Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I call continued second reading debate on Bill 7, Electoral Boundaries Act.

In the Douglas Fir Room, Section A, I call continued estimates debate for the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.

In Section C, the Birch Room, I call continued estimates for the Ministry of Health. When they are finished, then we will be proceeding to the estimates for the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 7 — ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES
COMMISSION AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

(continued)

D. Davies: I rise here today to speak on Bill 7, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act — well, actually, I guess, to speak against it in its present form.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

First, I’d like to begin by thanking my constituents for giving me the honour to represent them in this chamber. I do take that duty very seriously. My area that I represent is from the district of Taylor to the Yukon border, from the Rocky Mountains all the way over to the Alberta border. As their representative, I continue and will continue to fight to make this province stronger and provide a brighter future for the communities of every member that I represent in the North Peace, as well as up in the Northern Rockies.

What we’re talking about is that following every second election cycle, the Electoral Boundaries Commission is appointed to examine the boundaries. Again, this is not something new. We do recognize that demographics change, and they have been changing in the province of British Columbia.

The appointment of this commission is routine. The changes, though, that are before us, to remove protections for rural British Columbia, are what concerns many of us on this side of the House, as well as members of my community, members of my neighbouring communities, members of some of my local Indigenous communities.

I want to read into the record, actually…. I’m sure there are many more of these to come. This is a statement that was sent to me just a couple of days ago. It is from the Northern Rockies regional municipality, from their mayor and council.

“The Northern Rockies regional municipality shares the concerns with proposed Bill 7. Having the electoral boundaries largely based on population is a disservice to the diverse and broad geographic regions of the province such as the Northern Rockies regional municipality, which provide the bulk of the natural resources which drive the economy of the province of British Columbia.

“The proposed language in Bill 7, which states that the commission may take into account special considerations respecting demographic and geographic factors, does not adequately ensure that geographic and demographic considerations of regions such as the Northern Rockies regional municipality are represented effectively in matters that impact all British Columbia.”

Again, that is a letter that was sent to me from the mayor and council of the Northern Rockies regional municipality.

[2:35 p.m.]

I have had conversations, since this bill was introduced, with many people. They share that very similar concern that I just read to you there.

Specifically, this bill, in regards to the rural protection, will impact regions of Cariboo-Thompson, the Columbia-Kootenays and the North. You know, when I say the North, it’s a very quick sound bite — the North. But when you put that into perspective, the North, as a land mass, that is more than half of the province of British Columbia. This is an area that is going to be impacted dramatically by the proposed Bill 7.

You know, these regions have been protected for a number of years, because while they had a lower population — much lower, obviously, densely, than the Lower Mainland and our larger urban centres — they are vast demographic regions, full of diverse people that deserve to be fairly represented in Victoria. We’ve heard this urban-rural divide. I’ve been hearing it for as long as I can remember. It’s a discussion that we’ve had around the supper table for years now.

All I see in this bill and the potential outcome of this bill is that it would create much more of a divide. We need to be mending that divide, improving it, bringing us all together, making sure that everyone has a voice in this place.

The purpose of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, though, is to make sure that the political boundaries in this province are drawn in a certain way, to provide people with just that: the representation that they deserve. For the most part, my constituents are quite happy with the representation that they receive in Peace River North, as I’m sure my other colleagues in the North are as well.

This is something that we are in favour of looking at, the population, and reviewing it from time to time. We are not opposed to that. We have always advocated to make sure that people are represented in this place. B.C. is a vast province with a varied geography and terrain — diverse people, groups, communities, all with very, very different needs.

I’ll take you on a little trip here. I drove down to Victoria for my time that I’ve been down here for the last couple of weeks. I jumped in my pickup, because 95 percent of the people in Fort St. John have a pickup. Some have cars, but for the most part, if anybody has ever been to Fort St. John or Dawson Creek or other communities, you’ll notice that the mall parking lot is full of pickups. We do rely a lot…. Our folks work out in industry, forestry. They work in mining. They work in the natural gas sector. They work in these different sectors that do require a pickup.

So I jumped in my pickup. I think it was the previous Saturday morning, seven o’clock, a cup of coffee. I started down the road. In my riding, of course, I recognize…. We do have some farming. The Peace region in itself actually provides 90 percent of all the grains grown in this province. We also have a lot of forestry and a lot of oil and gas.

You drive through Dawson Creek. Dawson Creek is much more agriculture-related. In fact, if you were in Dawson Creek, you might think that you were in Alberta or Saskatchewan. In fact, if you had a good pair of binoculars, you might be able to see Winnipeg, possibly. It’s not quite that flat, but it’s close.

[2:40 p.m.]

You know, you drive through, and you head into Prince George–Mackenzie and through Prince George–Vale­mount. Of course, you’re going through the northern Rocky Mountains. You’re at the start of the Fraser River, which is an incredible river that you get to follow most of the way when you drive down to Vancouver.

Cariboo North, the Cariboo-Chilcotin. You start to see the ranches and, again, more forestry. Forestry plays such an integral role in the province of British Columbia, as well as these other pieces. You get to see…. When I was driving down, in fact — multiple road closures, single-lane traffic as you go through the Cariboo, due to flooding, the flooding issues. Highway 97, of course, is a major highway, B.C.’s longest highway — closed, in many cases, due to the flooding.

Then you start heading into the Fraser Canyon, the Fraser-Nicola area. Really, if you’ve never done that drive…. It is a drive. I encourage every British Columbian to make sure they do a staycation. Travel British Columbia. It’s an absolutely stunning part of this world. As you travel through the Fraser Canyon, it’s jaw-dropping the scenery that you get to see. Then you move into, of course, Chilliwack, Chilliwack-Kent, into the Fraser Valley and into our urban centre.

I have done that drive — I don’t even care to count — many, many times, and I love it every time. You get the chance to talk. I’m a bit social, probably like most of us in this House are. I have the opportunity to talk to people and listen to some of the concerns, some of the issues, some of the great things. Obviously, people love talking about their communities and the great things that their communities have.

You get an understanding of how incredibly diverse this province is. Every single community is different. Every single riding is different. Every single region is different. I chuckle when I hear “the North,” because the diversity of the North is immense, from people that live in the Peace country who are cowboy hat–, cowboy boot–wearing — okay, I wouldn’t want to stereotype everybody into that, because I don’t wear either of those things — to farming, oil and gas, forestry workers. Tourism plays an important role.

But when you travel, if you travel to Prince Rupert, it is quite different. The industry is different. Cultural makeup is different. The Indigenous communities are different. That, again, is what makes this province great — our re­cognizing those differences.

This is why the Electoral Boundaries Commission itself has said that representation is not simply anchored to equality of population. A 2015 report says that factors like geography, community history, community interests and minority representation should be taken into account when deciding on how to draw electoral boundaries.

It acknowledges and leaves this understanding that the needs of places like Terrace or Williams Lake are vastly different than those of Surrey or Atlin, and the district of Hudson’s Hope’s are different than Prince George’s. Our current electoral boundaries in rural B.C. recognize these unique circumstances of these places and the reality that they may not presently have a large population, but it does not lessen the need for strong representation in this place.

We have got to consider, also — I touched on it very briefly — that a large percentage of our Indigenous communities are located in these regions that I talked about earlier that are being looked at to change. Thirty percent of First Nations in British Columbia live in the North and Cariboo-Thompson regions. Many of them, in my own riding as well, are incredibly remote locations. We need to ensure that they have easy access and have a voice in this place.

[2:45 p.m.]

We also need to ensure, though, and I think this is im­portant…. The government side has said this in a few of their remarks — that we are opposed to looking at this commission or having changes. We are not at all opposed to this. We need to be looking at and ensuring that areas that are growing, such as the Lower Mainland, parts of the Interior even, parts of the lower part of the Island…. They’ve seen significant growth over the past number of years. We need to adjust to make sure that they, too, have proper representation in this place.

At the end of the day, the ability for us in this room to be able to connect with our constituents is vitally critical to our democracy. The number of constituents nor the size of the electoral district that each of us live in should be a barrier to having that representation here.

As I’ve mentioned previously and I’ve mentioned many times in this House, my riding is unique in not only our province but, I think, our nation, and I’m proud to represent the communities. Interestingly enough, my riding, along with Peace River South, were both created in 1955, 70 years ago.

Seventy years ago our two areas were recognized as di­verse, different places that needed to have representation: Peace River North and Peace River South. It has been recognized for 70 years by multiple governments that have seen that it is important that the people who live in those two ridings have access to their MLA, easy access to their MLA. It has worked well. Now there is a move to limit that.

You know, it’s funny. When we have a couple of days break between speeches here…. A couple of days ago the member for Stikine had mentioned that some of us are complaining because we represent these ridings. Not at all. I love that I represent my riding. I love that I get to travel around a beautiful part of our province and work with constituents and help them solve issues. I love that they can come and see me.

But adding another 60,000 or 70,000 square kilometres is the issue. It’s the issue for people that enjoy coming into their MLA’s office and seeking help. My riding is in excess of 160,000 square kilometres. It’s larger than the countries of Ireland, Switzerland, Croatia, Rwanda, Belgium, Greece or England and Wales combined, just to give you an idea.

I would love to read…. I printed off a list here. There are pages of countries that not only my riding is bigger than, if I combine many of these…. Some countries, my riding is ten times or 15 times the size. In fact, my riding is 32 times the size of the Lower Mainland. To extend and create a larger riding is simply unfathomable.

I’ve been hearing regularly, since this bill was introdu­ced, from constituents that are just gobsmacked by this proposal. Again, our province is diverse. My riding is diverse, from culture to industry, size of population, our Indigenous communities.

As a northerner, I’ve spent my entire life in Fort St. John and northern B.C., and I have an understanding of my riding. I have an understanding of the issues. I have an understanding of the challenges. I have relationships. Actually, I said that wrong. People have relationships with me. My constituents have relationships with me.

[2:50 p.m.]

I’ve driven to every corner of my riding, up to the Yukon border, into the mountains, to the Alberta border, to the Peace River in the south. Many people come and see me, and they see me often. I’m sure other constituency offices are busy as well. They like to have that ability to walk in and see their MLA. I mean, this last year, of course, has been a little different. But normally, they want to come and talk to their MLA and get help and seek guidance on many issues.

I regularly meet with guide-outfitters at the drive up the Toad River, just a mere near nine hours north of Fort St. John. You heard that right, nine hours, and I’m still not at the other end of my riding.

The Chair that’s represented us today gave me a picture recently, and I thank him for that, of buffalo. That is where the buffalo are: Toad River, Liard — up in that part of the country. They’re wild buffalo — sorry, bison, I should say. They’re everywhere. I’m up there often, meeting with these small communities that don’t have Internet. There’s no cellular service. There’s no telephones. They use satellite telephones. Their communities are powered by diesel generators. I mean, it’s different. People enjoy living up there. They enjoy that. Of course, it comes with some challenges.

I’ve had the opportunity to fly into one of our isolated Indigenous communities, the Kwadacha First Nation. I chose to actually take a small, little, tiny plane out of Fort St. John to fly into this little muddy dirt runway, which was a little hair-raising. I can say that. The other option was to drive to the community. I’ve got to drive all the way through to Mackenzie, which is about six hours.

Interjection.

D. Davies: Yeah, the member for Abbotsford West has done this.

Then you jump on to this old logging trail, which is about another three hours. But we do that.

Travel up to Prophet River First Nation. Talk about for­est fire protection in their community. Meet with industry leaders, forestry sector, people from the oil and gas or mining. Travel right up to the far northeast corner, a little tiny place called Helmut. Far northeast corner, almost at the Northwest Territories.

I talk about how much I know my riding, but my residents also know my riding. My constituents know my riding as well. They know that they can come and talk to me. They can lean on me whenever they need to get the representation or to help work through a problem. So many unique things in my community.

I see my time is ticking quickly already.

I have got a number of larger communities. I use larger in parentheses, because they’re somewhat larger. Fort St. John is the main centre in my riding, which is where I live. It’s kind of the hub of the community and deals with many challenges. Whether we’re talking the infrastructure challenges in our communities…. Of course, Site C is just a mere seven kilometres from our downtown.

Fort Nelson, of course, is the second-largest community in my riding, four hours north of Fort St. John. The challenges that I have worked on over the past number of years…. In fact, probably one of the number one reasons why residents of Fort Nelson get hold of me is around health care challenges, access to health care. We understand that we’re not going to get high-end surgeries and stuff in Fort Nelson. But we also expect to have the same access to health care as someone who lives in Vancouver. That’s been a challenge since I’ve been elected.

Some may know; some may not. A woman is pregnant and wants to have her baby in Fort Nelson. She cannot. She is unable to have her child in Fort Nelson. She has to travel to one of the larger centres — Prince George, Fort St. John or elsewhere — and stay with family. They recommend you go a whole month early.

[2:55 p.m.]

It’s horrible that this is what’s expected in a community of almost 5,000 people.

Again, some of the health care issues. Medevac — waiting hours to be medevacked to Vancouver.

Taylor is another smaller community, just south of Fort St. John. Of course, I’ve been advocating for the Taylor Bridge now since I got to this place. The challenges with industry in that community….

Another little community is Hudson’s Hope, a beautiful little place. Of course, it’s home of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam as well as the Peace Canyon dam. There are two dams that are in that community and even, partially, the upstream of Site C. I’d be remiss if I did not mention the health care challenges in that small community.

The regional district. I represent two regional districts somewhat. First of all is the Peace River regional district, which surrounds the communities that I just mentioned for the most part, which has our industry. It has our farmers, our rural roads. I also have the second one, called Northern Rockies regional municipality, which I believe was the first one ever created in the province of British Columbia. It has its own challenges — 550 kilometres of the Alaska Highway that go through it, and no cellular service on most of that. Road closures often. Bus service, none. Incredible challenges that people face.

But it is beautiful, the region. Many rivers, multiple waterways, lakes. The northern half of the Rocky Mountains. The many mountain passes. The unbelievable ac­cess to the back country. That is why people live up there. You can drive five minutes from any of our communities and not see anybody ever, which is great. Incredible vast fields, I mentioned earlier, whether it be grain or our cattle ranchers.

It’s also important to recognize the connection of the Peace region, both Peace River South and Peace River North, to Alberta. I think that’s important to recognize here in this place. The city of Grande Prairie is really the getaway for anybody who lives in the northeast, because it’s just a two-hour drive from Fort St. John, or an hour drive. It’s the quick getaway.

Edmonton is actually where people really go if they want to go to the city. It’s easier to get to than Prince George. You don’t have to go through a mountain pass. In the wintertime, it’s not a great mountain pass to be travelling through.

Many of my constituents have family on both sides of the border. They share businesses on both sides of the border. Services travel back and forth. In fact, I’ve had many local businesses that are struggling because of this relationship. In fact, just recently I brought up an issue with Boston Pizza in Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, because they don’t qualify for the grant because they have part ownership in Alberta, which is very unfortunate.

These are just a little snippet of some of the issues that people are coming to me for as their representative. But this place…. We have a duty to the residents of the Peace country or the Kootenays to make sure that those people have a better feel for a relationship to this place than they do with Edmonton for us in the North or people in the Kootenays with Calgary. People should have a closer connection to us here. This bill does not help that.

You know, I have talked a little bit about travel and sizes. I know some MLAs — and I think we’ll be hearing from some of our urban MLAs — that can walk across their ridings. I chuckle at that, that they can walk across their ridings. I think the Chair probably can almost walk across his riding in a decent afternoon, or less. I can’t even get to Taylor in an afternoon, and that’s just south of Fort St. John. I could if I jogged, but I don’t jog well.

[3:00 p.m.]

Everything is driving, at great lengths — not for me, but for constituents that want to come and see me, constituents that want help. They want to come and see their MLA, because they have an issue. They can’t come down.

The great thing about our democracy is we have a great front lawn in this Legislature where people can come down and state their ideas and thoughts. People in Fort St. John can’t do that. But they will come and see me to make sure that their thoughts are heard and their concerns are brought here.

That is what worries me about this bill. It’s about relationships. It’s about relationships — not me to the constituents but the constituents to me. That’s every one of us in this place — every single one of us. Believe it or not, our constituents have a relationship with us. We may not even know it yet, until they come through that door, and they are looking at you as a member of this Legislature, and they want your help. We’ve all had that before, where someone does come in and you help them and you see that look on their face. They look to you with gratitude and say: “Thank you. Thank you for helping me deal with my issue.”

On behalf of my riding, my two school districts, my seven First Nation communities, my municipalities and towns and districts that I’ve just talked about, we need to be improving our democracy. We need to be improving how people relate to this place. This bill, the proposal of taking away the rural representation, does everything but that.

S. Cadieux: Well, despite being an urban MLA, I can’t walk across my riding. But indeed, I can drive corner-to-corner in less than 30 minutes, traffic dependent. But I’ll take my colleague’s point, as I have lived in rural B.C. I certainly have done my fair share of travelling to many corners of this province.

As I take my place in this debate on Bill 7, a piece of legislation that could have profound implications for the future of how British Columbians are represented in our province, I’m pretty certain very few British Columbians are aware or are following this at this time. Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon us as elected representatives to talk about what this is, why it’s important and to share our concerns about the bill as presented.

Following every second election, the Electoral Boundaries Commission is appointed to examine the current electoral boundaries and make alterations as needed to keep up with the changing demographics of our province. The purpose of the Electoral Boundaries Commission is to make sure that the political boundaries of the province are drawn in such a way as to provide every British Columbian with effective representation.

Representation requires being present. It requires an understanding, an ear to the ground on local issues and concerns. It requires liaising and working with other levels of government. For me, that’s one city council, two members of Parliament, one school district and two First Na­tions. It requires ongoing relationships with one board of trade, two BIAs and two chambers of commerce. It requires relationships with countless local charities, service providers and community advocates.

All of those things are a lot easier to do when you can drive across your riding in half an hour, like I can. Heck, I can even attend multiple meetings and events in one day. Not so for those whose ridings are geographically larger. Not so for those MLAs with municipalities and differing issues from community to community. I marvel, actually, at my rural colleagues’ ability to stay connected to their dispersed communities. I’m awfully thankful for my relatively compact riding.

[3:05 p.m.]

Of course, we need to ensure that regions with growing populations are properly represented. I’m certainly profoundly aware of the growth in my city of Surrey, for ex­ample. The growth of this urban area is real, and it is sub­stantial, with 800 to 1,000 residents a month. The construction is a visible reminder — the traffic increases, an increasingly frustrating daily reminder — of significant growth in recent years. Electoral boundaries might need to be adjusted to accommodate the growth. This will mean adding new ridings in some of these rapidly growing regions.

At the end of the day, the ability for MLAs to connect with constituents is vital to an effective democracy. As such, neither the number of constituents nor the size of an electoral district should serve as a barrier to having access to the representation that they’re entitled to. We certainly need to protect and, ideally, improve the trust between elected officials and electors, not dilute it. This legislation could do that.

Through this last year, I participated in a lot of town halls with the chambers in my community to provide in­formation and an opportunity for people to connect and share challenges. I had two chambers to do this work with. I can’t imagine how a rural MLA would be able to be available to all of their communities and still do their legislative responsibilities and their constituent casework.

The pandemic forced us all to accept new ways of connecting, like this Zoom format for debate. It has proven effective and will likely have a lasting effect on how we make ourselves available to our constituents or even to do our work in the House, but it has limitations. Those limitations are amplified in rural and remote communities due to connectivity issues. They’re also amplified for our most vulnerable constituents across our province — the elderly, those living in poverty. The ability to connect in person with elected officials through their offices will remain a necessity of fair and equitable representation.

The last time through this process I represented a riding that had a population of over five times that of the riding of Stikine. My riding was split into two in the redistribution. Now really, nothing really changed operationally. I still see and work with all the same councillors, MPs, chambers, charities and community advocates. Setting political party representation aside, I doubt very many people have noticed a difference in their representation. I’ve never heard anyone complain that I had too many people to represent.

I certainly understand the idea that we’re attempting to keep the value of the vote somewhat consistent or equitable. More MLAs in growing, populated areas may be required to keep the balance, but I’m not sure that more MLAs is the only way to do that. Never once have I heard from constituents that they wish there were more politicians, that if only there were more politicians we could get more done.

While appointing this commission is routine, the chan­ges proposed in the legislation before us are not. It seeks to remove protections that have been put in place to ensure that rural British Columbia is represented effectively in our Legislature. Specifically, this bill seeks to remove statutory protections to three regions: the Cariboo-Thompson, the Columbia-Kootenay and the North. These regions have been protected because, while they have a lower population than the densely populated Lower Mainland where I reside, they are vast geographic regions full of diverse people who deserve fair representation.

I remember the last time we were here at this stage of the cycle, where adjustments needed to take place in the distribution of seats. I remember the discussions that revolved around partisanship and attempts that might be made to configure a map in a way that favours one side or the other. I really don’t see that as a concern. I think the voters are smarter than that, and I think, as history shows us, voters will decide, regardless of where boundaries are drawn, which party they wish for them to be represented by.

We see the changes each election cycle. My colleague from Abbotsford West has been through this process more times than me. He, too, remarked — similarly, in his remarks with this bill — that when he arrived here, the party we represent was regularly accused of being the urban party and accused of predominantly being concerned with urban issues to the exclusion of others.

Today, as an urban MLA, I hear from people who think our party focuses too much on rural issues and has lost touch with the urban priorities and population’s needs. I don’t necessarily agree, certainly, as a member of that population, but it’s the commentary regardless. The voters did speak. No redrawn boundaries were required for that.

This is why the Electoral Boundaries Commission itself has in the past said that effective representation is not sim­ply anchored to equality of population but that “factors like geography, community history, community interests and minority representation” should be taken into account when deciding how to draw electoral boundaries.

[3:10 p.m.]

It acknowledges and leaves some wiggle room for the commission to recognize and allow for the fact that the needs of Terrace or 100 Mile House residents are very different from those of Surrey or Abbotsford. Even outside the Lower Mainland or the Island, the needs of a small community like Lillooet, where I grew up, are different from those of Kamloops, just a few hours away.

For MLAs representing these large ridings, they need to travel hours and hours, hundreds or even thousands of kilometres to be present, to be there to meet with and support constituents, to see the issues like fires and floods that devastate these small communities on an almost annual basis. Their economies and their people are so immensely affected by these issues. These geographically different realities are very real. They’re very different from the issues that I hear about from my urban constituents.

For my urban constituents, health care, government services, courts, grocery stores and the MLA offices are really only minutes away. For rural citizens, they often must drive hours upon hours to access these services. As such, their experience with these services is different, and their representation needs to reflect that. They need an advocate that can represent their needs and one that they can access.

Our current electoral boundaries in rural B.C. recognize the unique circumstances of these places and the reality that while they may not be presently as large in population as other ridings, there’s no way local residents could be properly represented if the boundaries were expanded to reach the proposed electoral quotient. Our routine process, every eight years, that we’re here debating today, allows us to rely upon an impartial commission to make representations to this assembly on a non-partisan basis.

For the legislation in front of us, I think this question is the one that the House needs to consider. The existing provisions of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act — in the existing act, section 9 — are designed specifically to protect people in those remote parts of British Columbia, by ensuring and directing that their constituency, within which they live, can’t get any bigger. It’s a limiting feature on the Boundaries Commission. Removal of that protection, removal of that direction, will guarantee that at least some of those people will reside in constituencies that become even larger. I’m not supportive of the proposal, contained within Bill 7, to remove it.

I took the time to search the words “equity” and “equality” in the dictionary. We use them almost interchangeably in our language, but of course, their meanings are very different. Equality has to do with giving everyone the exact same resources. Equity involves distributing resources based on the needs of the recipients.

In an article on mentalfloss.com, Ellen Gutoskey writes:

“As George Washington University’s Milken School of Public Health explains, recognizing the difference between equality and equity is important in just about every sphere of life — public health, politics, education, racial justice and more.

“If each public school in a certain county receives 150 new laptops, that’s technically equal. But it doesn’t factor in that some of those schools might be located in high-income districts where most of the students…have their own laptops. Instead, officials should allocate the devices according to which schools have the greatest need for them. That way they can minimize the chance that dozens of laptops will end up gathering dust at one school, while another doesn’t have enough to go around.”

I think that this has been articulated by some of my rural colleagues very well — the countless ways we could see political representation, and the equity versus equality thereof, in the same way. I sincerely hope the commission will heed this in their work.

Of course, this process and the deliberations will be a balancing act. Highly capable, non-partisan people will make the decisions. However, if this bill is passed in its present form and the commission is not directed to abide by a provision to protect our largest rural constituencies, I believe it’ll translate into frustration, anxiety, disappointment, disillusionment and, most importantly, inequity of representation for the very many rural citizens in our province. For that reason, I am not supportive of Bill 7. Thank you for my time today.

[3:15 p.m.]

R. Merrifield: I rise to continue the debate on this profound legislation, which could have implications on how our province moves forward and, most certainly, will create a future for how British Columbians are represented. Truly, there may not be a more important bill than Bill 7 in how we move forward. I was trying to figure out what the title of this debate speech would be. I came up with equity for democracy because, truly, I believe in both, and I don’t think you can have one without the other.

Just recently I was reminded that a bridge has no allegiance to either side. Well, this House certainly has allegiances, but right now I urge us all to focus on being a bridge that needs to be created to span the many facets of our communities and of our province. I’m not sure if my riding is actually rural or urban. Hopefully, that allows me a unique perspective as a bridge, as one who can describe both the intricacies of an urban riding as well as the difficulties facing rural.

British Columbians require a voice. A voice enables de­mocracy. They need to be heard, seen and known by those that represent their interests, but also their hopes and dreams. It is the role of this bill and this House to ensure that we build the bridges between the interests of all in a way that does not have allegiances.

I understand that this review is necessary and that it follows every second election. I appreciate the Electoral Boundaries Commission and their difficult task to examine the current electoral boundaries and make alterations as needed to keep up with the changing demographics of the province. While the appointing of this commission is routine, I question the changes proposed in the legislation before us, as it seeks to remove protections that have been put in place to ensure rural British Columbians have equity in democracy.

I hope that as this commission is appointed, we pay particular attention to the change in demographics in B.C., but also the total demographics present. I ask that we ensure that there’s an openness to seek fair and equitable representation.

Specifically, this bill seeks to remove statutory protections for three regions: Cariboo-Thompson, Columbia-Kootenay and the North. These regions have been protected because while they have a lower population than the densely populated Lower Mainland, they are vast geographic regions full of diverse people who deserve to be fairly represented in Victoria.

We’ve just heard from the member for Peace River North that his riding is 32 times the size of the Lower Mainland. I have a little bit of a personal perspective. My uncle was an MP with one of the largest ridings not only in Alberta but in all of Canada. I remember him, as a child, never being home because when he wasn’t in Ottawa, he was all over his riding seeing parades, going to events, attending meetings, meeting with constituents, going to funerals. He had a very difficult task and a very difficult riding — that, coupled with winter roads, being stuck in blizzards, not being able to get home.

The purpose of this Electoral Boundaries Commission is to make sure that the political boundaries in the pro­vince are drawn in such a way that everyone, including those in our northern ridings, has effective representation. What is effective? What’s an effective MLA? Is it someone who spends all of their time on roads? Is it someone that spends all of their time travelling rather than meeting?

[3:20 p.m.]

This is the reason that the Electoral Boundaries Commission itself had said that effective representation is not simply anchored to the equality of population. A 2015 re­port says that factors like geography, community history, community interests and minority representation” should be considered when deciding how to draw electoral boun­daries. It acknowledges and leaves space for the fact that the needs of Nimpo Lake are very different from those of Burnaby and those of Elkford are very different than those of my local riding in Kelowna-Mission.

Our current electoral boundaries in rural B.C. recognize the unique circumstances of these places and the reality that while they may not presently have as large a population as other ridings, there is no way local residents could be properly represented if the boundaries were expanded to reach the proposed electoral quotient.

Considering these aspects and taking them into account is a form of equity. As when we speak of rights, freedoms and representation, we can’t just focus on the equal, but the equitable. I’m so pleased that my colleague from Surrey South just previously discussed this. I love the example that she used about computers.

I’m going to show a couple more examples to show the difference between equality and equity. Let’s assume I wanted to distribute vaccines to a province. If wanted equality, I would simply give every single person the same amount of vaccine. If I wanted equity, however, things become much more complicated. How do I distribute the vaccine fairly or justly?

It would be equal to give the same vaccine doses to someone, let’s say, with a compromised immune system like cancer, but it would not be equitable. In order to be equitable, that cancer victim should take both of their doses at the prescribed time to ensure that their immune system is brought to the same level as mine, with a chance of fighting COVID-19. It would be equal to give us both one dose. It’s equitable to give two doses to that other person before I would have my first.

We chose, as a society, to be equitable in how we gave out our vaccinations. We gave those first to highest transmission, to those who are most at risk or vulnerable and then those who were in essential work. We were equitable. It’s far easier and takes way less time to just be equal, but then we’ve missed the point of democracy.

Here’s another example. I have five kids. They are all different heights. But if I wanted to make them all the same height, I couldn’t be equal. Equal would just give them all the same stepstool. That would make them taller but still different heights. To make them the same height, I would have to give them different heights of stepstools.

To my son Mik, who is 6 foot 6 — he would require none. To Dom and Connor, my other son and stepson, who are 6 foot 1 — they would require a five-inch stepstool to reach the height of Mik. To my stepson Austin, who is 5 foot 11 — he would require a seven-inch stepstool. And to my daughter Zovya, as she is only 5 foot 7 — she would require an 11-inch step stool.

If I took these stepstool measurements and simply made them into a way that we could equitize our regions and our electoral districts, we could see how we need to be equitable. Different heights. Different sizes of ridings. Different stepstools. Different measurements. Different numbers within each of the ridings. Equitable outcome.

Why is this important? Well, the Supreme Court has determined that we must make it so. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was challenged by a court case in 1991. The reference case is the province of Saskatchewan electoral boundaries. The court determined that “the purpose of the right to vote enshrined in section 3 of the Charter is not equality of voting power per se, but the right to ‘effective representation.’” The right to vote “comprises many factors,” of which equality is but one.

[3:25 p.m.]

The court further stated that “deviations from absolute voter parity…may be justified on the grounds of practical impossibility or the provision of more effective representation. Factors like geography, community history, community interests and minority representation need to be considered to ensure that our legislative assemblies effectively represent the diversity of our social mosaic.”

To be equal, give every riding the same number of people, but that is not equitable, and our society, as evidenced even by our vaccine rollout, is no longer wanting equal, but equitable.

As I listened to my colleague from Cowichan Valley, I agree with her on much of what she said. This is a difficult bill to debate, as it seems self-serving. But I think that looks at the wrong aspect. I’m not looking at what it does to the electoral boundary lines. I’m looking at what it does to the representation of the people. To be effective in representation, it needs to be equitable. To be effective, we should not have changed the guidelines in this bill that protects that which we need for equity.

There’s another aspect that the Leader of the Third Party and I agree on, and that is a love of democracy. For democracy to be real, it’s not equal; it’s equitable. I will continue to stand up for democracy. In fact, that is my duty as a member of this House and as the elected representative for Kelowna-Mission.

So what does it mean to create equity for British Columbians? Well, it means we need to look at where they live, their needs, their dreams and how they are served. Additionally, we must consider that a large percentage of First Nations communities in B.C. are located in the regions that are set to have statutory protections removed.

My riding is a bridge — a bridge between urban and rural. I have farmers and tech companies. I have mining companies and aerospace industries. I have small businesses and government agencies. I have consulting firms, construction companies, suppliers, manufacturers and so much more. But that’s not the situation of all ridings. Some ridings take a full day, two days, to drive across and have much more complexity, mobile offices, long days in cars and oftentimes much less frequent visits, ridings that are literally tens of thousands of acres large.

What does equity look like for these ridings? It’s been suggested by the Attorney General that the stepstool for these ridings would be connectivity. Well, how do we connect? Internet, phone, roads? Well, I can assure you that there are times in some of these rural ridings that they are completely disconnected. Many don’t have Internet to these ridings, never mind high speed. And phones? Well, they can be down for weeks just with land lines. If not, much of these areas don’t actually have cell coverage.

So what is equitable? Well, around 30 percent of First Nations in British Columbia live in the North and the Cariboo-Thompson regions — some in incredibly remote locations. We need to ensure that they also have equitable access to the representation that they are entitled to under the law. In light of this, we need to maintain a system that makes sure that communities of such varying needs can be effectively represented in our legislature.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Of course, we also need to ensure that regions with growing populations are properly represented. This equity doesn’t take the stepstool of another riding. But perhaps a riding that has 11 MLAs working for one hospital or with one council and mayor doesn’t require the same height of a stepstool as another.

We know the cities of Surrey, Vancouver and those in Fraser Valley, for example, have seen significant growth in recent years. The electoral boundaries will need to be adjusted to accommodate this growth, and that will mean adding new ridings in some of these rapidly growing regions.

[3:30 p.m.]

What is equitable in these areas? At the end of the day, the ability for MLAs to connect with constituents is vital to an effective democracy, to effective representation. As such, neither the number of constituents nor the size of an electoral district should serve as a barrier for a British Columbian having access to the representation they need and are entitled to. We need to protect the trust between elected officials and electors and not dilute it like this legislation seeks to do.

For this to be equitable, we need to look at all of the complexities and consider geography as well as the number of stakeholders in that geography. Members of this House need to be active participants in their communities and need to be able to get to various places and spaces within their ridings.

I only have one school district, one city council, one health authority, one First Nation and one regional district. It takes me 30 minutes to cross my riding. How is that going to be made equal to a riding that has exponentially more complexities than that?

We need to look at these ridings holistically. The pandemic showed, more than ever, there were cracks in access to health care for rural and remote ridings, with different issues emerging in the urban. How do we create ridings that take that all into consideration? Who knows this better than the MLAs and constituents for these ridings?

You can see by this debate speech that I don’t have all of the answers. I have the question: does this legislation have the necessary guidance to create an equitably represented B.C.? I would argue that the NDP government has taken out the very clause that has attempted to do this.

A. Wilkinson: I rise, of course, to engage in the debate on Bill 7, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act. This sounds like the usual kind of procedural thing that happens in this House, things that aren’t of particular interest to the general public. But this one is, because this is about the nature of our democracy here in British Columbia and about how we represent the people of British Columbia, the people of British Columbia who inhabit one million square kilometres of land.

Whenever I think of that huge area of land, I’m re­minded of my introduction to northern British Columbia. It happened when I had finished my medical training. One of the first things we did…. A friend and I drove up to Quesnel, my first time ever north of Cache Creek. We went around Bowron Lake. I thought we’d been to northern British Columbia. How much more could there be? It was big, wide-open spaces, beautiful forests, lovely waterways, a very enjoyable journey, a lovely trip.

Then I got a job in Dease Lake. Then I found out about the real northern British Columbia. I was told in Dease Lake that the only real business was a gas station. They sell frozen food out of a freezer as a courtesy to people driving by who didn’t know they had to have all their groceries with them. They also had occasional shipments of fresh fruit and vegetables, but that’s it. There is no pharmacy. There is no ICBC agent. There is no source of entertainment, other than what you could get off satellite TV at the time. You’re on your own. Take care of yourself.

How did you get there? Well, at that time, Canadian Airlines was flying. A two-hour trip on a Boeing 737 to Fort St. John. Turn around there. A one-hour flight to Fort Nelson. Turn around there. A one-hour flight to Watson Lake, Yukon. Pick up the vehicle that actually belonged to the Ministry of Health. Get in the vehicle and drive for three hours back into British Columbia, south to Dease Lake. Notice the gas station. Notice the health clinic with the little bit of housing attached to it for the doctor who came in and out once a month. Some houses. That’s it. That’s the real northern British Columbia.

[3:35 p.m.]

I quickly learned that Highway 16, which goes across British Columbia from Jasper, through Valemount, up acr­oss through Prince George, through McBride, through Dunster and then across through all the communities to Prince Rupert…. We think of that, most of us, as the far northern limit of British Columbia. That highway is half­way up the province. The bulk of British Columbia’s territory is north of Highway 16, more than half a million square kilometres of land up there.

We, in this chamber, seek to represent that area when we can see Washington state out of our back window. We’ve heard that someone could see Russia from their house. We can see America from this House, but we cannot see anything off Vancouver Island for the 1,000 miles north to the Yukon border.

So how do we represent those people in this chamber? I take myself back to Dease Lake. We had a few episodes of major injuries while I was there; a woman who went into early labour as well. We flew them to Terrace, 400 miles south — 600 kilometres — chartered aircraft. For a major head injury, we flew them at night, in a single-engine plane with no navigation system, back north to Watson Lake, and then a jet picked them up to take them down to St. Paul’s. That’s life in northern British Columbia, and we have the obligation in this House to find ways to represent that way of life.

How do they do it in the USA? They have two senators for every state. Wyoming has half a million people — two senators. California has 40 million people — two senators. Alaska has about 600,000 — two senators. They accomplish it, in the most powerful elected body in the world, by having disproportionate representation for rural America.

Our own federal House of Commons has representation for Nunavut. So 30,000 people get an MP. And 40,000 people in the Northwest Territories get their own MP. Yukon, 30,000 people — they get their own MP. Why? Because it’s critically important that those northern parts of Canada have appropriate representation in Ottawa, where all the decisions that affect them are so consequential.

Return to British Columbia. Think about the services that are provided: health, education, social services, transportation. They are all, essentially, driven out of decisions in this room, at the farthest southwest corner of British Columbia. There’s a little spot west of here that’s actually farther south than here, but there’s almost nowhere farther south and west in British Columbia than this House. It’s a colonial remnant. The capital probably should have been in Quesnel, for that matter, but here we are. It was once in New Westminster, but that didn’t work out, so here we are back in Victoria.

So how do we represent that population? Well, we could try to do it without crossing municipal boundaries. Ridings don’t cross municipal boundaries in the city of Vancouver or the city of Burnaby or the city of Delta, but they do on the North Shore. They do cross the municipal boundaries in Richmond-Queensborough, which includes a chunk of New Westminster. So we’ve decided to violate that rule right out of the gate. It’s always been that way.

What are the outer bounds of this situation of trying to represent people in British Columbia? The Supreme Court of Canada decided in 1991. You should take the average population of the province…. It’s now something over 5.1 million. We won’t really know until the census results are in. It stalled because of COVID, so the normal growth curve has flattened.

So take 5.1 million, divide into 93 seats, and get a number in the mid 50,000s. That won’t cut it for northern British Columbia. The Supreme Court of Canada recognized that and said: “Well, you can go 25 percent above or 25 percent below.” So let’s call it 56,000. That makes it about 42,000 to about 70,000 that could be the represented population. That won’t cut it in northern British Columbia. So the Supreme Court of Canada said: “Well, in special circumstances, you can go below that.”

[3:40 p.m.]

How was that dealt with in the past? We, as a government, recognized the special circumstances in the Kootenays and in northern British Columbia and said: “Those areas need to be specifically excepted as having special circumstances. It’s not optional. The people in Dease Lake de­serve to have representation. The people in Fort Nelson deserve to have adequate representation. You can’t treat them the way you treat people in my riding.

Many of us have never been north of Cache Creek, north of Williams Lake, north of Quesnel or north of Prince George. It’s a different world. I’ve had the good fortune to visit all 87 ridings in this province. I doubt that many people in this House have ever done that. It’s a learning experience that is unforgettable. You see a lot of the interior of airplanes. You do a lot of driving, and you do a lot of it in bad weather.

We who are here in Victoria or who live in Vancouver, as I do, tend to forget that weather is a serious thing north of Cache Creek. People die because of bad weather. People are killed in motor vehicle accidents because of bad weather. They drive in whiteouts out of necessity. Air ambulances can’t fly in Prince Rupert because of dense fog. We tend to forget that.

The North and our rural areas are special. Their demographics are special. We know that. Their age profile is very different because they tend to be younger populations who are able to deal with the circumstances they’re faced with. Older people tend to retire farther south.

They’re also a much higher percentage of Indigenous people in ridings north of Prince George. These are the true traditional territories of the First Nations, like the Tahltan, the Kaska Dena, the Blueberry River First Na­tions. These are communities that require representation, and we’ve heard in this debate that there has been no consultation with the First Nations of British Columbia about this change in representation in this House. That’s apparently going to be left to the Electoral Boundaries Commission, and that is a huge task which cannot be taken lightly. It reinforces the argument for special representation for northern British Columbia.

I have talked about access to health care and how it’s a huge issue in northern British Columbia. When I was there in Dease Lake, there was one orthopedic surgeon in northern British Columbia. There was one neurosurgeon. There have been no neurosurgeons, zero, since I left Dease Lake, for 35 years. We have to think: how do we provide these provincial services, and how do our MLAs representing those areas advocate on behalf of their community, if their numbers are going to be depleted?

Transportation, of course, is a massive issue, with the ridings in northern British Columbia often having thousands upon thousands of kilometres of provincial roads that need maintenance, that need to be properly cared for and that are dangerous in certain places and at certain times of the year. Those MLAs advocate on behalf of their communities to make sure those services are properly tak­en care of.

It’s similar in the Northwest Territories. That’s why they have their own MP for 30,000 people, because they have to deal with those issues in Ottawa. Nunavut, as you probably know, basically has no roads. It’s not feasible. They depend on air transportation, and their MP carries that message to Ottawa every day.

Let’s compare that northern experience with my own riding. It crossed my mind the other day to time how long it would take to drive from the west side of my riding to the east side of my riding in Vancouver-Quilchena. To cover those four kilometres, I actually got stopped at three traffic lights, and with that extra delay because of the traffic lights, it took me a grand total of six minutes. My riding, north to south, is five kilometres. The total area is 21 square kilometres.

I have 55,000 people in the riding, about the provincial average. There are no hospitals. There are no provincial roads. There are no bridges at all. There are schools, but there are no universities, no colleges. There are never forest fires, it goes without saying, and there are never any floods. Those are routine things in northern British Columbia.

Think about my access to health care. I can walk from my house to B.C. Children’s Hospital, the Cancer Agency, the Red Cross, Vancouver General Hospital and all of the arthritis services in British Columbia. All of that tertiary care, at extreme expense to the taxpayers of British Columbia, is within walking distance of my house — less than two kilometres.

[3:45 p.m.]

Compare that to Peace River North, where it’s an 842-​kilometre drive from the Yukon border, taking 9½ hours, to the Taylor Bridge on the Peace River. That’s just one of their roads. That riding is 160,000 square kilometres. That makes it 8,000 times the size of my riding, with almost half the population. If that’s not special circumstances requiring specific treatment in this act, I don’t know what is.

It is absurd to think that we are not going to designate those ridings in the North and in the Kootenays for special treatment. Instead, this government has decided to strip them of that status and leave it up to the Electoral Boundaries Commission. It’s just plain wrong. Census populations won’t be known until next year, so this’ll be a special challenge. Where are these extra seats going to go? Where the population has grown. Where has it grown? We don’t know. Until the census result results are in, in early 2022, it’s a guess.

My riding is shrinking because the population is aging. Young people can’t afford to move into it, so they’re moving away. As children become adults, like my own kids, they’re all moving away. The same thing is true on the North Shore: some ridings are actually shrinking in population. There’ll be some minor adjustment. I might get a couple of more streets’ worth of population added to my riding, but those are minor adjustments which make little difference to the population being represented.

Northern British Columbia is 330,000 people total, in an area that’s the size of France. France has more than 60 million people. We think of those 330,000 people. It’s the same as adding Richmond and Delta. It’s the same as the capital regional district here, which would not even be visible on a map of the Peace River country.

Peace River North is 160,000 square kilometres. It has 33,000 people. It’s larger than all of England, where 65 million people live. If you actually put England into Peace River North, there’d still be room for Belgium, with another 11½ million people. In that area in Europe, there aren’t 33,000 people; there are 78 million.

We have extremely low-density ridings in the north of British Columbia with extremely high needs for provincial services — health, transportation, emergency services, education — that are simply not applicable to where I live. I say to my colleagues in the North and the Kootenays: you deserve special treatment. It is not feasible to represent an area that big with even fewer MLAs by telling them they don’t need representation. That’s tough. Those ridings are effectively going to be transferred to Metro Vancouver. That’s not good enough, and that’s why this legislation should not pass.

When we think of what we need to do, we need to recognize that this is a big and complicated province with special circumstances in many corners. Prince Rupert is a small town, on the west coast at the end of a railway. It had no road access until the 1960s; it was by train or by ship. That is totally different from the lifestyle that has been lived in my area since about 1920. We’re on very different paths in how these communities are growing and developing, and that needs to be recognized in this chamber by giving them the special treatment they deserve.

We cannot treat northern British Columbia and the Koo­tenays as if they’re a suburb of Victoria or a kind of forgotten corner of the Lower Mainland. It does not work that way. The provincial investments into those ridings need to be much, much higher on a per-capita basis simply to deal with the roads, let alone the cost of moving patients in and out for appropriate medical care. As I said, you could walk to Vancouver General Hospital from my house in about 15 minutes. Try that from Dease Lake, especially when you’re critically ill. Special circumstances most definitely apply to northern British Columbia.

[3:50 p.m.]

This is part of what defines us as a country. We are not Belgium. We are not Ireland. We are not Tennessee. We are not California. We have this vast area across the north of this country, which contains Indigenous People who are unique in the world. It needs to be recognized that it’s part of the fabric of Canada. It’s part of what makes us who we are.

British Columbia, as we all know, is the most challenging terrain in the entire country. We have 203 First Na­tions in this province, whereas some prairie provinces have two or three. We have an intriguing, gorgeous, million square kilometres of landscape that we are responsible for in this House, and we have to take that seriously. We cannot create these enormous swaths of 200,000 or 300,000 square kilometres and say: “You’ve got an MLA. What are you worrying about?” That’s not who we are.

It’s part of being Canadian, part of being British Columbian to say that our identity revolves around that wilderness, that landscape, that grand scale of geography. We need to make sure it’s recognized in this House. The people who live there are not living the same lifestyle as the people in my riding or the people in the riding in which this House sits. The issues are not the same.

Representation matters in northern British Columbia and in the Kootenays, where so much commerce and traffic and exchange goes across the Alberta border. They need special representation. What this act does is take away that recognition of who we are. It degrades the representation by saying: “You’re not special at all. We’re all basically the same.”

We are not all basically the same in this province, be­cause the living circumstances…. I see a colleague from across the way who lives on Kootenay Lake. It’s a very different way of life than it is in Kitsilano. We have to accept and recognize that and validate it by the way we elect people in this House.

We have to accept our ethnic diversity and the increasing recognition of our obligations to work closely with First Nations across British Columbia, especially those nations in northern British Columbia, which have traditionally been almost forgotten in this House. They need the representation they deserve.

We cannot accept the idea that these special circumstances that the courts have left open should be stripped out of this statute. That’s not who we are as a society. That’s not who we are as a province. It should not proceed, and this legislation should be defeated.

We have to recognize that British Columbia is an exciting place. We have to recognize that British Columbia is a very diverse place. We have to recognize that British Columbia is an enormous landscape that requires special treatment for those areas that are so thinly populated and so fantastically diverse that they really define who we are. Even when we sit in this British imperialistic marble-lined chamber, we’re still British Columbians, we’re still defined by that landscape. and we still need to be proud of who we are and proud to represent everybody in British Columbia.

P. Milobar: It’s my pleasure to rise to speak to Bill 7, this electoral boundary act. We’ve heard at great length around the size of the ridings. I don’t think that comes as any surprise to people in British Columbia that have been tuning into this.

I want to touch on a few aspects of why it is so critical and why this bill is flawed in respect to taking away the special provisions around those 17 ridings, because if it was as simple as rep by pop, we wouldn’t have special dispensation provided by the Supreme Court already. As we’ve heard, we wouldn’t see that in federal politics. Certainly, we wouldn’t need almost 2 to 3 to 1 municipalities set up to every MLA in this place, because otherwise, you could run the Metro area, you could run the capital regional district or you could run other areas as one city.

Why not? It’s not that big of a geographic area. Surely that must work. Surely the needs of one area of the Lower Mainland, of Surrey, are the exact same as Port Coquitlam. Why not just have one government? It doesn’t work. That’s why, and that’s why the provisions in the bill as they stand, protecting those 17 ridings, are so critical.

[3:55 p.m.]

I want to make it very, very clear, because elections come and go. Members will come and go from this chamber. It wasn’t that long ago that the colours on the electoral map were almost the exact opposite of what they are right now. The NDP were predominantly an Interior party. The B.C. Liberals were predominantly Lower Mainland and several seats on the Island. Things change over time, so we should not be looking to create legislation that’s trying to game the system.

By protecting 17 ridings, we’re not telling people how they have to vote. We’re telling people that it’s reasonable in a land mass the size of where those 17 ridings are, which probably accounts for around 90 percent of the land mass, maybe 95 percent of the land mass of British Columbia. It’s not unreasonable that they would have about 18 percent of the seats in this chamber.

We have not heard one person from our side of this House speak against the idea of enabling the commission to add six more seats to this chamber. We recognize, with population growth, that those six seats make sense. We don’t know exactly where they may be. There may be one in the Kelowna area, if you are to believe the projected census. There will likely be five to six in the Lower Mainland.

But we shouldn’t strip away those 17 seats to add even more into those populated areas. Seventeen seats out of 93. That’s 76 votes to 17. I don’t think that’s overrepresenting rural British Columbia.

Why is this important? It’s because we all are taxpayers in British Columbia. Yet we don’t all have the same access to services. So let’s look at health care, as we heard from the member from Vancouver just recently, just before me. Let’s look at health care.

In the city I’m from, Kamloops, I was chair of the hospital district at the time that we managed to secure a half-a-billion-dollar hospital expansion in Kamloops. That came with a price tag to the local taxpayer, however, of $200 million. Residents in Kamloops and the surrounding areas had to guarantee $200 million on their property taxes to secure the other $300 million from the province. The provision of that is so that we would also receive some provincial funding towards providing B.C. Transit.

Yet in the Lower Mainland, where that same provision was in place but in reverse, they were given the deal that 100 percent of health care costs would be paid for by the province, but they were on the hook for TransLink. This is why the numbers of representatives do start to matter. That has changed. That has changed under this government.

We saw this government take over the Pattullo Bridge project, which was a TransLink–owned asset. The cost to replace that was supposed to be borne by TransLink, by the residents of the Lower Mainland. Instead, this government, with the majority of seats in that area, decided to play politics with it and turned around and said: “We’ll take it over. We’ll take on that $1.4 billion and spread it out across this whole province and have every taxpayer in this province pay for that piece of infrastructure.”

That is a very local piece of infrastructure that was supposed to be paid for in good faith by the residents in that particular area. The trade-off was that the $1.1 billion St. Paul’s Hospital — which is climbing in costs, which is fine; it’s health care, and it’s expensive — was going to be 100 percent paid for by the province. So when you come from the Interior, and you see side deals like that, let alone SkyTrain and others, you don’t begrudge that urban areas need very expensive infrastructure to be able to meet the demand of the whole province.

But when you start to see costing formulas change on the strength of where the seats are, it worries you for the future. It worries you. What happens when those 17 seats get shrunk even further? They are large geographic areas.

We heard the member for Stikine make it sound like we were complaining and whining on this side of the House about having to drive long distances. No, we are not. We accept that as part of our way of life. We accept that as part of our job. We were actually trying to represent that it makes it very problematic for the people we represent if they choose to try to come to our offices and meet with us. It puts their lives in peril in the middle of winter.

[4:00 p.m.]

The member for Stikine knows full well what it’s like to have people drive in bad conditions — sometimes with not the most mechanically sound vehicles and sometimes with not the greatest tires on them, despite what a law in a book might say — for them to try to get access to government services, let alone their MLA. That’s the point of this.

We already do not have an equal province. We try to make it equitable. We try to make access to education as reasonable as possible, already recognizing that geography and population make it tough to offer the same services in every centre. We have already come to terms with that happening with health care. It happens with government services like ICBC and other offices.

Now suddenly, in this chamber, to say that it’s self-serv­ing to try to protect the 17 representatives, regardless of political stripe, over that massive geographic area is the line in the sand that they don’t want to cross. That’s the line in the sand that takes it too far. It simply doesn’t add up. The reality is that it would have been very easy for this government to not try to presuppose what an outcome of an election in 2024 may be. I certainly don’t. I’m not trying to presuppose what the commission’s work may be.

Now, in my riding, my boundary will probably move a little bit here and there. It does all the time. I used to live in my riding before I came to this chamber, and then they moved the line on the map. I don’t live in my riding, and that’s a well-known fact in Kamloops. I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been brought up in every election. Other sides sometimes try to make a deal out of it that I don’t live in my riding. I used to.

I don’t think that it’s right that I should have to sell my house and move — literally, about 600 feet — to be back in my riding, to understand my riding, but that’s the narrative that gets spun in the Interior. I know that doesn’t matter as much in the metro areas. That’s understandable, because they’re much more densely connected and populated areas where there are many members, on both sides of this House, that don’t live in their exact riding, for the same reasons. That’s fair enough.

I can’t tell you where exactly the lines will move in those 17 ridings, and I’m not saying those lines shouldn’t move in those 17 ridings. What I’m saying is that the previous legislation, which this government is trying to change right now, had protection for the concept of a land mass having 17 ridings. That is gone, with this legislation.

That is wrong, because for 90 to 95 percent of the land mass of British Columbia, it should be reasonable to task the commission with a very clear set of instructions: “For this 90 to 95 percent of the land mass of British Columbia, you figure out how to make 17 ridings out of it. For the other 5 percent, you figure out how to make 76 ridings out of that 5 percent of the land mass.” That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request to make of this commission.

I have no doubt that they will be impartial, that they will be highly skilled, that they will do their job with the utmost of integrity — no doubt whatsoever. But let’s look at the timelines. We have no guarantee from this government that the commission will actually start their work in October. The commission has to start their work as soon as they get appointed.

Past history would show us some other things this government has done. They may try to use the cover of COVID — that people, excited that restrictions are being lifted in the middle of summer, could be a little bit too busy in their lives to show up to the commission to actually make their voices heard, which makes for a skewed document.

We saw that with proportional representation — how the Attorney General tried messing around with things, to the point that it failed miserably. So the fact that I don’t have a lot of faith in how the Attorney General has structured this should be no surprise. Frankly, the one peace of mind I might have is that the batting average for the Attorney General on most things like this — let alone Supreme Court decisions — isn’t very good. So we might actually have a fighting chance to retain our 17 ridings, regardless of where those boundaries go.

Those 17 ridings will change party affiliations. Elections are a snapshot in time. I can’t tell you who will be running in what ridings, who the leaders of any party will be in 2024. Right now I can’t tell you what the ballot question will be in 2024. I would be astounded if anyone in this chamber or even the media would know what that is.

[4:05 p.m.]

You don’t know who all of the candidates are going to be for the various parties. At this point, we don’t even know what specific areas they would be trying to represent. What we do know is that the only way to shrink the number of 17 down is to take what are already massive geographic ridings and make them, like, incredibly large. It’s just not workable. People will feel even more detached from their provincial government.

People feel detached from Ottawa. They feel alienated from Ottawa because their MP is one of 300-and-what­ever-it-is — 308 or whatever the number is — in Ottawa. It feels that much further removed. I know the government’s side. I think half of their caucus is former MPs. They would know this well: that people feel like nothing gets done on their behalf, that their concerns get raised, but it feels like we’re alienated because we’re that much farther removed from where the seat of government is.

Northern B.C. already feels that way. The Kootenays already feel that way, to a large extent, about the provision of government services in British Columbia. So it’s not just standing in this House and making a vote on the budget. We all know there’s a lot more to do when it comes to provincial government and the provision of those government services than the budget vote. Frankly, if anyone is still up in the air as to what the final budget vote will be in this chamber, well, I’ve got news for them. I think it’s going to pass.

Why it’s critical to have those 17 seats is for all of that other stuff. I’m not for one second trying to diminish the work of an urban MLA. Last I checked, we all work on a 24-hour clock. I’m not for one second suggesting I am any busier than any urban MLA. I’m not saying those urban MLAs don’t have heavy workloads and have a lot of constituent files and a lot of things to work on. They absolutely do. It just is different. The caseload is different. It’s a simple fact. They don’t have, as we’ve heard, floods, fires. They just don’t have the same issues.

I don’t think we have people in downtown Vancouver going into their MLA’s office and demanding to know what’s going on with their application at the agricultural land reserve. It just doesn’t happen. It does in my riding. Those get to be very complex files to try to work on, that take a lot of time. They’re not constantly under the threat of government services being removed from their towns — government services, government employees, staff within the school system, health care and everything else that provide so much to that small community.

They’re the coaches. They’re the volunteers. They do the fundraising for community events. They do all of that stuff. They’re critically important to those communities. They’re always keeping one eye on them, wondering if they’re going to be removed or not, if that position is going to be removed. It’s just a different impact to rural B.C. There is no disputing that.

I know for a fact, because there are a lot of ridings that we think of as urban that actually have a lot of rural connected to them, just like mine do. So I know for a fact that there’s a great many members on the other side that know exactly what I’m talking about.

They may have been stifled within their caucus, and they may not be allowed to say it publicly. I think that speaks volumes in itself, when we’re supposed to be here representing our constituents, especially on something as fundamentally important as this. But that is the critical difference, and that is why the protection of those 17 ridings was so critical.

Again, my riding — it’ll grow a little bit, or it’ll shrink a little bit. It’ll be right in the average. Kamloops south will be the same. We’ll move around the lines a little bit between us. The world won’t stop spinning in our part of the world, frankly. But that doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t it make it right for those other 15 ridings that could be impacted and the size those ridings will take in.

[4:10 p.m.]

I know that in my own riding, if I drive literally…. I don’t think I’m even actually at the municipal boundary as I start heading north, and I don’t have cell service. I don’t have cell service for a good portion of the drive to Barriere, which is about 65 to 70 kilometres away.

Then I have cell service for a little while. I keep driving on to Clearwater, which is another 60 to 65 kilometres away, and there are large sections where you don’t have cell service. Then you drive through Clearwater, and you better make that call quickly. As I keep heading on to Blue River, there’s no cell service. Don’t even get me started on high-speed Internet and, if you do get it, what it costs and what they consider high speed.

That’s not me driving to Sun Peaks, where cell service is still spotty. That’s not me heading up Highway 24, where cell service is spotty.

The main portion, which I was first talking about, is on the Yellowhead Highway. So on a major interprovincial highway, there’s not proper cell service. I know people are probably thinking: “Well, it’s a pretty narrow corridor.” They’re right. It gets to be very expensive and complicated for the cell companies to get line of sight to be able to get you the coverage.

When I was driving down to Victoria on Sunday, my du­ties as House Leader came up. I had to take care of a few things that were going on with shifting schedules and things of that nature. So I started trying to make a few phone calls driving down the Coquihalla to come down here.

Now, I drive to Victoria every time. I did even before the pandemic. It takes me about seven hours to get here from Kamloops — seven to eight, depending on which ferry you can hit and how early you get to the ferry terminal or not and depending on the traffic coming through Abbotsford. It sounds like a long trip to get here from Kamloops, and it is.

The member for Kamloops–South Thompson flies most of the time. I get home at about the same time that he does. A lot of weeks I get home before him, and we leave here at the same time. He’s flying.

It’s not so easy to get around in British Columbia as peo­ple might think, when it comes to travel. We’re the lucky ones. Kamloops is one of those perfectly located cities where it actually times out about the same. But if you live in Kelowna, even taking the Coquihalla, it becomes that much longer to drive. Penticton. The member for Fraser-Nicola trying to get to Ashcroft. Instead of getting home at about 12:30 on a Thursday night like I do, so you can get ready to start meeting your constituents at nine in the morning….

Again, to the member for Stikine, I’m not complaining about that. That’s just the cold reality of the job. I know lots of you fly home and get home late at night and do the exact same thing, whether you fly or drive. That’s the job, and that’s okay. We all signed up for it. We all know it. That’s the reality we live in and work in.

Anyways, as I’m driving down the Coquihalla, I start trying to make some calls to take care of some work. An interesting thing. I’m at the old toll booth area. Normally, you actually have cell range. Normally, it’s just below the snowshed till just before Hope that you don’t have cell service, and then you’re fine all the way again.

I don’t know what was going on — I won’t name the provider; it was a major provider — but I basically had no cell service from the toll booth area of the Coquihalla on Sunday until, literally, I was basically through Chilliwack. I was still cutting in and out driving through that mountainous region called Chilliwack on the highway.

Now, Chilliwack has some lovely mountains on either side, but I would suggest that no one here thinks that it’s a tight, narrow corridor like the Yellowhead Highway is when it comes to the mountains up against it. Yet I still wasn’t getting good cell service. I was dropping. I was cutting in and out. I would have to hang up and phone the person back. It actually resulted in a slight miscommunication, which it then took another three emails to solve once I got to the ferry terminal, because of how things cut in and out. That’s the reality people live with in rural B.C.

The need to protect…. Again, to me, this isn’t about protecting a specific riding out of those 17. This is about saying that the legislation we have looks at 95 percent of the land mass of British Columbia and says it’s reasonable that 95 percent of the land mass has 17 representatives. The other 5 percent can have their 76. That does not seem unreasonable.

[4:15 p.m.]

I agree, in this bill, about the need to look at adding six more seats. That’s how you get the 17 to 76. We’re not disputing that in the least. But the work we do is just different. The needs of our communities are different. The numbers of municipalities and school districts and regional districts and First Nations bands in a large geographic riding are just larger than they are in a heavily, densely populated riding in the Lower Mainland or the capital regional district. There’s just no getting around that.

The only reason the government, frankly — as much as they want to accuse us of playing politics with this — would need to remove that is because they actually do want to try to figure out how to somehow gain the upper hand in the next election.

Well, I’ve got news for them. We’ve got a bit of a hill to climb if we want to form government again. I don’t think that’s a great secret. It’s pretty simple math.

Now, I get that they might be a little bit concerned. The last time they were ending their second term, they wound up with only two seats in this House. So maybe they’re not so confident in their 57 seats. Even 57 out of 93 is still a majority, last I checked. Why they felt compelled to not just say to the people that live on 95 percent of the land of this province, “We understand, and we’re going to make sure there’s a bit of protection in there….” Once it’s gone, it’s never coming back. There’s no way, short of having to refight the fight yet again, that those protections will be in place.

In my own riding, I can tell you that the needs of Barriere, 65 kilometres from me, are different than the needs of Sun Peaks, which is about 65 kilometres, just a little bit more to the east, away from me. Both of those have needs that are different than the needs of Clearwater, which is another 65 kilometres away. Blue River, which is not incorporated but still functions very much like a town, has a completely different set of needs. That’s just in my riding. I haven’t even talked about the needs of the city of Kamloops. Obviously, those would be a totally different scale and need than those other smaller communities.

Can you imagine adding that complexity — and I have a reasonably sized riding — to what we see in the North? Let alone in the Kootenays with the various mountain passes and the terrain you have to travel in the Kootenays and the weather you have to deal with in the Kootenays. Sometimes it’s not just about the geographic size of the riding. It’s also the terrain of the riding that starts to make it next to impossible.

We heard the member for Fraser-Nicola talk about how people start to feel disjointed. One time Merritt is in the riding, and the next time it’s out. One time Hope is in the riding, and the next time it’s out. No wonder folks start to lose attachment to where exactly they’re supposed to be. Princeton was in; they’re gone. It starts to make it much more difficult for people to understand who they’re supposed to be voting for, in terms of the actual name, but also what riding they’re even in and how to access those services.

It’s for those reasons that I can’t support, particularly, the section that guts the protections for 95 percent of the land mass of British Columbia.

We already have a disparity of population in ridings. This bill, instead of actually trying to at least somehow recognize and protect some of that disparity, is actually creating the opportunity for it to be ripped apart and to make it even worse. If adding five or six seats to the populated areas in a metro area creates the unease that somehow their voices will not have enough sway in this chamber….

The actual percentage of seats goes up. Once again, if you do the math, if you look at the 17, the percentage of seats, 17 of 87…. It’s just about 20 percent of the seats. When you do that on 93, it drops to 18. You could have protected the 17 seats and still actually had that extra seat influence, in terms of rep by pop, trying to be reasonably represented. We’re not seeing that, and that’s a shame.

[4:20 p.m.]

No one knows for sure. We have guesses of how the election might go. We have hopes of how it might go. We certainly don’t know riding from riding how it’s going to go. So our comments on this side of the House have had truly nothing to do with that. It’s about trying to keep that protection in place to make sure that the people that need the help and support from their provincial government have reasonable access to the help and the support and the services that are provided.

It’s not about making sure that they raise their voice up so they can get a particular vote on a certain way on a certain budget bill. That’s the least of their worries. They want to know they’re going to have proper ambulance provisions. They actually want to see that in metro areas too, as we’ve seen over the last several weeks that it’s simply not good enough.

They want to have ease of access to go talk to their MLA about the ambulance service. In my riding, the issues around the ambulance service are slightly different than they are in the examples we’ve been hearing in question period recently. That’s just a simple fact. They’re different. It doesn’t make them less serious for the people involved, but it will require a slightly different solution.

We already have different levels of government service, different levels of access to care, different levels of access to education. There’s not a university everywhere. There are not hospitals everywhere. Heck, there are not clinics in a lot of places. It gets harder and harder to attract doctors and professionals, the smaller the area goes. The asks and the needs of those constituents are different than the asks and the needs for the large portion of the heavily populated areas.

Again, I want to close on…. This is not in any way…. I totally respect, especially what I have seen firsthand, the work my urban colleagues do. They’re busy. Like I said at the beginning, there are only so many hours in a day. We all operate under the same clock. I’m not trying to, for one second, say they’re not busy and haven’t an extensive workload. But it is most certainly different, and the scale and magnitude of projects they’re talking about are totally different.

If you want to talk to my two colleagues from Peace River North and South about how hard it is for them to get a bridge replaced that is already a provincial asset, talk to them about the Taylor Bridge. At a time when the government chose to just take on the Pattullo Bridge, no strings attached — we’ll just pick that up and take that off of a municipal government’s hands — the Taylor Bridge is in desperate need of replacement. But crickets from the government.

It would have even less profile if you had one member representing that area, instead of two, trying to bring a voice to a very critical issue in that area and the need for capital dollars to go into it. That’s just but one example. This isn’t meant to be “Woe is me” and “Oh, aren’t we so hard done by in the Interior and the North and the Kootenays.” It’s about trying to be treated equitably and reasonably fair.

I think having 17 representatives, regardless of political stripe in this House, representing 95 percent of the land mass of British Columbia is not unreasonable. It’s not unfair, and it in no way diminishes the need to bring extra MLAs, based on population, into the growing heavily populated areas of the metro areas of the capital regional district and the Lower Mainland. Thank you for the time.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing Columbia River–Revelstoke.

D. Clovechok: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It’s always a pleasure to see you.

Because I’m here in rural B.C., I’ve obviously got a network problem here that I’m trying to deal with.

I rise today on behalf of the hard-working mountain folks who are my constituents here in Columbia River–​Revelstoke to address the reading of Bill 7, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act.

I want to recognize that I’m speaking from the shared traditional territories of the ?Akisq’nuk First Nation and the Shuswap Indian Band as well as the chosen home of the Métis Nation of B.C.

Throughout this debate, my colleagues, I think, have eloquently spoken to the simple fact that this legislation before us could have profound implications for the future of how British Columbians are represented in our province.

Now, I’m going to do a little bit of a recap of all of that and an overview of Columbia River–Revelstoke. It’s a matter that concerns us all, whether you live in Surrey, which we all know is the fastest-growing city in British Columbia, or the tiny little village of Skookumchuck, which is just down the road from me, because how we choose our government lies at the fundamental heart of our democracy.

[4:25 p.m.]

Every British Columbian deserves to have proper representation in this Legislature, no matter where they live. Under the current set of rules, we know that every second election, the Electoral Boundaries Commission is appointed to examine the current needs of the province in terms of changing demographics. We know that. We also know that appointing the commission is standard practice, and it’s standard process.

However, what is not standard are the changes proposed in this bill and the amendment that we’re talking about. The legislation seeks to remove protections that have been put into place that ensure rural British Columbia, where I live, is properly represented in this Legislature. Protections, as my colleagues have already said, were put there for good reasons. This proposed legislation seeks to re­move that statutory protection in those three districts: the Cariboo-Thompson; the Columbia-Kootenay, where I live; and, of course, the North.

I completely disagree with what this amendment is dealing with. These regions have been protected in the sense that we have far fewer constituents living in rural and northern B.C., yet nonetheless, they deserve equity in their representation. While these regions have lower population densities than the more heavily populated Lower Mainland does, we’re talking about these huge, massive geographic regions. I’m going to talk a little bit about that in Columbia River–Revelstoke. We’re certainly not the lar­gest, but we’re one of the biggest — full of diverse people, different people. That’s what’s so exciting.

Perhaps more fundamentally, each region is truly uni­que, as the past member just mentioned, inside the ridings themselves, and each have their own specific and unique needs and, of course, similarities.

The purpose of the Boundaries Commission is to look at what creates equitable representation and how we formulate or redraw those lines. At present, it considers the geographical size and the accessibility of people to communicate and share ideas with their elected officials. That is incredibly important for me as an MLA and, of course, for my constituents. It’s something that we have always believed, and always will believe, and we’re in favour of.

I am positive…. I know people, MLAs from across the other side. I know them, and I know they totally understand the unique geographical challenges of these ridings, including my own. It’s an enormous province that we live in, and the member before me mentioned the terrain itself. Diverse people, so many different communities — all with varying needs but all with similar needs as well. It is inside these diversities, there must be an equitable representation for those people.

The commission itself has said that effective representation is simply not anchored to the equality of the population. In their 2015 report, as many of the members have already stated, factors like geography, which I’ve got a lot of here in Columbia River–Revelstoke; community history, which is rich; community interests; and minority representation should be considered when deciding how to draw electoral boundaries.

It acknowledges and leaves space for the fact that those needs of Revelstoke can be very different than the needs of North Vancouver. Those of Fairmont Hot Springs are different than the unique needs of Prince George. But on the same side, the needs of Fairmont Hot Springs, which is my community, are way different than the needs of Revelstoke. But there are also very similar things, and we will talk about that in a little bit.

Our current electoral boundaries in rural B.C. recognize we are diverse and we have unique circumstances in the places that we live in. While rural and northern constituencies may not presently have large populations, there’s no way residents could be properly represented if the boundaries were expanded to reach the proposed electoral quotient. To be frank and to be very honest, which I am, it would not be fair or equitable to my constituents. I’ll share some of those stories with you in a little bit.

This bill creates a general sense of concern in my riding. The possibility of loss of local representation always generates genuine concern because it has a direct effect on the people who employ me. They’re my boss.

We also must consider there are large First Nations communities throughout British Columbia, so many of them remote. My colleagues have talked about that, yet I have not heard anywhere in this debate or anywhere from the other side of this government: where is the consultation with First Nations about this legislative change? Where is the consultation? Where is it?

[4:30 p.m.]

I know that the local First Nations I support, as well as the Métis community, have not been asked their opinion, which is not only disappointing but contrary to the spirit of reconciliation. They know that. I’m not sure how this government doesn’t know that.

We also need to ensure that regions with growing populations are represented in the best possible way. We know that the cities of Surrey and Vancouver and those in the Lower Mainland, for example, have seen rapid growth in recent years and are still experiencing that rapid growth, but rural areas are growing too.

It’s interesting that here in the community that I live in, since the pandemic, we’ve seen young people, millennials, moving here from Vancouver, from the Lower Mainland, into our communities. They’re usually involved in the tech industry, and they’re settling in places where we actually have connectivity.

They’re loving it. It’s more affordable here. It’s the lifestyle that they’re looking for. Our population is growing too and will continue to grow. I’m really still working on getting them to wear Wrangler jeans and Ropers, but it’s one of the toughest jobs I’ve got. But they’re here, and we love having them here. They bring a new perspective to our growing population.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Growth in British Columbia is exciting for everyone. Every one of my colleagues who have spoken before me has said this and recognized that growth in areas needs to be accompanied by proper representation. There’s no question. Electoral boundaries need to be adjusted to take in population growth. This will mean adding new ridings in some of these rapidly growing regions.

The member for Stikine the other day, in his address to this House, inferred that in this debate we on this side are trying to divide B.C. into rural versus urban camps. How completely irresponsible of that member. You would think that after years in federal politics, he would know better or would’ve learned more. It’s a shame, Mr. Speaker, that such divisive words were spoken in this House.

In fact, urban British Columbians and rural British Columbians have much more in common. To cite a few ex­amples, we all need more affordable housing and affordable daycare. We are together in the fight against mental health and addictions. Opioid use and the death that comes with it is not exclusively found in the Lower Mainland. Tragically, it exists in my communities too.

Even wildlife issues are not uncommon in urban B.C. in the communities. I just saw on the news the other night that the coyotes are still biting people in Stanley Park and that there are bears in Richmond. Well, I saw a bear off the trail this morning when I was walking my dog. We’ve got coyotes all over the place. We have similar and like issues.

Yes, there are stark differences as well. In my riding, there’s no public transportation. There is no public transportation, with the exception of a health bus that runs from Golden to Cranbrook every Tuesday and Thursday. That’s it. No public transportation.

Many of my constituents do not have effective broadband or even cell service, as has been mentioned already. There’s limited access to specialized medical care. If people need that specialized medical care, then that requires them to travel long distances over mountain passes or to other provinces, specifically Alberta, if Alberta will take those patients. Frankly, there’s little equity for rural residents when it comes to specialized care or even ambulance service, to mention another.

The ability for MLAs to connect with constituents is vital to an effective democratic system no matter where you live. We need to protect the trust between elected officials and electors, not weaken it as this legislation seeks to do.

When I look at my riding, I can see the devastating ef­fects that this proposed legislation could have. The riding of Columbia River–Revelstoke is in the southeastern portion of B.C. It was created in 1991, and over the last 30 years this constituency has seen its share of challenges and successes. Just to take this into perspective, my riding is made up of two cities. When you think of a city, you think maybe of Vancouver or Richmond or Surrey. I think of Kimberley and Revelstoke, and they have populations about the same — 8,000 people. Those are the cities that I represent.

I have two regional districts inside of my riding; two First Nations communities, with their elected chiefs and council; one town; two villages; two Métis communities; and many settlements, like Wasa, Parson, Canal Flats, Meadowbrook, Donald, Skookumchuck, Spillimacheen and my home community of Fairmont Hot Springs down here on the Dutch Creek, which of course is just experiencing some flooding issues. Of course, all the farms and ranches found throughout. And we can’t forget Field, located on the eastern side of our border in Yoho National Park. Also, five chambers of commerce.

[4:35 p.m.]

No surprise that Columbia River–Revelstoke is classified as a remote rural riding, and for good reason, as you can see. If you look at a map, the Columbia River–Revelstoke riding is about six mountain ranges and a ferry ride away from our provincial capital. As a matter of fact, most of my communities are closer to the provincial capital of Alberta than they are to Victoria. It straddles that eastern border of our province, with our Alberta neighbours just a short drive away.

Here in the Columbia Valley, we’re only two hours away from Calgary. We’re one of the few ridings that is a direct entryway to British Columbia via the rest of Canada. We understand and we accept the responsibility that we have in welcoming visitors and living alongside of them. Being a border community certainly does pose unique challenges and, of course, successes.

Here in the Columbia Valley, between May and October, our population increases around 40,000 people. Our RCMP detachments don’t increase, our fire departments don’t increase, but the population does because of tourism. We are grateful for that, and we welcome it.

We have something for anybody and everyone. We have snow sports. We have hiking. We have biking. We have amazing guide-outfitters here that, of course, have been hammered by this pandemic, probably more than anybody, really.

If you’re looking for something more industrial, we have silica. We have gravel mines throughout. There are plenty of roads and highways to maintain and plow with the champagne powder that we have, if you’re a skier. If you don’t like the roads, you can always work on the railroads. We’ve got some stunningly beautiful routes that travel right through the riding with the Canadian Pacific Railway.

We’ve got plywood mills. We’ve got pulp mills. We’ve got sawmills. These mills have been here for generations, feeding our communities, allowing our young people to stay here and work.

We’re also a tourism hub. We have one-third of all the resort municipalities in British Columbia: Golden, Inver­mere, Panorama, Radium, Kimberley and Revelstoke. It’s a massive tourism riding that has been hit very hard by this pandemic.

It is a riding that requires an MLA who has a knowledge of this area. I have been here, recreated here, lived here since I was five years old. It has been a while since I’ve been five years old. In one of my ridings, a business tourism leader recently stated to me, as we were talking about Bill 7: “This makes no sense at all. We need to access knowledgable leadership that can address any issues that could affect the critically important revenue streams for our area and our province.”

Columbia River–Revelstoke is a full-on four-season community. We have four curling clubs, four snowmobile clubs, one of which is the largest in Canada, dozens of back-country lodges, and cross-country and helicopter skiing. We have 20 golf courses, six commercial hot springs, over five mountain-biking clubs, trails and off-road groups, dozens of paddling and angling companies and, of course, the hiking trails, which, if you add it up, are literally thousands of kilometres. I tell you this because my constituents, my bosses, are concerned with accessing our land and our waterways and our back country.

It’s a huge size. Columbia River–Revelstoke is just over 39,000 square kilometres, which makes it the same size as Switzerland. I’ve been to Switzerland. It’s a beautiful place. I’ve skied in Switzerland. It’s fitting because it, too, is known for its beauty, its agriculture, its mountains, its outdoor pursuits and its ingenuity.

Here’s the difference. Switzerland has 8.5 million residents living in it. Columbia River–Revelstoke has 33,105, give or take. Of course, with the new census, we’ll find out what that’s going to be. It means that it’s the same land mass, but Switzerland’s population is 256 times larger than Columbia River–Revelstoke, with an entire federal government behind them.

Currently Columbia River–Revelstoke is B.C.’s seventh-largest riding. I don’t boast to be the largest. That’s for sure. There’s not a competition when it comes to this. This change in Bill 7 could make it even larger. Our land mass, as I said, is about 39,000 square kilometres.

Here’s a comparison. It might help people understand how this looks. The land area for the proper city of Vancouver is about 875 square kilometres. Metro Vancouver is just under 2,900 square kilometres. Now, if you do the math, this translates into a comparison. Try to get your head around this. You can fit 340 cities of Vancouver or 14 Metro Vancouvers into Columbia River–Revelstoke. That’s how big we are.

[4:40 p.m.]

Within that 39,000 square kilometres, my job requires me to work with every ministry of government. The files that come into our office are from every ministry. There are very few major issues that are found in the Lower Mainland that are not found right here in my riding. Each city, town, village and unincorporated settlement is unique to itself but similar. Each has a list of ideas and concerns they expect their provincially elected official to be aware of and help address and interests that sometimes are in competition.

I know that our member for Peace River South talked about all the mayors and the folks that he’s got up there and the competitions that sometimes they get into. That’s what we face. That’s what we face in rural British Columbia and try to help these folks wade through it.

Six mayors in my riding, one Member of Parliament, two First Nations Chiefs, one Métis minister with MNBC, two regional districts represented by five regional directors — all of those I am directly accountable to. It’s a busy place that requires, in a critical way, for the MLA to be intimately understanding of each community’s goals and emergent issues if they’re going to assist to be effective.

I have two full-time offices, one in Revelstoke and one in Kimberley. I know the issues in my riding, because I know the people in my riding. More importantly, they know me. I’ve worked hard since 2013 to get that knowledge, to become friends and neighbours with my constituencies.

I want to thank my CA colleagues Rachel Loganberg and Tony Jeglum for their amazing work they do in those two offices. They’re truly amazing young people, and they work so hard to help my constituents. To truly learn about the community’s interests, in many cases, we know each other by our first names. That’s the point that I was trying to make.

You know, it’s difficult enough to spread your time and energy between many of these communities, which takes for me, from Kimberley to Revelstoke, on a good driving day with a stop in Golden for a coffee at Tim Hortons…. It’s about a six-hour drive if the traffic isn’t…. And there isn’t a major motor vehicle accident. That’s on one good travelling day.

During each election, strong, equitable representation is what constituents want when they cast their ballots. I was honoured to be re-elected last October, because I worked hard for my constituents and local governments. They not only know that I’m available for them in their communities, but again, that I know them and their communities. That’s the key essential of it. This is something that I’ve worked on and continue to work on since 2013.

Work together we have. You know, I got a phone call a couple of years ago from the mayor of Kimberley when the Meachen Creek fire hit, and it was threatening the city of Kimberley. I was there in 50 minutes. I stood shoulder to shoulder with him for a week, making sure that all the things that were needed for the city of Kimberley were in place from the provincial government, working with the Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Minister. We worked together. I got a direct phone call from him.

I worked with the mayor of Revelstoke about a community meeting around the caribou that was going to have an incredibly negative impact on the city of Revelstoke. We worked hard together, and we got a meeting in Revelstoke with the ministry, and over 1,000 people attended.

The bighorn sheep in Radium. I get this. I’m a hunter. I understand the wildlife perspective. The sheep in Radium — the Radium mayor called me. We worked together to put a working task force together to take care of the bighorn sheep that are being killed on the highways on a regular basis. That work is moving forward.

It’s the same as the previous member said. I mean, I work hard, but all MLAs work hard. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you do.

One of the things that was really important…. We are the headwaters of the Columbia River. As the critic for all things Columbia, we didn’t have a Columbia River Treaty scheduled here in Invermere. It made no sense. The community where this river starts didn’t have a community meeting, a consultation. We worked really hard, and we got that, to the credit of Minister Conroy. We were able to do that.

Another file. I was approached by the people of Golden. I know Golden. I know those people. I know how passionate they are about water. There was a company from China that wants to come in and mine the water — create a bottled water company and take it out of the aquifer. Nobody wants this thing. We worked hard together, and the reason I was able to achieve something — and we’re still ongoing and working on that — is that I understand where they’re coming from. I understand their passion, and I understand their issue.

I was honoured when I heard from a Métis community Elder who said: “When a foreign company said that they would drill into the water supply, bottle it and sell it overseas, I know our community needed to help protect the water. I directly called our MLA, Doug Clovechok.” Yes, Davene did call me directly, and she had my personal cell, as so many of my constituents do have. They phone me directly, because we know each other. We trust each other.

[4:45 p.m.]

We have three mountain ranges — actually four, when you think about it: the Selkirks, the Monashee, the Purcells and, of course, the Rockies. While they’re absolutely beautiful, they’re also very dangerous. We have high avalanche activity in the wintertime. One of the files that I worked so passionately on with Avalanche Canada — which is an amazing organization, led by Gilles Valade, their executive director — was to get funding from the provincial government. Most people don’t understand that about 80 percent of all the avalanches and fatalities occur in British Columbia, and Avalanche Canada is an organization that actually looks after avalanches throughout Canada.

So I was absolutely thrilled and pleased to hear, a couple weeks ago, that the provincial government had heard the numerous requests we had made and is providing Avalanche Canada with $10 million over the next ten years. This support came later than we had hoped, but I want to thank the Minister of Public Safety for his support on this. He is a man of his word, and I respect him for that. Very important work that’s going on.

Then, of course, there’s the Rogers Pass. The Rogers Pass is located 65 kilometres east of Golden and is about the same distance to the west of Golden. It’s a twinned and single patch of highway. I’m sure that most people have heard about that. It’s about 1,330 metres above sea level. The highway winds through the Selkirk Mountains.

With mudslides in the spring and winter lasting late into the year, here’s something that people are just blown away by. This is what my constituents deal with on a regular basis. The average yearly snowfall in the Rogers Pass — the average yearly snowfall — is 30 feet. Vancouver shuts down at two inches. Thirty feet. The highest record snowfall was just one inch shy of 51 feet. If that’s not worthy of a special consideration, I’m not sure what could be.

What’s more disturbing: when my seniors are travelling to Kelowna or to Vernon for medical appointments with specialists, they have to go across that pass. In the wintertime, it’s brutal. Unfortunately, a lot of seniors don’t go to those appointments, because they don’t want to drive across that pass. That’s unfortunate because, again, we don’t have public transportation. We don’t have it.

There’s no greater value, I don’t think, than having an MLA who provides access to available services — everybody does that — and who has years of experience living in his riding. As I said, I’ve been in this area since I was five years old. I know this place. I know the creeks. I know the people, and they know me. I believe that, on both sides of this House, my colleagues would agree that the constituents don’t only want to hear from their MLA; they want to see their MLA.

Well, in my riding alone, again, there are 46 elected officials who require me to provide them with time and attention. I have to wonder: why would the provincial government create an even larger riding, which would deny communities easy access to their provincially elected members? It’s already difficult. I travel, and the member from Stikine inferred that if you don’t like to travel, you’re in the wrong business.

I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been stuck in a cold vehicle because of avalanches on the Rogers Pass between Golden and Revelstoke or a motor vehicle accident — because of the number of motor vehicle accidents, unfortunately, and the number of fatalities, on that highway. We travel all the time. My constituents travel all the time. That’s why we opened an office in Revelstoke and in Golden, so that we could better service those people.

Yet when you talk about Bill 7 and the mayor of Invermere — Invermere is here in the Columbia Valley — said: “Increasing the size of a large area to cover for the MLA does not make any sense.” It does not make any sense. “The differences in rural areas need to be taken into consideration. Accessibility to your MLA is very important. It would become just that much more difficult, having more area to cover. Let’s not change something that is working really well.”

Well, I think His Worship is correct when he talks about that. Why are we changing this? We haven’t heard a hue and cry from constituents demanding change and action on electoral reform. We haven’t heard that. It makes you wonder: why are the NDP pushing this bill so hard? Columbia River–Revelstoke is an incredibly unique place. I am so proud to represent it, and I am so proud to be a second-term MLA here.

In closing, Bill 7 has the potential, as we all know — and, I think, even on the other side know — of negatively impacting our electoral democratic freedoms. In this day and age, with everything that’s going on around us, it is so dangerous, so dangerous, to give a louder voice to one group over another.

[4:50 p.m.]

It’s so disappointing for me as an MLA to see that more of the NDP members did not rise to speak to this bill, especially those from rural constituencies. I know these MLAs, but they didn’t get up. They didn’t represent their constituents.

Now, whether they weren’t allowed, I don’t know. I don’t have the answer for that. But I know that my constituents, if I did not rise to speak to this as a rural MLA, would have been incredibly disappointed and felt neglected, and it’s a shame that we didn’t see more on the other side rise to speak to this.

But it’s my hope that members of this House….

Deputy Speaker: Member. Let’s not cast aspersions on other members, please.

D. Clovechok: Well, I wasn’t doing that. I was just stating a fact, Mr. Speaker. But thank you for your input.

But it’s my hope that members of this House will think about the people and stories that myself and my colleagues have shared.

Deputy Speaker: Member, sorry. I just need to slow you down here. You did cast aspersions on other MLAs, so I’d ask you to withdraw those aspersions.

D. Clovechok: I take that under consideration and res­pectfully move on.

Deputy Speaker: No, I ask you to withdraw those comments, Member. That’s not to be taken under consideration. Withdraw the comments.

D. Clovechok: No, at this time, I won’t, Mr. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: At this time, you’re refusing to withdraw from…. Well, then, thank you for your speech. I’ll ask you to consider that, and you can get back and to withdraw in this chamber. Otherwise, we will have to take other steps, Member.

Thank you, Member. Moving on.

D. Clovechok: Okay.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: So seeing no other speakers, I would like to acknowledge the Attorney General to close second reading debate.

Hon. D. Eby: With that, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 7, Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2021, read a second time and referred to a Com­mittee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. D. Eby: I call continued Ministry of Jobs, Econo­mic Recovery and Innovation estimates.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister. We will await the arrival of the appropriate minister and appropriate critics. We will put the House into recess for five minutes.

Thank you, Members.

The House recessed from 4:53 p.m. to 5:01 p.m.

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
JOBS, ECONOMIC RECOVERY
AND INNOVATION

(continued)

The House in Committee of Supply (Section B); S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.

The committee met at 5:01 p.m.

On Vote 35: ministry operations, $78,648,000 (continued).

The Chair: I believe there is a question from the opposition. I just need the person to stand who wants to ask it.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for giving me just a little bit more time. I understand that yesterday I said I was almost finished, and, truly, it was almost finished. But I wanted to just circle back, as I was a bit puzzled by the answer that I received. To be honest, all night I was trying to think of why we had such a disconnect on the question that I was asking and on the answer that I was receiving.

I understood that the small and medium-sized business grant was what the tour company that I was speaking of could apply for. The letter that I read was from Cheers Okanagan, which is the tour company that I had spoken of, certainly a company that qualified for this grant, and I’m sure that they were grateful for having received the amount. But that actually wasn’t what I was speaking of.

What I felt like the minister failed to understand is how inconsequential this amount actually was for a company that was getting missed in the middle of the pandemic. So I just wanted to clear things up a little bit and ask the question maybe in a different way, that will help the minister in understanding.

You see, a company like Cheers would have revenues of approximately $1 million a year, overhead of approximately $900,000 per year, which is about $75,000 per month. These companies have been on restrictions, and this company has been on restrictions, for the last 16 months. They’ve lost 90 percent of their revenues over the course of those 16 months, which is a loss of approximately $1.2 million. What the minister was referring to me was having been offered $30,000 through the small and medium-sized business grant.

[5:05 p.m.]

What this pandemic has done has been to choose winners and losers, to have some companies benefit in a proportionate amount and other companies not. My question to the minister is this.

Considering the magnitude of loss that certain companies have faced but have had very minimal help, even through the small and medium-sized business grant, and considering how this pandemic has chosen winners and losers, and then coupled with the fact that the minister has spent only 50 percent of the pledged dollars in the programs offered to date, will the minister amend the grant program to help level the playing field of those businesses that have not received enough help during the pandemic, have been missed in the programs, and make a meaningful difference?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Certainly, this pandemic has not been fair. This pandemic has picked winners and losers, and it’s tragic. The hon. member from Kamloops and I were talking about the disproportionate impacts felt by those in the tourism and hospitality industry in particular. It’s great to hear that they did receive money. The member said $30,000. Of course, for tourism-related businesses, it’s up to $45,000. There’s an additional top-up for tourism-related businesses. We are fortunate here in British Columbia that we’ve had the highest per-capita supports in the country for people in businesses.

Again, I shared with the member from Kamloops earlier that the program originally targeted to support 15,000 businesses, and we are oversubscribed. We’re at 17,648 from a few days ago. So the program has been working. Businesses are applying at much higher target numbers than we were expecting.

[5:10 p.m.]

Of course, there’s a whole host of other supports that are also in place, wage supports. There’s obviously a whole host of rental supports and PST exemptions — a whole host of supports that we put in as a province. As well, the government extended the wage subsidy program till the end of September.

Certainly, I hope that the business the member talks about is feeling some hope and optimism in the fact that case numbers continue to decline and vaccination rates continue to go up. Hopefully, very soon, people will be able to travel. I mentioned yesterday that my family looks forward to travelling to her region, one of the most beautiful places in this province. I suspect there are a lot of other British Columbians that want to do the same thing. I think that will be good for the whole region, and certainly the tourism operators.

R. Merrifield: So the answer is no. There will be no consideration given for those businesses that the small and medium-sized business grant program was insufficient for?

Hon. R. Kahlon: As the member has highlighted, they have received a non-repayable grant from the government. Our programs, again, are some of the highest…. Every province is facing similar challenges, and we have, again, the highest per-capita supports in the country. We’re pretty proud of that support. Again, the grants are just one element of it.

I’m sure if she speaks to that business…. If they don’t know, perhaps, that there are wage subsidy programs and a whole host of other measures that are available to them if they choose to access….

I think the best thing we can do for businesses, especially in tourism, is to continue to encourage people to get vaccinated so we can see case counts go down, so we can see a return to some sort of normalcy so that businesses can get access to the customer base that they desperately need.

Dollars are available. In fact, the member has confirmed that they have had access to those dollars. I’m sure the company appreciates the supports. There’s a whole host of other programs that the company has access to as well. Again, the highest in the country per capita.

R. Merrifield: I thank the minister for the answer. Al­though it was maybe a little bit more verbose than what my question was, I did hear that no, there will be no considerations made.

I would just urge the minister, when looking at the en­tirety of an economy, especially in the midst of a pandemic…. I think we need to consider all businesses, not just those that fit into a particular box. Also, I would just urge the minister that…. If the moneys are not getting out, and if the program has been around for eight months and still is only 50 percent subscribed, I think that that might indicate that there is an issue with the absolute program and that there could be modifications made.

Just because my answer was no today, I hope that the minister will remain open to modifications at any point to make sure that those within all of our communities are served.

With that, that concludes my questions.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Again, we’re certainly proud of the highest per-capita supports for businesses and people that we’ve provided on this side of the House. I appreciate the member’s questions today and yesterday. Again, we have been very nimble and flexible with our programs. We’ve adjusted them as the pandemic has changed. Our supports have adapted as the pandemic has changed. I know that there are some businesses that are still struggling, but I do know that there are brighter days ahead. Certainly, that’s what we’re all hoping for in the coming weeks and months ahead.

T. Stone: I’m glad to be back. Lots more questions on Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation.

[5:15 p.m.]

The first question I wanted to ask the minister today relates to the following. On September 30, 2020, an emergency direct-award contract with the following reference number, C21ITID01, awarded to Eric van Soeren and Associates Ltd., was issued for $25,000. The reference number, once again, is C21ITID01, and it was awarded to Eric van Soeren and Associates Ltd. in the amount of $25,000.

The contractor was “to provide staff and external government service providers with training and prepare mat­erials to support B.C.’s economic recovery initiatives.” Again, with the award date being September 30, 2020, the contract was awarded during the interregnum period, meaning that recovery initiatives were presumably im­pacted by the election and thus resulted in the need for this emergency direct-award contract.

My question to the minister would be this: why was this contract awarded on an emergency basis? And was it because the government was in caretaker mode?

[5:20 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Staff tell me that this person was hired to provide financials training, accounting support, to 60 staff. This gentleman is an expert on the B.C. economy. At one time, he was a jobs commissioner. I appreciate that the previous government hired him, as well, on the community development trust program that the previous government ran. He was hired to come in and support, all within the guidelines of procuring services.

T. Stone: Can the minister advise as to why it was awarded on an emergency basis? What would the rationale be for that? Is that because an election was called and this contract was needed for some compelling reason that couldn’t wait until the election was over and a new government was sworn in, or is there some other reason?

It appears to be an emergency award, so I would like to understand more about why it was classified as an emergency award.

Hon. R. Kahlon: As the hon. member knows, this was before my time, but staff tell me that it was an emergency award, obviously, because we’re in a pandemic. That is, obviously, the challenge with all the services programs we’re dealing with right now, but it was also because of the speed of the award. It was critical to get people up and running and trained so that they could start taking applications and have the skills at reading financials — just sharpening up those. Of course, he’s a business expert and worked on many programs for government on both sides of the House.

T. Stone: Was this individual, this Eric van Soeren, an associate…? I suppose it could have been other individuals that worked as part of Eric van Soeren and Associates. But this entity that was awarded the emergency direct-award contract…. Was anyone in this firm directing staff within government? Were they running aspects of the ministry? Were they running programs? What exactly were they doing?

Again, wouldn’t regular staff in the ministry…? Having gone through an interregnum myself on the other side, ministers are still ministers. They don’t have any contact with anyone in the ministry, including their dep­uties, during the interregnum period, but the ministry still exists. Staff are still doing their jobs and getting paid, and so forth.

[5:25 p.m.]

Why the need for an emergency direct award? The minister mentions the urgency or the speed of the award, and so forth. I get all that. But again, there still was a government. There still were government employees in the ministry, presumably administering these recovery programs. Why the need to direct-award an emergency contract versus just relying upon the exceptional men and women that were already working in the ministry?

Hon. R. Kahlon: I think I highlighted the answer, but I’ll say it again. This company, this person, was brought in because they have an important skill set that all governments, both sides of the House, have needed from time to time.

Sixty adjudicators were brought together. He did financial literacy skills training with them so that they could review business plans. It’s not a skill set that necessarily all adjudicators have, especially the 60 that we had at that time. So he came in and provided that training to them at that time so that the program could launch and they would be prepared to adjudicate the files with the skills required.

T. Stone: Was this individual provided this direct-award contract on an emergency basis and brought in because there were not staff in the ministry that were trained to perform the functions that the minister has just indicated because an election was called? Was there training underway, an election got called, and an outside expert had to be brought in?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The answer is the same that I’ve given already twice, which is we’re in a pandemic. Of course, if you look at it now, given that we’re 15 months into the pandemic and we’re coming out, the pressures of launching brand-new programs isn’t necessarily the same. At the time, the program was being launched. It was announced.

They had 60 adjudicators that didn’t have the up-to-date financial literacy skills required to adjudicate the files. There was this contract provided so that the training could be provided, and from all accounts, it was a successful training for our adjudicators.

[5:30 p.m.]

T. Stone: Again, I think the minister is kind of stepping around the question here. What I’m trying to get at is that a program is launched four days before an election is called. StrongerBC is announced, and four days later, an election is called.

The Premier makes very, very clear on many occasions that the election is not going to have any impact on grant programs and getting recovery supports out to businesses and individuals. There’s a ministry charged with the res­ponsibility for this. Presumably, as StrongerBC is being crafted, the ministry responsible for the recovery aspect and the business support aspect of those pandemic supports in StrongerBC has a team of adjudicators, as the minister says, and then an election happens.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

It seems odd, because frankly, when one goes back and looks at direct awards, you very rarely ever see emergency direct awards. This one seems a bit strange — that somebody was needed to be brought in from the outside presumably to train adjudicators, I’m assuming, to help ramp up the speed of the processing of, perhaps, grants in the recovery grant program. The minister can confirm if I’m correct about that. But one would have assumed that this expertise would have been contained within the ministry, going into an election.

The Chair: The Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Welcome to the chair, hon. Chair, and I’ve got extra masks on hand in case I forget to put my mask on. I know you’ll keep us on track on that.

I just want to share some timelines with the hon. mem­ber: September 17, StrongerBC was announced; September 30, the contract was awarded; October 9, the program launched.

[5:35 p.m.]

From the announcement of the program to the launch of the program, staff needed to ensure that the system, the training, the staff were all in place. So this company was brought in to ensure that the bargaining unit staff that were needed to do the work had sharpened up their financial literacy skills in order to help adjudicate the files.

I just wanted to also highlight to the member — I think he was kind of alluding to it — the company that was awarded this did not administer the program in any way.

T. Stone: Well, it still seems a bit odd to me to understand the timelines — StrongerBC coming out on the 17th and a contract being awarded a couple of weeks after that. I would have thought that…. I think British Columbians would have thought or expected that in preparing to announce a program…. The business recovery grants were included in StrongerBC. They were featured in that. It seems very strange that government wouldn’t have anticipated the need to bring in additional resources to train and ramp up adjudicators and staff internal to the ministry prior to launching the program.

But we’ll move on from here. I want to talk a bit about contingency funds and pandemic contingency funds that are contained within Budget 2021. The budget contains $3.25 billion in pandemic-related contingencies for this fiscal, $1 billion for next fiscal and $300 million in ’23-24. Now, $1.1 billion of this year’s amount is devoted to “unanticipated urgent health and recovery measures.” This is a lot of contingency. There has certainly been a tremendous amount of external commentary to that point that it seems a $3.25 billion contingency seems like a very large amount.

The concerns that I think we’re all hearing from a lot of businesses is in the context of the need that still exists, the pain that is still in play, still being felt by a lot of these businesses that are being told there is either no more funding or they’re not eligible. We canvassed a number of sectors and businesses yesterday where the need is really great. In many cases, these businesses are not eligible for support. In other cases, the support they’ve received is, frankly, a drop in the bucket in contrast to the losses that they’re incurring.

I guess the first question in relation to this…. For the minister’s reference, I’m referencing table 1.2.2, the pandemic and recovery contingencies allocations for ’21-22, which is in the current budget.

First question would be this. Some of these contingencies are funds that were not fully allocated from the StrongerBC program. For example, the small and medium-sized business recovery grant program is a $430 million program in total now. That did increase from the original amount, but the original amount was supposed to be pushed out the door in the last fiscal year. So $195 million of this program has been moved into the current fiscal year.

[5:40 p.m.]

I just want to understand if the minister can guarantee that these funds are actually going to get pushed out the door this fiscal year so that they’re actually received by those businesses that desperately need the help.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Obviously, every eligible business that’s approved…. We will get the money out to those businesses. We have an amazing Minister of Finance — an amazing Minister of Finance. Certainly she….

Interjections.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’ll say it one more time. Our Minister of Finance is absolutely amazing. I see that she has entered the room.

I will say that for the contingency discussion, I suspect, you’ll be able to have when the estimates for the Ministry of Finance begin, which I believe is next after this.

T. Stone: I’m not having a contingency discussion in theoretical terms. I want to have a contingency discussion in terms of what is specific to the minister’s portfolio. I mean, it’s odd and disappointing that $195 million for the small and medium-sized business recovery grant program had to be carried over from the last fiscal to this fiscal year to begin with.

The dollars should have been pushed out the door as originally promised to the businesses that need it, especially when we’re sitting here eight months since the business recovery grant program was launched last October. Eight months later, as the minister confirmed yesterday, only 49.8 percent of the program budget is actually out the door. So it’s disappointing that we even have to talk about an allocation of $195 million for this grant program in the forthcoming fiscal year.

That being said, it is an allocation of $195 million for the small and medium-sized business recovery grant program. My question to the minister is: can he guarantee that every single penny of this $195 million is actually going to make its way into the pockets of small businesses in this fiscal year, within which it’s now allocated?

[5:45 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’ll start by saying that we have an amazing Minister of Finance.

The Chair: I might have to rule you out of order at some point.

Hon. R. Kahlon: Thank you, hon. Chair.

I think it’s important to remind the member because, although we spoke for seven hours yesterday — we had a good exchange — it has been almost 12 hours since I was able to tell him that we do have the highest per-capita supports for people and businesses in this country. Originally, this program was $300 million, as the member is well aware. Our target was to support 15,000 businesses. The member knows, because I shared it with him, that we’re well over 17,000 applications in.

I would encourage anyone that’s watching — certainly colleagues from all sides of the House that are watching right now — to encourage businesses to apply. We would like to support up to 20,000 businesses, and we continue to see applications coming in. Of course we’re going to get the money out to every business that’s eligible and approved for this program. We want to see more businesses get to apply so we can support more businesses in British Columbia.

T. Stone: Well, first off, let me say that the minister’s shameless pandering to the Minister of Finance is nauseating, but what might make it worthwhile for businesses in this province is if it actually meant a budget lift and more supports, assuming the minister can maybe begin to do a better job at getting the dollars out the door.

Interjection.

T. Stone: I’m not going to say that. Absolutely not.

I will say this, because the minister opened the door for me. He should be disappointed that we’re No. 8, in this province, at providing direct supports and relief for business — No. 8. For further clarity, we’re behind Newfoundland, Ontario, P.E.I., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec. We’re No. 8. Let’s just make sure that that’s on the record, for about the 12th time in our exchange here.

I want to go back to the contingency discussion that we were having, and I want to just make sure that, in the minister’s previous response, I heard what I thought I heard. I’m going to ask it again. Can the minister guarantee — not that he’s going to try or that it’s his intention — small businesses in this province that, of the remaining $195 million for the small and medium-sized business recovery grant program, every single dollar is going to make its way into the pockets of small businesses in this fiscal year, as detailed in the current provincial budget?

Hon. R. Kahlon: Hon. Chair, he said No. 8, and I just want to remind him that we are No. 1 in job economic recovery, at 99 percent of pre-pandemic levels, leading the country. But we won’t go too much further on this, because we did canvass this at great length yesterday.

I’ll say what I’ve said to the member already, which is that every eligible approved business that applies will get their money in this fiscal year. Our projection originally was $300 million, to 15,000 businesses. We’re well over 17,000 businesses. Our hope is to get to 20,000. So I encourage the hon. member from Kamloops, and all the members watching, to encourage businesses that need supports to apply so we can hit that 20,000 mark that I think we all want to hit.

T. Stone: That wasn’t a definitive yes, that every single dollar that has been allocated for small and medium-sized business supports is going to make its way into those businesses out there that need it. What I’m looking for here: is it the minister’s commitment, is it his guarantee, that he’s going to do whatever it takes to get those dollars, every one of those dollars, out the door?

[5:50 p.m.]

If there are additional changes to eligibility…. The member for Peace River North, for example, raised an example of a restaurant in his community in Fort St. John that needs support and is ineligible — frankly, a line in the sand that the government has drawn. I’ve mentioned several businesses that are not eligible for a penny of funding in this program because they didn’t show a profit in 2019 or they haven’t been in business for the required 18 months leading up to the date of their application. Again, lines in the sand.

So the question is, is the minister going to ensure that he’s going to pull out all the stops to get every single dollar…? Not try. Not hope. And using words like “eligible” — every eligible approved business will be supported…. No. No. I want to know if every single dollar in this pot of $195 million is actually going to get out the door to the businesses that need it, with the minister doing whatever it takes to make sure that that happens.

Hon. R. Kahlon: The staff have just updated me. I said over 17,000 businesses have applied, and our target is 20,000. As of today, it’s 18,347. We’re getting closer to the target of 20,000 so that we can get the maximum amount of businesses supported here in British Columbia.

I know the member has great reach. Maybe he can help us get there, with the additional 1,600-plus businesses, in order to maximize the dollars available. But of course, as I’ve said to the member multiple times, every business that’s eligible and is approved will get their money this fiscal year.

T. Stone: I provided a pretty good list yesterday, as did my colleagues. There’s a whole bunch of businesses in the live events sector that need more support. The government, the minister could make changes to the eligibility requirements, or he could increase the amount that eligible businesses can actually receive. That would help a heck of a lot of struggling businesses in the live events sector.

My colleague from Kootenay East yesterday raised the very, very good point of guide-outfitters, who have a huge need for additional support. While some of those guide-outfitters are applying for and have been successful in receiving a business recovery grant, it’s not enough. They need more support.

Again, my colleague from Fraser-Nicola mentioned REO, a camping resort business in her riding that has fallen through the cracks. The member for Peace River North, as I mentioned a moment ago, mentioned a restaurant in his riding that is ineligible because of lines in the sand.

My point is that I think it’s a reasonable request and a reasonable expectation for British Columbians to have — certainly, for businesses to have — that this minister is going to stand up and say: “Yeah, we’re shooting for 20,000 businesses that apply and are adjudicated and are deemed to be eligible. But if we don’t hit that number, or if that number ends up not adding up to $195 million of support, we’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure that we push this money out the door, including making changes to eligibility requirements, including increasing the amounts of supports that will be provided.”

Is the minister prepared — is he able, is he willing — to guarantee that every single dollar of the $195 million in this recovery grant program is going to be pushed out the door during this fiscal year?

[5:55 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I agree with the member. Of course, we want every single business that’s eligible to apply so they can be approved for the financial supports that we have available. Yesterday one of the members from the Kootenays talked about guide-outfitters, and we had a discussion about how there are 245 guide-outfitters, but only 31 have applied. We desperately want more guide-outfitters to apply for these supports because they are available to them.

I shared with the member how many dollars have been approved in his community. That’s positive. I also shared with the member yesterday that 83 companies that are in the live event sector have applied. We definitely want to see more businesses in that sector apply. I can guarantee to the member that every business that is eligible and is approved will get their money this fiscal year.

T. Stone: Words really matter. The distinction here is between eligible businesses and businesses in need. For the minister to keep saying “eligible,” well, he’s in charge of the eligibility. It’s up to him. He could decide today that he’s going to allow a business like the one in Fort St. John, which employs dozens of British Columbians and is at risk of closing and happens to be partly owned by somebody in Alberta…. He could make the decision today to help businesses like that.

He would have to change the eligibility requirements. He could make the decision today to say: “You know what? We’re not going to require a business to have been in business for 18 months prior to their date of application.” There are all kinds of businesses. I talked to another restaurant the other day. They missed it by one month.

There are even more businesses that are struggling with the profitability requirements — must be profitable in 2019. I mentioned the South Thompson Inn in Kamloops. They’re ineligible. They’re not going to receive any funding. Why? Because they did a major renovation in 2019 on their hotel, and through no fault of their own, a pandemic hits the province, and they find themselves just hammered.

I think what British Columbians want from this minister is a commitment to addressing the need, not just standing behind this protective wall of eligibility that he references all the time. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that if there is $195 million left in this program that’s anticipated to be pushed out the door this year, the minister will ensure that he does whatever it takes to make that happen.

I think I’ll move on from this line item but just end by saying it’s a commitment to ensuring that every dollar that’s been allocated for this program, for small business support, is actually out the door, that not a single penny gets repurposed or sucked back into government. That’s the commitment that we’re looking for here.

[6:00 p.m.]

I’ll leave it there. I did want to ask about the next two line items in this table. It’s $120 million allocated for tourism and arts sector supports for this fiscal and $150 million allocated in this fiscal for the increased employment incentive tax credit.

I would like to know if the minister can commit on be­half of government that, again, every penny of this $120 million set aside for tourism and arts sector supports is actually going to be pushed out the door this year. And is every dollar of the increased employment incentive tax credit going to be allocated to businesses — the $150 million that’s sitting in that pot? Will that support be fully pushed out the door in this current fiscal year as well?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member said that words matter, and they do. He was referring to the business from Peace River North we were talking about yesterday, and he said they were partially owned. I think the member knows they were majority ownership outside of British Columbia — not partially, majority. If it was partially, it wouldn’t be an issue.

The member also knows that those businesses, because I shared that answer with them, save considerable dollars from the 25 percent reduction of liquor pricing, on the food capped deliveries that we put in place, wage subsidies, the tax credits for hiring and rehiring. And then mentioned…. It talks about eligibility. We talked about this at great length. The live entertainment sector is eligible for qualifying for this program. Guide-outfitters are eligible.

The member from Kelowna talked about a business, and after a bit of an exchange, admitted that they actually did get money from this program. Anyways, we’ll leave that. We’ll move to the other questions.

I’m sure the member can canvass the tourism and arts dollars with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. Of course, I shared with him yesterday, I believe, around the employment incentive tax credit, that that’s a question for the Ministry of Finance. Again, they’re next for their estimates, and I do suggest that the member take the opportunity and raise the question with the Minister of Finance.

T. Stone: Well, first off, on the Fort St. John restaurant, fair enough. The member for Peace River North is sitting behind me here in the chamber and confirms that it’s majority ownership in Alberta. He makes the point, however — the right point — that 100 percent of the employees are British Columbians, and it’s those people that live in Fort St. John, that pay taxes in Fort St. John, that pay taxes to the province of British Columbia. It’s those people that have been losing their jobs and stand to lose the most if this restaurant fails. Let’s not lose sight of that.

With respect to the tourism and arts sector supports, I’m not sure why the Minister of Jobs and Economic Re­covery isn’t willing to stand up and speak to this $120 million for tourism and arts supports. He certainly, on many occasions, has stood in this chamber in question period, interchangeably with the Minister of Tourism, answering questions about tourism and arts supports.

The tourism estimates are long past us. These questions were canvassed. I’m asking these questions in the context of jobs and economic recovery, for which the minister is responsible. The minister is out there all the time, touting his take on the jobs numbers on a monthly basis. He’s often talking about what’s going on in the tourism and arts sectors. We had a lengthy exchange yesterday about the live events sector, which is a lot about supporting the arts.

[6:05 p.m.]

Again, I would ask the minister to stand up and confirm, as a member of government, a member of cabinet, and the minister responsible for jobs and economic recovery…. Can he stand up and say, or commit to British Columbians, that every penny of this $120 million that’s been allocated this year for tourism and arts supports will actually make its way to the organizations and the businesses in those sectors that need it in this fiscal year?

Hon. R. Kahlon: The member said that I’ve been touting many of the successes of government, and indeed, I have. It makes me proud that we collectively were able to support so many businesses through challenging times.

Again, we’ve canvassed in this House at great length that this pandemic has impacted businesses disproportionately and people disproportionately. But I think it’s important, since it’s been over 12 hours since I’ve been able to share with the member the timeline and all the supports that we’ve been putting in place for businesses…. The member will know that, of course, we’re talking about grants just right now. But there’s a whole host of other supports we put in place early on.

[6:10 p.m.]

We cut property taxes. We deferred other taxes, as well, to reduce the pressures on businesses. We prohibited commercial evictions. We forgave hydro bills. We worked with the federal government on the wage subsidy program.

Again, I think we maybe need to put some of the supports in context. Let’s say, for example, a bagel shop, a bakery. They could easily get a grant. They could get the launch online funding to be able to market themselves and sell online. They could get free tuition for the digital boot camp. They can get a wage subsidy for supporting their workers. They can get rental support. If they’re doing any deliveries by food delivery apps, there’s a new cap on the food delivery. A whole host of supports. I haven’t even touched the supports the federal government has put in place. The supports we put in place are extensive.

Now, the member talked about tourism-related businesses. We’ve all acknowledged that tourism businesses have been hit hard. The Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport is working with large tourism operators with a specific fund. But again, the member is asking questions about estimates…. Perhaps he missed an opportunity to talk to the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport in her estimates. Talking about tax incentives, the member can raise those questions with the Ministry of Finance.

I will say that the biggest ask that we had heard from those in the tourism industry was a restart plan with clear metrics on what we’re looking at in order for things to move up. I strongly have encouraged the federal government folks to put similar metrics in place and provide the same level of certainty for the public and for our businesses here in British Columbia around the border opening. We want to see people come back when it’s safe to do so, but we want to know what metrics they’re using, as well, so that our businesses have some certainty to plan.

Very soon we will go to the next stage of the restart plan. We will see people travelling throughout the province. There is a real hunger for people to get out and discover B.C. There’s a lot to see. As vaccine rates continue to go up, as cases continue to go down, we’re going to see some return to activities that people are craving to do. Fifteen months is way too long for being stuck close to home. I think those are the things that many in the tourism industry are looking forward to.

Of course, the circuit breaker grant was also available to many of the folks in the hotel business who were affected, resorts. We’ve seen the grants, an additional top-up of $45,000 for tourism-related businesses.

We made a commitment that we were going to support people and businesses through this pandemic, and we have done that. We’re going to continue to do that good work, because we’ve worked hard to get to where we are. We’re going to continue to work hard on the way out of this pandemic as well.

T. Stone: There’s a lot there, but I’ll just say this. As we went through yesterday, I think this constant focus on all the tax deferrals and all the loans and things that have been provided to businesses…. Hanging one’s hat on those supports without recognizing that tax deferrals mean you still have to pay the taxes. You’re just deferring the pain of having to do so for a period of time, but you still have to pay the taxes. The loans still have to be paid back. CFIB says that the average business now has taken on $170,000 worth of debt during the pandemic. That’s a massive load that the average small business is carrying.

I can’t believe the minister keeps referring to the federal government as if there is any credit to be taken provincially for what the federal government has done. I said yesterday, and I’ll say it again, thank god the federal government stepped up with robust programs that actually got money, for the most part, out the door quickly.

[6:15 p.m.]

The wage subsidy program in particular, which is a federal program and federal dollars, was probably the most important lifeline that saved thousands of businesses in British Columbia. It wasn’t anything that this government has done.

How one can be proud of less than 50 percent of the small business recovery grant being out the door after eight months of time has gone by since the program was launched is beyond me. To hear the minister say that he’s going to continue to focus on eligible businesses, as op­posed to businesses in need, it really diminishes the im­pacts, the needs, the pressures, the circumstances that are unique from one business to another.

I’m going to ask him again about the tourism piece, because he took it upon himself again, in his last response, as he has done many times in question period, to reference the tourism sector. It, by the way, asked for over $600 million in supports, way back in the spring of 2020, and got a very small fraction of that many, many months later. So I’m happy to debate the minister and anyone in government on their record on the tourism sector and how painfully slow that support has been in coming and how little has actually been pushed out the door.

In light of the fact that the minister again made some references to the tourism sector, my specific question…. As the Jobs Minister and the minister responsible for Economic Recovery….

This line item in table 1.2.2 of the budget that says $120 million has been allocated for tourism and art sector supports in the current fiscal year. As a member of government and a member of cabinet and the Jobs Minister, the minister responsible for Economic Recovery, can he guarantee that every single penny of that $120 million in tourism and art sector supports is going to be pushed out the door this fiscal year?

[6:20 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Again, I’ll take the opportunity to remind the member that the report, which we’ve both referenced many times in this House, said that we have provided the highest per-capita supports for businesses and people in Canada. I appreciate the federal government supports as well.

I think that from the beginning, we’ve worked cooperatively with the federal government. Many provinces, you’ll see, are often fighting with the federal government, but in B.C., we’ve chosen to work together. That’s what the public expects from us during a pandemic. Many of our programs are fully aligned.

The same report, which the hon. member and I have referenced many times, also said that B.C. is making the largest provincial contribution amongst any province when leveraging the federal dollars — the highest. B.C. is devoting almost 3 percent of GDP to provincial COVID measures, the highest of any province. Although I appreciate, of course, the supports that the federal government is putting in place, I think we shouldn’t minimize the extraordinary supports that we put in place here in British Columbia, collectively.

Again, because this is the estimates of the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation, I can confirm to the member what I have already. I can guarantee to him that every business that’s approved will see money go out this fiscal. I would encourage him to take questions around programs that are in other ministries to the appropriate ministries in estimates, which is the normal practice.

T. Stone: Well, again, I will reference page 10 of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the report that he and I keep bouncing back and forth. Page 10 provides the summary of direct supports by province — cash in hand; not loans, deferrals, federal supports and all the other things that the minister wraps into this notion of being No. 1 in Canada — the direct supports and direct relief, which is what businesses need.

Having run a business and having had to meet a payroll, I can say with that experience of having signed the front of a paycheque, that tax deferrals are great, tax credits are great, loans are great, but they pale in comparison to actually having cash — the ability to pay your bills here and now, keep your lights on and continue to be able to pay your employees.

[6:25 p.m.]

We’re No. 8 in the country, according to this report, on page 10. It’s time for the minister to stop suggesting otherwise when it comes to direct supports and direct relief for business.

I’m disappointed that he’s unwilling to answer any direct questions about Tourism, Arts supports — as he says, in other ministries. His ministry is all about — I thought, anyway — pulling together the supports, coordinating the delivery of supports across government. Obviously, that isn’t the case. While it maybe would be a stretch to suggest this is another ministry of air, it would appear that this must be a ministry that is a lot about messaging. It’s certainly not very good at pushing dollars out the door in a timely fashion, to get dollars into the hands of businesses and organizations that need it.

In that same table in the budget, table 1.2.2, there is $1.1 billion of unallocated contingencies. It’s a reserve for unanticipated urgent health and recovery measures. We’ve been talking a lot to this point about the grant programs, the business recovery. I’ve been trying to talk about the tourism supports; I can’t get any answers on that. On the grant programs, the minister keeps refusing to say he’ll guarantee that every dollar gets out the door this fiscal year. Rather, he says, every eligible business that’s approved will get money. That’s a very different answer than saying that every dollar will get out the door. But I’ll move that over here.

What I want to know is…. The minister certainly has heard in the last couple of days from the opposition, and I know he’s hearing, very directly, from businesses and sectors, of incredible need — well beyond the maximum amounts that are provided to eligible, approved businesses under the current grant program. I go back to the live event sector, as one example, and guide-outfitters. There are others.

Recognizing that in the eligibility he’s using as his guide for the current allocations — recognizing that the need is much greater than the dollars that are in these pots of funds and that there are lots of organizations that need more support — is the minister willing to apply for an additional allocation of funds to bump up the funds available in his grant programs? Is he willing to go to the Minister of Finance, on behalf of businesses, and make the case, advocate for those businesses, for a slice of the $1.1 billion that is sitting in this unallocated reserve in government contingencies?

[6:30 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: Yeah, there are a lot of things there. I would say that the member has picked and chosen — I don’t know quite which one, chosen — one page out of a massive report. I just want to highlight the pieces that he didn’t highlight in the report.

I can send him the report, too, highlighted if he likes. Page 6 is: “The government of British Columbia is devoting almost 3 percent of provincial GDP to its measures. Manitoba is managing just under 2 percent. Quebec’s ratio is 1.5 percent. Ontario and Alberta are committing 1 percent of GDP. The Atlantic provincial governments are spending under 1 percent of GDP on COVID-19 measures.”

Page 8: “Sixteen percent of the total is on the provincial tab, the highest provincial contribution in Canada…. The B.C. government stands out as providing the highest per-capita individual supports, worth over $800 per person — eight times higher than the next-highest province, which is Quebec.”

Page 25: “By far, the largest net provincial contribution is coming from the government of British Columbia, driven by individual and business supports. It has committed almost 3 percent of its 2019 GDP to the effort.”

[6:35 p.m.]

Page 39: “COVID-19 direct measures in British Columbia amount to $10,500 a person. Of this total, the province contributed 16 percent, the highest of any province, and the federal government is contributing 84 percent.”

Page 41: “B.C. is the only province that will likely take full advantage of the federal rapid housing initiative project stream to buy hotels and convert them into emergency housing.” By the way, this was on Jeopardy. If folks haven’t seen that, that’s kind of cool. “Almost a quarter of the federal funding will likely go to B.C.”

The member made a couple of assertions. For 14 hours, I think so far, we’ve been answering questions, maybe 13. I’ve answered all the questions. I think to suggest that I haven’t is not factually correct.

The member has asked if I will advocate. Of course, I will advocate. From the moment I became a minister in this ministry, I’ve listened. I’ve worked with stakeholders. I’ve taken their feedback. We’ve adjusted programs. We’ve taken their advice and adjusted programs to meet the needs. We’ve adjusted the programs again. The original program was expecting to support 15,000 businesses. I advocated to get the dollars increased so that now we can get up to 20,000 businesses supported.

So the short answer is yes. I will advocate for businesses. I’m proud of the work we’ve been able to do, and I fully acknowledge that it will take a lot of work, still, to make it through. But you’d better believe I’ll be advocating for businesses that have been hit by this pandemic, and fighting for people, because that’s why I ran in the election.

T. Stone: Well, first off, we’ll be happy to send him the spreadsheet that contains all the source data for the report that he mentions — it’s all linked from that page 10 — if he would like that, because clearly, he has no idea what he’s talking about with respect to the actual data, the source data that’s gone into this report. Like, nada. The vast majority of the supports that are incorporated in his calculation are tax deferrals and federal supports. That’s the lion’s share of the data that he’s using to make the assertion that British Columbia is No. 1.

What I’m saying on behalf of business people, small business owners in particular, is that what matters is cash in pocket. What matters, gives you the best shot of surviving, is to actually receive direct support — grants, relief — here and now, not loans that have to be repaid or deferrals that represent amounts owing, liabilities owing that you still have to pay at some point in the future.

Fully 68 percent of the supports that he likes to trumpet, that go into this calculation of British Columbia being No. 1 — 68 percent — are these deferrals and federal supports, and so forth. I’d be happy to send him the source data, and he can take a look at that and inform himself so that he has a better understanding of how these numbers are actually crunched. But British Columbia is No. 8 when it comes to direct relief and direct supports in this country.

I didn’t hear a response from the minister, so I’ll ask it one more time — a response to this question. That is, with $1.1 billion of unallocated reserves sitting in the provincial treasury, allocated in the budget, is the minister going to advocate, fight for, stand up for small businesses and ensure that a good chunk of that $1.1 billion is carved out now — not weeks or months from now, not next fall, but now — to provide supports to those organizations and those businesses that have fallen through the cracks, that aren’t eligible because of artificial lines that he and his colleagues have drawn, or that are in sectors that have received some support, but it’s not nearly enough?

[6:40 p.m.]

Is he going to fight for more supports from within that $1.1 billion of unreserved allocations? Is he going to fight for a chunk of that, so that more support can be actually provided to small businesses across this province?

Just for clarity, the 68 percent number I’ve referred to is for a combination of loans and deferrals, which doesn’t change, in any way, what I just said. Loans still have to be paid back. Deferrals still represent a liability into the future. That’s not direct support and relief in the pockets of small businesses that need it today. I just wanted to provide that further clarification.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I’m going to save the hon. member from me reading all those paragraphs again, from all the pages in the document. I can, if he likes — I’ll see what his next question is — if he would like me to do that.

I think the member, essentially, says that the moves to defer taxes were not meaningful. That’s kind of the suggestion I got from his comments. The report also said that deferring taxes provided meaningful relief to businesses, freeing up funds for businesses to better measure cash flow. Even that is in the document.

We’ve spent 14 hours going back and forth on this re­port. I don’t think the CCPA has gotten this much Hansard time in a long time. It was a good discussion, and of course, the report lays out that B.C. is number one. B.C. is number one. I just hope that the member can be as proud of that as, certainly, I am, as my colleagues are.

[6:45 p.m.]

The member asked if we’ll stand up for businesses. Of course we’re going to stand up for them. That’s what we’ve been doing from the beginning. It’s not just me and my ministry. It’s across government. The supports came be­cause there is a collective will to ensure that people and businesses navigate these difficult waters. That’s what we’ve been able to do in British Columbia. We’re proud of that.

Of course there is more work to do. We continue to listen. We continue to be nimble and adjust programs and supports as we need. But right now, the biggest ask from everyone was: how are we going to safely restart? What are the metrics you’re going to use? We were able to provide that. I encourage everyone watching to get vaccinated so that we can continue to see the case counts go down, so that we can see our businesses thrive, because many, many businesses are. We know some are not, but we know a lot of businesses are.

Again, a 99 percent job recovery rate. That means there are a lot of sectors that are doing very well. We’ve been able to financially support those that are struggling. We’re going to continue to work with them and support them throughout the rest of this pandemic and as we get out.

T. Stone: Well, the reason that we’re focusing on this report is because the minister keeps using this report to justify his assertion that British Columbia is number one in supporting business and the needs of small business when it’s clearly not. I strongly suggest, strongly encourage the minister to take a look at the source data.

He says that he comes from a family business. His mother, I believe, had a restaurant. Perhaps he has had some experience, as well, as a business owner. I don’t know. But when 68 percent of the supports that have been pushed out the door are in the form of deferrals and loans, all you’re doing for businesses is just piling on…. Having seeing those businesses have massive amounts of additional debt piled onto their shoulders in the case of the loans, and you’re basically…. Hector the Collector is coming. The bills still have to be paid. The deferred taxes still have to be paid.

CFIB just came out a week ago with their latest report on debt levels for small businesses, and it’s $170,000 on average. For the average small business, it’s $170,000 of additional debt that’s been added onto the shoulders of small businesses during the pandemic. I don’t think we should be celebrating that. I don’t think we should be taking our feet off the gas here in terms of recognizing the burden that that represents and, therefore, the need to do more to support businesses.

That’s what we’re trying to get at here. I’m disappointed that, again, the minister won’t make a firm commitment to ensuring that 100 percent of the dollars allocated for the recovery grant is actually pushed out the door this year. He keeps saying: “For eligible approved businesses.” He writes the rules on who’s eligible. I’m saying that the eligibility should be expanded if necessary, and it is necessary. We’ve given lots of examples.

He won’t confirm that the tourism and arts sector supports allocation in contingencies will be actually pushed out the door this year. He talks about tourism and arts when he wants to. He won’t answer those direct questions here as part of the estimates process, as the minister responsible for economic recovery.

Likewise, the advocating for additional supports and the $1.1 billion…. I’m disappointed that, again, we just get a high-level general: “Of course I support business.” Well, everyone in this chamber says they support business. Words are simple. It’s the actions that matter.

[6:50 p.m.]

I’m asking these questions on behalf of small businesses that are struggling, that have reached out to us and I know have reached out to the ministry, who are looking for more support. They want to hear a message in the live event sector or the guide-outfitters or in tourism or in hospitality or in accommodation — any number of these sectors that may have got ten grand from the circuit breaker.

They may have received some support through the launch online. They might have received some of the small and medium-sized business recovery grant, but it’s not enough, and they’re still not sure they’re going to make it. That’s why we’re asking these questions broadly across a number of sectors.

Tomorrow we’ll get into jobs and this other extremely misleading statistic that the minister puts out there about a 99 percent recovery of employment to pre-pandemic levels without providing any context to that. We’re over 10 percent of British Columbians that are underemployed because they’ve stopped looking. They get far fewer hours and far fewer shifts.

We’ve got a huge decrease still, over 60,000 fewer private sector jobs today than we had a year ago. It’s been offset by about 30,000 more public sector jobs. We’ve seen a significant shift from full-time to part-time in a number of sectors. So the details really matter in this stuff. We’ll get into the job stuff tomorrow.

The last question that I wanted to ask the minister relates to anchor attractions. We’ve had it confirmed by a number of different organizations that festivals and events have been excluded from anchor attraction funding. We don’t understand why. But the question to the minister would be: will the minister fill the gaps left in the anchor attractions grant by ensuring that festivals like the IPE fair, for example, up in the Shuswap riding — a fair like that — would actually be eligible to receive supports?

They’ve been advised they don’t get supports. They’ve been advised that they’re not eligible for the anchor attraction funding. Is the minister going to make changes to the eligibility requirements in this program, or fight for changes, so that a festival or fair like the IPE is eligible?

Last but not least, there are other rural attractions that are receiving less support because of their geography, like Barkerville. We’ve talked about this in this House. Barkerville attracts 70,000 visitors, responsible for $25 million in tourism activity. They’re facing a $700,000 shortfall, but they can’t access enough support to cover that shortfall because of where they’re located. Is the minister prepared to advocate for changes to those eligibility requirements so that Barkerville and other attractions like it are not penalized just simply based on where they’re actually located in the province of British Columbia?

Hon. R. Kahlon: You know, 99 percent of pre-pandemic job numbers in B.C., in the middle of a third wave, and the member says: how come there’s not more? If he wants to explore this tomorrow, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve enjoyed the last 14 hours, and a few more would not be a problem.

I appreciate the tone of the member’s questions, and I hope I have been able to provide him the answers to all of his questions. He’s asked me to make firm commitments. I’ll make a firm commitment that every business that is approved within the small and medium-sized business recovery grant program will receive their money this fiscal year. Every business that applies for the tourism arts supports that are approved will get money in this fiscal year as well.

[6:55 p.m.]

I’ll end with this. I was saying that B.C. is number one, and I was hoping the member would be proud. But he should know that Central 1’s chief economist, Bryan Yu, said B.C.’s economy has performed better than expected. Ken Peacock, chief economist from the Business Council of B.C. said: “I would say the B.C. economy is in pretty good shape. It’s pretty healthy.” Peacock said more dire forecasts didn’t materialize because B.C.’s lockdown didn’t last as long as expected, government spending supported businesses and individuals, and businesses adapted.

The member can find one page, one paragraph and pull numbers the way he wants. I’ve given him, from the same report, eight pages of comments. I’m sharing with him quotes from respected organizations. Moody’s said B.C.’s “resilient economy, strong fiscal management and debt affordability” are some of the reasons why we’re still doing well. I’ve got pages of it, but I appreciate we do have some good time to spend tomorrow, and I look forward to continuing this exchange at that time.

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

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:56 p.m.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

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

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

Hon. D. Eby moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:58 p.m.