Orders of the Day

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

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Budget Debate

(continued)

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Members. I would like to get the debate underway. If you would like to make your conversations elsewhere, I would appreciate it so that we can listen to the member for Kamloops–North Thompson.

Member, please proceed.

P. Milobar: I’m happy to continue my comments from yesterday on the budget and try to add a little more detail and, certainly, get into some other areas that are very problematic, as we see it, within this budget.

[2:35 p.m.]

A lot of times, we as opposition get…. People assume we’re just looking for the negative and we’re embellishing on things and we’re just making it up as we go. But the reality is that the way the process works on budget day…. I alluded to this yesterday, but I think I’ll take a couple of minutes, since I have a little bit of time on the clock, to give the viewing public just a little bit of insight into how budget day works in the Legislature. I think a lot of people think we get advance notice of budgets and legislation and advance copies. The simple fact is that we don’t.

We saw a bill introduced today. That would be the first time that we saw that bill. Likewise, with the budget, for understandable reasons — this goes across every government; they do it the same way — the budget lockup starts at 10:30 in the morning on budget day. Myself and a few of my colleagues and some staff go in a room, and that’s it. It’s just us. There’s no one else in that room other than ourselves.

In a different building in Victoria, there’s another budget lockup happening where there are stakeholders and interested parties that are allowed in by the government. This year, unfortunately, there were probably more left out. Well, there were more left out than allowed in, because the minister chose to cap the room capacity at 10 percent instead of, despite the capacity restrictions being lifted in time, opening it up to as many people as possible. But I digress on that part.

That group is with the minister and people from within the ministry. They get to dive into the budget and get some questions answered, and they talk to the media. The media is in the room. They get a better sense of what’s going on within the budget.

Back in our room, we’re left to just basically have 2½ hours or so to really dive into the budget and figure out as best as we can where the numbers are, what they’re trying to achieve with the budget and what our overall impression of that budget is. There are no ministry staff in the room, and rightfully so. There shouldn’t be. But that’s really the process.

We’re sitting there, and we come out of that room, and we quickly cobble together the words I said yesterday, in terms of how we want to do an initial response to the budget and our initial impressions. The interesting part is that we’re not allowed to have cell phones or any communication device in that room whatsoever, and likewise in the other lockup.

Coming out of both lockups, I had staff hurry me in…. Once they could get access to devices again, as the minister was speaking, they sent me in kind of a quick hit of what the online reaction to the budget was.

The amazing thing is that what we were saying and where we saw problems within the budget were almost the exact same areas, almost word for word, what we were seeing from a wide range of organizations — everything from health care organizations and doctors to business groups, to social agencies, to the labour movement. You name it. Everyone was saying the same thing about the budget, and that was that it was a very underwhelming budget.

I said yesterday that it seems to hold the course to an underwhelming throne speech and an underwhelming economic plan, but that’s not good enough coming out of a pandemic. It’s certainly not good enough in a pandemic, but it’s certainly not good enough coming out of a pandemic that we all hope we’re actually trying to emerge out of. That’s what people need to see. They need to see that vision moving forward. More importantly, they need to have faith and trust that what they hear in the budget is actually going to be delivered upon.

That’s why it’s problematic when they hear in the throne speech a backwards look, when they hear in an economic plan all of the measurables ending by 2020, except in housing — they end in 2018 — and nothing moving forward. When they see report after report that is supposed to be out there around environmental measures and accountability issues and when they have a government that keeps getting the title — branded — as the most secretive government in Canada, people get skeptical.

I think that’s what we’re starting to see from these agencies. There’s a skepticism growing that this government simply cannot deliver what it is they’re telling people they would like to try to accomplish.

I have every belief that they think this is what they want to do when it comes to things like child care or affordable housing. But the actual measurables just don’t match that.

[2:40 p.m.]

We hear the minister talk about 30,000 affordable housing units in the ten years out of their 114,000. First off, that’s still not good enough, because we’re halfway into a ten-year plan. Secondly, when you actually look at the units that people are living in, it’s 5,200 in five years. The rest are “either under construction or in planning.”

The vast majority of those other 25,000 are actually in the planning stage still. They’ve actually not even started construction on them. When you have five years left to go in a ten-year plan and you’re at about 5 percent of it so far, it’s no wonder that groups say it’s a 100-year housing plan — just to hit that target.

Same with child care. We just heard, in question period, the minister referencing $20-a-day child care by the end of this year. Well, that’s only coming to pass because the federal government has forced the hand of the provincial government and said: “If you want any federal money, you must meet certain benchmarks by a certain timeline.”

Here we are, sixth budget. It will be the end of their sixth year in government when they finally might — maybe, possibly — have child care that’s twice as expensive as what they promised people they would receive in 2017, and the minister calls that a success.

We heard questions around gas revenues. Now, that’s on the natural gas side of things.

Let’s just look at the budget in a little more detail — again, I referenced it yesterday — about where the government actually is with their environmental plan, their much heralded CleanBC. CleanBC is, again, a very interesting marketing document. But I will point out again and again and again, as I have all along, that the actual end-point targets in CleanBC are no different than the plan that was introduced in this Legislature in 2007. Those targets have not changed.

There was an updated plan, as there should be as technology evolves, as environmental awareness evolves. Of course you need to update the plan, and that’s really what CleanBC did. But it didn’t actually change any of the actual end targets. We’re still waiting on the missing 25 percent of the plan. They found 4 percent a couple years ago, because they decided to do a different calculation again. That’s about the only gains we ever see out of CleanBC — when it issues another way to calculate emissions.

Let’s look at the budget document to get an insight into whether or not the government’s truly walking the walk when it comes to the environment. Frankly, they’re not, and I have pointed this out year after year after year, both as the Environment critic, previously, and now. The government maintains and continues to budget this way.

If you look at the carbon tax — and I’m not talking about carbon tax as a concept; I’m just talking about it as a line item in a budget, very matter of fact — the assumption is that the revenue went up because the carbon tax went from $45 a tonne to $50 a tonne. But if you actually divide the revenue from last year by the $45 a tonne from last year, you actually get a tonnage.

When you look at this year’s projected revenues and divide that by the now $50 a tonne — that’s how they actually get that revenue — lo and behold, emissions are increasing yet again. It will be 44-point-something megatonnes to get to that. When this government took office we were at about 40½.

Every single year they have budgeted for emissions to rise, and every single year they have used that to try to make their books balance. Well, in their own budget book, if you look at fuel taxes — which is a per-litre tax that is directly tied to consumption of a fossil fuel by the general public — those are increasing too.

In fact, in their budget book, it makes it very clear. There’s a description in it, and it says that, essentially, gasoline for the average commuter will stay static for the next three years of this plan, so that volume is not going to increase. You know what’s expected to increase 3 percent a year? Diesel consumption.

Again, a very clear, on the revenue side, acknowledgment that emissions are climbing in British Columbia. Yet all the prebudget conversation from this Minister of Finance was about the great work they’re doing in CleanBC and how this budget is going to address climate change. It simply is not.

[2:45 p.m.]

None of their programs they have implemented in their first six budgets under environmental awareness and reduction of emissions has worked. None of their spending. Because we’re seeing emissions rise.

Now they want to talk about, and we heard about it today, the heat pump — about how a heat pump, an electric heat pump, will now be PST-exempt. That will force people over from using a natural gas–fired appliance for their home.

Again, a complete disconnect from the Minister of Finance understanding the economics of that decision and just how punitive it is to many in this province. Normally in February, we’d be standing here, and it would be much warmer than it is in Victoria, but if you look at the temperatures around the province, there are great many areas of this province that are still 20, 25 below.

Perhaps the minister should look up the specs on the operation of an electric heat pump in cold weather. Perhaps the minister should look up the specs to see that that heat pump has to actually be cold rated. That cold rating actually only goes to minus 25, and after that, you would need a gas-fired appliance to augment the electric heat pump. Maybe the minister could look at the specs and realize that an electric heat pump that is cold certified is approximately $20,000 for an average-sized home.

We’re going to solve our emissions problems in B.C. by hammering the homeowners in cold climates that the only affordable way to heat their home is with a $3,000 or $4,000 natural gas heating appliance. By somehow thinking that them spending $20,000 is going to accomplish something. But they saved the PST, so they saved, what, $1,400 on that. That will make them want to switch.

The other interesting thing, and perhaps the minister could spec this out as well before we make tax policy around it, is that an electric heat pump costs approximately $75 to $100 a month to run. There’s not a discernible operational savings, from your natural gas appliance in your home. Especially if you bought a new high-efficiency one, which is undoubtedly what you’d be paying PST on, or not, to heat your home. Now, if you live down in southern B.C., where we’re standing, my understanding is those heat pumps are closer to $8,000 to $12,000, because you don’t need the cold rated, but the economics of it still are a stretch.

I said yesterday it’s about how a government prioritizes spending $60 billion, $65 billion, $70 billion in a year and whether or not they’re actually accomplishing anything with it. They’re waiving the PST on electric cars. On the environmental side, I guess I can kind of understand it, except for all of the environmental damage that happens when you build an electric car. But that is in other jurisdictions that that mining happens, so I guess we don’t need to worry about it in B.C.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the world is switching to electric vehicles. There’s been great uptake in B.C. Why is there a problem about getting rid of the PST on an electric car? Go to a car dealer, and try to order an electric car right now. See how long the wait is. It’s not going to put more cars on the road immediately, because there’s already a waiting list. It’s not in inventory sitting on the lots of pretty much any type of vehicle. But that’s where this government has chosen to go for affordability and environmental awareness.

At the same time, we know, based on their own three-year budget in front of us, they’re expecting emissions to rise. In fact, they’re banking…. They need the money, with emissions to rise, each of those three years.

[2:50 p.m.]

That’s why it’s surprising on the backdrop of record unaffordability in British Columbia, with studies now coming out about how people are changing their buying habits, understandably within their household, to still to be able to go buy groceries. There’s news story after news story about it. The grocery stores are noticing it. Less fresh fruit. Less fresh vegetables. More canned. More store brand versus name brand. More discount bin. Dented can sales versus regular can sales because people are trying to adjust their home budgets to actually make ends meet.

When people start to get into that situation, they start looking to try to access all sorts of cheaper options to keep their family operational. That includes the used marketplace online. But what does this government do, with that as a backdrop? They add a tax, which the minister tries to slough off today and calls it a loophole.

Well, tax law is tax law. If no one is actually breaking a law, it’s not a loophole. It’s the rules. It’s the tax rules of British Columbia. This minister has decided, with record unaffordability, to directly target an area that was previously untaxed. People looking for an affordable option to seat their kids with whatever they may need and their own household with what they might need, that little bit of savings…. She has decided to change that tax law. It’s not closing a loophole. It’s changing a tax law. It was deliberate, and it was thought out. It is punitive to people barely getting by.

If you go to page 91…. I don’t know how this got through the editing department. But the fact that they actually acknowledge that their change to used car sales taxation…. It doesn’t matter if you can find a good deal. This government wants their cut. You can find the best deal out there that you can.

Someone might be in a big hurry to sell, because they have to move and are going to a different jurisdiction. That happens all the time, especially with foreign students, if they’ve been here for a few years. They’re heading back home. They bought a car for a few years. They need to get out of the country and go back home. They sell their car quickly, and they leave. Totally understandable. It happens to people moving overseas for work, moving across the country and people that just need money quickly.

So what does this minister do? Changes a tax law — not close a loophole — on purpose, against her own advice from her staff. It very clearly says in the budget book that it will harm low- to middle-income families. That’s this government’s response to affordability. It’s not acceptable. It’s not right.

You read through this book, and you start looking at health care. You look at the timelines that they’re offering up for health projects. It’s remarkable. You have a hospital project in Richmond where, in 2021, during the election — and we’ve come to realize that you should probably not really believe much that the Premier has to say in an election — the candidate in Richmond campaigned and promised shovels in the ground in 2021.

The Premier never corrected her in the campaign. In fact, it was in the budget to be completed by 2024. Then we get to last year’s budget and, magically, it’s 2029 completion. Imagine our surprise when we get to this year’s budget, and it’s 2031. So if you want to talk credibility about backing up what you say you’re going to do, these are all timelines and these are all projects and these are all commitments that were made not by this side of the House but by this Premier — direct campaign promises that, one after another, are either being flat-out broken and ignored or just not delivered.

[2:55 p.m.]

I look at the Kamloops health commitments. Royal Inland Hospital is going through a major expansion that started under our government. I was glad to see this government continued the project along and didn’t kill it off. That was great to see. We needed it to continue.

Part of that project is a major renovation, once the new tower is built, doubling the emergency room size and reshaping some of the other internal services. That’s where footage becomes available. It’s heavily needed. A good day at Royal Inland Hospital is when we’re only at 110 percent capacity. That’s pre-COVID. That’s a good day to be only that overcrowded. So we need it. As more and more walk-in clinics close, our emergency room needs to be doubled to just try to keep up, to give people a semblance of access to health care.

That has been on the books, with a 2024 completion of the tower and the renovation — 2024. This year that got moved to 2025. Why that’s important is that we have a long list of broken promises like that.

In fact, we have the Premier, during the campaign, during the election, out of the blue promising Kamloops a cancer centre. Unfortunately, for the Premier, I guess, he said it would be open and complete before the end of this term, by the end of 2024, the next election. Last February he went on the radio and said that it’s up to the Treasury Board. Anyone that has been around government for a while knows that a project at Treasury Board is pretty much getting ready to be approved and start construction.

That was a year ago. Then when we pointed it out and called the Premier out on that and he had to backtrack a bit, it turned into: “It’s well in the planning stage.” Well, “well in the planning stage” in this year’s budget has now turned into “preliminary planning underway.” It’s just simply not good enough, especially on something around cancer care. People in Kamloops are forgoing treatment. People in the surrounding areas north of Kamloops are forgoing treatment because they don’t want to have to travel all the way to Kelowna to get that treatment, especially in the middle of a pandemic.

We have machines, linear accelerators, in Kelowna that are aging out of useful life. They need to be replaced. Two of those five machines are used by people in Kamloops and the surrounding area. It makes perfect sense. In fact, even the people that work in Kelowna say it makes perfect sense. And you get a better outcome for your patient to have that located closer than having people drive two hours, four or five times a week, to Kelowna, to then turn around or try to figure out how they can affordably stay in Kelowna.

Again, not our promise. Our promise was to build two linear accelerators, and it was actually in our budget, a costed platform. The Premier shot from the hip. The Premier doesn’t want to be held to his own words.

Look at other health care commitments by the Premier. Look at Prince George. I don’t see it in the capital plan. Keeps getting talked about. Keeps getting promised. Nowhere to be there. Why I get nervous about the Kamloops commitment for 2024, with the cancer centre, is that 2024 was the same timeline that Richmond was promised. That’s now 2031. There’s a long list of these types of commitments that simply aren’t being met by this government in this budget. That’s the fundamental piece to this.

[3:00 p.m.]

If we look at the cost overruns, if we look at how much more expensive some of these projects are turning because of their favoured contractor status that they give to their highest donors — only they are allowed to bid on it — and you ask the public, “Would you rather spend an extra $100 million on a project to build a road or a bridge, or would you rather see that same road or bridge built and two schools in your community built?” I know what the answer would be. That’s not what we’re seeing, because that’s not this government’s priority. That’s not what this government worries about.

There are the dollars in the budget, but there’s how the dollars are being spent in the budget that’s an even bigger concern.

Again, it’s not just me that’s saying this. This has been widely panned by many, many groups out there — project after project after project.

The Massey Tunnel replacement. Let’s look at that. It still has a 2030 date in the budget, if anyone can actually believe that. A 2030 date in the budget, with next to no dollars in it for this year. Why is that? Well, because they probably have five to six years’ worth of environmental studies to do and consultation to do before they even know if they have a project.

It’s 2022 already. I don’t know how you’re going to do five years’ worth of environmental work and consultation and then, in 2027, magically build a tunnel of that size and scope in a couple of years. It’s just not going to happen. Instead of getting a truthful, honest timeline, we’re stuck with: “Just trust us.” But project after project, we can’t trust them. We can’t trust the government.

What are they actually going to build? They’re going to build a project that has the same travelling capacity at rush hour in one direction as they currently have, instead of the bridge that would have had room for rapid transit lanes on it — forward, progressive-looking building for growth in a high-growth area that would have actually been open this summer. They just couldn’t bear to acknowledge that that was the right project, so it got scrubbed.

Why the lack of forward-looking vision from this government is problematic is…. This is the sixth budget. There should be more vision than what we’re seeing. We saw an economic plan that took five years to develop — five years, while everyone was saying there’s a labour shortage, to develop a plan that acknowledged there’s a labour shortage.

Now we’ve got another ten-year plan out of that, and their centrepiece is the building of BCIT, which is going to take five years, in this budget, to build, if they keep it on time. That would be, probably, the only project in this budget that ever gets kept on time. That means the first graduates out of it are going to be two years, three years of a ten-year plan. So in a 15-year window, we’ll have graduates starting to happen in the last two years of it. That’s the lack of vision and action by this government.

You don’t really have to look that far to see it in real-life terms. The Pattullo Bridge is being replaced. It’s an 85-year-old bridge. So 85 years ago they built for a bit of growth. And 85 years ago they thought four lanes would handle that growth. One would think that 85 years later planning for a new bridge to connect two of the largest and fastest-growing areas in the province would actually have a little added capacity. Nope. We’re changing four 85-year-old lanes out for a brand-new four-lane traffic bridge. That’s it.

Because of their new sweetheart deals for construction projects, the government couldn’t afford to do the enhanced off-ramps on the Surrey side of the bridge. So instead of the MLAs from Surrey who represent the government side of the House going to bat for the residents of Surrey…. You’d think more of them would.

They all seem to be testing the waters to run for mayor these days. So one would think they’d have the local taxpayer in Surrey’s heart a little more. Instead of going to bat and just acknowledging that their project is way over budget because of their sweetheart construction deals, they sat silent.

[3:05 p.m.]

What do we have as a result? We have the local taxpayers of Surrey — if they want enhanced, proper access to the new bridge, to the off-ramps and on-ramps — who have to foot the bill. My understanding is it’s $150 million or $200 million. Talk about representation or lack thereof.

Again, what else wasn’t in this? Businesses — not happy. Let’s see what the chamber had to say. This is from Fiona Famulak, the CEO: “The B.C. Chamber of Commerce is disappointed that the government did not take steps to address the high operating costs associated with doing business in British Columbia, some of which are the result of government policies.”

Again, the most secretive government in Canada doesn’t like to even acknowledge that their policies might have an impact. Business associations are now speaking out. Even the B.C. Construction Association had this to say about the sweetheart construction deals: “We support local and diverse hiring, but preferred union mandate remains as an unacceptable use of taxpayers’ dollars.”

Not unionized workers. I know the government likes to try to make it sound like we’re anti–union workers on these projects. We’re not. This is about the preferred unions, only the ones that are allowed to work on the government projects and, magically, were the 19 that donated heavily to this government over the years.

Interjection.

P. Milobar: Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister of Citizens’ Services is working on a new briefing note over there. I look forward to it coming forward.

Again, we have secrecy, we have missed deadlines, we have broken promises, and we have record unaffordability. Yet we have a government that’s insisting they’re listening to the people. Well, they’re not listening to everyone.

AutismBC. They’re disappointed by the…. I’m quoting now. “AutismBC is disappointed by the lack of new provincial investment in urgent services for neurodivergent and disabled children and youth ‘left out’ of current programs. We remain deeply concerned about how the B.C. NDP will fund and operate its new needs-based system.”

Do you know why they said that? They said that because, by all accounts, you need $350 million to $400 million, at a minimum, to try to even attempt to make the transition to the system that will not leave kids behind, which this government is trying to do while they claw back supports to existing families with autistic children.

What does this budget show us? Despite protest after protest, despite demands and concerns raised by a wide range of parents, not just within the autistic community but from parents with FASD children, other neurodivergent, Down syndrome — you name it — we see $172 million. Again, it’s about priorities, priorities of how dollars will be spent.

Now, I admit that FLNRORD is a bit of a weighty, clunky ministry. Is it the biggest priority to the average British Columbian in the middle of a pandemic with record unaffordability that it gets severed out of government and gets changed so we can go from having a minister of state to an actual full-fledged minister? Is that really the biggest priority? Apparently it is to this government. There’s $44 million that could have gone to the autism programs and the neurodivergent children. That would have gotten us a lot closer to actually having it properly funded.

[3:10 p.m.]

Again, the priority of this government was to do that. The priority of this government was to ram through FOI legislation. That’s what they choose to prioritize while telling people that they’re actually concerned for them, while telling people that they actually care for them. It simply doesn’t stand up to the facts.

In fact, if you look at rents…. We heard the minister yesterday talk about CMHC. They seem to not want to acknowledge that report and the rent increases in that report during question period, even though she actually is quoted and reads from it in her budget speech.

The minister tries to deflect away and say the 2 percent plus CPI and everything else…. The minister fails to actually acknowledge that a large reason that the spikes in rents are happening is because when one person moves out and a new person moves in, the landlord winds up having to spike the rents to try to actually maintain a building so people have a habitable place to live in. The end result is a massive increase to people’s average rents.

We now have a budget that is applauding and actually cheering on interest rates to rise, because nothing this government has done to try to moderate housing prices has worked. Now, somehow, their road to affordability to the average person, through this government’s eyes, is to have interest rates rise — so their mortgage can be more expensive, so their car loan can be more expensive, so their credit card debt can be more expensive. So everything can be more expensive, and to moderate the actual price of a house down, all your payments will actually increase. In the government’s mind, this is the road to affordability.

There’s another problem with their chart of housing. It’s also a budget that’s built on housing starts dropping. That’s a problem. That’s a problem for a couple of reasons. But two of the biggest are that it actually restricts supply further, puts further pressure on prices of houses to go up. That would explain why they’re still expecting record windfall property transfer taxes within their budget — again, say one thing, budget for something completely different.

The other reason is it used to be…. Just about every economic indicator, especially of a localized economy, was what was going on with housing starts, because it’s a big driver of jobs in a community. A lot goes into building a home. There are a lot of people associated with that. Housing starts drop; unemployment starts to creep up. But don’t worry: the minister will have a new training centre open in five, six years. People can just wait.

Then we get to things like the forest industry, another example of saying one thing and having a budget actually say the exact opposite. The financial numbers don’t lie. We have a very professional public service that puts these together.

I have every faith in the public sector side that helped to develop this budget, in terms of the indicators they were using and their estimations and their modelling that they do. A very professional team. I just wish that the Premier and the minister would actually have their words match what their actual financial document says.

If you look at their financial document on forestry, it’s projecting $1 billion less in revenue. Not over the three years — by the end of year 3, per year. It’s $700 million this coming year, if memory serves, as a drop. That is the government acknowledging in their budget that tens of thousands of job losses are coming to the forest sector this year.

[3:15 p.m.]

When you ask the Minister of Forests about that, you get told that we’re exaggerating, that it’s not happening. When you ask the Premier about that…. The Premier repeatedly has campaigned, saying…. In fact, he has done it in front of mills. “No mills will close under my watch as Premier.” The Premier’s words, no one else’s. There’s video footage of it. The Premier was going to go and solve the softwood lumber deal. That was five years ago. There’s no sign of him on that file whatsoever, because they’ve walked away from forestry.

As a result, forestry investment is walking away from British Columbia. It’s walking down to the States where they can remain competitive. By every measure, people say, it’s partly because we are the most uncompetitive jurisdiction in North America. That’s under this Premier’s watch and this Premier’s tax policies, which he has brought in place to hammer away at an industry like forestry.

Their words will never match what this budget document is saying. In fact, when you look at the dollars they’ve put to so-called transition funding for people…. It would be very interesting, if and when they ever come clean with the details on that, because $185 million to help transition people to retirement, bridge them to retirement, sounds really nice. It sounds really lovely, unless you’re that 55-year-old forest worker that’s going to be handed some form of a payout. But only if you’re physically tied within one of the unions will you get that.

Again, most of them are unionized mills. This is not a knock on the unions. They’re fighting for their membership, and that’s what they should be doing. That’s what people pay dues for. I don’t take issue with that at all.

Where’s the transition, the bridge to help the independent contractors that work in the forest who have $2 million of equipment sitting there? They’re literally the people, as you drive down the dirt roads, that are living off in those acreages and have tried developing a nice lifestyle for them and their families. Where’s the help for them?

It doesn’t exist with this bridge. If it does, there’s no way it can — not in a meaningful way, not at $185 million for an industry that this government just has acknowledged is going to shed tens of thousands of jobs in the next three years. It simply can’t happen.

This government has to actually be forthright when they talk to people about what they’re doing with their economic plan. That’s the problem. That’s why they don’t understand why they’re called the most secretive government in Canada. It’s because of games like this being played. They’re not proud of these announcements. If they were, they’d actually give you the background to it. Think of that.

When any government, of any political stripe, is extremely proud of an announcement they’re making, how much background documents do people get? They get access to everything. When was the last time any announcement out of this government was like that? It’s a couple of quick bullet points. “If you want anything more, FOI it.” Magically, “No records found” will be your response that comes back, or it’ll be completely redacted out, if it’s a decision note. That’s the problem.

We’ve asked questions about gas pricing. Why is that a problem? When the BCUC was tasked to look at gas pricing in 2019, they did it with one hand behind their back, because the government expressly told them they were not allowed to look at government policy and taxation as it relates to people’s gas bills at the pump. Here we are in 2022 — record prices — talking about getting the BCUC to look at gas pricing again, pointing the blame everywhere but at their own government policy.

Well, it’s kind of like housing supply. Gas supply is critical to price as well. We saw that during the floods. When the Trans Mountain pipeline was knocked out of commission, what happened to gas prices?

[3:20 p.m.]

I know we had to restrict access to it and get people through, give them enough to commute. Fair enough. That was totally understandable. But I think it heightened, to everybody, just how critical supply is to the overall pricing structure. There’s no great magic to it. The reality is that we have constricted supply in British Columbia, and we have the highest gas taxes in North America.

What does this government do? They’re too afraid to take credit for it. They don’t want to take credit for it. They want to blame someone else for it, even though their government policy is directly tied, on the environmental side of their policies, to ever-rising gas prices.

Just be honest with people. Don’t deflect. Stand up and say: “Yeah, you know what? We brought in a new regulation, starting January 1, that said if you truck any fuel across the Alberta border into B.C….” I’ll remind again. Last time I mentioned this in this chamber, the other side got quite riled up, saying I was talking about Alberta. I have news for them. That’s where our refined product comes from, Alberta, unless you happen to be up and around Prince George. We get the bulk of our fuel for your cars from Alberta.

January 1. Think back to when the prices started to really spike. January 1, this government brought in a regulation that said if you truck gas in from Alberta, there’s a 25 cent a litre premium paid to the province of British Columbia. Now that’s under CleanBC and a low-carbon fuel standard policy.

Do you think this government will own it? Do you think they’ll actually stand up and say: “Yeah, you’re right. We put 25 cents a litre on”? No. They won’t.

We’re going to dig into that in the budget and find out where exactly those dollars are, because it’s not referenced as a fuel tax. It appears, on the surface — again, because there’s a lack of transparency — that they’re actually pocketing 25 cents a litre, not as a tax but as a surcharge. Then, when you drive to the pump, they’re counting on you to fill up so they can have increased fuel tax revenues.

We’re going to double-check that as we get into budget estimates, but it’s a government policy directly tied to the price of gas at the pump. For a government that wants to keep telling everyone how environmentally conscious they are and how hard they’re working to drive down emissions, they sure don’t want to take any credit for that one.

There’s one thing when you make an announcement and there are only a few bullet points. You’re kind of proud of it, but not really. You just don’t want people to really dig too hard into it. There’s a whole other level of governmental announcement when you try to pretend it doesn’t even exist. That’s what we have with this. Just be honest with people. That’s what makes you the most secretive government in Canada.

We have Paul Kershaw, the founder of Generation Squeeze and a public health professor at the University of British Columbia. This is one of his quotes from the budget yesterday. Again, this is not just us, and these are on the same timelines that we formulated our thoughts. This is what Mr. Kershaw said on CBC: “I don’t want to get in the game of comparing different crises, but we are at the point where we need governments not only to walk and chew gum but to multi-task much more.”

You can’t hide behind COVID forever. You can’t have every minister hide behind COVID as a reason. We’ve entrusted Dr. Henry to deal with COVID issues. It’s understandable that the Health Minister is tied up with that and the interplay of policy around COVID and the health care system. It’s understandable that some ministers might have to try to come up with some supports. Unfortunately, most of those have been…. Failure is about the kindest word I can use for their rollouts.

[3:25 p.m.]

We can’t have every other minister hiding behind COVID. Yet in this budget, we don’t see any of that vision, in any ministry, of trying to actually do something to move the needle. They refer back. They refer back to things that they’ve been talking about in budgets since 2017.

There are no clear timelines on capital projects and when spending will be. Health care projects are very complex. Health care projects take multiple years to actually roll out. So do transportation projects. You know what’s in this book for capital projects over $50 million? A chart with transportation projects with a year-by-year breakdown of how the spending is going to unfold over the next several years.

You know what’s not in this? A chart for health care projects. We see end dates for the Surrey hospital of 2027. We have no idea how much money is actually in this year’s budget, and neither does the Finance Minister. Despite us raising this yesterday, despite the media questioning her today, she could not answer how much money was in the budget for the Surrey hospital this year. A $1.6 billion commitment to the people of Surrey — couldn’t get an answer from the Finance Minister.

How do we know if St. Paul’s is actually on track at $2.4 billion or $2.1 billion? We don’t. Why that’s a concern is that if you look at the spending on some of these projects to December 31, 2021, with similar end dates…. So the Stuart Lake Hospital had $5 million expended on it up to the end of 2021. It’s a $116 million project slated to be completed in 2024. I can kind of actually believe that one might happen.

Cariboo Memorial Hospital had $4 million, a $218 million project in total slated for 2026. Hey, it’s getting a little bit out there, possibly. But that’s all we know. As of December 31, $4 million had been spent on it. It’s another 214 to go for 2026. Surrey, $2 million to December 31, $1.66 billion and a 2027 completion date. Somehow that size of a project is going to keep pace with Stuart Lake and Cariboo Memorial.

It starts to not pass the smell test. It starts to feel like — I don’t know — lots of seats available in Surrey and promises made, and we’ll deal with the fallout after the fact. St. Paul’s, same: 2027 end date, only $30 million spent last year. A $2.174 billion hospital and we don’t know how much money in this budget is in there this year for spending. We don’t know what type of progress this government is reasonably trying to make on major infrastructure that impacts our health care as a province — none.

We can tell you where the Kicking Horse project is, in the grand scheme of things, which is appreciated, from the Transportation Minister. Massey Tunnel last year was at $3 million at the end of the year in 2021. That’s a $4.148 billion project, with a 2030 date. I’ve already said how unrealistic that date is.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

They had $90 million in this year to do a few studies. Oh, and to change the name. It’s now — what? — the Fraser River crossing project or something of that nature. That’ll make people stuck in rush hour feel much better, that it’s got a new name. That’ll get them through to work or home much faster.

Surrey Board of Trade: “We were especially disappointed with the lack of post-secondary investments in Surrey.” Again, crickets from the members from Surrey. “Education, in addition to transportation, is the foundation of driving an economy. Today and tomorrow’s workforce challenges need commitments to innovative post-secondary investments in Surrey and the South Fraser economic region.”

On the new hospital in Surrey, they said: “The plan is 168 new beds, comparable to community hospitals but not to Surrey Memorial Hospital. This increased capacity is not enough for Surrey’s needs.” So even the hospital they’re talking about building, which is really a primary care centre, is actually not building for the future growth and demands of Surrey. It sounds an awful lot like the Pattullo Bridge.

[3:30 p.m.]

Project after project seems to be actually quite punitive to Surrey. Surrey has to pay for the off-ramps and on-ramps for the Pattullo Bridge on the Surrey side. Surrey is getting a hospital that actually doesn’t even meet their existing needs, let alone for growth. Surrey was promised no portables in four years by this Premier in 2017. By my last math, it’s long past four years — a record number of portables in Surrey.

Nothing seems to actually get delivered on. There are certain parts of this province they really don’t get delivered on. Huge promises. Huge, huge promises. No deliverables.

It makes you wonder why they don’t have a timeline of spending for the Surrey Hospital in their budget. The Surrey Hospital — “hospital” — which is really a primary care centre…. The reason there’s a problem with that is…. There’s no insight into these urgent primary care centres.

Kamloops had an urgent primary care centre built. It was the first one in the province. It was built at our new hospital building, the first building that was built under the previous government. It was created and opened by this government in some of the square footage.

As a result, we’ve seen almost all of our walk-in clinics in Kamloops close. We’ve had doctors retire or move over into the urgent primary care centre. We’ve heard repeated reports that they have lots of highly trained professional health care workers in that facility. That’s great. We’ve also heard reports that they’re seeing an average of 20 patients a day when our emergency room, in the same building, is overcrowded 24 hours a day.

Why that’s important is…. That’s what Surrey’s already starting to understand and to say. It’s not good enough. We won’t even get into the location today. The location is in a questionable location as well.

Here’s what Dr. Birinder Narang had to say. It ties the two together. “Is anyone questioning the Minister of Health on the impact of urgent and primary care centres? What are the metrics of success here? How is attachment going? How is recruitment going?” Well, I can answer the doctor. No one knows, because this government won’t provide the answers.

I can tell the doctor what’s going on in Kamloops. As I just said, we have more people unattached to doctors than ever before. We have less access to doctors than ever before — family doctors. We have the urgent primary care centre, which seemed to be the beginning of this problem. When the member for Kamloops–South Thompson and myself have written to the Health Minister asking for the data around the urgent primary care centres, we get no reply.

Interior Health won’t give us the data. Not a huge shock there. The Minister of Health won’t give us the data. We don’t want to know which patient went through those doors. We just want to have some sort of indication of what type of volume that centre is doing.

Now, again, I’ll go back to…. It doesn’t matter what government and what political stripe it is. When they don’t want to answer your questions or provide you the information, I think you already have your answer. When it’s good news, they sure make sure they get it out to you real quick. In fact, they follow it up with a press release, and they make sure that every time one of their ministers comes to your riding, if it’s an opposition riding, they reference it a little. They try to feel like they’re rubbing some salt in the wound or something about their great success of what they’ve accomplished.

That’s not what we’re getting. We get hiding. We have to dig around in documents to try to piece two or three things together and to try to figure out where the money is flowing. It’s really no surprise.

[3:35 p.m.]

If you look at the references to child care in this budget, and the various programs and shifting around of dollars that they’re talking about, it’s like a maze.

It’s interesting. Again, when they want you to have a very clear picture of what’s going on…. I’ll use the Transportation Minister as an example because I think, frankly, that chart 1.7 is a great example. Now, I might quibble with him on the timelines of some projects or even the ultimate bidding prices of those projects. But it’s very clear what the projects are, what’s being spent this year, what’s being spent next year, what’s being spent the year after. It’s very open. It’s right there.

We don’t have that for child care. It’s supposed to be one of their big signature pieces — six years late, twice the per-day cost, if it actually happens — but no clarity in the budget. In fact, when you listen to child care advocates’ response to the budget, it was the exact same way. They agree. It was kind of good. Then they follow it right up with another statement saying: “More could have been done sooner, and we really hope it actually gets implemented.” Even they’re unclear.

If you look at mining revenues and the royalties there, much hoopla. I know my colleague from the Kootenays will have much more to say on this, I’m sure. My first glance is: okay, they’ve put a little bit of money for the mining sector in there, and they may talk about exploration. I’ve been here this whole time, and I think maybe one permit has been issued in five, six years — maybe.

This government is not exactly tripping over themselves to meaningfully get the mining industry going. Think of how those jobs would fit nicely to transition someone from the forest sector in the same parts of the province. But no foresight or vision to try to work on that.

We’ve heard time and again about the deficit, and again, it’s like playing Whac-a-Mole. The numbers and contingencies are mind-boggling where they’re at. No one can really tell if it’s just because the minister has very little faith in the projections or is just trying to pad a deficit so they can try to look better at the end. We’ll see how this year plays out, but one thing is for certain. In the next few years, our debt in British Columbia will double, mainly on capital projects.

When you look at the rise of the public sector hiring, there’s every expectation that there’s a structural deficit in this budget, that it’s not sustainable. Jobs that rely on taxpayer funds to fund them have gone up by almost 33 percent in five years. We’re at 500,000 jobs now, 120,000 added in the last five years — 120,000 public sector paid jobs.

When you talk to the public and ask them if their access to government services has improved dramatically, it hasn’t. In fact, if you look at the health care system, we’ve lost 8,000 workers — a net loss of 8,000 workers in health care. I believe nurses would fall under that.

That’s the problem. Say one thing; deliver something totally different. It’s just simply not sustainable in the long run.

[3:40 p.m.]

If you think…. British Columbia has a population of, we’ll say, five million plus. How many are actually of working age? We’ll say 4½ million. Even if we said five million, that means 10 percent of the workforce is now reliant on tax dollars for their paycheque. You start to hit a tipping point. And that’s not counting all of the municipal employees.

Back in local government days — many of us in here were in local government — the old saying was that there’s only one taxpayer. That got said a lot in council chambers. Well, there really only is one taxpayer. It’s all of us. It’s everyone outside of this chamber.

That 10 percent of the working public is not counting all of the municipal employees that those same taxpayers are paying for and all the federal employees within the system in British Columbia. I’m not saying that we don’t need government employees and government workers. I’m saying the growth rate that we have seen in the last four to five years has been phenomenal.

When you look at InBC, here’s another innovation from this government that is supposed to really trail-blaze. InBC, for those at home, is their high-risk venture capital scheme that is slated to have half a billion dollars in it but has to wait until the end of next year to actually be fully funded. It got $100 million in last year’s budget, and it’s slated for $200 million for this year and $200 million for next year.

That’s probably okay, because they still have no investments at year-end. In fact, they have no investment policy statement. Only two staff have been hired so far. They have two staff, with four more to follow this year. In fact, their salaries, though, are still set to go from $627,000 this year to $3.9 million, while still not making any investment decisions to try to move things along in our economy.

There’s actually no revenue forecast through ‘24-25. Now, fair enough. Investment uncertainty…. This is essentially high-risk venture capital that they’re dealing with, so who knows if the scheme is actually going to work or not. But they’re going to accumulate almost $20 million in losses over the life of the fiscal plan, hardly setting us off on a blazing path of innovation and job creation.

But fear not. Certainly there will be lots of reports that are made public. Certainly we’ll have a good view into what’s going on in InBC and that high-risk venture capital scheme. But sadly, we won’t, because they’ve been exempted from FOI as well.

It goes from project to project to project in this budget. There’s been lots of talk about the significant remaking of the Royal B.C. Museum. We can’t find the capital or the redesign plan in this budget. It might be there. If it is, government is certainly not talking about it any time soon.

There’s a property purchase for the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver — no detailed funding or plan with this budget. Promises of an Olympic Village school and a Burke Mountain school — not even in the budget. Keep getting promised but never seem to make it into the budget.

The training budget for ITA is actually decreasing by $8 million over the course of this plan. Why is that a problem? There’s a one million job shortage that we’ve all recognized and acknowledged. Took this government five years to acknowledge it, but at least they’ve acknowledged it. It’s going to happen over the next decade. But the training investment is decreasing by $8 million.

Again, it’s all about priorities. When I hear $8 million now, it also makes me shake my head at the internal transfer from Health to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, literally a shifting of dollars within a budget line item so that the Premier no longer has to be embarrassed that his office budget is technically no longer larger than the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. Let’s at least be honest that that’s why it happened.

[3:45 p.m.]

They could have transferred a whole bunch of stuff from Health over to Mental Health and Addictions and made those shifts. They didn’t. They moved just enough staff and workload — probably people that were already working on the exact same thing, just under the Minister of Health’s guidance — over to Mental Health and Addictions.

Nothing really new there. No actual new dollars. No new work actually being done at a time when we’re losing almost seven people a day to the opioid crisis. But they can say the budget is larger than the Premier’s office. That will bring solace to those seven families that lose a loved one today and tomorrow and the next day. That’s not action. That’s a shell game. It’s a shell game while people are literally dying — seven a day.

Then, for all of the transparency talk…. It’s very interesting. I believe it’s page 42 in the budget. We heard about page 42 earlier in question period, where the cabinet is relieving themselves of the obligation of needing to actually not go into deficit or see a holdback of their pay, essentially giving themselves a raise with no accountability attached to it.

If you look a paragraph or two below that, the minister is actually doing something much, much more worrisome and much less transparent. The minister is actually striving to give herself the authority to bypass Treasury Board. She’s giving herself the authority for her or the vice-chair of Treasury Board, which is the Environment Minister, to bypass Treasury Board and just make approvals on their own. No process. No extra back-and-forth debate. No exchange of ideas from other cabinet members. No transparency.

That seems to be a hallmark of this government. A government that has dragged its feet on so many files now suddenly finds the need to rush through changing the legislation to give essentially a blank cheque to the Finance Minister to approve whatever she wants.

It may come as a surprise to some members on the other side. I wouldn’t have expected some to have actually read through the whole budget book. Why would they? They’re going to get their speaking notes and look for the highlights within their own ridings and probably try to find where their actual project is. No wonder members from Surrey have been so silent on so many projects, because they’re actually not listed in here with any detail.

This is a fundamental transparency issue of process. It’s actually clause 11 on Bill 6. I invite anyone on the other side that thinks that we’re just making this up and it’s just language in the budget — don’t worry about it; it’s not actually going to happen…. It happened immediately after the budget was presented by way of Bill 6 being presented, the Budget Measures Act. It’s clause 11. Again, priorities.

One of the first acts that this minister chose to do…. This is a bill that, for the public, deals with a whole lot of taxation changes each year. It comes in every year at budget time. It sets rates and all of that. This change is at the very front end of it. Well, it’s actually right after they remove the requirement for ministers to actually not go into deficit as a government. That’s the first order of business in the legislation.

[3:50 p.m.]

The next is removing any semblance of Treasury Board input on projects and approval and due process and proper scrutiny and challenging assumptions and making sure that pricing and estimates seem on par with what they should be. That’s what Treasury Board is supposed to do. Maybe for the last 5½ years, that’s really just been a rubber stamp anyways. Maybe that’s how this government is doing things, so they’re just trying to formalize it in legislation. Can’t be bothered to go to Treasury Board meetings regularly.

We’ve heard the parliamentary secretary for emergency management say, about Lytton, that Treasury Board can be a real drag on things, really slow things up. Why? Call a meeting. It’s all government members. There are two or three or four MLAs on it, and the rest are all cabinet ministers. You don’t need to change legislation to help the people of Lytton out. You need to call a meeting.

With all the technology, I can’t believe that you can’t have a Zoom meeting for Treasury Board, if that’s the problem. If you wanted to tweak the legislation that you needed, to procedurally change it so you could have an electronic meeting…. If that doesn’t already exist, fair enough. I think we can understand that. But that’s not what this minister wants. This minister wants complete control, without any questioning, as quickly as she wants to be able to do things, and she can defer it to the Environment Minister to do it as well.

At that point, why do you bother having Treasury Board? There’s no purpose to it. I find it shocking that members of the executive council would agree to this being in the budget and this legislation coming forward. There is democratic in the name of the party, but it doesn’t seem to be very democratic when it comes to moving things forward.

This is fundamentally wrong. There are checks and balances all the way through our system for a reason. There is a reason Public Accounts is chaired by a member of the opposition. It’s the only committee that actually is chaired by a member of the opposition, because it’s meant as a check and a balance for the government when it comes to things around the budget.

Of all things to start trying to remove checks and balances and due process, the budget is not one of them. The spending within this, the projects that get approved within this, is not something to be taken lightly. For a government and a cabinet to agree to allow to have that move forward is, frankly, reprehensible, because there is only one of two reasons they’re doing it.

They already have just vacated that space and are letting the minister do whatever the minister chooses to do. Or, frankly, they can’t be bothered to meet on an urgent basis when there is a crisis happening. Either of them is completely unacceptable, especially against the backdrop of wanting to change the legislation to make sure you get your full pay, whether you balance the budget or not.

How does that work in the real world? “I don’t want to have any holdback. I want to change the rules about the holdback of my performance and pay that’s been ingrained for years. And while I’m doing that, could we also change the rules so I don’t have to show up to finance and Treasury Board meetings if there happens to be an emergency in the province?”

It’s bothersome. I’d ask the people at home: who works in an environment like that? No one. This cabinet does, though, and then they wonder why the people of Lytton are frustrated with the slow pace. They wonder why people in Merritt are wondering what’s going on with flood help there. They wonder why people in Princeton feel abandoned with flood help. They wonder why people in Monte Lake feel abandoned after their fires wiped out their housing areas.

[3:55 p.m.]

They wonder why people in the southern Okanagan, who had their structures lost to fire, are feeling abandoned.

The best response we have in this budget is the minister saying, by way of her cabinet colleagues: “We can’t be bothered to meet on an urgent basis, so we want to turn over power to make Treasury Board decisions to one person.” It’s pretty sad that that’s the level of work ethic, frankly, that this cabinet seems to have.

It’s a failure to all those communities. It’s a failure to projects that wanted to know they at least had a fighting chance at Treasury Board to advance, that maybe would have a champion, with those people around the Treasury Board table, to convince Treasury Board to move a project forward that’s of local significance and importance.

That’s not going to happen if this passes. I’m highly skeptical it won’t pass, because we know there’s no free votes on that side of the House. There’ll be much applause and clapping when they do it, that they found a way to work less, get paid more; less accountability, paid more. They’ll do it with pride, and that’s the sad part.

Again, this budget has very little in the way of affordability measures, very little in the way of help for people that are looking for that type of help in terms of housing — especially people that are fully employed, working hard every day, trying to make ends meet, trying to get ahead. This budget treats them like they’re cheating the system.

This budget treats those people that would dare to go buy a used car and try to get a good deal…. In the minister’s own words, they’re exploiting a loophole. It’s not a loophole. It’s her tax policy. It’s her tax law. She’s made a conscious decision to punish people that want to try to find affordable transportation to get around by way of a used vehicle, at a time that they’re having to change a lot of their spending habits in their households. Unfortunately, this government hasn’t changed their spending habits. I think that’s what the public would expect. That’s what the public would want to see happen.

Inflation passed 5 percent in January — precious little to address anything in this budget by this government. It’s remarkable to me now, six budgets that I’ve been in this chamber, and each time, actually, the reviews have been getting worse by the public on the budget. Each time, the amazing part is the Premier and the Finance Minister looked shocked that people aren’t doing cartwheels of joy over their budget. It’s as if they’re getting more and more and more out of touch with the average person each year they’re in government.

Imagine, if they were still in opposition, what they’d be saying if we were adding PST, in the middle of record levels of inflation and unaffordability, to a used car, when their own guidance says it will impact low- and mid-income people most. Imagine what they’d say about the marketplace tax that they’re bringing in, which will impact those low- and middle-income people the most. Imagine what they would do if we brought in a surcharge on fuel that added 25 cents a litre.

[4:00 p.m.]

Now, it’s very easy to tell people, then, to just take mass transit. That’s very easy if you live in parts of the Lower Mainland, but not everywhere, or parts of the capital regional district, but not everywhere. It’s not so easy as soon as you start getting farther afield.

Even in Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George and Nanaimo, which have much larger transit systems than the other communities outside of this area of the province, it’s not always so easy to use public transit to get around, to get your kids to soccer or hockey, to get to work, to get them to their after-school activities. People live in those areas for the lifestyle that affords them the ability to move around a bit and have their kids heavily engaged in things, because they can.

This budget is very punitive. Imagine what their response would be, on behalf of all those people, if we tried pretending that a regulation, that’s very clearly a government regulation, adding 25 cents a litre, didn’t exist? That’s what this government is doing.

They’ve done nothing on the environment file by any measurable piece. They’re collecting record levels of taxes around emissions. They’re not pushing it back in a way that will actually see emissions drop. Again, priorities.

We already know people are going to buy an electric car. We already have a program for them to be able to access funds for an electric car. Could the money of waiving on the PST on electric cars not have gone to some other way to drive down an emission? How many different ways do we have to incentivize an electric car when, at the same time, the government is patting themselves on the back for the uptake in sales of electric cars? Is what they’re doing not already working?

It’s just a rehashing of their policy that they keep going back to, because they don’t know how to innovate. They don’t know how to actually move the needle in a meaningful way.

We’ve heard the Minister of Housing finally acknowledge that taxation is not the way out of housing affordability, but we have record levels of property transfer tax coming in. No adjustment on those.

We have record levels of unaffordability issues around housing. We have a budget built on the hope that people will pay more for their mortgage. That’s how this government…. Apparently, now it’s not taxing your way to affordability; it’s increasing your mortgage payment to a way of affordability. Somehow that’s going to help people.

How many mortgages are going to have to be renewed over the next two to three years of this financial plan that is built on mortgage rates rising? That’s what this government hopes will happen: that your mortgage at home will increase. The mortgage amount owed might not change, but your payment will. Your payment will. If you still have a $200,000 mortgage on your home, and you go in to refinance that $200,000 on a renewal….

This government’s grand housing plan is that interest rates rise. So you can pay more for the same value of existing mortgage you have. That’s somehow making that homeowner’s life more affordable.

When the landlord has to go in and renew the mortgage on their apartment building at a higher interest rate…. Gee, I wonder why rents are going to increase. The landlord needs to take in more money to pay the mortgage on the building. Only this government can see rising interest rates coupled with record housing prices as a good thing.

Again, this budget leaves a lot to be desired. We have statements, as I’ve said — AutismBC, the B.C. Construction Association, B.C. Care Providers. Where’s the help for seniors in this budget? There is none. Here’s from CanAge: “This is a very disappointing budget for British Columbian seniors, who appear to have been forgotten by this government.” We heard last week about low-income housing for seniors actually decreasing under this government.

[4:05 p.m.]

The B.C. Chamber of Commerce is less than impressed. B.C. Federation of Labour had interesting things to say. BCTF had things to say. Business Council of B.C. BCNPHA had a problem with it. BCSTA had problems with it. Canadian Council of Innovators had problems with it. Innovators — aren’t they what our InBC high-risk venture capital scheme is supposed to be for? Innovators are a little skeptical.

Heard about CanAge. The CFIB. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Now, admittedly, that’s not a shock. They’re tending to be not too thrilled with most budgets, but this one, they’re particularly not too happy with. Generation Squeeze. The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. The Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce. The Mining Association of B.C. The Surrey Board of Trade. Then we had a whole whack of tweets from media that are less than impressed, as well.

As I said at the beginning, these were all comments that were generated in the same time frame that we were reviewing the budget books, in isolation of what we were doing, and we were all coming to the same conclusion.

I think that’s the fundamental piece that I hope the government is listening to: no one is buying what they’re selling. First off, they probably can’t afford it. Secondly, after six budgets, now, rolling out the same program after the same program with the same language, looking backwards, people want to know what the future’s going to hold. People want to know what the plan is to actually kick-start things, to get things back going and to help the private sector get back to full employment. But that seems to be lost on this government.

I guess I’ll just close out with a few transparency pieces. I really do wish that we had more open, transparent and clear graphs and charts as to what’s going on in individual spending areas — especially on the capital side, especially of multi-year projects. As I’ve said before, chart 1.7, transportation projects, is very well laid out. Very clear. Very understandable. I don’t necessarily agree with it all, but it’s clear. It all adds up. It’s all consistent from previous years. Fair enough.

Something as complex and as important as health care? Hidden away. Schools? Hidden away. Help for seniors? Hidden away. Child care? Referenced 16 million different places in the budget. Good luck pulling it all together and figuring out what it all means in any quick fashion. It does make you wonder why. It does make you wonder what the government is hiding.

I can guarantee the government this. We’re coming into estimates, starting on March 3 in the afternoon. I know that our critics are more fired up than ever to get to the bottom of these numbers, to get actual answers out of the ministers on what is actually happening within their budgets. There are some ministers where that’s a very good exchange back and forth, and frankly, there is half a cabinet that uses it as an exercise to further hide things and dodge questions and dodge accountability.

The public deserve better. The public deserve transparency. They deserve to understand where record levels of spending are going, what the actual timelines of that spending are and how it will truly impact them for the good or the bad. They deserve the government to be honest when they bring in policies that actually are impacting the price of gas at the pumps — to acknowledge it. They deserve a government that will actually acknowledge that they’re budgeting for emissions to rise while talking about their great successes under CleanBC, because that’s simply not happening.

[4:10 p.m.]

They frankly just deserve better all around. They certainly deserve a cabinet that’s willing to actually put in the time and the effort — at least those members on Treasury Board — to actually show up to a Treasury Board meeting if a natural disaster hits and there needs to be quick action for a response for spending, because there are massive contingencies in this budget — massive. Billions of dollars.

This change in legislation on page 42, and clause 11 on Bill 6, would essentially turn the keys over to the Minister of Finance and say, “Spend the contingencies however you want,” under the guise of it being an emergency. “Don’t need to check in with us. I’m sitting poolside. Don’t bug me.” It’s shameful. It’s just another example of walking away from your responsibilities as a member of the executive council. It should never be in this budget. It should never be in Bill 6, yet it is.

I am confident, very confident, that as we get to debate on Bill 6, there will be a little bit of discussion about the two clauses in the bill. The one that actually gives the executive council their full pay, whether or not they actually are accountable for going into deficit or not as a government, then the follow-up piece within that bill that then says: “Plus, if you’re on Treasury Board, don’t worry about it. You don’t really have to work that hard. We’ll take a load off, especially in the time of an emergency.”

Why would the public expect all those ministers on Treasury Board, in the middle of an emergency, to actually be available? How crazy is that. Wouldn’t want that to happen. No, no. We’ll just sign over the ability and $5 billion or $6 billion worth of contingencies built into this budget to the Finance Minister to stroke a pen. Even non-profit agencies have double-signed checks. This legislation removes that.

To not have proper checks and balances by a government that is known as the most secretive in Canada is simply not good enough. People deserve better. They deserve better transparency, especially on their books and especially on what is going on.

With that, Madam Chair, I thank you for the time. I look forward to others’ comments.

S. Furstenau: I rise to take my place to respond to this year’s budget.

The Minister of Finance delivered the budget speech yesterday and spoke of British Columbians who lent a hand when needed in the never-ending crises of last year, and it’s true. I agree that people in this province care deeply for each other and the communities that they live in. It’s a tremendously special place to live.

I’m deeply grateful to the residents of Cowichan Valley who themselves worked tirelessly over this past year and particularly during the floods, and kept the community connected, fed, housed, governed, entertained, fit, clothed and safe. Crises such as we are facing can reveal the character of a place and its people, and the people of Cowichan and British Columbia have demonstrated incredible strength of character.

As we continue to deal with COVID-19, the toxic drug crisis and housing deficits, British Columbians deserve a budget that is honest about where we’re at. When I stood last year to respond to Budget 2021, I spoke about how hard 2020 had been. As I stand today, I have to recognize that the past year was even more difficult than the year before. Soon after the budget was delivered yesterday, we learned that 44 British Columbians died over the Family Day weekend from COVID. The pandemic is not over.

The climate crisis is worsening. Heat domes, fires and floods irreparably damaged our communities. We’ve lost lives of yet another record-setting number of British Columbians due to inaction on the drug poisoning crisis. The pandemic worsened, and people have become unclear about what our collective goals are. Our access to health care services and public health tools were restricted, and our communities have become, in some cases, isolated and divided.

[4:15 p.m.]

It has been a year of compounding hardship. Ottawa public health came out yesterday with a statement of compassion for how people are feeling in this moment. They recognize that everyone is not fine, and the reality is exactly that. They’re not fine.

Life feels like it is getting harder. People are feeling let down by those whom they elected. The democratic institutions we have built are growing less and less accountable and transparent, and people are feeling removed from the processes of these places.

Social media is full of angst, division and misinformation. Many people are overwhelmed at the state of the world and feeling powerless to change what is happening. I know that all of our constituency assistants — people who spend their days trying to help the citizens of this province navigate provincial services — have been on the receiving end of rage.

The government touted the 2022 budget, released yesterday, as a climate budget. It certainly used the right words on the climate crisis and inequality, but a government’s budget has to do more than just try to tell a good-news story. It must tell the truth of what people are feeling. The story this government is trying to tell does not reflect the reality that British Columbians are experiencing. A government shows you their priorities by how they spend their money, not with what they say. By and large, this NDP government prioritized the status quo in Budget 2022.

When reading through the budget, we have to ask, who does this budget leave behind? Last year we pointed out that the budget was lacking focus on climate change and inequality. This year government took our criticism to heart. We see a recognition of the severity of impacts from climate change and some appropriate responses, like a year-round wildfire service, a recognition of the need for flood mitigation and increased capacity at climate-related monitoring stations. However, these are responses to the emergency as it unfolds.

What we need is to reduce what’s generating that emergency and to shift how we measure our economy and what we value. The Minister of Finance said yesterday: “A strong economy creates meaningful opportunities for everyone….” Our economy should be serving the needs of everyone and strengthening the fabric of society, the well-being of people, of the environment, of our democratic systems.

Today’s reality in British Columbia is that the economy works largely for those who are wealthy. Someone can only be as successful as their economic position lets them be. But our economy should be focused on building more equality, on serving the well-being of people and not overlooking those who need support the very most. This government might be using the right words when talking about equality and opportunity, but it doesn’t adequately invest in making these a reality. They continue to rely on revenues from the very causes of the crises we face, profiting from the housing market and from oil and gas royalties.

Whenever goods and services exchange hands, GDP increases. That means that the cost of rebuilding the Coquihalla, an increase in fracking, the cost of wildfire management…. All of these inflate GDP and contribute to a so-called healthy economy. I would argue this is not a healthy economy at all. Growth continues to be how we measure success, but we know that the current rates of growth contribute to the crash that we are seeing in biodiversity, to species lost, to ecological breakdown. Again, this cannot be seen as a healthy economy. We are trying to build on a cracked foundation.

We have to be able to imagine how to measure things differently. The way that we measure, what we value and the stories we tell have gotten us to this place, where people feel a disconnect from the institutions that they believe should be serving them. So how do we measure differently? We have long been advocating for the use of genuine progress indicators — which focus on social ties, on well-being, on the health of the environment — as markers for a strong economy.

[4:20 p.m.]

We have seen countries like New Zealand introduce health and well-being budgets that demonstrate that this is absolutely possible. While this government uses the right words on measuring our economy differently in Budget 2022, they’ve continued to emphasize GDP, and GDP alone, as the benchmark. As long as we stick to what has been done in the past, we are going to keep getting the same outcomes and the same kinds of budgets from governments.

The budget was not without positive steps forward. The $2.1 billion investment into emergency management is a welcome step to building back the communities that were devastated by climate events in 2021. While less than half of that was targeted toward strengthening our communities, this government has laid a path forward to making B.C. more resilient. I hope that next year’s budget increases spending on adaptation to the climate crisis.

Other positive elements of the budget included stabilizing sexual assault centre funding, funding the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act secretariat and creating a dedicated ministry for land, water and resource stewardship.

The record-setting investment into addressing homelessness is a step towards meeting the basic right to housing that all British Columbians should expect. I’m also pleased to see this government build some continuity of care for children aging out of the child welfare system. Creating $600-a-month rental supplements until the age of 27 will create stability for some of the most vulnerable people in our province.

While these are positive investments, there are more significant gaps in Budget 2022. You can see these gaps by identifying what the government chose not to talk about. For example, Budget 2022 made little investment into strengthening the education system. The increases in K-to-12 funding are the result of increased enrolment.

The government breezed over the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the impacts on those who develop long COVID, the implications for them, their lives and their ability to work long into the future, and the implications for our economy. Similarly, Budget 2022 made no mention of those with disabilities. For being a so-called inclusive and equal budget, this was a gaping hole in the government’s priorities.

The budget mentioned anti-racism and how diverse our province is but made no mention of the rise of racism that we’ve seen over the last years. The NDP applauded themselves for reducing the poverty rate without recognizing that affordability is getting worse with inflation and weakening supply chains and that people are having to make very stark choices when they go to the grocery store.

There’s a lack of vision for our health care system. We know that those who are poor and in worse health are seeing less outcomes from the health care system. And while this budget invested in more urgent care centres, it did little to protect our health care system from creeping corporatization and did little to keep nurses in the field. It did little to make it easier to be a family doctor providing lifelong care to patients, which we know is the form of health care that is best for people.

What is shocking was the lack of investment into dealing with the toxic drug crisis, when we had 2,224 people die from a poisonous drug supply last year — no investment into an expanded safe supply for the thousands of British Columbians who use drugs. A government that calls itself inclusive and caring for all British Columbians seems to feel no urgency to address the fact that seven people are dying every day from a poisoned drug supply.

[4:25 p.m.]

The budget did little to recognize the mental health crisis we have before us. A year after making a $500 million investment into our mental health system, where have we succeeded? Psychiatric emergency units across the province should not be the place where people are accessing mental health care, yet people are without access to counselling, to therapy. Youth are facing month-long wait-lists to see a counsellor in their school.

The question is: what has improved from that investment? Without preventative mental health care, we cannot really pretend that things are getting better for British Columbians.

This budget promised to reduce taxes on electric vehicles, but reducing taxes on electric vehicles, even used ones, is not how we transform our transportation system. Accessible, dependable, affordable public transit should be at the centre of transportation.

We should be building communities that meet people’s basic needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride, focusing on people, not on cars. There are cities around the world, governments around the world, that are leaning into these solutions and that are creating more livable, more sustainable, more people-centred communities. We could absolutely be doing that here, but it’s not by encouraging people to buy more cars.

From my point of view, we measure progress in society by how we care for our most vulnerable. More and more people in British Columbia are feeling vulnerable, from their mental health to their access to primary health care, to their protection in a global pandemic, to their physical safety from climate disasters. We need to recognize that.

People are feeling more and more disaffected by government, in part because they don’t feel the benefits of government in their lives. It begs the question: what is the role and purpose of government in people’s lives if people are not feeling cared for? Are we collectively doing our jobs?

This is a status quo budget. For the government to move British Columbians into the future, they need to stop making discreet policy shifts. They need to know where they’re heading and support British Columbians who need it most.

I think a lot about a vision for the future. We do policy work, we focus on what we want to raise in this House, but that policy work falls under an umbrella of a vision for the future. It’s a vision where people’s basic needs are met — food, shelter, clean water, community — and where the communities that we live in are thriving, healthy and connected, where our natural systems that we depend on for our health and well-being are themselves thriving, and where government and public institutions are trustworthy.

I want a budget that sets the goal for the future, that makes the investments to get us there and that then measures our progress on the path to that future. I want a budget that makes reducing inequality the centrepiece of climate action. I want a budget that prioritizes people’s access to lifelong health care, including mental health. I want a budget that stops seven people a day from dying preventable deaths. I want a budget that isn’t relying on revenue from the housing crisis or having a hand in the oil and gas industry’s cookie jar.

I want a budget that recognizes that things are not okay right now and then shines a light, a beacon, for all of us for a world that has more certainty and more stability and that recognizes the important role of building trust for the government that is delivering that.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Budget 2022 was the time to show urgency and real vision beyond incremental shifts, but ultimately, that’s not what we got. I hope that we can recognize the importance of acknowledging the challenges that we face today, developing that vision for the future and ensuring that we are measuring properly the path to get there.

[4:30 p.m.]

M. Dykeman: It’s an honour to stand today and take my place to speak to Budget 2022.

As we’ve heard so many times in this House, the last couple of years have been so very challenging for so many families. We have seen natural disasters, the pandemic and growing communities like mine, of Langley East, where you have all sorts of competing needs. We’ve had an incredibly challenging time with an opioid crisis.

I was thrilled when this budget was presented by the Minister of Finance yesterday. What stood out to me was that despite complex needs, growth in so many areas, like I mentioned, in my riding, the challenges we face, this is a budget that recognizes the challenges of balancing all of those needs, looking at fiscal responsibility and investments where they need to be made.

As I’ve said before in this House, we cannot achieve economic growth with a cost of social decline, where we have it on the backs of people, our most vulnerable people. I have to say before I go on…. What I plan on focusing most of my time that I have here on are the things that matter to my riding. I just have to address some of the comments that have been made earlier today.

I find it absolutely shocking that in this House, we heard about what can really only be described as a little bit of fantasy. For a former Minister for Deregulation to stand up and try to give us an economics lesson is mind-boggling. When you take the dumpster fire that ICBC was….

Talking about all of the contingencies in our budget…. You want to talk about a contingency. Let’s talk about the prosperity fund, often referred to as the fantasy fund, that was supposed to come from LNG. But that didn’t work either, and it ended up coming out of a whole bunch of other places.

The former Finance Minister, in 2014, stood there and said: “The fact that we would take a small amount of a chequing account and transfer it into a small savings account to look ahead is a natural thing for us to do.” It’s sort of like revisionist history here, right?

What we’re looking at here is how to deal with a very difficult time and make sure that our economy keeps moving forward, which it is. In talking about the mystery of where that former prosperity fund came from, I can tell you right now that, as a former school board trustee, I sat there and watched capital assets get sold.

Interjection.

M. Dykeman: You can heckle all you want, with respect there, hon. Member, but you’ll have your time.

We all sat there through a two-hour revisionist fairy tale. We saw 50 schools sold in our district alone. We saw multiple schools having to be sold to give the illusion of a balanced budget. That would be the same as selling your furniture to buy your groceries.

Now, as our government is making strides, recognizing that one of the wisest investments one can make in the future is in youth, in our students, we’re now buying back lands at today’s prices. Anybody who’s even attended a basic math class would recognize that you don’t sell capital assets to give the illusion of a balanced budget, and sit there and actually invest in schools.

We had those lands. We had that ability. So we had growth going. We had fast-growing places like Langley and Surrey, and we didn’t have the lands because we were selling them off in a fire sale, which the Auditor General recognized.

As we sit there and look towards the future, which is what we’re actually trying to do successfully…. If you look at the growth of our economy right now, our economy expanded by 5 percent with declining deficits. I just thought that I had to speak a little bit to an economics lesson that was completely off base.

[4:35 p.m.]

What matters in Langley? What matters in Langley are things like infrastructure — infrastructure investments, the widening of Highway 1. We’re keeping people moving. People are getting to their jobs. People have the ability to spend more time with their families because they’re not sitting in traffic.

We looked at the historic infrastructure investments of $3.1 billion. Instead of selling them off, we’re actually investing in a community. That’s what a responsible government does. Out of that investment, we’ll create another 100,000 great-paying jobs for people in British Columbia.

Recognizing that we invest in our youth…. We invest in people. Then you’ll see the economic benefits. Austerity has never worked. It’s fictitious. You can’t just take things on people’s backs. You need to invest in a way that grows the economy and grows our community.

What else matters? Education. Seeing the investment in new schools. Seeing our seamless daycare program moving forward with 40,000 new spaces and 130 new ECEs, allowing people to have access to affordable daycare and recognizing that these are the things that matter.

Langley has grown by nearly 14 percent, and a lot of those are young families. A lot of people are moving west to east to have a larger space for their families and have a place where their children can go to excellent schools while having access to daycare. Our community has benefited, which is so much better than investing in a rainy-day fund while stripping social services. Those are the things that matter to people.

Social investments, like the homeless challenges that many communities are facing. As our community is growing, we are seeing more homelessness. We’re seeing more complex challenges. We recognize the challenges with addictions within our community and seeing that we need to address those. You know the line from A Christmas Carol: “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” That doesn’t work. You actually have to address those head-on. You need to put the investment into the community, which is something that this budget does.

Looking at, responding to and preventing homelessness. Providing $35 million over the next three years to respond to the heightened risk of homelessness faced by former youth in care, through improved supports for those youth beyond their 19th birthday. Providing temporary housing and support arrangements. A new $600-a-month rent supplement is being introduced over the course of 2023 and ’24, and ’24 and ’25.

There’s this agreement with the youth-adults program, which will provide life skills programming and income supports. Introducing the $600-a-month rent supplement will provide over 3,000 people over the next three years to become stably housed. Doubling the current number of community integration specialists to help people experiencing homelessness navigate government programs and available supports in communities throughout the province.

Expanding a first-of-its-kind complex care housing model to at least 20 more sites across B.C. This is something that I know, with my community action table…. We discussed the fact that there is a root cause. On the farm, we kind of have an expression that you can’t fix the hose if you don’t know where it’s broken. Looking at this holistically, there’s a whole range of challenges. That’s why I was so thrilled to see a complex care housing model come forward.

This investment of $164 million over three years, with plans to support up to 500 people with severe mental health and substance use issues or traumatic and acquired brain injuries who are currently homeless or unstably housed…. I was speaking with somebody recently who was talking about how those with mild traumatic brain injuries are at a significantly higher risk of experiencing homelessness. This is something that has been known for quite a while and something that has to be addressed.

Simply treating everyone the same and not looking at what the root cause is doesn’t get to the bottom of it. That’s part of what is so exciting about this budget. It looks at a range of issues to deal with similar challenges, but recognizes that you need to take a multi-pronged approach.

[4:40 p.m.]

Ensuring housing support continues for those up to 3,000 people who are temporarily housed in leased or purchased hotel spaces during the COVID pandemic. These are things that will make a difference in people’s lives, including strengthening health and mental health services, including continuing to support the actions of the Pathway to Hope to expand mental health and addictions care, supported with significant Budget 2021 investments that have been increased since 2017 to over $375 million annually.

Those are investments that will help address a problem that literally was starved for decades. Looking backwards, you can see that these investments weren’t made, and you’re trying to catch up now. In catching up, these are wise investments that will benefit the full economy. You can’t have a robust economy if over 10 percent of people who live within your economy are disenfranchised. You have to have a complete picture. You can’t ignore people and expect everyone else to pick that up. You need to invest in the people who are experiencing challenges so that we can be prosperous and move forward.

This is excellent news for our community. We were dealing with a growing homeless population, which really had a light shone on it during COVID. We have a dedicated group of people within our community who are working hard every day, like Fraser Holland from Stepping Stone Services, Langley Community Services, our RCMP officers, including our homeless task force which has very dedicated people like Constable Val Conroy. Those are all people who are stepping up every day. Our school board came forward with emergency weather shelter spots. They come together, but without the support of a provincial government like this budget provides, these services aren’t expanding and getting to the root cause.

As we look forward into this budget and look at all the opportunities it has to move us forward in a way, as the budget discusses in Stronger Together, which is really an important thing…. Meaningful reconciliation, along with putting people first with affordable child care, strengthening health services, responding to homelessness, transitioning to provide better services for people who have complex support needs, supporting sexual assault survivors and fighting climate change with the CleanBC…. When you look at it in context, with all of these investments being made in this budget along with the B.C. economic plan, you can see with a full picture that this budget recognizes the need to invest, along with fiscal responsibility.

Looking at the opportunities for economic prosperity and growth for companies within our province, along with support for the most vulnerable in our community, I believe that over the next short term, we’re going to see some incredible growth within our province. We’re going to see people be able to be better part of the economy and have the support they need to move forward while growing our economy as we have been. As I mentioned, our economy expanded by 5 percent in 2021 with declining deficits, and these types of investments will allow that economic prosperity to continue.

With that, I just want to finish up by saying that where we have seen, in the past, people inordinately put expenses on families that don’t make sense — like tolls, MSP fees and rising ICBC rates — our government has come forward and continued to invest while also making good on the promises of removing tolls, dealing with the dumpster fire of ICBC and dealing with MSP premiums to allow families to have a leg up financially, while investing in needs like health care and education, while also growing the economy.

I am proud to say that this government recognizes that most important foundation — that we need to grow by investing in people, not at the expense of people. Yeah, absolutely, as we heard with the previous speaker, the critic: people deserve better. That’s why our government is in power. They recognize that. That’s why we were put in, because people do deserve better.

[4:45 p.m.]

That budget right here, Budget 2022, recognizes the continued commitment to do better for the people of British Columbia. That’s why I’m proud to take my place here and support this budget.

With that, I will take my seat now.

T. Halford: I do want to agree with the previous speaker. She made a good point, as she wrapped up. British Columbians do deserve better. They absolutely do.

I think British Columbians, especially post the 2020 election, have expected better. I think we’ve all expected better from this government. Whether it’s the last throne speech that we just saw, whether it’s the economic recovery plan that got rolled out last week or whether it’s yesterday’s budget, I think the key thing that British Columbians in every corner of this province and every community are asking themselves at this point is: has life gotten easier? Has life gotten more affordable? The answer is no. It’s no.

Affordability, which is something that this government has campaigned on twice, has not come to fruition for British Columbians, no matter whether you’re in Surrey, Williams Lake, Prince George, Fort St. John or on the Island. Affordability is something British Columbians are struggling with in every community.

I know that one of the previous speakers, the Finance critic, did point out — and we canvassed it in question period — this idea of ministers getting a pay increase. Whether it’s a holdback or an increase, I think British Columbians don’t…. The definition doesn’t matter to them. What matters to them is that the executive council is going to see their pay increase.

One of the things that I do in my house…. I’ve got three kids, and we do have an allowance for them each. I’ll give an example of my eight-year-old daughter, Sasha. Sasha gets $20 every two weeks. She does. If Sasha doesn’t do her chores or doesn’t bring her dishes to the sink after dinner, she gets a holdback. Now, that holdback could be 10 percent or it could be 20 percent, but she gets a holdback on that $20 allowance.

Now, her behaviour throughout the two weeks might have been good enough to get $15, $18. She has to meet the expectations of Mom and Dad to get the $20. Sometimes she does; sometimes she doesn’t. But when she doesn’t, to her credit, she actually understands, because that is the deal.

I know that this was an emotional issue today, and I get it. When it comes to ministers’ pay, it can get quite sensitive. But that being said, for the minister to say — and you can go back and canvass this in Hansard — that holdbacks can encourage ministers to make cuts, that we need to send the right message to British Columbians, and we need to do the right thing for British Columbians….

These were the answers she gave when we were talking about this issue. It wasn’t just the general budget. We were talking about the issue of pay for ministers, and those were the statements.

Again, it’s about sending the right message to British Columbians. So what message do we send — this is going to happen in every single community — to the single mom that at some point right now is going to a grocery store, hoping her debit or credit card won’t get declined? The Finance Minister says today, on this issue: “We need to send the right message to British Columbians.” Now, good luck defending that. I think it’s going to be a challenge.

[4:50 p.m.]

We talk about affordability, and we see the rising cost of housing. We see the rising cost of gas. I just mentioned we see the rising cost of groceries. I think everybody, when they go to the grocery store, is now getting sticker shock. Whether it’s produce, whether it’s toilet paper, whether it’s school supplies, whether it’s kids’ clothing, prices are going up. It’s a challenge in every single community in this province. No constituency is immune from it.

I will say this. At some point, this government has to decide the message that they are sending to British Columbians. Does this budget send the right message to British Columbians? Does the minister’s statement in the House…? That they have to send the right message to British Columbians by hiking pay — is that actually sending the right message? I know that will get canvassed in committee, but I will say this. I don’t think British Columbians are going to buy it. I really don’t.

Talk about child care. I know that child care is something that is obviously very important to every member of this House. But let’s make no illusions of the fact that child care is a struggle in every constituency. There are wait-lists. And this may shock government members. Some child cares are closing. They are. It’s a fact. I’m sure every MLA in this House has gotten phone calls from child care providers saying they’re closing. It’s happening in my riding.

Do you know what’s not opening? Government-funded, $10-a-day daycare. Those spaces are not offsetting the closures of other child care centres. That’s unfortunate. You know, there is an expectation that with this government…. When they say something, are they actually going to do it? I think there is a growing skepticism that they probably won’t.

The $400 renters rebate has been campaigned on twice now — 2017, 2020. A campaign promise so nice, they did it twice. But they haven’t delivered. The response, when asked, from the Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing is: “We’re working on it.” And it looks like, from a media veil, the Minister of Finance confirmed it may be done by the end of the mandate. Now, there are a lot of renters in my riding who are seniors, who could’ve used that $400 renters rebate, who probably voted for that $400 renters rebate that hasn’t come to fruition. I think that’s shameful. I think it’s shameful.

You know, we look at things from a lens of: how do we better all British Columbians? There are a lot of families right now that are struggling, and we’ve heard from those families. I think every MLA has heard from those families. I’ll give an example — and my colleague the member for West Vancouver–Capilano has done incredible work on this file — and that’s fighting for children with disabilities.

I know many families that rely on that individualized funding model to make sure that their child, their family, can get through the day. This government is going to take that away, and in doing so…. This government is actually going to spend over $150 million to do that cut.

[4:55 p.m.]

That transition is going to be over $150 million to cut individualized funding for children with autism. Imagine not just cutting the fund, but then imagine spending $150 million to execute that cut. That’s a tough sell.

I want to applaud the member that previously spoke, the member from Langley, on one issue. She did confirm that no decisions on that have been made yet. So there is still hope that that member can convince the Minister of Children and Families to put on the brakes and actually stand up not only for children with autism but children of all disabilities that could rely on that individualized funding. It’s important. I think the expectation is that we do that — that we do fight for those individuals.

You know, when we look at items that are people and flip through the pages and figure out items in the budget that relate to their lives…. In my riding, we’ve got a lot of seniors. This budget comes nowhere close to addressing the needs of seniors. It doesn’t. It doesn’t touch it.

It does, however, highlight a new ministry. I guess somebody is excited, because they’ll get promoted to a ministerial position, now at enhanced pay. But I’ll cite that that new ministry already has a budget that is double that of the budget of the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions. It’s not even staffed yet, but it is already double the size of the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions. So when we talk about priorities….

This government does put out a press release every month, when we get the numbers from the coroner, on the loss of lives due to overdoses. They’re usually in the same press releases. But now we have a new ministry coming in, that’s highlighted in this budget, that is already double the size of the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions. That is even including the $8 million — not bump but $8 million transfer — from the Ministry of Health into the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions for communications and public engagement.

When we talk about priorities, does this government have their priorities right? I’m not sure they do. I’m actually fairly confident that they don’t. When we talk about things like what’s in the budget and what’s missing in the budget…. Counselling services — no new spending. Treatment beds — no new spending. Foundry centres — we actually have a reduction in targets. No further expansion on the integrated child and youth mental health teams. So is mental health and addictions a priority in this budget? I definitely challenge and say that it’s not.

Now, the one thing I will say is that the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions does need some communications help. We’ve seen that time and time again. We’ve seen communication blunders, whether it’s a bingo card that the government came out and apologized for 24 hours later, whether it’s swag that was completely inappropriate and misguided.

I think we have a ministry that is solely built on staff, HR and communications, with no real authority when it comes to mental health and addictions. I think that that is very, very concerning to a lot of British Columbians, when we’re in the middle of this crisis, when we are losing over six British Columbians a day.

[5:00 p.m.]

When we look at resourcing, when we look at the wait-lists that people are facing for counselling services, when we look at the affordability issues — whether or not parents are choosing between putting food in the fridge, making sure the mortgage is paid and making sure that their son or daughter or even themselves have access to mental health supports….

We have met — I know in our caucus — a lot of parents who have a very similar story — that they had to take out a line of credit, that they had to remortgage their house to pay for their son or daughter to get into treatment, sometimes one, two, three times. That is if they could get access to a bed.

Now, to me, I think that’s a priority. That’s a fundamental priority that we need to deal with in this House. We could even deal with that with the Select Standing Committee on Health, but in this budget, we’re not dealing with it. What we’re dealing with is an $8 million shift from the Ministry of Health into the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, on communications. That’s at least 200 recovery beds that would immediately be filled in this province.

When you ask a British Columbian, when you ask a mom or a dad that is going into a bank to refinance their house or go into their life savings or get a line of credit, whether or not their priority would be $8 million into the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions — not new money, money transferred over from the Ministry of Health — or $8 million spent on recovery, on beds, what do you think the answer’s going to be? I’m going to guess. I’m quite confident the answer is going to be: “Invest in the things that matter to people today.”

Nobody in this House is going to say: “We have too many treatment beds. We have too much funding for recovery.” I think everybody in this House has said, in an honest moment: “We don’t have enough. We are desperately lacking.” So $8 million, an $8 million transfer to a minister who is lacking accountability on this file. It’s not getting better. It’s getting worse. Every single day we are losing British Columbians. They don’t need spin doctors. They need doctors and beds.

It’s about priorities. You know, in my riding — I’ve got two municipalities; I’ve got Surrey and White Rock — we face these challenges every day. The previous MLA in Langley spoke about the issue of schools. We look at the amount of money that this government wrote off when it came to the Massey Tunnel, when they cancelled that project. I challenge the member to stand up in this House and say how many schools that could have funded. Two, three schools? So, $100 million written off, just like that. Minimum two schools in my constituency.

[5:05 p.m.]

We don’t talk about that. We should be talking about that, when we talk about priorities. We talk about how many families — whether they’re going to doctors appointments, taking their kids to dance or sporting events — are gridlocked in that tunnel. How much time is spent if there’s an accident? It can be hours.

The government comes in. They write off $100 million. They go in, and what they do is say: “We’re going to do a study.” Now they’ve announced that they’re going to replace it — the new name, no real targets.

We talk about priorities. This is a government that campaigned against portables in Surrey. There are portables in Surrey. There are portables in White Rock. I assume that there are probably portables in Langley. Another campaign promise not met.

I actually think this government campaigned on free contraception as well. I didn’t see that in the budget.

Interjection.

T. Halford: Yeah, they did campaign on free contraception. That’s not in here either.

I get it. I understand the angst coming from government members. I think there’s a lot of uncertainty. We look at the fact that…. What are British Columbians getting out of this NDP government? Housing has gone up. Groceries have gone up. Gas has gone up. It’s harder to access mental health services, harder to get a doctor. How many MLAs are hearing from constituents that can’t get a family doctor? Where’s that?

We talk about priorities. We talk about the fact that this government fails every single day to get it right when it comes to the priorities of British Columbians. I can say that with confidence in my riding of Surrey–White Rock, because nobody is coming through the doors singing the praises of this government.

They’re coming through the doors with extreme anxiety, saying: “Help. I’m worried that my child’s funding is getting cut for autism — my child, who has developed a relationship with the provider.” Maybe it’s a personal trainer. Maybe it’s a tutor that helps them in science or math or French, and maybe it has taken months, if not years, to establish that relationship, but this government knows better than that parent. This government knows better than that child, to say: “No. There’s a better way to do it. I’m sorry. You’re going to go to a hub, and you’re going to hope that it works out.”

No wonder no NDP MLA has ever gone outside and ever met with any of those families, because you want to know what? I probably wouldn’t have the guts to do so either if that was the position I took in this House — absolutely embarrassing. And then in this budget, to spend over $150 million to actually transition and make that cut? Wow. I probably wouldn’t show up to those rallies. How could you? How could you return those emails to those parents? Nothing in this budget addresses that.

[5:10 p.m.]

Families are struggling when it comes to affordability, when it comes to getting their groceries, putting gas in their car, rent. By the way, the funding that a lot of those families are getting…. They will say time and time again it’s not enough. It runs out, and then they go into their own pocket to make sure that those training sessions can continue, to make sure that that tutor still comes. That’s what they do. This government has turned their back on them.

There are a lot of challenges in this province right now that we’re all facing as MLAs, whether it’s health, mental health, affordability. These are all things that this government campaigned on. “Trust me. It’ll get better. It’s hard. It’ll get better.” It hasn’t gotten better. It’s gotten worse, and this budget is going to make it worse.

Every Surrey MLA likes to talk about the new hospital in Cloverdale. I’ll tell you this. It came within a second of the Peace Arch Hospital maternity ward getting shut down because they couldn’t staff it. They could not staff it. Now, the new site will not have maternity services. It will not have intensive care services. You can imagine some of the concern. If you can’t properly staff an existing hospital and you’re diverting parents, patients, away at the last second, causing them extreme anxiety, to Langley, to New Westminster, to Surrey Memorial, you can understand the skepticism that people have.

Where was the MLA from Langley when it came to actually standing with us in White Rock, advocating to make sure that that maternity ward was not closed, because it would put extreme strain on Langley Hospital? I’m sure the doctors in Langley were saying that. I know the doctors at Peace Arch were saying that. This budget doesn’t address that.

I will conclude my remarks here. This budget is not relatable. It doesn’t challenge. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t change the struggles that every British Columbian is facing in every riding in this province. I think they deserve better. I agree with the MLA from Langley on that. They deserve better.

H. Yao: Thank you for this opportunity to speak about Budget 2022.

As we start having this conversation about this budget, I couldn’t help but just appreciate what the Minister of Finance is going through to really place British Columbia as a core investment.

You look at health care, child care, Internet for rural and remote communities, housing. We’re coming up with all kinds of ways to really support British Columbians moving forward. And 2021 has been a difficult year. We all know that — from the pandemic and, as the previous member also mentioned, dealing with the opioid crisis. We also dealt with the extreme weather of a heat dome. We dealt with the flood happening in Sumas Prairie.

We’re dealing with quite a lot of challenges as we move into 2022. We cannot say 2021 had been easy, and 2020 had been, definitely, a challenge. But 2021 offered quite a great opportunity for us to also learn lessons as we move forward.

[5:15 p.m.]

I would like to first touch on COVID-19. I know I mentioned this many, many times, but I want to re-echo that comment. COVID-19, when it first came and when it first placed pressure on our health care system, reminded us that if we had invested earlier — if the Richmond Hospital was built earlier — we would have been able to better respond to all the challenges COVID threw at us.

I couldn’t help but look at the 16 years that just got lost. Our government took over, and we are trying to play catch-up — to catch up with building houses, to catch up with building infrastructure and to catch up with investing in social services and investing in seats in post-secondary education, and for us to continue finding ways to help raise British Columbians, all of us, up together.

I’m honoured to serve under the Premier and honoured to serve in our government, to continuously say we are only successful when all British Columbians prosper together. I could not help but reflect on the Minister of Finance and her analogy. The same analogy is also in the Chinese culture, talking about the three arrows. When you have three arrows bundled together, it’s harder for a family to break it. It is a father’s lesson for three sons: “If you three can work together, the world will have a far harder time breaking you guys together.”

It is a reminder to different family members that throughout challenging times, we must learn to rely upon one another. We cannot just continue thinking about supporting the 1 percent or the 2 percent and watching them prosper while the rest of British Columbia falls behind. We must move forward together as a community, as a province, as a way that we support one another.

I just cannot say how proud I was to watch British Columbians rally together in 2021 as we were moving into 2022, and of the fact that we are able to say that we have the lowest unemployment rate and one of the best economic recoveries. Kudos to British Columbians. Our government continuously worked with Dr. Bonnie Henry to be providing the most scientific approach to serve our province.

What does a scientific approach say? Many people talk about different spin doctor apps or different types of communication, but our government trusted Dr. Bonnie Henry and her team. We trusted that science would guide us through the challenge. We did not over-close the province unnecessarily, and we did not let go of the restrictions unnecessarily early. We continue to realize that British Columbians are counting on us to be objective, to be focused and to be respectful of their lives.

That’s the reason why, when I look back to Budget 2022…. It is another reflection of our Minister of Finance, to say: “We are here to support all British Columbians as we go through this challenging time.”

We’re looking at different kinds of difficulties, but I would like to start with health care first. I know that in Budget 2022, we will commit $3.2 billion over three years to build an even stronger health care and mental care system. We’ll have $500 million invested in improving mental health.

I remember earlier the member talking about $8 million, and I do know the Minister of Finance has done a fabulous job of explaining it to them. I’m especially moved by the $2 million focus on fighting stigmatization within the community.

The reality is I come from a culture where mental health is sometimes shameful. Sometimes people worry about genetic disposition. I even remember my father telling us: “Mental health is something that, if it happens to your family, hide it, because you might get discriminated against.”

How many individuals are able to reach out for help? How many people are able to say: “I want a supportive community”? How many people are able to say: “My family member needs a little extra support”? I have witnessed many families try to tackle out their difficult circumstances because they were surrounded by stigmatization. That’s something we truly need to combat against.

Of course, the $500 million investment is improving mental health and addictions across the province. We’re not just supporting individuals struggling; we’re supporting their families as well.

When we’re looking at health care, I think one of the things we’re continuously reminded of is, especially, COVID-19 and the opiate crisis.

I want to take a moment to express my sincere grief and condolences to everyone who lost a family member or a loved one in this challenging time, both from COVID-19 and the opiate crisis and, also, from any other kinds of health-related challenges due to the unprecedented year of 2021. Our hearts go out to all of them.

[5:20 p.m.]

Our province, when we come to Budget 2022, is forward-thinking on how we can actually strengthen our services to support families and individuals when they are facing challenges in their lives.

We are also looking at the environment, especially with the recent heat dome and the flood in Sumas Prairie. We realize that we’re dealing with a climate crisis on our hands. I guess I shouldn’t say that we are realizing it. We acknowledged it a long time ago. Our government continuously put environmental investment as a priority.

I’m so glad, in 2022, that we are investing $1 billion in new investments through CleanBC. We are on our way to the Roadmap 2030, and we’re going make clean energy transportation a more affordable option for people and businesses. We’re going to be supporting industry to decarbonize our economy and provide funding to help local governments reduce emissions. Why is that important? Well, I think that for all of us who have family members, we realize that we want our children to experience something that we also experienced — from clean water to predictable weather to fresh air.

We also talked about water security and food security. I still remember having a conversation with individuals talking about different kinds of policy and challenges. We really need to start looking ahead. It’s going to be a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability when it comes to protecting our food and water supply. That’s why I’m so glad our government is putting a great emphasis on supporting the families and businesses who have experienced these challenges and is creating greater investment in preventative measures.

British Columbians want a brighter future. British Columbians want a safer future, not just for us but for our next generation. We are including $2.1 billion to support recovery and communities as we build back from the recent disasters and strengthen our defence to make sure that people and communities across B.C. are protected from climate-related disasters.

For somebody from Richmond, I think that one thing that we often talk about is a potential flood. We often also talk about food security. Richmond has many, many agricultural lands. But if the water is inconsistent and we have water security issues, as well, we are dealing with very devastating challenges and uncertainties as we move forward. That’s why our government is putting so much effort into Budget 2022, into really looking after our community as its dealing with different challenges.

I’m also so thankful that our Budget 2022 continues to work to connect British Columbians and invests in connecting another 280 First Nations, rural and remote communities to high-speed Internet. We cannot enjoy future prosperity or future successes without connecting our local community to digital access. High-speed Internet is essential for our, especially remote, family members and community members, to stay connected with our global world. We are also accelerating our commitment to close the digital divide and help communities to access new, diversified economic opportunities.

I also want to take a moment to talk about our five-day sick day leave to allow individuals to take time off, as well. If you look at all of this community investment, we are going back to square one. Our government, for 2022’s budget, is designed to focus on investing in British Columbians. Through our housing B.C. plan, we also have more than 32,000 homes either completed or underway. Budget 2022 also has invested more than $1.2 billion each year, three times the level of funding of 2017.

I know the previous member was talking about affordability. I, too, echo the challenges that we’re facing today. Affordability has been one of the biggest difficulties that’s faced by the global community. I do want to emphasize that B.C. is facing one of the lowest inflation growth rates compared to rest of Canada.

We are still working hard to make sure that we make life affordable. If you look at ICBC, we have made one of the best reductions — the ICBC rate. We removed MSP, and we removed the toll from bridges. We continue looking for ways to make sure British Columbians can afford living in their homes and their communities. We also have one of the fastest wage increases across Canada.

[5:25 p.m.]

We also want to take a moment to talk about schools at this moment. We have invested $3 billion over three years to build and replace schools so all students continue to have access to safe, high-quality schools to learn within. I remember one of the challenges during 2017 and 2020 was really to talk about schools which are seismically unsafe. That was left behind to us for 16 years. Our government is finally putting in extra effort, playing catch-up, to ensure that parents are able to send their students to schools where they can study safely and that parents can even go to work without concern of a school being unsafe for a student to learn in.

Of course, one other thing I also want to take a moment to celebrate is our $10-a-day child care program. While moving forward, many people say we might not be moving fast enough. I also think that many parents who want to get involved in the workforce are probably looking forward to us moving forward. That’s why I’m excited that we, already by the end of this year, will be moving closer to $20-a-day child care. With partnership with the federal government, we’re closer to the goal of $10-a-day child care. This means different parents are able to afford child care and return back to the workforce.

Mr. Speaker, if I might speak through you. We talk about how one million new jobs will be available within the next ten years. We want the British Columbians who are excited to pursue their career, who are excited to pursue their vocation, who are excited to return to the workforce to have an opportunity to return.

Unfortunately, when it comes to child care, we often hinder more individuals who are female or people of colour. That’s why our government continues, again, to bring inclusion and equity to our investment in British Columbia. Of course, we also invest quite a lot of money in the infrastructure, as well, to continuously improving B.C., to prepare B.C. for the future.

I think one of the challenges, even in Richmond, nowadays is sometimes witnessing homelessness in our community, where you saw individuals who are struggling, especially during the pandemic. It shows that economic divide, placing them in even more vulnerable circumstances.

I’m glad our government is placing strong emphasis by providing a comprehensive approach to respond to and prevent homelessness in our community. We don’t want individuals just being there and struggling through challenging times. We’ll create opportunities for people to return and to be part of a community, as we move forward.

I know I mentioned this before, but I do want to take a moment to talk about reconciliation. Again, I know we all felt the pain and suffering for many Indigenous community members in our community when they discovered, unfortunately, the burial sites in residential schools. I still remember talking to our Minister of Forests about a working plan of our forests and continuously placing the reconciliation and communication with our Indigenous leadership as a priority.

Our government is also looking at tourism. We’re continuing to ensure millions of dollars in funding to provide for more than 8,000 tourism businesses. As our government continues moving forward, we want to make it right. We want to do it right for British Columbians.

I mentioned many times before. If you look at Budget 2022, our primary focus is on how we can help British Columbians overcome the challenges ahead. Unfortunately, with climate change, with the global challenge of inflation and the affordability issue, with the Sumas Prairie flood also something that hindered our infrastructure which delays a lot of our supply chain, making it more difficult.

Our government has British Columbians’ backs. We’re here to fight as British Columbia is moving forward. Like I mentioned earlier, when it comes to many, many different methods to ensure that we will make British Columbia more affordable for British Columbians. Even though we’re facing a lot of global challenges, British Columbia is still economically recovering better than most other provinces.

[5:30 p.m.]

We have the lowest unemployment rate and the highest wage increase in Canada. Our COVID-19 vaccination rate is the highest in North America. We’re proud of what we’re doing to continue allowing British Columbia to be a leader in North America in both health care services and our economic recovery.

Without further comments, I will end my speech here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to speak on this topic.

K. Kirkpatrick: I’m pleased to rise today to speak to Budget 2022.

This debate is our opportunity, as opposition, to reflect on what we see this budget accomplishing for British Columbians. Will it actually do something for our province, for our constituencies? Will it do something for the people that send us here to represent them?

First off, I’d like to thank the minister and the ministry staff. This is a huge undertaking. I’m sure that this has meant many long days — evenings, nights — particularly given the shorter time frame of this year due to the delay in last year’s budget.

I’d also like to thank my constituents in West Vancouver–Capilano, the many businesses and non-profit organizations who are looking to this budget for support and will be waiting for me to report back to them.

I’ll offer my observations today on what I think are the key takeaways from Budget 2022. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to ask questions to the ministers in estimates, as it was difficult to connect all of the dots between what we’re promising in terms of funding on child care and various things to where you find it in the new ministry of education and child care and what goes where. So I will attempt to unravel the mysterious numbers as best I can prior to estimates.

The lead-up to this budget contained an outpouring of NDP self-praise. Although there are some good things here, there are also some significant areas of over-optimism. This budget should be setting the tone for a post-pandemic British Columbia, and with that, it falls short. At a time when the future is uncertain and people across the province are looking to us for hope and a plan to tackle the big issues facing society going forward, this budget does neither.

Yesterday the Minister of Finance introduced a budget that does little to help British Columbians deal with the affordability crisis that they face. It fails to properly address issues that people in all corners of this province are concerned about and struggling with: affordability and the rising cost of housing, gas and groceries.

This government says it’s tackling the affordability issues, but we do not see that. Their inability to find affordable child care, British Columbians’ inability to find affordable child care, any child care. Appropriate funding for services for families with children with support needs — that’s not here.

A fail for British Columbians who are looking for solutions for the safety of their friends and their loved ones who are struggling with mental health and addictions issues, and for British Columbians who are having a challenge finding a good job or keeping their small business open for another day. The fact that they’ve lost their doctor…. I lost my doctor this year and cannot find another doctor. This is an issue for 800,000 British Columbians.

Let me talk a bit about child care. I’m very pleased to see child care move from MCFD to the newly named ministry of education and child care. I think that’s a very positive thing. I’m sure this has been a complicated transition, and I do thank the staff for all of their hard work. It was a big undertaking.

[5:35 p.m.]

I’m also pleased to see that there is going to be some flexibility in the ECE wage enhancements and that they don’t have to be directed 100 percent to service provision, but there is a recognition that people actually have to run daycare centres as well. I’m happy to see the dual-credit program as the beginning of what we need to do a lot more of: enhancing and encouraging young people to come into ECE as a career.

We support $10-a-day child care. I have always supported $10-a-day child care, a universal child care program. We want to it happen. So I was pleased to hear about the reductions in child care costs, but I am perplexed at how these reductions are being funded and, certainly, on how this is going to be implemented. I can’t find anything in the budget that supports how this will happen. Again, I’ll look forward to the opportunity to ask those specific questions in estimates.

The NDP’s $10-a-day child care promise for infants was supposed to be effective in their first year of government, and now it’s five years behind schedule. This bears repeating, as many British Columbians believed in this promise and voted for that promise. So ironically, what this means is that children who were maybe not even born in 2017, when this initial promise was made, are going to be too old by the time the $10-a-day child care comes in to even have their families take advantage of that. And that’s if it happens.

After the inability to provide $10-a-day child care to more than 2,500 children in five years…. That’s how many $10-a-day child care child care spaces there are today: 2,500. I believe there are about 128,000 child care spaces in British Columbia, so we’re not doing very well so far.

After the inability to do that and the addition of only 6,000 net new child care spaces — government numbers: 6,000 actual bums in seats, real child care spaces, not just announcements of funding — how is this government going to undertake the herculean task of adding 9,500 more $10-a-day child care spaces in nine months and reducing thousands of child care spaces, tens of thousands of spaces, to $20 child care in nine months?

I want there to be no misunderstanding here. I want this to happen. I want British Columbians to be able to afford child care and have access to it. What I’m questioning is…. Based on the inability for this government to actually create and open spaces and to be able to go through a process whereby we have a significant number of $10-a-day spaces now, I don’t understand how it will be possible to fulfil all of these promises in the next nine months.

Government is moving towards the $10 per day. No commitment in this budget to get there but promising the $20-a-day average child care. The only reason that this is even happening is because they now have a commitment to the federal government. In order for British Columbia to have access to that federal funding, it has finally had to take action or at least commit to take action. So what they have to do now is provide 12,500 spaces by the end of December.

If government follows through on last year’s commitment, they should be at about 5,000 $10-a-day spaces right now. I don’t believe they’re there yet. At last count it was still 2,500. But these spaces, these additional spaces, the whole 5,000, were to be online already. So we need….

I’m sorry. I keep repeating this number because it’s just so astounding to me that we believe that we can get here. So we have to have 12,500 $10-a-day spaces by the end of this year. Still unclear as to how…. There is nothing in the budget that talks about: “This is how we’re going do it. This is how we’re going to fund it. This is how we’re going to move forward.” No pathway.

There need to be dollars set aside specifically to fund the $10-a-day…. I’m not going to call them prototype sites any more. Hopefully they’re not prototype sites anymore, and they’re real and permanent sites. We have to be able to fund that, and we also have to be able to reduce these other fees to $20. I don’t see it. I don’t see any understanding of what it is cost per space and how this will happen.

[5:40 p.m.]

I have already heard from child care providers who want to understand how government is going to do this. They’re concerned it will fall to them to start to have to subsidize some of the parents’ fees. It’s because they’re starting a process which is to take nine months, and they haven’t actually spoken to the child care providers yet.

There does seem to be some stress and anxiety that has been created out there with this announcement, not unlike the stress and anxiety that was created when there was an announcement made to cut autism funding, without parents having been involved in that decision or without any clear information being provided to British Columbians on how that’s going to work.

In rolling this out in nine months, there are huge complexities involved: different regions’ operating hours, different current fees that they’re charging now, all the reporting changes. Is CCOF going to be eliminated? What is going to happen?

Now, since I don’t see money specifically to subsidize the costs for these daycares, are these daycares going to have absorb additional costs? This will result in more child care providers actually being pushed out of the market, which is exactly what happened when the fee caps came in. I see still, in this budget, no commitment to increasing spaces this year. So I guess government is not worried about the supply side. They’re not worried about how many spaces there actually are.

We know — from an FOI decision, a note that we got last November — that this government wants to make it too difficult for private child care providers to operate in British Columbia. What I’m building to here is: will this funding — no clarity here — also be available, and will the spaces that private child care providers are operating going to be eligible for this as well?

I want to give you a picture of the value of private providers and the integration of public, not-for-profit, co-op, house and private daycares. South Surrey is in need of child care spaces. As of December of 2021, there are 2,463 ministry-funded child care spaces operating in South Surrey. Of all of those spaces, this is made up of 184 operated by not-for-profit providers, 2,221 spaces operated by private providers and 58 that are $10-a-day sites.

We need to be very careful, when we’re moving forward, in terms of: what are the resources that we’re trying to build in child care in British Columbia? If we’re not engaging all different kinds of child care providers, we are going to have a real issue with our ability not only to provide $10-a-day child care or $20-a day-child care but to provide any child care for our increasing population.

Now that this announcement has been made, without details, there will be parents who are expecting to be paying $20 for their child care at the end of December. I’m really hoping that those families will not be disappointed.

When this government announced, during the pandemic, reduced child care fees — there was a period of time during the pandemic that hey made an announcement that parents weren’t going to have to pay their fees — they forgot to tell the child care providers. Now, the child care providers were going to be reimbursed for this. They didn’t know that, and they weren’t reimbursed for quite a long time after.

What it did is that it caused stress and issues between parents and child care providers, because the information was not clearly communicated to both parents and child care providers. So I’m hoping that this is not going to be another situation which is actually going to cause anxiety and concern between the providers and the parents. With no mention of net new child care spaces, I’m not really sure how we’re going to be moving forward here.

[5:45 p.m.]

To be clear, as well, it’s very confusing. We’re talking about $20 spaces, $10 spaces and 40,000 new spaces. We’ve funded 126,000 spaces, but of those, we’ve actually only opened 6,000 spaces. I know your heads are just nodding, because it’s just all so many numbers. It’s very hard to follow. It is really hard to follow. It is not a succinct, clear plan on what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to do about 40 different things at the same time. Because of that, nothing is getting done.

We really need to be careful about these numbers we’re throwing around, but I do just want to drive home that none of these $10 spaces and none of these $20 spaces are new spaces. They’re already there; they already exist. Somebody is already paying for them. There’s already a child in that space. We need to work on the actual creation of spaces. We need to do it by utilizing and leveraging a fulsome group of child care providers, but we need to build more spaces, not just announce funding for spaces.

Until this government can roll out a provincewide universal child care system, we are now creating a have and have-not child care system. There are many parents — all those parents who are not accessing these subsidized spaces — that themselves are actually subsidizing those who are fortunate enough to get these spaces.

We can’t just have 5,000 $10-a-day child care spaces, maybe 10,000 at $20. We’ve got to have this provincially. It’s got to roll out across the province. That’s the only way we can ensure equity to all families who are accessing child care services. It is shameful that after five years, we have 2,500 prototype $10-a-day child care spaces today.

If there are no spaces…. The cost of spaces is actually irrelevant if a family can’t access the space. Since the October 27 announcement to claw back funding for autism, families have been anxious, they’ve been outraged, and they have been waiting to see this budget, to see what MCFD does in order to fund the new normal of autism funding. They’ve expressed concerns to government that different groups of neurodiverse children are going to be pitted against each other with this funding announcement. I’m afraid that the budget looks like that’s what’s happening.

This was a disaster of an announcement. It has got to be…. I could write a business case on this. If you are trying to announce something in the most chaotic manner and that is going to upset the biggest number of people and cause a ton of stress, the picture of the announcement of the new CYSN funding will be on the front page of the textbook.

This was an appalling, terrible and insulting way to announce something to families who are so impacted by this. Talking about having had consultation processes, consultation opportunities…. The budget document talks about consultation, and now the budget document talks about…. Gee whiz. Some of these…. Can I say “Gee whiz” in here?

Interjection.

K. Kirkpatrick: Gee whiz. Some of these decisions are not yet even made.

Interjection.

K. Kirkpatrick: I’ll leave that one to you.

See. Now I’ve completely lost what I’m talking about.

Interjection.

K. Kirkpatrick: Gee whiz. Okay. That’s right.

This is just terrible. So the announcement is now not providing what it should be providing.

AutismBC’s executive director, Julia Boyle…. This is a press release that came out after they dug deep through the budget, and here are some comments: “While the NDP government claims its 2023 budget is focused on making life better and making life more affordable for all people in B.C., this is clearly not the case for youth with support needs. One only needs to look at Ontario, where Social Service Minister Todd Smith recently announced their hub model failed, and they now need to go back and redesign their approach.”

[5:50 p.m.]

Now, I don’t know if the members of this House remember, but as soon as that October 27 announcement was made, families said: “Oh my gosh. This looks just like the Ontario model.” Ontario increased its wait-list from 20,000 to 50,000 after the introduction of the hub model. So why is this government still moving forward with this hub model?

Here’s another quote from an AutismBC press release: “Budget 2022 doesn’t include the necessary funding to maintain even existing service levels in the transition to children and youth with support needs. Several hundred million dollars in incremental funding will be needed to ensure that children can receive the supports that they need.”

Looking at the numbers, there is insufficient funding to manage the transition to a hub-based service model. There was an increase of about $40 million in operating funding that should be going to service provision, which is about an 8½ percent increase over the previous year. But government is saying: “Well, that’s going to be available, even though we’re going to have 28 to 30 percent more young people accessing those funds.”

An 8½ percent funding increase and a 30 percent increase in the number of young people that are going to be accessing services. I think that that’s exactly what AutismBC and the Autism Support Network and all those families were concerned about. We are taking the same pie, and we’re just cutting it up into way more slices so that nobody is benefiting. Everybody is getting less.

Now, government needs to know and understand these parents are not going away. They’re going to continue to advocate for their children. They’ve advocated for their children for their entire lives. They are not going to stop calling all of our MLA offices. They’re not going to stop asking the minister to meet with them. They’re not going to stop coming to the front lawn and asking to be heard. This budget does not meet their needs, and it does not meet the need of neurodiverse children in British Columbia.

Meanwhile, in Surrey, children are continuing to be dropped off at school by their parents and walking into their portable, instead of the real classrooms that were promised. This government promised to eliminate or reduce the number of….

Interjection.

K. Kirkpatrick: You’re agreeing? Yes, do you remember that one? Okay. To reduce the number of portables….

Interjection.

K. Kirkpatrick: Oh, eliminate. I’m sorry. Silly me. The promise has been made so many times. I’m getting it confused now with other promises that haven’t been met.

At the start of the pre-pandemic school year, there were 361 portables in the school district. This is a 32 percent increase over 2016-17, when the promise was made to eliminate portables. That promise has vanished from the budget. The other big omission, which was pointed out by teachers in my school districts, was not only no mention of the word “portable;” no mention of the word “ventilation.” So where is the funding for ventilation upgrades in our schools? Our children and our teachers deserve better.

Since 2017, another crisis has been raging in this province, and this government has made no progress. Failure to address the ongoing opioid crisis, which has continued to get worse under this government. Five of six years…. Provincial emergency have been under this government’s watch. You can point across here. You can say you inherited a bad system. You can continue to tell yourselves all of those things. But everybody — the media, British Columbians and us…. We’re getting tired of hearing that.

This is the responsibility of this government. Last year 2,224 people died of an overdose in British Columbia. Despite the worst year ever for opioid deaths, increase to the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions involves a transfer of money from Ministry of Health for $8 million to the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions.

Now, there seemed to be some confusion earlier in this House in terms of what that money is for, but certainly on page 92 of the budget it looks like that money is going towards communication and PR staffing. More must be done to address both the health and the criminal aspects of drug-trafficking to bring down the number of illicit drug deaths in our province.

[5:55 p.m.]

Does this government understand that 50 percent of the people that are dying are dying not in the Downtown Eastside, not on the street. They’re in their homes. They’re at parties. They’re out with friends. They’re dying from toxic drugs delivered through smoking. These are not overdoses. This is drug poisoning, and it is happening in all neighbourhoods in all communities in British Columbia. We’ve heard it from the coroner, and I don’t see this anywhere in the plan. These are not people living with addiction. This is a poisoned drug supply.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I was worried that I wasn’t going to have enough to say, and I wasn’t going to use all my time. Now, I’m finding I have about 25 pages left. I’m going to have to flip to the next most important thing. What is going to upset me the most? Let’s find out. Okay, okay. Thank you for your patience with me here. I could have been a designated speaker. Yep. Be careful. Okay. I’m sure that you guys were talking about social services somewhere here. Look at this, 15 pages probably. Well, I know what I was going to say, so I’ll just say it.

I worked in the social services sector. I was involved as the CEO of the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. What we did is we supported funding transition housing, non-profit housing for people. I was one of the founders of the…. Now I can’t remember the name of it. I’m so excited. I was one of the founders of the Social Purpose Real Estate Collaborative, and we worked on creating and building houses. We actually built and got houses built, but we did a lot of work in social services. I worked a lot in social services.

If this government is saying they want to invest in social services, they had better get rid of that low-wage redress that they put in there that they gave to their friends so that they are crushing the non-union social services providers right now who are cancelling programs, who are reducing their operating hours, because unless you are a union employer in social services in the non-profit helping sector….

This government is trying to force unionization on social services organizations, and they are reducing the quality of care that can be provided, because they are playing around with wages. They are playing around with the wages for social workers, for counsellors, for youth support workers. It’s appalling. For this government to say that they believe in social services — in investing in social services — there better be a footnote there that says: “If they are a unionized employer.” That was the part I didn’t want to miss.

Almost done. I would just like to thank everyone for their listening to me here today. I’m obviously very passionate about this. I’m very disappointed in what I saw.

This government needs to stop talking about: “We spent more money than anyone else ever did, and that’s a good thing.” That’s not what you’re judged by. You’re judged by what you produce. What are the outcomes? How many units? How many children are in daycares? How many people are living in houses? We don’t care how much you…. Well, we do care how much you spend, because there is a lot of money being spent, but we’re not seeing the outcomes of those, so come into this House and talk about what you’ve done, not what you’ve spent.

I’m hopeful that this government will start to take responsibility for its own actions now that it’s in its sixth year. I am certainly tired of hearing them yelling “16 years.” I’m tired of it. Media is tired of it. British Columbians are on to you. Yelling “16 years” is the same as saying: “Hey, look over there.” You have got to take responsibility now, today, in your sixth year for the policies that you are making.

On that note, I would like to say I’m disappointed in the budget. You need to do more for British Columbians. You’ve got to help those families with children with autism and other neurodiverse young people. Step up and get those daycare spaces opened, and come up with a plan that’s actually going to work. Come up with a jobs plan. Get women back to work.

[6:00 p.m.]

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Chilliwack-Kent.

K. Paddon: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I have not had a chance to congratulate you. It’s very nice to see my neighbour in the chair.

The budget is a topic that a lot of people are getting passionate about, which, as I’m watching, is very exciting for me. Sometimes people think that it’s hard to get passionate about money, and it’s a big amount of things. I did hear someone mention — I can’t remember who — that perhaps it wouldn’t matter. The details wouldn’t matter as much to British Columbians. I’m so glad of the passion in this room, because this does matter very much to British Columbians. The details are where we find the people.

For me, when I consider the budget, it’s about taking care of people. I have had the honour and the privilege of spending my entire adult career focused on taking care of people. I’ve been very honoured that a big part of doing that job has been to carry people’s stories. As MLA for Chilliwack-Kent, that’s actually a big part of my job here too: to carry their stories into conversations with my colleagues, carry their stories into this House and use their stories to learn about what people need and what people expect, what people are afraid of and what they’re hopeful for.

When I’m talking about taking care of people, I’m talking about that being a centre of everything. That is one of the reasons that I am so grateful for the way that this budget was framed and for the planning that went into it. It focuses on people, and it recognizes that things and even jobs and pieces don’t come together without the people.

In Chilliwack-Kent, those who reach out to my office are probably familiar with my staff. I haven’t had a chance to introduce my constituency assistant here in the House yet. If you’ve reached out to my office, you’ve probably been helped by Jennifer Trithardt-Tufts. She is fantastic. She does an amazing job — taking care of people, responding to people. Especially, as I know a lot of my colleagues will be familiar with, while we’re here and very busy, it’s our staff that really carries that load for us.

Chilliwack-Kent is an incredible place to live, and it is diverse in its environment. It’s full of tradition and history, while also being a place that’s dynamic and evolving. This budget speaks about the people in Chilliwack-Kent. There’s opportunity and innovation, as businesses and families are coming in and investing in our community and becoming part of our community as our neighbours.

There’s the Chilliwack River Valley; Cultus Lake — I hope you guys are familiar with it; Ryder Lake; Promontory; Garrison Crossing; Rosedale; Popkum; Kent; Harrison Hot Springs; Harrison Mills; and everything in between.

I mention them all because they’re all part of this dynamic and diverse collection of community, filled with farmers, tradespeople, veterans, teachers, service professionals, social service professionals, health care professionals, probation and correction workers, line workers, support workers, community workers, faith leaders, daycare and ECE providers, so many entrepreneurs, our small business owners and so many more. The culture in Chilliwack-Kent is rich because of our First Nation communities and the Stó:lō people. We’re very, very lucky to be there.

This budget talks about all of those people. I’m very grateful that I get to be here to support it and discuss how it will impact them.

One of the members opposite a couple of weeks ago, I think, in response to the throne, said that the throne speech was focused too blindly on brighter days ahead. I feel like maybe their sentiment would be the same for the budget. There are brighter days ahead. We’re struggling right now, and should there not be brighter days ahead, it would be very worrisome.

Chilliwack-Kent, the Fraser Valley and so many parts of B.C. have been impacted by extreme weather events, most recently the floods. In Chilliwack-Kent, the repercussion of those rains was an incredible amount of land movement. We may not have been under water, but we were under debris that was coming down from the hillside.

[6:05 p.m.]

People are struggling, and they’re frustrated. They are tired, and they’re grieving. It’s okay to say it out loud. But there are brighter days ahead.

People are exhausted, and they’re divided. There’s this flirtation with the line of: “Am I going to divide, or am I going to unite?” I see it everywhere. I see here, in this chamber. I see it in real life. I see it on social media. I see it among my friends and colleagues, current and past.

The opioid crisis breaks our heart. The COVID pandemic keeps us alone, for some of us. For others, it makes us question things and when things are going to get back to normal. The events in November, with the weather, scared us, I think, because it was scary. Our response, no matter how swift or how targeted, is still a response to something that, quite frankly, went wrong.

I understand when I hear members opposite talk about the anxiety, talk about why people are anxious and why they’re worried. I am many things. I am an MLA. I am a member of Chilliwack-Kent and a British Columbian and a Canadian and a mother and someone’s daughter. I can tell you that there are a lot of things right now that make me anxious. What makes me most anxious right now is information — or the lack of it, the partial sharing of it.

I appreciate this budget because it talks specifically about a stronger British Columbia, and it gives us information and a way forward. It talks specifically about a stronger society, about taking care of each other, and it puts those people first that I talked about just a minute ago, those people that I’ve been taking care of in every job I’ve ever had.

It talks about a stronger economy, and yes, it recognizes that there have been some things that have gone…. Well, let’s just say it. They’ve been good news. It also talks about how much work we have to do and what’s coming, and it looks forward to, maybe, blindingly better days. But you know what? It’s a good thing to look forward to. It’s a good thing to work towards.

It also talks about a stronger environment because we cannot and should not and will not ignore the fact that you cannot take care of people and you cannot take care of the economy if your environment is falling apart around you. I am so, so proud of the Roadmap to 2030. I am so excited to see us implement it, and I am very, very supportive of what I’m seeing in the budget that supports that work.

Earlier this month…. There was another member opposite who made a comment about, like I mentioned at the onset, how maybe contents matter less to British Columbians and our words don’t matter. Of course, dismissing other people’s words, dismissing other people’s ideas is part of what I’m talking about when I talk about the information.

When I hear from people who are happy or when I hear from people who are concerned about the budget, about the throne speech, about a policy or even just about the state of the world that their children are living in, I listen for what they’re saying and for what they’re not saying. Most of the time what I’m hearing — from people who reach out to my office as well as from people opposite — is fear or anxiety around what might happen, anxiety or concern about what may be possible. I understand. But they’re not facts; they’re fears.

I hope, as British Columbians, with this budget and the work that’s being done in it, we can see the potential and we can work towards the facts that can be our future, rather than only guard against the fear. There is so much possibility and potential, and our government has a track record of helping guide us through difficult times, which we are still in.

[6:10 p.m.]

Sometimes we need to focus on the solutions. That’s what the budget does. There are a lot of ways to focus on the potential issues. There are a lot of priorities that need to be attended to. I know that all the members who have been in this House and who have been here before my time have seen that when you have a hundred priorities, you can’t have all of those priorities raised at the same level.

It doesn’t make them any less important, and it doesn’t make the people that it impacts any less important or the issue any less critical, but it does mean that we have to put the fire out if the house is on fire. There are a lot of houses on fire right now, metaphorically, with the opioid crisis. As one of the other members pointed out, it may not be how people are imagining it. It’s young men, young tradesmen and professional men in their homes, alone. There is such stigma attached. That’s a fight that we need to focus on, and it’s something that the budget does.

We are still living with COVID. We’re still working through COVID. That’s something that the budget looks at — it’s a priority — all while keeping the focus around that stronger society, that stronger economy and that stronger environment. The environment too. We’ve seen that it doesn’t matter what we’re planning, if we don’t protect the environment.

One of the things that I’m especially excited about is the support for survivors of sexual assault. By providing this core funding, 50 sexual assault centres will be there for people who are going through what, I would argue, would probably be the worst day of their life.

Critical crisis response, counselling, medication, that forensic exam and ways of reporting to police or to child protective services in safe ways, in ways that don’t further traumatize — for the person who walks into one of these centres, for the person who needs one of these centres, this is the difference between spending the rest of that day being retraumatized or spending the rest of the day as safe as possible — maybe being able to recognize the dignity that is inherent to them as a human being, maybe being able to pull a little bit of that power back in a moment where it seems impossible. We used to have these.

This funding will reverse the cuts that were made 20 years ago. I was in university 20 years ago. The previous government…. I will say “the previous government,” because I know that we’re sick of talking about 16 years. I heard the other member. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I’m tired of hearing it, and I’m tired of saying it. I’m tired of it actually being an accurate description of something that we’re trying to work on.

They made the decision that victims, or survivors, didn’t matter as much — that their safety didn’t matter as much as other priorities, as tax breaks. So I am very happy that we are funding this. Now, I do understand that one of the members opposite tweeted earlier today that we are in a spending palooza with record deficit and debt and that it has been acknowledged several times. Oh, and I think it said: “Good luck to British Columbia.”

I’m not sure if that means that they won’t be here or be a part of the solution. I’m not sure, but that’s what it said. It has been acknowledged that we cannot cut our way to recovery. A few weeks ago I heard a line. I think it was during question period, and I think it referred to those 16 years. Someone said that the member didn’t drop from outer space, that they were here. They saw what happened.

[6:15 p.m.]

It made me chuckle, because it made me think that to hear this chamber — where we all come together during question period, sometimes during the debate over the throne speech and now the debate over the budget — if someone were to drop in from space, would they be able to pick out the New Democrats, while listening to the opposition tell us to spend more, then tell us we’re spending it wrong, and then tell us we shouldn’t spend it at all or that maybe we should care more about one group than the other group until maybe there’s a shift, and then we should revert?

It’s very confusing. I didn’t know I’d be in competition in this manner. I’m proud of what my government is doing. I’m always happy when more people get involved or on board with taking care of people and prioritizing people. Sarcasm and being wagged at — any insinuation that we aren’t all here because we take pride in and are privileged to try and help to take care of our communities and that that’s not our common goal — breaks down the narrative. It breaks down the discourse in such a way. It’s damaging.

Now, as I mentioned before, one of my roles in life that I do love is that I’m a mom. I have two teenagers. I’m trying to teach them about budgeting. It’s fairly simple in comparison, yet as a mom, the biggest argument in my house, the biggest lament, is when one person has to clean up the mess or fix something that the other broke.

The fact is that they have to do it because they want to use it. They want to partake in the den, which is sacred ground in my home. The den is where the video games are. If the den is a mess, it can’t be used, so somebody else has to clean it up. That is the biggest issue. That’s the biggest fight — that so-and-so did it first. I understand, because I find it…. It’s intense.

I see you smiling under your masks. I think you’re familiar with the battle. The fact is that it has to be cleaned up if we want to continue using it and enjoying it. It has to be cleaned up if it’s going to be available for everyone. And it doesn’t matter, at the end of the day, other than: this is our place.

I only say this because I heard the member opposite talk about how tired they are about those 16 years. The reality is that British Columbians know that our approaches are different, and they’ve seen the end result. I know what it was like buying car insurance before this government. I know what it was like before that. I know what my student loans looked like. I know what the child care situation was when I started creating humans. I say it like that because it sounds like a superpower, and it kind of is.

I’ve mentioned before that when we started our family, we had to choose. One of us got to continue our career. The other one worked nights and weekends. You’ll notice that I didn’t say: “Stayed home and took care of the kids.” We could not afford it. There wasn’t any daycare. It was so expensive that it just wasn’t an option. I would be working in, quite frankly, precarious work taking care of people — a female-dominated field, precarious work. I would be working there only to pay the daycare.

Instead, I worked nights and weekends. My husband worked days. His career advanced. Mine did too, obviously. I got to take care of people until I came here, and I get to take care of Chilliwack-Kent. It was hard, and my marriage definitely suffered.

Now, one of the differences…. I will touch on why child care is such a central theme here. It’s because it changes the world for British Columbians who are in that phase of their lives. It changes possibility and potential for business owners who employ those people.

[6:20 p.m.]

We’re talking about labour shortages. We’re talking about gender equity. We’re talking about precarious work. We’re talking about all of these things, and I’ve heard members opposite refer to them. This is what child care helps. This is what our child care plan helps.

Now, I’m very cognizant every day that the previous member for Chilliwack-Kent had a very solid theory on child care and that government should not be investing in it. When he was a member opposite, he was very clear that all children are born with 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week child care, and that’s their parent. But that’s not true. That’s not the reality.

It brings me into this other piece of our investment for children and youth in care and extending that. I know that many people here — their kids are older than mine. But I’m not thinking that the second my 17-year-old turns 18 or 19 or really any cut-off age there will not be anything left for me to teach him in order for him to be successful.

I’m so glad that our government is recognizing the same so that we can take care of people, so that we can be proactive in a way that will reduce the chances of homelessness, that will reduce the chances of them not being able to find employment. They will have access and support. So that’s pretty exciting.

I have served children and youth in care with intellectual diversabilities. There is the same cutoff, and they’re out. It’s been a few years, but you don’t forget saying goodbye, and “you’re on your own,” except for where, as we humanly connect, we might connect or where we create those connections, because it’s scary to watch someone you’ve cared for just walk out with nothing. This is a good thing, and I don’t think we’re talking enough about it.

I’ve had emails from people who are really excited about it, and I’ve had one email about someone who is really not excited about this. They think this is not the way they’d like us to go. Understood. I’ve had more positive…. I hope I keep getting feedback both ways, or any way. I hope it’s positive, but I need to understand what people are thinking.

In the Chilliwack region…. Chilliwack and Chilliwack-Kent are hard to separate. We have business owners who live in Chilliwack, work in Chilliwack-Kent, or have their business in Chilliwack-Kent and vice versa, employees who mix and mingle. So in the combined region, families, parents have saved over $17 million because of our child care program so far. We’re just getting started.

I know that there have been comments about…. I think the last speaker — apologies if I’m getting them mixed up — mentioned: “You’ve only done this many by this day. How are you ever going to do all of this?” It is a social program that will change the way British Columbia does business, the way British Columbia does gender equity, the way British Columbia protects its families.

Like I said, when we were two ships passing in the night, that’s hard on a marriage. It was hard on us at work. It was hard on us at home. It was hard on our kids because it was hard on us. Financially, I was limited. It was hard all around. If I had had that bit more of support, it would’ve supported my kids. It would’ve supported our home. It would’ve supported my marriage. It would’ve supported our future. We did it. We worked hard, and we got lucky.

[6:25 p.m.]

One of the things that I’d like to finish up with is to talk about what I’m hearing from people in Chilliwack-Kent. What I’m hearing, whether it’s coming in positive or critical, is: “You need to take care of people.”

That is what this budget does. Does it solve every single problem in the universe? It does not. Does it prioritize people? Does it prioritize the economy? Does it make sure that our environment is stronger so that people and the economy can flourish? It does. It is one step in our journey.

It has been my privilege to speak about the budget. I look forward to hearing from my colleagues.

M. Bernier: I appreciate the member before me. I actually quite enjoyed listening to the passion of that speech and some of….

One of the things I’ll agree on with that member is to her point that we all come into this place to try to do better for the people. This is why I try to live by “dislike the policy, not the person,” because we’re all trying to do better for the people of British Columbia. I will say that. Where the difference is, though, is: do we achieve those goals? We have a difference of opinion on how we will get there.

In all my years as a manager and employer, I always tried to pride myself on, whenever I was talking to a person or an issue, the sandwich approach. Start with something positive, then get to the meat of all the issues, and then end with something positive. I went through the budget. Luckily, I was able to find only two things that were positive, I thought, in my opinion. I can maybe do one now and one at the end. I did find two.

Actually, I should start with that, because I think it is important to acknowledge when there are some things that I think are positive. One was investment for nurses and training for more nurses. We all know how important that is. I know that the member for Peace River North and myself have been talking for quite a few years now in this House about the shortage of nurses, the shortage of professionals in our health care system. We’ve been asking for this for a long time. I’m happy to see that there is some progress in this budget.

I’ll look at my hospital alone in Dawson Creek. I think from Northern Health…. If numbers are correct, I heard that we’re about 23 nurses short right now in my Dawson Creek Hospital alone. So to be able to have some nurses trained locally, which we can do now in my region in Fort St. John, in Peace River North’s area, is very beneficial to, hopefully, train in the region and stay in the region.

I say the latter part, “stay in the region,” as well, because that’s just as important. We can talk all we want about training, but if we can’t retain people after they’re trained, that is a huge issue for a lot of us in rural B.C. I will thank the government for some of that investment, because that is important.

The other positive that I found in the budget was the fact that they did not cancel the Dawson Creek hospital, that it’s still being moved forward. I know it’s right in the documents. So I can hold the government accountable on that, because we announced quite a few years ago that we were going to be moving forward. It’s great to see it in the final stages, according to the budget document, for those that are watching back home in the riding.

The government has now acknowledged that we hope to break ground this year. I’m not putting words in their mouth. I’m just repeating their words. They are saying: “Break ground on the new hospital in Dawson Creek this year, with a completion in 2024.” So that is really good news.

Now let me talk a little bit about some of the challenges, though. When I first heard the throne speech, I thought: “Wow, that was the most bizarre throne speech I had heard, with no plan, no vision, nothing.” It was about a half an hour of my life I’ll never get back, listening to that.

I thought it couldn’t get much worse. Then I heard the rehashed economic plan last week from the minister who is giving me the thumbs-up. He is really proud of the fact that it was an announcement of nothing. That’s good to hear. It was basically, again, no plan, no vision that’s really going to have tangible results to help people.

[6:30 p.m.]

A lot of us were looking to this budget just saying, you know, maybe, because we’ve seen and heard all the promises that this government has made, maybe, finally some of that would come to fruition. For five, six years now, we have seen nothing but affordability becoming worse and worse in the province of British Columbia — harder and harder for families, for single individuals, for seniors, for people with disabilities.

Everybody is struggling as things get more and more unaffordable in this province — whether it’s housing prices, the price of gas, the price of groceries. I mean, everything is getting more expensive. This government said: “Don’t worry. Elect us. We will fix that.” In fact, it’s gotten worse. It’s gotten harder for people. The challenge with that….

No wonder people don’t trust a lot of what the government is saying, when it’s just slogans. It’s just rhetoric, at the end of the day, because they’re not delivering on the promises they’re making. You know, it’s empty promises, and that is unfortunate. I was actually, truthfully, hoping, for the people of British Columbia, that some of the things that the NDP were promising, they would actually deliver on. That actually would’ve made things better for people — would’ve made things more affordable and helped.

Instead, what are some of the first things we saw in this budget? Even though the Premier said they will never add or increase taxes under an NDP government, I think…. I’ve lost count. It’s either 24, 25, 26 — maybe even 27. You lose count after a while when there are so many new and increased taxes under this government. So when we talk about trying to make life more affordable, how do you tax your way to affordability? It’s not working.

Interesting in this budget…. When we talk about affordability, what have people done over the last little bit? Especially during the pandemic when people have been at home, what do they look at? They look at ways to go to online marketplaces, because they can’t afford a lot of the increases. I get that. That is very unfortunate for a lot of small business, because we want to make sure we’re promoting and supporting all our small businesses, especially, I’ll say, in smaller communities, where your small businesses are the lifeline, in a lot of ways, that helps keep small communities going.

What does this government do? They realize, oh, we’re losing an opportunity to tax people. People are starting to buy things online, so we have to add a tax now for Marketplace for people, when they’re buying online. As the minister said, people are avoiding taxes by going online, so we have to…. God forbid the government miss an opportunity to put their hand in your pockets, but they found one here again — online shopping. So this government is now going to find a way to add taxes to that.

Here’s another one that I found very interesting. I don’t know about you. I’m sure the members on the NDP side hear the same thing. People are frustrated, and have been for quite a few years, that they have to pay PST or tax on a used vehicle, because it’s already been paid when the vehicle was purchased. So now you’ll have an old vehicle that’s maybe bought or sold three, four, five times, and the government has collected more in taxes than the vehicle is even worth, for the amount of times a used vehicle may or may not be bought or sold.

What does this government do? They’re increasing the opportunity now. Rather than eliminating PST on used vehicles, like so many people in British Columbia have been calling for, they’re doing the opposite. They’re increasing the tax on a lot of these vehicles because God forbid somebody has an old, rusted-out, maybe barely running vehicle. But my kid is thinking: “Hey, that’s a great first vehicle. That’s all I can afford.”

[6:35 p.m.]

Maybe it’s only $500 because of the condition of the vehicle, so mom or dad helps out, gives them the 500 bucks, and they can get this used vehicle to learn to drive and have their own independence. But now under this budget, the government is saying, well, it doesn’t matter the condition of the vehicle. It doesn’t matter that somebody is getting a good deal on that used vehicle. We’re going to go to the Black Book value.

Even though it might be an old, rundown pickup truck in my riding that somebody can get for $500, the Black Book value of that might be $5,000. So guess what? That $500 vehicle, you now have to pay taxes on it as if it was worth $5,000, regardless of what you paid for it. Somebody could actually end up paying more for the taxes than they did for the vehicle because of that process that this government has put in.

You know, how interesting it was that the government actually put it right in print on page 91 that they want to tax the private sale of motor vehicles, and it will now be based on the greater of not the reported purchase price, but the average wholesale price in British Columbia of that vehicle. Not what the person paid; what this government figures is the average price of a vehicle like that. The Black Book value. I mean, think about that for a second.

What’s really interesting, too, is the government…. For the most secretive government, I do find it applauding that they actually acknowledge right here in the budget document, though, that individuals involved in this area for private vehicle transactions are recognized likely now to be low- to medium-income individuals mostly living in rural British Columbia. They put that right in the document: that this is going to hurt rural B.C. individuals and low- and moderate-income people. Not sure when they signed on the decision note for that one, but it’s great to see that they at least acknowledge in the budget that they’re going to be hurting people with that additional tax.

Another one that surprised the heck out of me — and I almost hate bringing this one up — is the increased tax on home heating systems for fossil fuels. Well, as my colleague from Peace River North knows, there are not a lot of options for people that live in rural British Columbia — 36 below up in Fort St. John, Dawson Creek yesterday. We see the frozen water fountain out here in front of Legislature as well this morning when we got here.

This is why I get sometimes baffled when the government comes out with new announcements that they obviously don’t understand the implications that that has on the average British Columbian. This government comes out and says that they are going to eliminate or not have PST on fuel pump systems, on home heating fuel pump systems. Well, my colleagues and I were joking about this earlier. This is my profession. This is something I know. A heat pump can work semi-efficiently in a place like Victoria, Vancouver, not too bad actually down in Arizona on a single heat pump system.

If you want to go anywhere north of Hope, you need a variable heat pump system. Guess what. Those cost anywhere between $15,000 to $20,000 to install on an average-sized home.

This government is actually out there trying to incentivize by saying they’re going to reduce the 7 percent tax if you’re willing to spend up to $20,000. But here’s the catch. If you’re in a part of the province that can see temperatures below minus 20 to minus 25, almost every single manufacturer of a heat pump system will tell you that you need an alternative heat source to go with it. You also have to have your natural gas appliance, because your heat system no longer runs efficiently and has a hard time keeping up if it gets below minus 25.

[6:40 p.m.]

Now what this government is saying is for most of rural British Columbia…. Now they want you to have two heating systems. Who the heck is going to do that? Nobody is going to go out and spend $25,000 or $30,000 on a natural gas system and a heat pump system. They’re going to go with what’s cheaper and more affordable. Why? Because things are so dang expensive right now in the province under this government. What they can do is they can put in what…. I think in my region 99 percent of the businesses are on natural gas, forced air heat.

Nobody is going to convert to a heat pump and spend $20,000 on their house. Instead, what’s going to happen is people are going to get penalized by this government for not having a choice.

The rate of return on a capital investment on a heat pump is not much different than solar. All sounds altruistic. All sounds great. Why are people en masse not doing it? Because it’ll take you 20 to 25 years to recoup your capital investment to break even. Very few people stay in the same house for 20 to 25 years to actually get that benefit. To me, this is just another example of a target — an attack, really — on people in the lower and middle class, who already are struggling. Now they’re going to get taxed even more by this government.

Look, this is all about priorities. It’s all about setting priorities for what you think is important.

I heard the member for Chilliwack-Kent before me. She mentioned that when there are 100 priorities, you can’t elevate them all and work on them all at the same level. I believe that’s almost word for word what she said. When the house is on fire, you have to go put out the fire on that house. Well, I acknowledge that there are a lot of fires right now in the province that this government is trying to put out — a lot of them caused by the lack of planning and the lack of support that this government has shown.

I do find it interesting that one of the top priorities, though, is to give cabinet ministers and the Premier a raise, to make sure that they get more money. The Minister of Finance today, when we brought this up in question period, said: “Well, you know, we have to be careful. Of course, we don’t want to send the wrong message” — I believe that was what her words were — “with the holdback.”

I tried to think about that for a little bit. What wrong message are they sending by giving themselves more money? Well, that’s obvious. But what wrong message are they giving internally by holding it back? I think that’s where the minister was trying to go. Is she actually saying that by holding back money for cabinet ministers, they’re making poor decisions? By holding back money for cabinet ministers, they’re actually willing to put people at risk? But if we pay a cabinet minister and the Premier more, now they’ll worry about making good decisions?

That sounds like what the minister was trying to say — that this is important. “We have to make sure that we all make more money and get what we need, as ministers, in order to ensure that we’re making good decisions.” So, yeah, if you want to talk about sending the wrong message, I think that actually is the wrong message — that if you get paid more, you make a better decision.

Again, it’s all about priorities — not only just setting those priorities but then making announcements and putting a budget forward and fulfilling the promises based on those priorities.

The Premier, many times, has said he was going to tackle and deal with the price of gasoline costs. The Premier himself said he will take this on and stop the increase and deal with the increase of gas prices. Then the Minister of Energy kind of came out and said: “Well, it’s out of our control.” So I’m trying to figure out who to listen to on this one. The Premier promised he’d fix it. The Minister of Energy said they can’t. Which is it? One of them is wrong.

[6:45 p.m.]

The Premier also said: “Don’t worry. Elect us. We’ll ensure that cell bills go down.” He even tasked one of his backbencher MLAs to deal with that issue. I think that was three, four years ago.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

That’s mysteriously absent now from most of their speaking notes — mysteriously absent of any commitment in the throne speech and the budget. Interesting to find out where they are on that one. I can probably tell you where they are at on it and why they’re not talking about it. They haven’t done anything on it. Another broken promise.

Last week we asked questions in this House around affordability and talked to the Minister of Housing. We specifically said: “Where is the $400 renters rebate that you’ve campaigned on for the last six years almost?” Six budget cycles, five years. Campaigned on this not once but twice. Even in the snap election in the middle of the pandemic, the government said: “Don’t worry. Elect us. We’re still focused on this $400 renters rebate.”

I’m quite surprised, and I’m somewhat encouraged for people who are struggling, who have been expecting this government to deliver on that promise, for the Minister of Housing last week to say: “Don’t worry. We’re working on it.” I took that, and so did many people that contacted me, as a hint that it was going to be in the budget. Guess what. It’s not.

What does this minister mean by they’re working on it? Maybe he’s doing something and didn’t talk to the Finance Minister. I’m not sure. They’re working on it like a lot of their other promises, which means it’s not going to happen, obviously, and it’s another broken promise. It’s nowhere in the budget.

You know what was in this budget, though, which affects people all around the province? It’s the clawback to families around autism funding. Again, it cannot be just the members in opposition that are hearing from people all around the province. Families who are talking about the cutbacks now for their loved ones — for the individualized funding that goes so far to help people. It’s not enough, we’re hearing. Absolutely not enough for the struggles that a lot of these families go through.

Instead of increasing it, or even keeping it status quo, what does this government do? They’re getting rid of it. They’re cutting it back. They’re clawing back funding that is actually helping people in B.C. In the middle of an affordability crisis, let’s just throw another nail in the coffin for people who are struggling.

This is right at the core. This is not really about the dollars and cents. This is about people’s lives. This is about helping families and families who are helping loved ones. To go to a hub model is scary for so many people and, I’ll acknowledge, probably a lot for rural B.C.

I went through this personally with my family. I thought I had the knowledge, the financial means, the capacity to deal with the issue. I struggled to get the support for a family member. Living in rural British Columbia, you have to now learn to deal with, maybe, a professional that flies in every six weeks, maybe every eight weeks.

What do you do? You do what you do as a family, and you bring supports in. You do it yourself. You take the funding that is available, and you hire your own people. You make sure the supports are there. You get the diagnostic treatment, and then you work forward with a plan for your loved one, for your child.

What does this government do? They think they know better than the parents now, the parents who are living with the issues and trying to help their child. Now this government says: “That’s not working for us, because we don’t have control over your children anymore. You’re doing it yourself. That can’t be right.” This government wants control. They’re hiding it under this…. “We’re going to put a hub model in, and it’s going to be great.”

[6:50 p.m.]

No, it’s not. We’re already seeing in other jurisdictions where they tried it and it’s failed. They’re trying to go back to an older system and fix it. But what does this government do? The complete opposite. They’re not listening to the people who actually know what they’re talking about, and that’s the parents.

I want to talk a little bit about housing. As the housing critic, I really think it’s important that we talk about some of the challenges. I mentioned the $400 renters rebate. Well, that’s a slogan now. It’s not happening. I get that. But what’s real and what’s hurting people is the fact that rent is at an all-time high.

I had a phone call today from a family who is in Kelowna, who are panicking because the house prices have gone up. They’re saying: “You know what? We’re struggling with rent already. But what did we just find out from our landlord? That he’s evicting us. He wants to sell the house for the profit, because the market is up. And guess what. Now we can’t find a place to rent in Kelowna.”

This is a snowballing effect. Because the minister has finally, after many years, acknowledged that you cannot tax your way to affordability. But he’s also acknowledged that one of the huge issues that we have in the province of British Columbia is supply.

Like we’ve talked about in this House, the government can announce any number they want. Make up what you want. You have been all along. They keep talking about all these magical houses that are going to show up surprisingly in the next four or five years. Because they’re halfway through their ten-year housing plan. We have 5,200 houses out of the 114,000 — 5,200 with people in them.

People don’t care what you announce if it doesn’t happen. So you can have all these grandiose slogans. You can stand up in the Legislature and say: “We’ve initiated all of these houses.” That’s cold comfort to people who are waiting for affordable housing. Initiated means nothing if they can’t actually move in and afford a place to move in.

The government is enjoying the fact, though, with this unaffordability problem that we have in the province — that $3.25 billion they are getting this year from the property transfer tax. It has doubled. The property transfer tax, which, by the way, the NDP used to always speak against, that they didn’t like, because they said it was going after people. They’re pretty quiet about it now, pretty happy about the fact that it has doubled over the last few years under the NDP government.

Why has it doubled? Because things are unaffordable. Housing prices have gone up. The average person is going to have to save for 36 years just to get a down payment, if they’re lucky enough to get into a house. That’s why so many people are stuck renting right now, if they’re lucky enough to be able to afford the rent.

Almost every single place in the Lower Mainland and the Interior, even, has seen double-digit percentage increases in the price of rent. If we talk about what we’re all hearing in this House, I have not heard one member from the NDP acknowledge the fact that rent is up, that house prices are up and that people are struggling. They keep repeating the slogans, but if they’re truly here to represent the people and their riding, like I’ve heard some of them say, why are they not speaking up on this issue?

Interjection.

M. Bernier: Maybe they are speculators. Well, we know that a bunch of them are. We know a bunch of them are. But we won’t….

Interjections.

[6:55 p.m.]

M. Bernier: Well, I only have one minute left. I know I’m being heckled, and I can rattle off, if they really want me to — the ones in the NDP who hold multiple houses that they rent out or that some have flipped recently for a profit.

I digress, quickly, because I’m sure that others will have opportunity, if the members opposite really want to go down that road. It’s maybe time they look in the mirror. They complain at what others are doing, and they’re doing it themselves.

I do want to just say that one of the biggest issues that this government is facing is affordability. I get that. They’ve said that, and they’ve campaigned on it. The challenge is they’re doing nothing about it, and it’s getting worse. I would have loved to have seen something in here that I could have supported, to say, “That’s truly going to help the affordability issue, in the province of B.C., for families,” and I haven’t seen that.

With that, I thank the House and everyone for their time and move adjournment of the debate.

M. Bernier moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Kahlon moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:56 p.m.