing more information, guidance and help.

Colleen McEwan, director of mental health and substance use, shared: “We have had 30 overdose events since we opened that site. Of those, 29 were managed by staff at the site. One had to go to the hospital, but luckily none died.” This is how these investments save many lives.

Every life saved is a step in the right direction and encourages us to continue these efforts so that no one must lose their loved ones to the opioid crisis. We do have much more to do, and therefore, I’m reassured that Budget 2021 addressed the mental health and opioid crisis proactively by government making the largest mental health investment in B.C.’s history. Budget 2021 will continue the expansion of mental health and substance use support to better connect people to culturally safe and effective care — $500 million in new funding over the fiscal plan to expand mental health and addictions services.

[5:05 p.m.]

We’re also building a better network of mental health support for youth by investing $97 million, the mental health in schools program, and expanding the numbers on integrated child and youth teams from five to 20 teams across B.C. by 2023 and 2024.

The additional services support more school and community-based multidisciplinary mental health and substance use services, support and expand the number of Foundry centres, expand the First Nations Health Authority’s ability to deliver mental health and addiction services to Indigenous people by investing $14 million. Besides that, 195 new substance use treatment and recovery beds throughout the province to help more people to get on the path to recovery.

So $61 million to improve access to quality of mental health services, including expanding eating disorder care and better access to suicide prevention services and early psychosis intervention. To address substance use and overdose emergency response, our government has added $330 million over the fiscal plan to provide a full spectrum of substance use treatment and recovery services, including $150 million for opioid treatment. And 195 substance use treatment, as I mentioned, in the communities throughout the province will help more people to get on a path to recovery.

One of my constituents and a small business owner, Kal, shared her thoughts after the recent investment: “Having lost a sibling to drugs, I truly appreciate the efforts made by the NDP government. Thank you for sharing. I watch this on TV with a smile.” Kal shared this under one of my posts that I shared regarding the mental health initiatives previous to this budget as well.

Under child care, Budget 2021 also doubles the child care spaces, with improved wages for child care providers. Currently more than 36,000 families in B.C. have access to $10-a-day child care. Our government’s commitment to expand child care and early learning to create jobs, stimulate the economy and make sure that children can have the best possible start in life is a much appreciated effort by many parents I talk to regularly.

As I previously also mentioned, the nurturing care and investment in the early years of a child leaves a lasting impact and a positive impact on a child’s life. This also enhances their mental health from early on. Investing in child care is investing in B.C.’s future. There is no doubt about that. Our government’s announcement of opening new child care centres in Vernon and Coldstream is going to help many parents in Vernon-Monashee.

This budget also focuses on economic well-being and support for local businesses and individuals and families. Not only that, students across the province have told us that finding affordable housing on campus was a huge challenge. So I’m excited to share that our government is spending over $66 million for 376 new student housing beds at the Okanagan College, and this includes 216 beds at Kelowna campus, 100 beds at Vernon campus and 60 beds at Salmon Arm campus. This means an expansion of student housing in Kelowna and the first-ever student housing project in Vernon and Salmon Arm.

This investment will benefit generations of students throughout the region, and with this project, we are also investing in B.C.’s forestry sector by using mass timber construction. We announced the mass timber project at BCIT last fall that will support the construction of a 464-bed, 12-storey student housing project at BCIT Burnaby campus. The mass timber project helps the local communities and the First Nations thrive. This project alone will create more than 500 direct and indirect jobs. Our B.C. government understands how partnership, innovation and legacy projects contribute to a strong and a resilient economy.

Our track record is delivering on more on-campus student housing, and it speaks for itself. Since 2018, our government has funded over 2,000 student beds compared to the 130 beds over the 16 years under our B.C. Liberal government. We are well on our way to meeting our commitment to invest $450 million over six years to provide about 5,000 new beds at public post-secondary schools throughout B.C.

[5:10 p.m.]

Not only that, but we are also investing in student housing at the University of British Columbia Kelowna, with 220 beds, a student housing project at Skeena commons. It is a $25 million project. So $18.7 million is provided by the provincial government, and $6.2 million is by UBCO. My daughter, who is also a student at UBCO, excitedly shares with me the amount of appreciation and excitement her fellow students have shared for this much-needed investment.

I’ll talk a little bit about housing in Vernon. B.C. Housing is providing $5 million of capital funding, through the affordable rental housing program, to the Vancouver Resource Society for the Physically Disabled’s 41-unit affordable rental project in Vernon, on 27 Avenue. Besides that, B.C. Housing is also providing the capital funding to a new Aboriginal housing development, through provincial investment in the affordable housing program. Vernon Native Housing Society is receiving $4.4 million for a 38-unit project for Vernon, and $2.4 million in deepening the affordability funding.

The province is also providing capital funding of ap­proximately $12.8 million for two permanent modular projects. The two projects will be operated by Turning Points Collaborative Society. A new permanent modular housing project will be located on the land owned by B.C. Housing at 27 Avenue and 35 Street, which will provide 52 supportive housing units for the people transitioning out of homelessness. This is a completed project, and many people are already benefiting from that.

A new permanent modular housing shelter with ap­proximately 45 beds at 43 Street will expand the capacity of the current homeless shelter and transition housing development at Howard House. In addition to that, B.C. Housing is providing capital funding of Habitat for Humanity’s B.C. affiliate — $150,000 to complete the building of one triplex, which will provide three family units. B.C. Housing is also providing approximately $3.1 million capital funding to the Canadian Mental Health Association for a 29-unit project at 25 Avenue. This project aims to provide affordable housing to low-income families and seniors.

Under highway improvements, for the 97 and Stickle Road intersection in Vernon, to improve safety, and the single-lane southbound extension of 20 Street to the south end of the existing Stickle Frontage Road, to accommodate future expansion, a total of $15 million was provided by provincial government. An intersection improvement was completed in December 2018, and the extension of 20th Street was completed in 2019. So investments are made in infrastructure and to improve the highways as well.

The B.C. recovery benefit. For many families, in many ways, when we go through hardship, every support helps. I still receive many kind messages and cards from many constituents texting and sharing their stories of how the B.C. recovery benefit helped them.

Tourism, farming and small businesses are some of the major contributors in our economy in Vernon-Monashee, and Budget 2021 focuses on a robust economic recovery plan to continue to support small and medium-sized businesses. Steps were taken by the government to support our businesses through property tax cuts, deferred tax payments and B.C. Hydro rate relief. The small and medium-sized business recovery grant and, recently, the doubling of the circuit breaker grant as well, are well received and much appreciated by businesses in my community.

I have had the opportunity to meet many business owners recently, like Lisa and her neighbouring business owner, who had discovered about the grant from me, and then I told her to encourage other business owners if they were not aware. Just recently Lisa excitedly told me that she’d received the grant and how grateful she was. Now she’s able to buy new equipment for her business and pay the rent. These stories are really heartwarming, and it encourages us to do the job that we’re all doing, no matter which side of the House we are on.

[5:15 p.m.]

I’m glad that Budget 2021 is guided by our core principles, including climate action and reconciliation with Indigenous People. Our government is making significant investments in our beautiful B.C. parks. At the time when more British Columbians are safely enjoying our spectacular outdoors, we’re boosting the Parks budget by $83 million over three years. This will help to build new campsites, to expand trails and to create better parks.

Our government also introduced the bold, first-of-its-kind $500 million strategic fund to invest in B.C. business to spark innovation and create jobs. This will also move us forward on issues like climate change, diversity and inclusion and reconciliation. B.C.-based businesses will have the capital to position us as front-runners in the post-secondary pandemic economy.

I’ll just simplify some of the highlights of this budget for my constituents.

There is $2 billion for more homes, on top of the existing housing investments. The largest funding of mental health supports in B.C.’s history. Doubling the $10-a-day child care spaces, including 75 more universal child care spaces. Doubling of wage enhancement for early childhood educators. Some of the largest increases to income support for the people with disabilities and seniors since 1987. Construction of new schools across the province. Over $800 million for small business supports. More high-speed Internet across B.C., especially in rural and Indigenous communities. Massive increases to health care and mental health care funding, as I mentioned earlier.

Free transit for kids 12 and under. It’ll save families $672 annually per child. Having three children of my own, I can appreciate this investment and how it’s going to make a positive impact and teach our children to use the public transit more.

And $290 million towards the reconciliation initiatives. There are many more investments to replace old infrastructure, adding tens of thousands of new jobs. So why wouldn’t I be so proud of this budget?

B.C. Fruit Growers Association is also glad to see the support for local farmers in the 2021 provincial budget. The provincial Agriculture Ministry will receive a $4.4 million increase to its core budget, which now sits close to $100 million. The B.C. Fruit Growers Association’s general manager, Glen Lucas, said that the investment is a step in the right direction. Mr. Lucas said: “From an overall perspective, it is a good trend and trajectory for the agriculture budget.”

We’re investing $258 million to help to keep long-term care facilities safe, hiring up to 3,000 health care aides and improving care for seniors living at home. We’re also raising the seniors supplement by $50, the first increase since 1987, which will also help 80,000 seniors with low income to make ends meet.

Part of our budget is that — given the pandemic and unforeseen investments that we had to make to support individuals, families and small and medium-sized businesses, health care and education and other areas — the deficit was predicted to be more than $13 billion, but it is at $9.7 billion. We are predicted to move back towards the balanced budget within five to seven years.

The B.C. NDP presented three consecutive balanced budgets up to February 2020, before the pandemic hit. We have maintained a triple-A credit rating, and this was achieved without siphoning money away from Crown corporations. I am confident that we will come out of this pandemic even stronger.

Given the pandemic and the need to stimulate the economy, to keep people safe and healthy, to address the needs that will arise by this pandemic, we cannot penny-pinch. For a government, people come first, and we know the importance of investing in people by adding and improving services. These investments always pay off in the long run when we have healthier and vibrant communities with equal opportunities for everyone.

[5:20 p.m.]

I would like to say thank you to all of the people of Vernon-Monashee, once again, and to British Columbians, from the bottom of my heart, for doing your part and for making many sacrifices and adjustments in your lives to deal with the pandemic. COVID has brought the best and the worst out of people. We have clearly seen this. However, it is reassuring to know that we have more good than bad in this world, which makes our communities beautiful.

I would like to thank every individual from my riding for showing your strength, resiliency and care, to help. We have hope on the horizon, with the vaccine, but COVID variants bring more challenges for us. Therefore, we still need to hold the line for a little bit longer. Together, we can do this.

I conclude my remarks by proudly supporting Budget 2021. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to speak.

J. Rustad: It is an honour, once again, to have an opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents in Nechako Lakes. I want to, as always, start by acknowledging them — acknowledging the great people in the riding and all that they do. I thank them for their continued support in sending me to Victoria.

Budget 2021 touches on a lot of things, but there are a couple of other things that I want to mention right at the start. First of all, today is the Day of Mourning, and as someone who has been injured in the workplace, I know what it means. It’s an important day to be able to recognize the need for safety and also recognize the people that have lost their lives in their day-to-day work. All of us in this Legislature need to continue to do everything we can to make sure that people can go to work and come home safe, to be able to do all the work that helps to make this province such a great place.

I’ve thought about the budget, and I’ve read through the budget material and gone through this in many, many ways, looking at things. There are some things in this budget that I actually think are okay. I think it’s good to see some additional spending on mental health. Mental health and addictions are such problems in this province. The devil, of course, is always in the details, but I’m encouraged that there is some additional money, at least notionally, allocated towards doing some things here.

All you have to do is walk through places like Strathcona Park. You don’t even have to go that far. You can go into many of the communities, even in my riding, and you can see some of these issues that need to be addressed. They need to be worked on. My hope is that what is talked about in this budget will actually come about.

The previous speaker, the speaker from Vernon-Monashee, talked about different priorities. I agree. There are different priorities, and there are differences in opinions. It’s important to recognize that, because there is no necessarily right answer. It depends on what your priorities are within government, what it is you’re trying to do.

Services for people are important, and those are critical, especially at times of going through a pandemic, but also what we leave to our children — what the world will look like after our time — and to their children and to their children’s children. When we start talking about ringing up huge amounts of debt — yes, there is deficit spending that’s needed, and there are times when that’s important — running deficits is a tax on a future generation because, at some point, they have to pay for it. I think that that’s an important piece to think about.

Under this NDP government…. They’ve been there now for four years, and through this budget, they are going to double the provincial debt — double it — in such a short period of time. Some people say, “Well, we can afford it,” or: “It’s okay.”

There’s something else to think about: interest rates. For example, the ten-year bond in Canada has tripled, in terms of the actual interest being charged. What is that going to do to debt payments? Yes, it’s still low, but that tripled in just six months. What happens if it does that further? How much of the budget will then start to get eaten up by interest payments, just to try to manage a budget?

[5:25 p.m.]

There’s no recognition whatsoever that I could find in this budget, any sort of consideration to any potential increase in interest rates that may be coming, particularly on the long end, as we face things like inflation. That’s an important piece to think about when you’re putting together a budget.

Yes, investments are needed. Taking on debt is needed, but how we afford it, how we pay for it over time, also needs to be taken into consideration. That usually means that, as a province, as an organization, we need to think about how we can grow the economy at a faster rate than we’re growing spending so that we can improve our GDP, we can improve our debt levels, and we can make it affordable because those additional revenues will be coming in. Yet in this budget, there is nothing but lip service towards any of that sort of component.

To put it another way, under the NDP, we have seen significant increases in spending. The budget, back in 2017, was around $47 billion. By the end of this term, it’ll be $69 billion on an ongoing basis. We are talking about more than a 40 percent increase in spending in just the first term of this government plus the length of this budget — a 40 percent increase in spending.

What has happened in our economy during that period of time? Well, it has been averaging 1½, 2½, maybe 3 percent. In other words, over that period of time, we are expanding spending at more than twice the rate, if not three times the rate, that the economy is actually growing. It’s important to think about that in terms of investments, because if you want to bring in capital to be able to encourage investment, there are a couple of areas where it can really make a difference.

Yes, there’s the support that’s needed for people on things like mental health and education, health issues in general. But we also have to think about things like productivity. We need to be able to be competitive with our neighbours. There are also things about our overall competitiveness — as I just said, productivity is one piece of that — to be able to attract the money, to create the jobs, to grow our economy at a faster rate, to afford these investments and to afford, going forward, being able to balance our budget. Yet there is virtually nothing in this budget for that.

I’ll get to some numbers on that in a minute. The reason why I’m saying that is that in the budget numbers, it says that by the third year of this budget, we’ll return to, basically, 2 percent growth, yet budget spending is anticipated to expand by 4 to 5 percent. It is a recipe for fiscal disaster, just like it has always been under the NDP. They just don’t get it. They don’t understand how an economy works. They don’t understand how a budget needs to work. That’s really unfortunate, because the people who really will end up paying the bill are our children and our grandchildren.

Throughout the budget, you look at it, and I talk about productivity and competitiveness. The budget, of course, talks about many, many things. For example, it talks about bringing support for people. The word “support” is mentioned 2,482 times. The reason why I bring this up is that there was a good analysis done on the federal budget — the 739 pages of the federal budget — which talked about some of these numbers. It got me thinking, and I wanted to look at what was said about the B.C. budget.

The word “Indigenous” was mentioned 979 times — an important issue, important things to be talking about — yet “productivity” was mentioned just 14 times. It wasn’t even a focus; it just happened to be in passing, a mention. The word “competitiveness” was only mentioned 31 times. So as the member for Vernon-Monashee said about different priorities, clearly, this government has a very different priority.

[5:30 p.m.]

I get it. We need to support people. It’s important, especially going through this pandemic and the challenges that people have faced, but it leaves a huge, gaping hole in terms of our future. You cannot keep spending at a 4 to 5 percent growth, massively increasing debt, and only getting a 2 percent GDP growth. It is not possible.

That’s one thing I like about math, when you look at math, because it’s impervious to spin. Well, actually, it’s impervious to the stuff that comes out of the back end of a bull, but since I can’t use that language, it is impervious to spin, because math is math. It’s straightforward. You can talk about it from various ways, but at the end of the day, math is pretty straightforward. It’s pretty simple stuff.

I think about this budget and the pieces that have gone into it, and it is unfortunate, because it missed a huge opportunity. I said this in my response to the throne speech, because the throne speech missed that same opportunity, which is to talk about a path about how British Columbia can grow in various ways to actually improve the lives of future generations beyond just spending on services.

You think about it. Every jurisdiction in the world is going through the same thing right now with COVID. Everybody’s economy’s been hit. Everybody’s tourism has been devastated. Everybody is struggling, putting money into the economy and productivity and trying to find ways to be able to grow, to be able to support jobs, to be able to overcome these challenges. The NDP’s approach has been to add 60,000 jobs to the public service. Okay. Well, that’s still down 40,000 jobs in the private sector. Ultimately, it’s the private sector that drives the soundness of an economy.

Like I said, every jurisdiction is going to be competing with us. So what’s B.C.’s edge? Yes, we’ve got great people. We’ve got very skilled and capable people in this province. We’ve got beautiful scenery. We’ve got lots of natural resources. But according to Russ Taylor, we are one of the least attractive places for the forest sector to invest. Why? Because we’re uncompetitive. We need to figure out how to change that.

According to other reports, it takes 168 days longer just to build a warehouse in this province than it does in places in the United States. So 168 days longer. How is that competitive? How does that help with productivity? How do we fix these kinds of problems?

My colleague from Skeena talked about the Chevron LNG project. Here you’ve got a fully permitted pipeline — a fully permitted project, ready to go — and they can’t even give it away. They can’t even find somebody to buy it. They’re not willing to make the investment, because they look at it and say we have too many challenges here in this province. Why? We’ve got to fix this problem, people.

As bipartisan as you want to make it…. I mean, yes, I’m blaming the NDP for many of the problems, but the reality is simple. We have to fix these problems, or our province is going to be in real tough shape going forward. We have to fix these problems, or we’re not going to see the wage gains that we need to see for people so that they can be able to afford these challenges. We have to fix these problems, because we are going to see inflation. We are going to see an eroding of our quality of life unless we can grow faster than what we’re doing.

I think about forestry. I have the opportunity and the honour to be the forestry critic. I went through this bud­get, and I thought: “Oh, well, there’s lots of extra spending. Maybe there will be some things here that will improve things on the environment.”

I’ve got to tell you. Wildlife wasn’t even mentioned in the budget. Going through it in word search, wildlife was mentioned twice, only in terms of the Wildlife Act. There is nothing for wildlife, and there is nothing for habitat. The word “habitat” isn’t even mentioned once. Not even once. Here we are, having a huge problem with declining wildlife populations, particularly the ungulates. At the same time, massive increases in predators. Nothing.

[5:35 p.m.]

Previously, the NDP government, in their platforms, talked about improving funding. There was a $20 million commitment. That’s all gone. There is nothing I can see in this budget for that. As a matter of fact, forestry itself was only mentioned four times in the budget. Four times. To add insult to injury, the forestry budget has been cut, consistently cut, each year of the three-year mandate, at a time when we have huge issues.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

There was over two million hectares of land that were burned a couple of years ago. The budget made a very vague reference about tree planting. Okay, tree planting is good. We’re going to get up to 300 million trees. That’s just barely above what we normally plant. We need to be around 350 million trees a year if we want to even start touching the amount of rehabilitation and work on that ground.

To top it all off, the one organization in B.C. that has held that responsibility for doing so much of that work is Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. They’re out of money, and there’s nothing in this budget to put new money into that organization or even to create a replacement organization. I guess that’s how much the NDP really care about the environment — lots of virtual signalling, very little in terms of actual real action on the ground that’s going to benefit people in Nechako Lakes or the province as a general.

Like I say, it’s a lost opportunity. There is so much that could have been done, laid out in a throne speech that talked about how we improve our province both socially but also economically — how we get to a place where we could have that strong economy that can continue to support programs and services so that future governments are not going to have to be saddled with the fiscal irresponsibility that we are seeing today.

I had the opportunity a number of years ago during the beginning of the…. No, actually, it wasn’t the beginning. The pine beetle epidemic started under the NDP and was completely mismanaged. When we had to really ramp up, at the height of the pine beetle epidemic, I had a chance to hear a presentation from a fellow who was in Tumbler Ridge.

There were lots of communities that were saying: “You know, we need the services so that we can help our people get through and be able to keep people in the community.” He stood up and said something very honest and very straightforward that is worth repeating. He said: “When the coal mines shut down in Tumbler Ridge, it wouldn’t have mattered if they had had a pool or any number of other services. People would have left because they didn’t have a job.”

It’s an important point to think about. Services are critically important, but at the end of the day, you have to have an underlying economy. You have to have underlying economic activity to be able to support families so that families will stay there, so that children will be able to stay in communities, so that people can retire in communities. If the work isn’t there, people leave. It doesn’t matter what types of services were there and in place.

I’ll never forget that presentation because it was in such stark contrast to what everybody else was saying at the time, but it was a moment of truth that needs to be thought about.

How do we think about that economy? Well, unfortunately, as I mentioned about the forestry budget, the mining budget also declined. Yes, there’s talk about getting low-carbon initiatives to be able to support industries like forestry and mining, but the reality is really simple. According to the mining industry, if we don’t see a new mine opened up, by 2040, there’ll only be five mines left in this province.

Some people may say: why does that matter? Well, you know, if you want a green economy, you need copper. You need base metals. You need to be able to extract those minerals out of the ground to be able to support the kind of effort to have those green initiatives. That means you have to be able to attract capital.

In my riding, I’m very fortunate. I’ve got a number of mining operations in Nechako Lakes, in and around the area. One that we’ve got great hopes for is the Blackwater project. It’s a large gold mine, with other products that will be produced with it. They think they might have a line now on the capital. But I have seen numerous projects that are ready to go, and they cannot attract the capital in this province.

It comes back to the same issue that I talked about from the beginning. What actually is B.C.’s competitive position compared to other jurisdictions? Has anybody done the analysis and actually looked? Mining reports do, and they don’t rank us very well.

[5:40 p.m.]

What is our productivity compared to other jurisdictions? I listened to a report just this past weekend that said that down in the United States, for every dollar that is going into helping productivity, there’s only 58 cents in Canada that’s going towards productivity. Well, you can see what the end result of that’s going to be. If we’re not as productive and we’re losing ground, if we’re not as competitive and we are losing ground, that money can go anywhere.

Unfortunately, people are mobile too. If those jobs and opportunities start going elsewhere instead of coming to British Columbia, people will follow. The NDP learned that lesson in the 1990s, with more people leaving this province than coming into it. Unfortunately, they didn’t remember that lesson because they are doing the exact same things again.

So how do we change that? It’s a perfect opportunity to strike a blue-ribbon panel on competitiveness, on productivity, to look at our province and come forward with solid recommendations that would be implemented, not just paid lip service to, not just the virtual signalling on it but to actually make a difference. A lost opportunity. It’s really unfortunate.

For the people of Nechako Lakes…. We depend on the natural resource sector. That’s why I talk about it so much. Forestry, mining, agriculture are the core that supports the communities. That’s the core that supports people being able to volunteer, that supports people being able to help out, whether it is food banks or whether it is shelters or whether it is people’s football team or soccer team or playing hockey.

You need to be able to have that economic activity within the area. You need to be able to have those opportunities to be able to really build the solid fabric of a good community.

Yes, government supports are critical. They’re important. I thank the government again, as I have a number of times, for looking at having, actually, a line in the budget now for building a new hospital in Fort St. James. I look forward to that. Still need to work out what the plan there is going to be in terms of staffing. That’s something that can be worked on.

The community of Fort St. James…. If it didn’t have a forest industry, it wouldn’t need a hospital. If they didn’t have those kinds of investments, you wouldn’t have the people wanting to live there. Yes, it’s a beautiful place, and there are the First Nations communities in the area. That’s their home; they’re going to stay there. But population would drop off pretty dramatically if we didn’t have that sector — and mining, for that matter, too.

One of the mines that supports Fort St. James and Mackenzie, which is Mount Milligan…. You know what the most recent report says? It’s got nine years left. So what’s going to replace that? It’s 500 to 600 direct jobs. You’re talking about 1,000 jobs, direct and indirect, that go into the area. What’s the replacement? What’s the plan for attracting the capital and attracting the kinds of things that are going to support those people to be able to have those jobs?

I’ve gone on quite at length on a number of these things, obviously. I’m going on because it is important to think about. I know the talking points that the government side has. They go through. I’ve been on the government side. You see these points about: “We’re spending money here. We’re doing this. We’re doing that. Aren’t we doing great things?” It’s all the spin. All that stuff that I talked about. The reality is that the core and the economy and the math are impervious to that spin.

I also looked at this program that’s going to be set up. I’m really interested in seeing the details of this InBC program — $500 million to go into it. That’s going to have these three priorities: people, the planet and profits. Well, that’s interesting. If the company is not making money but it’s doing really well on the other two, does that make it a success? It can’t afford to operate except with a government subsidy. Is that successful?

[5:45 p.m.]

It will be interesting to see just how this works. The unfortunate part is…. There’s a bill coming up, and I’m sure I’ll get a chance to talk about it. It certainly sounds like a slush fund to support local priorities from this government.

When I looked at…. Another thing in there that I really am looking forward to, when we get into the estimates…. What exactly is a notional allocation of $3.5 billion, starting in 2022 and 2023, for caseload pressures? I thought the whole point of doing all this spending and trying to get things going was to improve the economy so that you would have less people relying on government and government services.

Why is the budget talking about needing $3.5 billion in year 2 and year 3 for caseload pressures? It’s curious, and it’s a direct contradiction to what the government has been talking about in terms of the actual goal of the economy, in terms of building and doing things. A notional allocation.

There are so many things that a person could touch on with regards to the budget. I guess, maybe, I’ll close with this.

For the people living in the Lower Mainland, as well as the people living, really, across the province, the environment and wildlife matter. Yet there’s no effort at all on wildlife and wildlife recovery. No plan to be able to reverse the decline in ungulate populations. No plan to be able to manage predators. No mention of it in the budget. I think that’s an important piece that is really missing that I, once again, want to highlight.

I think, for the people across the province, when they think about support and they think about how an economy is built…. Well, let me rephrase that. Most people don’t think about these things. Most people just listen to the virtual signalling and those other things. At the end of the day, they should listen to it. Sixty-five to 70 percent of our economy is consumer-driven, but consumers cannot foot the bill to be able to expand our economy unless we are seeing the kind of economic growth that’s needed. I think that’s just one piece, that whole connection.

The last thing I’ll touch on…. My riding gets a little bit of tourism that comes through. It’s a beautiful area with so many lakes, so many outdoor recreational opportunities, but tourism has really taken a hit.

What are we doing, as a province, to stand up and say: “We’re leaders. We want you to come here. We want to try to find ways to really expand this province’s reputation and have people look at us as the destination of choice”? I can tell you. Every other jurisdiction in the world is doing it. So what are we doing? Where is the plan?

Once again, I think that is a bit of a lost opportunity — that we did not have a coherent plan, other than basically shovelling money off the back of a truck, to be able to really attract the kind of business and try to rebuild the sector that has been hurt so hard.

In going through this, like I say, I…. There are things in this budget that I think could be helpful. There are certainly some things in the budget which will help some people in my riding, but there is a lot that is missing. A lot that really should have been in this budget to be able to see the people of Nechako Lakes be able to prosper and to continue to be able to support the families and communities.

I hope, in terms of these budget speeches…. We all get these opportunities to speak to the budget and speak to the throne speech. Lots of people get their…. “Here are your speaking notes from the centre. Now go out and deliver these speeches.”

I tried to give this speech today to give people something to think about in terms of what really matters and the things that need to be talked about, whether it’s in the caucus room or in the back halls or opportunities to meet with ministers. The things that really do matter in terms of the core of our economy and the core of how we need to build a sustainable, healthy province for all of British Columbia.

[5:50 p.m.]

Once again, I want to thank the people of Nechako Lakes for the opportunity to be able to be here to voice their concerns, to be their voice for the things that matter in Nechako Lakes.

I look forward to listening to other debates that come up here on the budget.

B. D’Eith: I want to, first, thank the Speaker and the Clerk’s office, the Legislative Assembly Management Committee and public health for allowing me the privilege of being able to stand up here in person today in this amazing building to take my place in this debate in the middle of a pandemic. I want to thank all of the hard work that’s gone into allowing all of us, all members, to be able to participate in the Legislature and do the work of this province. Thank you so much.

I also want to thank my constituents and all the people of British Columbia who’ve done the right thing. I would say that if you look at what has happened during the pandemic, the vast majority of people are listening to public health and doing the right thing. That is why British Columbia is doing relatively well in the global pandemic, and we should all be very proud of that effort.

I also want to thank the mayors — Mayor Morden from Maple Ridge and the former mayor who is now the MLA for Abbotsford-Mission — for working so hard with the provincial government during the pandemic. Also, one of the silver linings from the pandemic is that, I believe, our working relationships are that much stronger between the province, between the federal government, certainly between the province and our municipal governments. I would like to thank them, and I really look forward to doing so much more with the things that are coming from this budget.

This budget, at its core, is about: “Look, we’re going to spend money on trying to recover British Columbia from this incredible crisis that we’ve been in. Why not spend that money wisely? Why not make British Columbia better?” That is what this is all about. And not just better. Better for everyone. So the goals of Budget 2021…. I’d like to read them out, because I think they do set the table, so to speak, for my talk today.

There are really four key areas. One is to protect the health and safety of British Columbians with enhancements to health care, mental health and addiction services. That’s $3.1 billion. Also, to support people in businesses by expanding upon services and programs that people rely on and providing businesses with extended grants, incentives and tax exemptions to weather the pandemic. That’s $4.5 billion.

The third is to prepare B.C. for recovery, with new investments in training and job creation, CleanBC and community infrastructure. That’s $1 billion. And, of course, to provide pandemic and recovery contingencies to ensure that we can pivot and provide supports so that the province can overcome from the pandemic. That’s $4.6 billion.

I want to take a step back and look at the broader economic picture. Obviously, we’ve had a tough time economically throughout the entire planet. The global economy has suffered greatly from the pandemic. But the private sector is forecasting growth in Canada and the provinces as we move into recovery. Of course, we saw these impacts last year, but we are expecting the recovery. In fact, recent forecasts have shown that we may be recovering better than the national average, which speaks really strongly to the resiliency of the British Columbia economy, which is really important.

I have heard the B.C. Liberals talk about their fears of spending right now. The reality is that there isn’t an economist in the world that I’ve heard who thinks that austerity is the right measure right now. I find it fascinating to hear from the other side the type of philosophy that smacks of austerity, the type of trickle-down economics in a time when we need to spend money.

[5:55 p.m.]

In fact, it’s so important that we stimulate the economy to get things going. To say: “Well, you don’t know how to deal with the economy….” Well, look. We had three balanced budgets. Before the pandemic, we had the lowest unemployment in Canada. We have a triple-A credit rating, and we’re looking really good moving forward right now. So I disagree. I don’t think that’s true at all.

I’m very proud of both of our Finance ministers that we’ve had, and I think they’re doing an exemplary job, not just spending in the right places but being prudent. It’s compassion and prudence. That’s the distinction — compassion and prudence.

Let’s think about some of the things that are important. One of them, of course, is health and mental health, because nothing really is more important than our health and our safety. It’s so important. This budget protects the health and safety of British Columbians. There are some really important enhancements. There’s $900 million for health-related COVID-19 management, including, of course, the vaccine rollout, testing and screening, and PPE, personal protective equipment, for our front-line workers.

I would like to say, of course, our front-line workers have worked so hard. They’re tired. But if you’re out there listening, we really appreciate everything that you’re doing. We’re nearly there. Just keep going. We know how hard you’ve been working and the risks you’ve been taking to keep us all safe.

Of course, $200 million to prepare for economic recovery, including funding to support community infrastructure and skills training for youth — very important. And $1.1 billion to reserve to support any unanticipated or urgent health relief measures, because as we saw with this third wave, we know we have to act quickly and be nimble.

Part of the funding, of course, is to expand urgent and primary care centres and reduce wait times for surgeries. We saw during the pandemic how important it was to expand our surgery capacity and diagnostic services. Our Minister of Health is committed to that. There’s $748 million in the budget for that.

Of course, mental health and addictions. We’ve talked about the pandemic a lot, but our other public health emergency is the opioid crisis. We recognize that and, of course, the Pathway to Hope that was launched by the previous Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, in the last government, really made that pathway for a system of care.

We’re seeing an increase in Foundries, mental health in schools. There’s going to be $500 million over three years to expand and to improve mental health services. That’s for a full spectrum of substance use treatment and recovery, opioid treatment and 195 new treatment and recovery beds. That’s a commitment. I believe that’s really important.

Of course, in response to the pandemic, $585 million over three years to hire thousands of new health care work­ers to build capacity. So once again, spending the money in the right places to make sure that we come out of this pandemic stronger than ever.

Locally, we’ve had a lot of work that was done. We have a Foundry in Maple Ridge that we’re really excited about. It’s doing really well. It has been helping, especially, a lot of young people with mental health issues over the pandemic. School district 42 has a pilot project for embedded mental health and addiction services.

We have a new MRI In Maple Ridge. We have an urgent and primary care centre that just opened in Maple Ridge, and both primary care networks have been launched in Maple Ridge and Mission. In the budget, Ridge Meadows is going to receive $5.3 million for an automated drug distribution system, which is very important, and $12.9 million for OR mechanical upgrades and other work to the hospital. That’s very important.

We did accomplish a lot in our first term, but coming on the heels of 16 years of neglect, there’s more to do. There’s so much more to do to fix health care in our province. Again, spending the money to make our lives better.

As far as supports during the pandemic, B.C. has the highest supports per capita for people in businesses in Canada. In the budget, we have over $1 billion for supports for people and businesses, including ongoing supports for people experiencing homelessness, business recovery programs and allocations to support tourism.

We all saw the rollout of the COVID recovery benefit, where people were receiving $500 as individuals or $1,000 for families. That is much-needed relief that millions of British Columbians are enjoying right now. It’s very, very important.

[6:00 p.m.]

Our work making life more affordable actually started, obviously, in 2017 and continues in this budget. In last fall’s provincial election, of course, the opposition…. The only thing they could come up with for a tax promise ended up with making yachts cheaper by $70,000. So I think it’s about finding the right balance, not making promises for the top 1 percent.

Our policies are aimed at saving individuals and families money so they can get ahead. A good example of that was the elimination of MSP premiums. That saves families up to $1,800. That’s real money in their pockets. Now, B.C. Liberals opposed that. They opposed it; they wanted to get rid of it. It’s unbelievable. That savings…. It was the most regressive tax that we had, and it was actually one of the biggest tax cuts we’ve had in this province ever, for people.

In my riding, eliminating the tolls on the bridges. The tolls basically penalized regions — Surrey, Langley, Chilliwack, Maple Ridge. That’s what the tolls did. Other people didn’t have to pay tolls in other parts of the province, but those residents did. We got rid of those tolls. That saves families and people up to $1,500. And I can tell you, these businesses…. I know one business that had business across the bridge. They were able to hire a new employee with the amount they saved from the tolls. So important.

We’ve talked about child care. I’ve heard a lot from the opposition. Nice that they care about child care all of a sudden. We have families that are saving up to $19,000.

Interjection.

B. D’Eith: Aw, I got a little chirp. That’s awesome. I’ve been hoping I might get one.

Thank you. You’re supposed to…. The other side is supposed to chirp.

Interjection.

B. D’Eith: Exactly.

Anyway, the other thing that was very important, and I was very proud of this, from the Finance Committee was the elimination of interest on student loans. That’s huge for students, a game-changer — and moving the grants to the front so that they have upfront grants for students. It’s very important for them to be incentivized to go into post-secondary.

Now, new — the B.C. child opportunity benefit. Of course, in the middle of the pandemic…. This is $1,600 per child. It’s huge. It’s game-changing for families, and it was rolled out in October.

ICBC, affordable car insurance. We all got our rebates — fantastic. But there are also going to be savings of up to $400 on the renewed policies and a lot more services for people, moving forward. Really excited about that.

Free transit for kids under 12 — huge for families. That’s going to save up to $672 per child. And of course, as part of the CleanBC strategy, no PST on e-bikes. I’ve heard a lot of people are getting, especially seniors…. I had one senior who’s 65, and she started riding an e-bike. That got her back into riding and her health. Now she doesn’t need the e-bike because she’s riding a real bike, with no engine.

Interjection.

B. D’Eith: There you go. Thank you, Member. Remember, you’re on my side of the aisle.

Now, as far as business supports, even though we are at 108 percent of employment numbers right now, there are certainly certain businesses that have been impacted. Tourism, restaurants, gyms, hotels and, of course, festivals and music venues have been hit hard. That’s why it was so important to have programs like the small business recovery grant, which provides up to $10,000 to $30,000 for eligible businesses. It’s over $300 million.

The launch online grant is wildly successful. That grant gives $7,500 to eligible businesses to create online shopping so that they can pivot during the pandemic. Incredibly successful, to the point where an additional $30 million was added to that, and applications will continue throughout the summer.

Of course, being nimble is so important during the pandemic, so the circuit breaker business relief grant is so important because it helps…. It works in tandem with the federal money, the Canada emergency rent subsidy. But it gives that extra amount of money to those that were affected specifically by health considerations.

If you add that to things like the wholesale liquor prices, the permanent wholesale liquor prices, that’s a game-changer for restaurants as well. Now, in addition to that, restaurants, bars and breweries are still able to operate on patios. They can still do takeout. Gyms are still able to do individual, one-on-one activities. The circuit breaker grant will help get these businesses through the short term.

[6:05 p.m.]

Of course, there are so many businesses that are im­pacted by this — 14,000. Because of the travel restrictions, it was added to hotels. Hotels have been added as well, so that means it’s up to 20,000 businesses that are eligible now. Of course, the eligibility criteria were made much easier for businesses to apply. Businesses are applying for it every day, and millions and millions of dollars are going out the door every day. Of course, the circuit breaker has added $75 million more money so that restaurants can get involved, and that’s really important, especially during these travel restrictions.

I was so excited to hear about InBC. This is a first-time $500 million strategic investment to provide B.C.-based businesses with capital so that we can recover stronger in the pandemic. It’s going to be…. Well, the legislation is being introduced to create an InBC investment corporation with $500 million, and it’s designed to help to diversify the economy and grow potential businesses in the province that need that growth.

The really interesting thing is that it’s got a triple-bottom-line investment mandate, which means it will establish British Columbia as a globally competitive low-carbon jurisdiction. It will promote values that make life better for people in B.C., including job creation, advancing reconciliation with Indigenous People, promoting diversity and inclusion and achieve a financial return on investment. Wow, that doesn’t….

The other side are like: “What? Return on investment? Huh.” Go figure, right? And that’s what is so important about this. It’s a triple bottom line. I don’t hear any chirping, because that is a really amazing program.

The next issue is tourism. Tourism, obviously, has been hit, and there’s $100 million to support major anchor at­tractions and $20 million for community destination funding as well.

Now, I’m the Parliamentary Secretary for Arts and Film, and I wanted to spend a bit of time on arts and culture and festivals and music, because we all know that music and festivals and theatres were some of the first to be shut down and probably will be some of the last to come back. So they’ve been hit pretty hard.

Different sectors within arts and culture in the creative industries have been hit differently. We all know the film industry shut down in the spring, but because B.C. was so great at responding to the pandemic and listening to public health, we were one of the most attractive places for the film industry to come back to. In fact, in the fall, they had the biggest fall — not during the pandemic but the biggest fall ever.

The film industry is booming. They worked very hard, and you have to give a lot of credit for the amount of industry and the government and public health working together to come up with protocols that they could operate.

Book publishers took a hit. People aren’t going to bookstores, but we renewed the tax credit for book publishers. They’re very happy about that as well, and we’re of course maintaining tax credits for film, television and animation of video games.

I was asked by the Premier, when the pandemic started, to reach out to all of the arts and culture and creative in­dustries and find out: “Okay, what can we do? How can we help?” We got amazing feedback. The one word that stuck out was “flexibility.” A lot of them had to cancel their events. A lot of them had funding for specific projects. So what did B.C. Arts Council do? What did Creative B.C. do? They allowed flexibility. They said: “Look, if you can’t do that, pivot and do something else. Do something online. Do something in streaming.” There are just amazing stories that have come out of that.

There are also these resilience supplement grants that have been going out through B.C. Arts Council. Local groups like our ACT Arts Centre and the PLAY Society received that money, and they’re going to be using it for things like video equipment to be able to film shows so that families can still watch online.

I was also very pleased to see $22.5 million for Amplify B.C. over three years. This is part of StrongerBC. This is the biggest commitment ever in music. It’s very exciting. People and companies and music have been asking for this for a long time. What it does is it provides stability. That’s another big word, “stability” — flexibility and stability and knowing that they can count on it.

[6:10 p.m.]

Now, how is it helping? Lindsay MacPherson, who is the executive director of Music B.C., said: “At a time when our industry is still struggling, this is a vote of confidence in our recovery. Whether you are a touring artist, a sound engineer or a concert promoter, this news is all we need right now. The province has heard and understood the challenges our sector is facing. Their continued support with a three-year commitment means Music B.C. can maintain programs like SoundON and build new opportunities to develop emerging B.C. talent.”

Karen Aird, who is the acting CEO of the First Peoples Cultural Council: “Long-term funding is essential to the growth of the Indigenous music industry in British Columbia, as Indigenous artists face additional barriers to success. Amplify B.C.’s support of our Indigenous music initiatives has been key to increasing opportunities for Indigenous artists in many areas of the industry. As a result of this funding, we have seen Indigenous music professionals thrive, and we are grateful to the province. With this certainty, we can continue to support artists year after year.”

There were 100 Amplify grant recipients in March — actually, 113 — who got $1.27 million in support. We asked: “Is it helping?” One artist, Teon Gibbs, who is a rapper and a producer, said: “It’s definitely hard to be an artist right now, when we can’t perform and tour. This grant is really great because it’s helping us to produce and release our next project so that we can keep building our audience and hopefully have a bigger audience to tour when it’s safe again. Support like this is truly a difference-maker, and through all of the uncertainty, it’s going to help us grow our careers.” So it’s really helping.

Of course, the pandemic hit live music venues very hard, and there’s a really great story of adaptation and resilience from the Duncan Showroom in Cowichan. It’s a small, 60-seater, theatre-style showroom. Because they were livestreaming before the pandemic, they were in a great position to switch to streaming as the main format giving musicians a space to perform.

John Falkner explained that the showroom hit the ground running last March. They removed seats, extended the stage and put a safety plan in, and they were able to pivot in the summer to do an online festival. He goes on to say: “I was going to have to close by the end of September. After 17 years, I couldn’t let that happen.” Receiving a $10,000 Amplify B.C. grant kept his doors open. “We’ve never applied for a grant in all the years we’ve been doing this. This grant allowed me to go to my landlord, to the electric company, let me stay in the game. More than that, it reinforced the value of what we’re doing.”

This is so important, this type of funding, this type of commitment. The province’s investment in Amplify B.C. is doing more than keeping the lights on. It’s sparking innovation and fuelling resilience in the B.C. music industry. I’m so proud of that.

I’d like to turn to a couple of other things. I’m not going to be able to get through everything I wanted to. There’s just so much good stuff in this budget. But I did want to talk briefly about housing. Of course, the 30-point housing plan on affordability was launched in the last term, and this budget really ramps things up.

Of course, the opposition wanted to get rid of the speculation tax. I’m not sure they care about the fact that there were 18,000 units of rental housing that were freed up due to this. Maybe that’s immaterial to them.

Budget 2021 continues to deliver on affordable homes as part of a $7 billion, ten-year Homes for B.C. strategy and — this is really important — a $2 billion renewable financing opportunity through the HousingHub program.

So what’s happened? There are over 26,000 new homes that are completed or underway since 2018, as Budget 2021 continues to invest in more low- and middle-income housing. And the HousingHub will facilitate the creation of 9,000 units of rental housing — really important.

We can see this happening in my area. In Mission, for example, the Lookout Society, with the HousingHub, built 70 new, affordable homes for low- and middle-income families. Also in Mission, B.C. Housing is providing capital funding to Habitat for Humanity for townhouses. Supportive housing through B.C. Housing is going to be built on Hurd Street in Mission — very important — with the community services as an operator.

[6:15 p.m.]

People are so excited in Mission about Boswyk centre seniors housing. It’s going to be complete in the summer of 2021. It’s 74 units of seniors’ housing in partnership with DOM, B.C. Housing and the Mission Association for Seniors Housing. I’ll tell you, there’s such a huge demand for seniors’ housing, and I’m so excited about this.

There’s also a $13 million investment in Maple Ridge, and there’s a 94-unit low- and moderate-income renter housing that’s going up. That’s just about built now too.

Of course, we have two temporary supportive housing units in Maple Ridge that helped us resolve the tent city that had been dividing our city for so long. We’re in very good negotiations and discussions with the city on a full spectrum of housing for the city that includes seniors, low-income, family, youth supportive housing and, of course, we’re committed to treatment beds in Maple Ridge, working with the city.

It’s also very valuable to note, too, that in the Katzie Nation, which is on the Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows side, we’re building housing on reserve. This is going to be transformative for the Katzie Nation in being able to bring people back to the reserve, many of whom have ended up on the street.

As far as infrastructure development, we’re going to put a record amount of money into infrastructure. Development has been happening throughout my area. Highway 7 — we finished Haney Bypass. We finished the Silverdale four-laning, and I’m so excited that the final four-laning between 266 and 287th Street is going to happen. It’s so important.

Also, for Mission, in terms of infrastructure, there’s $11 million for twinning the sewage pipeline across the Fraser River. This is really important because Mission will probably double in size over the next ten years, and we need that infrastructure. We need that infrastructure to be able to support that many people coming into Mission. So that approval was very, very important. It was a very important commitment. We’re also committed to building a new high school in Mission, and that will continue.

Of course, child care is a game-changer for us. It’s so important, as one of our biggest priorities. For years, the opposition neglected the child care system and left families behind. They ignored the needs of B.C. families. They left a huge shortage of ECE workers, which we’re trying to fix now. It took them four years to create as many spaces as we created in the first ten months of being in government.

Now, the pandemic obviously shone a light on how important child care is to our area. There’s now going to be $233 million of new base funding over the three years. That’s going to create so many spaces, 400 new spaces, for children of Indigenous families — 2,000 more families to access supportive childhood development programs. We’re going to double the number of children receiving child care for less than $10 a day, through prototype sites.

In Maple Ridge alone, the programs that we have, the temporary emergency funding — $23 million. The amount of money going back to parents to reduce fees and benefits: $11 million. The total number of spaces in Maple Ridge increased: 301. The total number of early childhood educators receiving our wage enhancement: 51. That’s $306,000. It’s making such a huge impact. Heritage Park Childcare Centre could take double the number of $10 a day or less prototype sites right now.

I wish I had time. There’s so much good stuff here. I wanted to talk about CleanBC and all the wonderful things but, unfortunately, I only have a minute left. I wanted to talk about education. I wanted to talk about reconciliation, which is so important. I know that some of my other members will be talking about vulnerable people and disabilities. I have all this, but it’s only 30 minutes, you know? It’s only 30 minutes.

In closing, I really want to reemphasize that this budget puts people first. I mean, it puts the health and safety of people and the services they count on first. Supporting businesses and sectors during the pandemic, during the recovery, is critical. Investing in recovery in terms of building a clean, strong and sustainable economy that works for everyone is what this is about.

I know that it’s been a tough year. COVID-19 has challenged all of us, but you know? We’re resilient. It’s amazing how B.C.’ers have been resilient. We look after each other. I just see this every day in our community — people going out of their way to stand in line to take takeout from restaurants, to make sure that their favourite restaurant stays around, or going to the food bank and volunteering, or doing all of the things that need to be done to keep people safe.

[6:20 p.m.]

It’s so important that the work that we do helps people but creates a better British Columbia, moving forward. This budget supports people now to stay safe and healthy, but it actually looks to the future as well. Really, it’s about building a future that’s stronger and better for everyone in British Columbia.

C. Oakes: Tonight I join and speak to this Legislature virtually about an emergency that is getting worse by the hour. Our roads are literally crumbling before our eyes, and we need help. As I listen to the rain come down, it is a plea to this House to listen and understand what is currently taking place, what is currently happening in my riding of Cariboo North.

It feels very much like it did during the wildfires. The stress of, hour by hour, watching weather reports….

Deputy Speaker: Would you like us to take a recess?

C. Oakes: I’m fine.

We are literally holding our breaths and hoping that we will not have any more roads collapse. We hope for safety of our constituents and fear that what is happening right now needs immediate action. We are worried that it will get lost in the crisis of the pandemic.

This was certainly not the response to the budget speech that I had prepared, and I certainly commit to the stakeholders that I’ll work on your behalf to raise your concerns.

No government controls the weather, so my remarks this evening, as they relate to the budget, is the hope that the Premier, the government, will not neglect the emerging crisis that is currently taking place in Cariboo North and find the necessary funds in this budget to assist.

We are currently experiencing a third year of spring freshet, and I begin my comments with the voices that I’m hearing hourly by my constituents. How many more roads need to be collapsed, destroyed forever — detour roads that are glorified goat trails that are more often requiring 4-by-4s — before this government and the Premier understand that the provincial transportation network is currently in jeopardy.

Public safety is in jeopardy. Food security is in jeopardy. We have already had two of our largest market gardens retire last year because of the incredible impact these detours are having, not to mention the countless producers across the region that are impacted.

The economy is in jeopardy. Look at the impact in the Cariboo around just our forestry, our mining, our agriculture, our tourism and our small businesses that all contribute to the provincial GDP, the revenues paid in taxes to support this province.

Now, I apologize that I am quite emotional. But I encourage members to take out their phones and to go to Drive B.C. and look at the magnitude of roads that are currently impacted, have detours in place or are completely impassable and closed, and note that the list is growing every single day.

Roads and communities are impacted from Horsefly, Likely, Big Lake, Tyee Lake, McLeese Lake, Soda Creek, going all the way south down Highway 97 — Kersley-Dale Landing Road, Durrell Road, auxiliary roads that lead to prime agricultural lands like West Fraser, Narcosli and Quesnel-Hydraulic residence. And now the backup road for Highway 97, the Quesnel-Hixon Road, which is regularly used as a backup, is completely shut down.

Every hour, as the rain comes down, as we speak, I live in fear of what the consequences will be. I know we have yellow school buses with our school children on these roads, and I hope nothing will happen.

[6:25 p.m.]

I raised the alarm bells in this Legislature on March 6, warning that more needs to be done to prepare. In fact, I began raising the alarm bells in 2017-2018, when I began to hear that reports of hydrology impacts, geotechnical studies and lidar were showing the considerable risks following the wildfires.

The public should understand what the risks are and that the government has a responsibility to provide for safety. While the wildfires may be out and while one does not see the towering flames, the impacts of the fires are burning deep in the ground, and now we are faced with a crisis of water management.

Right now, without the government taking proactive steps, communicating with the public what is actually happening and increasing measures on managing water — like maintaining and upgrading culverts, ensuring ditching is done everywhere, gravel maintenance, and the list goes on — the minister cannot celebrate the success of this budget and proudly highlight how they will be investing in a few culverts in the region and think that that is adequate to ensure that they’re maintaining the provincial transportation network.

The minister and government have been quick to talk about funds for roads in my riding — for example, calling West Fraser Road as a true form of supporting rural B.C., when the funding actually came from the federal government’s disaster financial assistance program. I continue to raise this because I know how we’ve had to use every single legislative tool available to push this government into action.

Last year, I do believe, there were 220 roads that were impacted in the Cariboo, the majority in Cariboo North. How did the minister do when ensuring that we would get disaster financial assistance? Turn to page 156 of the budget. The number in the budget for the disaster financial assistance to help us to deal with all of the impacts last year: zero dollars. Now, put aside that cost, because now this will have to come out of B.C. taxpayers.

Let us consider the people who’ve been evacuated from the homes, many who will not ever be able to return to their homes. Many of these people have raised their families and celebrated all-important milestones of their lives. Many are seniors. Now they are not getting covered by insurance, because the evacuation was in a landslide with no disaster financial assistance because the provincial government has not made the agreement with, nor had the thought of negotiating with, the federal government on how landslides will be compensated, as landslides, unlike wildfires and floods, are not tied to a weather event.

We have a local state of emergency right now in Quesnel. We have homes and businesses on evacuation order and alert. It is our hope that the province understands the needs and responsibilities, as outlined in the MOTI service plan, to negotiate with the federal government to access these funds.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the service plan that accompanies the budget document. It is important to do this, clearly, to understand the responsibility of government. Quite frankly, constituents of Cariboo North are tired of no one taking responsibility, and those that are responsible take the time to point the finger to somebody else.

“The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure plans transportation networks, provides transportation services and infrastructure, develops and implements transportation policies and administers many related acts, regulations and federal-provincial funding programs.”

This is in their service plan.

“The ministry strives to build and maintain a safe and reliable transportation system and provide affordable, efficient and accessible transportation options for all British Columbians. This work includes investing in road infrastructure, public transit, coastal and inland ferry service…active transportation network improvements and other more socially and environmentally responsible modes of transportation.”

And:

“The ministry invests in highway rehabilitation and side road improvements, which includes road resurfacing, bridge rehabilitation and replacement, seismic retrofits, intersection improvements and upgrades to smaller side roads to help connect communities.”

Over 200 roads damaged from last year, many completely destroyed, a transportation system that is very vulnerable right now. Just go on to DriveBC.ca to understand what is happening on the ground. I would suggest that the ministry, and this government, is failing on these targets miserably.

Let’s take another look at a goal in the service plan: “Lead negotiations for the next round of federal-provincial infrastructure programs.” Well, I would say negotiating zero dollars for disaster financial assistance, which you can look at in the budget, is not exactly meeting the objectives laid out.

[6:30 p.m.]

Another goal for this service plan is to “improve transportation network efficiency to provide British Columbians with safe and reliable access to the services they depend on.” I would be happy to invite the minister, the Premier, the cabinet to come to the Cariboo and to travel on the multitude of roads in the Cariboo — specifically the detour routes where many constituents have found themselves travelling on for years — and measure how efficient, safe and reliable these roads are.

Yes, they most certainly depend on these services. But we certainly have not seen anything from this government to take action, long-term action, on what they identified in the service plan goal.

Let’s look at some of the other objectives: improve highway safety and reliability; monitor highway safety and improve high-risk locations; safety and reliability; low-cost improvements; work with public safety partners to identify safety improvements; and examine highway safety and reliability issues, considering climate forecasts, seismic hazards and adaptive capacity of transportation infrastructure.

We know that the ministry has the seismic reports following the wildfires of 2017 and 2018. They know what the adaptive capacity needs are in the Cariboo. What we would like to know from this budget is: how are you actually going to take action on these objectives — not just a press release but how much you value these things and take real action? I looked in the service plan budget on page 14, and I actually see a significant reduction in the spending that this government will be doing to meet these targets.

Another objective is to “ensure a high standard of provincial highway rehabilitation and maintenance.” Again, come to the Cariboo and see what’s going on, on the ground. Another objective is to “provide excellent service to British Columbians. Key strategies: communicate and engage efficiently and effectively with the ministry’s stakeholders.”

We need updates from this government. We need to un­derstand what is happening with so many of our roads. Our constituents are asking. They’re calling on this government to update us. What is the plan for the entire transportation network, as we see it collapsing literally day by day? We want to know what the long-term plan is of this government. We just feel that we’re pleading with the government to come and to make this available.

I can share that our office has repeatedly asked for up­dates. I’ve got binders of letters I have sent the ministry and this minister. Our constituents definitely require an update. Who exactly is the government communicating with?

Another objective is to “invest in transportation op­tions that enhance network efficiency and support climate change objectives.” I will go into that a little bit more — about some solutions that, I think, are important to put in place.

I look at the budget, and there is actually a reduction in the improvements that require immediate action to maintain the integrity of our transportation system. The alarm bells that I have and continue to make are not political grandstanding. I’m calling on this Premier to take action.

At this point, I do not see the necessary funds in the MOTI budget, the service plan. Perhaps there are items that he can contribute from either the uplift he’s experienced in his budget or, at the very least, the additional funds, the Premier’s budget, to communicate with and update British Columbians. Maybe we could get some of those communication dollars to help communicate what is happening with our residents in Cariboo North.

Please, the constituents of Cariboo North need to have the updates on these road conditions. The Premier has an obligation to share the risk that we have been exposed to and to understand, from all of the reports that government has gathered, that the Premier has a responsibility to update the constituents on each of the roads that have been destroyed and to provide an update on what will be done to fix them and the timeline.

The Premier has a responsibility to outline how they will maintain the integrity of the transportation network. What are they going to do different? What maintenance are they going to do? How will they really shift policy to manage climate adaptation? Please, stop the insulting rhetoric of how MOTI is being held up across country as a leader in climate adaptation when year after year our roads are literally collapsing around us.

[6:35 p.m.]

I understand that the government does not control the weather, but they do have a responsibility in how we respond to it. At best, the resources we get are a few additional culverts and the hard-working men and women that are trying to maintain these roads as best they can. I do want to thank them for their efforts. I know my constituents want to thank them. I know that they are equally as frustrated, because I hear from them that they are regularly trying to get the necessary inventory to safely maintain the roads.

The resources to do this are not coming — or, at best, piecemeal — to the riding. I have binders of letters written to the various ministries on the state of our road infrastructure. There’s nothing more frustrating, when waiting years to get a road fix and seeing constituents having to travel extra hours on bad detour roads, to get a response back from the province that it has been recognized as climate leaders.

Here’s a suggestion to the Premier and his cabinet and any member who wishes to see what’s happening on the ground: come ride one of our yellow school buses with our students for several hours each way on these detour roads. On this journey, really contemplate if you still feel the policies, the budget and actions you are taking are really delivering meaningful results for people.

The Premier said in this House, often, to share our solutions to issues. Well, I’ve shared the following over many years, since the wildfires, to various ministers, so now I will direct these solutions to the Premier.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

In order to maintain the integrity of the transportation and road network in British Columbia, a seismic shift is required on how you manage areas that have been im­pacted by environmental epidemics and wildfires — true climate adaptation. It is a seismic shift, as we required in previous governments, to understand the very real risk of earthquakes along our coast and tsunami risks and to make the significant policy change, the massive investment in infrastructure, to mitigate those risks.

I understand what I’m calling is a significant shift of government. I understand it will be expensive. I’m not an engineer or a scientist, but I know my riding. I know my constituents very well. I’ve listened to our First Nation Elders. They were the first to raise the alarm bells following the wildfires on what they were experiencing on the ground and the very real concerns at the impact on the ecosystem that is currently happening.

One cannot see the amount of landslide activity that has been going into our rivers and streams during the last few freshets to understand how vulnerable the integrity of our streams and rivers and aquatic ecosystems are. I’m getting updates across the riding, literally hour­ly, of land slippages into rivers and areas that I didn’t even know were vulnerable.

Where in this budget does the government address the growing concern of ancient slide complexes? How are they measuring the impacts on our rivers and streams? We have the B.C. forecast and the B.C. Wildfire that measure and take actions on floods and fires, but who is managing the landslide file?

I want to thank my constituents from across the riding. I know how frustrating it is for you when you hear of one road and you think: “Why isn’t the government” — or your MLA, for that matter — “focusing on my road?”

The extent and magnitude of roads are so great in the riding of Cariboo North and there are so many areas impacted that in the past, I’ve come to the Legislature with lists of roads that need addressing, and by the end of the day, that list has expanded. So for today, I’m not going to read a list, as the reality, with the rain that we are currently experiencing, the condition of groundwater, the state of our infrastructure, our culverts, our ditching and the lack of water management, has put our entire riding in a state of crisis.

Please, on behalf of the constituents of Cariboo North, take my comments to heart and take some action. It’s not just our region that is in jeopardy, but the impact will be on the rest of the province as well.

In closing, I thought it was important, as a representative, to raise the voice of one of the constituents that have come forward. This is just a letter that I received in the last two hours.

“Dear Minister Rob Fleming:

“Our Cariboo roads are crumbling before our eyes, and we need your help. I’m writing as a current constituent of the Cariboo-Chilcotin who regularly uses the roads in my constituency and those in Cariboo North, specifically the roads in and out of Horsefly Lake. We are permanent resident property owners at Horsefly, and now we permanently reside in property in Williams Lake.

“The purpose of my email is to draw your attention to the unfortunate deteriorating roads in our constituency and make constructive suggestions and implore you, as the Minister of Transportation, to put the vision and the funding necessary to immediately improve the situation as well as plan for future road maintenance in the area.”

[6:40 p.m.]

This constituent put some very important, positive things forward. She recognizes that there is no easy or quick fix, but she also highlights the fact that public safety is at high risk when even ambulances don’t want to carry people over these roads. I’ve heard this on multiple of the detours that we have currently have in place and other roads that we have. When you can’t even get an ambulance or a fire truck onto these roads, it is of critical concern.

I want to thank Nancy Miller for sending me this letter, and she goes on at length with some optimistic ideas on how to make suggestions. I think that is truly representative of who the people of the Cariboo are.

I think it’s important to share one of her closing comments, because I think it represents so many people in the Cariboo: “I’m a hopeful and optimistic person, not wanting to complain about things unless I can offer some constructive solutions. My hope is that in this email, it truly helps you understand the magnitude and deteriorating road infrastructure situation here in the Cariboo, and that you will take immediate, appropriate actions to keep this part of our beautiful province functioning as it should.”

I thank the members of this House for providing me the opportunity to make some emergency comments to the budget. It’s certainly, as I said, not the budget response I had prepared. I thank the members for listening. I hope some immediate action can be taken and that this government will address the deteriorating situation in the Cariboo. Thank you.

J. Brar: I’m really pleased to stand up in this House today to support Budget 2021.

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking people, specifically the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

I would also like to thank the people of Surrey. I exist in this House because of the people of Surrey, who elected me as their representative five times, and that is certainly a rare honour. Therefore, I would like to convey my sincere thanks to the people of Surrey-Fleetwood for giving me the opportunity and for putting their faith in me.

Budget 2021 is about helping people now, and creating conditions for a strong economic recovery. B.C. has faced many challenges in the last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has impacted all of us. British Columbians continue to struggle during this challenging time. People are worried about their health and their future.

When the pandemic hit our province last spring, our government promised British Columbians we would be there for them for as long as it takes to recover. That promise stands today, tomorrow and forever. That’s why Budget 2021 continues to respond to the challenges of the pandemic now and prepares us for the future.

Budget 2021 is about helping people now, and why we’re building the foundation for a strong recovery by protecting the health and safety of British Columbians, supporting people and businesses as we continue to manage through the effects of the pandemic, and doing the im­portant preparation work so that we can be ready to seize the opportunities that recovery will hold. Therefore, protecting the health of people, supporting people and businesses, and preparation work to build a strong economy remain the key priorities of this budget.

[6:45 p.m.]

Before I move on to the budget details, I would like to do a brief review of the broader economic picture. When the pandemic hit, B.C. was an economic leader in Canada. B.C. was among the leaders in employment growth across the nation. Four years ago, prior to the pandemic, B.C.’s unemployment rate remained the lowest in Canada at 4.7 percent. We had a triple-A credit rating. Budget 2020 was a balanced plan focused on the priorities of British Columbians. We were one of the country’s fastest-growing economies, with a low unemployment rate and steadily rising wages. That was not the case for 16 years under the B.C. Liberals.

Despite the challenges of the last year, our strength remains. B.C. enjoys abundant natural resources, is a gateway to Asia and has highly skilled people. We are already seeing positive signs for recovery. In recent weeks, private sector forecasters — these are private sector forecasters, Mr. Speaker — have updated their near-term economic growth projections for B.C. to show a strong recovery. The projection shows B.C.’s recovery is expected to be better than the national average, and it speaks to the resiliency of B.C.’s economy.

Making health care better and preparing us for future challenges remains the key focus in Budget 2021. The last year has highlighted the importance of strong health and mental health services. We are truly blessed to have a strong, universal health care system in our province.

Budget 2021 provides more than $4 billion in funding for health and mental health to continue to protect people from COVID-19 and expand the services people rely on. This includes the continued support for the largest-ever vaccination program in B.C.’s history to ensure that every British Columbian can receive their vaccine.

We can finally see the finish line in sight. Over 1.7 million people have already received their first vaccine, with thousands more getting it every day. The city of Surrey remains a high priority for our vaccination program, and as of today, over 150,000 people, maybe more, in Surrey have already received their first vaccine. Thanks to Dr. Henry and the Minister of Health for doing an exceptional job for the people of Surrey to ensure people are vaccinated as quickly and safely as possible.

Budget 2021 also includes funding to reduce wait time for surgeries and give patients faster access to the help they need, and supports our seniors with improvements in long-term care and home care. Budget 2021 includes the largest investment in mental health services in B.C. history, which will help build a network of mental health supports for youth through schools and new Foundry centres and integrated child and youth supports in 15 more school districts, improving access to mental health services throughout B.C.

Budget 2021 will also focus on building critical health care infrastructure, with $7.8 billion in capital investments to support construction projects like new and upgraded hospitals, including the new Surrey hospital and cancer centre. New urgent and primary care centres in communities around B.C. will offer better care close to home.

Budget 2021 supports affordable and accessible child care. We know that quality, affordable and inclusive child care is critical to families, communities and the economy.

[6:50 p.m.]

In 2018, we launched Childcare B.C. to bring affordable, accessible and quality child care to families across the province. Since then, we have funded the creation of over 26,000 new child care spaces, with thousands more new spaces funded each year under the new spaces fund.

Budget 2021 provides funding to create more spaces and better support early childhood educators with wage increases and continues to work towards a universal and inclusive child care system in B.C. We are more than doubling the number of children who can get care for $10 a day or less through the universal child care prototype program.

Budget 2021 funds more homes for British Columbians. We have worked very hard to tackle the crisis by addressing speculation and have maintained a freeze on increasing rent during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are working towards meeting the commitment in our 30-point plan to build over 114,000 affordable homes over ten years. To date, more than 26,000 new homes have been completed or are underway.

Budget 2021 continues to fund new low- and middle-income family housing units with funding through non-profit providers. We are providing $2 billion in additional funding to expand the HousingHub program and to work with the private sector to build more housing for the people of British Columbia. This will help to give 9,000 new homes for families over the course of the next three to five years, on top of the 1,000 units that have already been completed to date.

A central commitment of our government is to make life more affordable for people. Budget 2021 focuses on investments that will ensure that no one is left behind as we continue to fight the pandemic and move into recovery. These investments build on previous measures taken to make a difference for people every day, including more affordable child care, which we are continuing to expand on in this budget.

The elimination of MSP premiums. The B.C. child opportunity benefit that families started receiving last October, which will deliver full savings for the first year in 2021. The elimination of bridge tolls and student loan interest and more affordable car insurance. These measures and those in Budget 2021 all make life more affordable for the people of British Columbia.

Budget 2021 continues to provide measures to help businesses adapt and prepare to seize the opportunity that recovery will bring. We didn’t wait to get support into the hands of businesses that needed help. Budget 2021 builds on supports we have continued to provide over the last year.

Noting the hour, I reserve my spot to continue my budget speech at the next sitting of the House. With that, I move adjournment of the debate.

J. Brar moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:54 p.m.