Orders of the Day

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

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Budget Debate

(continued)

J. Sims: It is a privilege to be able to stand up again, on behalf of the constituents of Surrey-Panorama, to support a budget that has been well put together, keeping in mind what British Columbians have been through over the last few years, and making sure that it is a budget that is balanced on addressing the needs of people, looking at infrastructure and making sure that the services are in place.

I also want to say that this budget — the reason I support it so passionately — has that human side that we did not see in budgets from the previous government, from the year 2000 on. One of the areas that absolutely delighted me, as I go through this budget, is the support it has in there for kids, from birth right through to graduation, and also for those in our communities who suffer — in the areas of sexual assault survivors, specifically.

I can tell you that when I read the budget and I saw that item in there, it made every minute in this House well worth it. That is the reinstatement or the restoring of the budget to the sexual assault survivors and to the centres that provide counselling, preventative medication, critical crisis response. I remember when those cuts were made by the Liberal government of the day — how decimating it was, and how devastating. It had a huge, huge impact on those services. So I’m absolutely delighted to see that that is there in the budget.

I was also pleased to see an investment in a growing sector, which is the life sciences sector. We know that that is one sector that is growing, I would say, at a lightning speed — and so it should. To have the investments made by our government to encourage and nurture that sector says a lot about where we’re going to be.

[1:35 p.m.]

We talk a lot about truth and reconciliation, and we can’t talk about truth and reconciliation without talking about economic reconciliation. There were huge, huge barriers, we know, for our First Nations and Indigenous communities, in the lack of connectivity. Many of you know how passionately I feel about that, and the need to make sure that the new railroad, or the railroad of the 22nd century, is right there for all our communities.

In this budget are built-in resources to ensure that by the end of this budget cycle, 780-plus communities will have been connected with high-speed Internet, and that’s since 2017. That is quite an achievement, because that means it has an impact on…. We’re not talking about FaceTime, by the way, though that is nice for grandparents, parents and our loved ones. I’m talking about the foundation for health care services, the foundation for education and the foundation for economic development.

I can remember my friend telling me: “In the north, we can’t even take part in the procurement process, because we can’t even access it online.” So the fact this is there is actually very, very important. We always say that the wealth of any province or any nation is its people. In this particular budget, there is a huge investment in services for people, for infrastructure to grow jobs and provide those services, but also in people themselves, in growing a workforce.

See the investment in this budget in addressing the huge gaps in our apprenticeship program. The previous Liberal government…. I was a teacher-counsellor at that time, and I know how devastating it was when the apprenticeship program, which was the pride of British Columbia, was decimated. I’m so pleased to see the supports that are in this budget to grow our apprenticeship program to grow the skill sets for the future generation of workers. As we know, new kinds of jobs are coming up, so there are resources in the budget, to make sure that we transition into the new type of jobs that are growing.

More ECEs — we know we need them if we’re growing the child care sector. And it is growing. Once again, thank you to the minister for the work she has done in this area, making the lives of so many families so much more affordable as a result of the work we’ve done. We can’t leave out…. One of the key components is having enough child care — early child care workers, educators. That is also important, and that is also in this budget. We’ve already heard about growing more doctors and growing more nurses right here in B.C., with the addition of the new spaces that are being created.

Above all, what I want to say is that this budget is about building stronger together, and it is there to make sure that the gap between the haves and the have-nots is beginning to get addressed. It has a lot in this budget for individuals, and what an impact it has on their families. At the same time, I am so happy to see the number of hospitals, primary care centres and child cares that are being built right around this province, because we know we have a need for those.

When you look at this budget, whether you are young, middle-aged or not so young, there is a lot in this budget. As a mother, a grandmother and now a great-grandmother, I can tell you that when I look at this budget and the work this government is doing to support people, it makes me feel proud.

I. Paton: It’s an honour to rise once again in this House and present my first set of remarks for the spring session. I’m happy to be able to be representing my constituency of Delta South, a great community of, generally, Ladner and Tsawwassen area.

[1:40 p.m.]

It’s been a while since I’ve been up here speaking, and I’d like to give a shout-out once again to my great office staff in Ladner: Michelle Pici,who is my part-time CA, and my fantastic CA Taylor Grant, who does such a great job running our office in Ladner. A big thanks to my wife, Pam, who is one of my biggest fans. She quite enjoys this political life that I do, and she keeps in touch every day as to how things are going over here.

I also want a big shout-out to all the great people that have got us through the last couple of years of this pandemic, especially in my riding of Delta South. Everyone from the health care workers, doctors and nurses, custodians in our businesses and our hospitals, the truckers, people that worked in our restaurants and our pubs to keep things going for us during the last couple of years, our fire department, our paramedics, our ambulance folks and, of course, grocery store workers and we can’t forget our farmers that have kept working 365 days a year to keep going and keep groceries on our grocery store shelves.

Since the conclusion of the fall sitting, I’ve spent the last few months reconnecting with my constituents in Delta South, and what I’m hearing from them is a feeling of frustration that the second-term NDP government continues to let down British Columbians at a time when the future is uncertain. People across the province are looking for hope and a plan to tackle the big issues facing society going forward. This budget does neither.

It is clear this government has no plan to secure a bright economic future for British Columbians. This budget fails to properly address the issues people in all corners of the province care about. I can speak about some of these, such as affordability — the rising cost of housing, the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel for our trucking industry, the cost of groceries in our grocery stores and the inability to find affordable child care. So $10-a-day — that was a slogan five years ago back in 2017, and we still haven’t seen anything come of the $10-a-day daycare.

The safety of their friends or loved ones who may be struggling with their mental health or addictions — 2,224 people died in 2021 from overdose and drug addiction deaths, the highest ever in this province. This must be addressed. They even created a ministry for this, and we have seen nothing but numbers go up since 2017 when this government came into power.

There is difficulty in finding a good job. Keeping their small business open is more and more difficult every day. And the fact that they have lost the doctors they relied on for most of their adult lives…. People cannot seem to find a general practitioner, a family doctor. In fact, just today I watched on Global TV Dr. Fernandez talking about how almost 800,000 people in this province still do not to this day have a general practitioner or a family doctor.

These are problems that people are looking to government to help solve, not just because they are top issues in every community, but because these are the issues the NDP has promised time and time again to fix. British Columbians are waiting for this government to finally make their words, slogans and campaign promises a reality. But instead of delivering on the issues that people really care about, all this government has to offer are more empty promises and the same tired rhetoric they’ve used for the last five years.

Just like their rehashed economic plan last week and their throne speech the week before that, this budget is more of the same platitudes and political theatre. Nothing to make good on their promises of a more affordable British Columbia.

My constituents are beyond frustrated waiting for the replacement of the congested, seismically unsafe George Massey Tunnel. It is certainly not lost on them that they would be looking forward to the opening of the new George Massey bridge later this year. The project included ten lanes, two of which were dedicated to transit, major upgrades to the Steveston and Highway 17 interchanges, highway widening and the potential to see light rail rapid transit come south of the Fraser in the years to come.

The government took all of this away from my constituents when they ripped up the B.C. Liberal government’s plan in 2017. Instead, commuters continue to wait, possibly for ten more years, thanks to a lengthy environmental assessment. It’s simply not good enough. I’ll have more to say on this later in my comments.

[1:45 p.m.]

What I’ve also heard loud and clear from the people I represent is that life is getting more and more expensive. They’re seeing the costs of food, gas, diesel and housing skyrocket. They’re faced with making tough decisions between putting food on the table and making their monthly rent payments.

The fact is that this government has been making promises for five years now, and they consistently fail to deliver on them. In 2017, this government promised they would make life more affordable. Today, in 2022, I would say life is increasingly unaffordable for the vast majority of British Columbians.

This is a government that imposed a slew of taxes on housing in 2018, yet five years later, home prices are higher than ever. The average detached home in Metro Vancouver now costs $2.3 million, according to the Real Estate Board of Vancouver’s January 2022 statistics. That’s an all-time high.

Despite their slew of new housing taxes, they are actually taking more out of your pockets by banking on housing market profits and raking in over $3 billion in property transfer taxes. To quote Amy Judd of Global News: “High revenues are driven in part by the double-edged sword of housing. Buying a home has become increasingly unaffordable, while the increase in property transfer tax continues to support the province’s bottom line.”

What about my home community in Ladner? The average single home now in Ladner is $1.45 million, up 36 percent. The average family home in North Delta is now costing $1.48 million. I don’t know how the member for Delta North can tell his constituents that he and his government are working hard to make housing more affordable. Prices continue to skyrocket under their watch, even in North Delta.

Meanwhile, renters are feeling the pinch of this government’s broken promises as well. In 2020, this government doubled down on their 2017 promise of providing rebate to renters in British Columbia — $400 to help the cost of rent. Today, in 2022, there is still no rebate for renters across the province. Where is the promised $400 renter rebate? The average renter is now paying an extra $238 per month, or $2,856 more per year, under this government. Renters in Delta are paying $260 more per month, or $3,120 more per year, under this government.

In fact, there are many, many more taxes — 26 new taxes since 2017, to be exact. A brand new tax on online marketplace transactions, people trying to make a deal on eBay or Facebook Marketplace. Increased tax on used car sales. Whatever happened to the day when you went out and tried to make a really good deal on a used car? You go to the ICBC Autoplan dealership to make that deal. I really have to ask who is going to make that decision on finding out and telling you what the actual price, the average price, of that vehicle is. Some young person that happens to be working at the front counter of an Autoplan dealership?

What if it’s a vehicle that you got such a good deal on? They said: “This 2010 Dodge pickup truck has got some issues. It needs new tires. I think the transmission’s about to go. But I tell you what. If you’re willing to live with that, I can give you a heck of a deal on it.” But when you go to register that vehicle and transfer it, somebody is going to tell you that the average price of that vehicle is actually three times what you paid for it, and you’ll have to pay the PST on that.

Increased taxes on the purchase of home heating systems that use fossil fuels, like natural gas furnaces. We’ve discussed this many times, even in question period, about the fact that people up north just cannot use heating systems that are forced air heating systems. Of course, they’re going to be taxed much more heavily on the fact that they have to use heating systems based on the use of natural gas.

I always question why there is no PST on used electric vehicles. I guess that’s a good thing. But in this day and age, when so many people are looking to buy…. I’ll give you an example: a vehicle with a small, 4-cylinder engine that’s got a small fuel tank and is very efficient on gasoline. I think there should be a break on people that go out and buy used vehicles that are very efficient on using gasoline. Not everybody is going to buy an electric vehicle.

For instance, I drive a pickup truck. It unfortunately costs me about $140 to fill up that pickup truck. Whereas my daughter drives a little Toyota Tercel, a little 4-cylinder car, and it only costs her about $45 to fill her car up. I think there should be benefits for people that use those.

[1:50 p.m.]

This is the sad pattern of behaviour we’ve come to expect from this government. Unsurprisingly, this pattern was on full display as I sat here listening to the budget and, before that, the throne speech. There was plenty of reflection on the past and next to no consideration for what we’re presently dealing with or what’s to come in the future. Lots of recycled promises and looking backwards.

This government cannot fix the province’s current problems if they remain staring in the rearview mirror. Let’s look in closer depth at just a few more of the problems facing British Columbians today.

In the aftermath of the havoc caused by the atmospheric river, I travelled to meet with our farmers and ranchers, meeting them where they are, to survey the damage caused by the many disasters we saw last year and to hear how these folks were doing. They’re not doing very well. Many of their homes, their farms and their livelihoods are completely destroyed.

In January, I went to Sumas Prairie with the member for Abbotsford West and the member for Abbotsford South. We toured farms that were hit hard by flooding last November. Many of the farmers were in tears as they shared with us how it felt to see three to seven feet of water in their barns, to lose animals they had raised and cared for, to lose crops or to see them so badly damaged they needed to be replaced. But it will take at least a decade to bring them back to where they were before.

To lose their homes, the places they retreated to after a long day’s work to spend time with the ones they love…. Hundreds of homes ruined, and people are still not getting the money they need to restore their homes so they can get back from living with relatives or with friends or living in hotels and get back into their homes.

Lytton is a perfect example of people that are absolutely helpless. They have no idea how they’re going to get back and get their homes rebuilt in Lytton, B.C. Their losses are indeed tremendous. I saw them with my own eyes, in Abbotsford and elsewhere, from a couple of helicopter tours I was able to take and from my visits on the ground with these farmers.

I made it a priority to get out of the Legislature and go talk to them as soon as possible after those floods. I was happy to say that I took two helicopter tours as quickly as possible to survey the situation and to get on the ground and talk to farmers in Abbotsford and up in Merritt. Not only did I see the damage and destruction, but I heard, loud and clear, the fears, the anxieties, the frustrations and the anger they were feeling because for months this government was telling them help was on the way.

Many of these farmers exhausted their private insurance options. Others tried to apply for disaster financial assistance, or DFA as it’s called, but were told they technically didn’t qualify for any support because their farms are incorporated. Well, what farms aren’t incorporated nowadays? Even my small dairy farm was a limited company, an incorporated company, but it said that if you were incorporated or bring in more than $1 million a year in annual sales, you were not eligible for the $300,000 maximum of DFA.

You can imagine how distraught many of these people felt, and they’re still waiting for money through DFA to be able to restore the homes that they can go back and live in. They just want to get back to work, but they’ve lost structures and animals. They’ve seen equipment failures and face expensive repairs because of this catastrophic flooding. Yet they were told, “Too bad. You don’t qualify for help,” because of this issue I just mentioned.

So they turned their attention to the AgriRecovery program, which they kept hearing was coming soon. “Don’t worry. It’s coming soon. It’s just a few days away” — over and over again. It finally took almost three months before the federal government and the provincial government got it together and got the AgriRecovery program presented in front of farmers and ranchers in British Columbia.

They were forced to wait way too long for the provincial and federal governments to make this announcement. In the meantime, given the disappointing responses they had received with regard to assessing DFA, they weren’t really getting their hopes up.

The recent flood recovery program announcement was indeed welcome news to thousands of people in the agriculture industry in Abbotsford, Merritt and across British Columbia. These desperately needed funds will help farmers and ranchers begin to recover from the damages that occurred from the devastating flood.

The funds will help with the urgent need for land remediation, barn replacement and equipment, but only as long as funding is released quickly. The spring planting and calving season is coming, and farmers and ranchers are under tremendous stress to prepare and salvage what they can for the upcoming season. So, yes, the funding announcement is very positive. However, I continue to have significant concerns about the government’s ability to effectively deliver on the funds they have promised.

[1:55 p.m.]

The inability of the NDP so far to ensure that needed support is provided in a timely fashion remains completely inexcusable. Support should have been out the door months ago. The needless delays have put more unnecessary strain on families already suffering.

I’m not going to knock the AgriRecovery package. I’m going to remain cautiously optimistic that farmers in Abbotsford, Merritt and Princeton will finally get the help that they need, but that better be the case. They’ve waited long enough, and they deserve real support from this government.

The Minister of Agriculture and her government are going to say that they truly value farmers and understand their business. They cannot allow government structure to impede their recovery. I just want to say that in the fall, with the flooding, and in the summer, with the fires that took place, I was proud of the fact that I took it upon myself to figure out how we could get feed and hay up to the fire-ravaged parts of British Columbia.

I got on the phone, and I thought: “I can’t really go there and help, myself, in these fire zones, but could I support them with some feed?” I got on the phone, and I got together with about five or six different farmers in Delta. We sent three loads totalling 1,000 bales of hay up to Kamloops, to a central location where ranchers and property owners could go to get hay to feed their animals. I’m so proud of the farmers in Delta that stepped up and of Mike Wolzen and his trucking company, who donated the three different big truckloads of hay that we sent up from my riding of Delta to help out people in the fire zones.

Right now when we look at recovery, whether it be related to the floods or wildfires or heat domes, all of which had a tremendous impact on agriculture, we see numbers in the budget but few details on what that will mean on the ground. I know myself and other colleagues on this side of the House look forward to getting more clarity as we move forward in the estimates process.

I do note the budget commitment of $15 million over three years for the beneficial management practices program. We will explore that further, I’m sure, in the estimates process with Agriculture. This last year and the many disasters we have faced have shown us that we need to take steps to be better prepared for future events.

I’d now like to talk about the devastating floods this fall, which were also a stark reminder of the importance of flood mitigation and emergency preparedness. In particular, hundreds of kilometres of dikes in Metro Vancouver are in urgent need of upgrading due to current seismic standards as well as the threat of rising water levels due to climate change.

As bad as the events of the last fall were, it could be a whole lot worse in the future. According to the Fraser River Basin Council, a one-in-500-year flood event could result in the displacement of over 350,000 people and economic losses between $20 billion and $30 billion. The Lower Mainland is not currently prepared for such an event. The cost of completing necessary dike upgrades in my constituency of Delta alone is estimated to be over $650 million across the region — a price tag of over $3 billion.

Simply put, municipalities do not have the financial capacity to shoulder this burden alone. We need to stop this model of municipalities competing with each other for scarce funding sources. Instead, municipalities must work together with the province and identify our most vulnerable areas and prioritize funding.

This new approach will take a willingness to collaborate among governments, the Port of Vancouver, the province and the federal government. To find success, leaders from all these jurisdictions will need to prioritize regional needs over local wants. I urge the government to take this situation seriously and put a plan in place to fill this infrastructure gap and to look after our dikes and the rising Fraser River and sea levels in looking forward to mitigating disasters that we know may happen again. We don’t want to see what happened again in Abbotsford.

One of the key learnings from the series of emergencies this year, from heat domes to forest fires to landslides to flooding, has been the importance of an emergency response plan. Part of that response moving forward must be a provincially operated emergency alert system to warn local communities when danger arises. Unfortunately, though the province has the technology in place, emergency alert systems were not used to warn residents of widespread flooding and landslides this fall.

In Washington state, farmers and residents were alerted, through the sound of former air-raid sirens, of the imminent threat to their homes, properties, barns, livestock and equipment, down in Whatcom County, Washington. This came 48 hours before the catastrophic flooding. This gave farmers time to get their affairs in order.

[2:00 p.m.]

They had time to move livestock to higher ground. They had time to place sandbags around their properties. They had time to pack up some of their belongings. They had time to move some of their equipment.

The farmers in Sumas Prairie, the farmers in Merritt and the farmers in Nicola Valley did not have that same time. They didn’t receive an emergency alert on their smartphones. They didn’t hear sirens. They lost most of their livelihoods.

I certainly know that not every home, not every animal and not every piece of equipment could have been saved, but this atmospheric river was unprecedented. When these events arise, it is up to the province to use every tool at its disposal to help those in need. Government must take action and demonstrate leadership in times of crisis. We cannot deflect to other orders of government. We have the ability to use emergency alert systems, and we should be using them in future as these sorts of events occur.

Now I’d like to talk to one of my favourite subjects, the poor passing of the Massey bridge replacement. This year will mark my fifth year serving the people of Delta South in the Legislature. For five long years, my constituents have been asking for action from this government on a George Massey Tunnel replacement. For half a decade, the NDP has dithered and delayed on a project that should have been completed by now.

I watched as the bridge was being built. Friction piles were driven. They were tested with load to make sure they were ready to hold the weight of the bridge and vehicles on the bridge. Hydro towers were being relocated. Preload was on the side of the highways for highway widening. There was an office in Richmond that had 6,000 visitors seeing what the new bridge was going to look like. A scale model of the whole new bridge system was even delivered to the lobby, the foyer, of Delta city hall so everyone could see the wonderful bridge concept that was moving forward.

But instead of a ribbon cutting, the government is preparing for another decade of studies and evaluation. We would have been cutting a ribbon to celebrate the opening of the bridge this summer of 2022. The situation is quite shocking and has officially become a white elephant for this government.

Recently the government actually bragged about signing nine contracts worth almost $57 million for additional environmental assessments and technical studies related to the Massey Tunnel replacement. Think about that: $57 million in additional studies on top of the millions of dollars that had already been spent on endless reports, consultation and pre-planning for the bridge project. The project will continue to rack up millions more in the years ahead, without a single shovel being placed in the ground.

Every time I talk about the Massey Tunnel, I feel like I should pull out my notes from five years ago, because nothing has really changed, and 100,000 people are still stuck in gridlock every day clinging to the vague hope that a new crossing will be completed in ten years’ time. In the meantime, despite years of promises, there is currently no federal commitment to cost-sharing on this asset.

There is not even a guarantee that the project will pass the rigorous environmental assessment process. You can bet that there will be significant concern about the cumulative effects of plunking giant tubes on the bottom of the Fraser River from First Nations and from environmentalists. I honestly do not see how an environmental assessment will allow for concrete tubes in the bottom of the Fraser River.

It wasn’t such a big deal in 1959, when people weren’t quite so concerned about the environment and about spawning salmon and sturgeon, but it certainly doesn’t take place nowadays, and it certainly doesn’t sit well with Tsawwassen First Nations.

The government decided to play politics and cancel the project five years later, and it will be another decade at least until we see this project completed. That’s 15 years of dithering, delays and inaction on behalf of this government.

There are serious economic implications of inaction, as trucks bound for the Port of Vancouver, B.C. Ferries, the U.S. border, Tilbury Industrial Park are stuck every morning in gridlock trying to get south on one lane — one lane every morning. There’s a backup of, I bet, about six kilometres of 18-wheeler trucks spewing diesel trying to get their goods south of the border — to the U.S. border, to the port, to the ferries, etc.

[2:05 p.m.]

The Delta Chamber of Commerce, the Richmond Chamber of Commerce and the Surrey Board of Trade have also expressed concerns. As the Surrey Board of Trade likes to point out, Surrey is growing by 1,200 to 1,400 people per month. As a region, we will have another one million people in 20 years.

I also made a speech yesterday in the House about the shortage of veterinarians in this province. I’d like to move on to another topic, and that is veterinarians, which are short, in the province of British Columbia.

This is a critical shortage of veterinarians across our province. The veterinarians that we do have are stressed out and burned out as they try to keep up with the demand for their services, which were already stretched before the pandemic. I have worked tirelessly with the B.C. veterinary association on this and have posed several questions on this topic in question period. This is more than about household pets. This issue impacts farm animals, as well, and is beginning to have an economic impact on the livelihood of farmers and ranchers across B.C.

B.C. needs 100 veterinarians per year for the next five years, but the Minister of Advanced Education has refused to do so. Corey Van’t Haaff of the Society of B.C. Veterinarians says:

“In 2018 we started asking for the Ministry of Advanced Education to fund those 20 seats at Western College of Vet Medicine in Saskatoon. Since 2018, we’ve been told no, and since 2018 we’ve been refused a meeting with the minister. Despite having the support of the Minister of Agriculture and the chief veterinary officer, the Advanced Education Minister isn’t interested in supporting the education of additional veterinary students.”

The B.C. SPCA is also demanding that those extra B.C. seats be filled at Western College of Vet Medicine in Saskatoon.

Child care. I also want to take time to discuss the urgent shortage of child care spaces across our province. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen just how heavy a burden it can be for parents to act as both child care providers and full-time workers. Making child care more affordable would help families while also giving the economy a needed lift.

Unfortunately, despite five years of promises, the NDP have failed to deliver on affordable child care for families. They have also failed to deliver the needed spaces they promised to parents who are growing increasingly desperate. Once again, it’s all talk and no action. Now more than ever, it is essential to support early childhood educators with more training and competitive salaries.

I also want to turn, now, to the topic of our hard-working paramedics that are burnt out after two years of COVID-19 response. According to the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C., paramedics responded to over one million calls for service last year. We know that there is a critical shortage of paramedics across the province as we continue to see an unprecedented number of call volumes due to both the pandemic and the ongoing overdose crisis.

The problem is not just a lack of paramedics but also an inability to retrain existing staff. Ambulance workers are also in critical need of additional mental health resources to deal with psychological injuries sustained on the job. If we don’t see additional resources put into our ambulance services across the province, the result will be longer wait times and declining standards of care.

In my own riding of Delta South, ambulance wait times continue to increase every year. Just this week my constituency assistant informed me of an elderly gentleman who fell outside of a coffee shop in Tsawwassen and sustained a head injury, and it took over an hour for paramedics to arrive with an ambulance.

We have only one service station in Ladner and no service stations to serve the growing community of Tsawwassen and Tsawwassen First Nations. Often, our ambulances are actually on the other side of the river, taking people to Richmond General Hospital or to VGH, and suddenly, we have no ambulances whatsoever in Ladner and Tsawwassen.

I’m so proud, however, of our Delta firefighters, who put in a program several years ago to train all of our firefighters in Delta to become emergency medical responders who can get to the site first, before the paramedics get there, and lend some comfort and support for those waiting for an ambulance.

As I conclude, I wish to look forward to the future. What is not helpful is a reluctance to share information. It is time for this government to demonstrate their trust for the people of Vancouver, who have achieved a vaccination rate over 90 percent, and clearly communicate next steps.

As always, it is a pleasure for me to rise in this House. I do what I do because I love my community, and it is an honour to serve them each and every day. I’m so proud to be here representing the people of Delta South.

[2:10 p.m.]

G. Lore: This is my very first budget speech. After discovering my son’s brain tumour around this time last year, this is my first opportunity to speak to a budget, and I’m so grateful to be here and to be speaking to this budget.

Before I really get into it, however, I wanted to set the record straight on a couple of things. I have heard, in this House, a number of members — including colleagues from Cariboo-Chilcotin, friends from Stikine and Vancouver–False Creek — suggesting that their ridings are the most beautiful in the province. I cannot help but observe that all MLAs spend more time in my riding than any other riding, sometimes more than in their home ridings. In fact, Victoria–Beacon Hill, on Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ territory, must be the most beautiful riding in a province filled with beautiful ridings.

On a much more serious note, it’s also an honour to rise today to participate in a democratic debate, thinking of brothers and sisters and friends in Ukraine, and what I am doing here, and what they are navigating there. My children’s great-grandparents left Ukraine after facing significant violence at the hands of the Russians. I think about that legacy in my children’s family. Personally, my family has been on the wrong side of just about every event in history, and I think about that in this space, often, too.

I’m going to speak to the budget today by talking about housing. It’s one of the major issues for my community and I know for communities around the province. Here, like many communities, vacancy is low and the cost of housing puts significant pressure on seniors, families and individuals in Victoria.

Fundamentally, investment in housing matters here. The $2 billion that this government put into the B.C. HousingHub is making a difference in Victoria in the development of affordable homes for middle-income families. Just around the corner from my community office, 104 units are under construction with the support of B.C. Housing to help people obtain a mortgage and reduce their monthly payments.

This budget adds more money to speed up these projects. It’s essential to speed up these projects. Communities like mine cannot wait. This development includes three-bedroom units, desperately needed for families in my community to stay in their community.

Around the corner from my home, we are working with local government and the capital regional district to build 158 units of housing, including three-bedrooms and four-bedrooms; and accessible units, townhouses — all units that are mixed income, geared toward income, units at shelter rate, family-friendly housing. This project is funded through the community housing fund. This budget adds another $100 million to that fund. It cannot wait.

I also want to address something that came up earlier this week during the debate. A colleague across the way pushed on just what we mean by accessible. I want to be totally clear: as we fund the community housing fund, as we fund the B.C. HousingHub, accessibility to me includes units that work for people with disabilities and mobility challenges. There are units in these developments at the Caledonia project, at the fire hall development, that are accessible from the perspective of both mobility and income. My constituents, British Columbians, deserve nothing less.

Sixty-one percent of my constituents are renters. The rental freeze and then tying maximum rent increases to inflation, and the predatory renovictions…. These are essential protections of renters in my community. Houses are for homes, not investments. I know some of the members opposite don’t like the speculation and vacancy tax, but thousands fewer homes are sitting empty. When 61 percent of your constituents are renters, that fundamentally matters.

The B.C. Liberals built 130 beds of student housing in 16 years. There are 621 new beds opening this fall at the University of Victoria alone. This is housing action.

When I taught at UVic, I had students who were homeless, who were living in their cars. Not only will this improve lives and allow students to focus on their studies, but it will take serious pressure off the very tight rental market in our community.

We’ve also partnered with the city of Victoria to help create 220 new non-market homes as part of a new community centre on Pandora.

[2:15 p.m.]

This budget also contains more rental supplements, rental supplements that are accompanied by supports that people need and that people deserve. Last year, there were more than 100 people camping in parks around my city, a crisis amplified by the pandemic that left people with nowhere to go. Many of those who were couch-surfing, staying with friends, doubling up in low-income housing found themselves out.

We acted fast — dozens and dozens of new shelter spaces around my constituency. We created space at the Save-On-Foods Memorial arena, and when that was no longer an option, we created homes for those folks to move into at the previously empty Mount Tolmie Hospital and built a new tiny town. We created a new emergency shelter on Russell Street in Vic West, purchased Paul’s Motor Inn and leased the Travelodge, among other efforts, to make sure that people had a safe place to live with resources to improve their lives.

This budget makes sure that the resources are there to extend those leases, to retain spaces, to keep people housed while more permanent spaces are being built. And they are absolutely being built: over 190 new permanent supportive units in my constituency — new ones on four sites in my tiny constituency. These are homes that will not only provide people with a roof over their heads but also important services that they need and deserve. Included in this housing are new homes on Catherine Street run by the Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness, supportive housing by and for the Indigenous community here.

I was listening last week. When the member for West Vancouver–Sea to Sky calls this budget a spending-palooza, is this the kind of thing he is not interested in having?

We are starting to see the impacts of housing that was made available in my community: health improvements so dramatic that residents are no longer recognizable. On the weekend, I talked to someone from the coalition to end homelessness who told me about a constituent of mine that they work with who, like many of those who are unhoused or insecurely housed, faced numerous and overlapping health challenges, all while sleeping outdoors. This person described the care they received with a roof over their head as world-class, as life changing.

While members on the other side have repeated themselves ad nauseam that a cabinet minister’s success and remuneration should be measured and rewarded only by whether they balance the books, I fundamentally disagree. People’s lives matter. Their health matters. Community matters. To be absolutely clear, when you balance the books on the backs of people in community, you do not balance the books. It’s a mirage.

Homelessness is extremely expensive. The health care needed to support those who are unhoused and living in physical and mental crisis is extremely expensive. The costs associated after looking after families, the loss of economic and educational opportunities, the lost innovation, the lost wages, the impact on business — these are massive. When your only bottom line is the bottom line, when you balance the books at the expense of community, at the expense of the people of B.C., it is not real. It is a mirage.

Because the needs of the most vulnerable and marginalized, here in my community and around the province, were ignored for so long — because there was a failure to properly invest in housing supports and the care — we were reacting to crisis, creating and building shelters to ensure people had a safe place to stay and, in my community, so that communities could go back to using their green spaces.

Now, with this budget, we’re able to shift to proactive strategy. This is how we do right by our constituents, especially those who need us to get it right the most. New affordable homes to buy and rent, rental supplements, supportive housing — these are key parts of that strategy.

So is complex care. This budget expands the first-of-its-kind complex care housing model to at least 20 more sites, an investment of $164 million over three years to support people with severe mental health and substance use issues, traumatic and acquired brain injuries.

There are parts of my constituency, there are members of my constituency, who need this. The mayor of Victoria has been a strong advocate for this model, for this type of complex care. She said: “Complex care housing will make a real difference in the lives of our most vulnerable residents. It’s time to try new approaches to housing and to increase the level of care and support services.”

[2:20 p.m.]

I couldn’t agree more. It’s time, and the investments in this budget will bring that number to 20.

I want to speak to some more issues that matter to my constituents, that matter here in Victoria–Beacon Hill: our environment, our forests, our action to address climate change. These are issues that my constituents care about a lot.

Last week I listened to the member for Nechako Lakes say that we are just pandering to environmentalists. With due respect, action is for our children, for my children. It’s for the communities that have been devastated, absolutely devastated by climate change just in this last year alone. Calling it pandering, opposing $83 million for a new climate preparedness and adaptation strategy — this is absolutely irresponsible. We have to act. We have to be prepared.

We have to show up like we are in a climate emergency, because we are. That, in this budget, is not pandering. Grants for communities to build bike lanes, multi-use pathways and other active transportation is not pandering. It’s community-building, it’s climate action, and I am thrilled that it is in this budget.

I also hear from many constituents of their love of our old-growth forests and their concern for the future of those forests. They’re asking us to prioritize value over volume. They’re asking us to protect the oldest and most at-risk forest for future generations. Our budget will not ignore those affected by climate change. It will invest in our old-growth forests. It does take climate action. In doing so, it will not ignore the workers and families and their communities — $185 million, over three years, to support affected forest workers, contractors, industries, communities and First Nations.

As Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity, I know that change — the economic insecurity, the community shifts — can increase gender-based violence. This massive investment in communities, in families, as part of this change is essential. We have to show up for our forests and for the communities that depend on them.

We also will not ignore our obligations for reconciliation while we undertake this work. I’m thrilled that this budget contains additional opportunities for communities and for First Nations with the redistribution of forest tenures, intending to double the amount of forest tenures held by First Nations. Our forests are not for the biggest businesses, the biggest corporations. It is not for them and them alone.

Another area my constituents care a lot about is health care. I’ve heard it from many of my colleagues on all sides of the House as part of this budget debate. I hear from constituents about how essential access to primary care is for them. Without a doubt, they have called and written to my office. They’ve shared their worry and stress about an inability to find a doctor — a longstanding problem made worse by the pandemic.

The landscape of family doctors and practitioners is changing, and I’m so glad that this budget is investing in new urgent and primary care centres throughout the province. As my luck has gone, since being elected, I have been to these urgent primary care centres in my constituency with children with broken bones a number of times over the last year — incredible care and dedicated staff. The last time, I met a doctor who was new to the urgent and primary care centre on Pandora, newly arrived from Calgary.

I know these centres take time to set up and that the transition for physicians and others to this team-based model of care also takes time. I know we have to build a model of health care and primary care for the future. Six hundred new nursing seats, including for nurse practitioners, will make a difference in this shift. Primary care networks in my community are essential, including special attention in the form of mobile care attending to the most marginalized in Victoria. This is incredible investment.

[2:25 p.m.]

As colleagues in this House must know, since they spend a lot of time visiting my constituency, Victoria is also a tourist town. Many of my constituents own businesses or work in industries that rely on tourists — the tourists that come here to see our beautiful city, who arrive on cruise ships — and they’ve been hit incredibly hard. They’ve been incredibly resilient. Another $25 million in this budget earmarked to support tourism is both needed and welcomed here in Victoria.

To miss two spring and summer seasons is devastating. On April 6, just over a month away, the first cruise ship will dock just down the street, setting off the start of what could be one of the busiest years — 350 port calls planned, the first ship in two years. This industry is worth $143 million to Victoria annually. The support to get the industry through and back up running is essential.

I’m also thrilled to stand today to speak to a few points, grounded not just in my constituency, but through my lens as the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity.

In 2002, sexual assault centres and services for survivors were dramatically and drastically cut. I know the sector organizations and advocates have been struggling to ensure that there are services for survivors ever since. I know because I spent a lot of time in this sector, taking the middle-of-the-night calls, meeting survivors at the hospital, supporting those making police reports. We had essential services not funded like they’re essential. Access to justice, to health care, to critical mental health supports, funded with unpredictable grants, if at all.

In the organization I mostly was working with — 11 funders. They had to pull together 11 funders to be able to provide round-the-clock, supported, wraparound service. The precariousness of that, for one of those funders to fall away, for one grant not to be renewed…. Essential services were not funded like they’re essential, like they’re nice-to-haves.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

In 2020 and again in 2021, we announced $10 million, for a $20 million total, to the Ending Violence Association to provide grants for emergency sexual assault services. Half of that funding went to services run by and for Indigenous communities, from starting new sexual assault response programs, to supporting survivors in emergency rooms, to extending services to 24-7; from addressing community safety around industrial camps, to providing outreach in urban areas and coordinating for better police response.

From Surrey to Dawson Creek, from Victoria to Prince Rupert, I know these services have directly impacted countless survivors and their communities. I wanted to give a couple of examples of what that $20 million did.

For the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, resources to provide support, education, advocacy, emergency response and connection, all to assist women and girls who’ve experienced recent sexual assault. DIVERSEcity in Surrey; the creation of a new sexual assault response service to provide a coordinated, culturally responsive emergency sexual assault service hub; services for recent newcomer survivors, of any immigrant group; working to prevent retraumatization, to foster increased reporting and to support those who have experienced trauma.

For the Tahltan Band Council, that money created culturally safe and relevant emergency support services — Telegraph Creek and Dease Lake, in particular. The services include support accessing medical care, support networks, referrals and navigating the challenging systems that survivors must navigate. Around Williams Lake, emergency sexual assault services and response for seven rural and remote Indigenous communities.

I am so thrilled that in this budget, $22 million over the next three years for sexual assault services…. We know that services like these, services that provide care and support after a sexual assault, cannot continue to be provided by unpredictable grants. They are essential.

[2:30 p.m.]

In this year’s budget, we announced the funding for these kinds of critical responses will be dedicated and ongoing — that, Madam Speaker, to services that were gutted and abandoned, that meant the abandoning of survivors and organizations who scrambled to make those services continually available despite that change.

Dedicated funding for services like these could not wait. But our work is not done here. Next week we start our round tables for a gender-based violence action plan.

Investments in this budget, also relevant to this file, increase connection — the resources and the infrastructure for another 280 communities to be connected with high-speed Internet. Frankly, all of us here are probably entirely exhausted of how dependent we have become on virtual connections, but that is actually an incredible gift. This investment is necessary for economic opportunities, for education and connection, but it is also necessary to provide opportunities for safety and services for those experiencing or leaving violence in rural and remote communities.

Beyond gender-based violence, there are other aspects of this that, as parliamentary secretary, I am incredibly, incredibly proud of our continued investment in child care in particular. As a mom, as a neighbour and in my role as parliamentary secretary, this is incredible. It’s options and opportunities for economic independence and security. It’s quality and early childhood education for kids in our community. This is about family. It’s about family safety. It’s about opportunities for our children.

The wage supplements for early childhood educators will not only help us address the shortage of ECEs, but it is action towards properly and adequately compensating those who look after our children. From my perspective, it’s also action to address the gender wage gap. The expansion of this in this budget is good news.

The child care investments in my community are astounding. Again, Victoria–Beacon Hill is a small community. The child care investments are more than 296 spaces and fee reductions worth over $6 million. We’ve got a $10-a-day site. I can’t tell what you this means. There are actual babies in my constituency who are now in child care whose parents decided they could have a family when this government first announced investments in child care — actual babies now in those spaces.

Driving fees down by half — this is huge. This is action now. Are we done? No. Is it incredibly impactful on people’s lives? Without a doubt. It created new lives, as I said.

I’m going to end here on a few notes of appreciation. I am incredibly lucky to represent Victoria–Beacon Hill. I have some of the most engaged, connected and compassionate constituents. From Fernwood to North Park to James Bay, Fairfield, Vic West, downtown, people are connected to their community. They are active in their community. They are committed to city, to neighbourhoods that are inclusive and active, that are about the need on the ground but also about where we sit and what we owe the broader province, country and globe.

I want to also say a couple thank-yous to the folks that allow me to keep doing this job. Hannah Harris Hope and Anmol Swaich support me in this place. Brittany Flamank keeps me going as parliamentary secretary. Matt Landry, Andrew Christie and Kate Banky show up in and for my community and my constituency office every week.

My significant other, my partner Rob, reduced his working hours to confined school hours just over a year ago now. The impact of that in continuing to look after our babies — especially the littlest one, who needs us more than we could have known at the time — allows me to be in this space — just three kilometres down the road, but not home in time for bedtime.

[2:35 p.m.]

With that, I will again state my gratitude for being able to participate in a democratic debate in this safe province and my incredible support of this budget.

T. Wat: I’m happy to take my place in this year’s debate on the budget. I have had the honour of serving the people of Richmond North Centre since 2013.

I’ve seen nearly a decade of budgets pass through this House, from both our previous B.C. Liberal government as well as the current NDP one. While I am by no means a financial expert, I have witnessed my fair share of provincial budgets and have come to understand that the things we can learn and dissect from the budget and fiscal plan go beyond just the numbers outlined before us.

Our provincial budgets tell us more than the state of the province’s finances, what supports will be allocated where and what investments our government will make in various aspects of British Columbians’ lives. They are a window into the state of our government as a whole: their fiscal responsibility, their accountability to the people of British Columbia and their understanding and willingness to address the immediate challenges British Columbians are facing.

What do the numbers and decisions outlined in this budget show us? Sadly, they show us a concerning lack of fiscal responsibility, a determination to remove transparency and accountability and a disheartening lack of understanding or concern for the real and pressing issues that British Columbians want to see definitive action on.

When I talk about fiscal responsibility, it’s important to note that it goes beyond appropriately managing the finances entrusted to us by the people of British Columbia. It is about respecting checks and balances that keep our ministers responsible and accountable in their own fiscal management.

At a time when our province is forecasting a $5.5 billion deficit and this government has made it clear they intend to forecast deficits for the foreseeable future, they have decided to permanently eliminate the 10 percent salary holdback for cabinet ministers, giving themselves a $17,000 pay raise despite projecting one of the largest deficits our province has ever faced. When the Minister of Finance was asked for the reasoning behind this tone-deaf and greedy decision, she said that keeping the holdback would send the wrong message to British Columbians.

[2:40 p.m.]

How would it send the wrong message when thousands if not millions of British Columbians have seen their own personal income and finances take massive hits from this pandemic and thousands of businesses have been forced to close their doors for good?

How does taking a raise send the right message? If anything, I would say this action sends the wrong message. When government ministers rewrite the rules so they won’t take a pay cut in a year that so many have had no choice, it is a prime example of how disconnected they have become from the real world challenges British Columbians are currently facing.

There are countless examples of this level of disconnect all over this budget, unfortunately. Take, for example, the new rules on used-car sales tax, which will now be implemented on the greater value between the actual sales price and the average sales price.

Simply put, if you get a good deal on a used car, you will have to pay more in taxes. The minister described this new rule as closing a loophole, which shows you this government’s concerning thinking behind this tax. Used cars have already been sold and taxed once by the province. But just because British Columbians want to give their friends, their family or even just a fellow British Columbian a good price on a used car, this government is labelling them as tax dodgers who are apparently exploiting a loophole.

Meanwhile, a recent Angus Reid poll cited that 37 percent of British Columbians say they cannot keep up with the cost of living. How can this government claim that they are addressing affordability, when they are taxing British Columbians for trying to save money and find the most affordable deal?

The same can be said about the increased tax on heating systems that use fossil fuels. While government thinks this will incentivize people to all of a sudden spend thousands of dollars to change over to an electric heating system, our rural communities and the brutal winters they face mean that a gas heating system is not a luxury; it is a necessity. This tax will disproportionately impact British Columbians in our rural regions, simply because of where they choose to call their home. How is that creating affordability for British Columbians?

This government’s decisions are not only making life less affordable for British Columbians; they are stripping away the independence and choice of care for many families too. This government is harming B.C. families by clawing back autism funding and dramatically underfunding supports for children and youth with special needs.

[2:45 p.m.]

Here, in my beautiful riding of Richmond North Centre, AutismBC, which is a grassroots and non-profit organization founded in 1975, supports people on the autism spectrum and their families. AutismBC empowers, supports and connects the autism community in B.C. and encourages the inclusion and acceptance of the entire autism community. They have grown to become one of the most trusted non-profit organizations for autism in B.C. and continue to support people with autism by providing loved ones and communities with knowledge and tools and by engaging with people on the autism spectrum to create stronger, more diverse communities.

The organization is housed in the Pacific Autism Family Network, or GoodLife Fitness Autism Family Hub, a $28 million centre with a contribution of $20 million from our former provincial government. It is a first for North America and provides support for roughly 69,000 people of all ages in B.C. that are on the autism spectrum.

Well, unfortunately, with the recent announcement by this provincial government to phase out individualized autism funding by 2025 and the lack of consultation on these changes, many families fear they will lose their current support and choices. Families are also struggling with rising service fees, as there has been no increase to funding for each child in recent years.

Now turning to housing, British Columbians are facing the highest housing and rental prices they have ever faced in this province, yet there’s still no $400 renters rebate or any significant measures in this budget to make the housing market more affordable. The 2020 CMHC rental market report cites that since 2017, Richmondites are paying, on average, $1,400 more per year in rent. This renters rebate, if we ever see it, won’t even cover the rental hikes we’ve experienced under this government. How is this making life more affordable? Government has failed to meet their housing targets, and once again, it is British Columbians who are suffering as a result.

Only 5,269 homes have been completed by the B.C. government. According to the Minister of Housing, in the 2021 Budget estimates, this is just 4.6 percent of their 114,000 promised homes. A March 2021 report from the BCREA says that the lack of housing supply is the key provincial factor driving high housing prices. Our housing market has been pushed to the brink, and the dream of home ownership is slipping away for more British Columbians day by day.

This pandemic has also stretched our health care system to the brink. Hospitals across the province are short-staffed, and British Columbians cannot find a family doctor to save their life, yet this budget is plagued with delays in our health care infrastructure and has no plan to train and employ new health care professionals.

In my own riding, the Richmond Hospital has once again been delayed to 2031, despite the member for Richmond-Steveston promising shovels in the ground in 2021. The hospital is not the only place where Richmond has been let down in this budget. Like communities across the province, Richmond is looking to recover much of the business lost in the pandemic, especially in our vibrant tourism sector.

[2:50 p.m.]

As the critic for Tourism, Arts and Culture and the MLA for Richmond North Centre, I’m so proud of Richmond, which has taken the top spot in a ranking of Canada’s 15 most-loved travel destinations. The city claimed the number one spot, with a tourism sentiment score of 28.30 and with air travel as its top draw, according to the tourism sentiment index.

One of the most iconic tourist destination venues is the Richmond Night Market. I’m so thrilled to learn that it will return on April 29, a little earlier than usual this year. The market has been closed for 16 months due to the pandemic and reopened last summer with a reduced capacity and smaller venue. The other venues ran from early May to October and drew thousands of people from across the province in pre-pandemic times.

Like many other businesses in Richmond, they have been struggling to get support from the government. While I’m glad they finally got some, much more support from the government is needed to help our businesses fully recover. Government must take steps to help people abroad feel welcome in our communities once it is safe to do so. But they also need to take action to make our own people feel welcome in the places they call home.

We are still seeing horrific instances of racism and hate perpetuated towards British Columbians who are visible minorities on an almost daily basis. Last Thursday a video was captured by two young Richmond women in a parking lot. A female aggressor can be heard shouting homophobic abuse at the couple, along with a South Asian racial slur apparently directed at one of the victims, despite her identifying as Indigenous. A few seconds later the racist ranter can be seen jumping out of a silver SUV before walking over to the couple’s car, trying to open their door and screaming more abuse.

Police arrived shortly afterwards, took down the details and later tracked down the driver of the SUV. Unfortunately, according to the couple, police basically said that there was nothing they could really do.

Racism is a daily lived reality. Anti-Semitism and racist incidents have spiked amid the pandemic, yet government has still failed to carry out on many of its promised supports to combat this rise in hate crimes. The anti-racism hotline, which was promised to be in place by last year, is still not available and is once again nowhere to be found in this budget. The government needs to provide more funding to raise awareness of the challenges faced by communities across B.C. and to confront and denounce all forms of racism and discrimination. That’s the sad reality.

The budgetary decisions we see in February have real-world consequences for British Columbians for years that follow. We saw this time and again as our government faced the climate disasters of 2021, where a lack of proper investment in paramedics and 911 call services resulted in hundreds of deaths as a result of the heat dome.

[2:55 p.m.]

The slow rollout of funding and supports have left the people of Lytton without a home or community to return to for more than eight months. The constant delay in support for farmers impacted by the flooding of the Sumas Prairie has left many scrambling to repair their soil and replant their fields in time for the spring. This will not be the last time our communities are going to face these kinds of environmental disasters. Government needs to make the proper investment today to ensure our communities are protected and supported against future climate events.

Three atmospheric rivers hit our region last November, including one that resulted in more than 130 millimetres of rain falling on Richmond over three days. While we did not experience the same level of rainfall or flooding issues as some areas of the Fraser Valley, Richmond did require extensive use of the city’s 39 drainage pump stations and staff to keep things secure.

At the peak of the November storms, each of the city’s 39 pump stations were moving water at or near full capacity at some point during the event. The capacity of these pump stations has been increased 29 percent since 2005, and they now have a combined discharge rate of approximately 90 cubic metres per second. That is the equivalent of more than two Olympic swimming pools every 60 seconds.

Current climate change science estimates that sea levels will rise approximately one metre by the year 2100, while land in Richmond is projected to subside by 0.2 metres over the same time span. Council recently supported the need for more investment in the existing flood protection infrastructure, despite its performance in managing one of the heaviest rainfall months on record. The previous government invested so much in strengthening the pumping station and dikes in Richmond in preparation for the rainstorms. I hope this government will also focus on planning and taking tangible action for the future.

I look forward to diving further into this budget during the upcoming estimates process. But what I can tell you is that at face value this is certainly not the budget that British Columbians deserve — one that will encourage government accountability, one that will invest in people more than politicians and one that will provide our communities the supports they deserve to build back a safe and prosperous British Columbia.

B. D’Eith: I rise today to speak to Budget ’22, “Stronger together.” I’d like to say that, as many of our colleagues, I’m very, very proud to represent Maple Ridge–Mission and the constituents of Maple Ridge–Mission. This second term has been very, very challenging for all of us, everyone in this House. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone at home and everyone in this House who has made incredible efforts during these very difficult times.

Before I say anything else, though, I did want to start with just a little acknowledgment about Ukraine. I know a lot has been said by all members on all sides of this House about support for Ukraine and a condemnation of Russia’s unlawful attack on this sovereign nation.

[3:00 p.m.]

I’m very lucky, in fact. My wife’s ancestry is Ukrainian. Her ancestors, her grandmother moved from Ukraine to the prairies of Canada, as did so many Ukrainians. In fact, Canada is the second-largest place in the world for Ukrainians to settle if they leave the Ukraine. I feel very fortunate to have a family with Ukrainian descent, and my thoughts and hopes go out to everyone in Ukraine.

I also want to say that it’s very good to see how many countries, including Canada, are opening doors to refugees. I can say without hesitation to any Ukrainians coming to Canada: “Please, you’re welcome. You’re welcome in my riding. You’re welcome anywhere in British Columbia, so please come.”

Next, I think it’s important, before I get into the budget, to talk about two other pieces. It’s very difficult to jump into a budget without talking about COVID recovery and, of course, the overdose crisis. I did want to really thank the ministries, the staff, the front-line workers and the people of British Columbia for all of the work they’ve done, particularly during the pandemic.

My heart goes out to all the families who’ve lost loved ones to the overdose crisis and dealing with mental health and addiction issues. I know that the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, her staff and everyone are working tirelessly on that front.

Also, as we saw in 2021, the impacts of climate change hit us very hard, with the heat dome, wildfires and floods. Floods affected many of our ridings, including my own, and particularly my neighbouring riding of Abbotsford-Mission. I was very, very pleased to see $213 million of support for farmers from the partnership with the federal and provincial government — very important funding. Also, obviously, a thanks to the Minister of Agriculture for all of her incredible work and, of course, the Minister of Transportation.

I just went up to Stump Lake, which is near Merritt, to visit my wife’s family for the first time in a number of months, because the Coquihalla had been destroyed. Seeing the pictures of the Coquihalla — honestly, I didn’t think that we’d be driving up that road for a year. The fact that the ministry was able to mobilize and that engineers, workers, builders and roadworkers were able to turn that around in such a miraculous way was absolutely astounding.

Driving up that road, it was awe-inspiring to see what we can do together, as a province, in a time of need. I think that’s part of the reason why the Minister of Finance has called this budget “Stronger together.” I think we’ve seen over and over again during the pandemic, during the heat dome, during wildfires and during floods how British Columbians come together and how we work better when we work together.

There are a few things that I talked to in the throne speech that I probably won’t get to specifically, so I just wanted to reiterate them quickly.

I’ve heard a lot of the opposition talking about affordability, and I will be talking about the housing crisis in a few moments. But I think it’s impossible not to talk about affordability without talking about some of the measures that have been taken by our government since we took office in 2017, including one of the first things we did, which was eliminating the tolls on the bridges. That had a profound impact, particularly in my area, on the Golden Ears Bridge and the Port Mann Bridge, in terms of affordability — up to $1,500 a year.

Of course, the new leader, Kevin Falcon…. It’s been said you want to say these things to his face. Well, citizen Falcon, I’m speaking to your face right now the best I can until you get a seat in this House. Hopefully, you will get a seat in this House. Citizen Falcon, I’m speaking to you on this. I’ve heard that you have said you wouldn’t have gotten rid of the tolls. In fact, you were one of the architects of the tolls. In fact, you increased MSP premiums during your tenure. We eliminated MSP premiums.

[3:05 p.m.]

In fact, the Leader of the Opposition was one of the ministers who raided ICBC for years to balance their budgets on the backs of British Columbians. We have made transformative changes to ICBC, and people are saving an incredible amount of money, $500. We have one friend who actually saved $2,000 — a young friend of our family — a year. It made a profound difference in their lives, absolutely profound and transformative changes for our young people and for people in this province.

Again, the Leader of the Opposition would have gotten rid of those.

Interjections.

B. D’Eith: I hear chirping from the other side. The fact is we’ve done incredible work in terms of affordability for this province.

Child care alone can save families up to $19,000. If you add it all up, for a young family with young children, that’s $25,000 a year that they can be saving under our affordability. Add up ICBC, add up sales, add up child care, tolls, MSP premiums, ICBC. What would the leader of the opposition do? He would get rid of all of that.

Let’s talk about affordability. They’re not interested in affordability. They’re interested in tax cuts to the most wealthy and cutting services, cutting things that people need.

I’ve heard this a lot. All of a sudden the opposition is talking about people. Well, I’ll tell you what. When we came into government, that was what we came…. Every single day when we step into that caucus room, we talk about the people of British Columbia. We have put the people of British Columbia at the centre of policy — not the people at the top, not the people who used to pay their donations, like the developers who were the ones who are profiting from this out-of-control real estate market.

We got rid of that, didn’t we? We got rid of big money in politics, and that’s tough for the opposition because they took millions of dollars from their friends at the top. So, hey, if that’s who they were beholden to…. We work for the people of British Columbia; they work for people at the top.

Now let’s talk about some of the criticisms we’ve had. I look at our ministers, I look at our Premier, I look at our Minister of Finance, and there are three things I really see: compassion, competence and prudence. Those are three things.

Now, I have heard — this is a really interesting thing — from the opposition in regard to our budget and the fact that there is a deficit. Yes, there’s a deficit, but for the budgets that we’d had for the first three years before COVID, we had balanced budgets. We are a prudent manager of the public purse in this province. Everyone in this House, including the opposition, when it came to funding businesses and people — the highest per-capita funding for people and businesses in the country, I might add…. This opposition approved that.

Well, all of a sudden, now that we are moving slowly towards balance…. You look at every year, year over year. It’s going to take a long time to get out of this pandemic. They know that. So what they’re saying to us is: “You know what? You should go to balance right now.” Well, you go to balance and what happens? That means we don’t have money for recovery. That seems to be what they want. At the same time, they’re saying: “You’re not doing stuff fast enough.” They have to make up their minds, because they don’t even know what they’re talking about.

Now, as it turned out, the Minister of Finance budgeted $9 billion, originally, for last year’s deficit because we didn’t know what was going to happen. It looked really dire in terms of what was going to happen with the economy, but because of the people of British Columbia having some of the highest rates of vaccination in North America — in fact, the world — and with the policies that Dr. Bonnie Henry was able to bring forward, we were able to really bounce back in our economy.

In fact, we have more people — we have tens of thousands of people — moving to British Columbia, which is another part of the challenge on housing, but that’s because we have one of the strongest economies in the country right now.

During the pandemic, we made some choices. It’s always about choices. I think that’s the thing I’d like to speak about. When we got into government, we chose to put money into people instead of cutting taxes from the top and cutting programs and services. We put money into health care, into child care, into Internet for rural and remote communities, into housing and into supports for small business. These are the building blocks that we’ve had during the pandemic, and it’s really paying off now in terms of our economy.

[3:10 p.m.]

As I said, the opposition would like to see us roll these back and halt our economy. I have no idea why they would want us to do that. Again, compassion, competence, prudence. It’s just about making choices, and we choose people. We choose people, and we don’t choose trickle-down economics, these old, old economic versions, Reaganomics, that the B.C. Liberals keep trotting out about giving tax breaks to the wealthy so that it’ll somehow flow to the workers.

That just doesn’t happen. In fact, what we’ve seen with those outdated economic policies is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We’ve seen the income gap grow and increase over time.

Now, we believe, as the B.C. NDP, that the economy should be strong. And it is strong. It’s been strong under our government. It continues to be strong because of the prudent fiscal management of this province.

But the economy generally has indicated…. The indicators that a lot of economists look at are GDP and things like debt-to-GDP ratios and all of the things that are sort of the traditional indicators. Quite frankly, you could literally have an economy that is “a strong economy,” yet you could have massive unemployment. You could have people living on the street. You know, in a war situation, sometimes what will happen is that GDP will go up, because….

What I’m trying to say is it’s not the only indicator. In fact, in the new economic plan that the Premier and the Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation launched, StrongerBC, the economic plan…. This is a new long-term economic plan that is about growing the economy but growing an economy that works for people and families. The idea is that the plan will make life better for people today and tomorrow. It’s basically built on the belief that when you grow an economy, you can grow and thrive while addressing two core issues: inequality and climate change.

We will continue to ensure that the traditional indicators will be taken into account, like GDP and credit ratings, but also look at some other key indicators to see about our success. Some of these missions, for example, are supporting people and families, using what’s called the Gini co­efficient, which looks at core housing needs, poverty indices, post-secondary education.

Building resilient communities is another mission under this plan. It looks at community resilience indicators like new business openings and regional economic diversity.

Advancing true, lasting, meaningful reconciliation. That obviously needs to be developed, as DRIPA would say, with Indigenous people, and we will do that to get those indicators.

On the clean growth side, the mission’s indicators, of course, are the gross GHG emission reductions that we need to hit our targets, leading environmental and social responsibility, businesses reporting to ESG standards. What ESG standards are is looking at criteria that is socially conscious investors and using that to screen investments, to make sure that there’s a social conscience attached to that — fostering innovation, for example, looking at the value-added that innovation brings.

There are going to be a number of ways that we are going to do that. We’ll have measurements. We’ll have a dashboard with annual reporting. We’ll look at gender, race, age, economic region. All of these things will form part of this new lens that we’ll put on what success is. Honestly, in order for our economy to be truly successful, it has to be successful for everyone.

What are some of the things in this budget that are going to directly effect this plan? Well, there’s $664 million of additional funding for K to 12. There’s $148 million for the B.C. emergency health services action plan. We’re going to have 40,000 child care spaces over the next seven years. There’s going to be a new proactive approach to homelessness — $633 million towards that, which is very important. It’s very important to have that complex care that we know is needed in many circumstances.

[3:15 p.m.]

Investing in infrastructure will create up to 100,000 jobs. The incredible investment we’ve put into Pathway to Hope, billions of dollars to make sure that we’re dealing with the mental health and addiction issues and addressing homelessness….

In Budget 2022, we’re saving families more money as we move to $10-a-day child care. The average fees will be reduced this year to $20-a-day or less. We’re increasing training seats for early childhood educators, and we’re going to deliver 40,000 new licensed spaces over the next seven years. That’s having a profound impact on the ground. In my riding, we have a $10-a-day child care prototype site, which is Heritage Park Childcare. It’s incredible. I’ve talked to parents there that burst into tears when they had the opportunity to participate in that program.

In fact, there are incredible investments being made. Just in my riding alone, $26 million of total child care investments. Parents are saving, through fee reductions, $16 million. Total licensed child care spaces funded: 238.

This isn’t talked about a lot, because it happened during the pandemic, but it’s the B.C. early childhood tax benefit. Now this is going to the age of 18. It didn’t help me — I have kids between 19 and 25 — but I can say that up to the age of 18, it’s important to have this money, because costs of children actually go up, not down. So this is actually going to help the income. It could be $1,600 for a family’s first child, another $1,000 for the second child and $800 for subsequent children. This is going to make a profound difference on lives.

As far as building resilient communities, since 2017, we’ve actually connected 500 communities to high-speed Internet. This is very important for the democratization of working within the province, to have that access to high-speed Internet. It also is a very key part of reconciliation — nearly $300 million invested to connect over 280 First Nations in rural and remote communities.

Again, very important to allow First Nations to participate in the overall economy. Eighty-two percent of rural and remote communities and 92 percent of First Nations communities will be connected to the Internet. That’s a goal in this budget.

And $210 million for community climate change preparedness and emergency management. We saw what happened with the floods. We saw what happened with the wildfires. Having that emergency preparedness is so important to build resilient communities.

Twenty-five million dollars to support our tourism sector. This is very important, because during the pandemic, tourism was one of the hardest-hit sectors, and it’s so important to support that.

The Homes for B.C. program — $1.2 billion a year. Now, can you imagine, if the B.C. Liberals had spent $1.2 billion a year for 16 years, where we would be with our housing crisis right now? Hmm. Well, we’d be in a way better position than we are. In fact, what they did was they lived through a time when, basically, houses and condos were being used as an investment. They were sitting empty.

We brought in the spec tax and put 18,000 units back into the rental market, where they should have been in the first place. You know, that’s something, again, that the leader, Kevin Falcon, would get rid of — 18,000 units in the rental market. Absolutely a very, very successful program.

Budget 2022 accelerates the construction of mixed-income housing, through B.C. Housing’s community fund.

The highest infrastructure…. It’s unbelievable: $27.4 billion to invest in schools, hospitals, affordable housing, rapid transit, highways and bridges. My riding is one that’s benefiting from this.

For example, we are working on the final four-laning of Highway 7. We finished the four-laning of Highway 7 near Mission. That’s completed, and people love it. We’re working on the rest of that, which is really important, because there were, since 2016, over 80 accidents in that area. It’s a safety issue, and we are resolving that.

We also resolved our tent city in Maple Ridge, which was in the news around the whole country. We were able to build two units of supportive housing. Now one of those is becoming permanent, freeing up that space so we can build over 50 units of seniors housing in Maple Ridge. Really excited about that.

[3:20 p.m.]

Another example of the 30-point housing program, the provincial rental supply program is Turnock Manor. It’s 64 units of fair market rental stock in Maple Ridge. It’s just opening up. Absolutely amazing. Cornerstone Landing is just opening up soon, a partnership with community services and B.C. Housing — 94 units, including 20 for youth, which is really exciting.

In Mission, we built 74 units of seniors housing, with MASH and B.C. Housing. That was a $7.4 million contribution. That’s up and running, and people are living in it. So it’s absolutely fantastic.

Also HousingHub. What an amazing program, $2 billion to basically…. We know we can’t do this alone. I mean, obviously, housing is all hands on deck, so that means non-profits. It means for-profits. It means associations. It means the government. It means churches. It means cities. It means everybody working together. And the fact is that HousingHub is an amazing program.

One of the partnerships, Lookout, created the Cedar Valley suites, 68 rental homes. And 15 of those are actually low-income, between the rents of $375 and $1,300.

There is so much work being done on housing affordability. I mentioned the spec tax as part of the 30-point plan.

Another big one is student housing. The B.C. Liberals built 160 units in 16 years — unbelievable. We have already built or have in construction, 5,854 new beds in this province — absolutely brilliant. Part of that is when students can live in student housing, they are not using market housing. That frees up market housing for people who need to work and live in their areas. That is something that we’re doing; that’s something that the B.C. Liberals did not do.

We’re on track, with 32,000 units built or underway, over ten years. We are on track to hit our 114,000 units. A lot of work is being done when you spend $1.2 billion a year on housing. I can tell you that we’re going to work really closely with the cities, because obviously, one of the challenges we have is getting the development permits.

It can take up to five years, sometimes, to get these permits. We have the will. We have the money. We just need to get going, so I’m really excited about some of the work that’s going to be done with our new Minister of Municipal Affairs. That’s really exciting work, so that will be happening.

I’m also really excited about truth and reconciliation. There’s $12 million for the creation of a new Declaration Act secretariat, and of course, the new Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship, $44 million. Congrats to the new minister. I think she’s going to do a wonderful job in this landmark new ministry that’s going to really, really help DRIPA move forward. So very exciting work.

And I can see some of the exciting work that’s been done in my community. For example, in Mission last summer, there was an agreement. It’s actually called “Together We Paddle.” It’s written in Hul’q’umi’num’. I can’t, unfortunately, pronounce that, but the translation is “Together We Paddle.”

What that was, is 60 hectares of Crown land that were transferred to the Leq’á:mel, Matsqui and Sumas First Nations, LMS Society. That’ll be to create a community park, and also, there will be a housing development. Absolutely amazing work, in terms of reconciliation — groundbreaking, in many respects. I’m very, very proud that that actually happened.

Of course, another huge area is climate change, and that meeting B.C.’s complete commitments is so important. That’s another part of the economic plan. CleanBC is fully funded. It’s going ahead, $3.3 billion in funding. There are so many parts of that. For example, rebates on zero-emission vehicles, clean options like heat pumps, moving industry to clean options so that they can deal with the change of our expectations that, yes, we are moving away from a carbon-based economy towards a clean fuel economy.

We’re seeing more bike lanes, multi-use pathways, transportation infrastructure and so many other things. And of course, there’s also adaptation. There’s $83 million for a new climate preparedness and adaptation strategy, very important. It’s important that we work towards our goals of a clean environment, towards climate change, but also adapt.

[3:25 p.m.]

There’s also, in closing…. Well, no. Actually, I’m just getting started. I’ve got four minutes left. This is great.

I did want to mention, on environmental and social responsibility, which is another key pillar of the economic plan, that 2021 saw a 50 percent increase in mining exploration, and $18 million is being invested to continue growth of the mining sector, and $9 million to expand the low-carbon fuel standard.

It’s really interesting that, yes, we have regulations. We have regulations that regulate the mining industry. Yet we are seeing investment in the mining industry. In fact, there’s a lot of activity. When I talk to people in the mining industry, what they like to see is certainty. Certainty of regulation. In fact, when you cut regulations, you often create more uncertainty. So the regulations that have been put in place are for the safety of British Columbia, the safety of the industry, and making sure that we meet our climate change targets.

It brings back the memory that Kevin Falcon was actually the Minister of State for Deregulation. Now think about that — a minister of state for deregulation. The idea that you would actually have somebody working to deregulate the province when we need regulations. Regulations are important, because if you let companies run amok, you end up with poisoned water. You end up with a whole bunch of problems, with tailings that leach into our waterways. So they’re important.

I’m not saying that…. You know, we need to make sure that these are efficient regulations. I think that instead of something like deregulation, you would want to have efficient and impactful regulations. I think this is a fundamental difference between our two parties in terms of how we see things. They would just like to get out of the way of business and let business come in and do whatever they want to the environment, to our coast — to do whatever they want. That’s really troubling.

In closing, through Budget ’22, we’re building an even stronger B.C. and making life better by investing in our province’s economic, environmental and social strengths; ’22 supports bold actions to fight climate change and to protect people in communities from climate-related disasters. It helps with the cost of living by reducing child care costs. It delivers a comprehensive approach to respond and prevent homelessness. It makes investments needed to close the digital divide and grow an inclusive and sustainable economy. It continues to strengthen the public services that B.C. relies on.

As we continue to respond to the effects of the pandemic, to climate change, to all of these things, we will be building on our strengths to prepare for the challenges and opportunities that we will have in the future.

S. Bond: I appreciate the opportunity to rise and speak to the budget. I can assure you that you will be hearing something completely different from what we just heard. I can tell you this.

Do you know the number of times, the absolute number of times that we have heard the name of our new leader mentioned in this House? You would think that this government would be anxious to make sure that we got a chance to have our new leader sitting right in this very chair.

Maybe it’s time the government did what they should have done. It’s been weeks now. We would urge the government to call a by-election, because I’ll tell you what. It will be a lot harder to say the kinds of things that member just said looking the Leader of the Opposition in the eye when he actually gets to the Legislature.

I’d also like to remind the member that he talked about their ability to look at how to balance the budget. I remember from the day that this government took office…. I would remind them that they inherited the best-performing economy in the country and the province that had the highest job creation record in the country. That was what this government inherited, so to suggest that they did miraculous work and suddenly balanced a budget is revisionist history at its very best.

I very much look forward to hearing from the Premier shortly, calling a by-election to make sure that we can have our new leader in the Legislature, as he should be.

[3:30 p.m.]

As I begin my remarks today, though, I do want to recognize that today is B.C. Seniors Care Providers Day. We take the time today to recognize and celebrate the incredible people who work tirelessly to support and care for B.C. seniors. We are so grateful for the work that they do.

I also want to thank members on all sides of the House for contributing to the debate on the 2022 budget.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I have to say, after listening to many comments made by the government members, you won’t be surprised that I don’t agree with them. But differences should actually be expected and welcomed in this chamber. We were elected to bring our constituent views and the voices of British Columbians from all across the province. I am so very grateful and proud to represent the people of Prince George–Valemount. I am grateful and thankful for their continued faith in me to do this job on their behalf.

The observations of MLAs from all parts of the province should provide the Finance Minister with ample commentary and, of course, valuable input. I do want to congratulate the Minister of Finance for delivering Budget 2022. It is no small task. In fact, in her budget speech, the Minister of Finance included some comments recognizing that budgets are about choices and that, in fact, some would choose differently than the priorities that she laid out in her budget. On that point, I agree with the minister. There are things that we would do differently. More about that later.

I would also like to offer my thanks to the staff that helped prepare the budget. It’s an incredible amount of work, and it consumes the ministry for many months. The debate that occurs here is not a criticism of the work done by public servants. Government charts the path, and then the staff provides the expertise to create the budget that is ultimately tabled.

On a personal note, I, like others in the chamber, want to recognize my family for their continuous support, their forgiveness for missing those big days at home and for being willing to adjust dates to make things work. They are my rock. I also want to thank our hard-working staff in Prince George and Victoria for their dedication and effort on a daily basis. They are so very good at what they do, and we are grateful.

Budget 2022 follows on the heels of a throne speech and the much-awaited release of the first signs of an economic strategy after five years and two terms of this government. Whether it was the budget, the throne speech or the economic plan, the reaction was the same. The Premier and his government simply failed to deliver.

To provide some context, let me just provide some words that were shared by stakeholder after stakeholder after stakeholder after the budget was introduced. It should give some context and certainly paint quite a different picture than the member who spoke before me. Here are some of the words.

“Disappointed.” “Left out.” “Shocking.” “Disappointed.” “Unfortunately, the opportunity was missed.” “Status quo.” “A missed opportunity.” “Failed to act on its promises.” “Bold responses needed in 2022.” “This budget just doesn’t deliver that response.” “Here’s what we find disappointing.” “We were disappointed.” “There is little for small business.” “Hoping to see measures to reduce costs.” “This budget was a missed opportunity.” “Budget 2022 gets a failing grade from taxpayers.”

The list goes on. Not my words. The words of stakeholders. The words of important organizations. The words of British Columbians. I can’t imagine that is something that members on the opposite side want to be proud of. British Columbians expected and deserved so much more. They expected more because the Premier made promises to them. He raised their expectations and then failed to deliver. Let’s just look at a couple of those signature promises.

The Premier promised to British Columbians that life would be more affordable under his government, not just once, but twice. Two successive election campaigns, and now, nothing could be further from the truth. Groceries. Cell phone bills. Gas prices. Rental rates, and the skyrocketing costs of trying to purchase a home. All this and increased taxes too.

[3:35 p.m.]

In fact, this is a government that has increased or created so many new taxes or adjusted taxes, we’ve lost count. In fact, there are three new ones in this budget. And that, once again, after a specific promise from the Premier that he would not be increasing taxes. But he did it anyway.

There are three main taxes to highlight from this budget alone. A new tax will require online marketplaces for used goods that collect payments to charge the PST on those purchases. What does that cost taxpayers? More than $100 million every year.

Home heating systems using fossil fuels will have their sales tax increased from 7 to 12 percent. This will cost taxpayers $9 million every year. And guess who that’s going to impact the most. Rural communities. Why? Because rural communities are more likely to rely on natural gas heating systems, and the tax increase hammers homeowners who live in cold climates. Yet the Premier promised life would be more affordable.

New rules for private used car sales will tax sales on the greater value between the actual sale price and the average sale price. If you get a good deal on a used car, you’re going to have to pay more in taxes. This will cost drivers $30 million annually once it’s implemented.

You know, the government didn’t even bother to try to pretend they didn’t know who it would impact. In the budget, it says explicitly: “Individuals involved in private vehicle transactions are more likely to be low-to medium-income” — and guess what — “living in a rural area.”

Can you imagine? In this House, we have heard MLAs, including the member for Vancouver–False Creek, say that this was necessary to “curb a behaviour” and that it amounts to tax evasion. Well, perhaps that member needs to look a single mom in the eye who needs to get a vehicle to be able to go to work, or a student who can’t afford a new car — look those British Columbians in the eye who are just barely hanging on. Tax evasion? Hardly. British Columbians are struggling and just trying to get by, and the member for Vancouver–False Creek thinks they need to curb a behaviour. This isn’t a tax evasion. It’s a tax grab.

It is about choices. That’s exactly what the Finance Minister said. This government is choosing to tax the purchase of a used vehicle when they know that it will impact low-to medium-income British Columbians who typically live in rural areas, and the member had the audacity to suggest that it was a tax evasion attempt. No, it’s actually about trying to live in a world that’s becoming increasingly more unaffordable.

When you manage to figure out how to finally buy that car, this government is going to step up and take more money out of your pocket. I have yet to hear one of their members stand up and talk about how proud they are of using taxpayer’s back pockets as their revenue-generating stream instead of creating a vibrant, thriving private sector economy in this province.

Here’s what’s so problematic. It’s not just people that we don’t know their names or who they are. So 53 percent of British Columbians are now $200 or less away from insolvency. Let that sink in for a moment as we listen to the repetitive speeches on the other side about how life is more affordable. So 53 percent of the people living in British Columbia are $200 away from insolvency, so let’s tax their purchase of a used vehicle — likely more than $200.

One thing the government did manage to do in this budget was ensure that the Premier and cabinet would be taking home more money, by removing a significant accountability measure, because there is no balanced budget and no sign of one. Much worse, not even an attempt to get one, to move toward one in the years ahead, despite, once again, the Finance Minister saying: “I’m going to lay out a clear plan for how we’re going to get there.” Missing in this budget completely.

[3:40 p.m.]

The ministerial accountability act requires ministers to operate within their budget to meet financial commitments. Listening to the explanations that have been attempted in this chamber is nothing short of laughable.

MLAs have made it sound like if the accountability measure continues, we’re going to start seeing rampant cuts of important programs. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a cabinet minister in the past who has had to operate under that accountability principle, it was a motivating factor for me to make sure that I did my part to be diligent and prudent with taxpayers’ money. It didn’t cause me to want to run out and start cutting essential programs.

The explanations that have been provided here are simply nonsensical. How they can defend something that will send more money home with cabinet ministers and the Premier when British Columbians are trying to figure out how to put gas in their vehicle is simply unacceptable.

It apparently happened because deficits are inevitable. That was despite the promises from a Finance Minister who said she would lay out a path to a balanced budget. Instead, what it did they do? They took out the accountability requirement, essentially giving themselves more take-home pay. What message does that send to British Columbians that are just one step ahead of insolvency, who just can’t keep up with increased costs?

The Finance Minister talked about choices. Well, providing more take-home pay to the Premier and cabinet ministers and adding new taxes that include taxing used cars are certainly not choices we would have made, nor do we support.

The Premier also promised renters that he would provide them a $400 renters rebate. That was five years ago. When we finally managed to get an answer out of the Housing Minister just a week or two ago, his answer was: “We’re working on it.”

While the government is working on it, life for renters in British Columbia has gotten worse. In fact, the B.C. Rental Project gave B.C. a C grade. Why? Because their strategy has been to pile on regulation and taxes. This has forced many rental providers out of the market. Renters are paying almost $3,000 more per year on average under this NDP government. How does that speak to affordability? No sign of a renters rebate — in fact, another promise that vanished right after the election signs had been taken down.

On the housing front, B.C.’s been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The dream of owning a home has become a nightmare under this government. A National Bank report estimates that it would take 36 years to save for a down payment for a typical Vancouver home. But it isn’t just Vancouver. Chilliwack is up 40 percent; Langley, 39 percent; Abbotsford, 38 percent. The list goes on. Oxford Economics has reported that Vancouver is the least affordable metro area in North America. All that when the Premier promised life would be more affordable for British Columbians.

Perhaps one of the most upsetting broken promises was the one made directly to families in our province. I listened today, again, to the way that we continue to hear the description of: “We’re almost…. We’re going to get…. We might make it to $10-a-day daycare.” Make no mistake about it. It was a promise made for $10-a-day universal daycare that has been broken. This is five years since that promise was made, and it has not been delivered.

We have heard stories from all over this province about the inability that families have to find a space for their child, much less find one that they can pay $10 a day for. What does the promise look like now? This budget touts $20-a-day average child care funding. The promise that was made is five years behind schedule and still nowhere near $10 a day.

Here in British Columbia, we’re becoming all too familiar with the term “crisis.” We have many going on simultaneously, from COVID-19 to the devastating opioid crisis to affordability to more frequent destructive natural disasters. Our province is facing so many challenges, yet the budget fails to provide meaningful relief for any of them.

All of us recognize and are grateful for the exceptional work of health care professionals before and during the pandemic. They went to work so we could stay home. They are facing fatigue, burnout and exhaustion, for many of them. They need to know that this government understands that and that it is prepared to take significant meaningful action.

[3:45 p.m.]

We are living with a health care system under immense pressure. This is especially noticeable when we’re looking at chronic and worsening staffing shortages seen throughout the health care system. From nurses to primary care providers, hospital staff and lab technicians, we are seeing shortages, and it is impacting the care that British Columbians receive. And before any government MLA hops up and suggests that we’re being critical of health care workers, nothing can be further from the truth.

These shortages do not fall on the shoulders of health care providers. They’ve been working incredibly hard on the front line of the pandemic at great personal risk. This falls on the government, for failing to take the actions necessary to provide staff with the support they need and treating the pressures in the health care system with the urgency they deserve.

We have repeatedly asked this government about a health human resources plan that will tackle the shortages of health care workers that exist across our province. The Health Minister told us last year that he was going to present a health human resource plan that addresses these issues in the fall of 2021. But here we are in March, another throne speech, another budget — nowhere to be seen.

The kind of investment we need to see in our health care system must be part of a comprehensive strategy, one that assesses what the needs are, where they are, and then builds a training plan around that work. It takes years to train a doctor or a nurse or a midwife, all those essential professionals that we need to ensure British Columbians have top-quality health care. A health human resources plan is long, long overdue.

The issue of staffing will be impacted by yet another of this government’s broken promises. The NDP committed to building an additional medical school in B.C., planned for SFU’s Surrey campus. Well, I’m sure you can imagine the disappointment that SFU, the people of Surrey and anyone looking for a doctor felt when they saw there are no plans and there is no money set aside in this budget for a medical school. This at a time when recent statistics tell us this staggering number: almost 900,000 British Columbians do not have a family doctor or a primary care provider right now.

The NDP promised to attach more people to GPs, but since they came to power, the number of unattached patients has steadily increased, getting ever so close to the one-million mark. Think about it. Nearly 20 percent of people in British Columbia can’t find a family doctor. What kind of repercussions does this have for their health? What kind of stress does this add on our ERs and our walk-in clinics?

Our ERs around B.C. are already under so much stress as it is. From Saanich to the Kootenays to Ashcroft to Fort St. John, so many communities in B.C. have seen their ERs close for extended periods of time due to staffing shortages. It’s seen in every corner of the province, and it’s indicative of the wider stress on the system.

We also need to see investments in infrastructure. If you compare the service plans from last year to this year, we see numerous examples of projects that have been delayed by a year or more and with increasing construction costs, whether it’s Royal Inland Hospital, Burnaby Hospital, Lions Gate Hospital or Surrey Hospital, which we all know and would probably agree is basically an urgent and primary care centre.

Let’s look at Surrey. Only $2 million has been spent to date, barely enough to move that project forward. As for the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia, a regional centre that the government promised would move forward with cardiac care and additional services to serve the people of northern British Columbia, this budget says absolutely nothing. These kinds of delays and cost overruns would be disappointing and unacceptable for any infrastructure project, but they are even more frustrating when the projects are vital for meeting the health care needs of British Columbians today and into the future.

There are so many promises that the government has made around health that are still not included in this budget. What about the ten-year cancer plan or the funding for the free oral contraception promise the NDP made?

[3:50 p.m.]

What about the Kamloops cancer centre, which is now in preliminary planning, as opposed to being at Treasury Board?

We have a health care system under pressure, chronic shortages of health care workers, aging infrastructure and increasing demands, a 911 system desperately in need of resources. I don’t know about you, but it is incomprehensible to me that in the province of British Columbia, you can dial 911 and you may or may not get the help you need.

We have growing surgical wait-lists and cancelled surgeries. We have an opioid crisis that is taking the lives of more than six British Columbians every single day, and there is no comprehensive plan to end the tragic deaths we hear about month after month. But as we see from the investment in that ministry, they plan to have a much better communication strategy, instead of investing in desperately needed beds and resources.

The list is lengthy. We have a health care system under pressure. The time to act is now, yet I see little in this budget that will make a meaningful difference to relieve that pressure. Unfortunately, it’s not just health in general that has been overlooked in this budget, but seniors’ care. There is almost no mention of seniors in the Finance Minister’s budget speech, even after the last two years, where we saw that seniors were disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Terry Lake expressed this very sentiment in response to Budget 2022, saying:

“It is shocking that after a pandemic that impacted long-term care residents more than anyone else, there is no measure or mention of seniors’ care supports. There is far more on seniors’ care that is missing from this budget than is actually in it. There are no new investments in long-term care or assisted living. No increase in home care funding. No mention of creating a ministry for seniors, as some stakeholders have called for. No commitments to eliminate four-person rooms in long-term care.”

I appreciate the work of the B.C. seniors advocate. She never hesitates to speak up and raise important issues that seniors are facing in our province. As we look back on the last two years, we know that one of the most devastating legacies will be the disproportionate impacts on seniors and their families. Isolation, loneliness, confusion, and of course, the loss of thousands of seniors as a result of COVID-19. Considering all of this, it is hard to understand how this budget has little to nothing to deal with the issues facing older British Columbians. Once again, as the Minister of Finance said, it’s about choices.

In the coming months, we need to grapple with many critical issues related to seniors. Investments in infrastructure. Access to home health-support services. We have to grapple with the fact that they, too, have reduced physician availability and very difficult access to family doctors. We have to look at the costs of non-insured services such as glasses, hearing aids and assistive devices. Timely access to long-term care and assisted living. Lack of affordable housing. Wait-lists. Yes, seniors are feeling the pressure and the lack of affordability as much as anyone in British Columbia.

I also want to include in my comments today something that I have found so devastatingly difficult to deal with. That is the issue of this government’s intention to dismantle the current system of supports that are in place for families who have children with autism. Since that announcement has been made, it has caused anxiety, stress, grief and anger from parents across the province. This budget simply adds additional concern.

[3:55 p.m.]

Simply put, there is insufficient funding to manage the transition to a hub-based model. The money is not there. While the government will claw back individualized funding from more than 25,000 children and their families, there is only $40 million added in the budget for children and youth with supportive needs.

The total transition to the hub model is expected to cost $172 million over the fiscal plan, which is less than half of what some advocates estimate would be needed for an effective transition. All this disruption. All this pain. The anxiety based on a stubborn decision to move to a model that has failed in other jurisdictions, yet the government presses on, ignoring the voices of parents, advocates and experts.

We recognize the system isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t serve the needs of other children who also deserve support. But why on earth would the government choose to dismantle a system that works, instead of building on it, expanding the supports and services to include more children and their families?

The most disappointing part of this process has been the unwillingness of members on the government benches to engage with families, parents, providers and advocates in a meaningful and inclusive way. Despite the minister’s oft-repeated messaging, it has not happened.

These families deserve so much more. They deserve to speak to their MLA. They deserve to have the Minister and the Premier listen, hear and understand the concerns that they have. But again, in the words of the Finance Minister, it’s about choices. I can assure you we are going to continue to raise the issue of this clawback over and over and over again to support those families who feel like their worlds have been turned upside down by this government.

The Minister of Finance said in her budget speech that a budget is about making choices. On that point, I totally agree with her. The budget that has been tabled fails to honour the primary promise that the government — the Premier, specifically — made multiple times to British Columbians: that life would be more affordable under his government. By almost every single measure, the government has failed to deliver.

Added taxes, extra dollars for the Premier and cabinet, the cost to buy a home skyrocketing, the price of gasoline and gas taxes the highest in North America, no promised renters rebate or $10-a-day daycare, autism support being clawed back, no substantive plan or resources to deal with the increasing deaths due to the opioid crisis, little support for the business sector, no health human resources strategy, no mention of seniors in this budget — the list goes on.

The Premier promised British Columbians that life would be more affordable, and they believed him. This budget does nothing to help British Columbians deal with another crisis. This crisis falls squarely on the shoulders of this government, and that is the affordability crisis. Another broken promise. British Columbians deserve so much better.

M. Starchuk: Before I begin, I want to make some comments about the war in Ukraine. Having the last name of Starchuk, as many will know, puts me into Ukrainian roots. My grandparents left that country over 100 years ago under similar circumstances.

My aunt, who is the keeper of all genealogy, spoke with me recently and asked me if there was anything I could do. I told her, in the only way that a nephew could tell an aunt: “Of course I can.” She wanted me to a pass on a message. The message is simple: Mr. Putin, potsiluvati moya dupu.

[Ukrainian text provided by M. Starchuk.]

I’d also like to say thanks to all of those front-line workers, those people that have been out there day after day after day, risking their lives going through this pandemic, doing all of the right things, but risking their lives.

[4:00 p.m.]

I’m reminded of the other day in a rec centre of my constituency, stopping in and not even believing what I was seeing, because I would have never guessed that this would have been taking place two years later. Inside of the rec centre were some of my former colleagues in their uniforms administering the vaccines.

While it’s a nice skill to have as a firefighter, to be able to deliver those things, it’s not the setting that I ever thought it would be in. So thanks to those people that have taken their time out of their busy schedules, to put their four-on, four-off shifts and slide these other segments inside of their daily routines.

I want to start off with schools and child care, because they go hand in hand now. We see, in this year’s budget, the government embedding child care within the Ministry of Education. Having a daughter with two young children…. She’s looking forward to those days where she shows up at the school, drops off the kids and, at the end of the day, grabs them at the same place, knowing full well that there’s space there for them.

Many of the schools will include child care spaces, which is good news for families. Parents will know that there’s a space for their child in that public school. We’re working hard to bring that same certainty to child care. It’s all part of our government’s work to establish child care as the core service that it should be and that it’s available to a family that wants it when they need it at a price they can afford.

Last week I was at an opening of an elementary school in my riding, Maddaugh. It was one of the first elementary schools that was built with child care needs at hand. The school was open. It was open for learning. They had a “read under the stars” in the gymnasium during the day. This is a sign of the education system that’s coming in the future. We all like the art of music, and that school has a music room, and they have a teacher. The rendition that I heard of “We Will Rock You” with xylophones, plastic pipes, drums and ukuleles will never be forgotten.

Since 2017, Surrey has received $475 million in funding for schools. I’m going to read a list of additions and/or new schools that have come to Surrey.

Sullivan Elementary, eight new classrooms. Grandview Heights Secondary, a brand-new school with 60 new classrooms. Maddaugh, as I spoke to, a brand-new school with 25 classrooms. Coyote Creek Elementary, an addition of four classrooms. Regent Road Elementary, which I understand will be opening this September, is a new school with 27 classrooms.

Sullivan Heights Secondary, addition of 28 classrooms. White Rock Elementary, addition of eight classrooms. Sunnyside Elementary, an addition of ten classrooms. Morgan Elementary, addition of eight classrooms. Ta’talu Elementary — brand-new, LEED gold standard, 27 new classrooms.

K.B. Woodward, eight additional classrooms. South Meridian Elementary, eight additional classrooms. Semiahmoo Trail Elementary, ten additional classrooms. Kwantlen Park Secondary, 12 additional classrooms. Guildford Park Secondary, 18 additional classrooms. Tamanawis Secondary, 23 additional classrooms.

Coming soon is Snokomish Elementary, a new school with 27 new classrooms, which will have a neighbourhood learning centre for the community that will be built to a LEED gold standard as well.

This is an addition of 311 classrooms across the district in just four years. The school district, since 2014, has grown by over 5,000 students, and these 311 classrooms will no longer need the use of portables. The student growth that is there is being able to take those spaces and give those students a proper place to live. To put this in perspective, from 2014 to 2017, there were zero schools delivered in the city of Surrey.

This commitment that the government has put forward is a very aggressive capital program spend, and the students in my riding and across the city appreciate what’s happening.

[4:05 p.m.]

We’ve all heard it here: a new hospital is coming to Cloverdale. The hospital has made a little bit of controversy by the former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale. The former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale stated recently on a radio program that he didn’t think Cloverdale was the right location. The former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale also stated that he wanted to have a hard look at where it’s located. It would appear that the former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale doesn’t want Surrey to have a second hospital.

The former lands that were purchased when the former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale was in cabinet were located about six kilometres west of the current location, and it was in Panorama. I believe the member for Surrey-Panorama had spoken to this. The local area residents of Panorama were excited with the promise of a new hospital that was going to be coming to their community. Then years later, when the former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale was still in cabinet, sold the Panorama lands to a private developer.

Let’s make things very clear. The seniors that I’ve had conversations with are concerned of the comments from the former Surrey-Cloverdale MLA when he said that it wasn’t a great location. The people of Cloverdale believe emergent and urgent medical care is a priority. These seniors are concerned the comments made by the former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale could stall the project. To be clear, there is a hospital coming, and it will serve Cloverdale and the surrounding community.

Since our government has announced this in 2020, you can see the hospital has received funding in two consecutive budgets. On November 24, 2021, we announced a request for qualifications inviting teams to express their interest and qualifications for designing and building this new hospital. Through this process, Fraser Health will now identify up to three proponents who will be invited to participate in the request-for-proposal, RFP, stage.

These provincially owned lands are now rezoned. The city of Surrey gave its final reading to the rezoning and subdivision of the property on January 18 of this year.

The individual steps in this $1.6 billion project are on track and on schedule. Construction is scheduled to begin in the middle of 2023 with the hospital expected to be open for the patients of the summer of 2027.

Cloverdale was picked as a location because there’s a need for the increase of services in the area. My constituents want to be serviced by this hospital in Cloverdale. The growing seniors population is extremely pleased to know that when the hospital is ready, there is no need to worry about that drive of over 20 kilometres to another hospital when they’re seeking emergency medical attention.

I heard it from a senior who had a fall in their backyard last summer and laid there for a while trying to figure out how to get the neighbour’s attention. The whole time that she was there on the ground — and I give her credit for trying to prune those trees — she was wondering how she was going to be able to transfer herself all the way to SMH. When that conversation took place, we were talking about the possibility of a shorter drive. Whether or not it was done in an ambulance or in a taxicab or a neighbour’s car, it was assuring to her to know that there was one that was coming to Cloverdale.

Part of the hospital coming to Cloverdale is a regional cancer centre. We know from many people that we probably associate with that spending hours in traffic to get the treatment required to beat the disease just adds to the tension of healing. Having a regional cancer centre to serve the community will go a long way to easing the stressors while undergoing treatment for their cancer diagnosis.

I have not heard from any constituents who think Cloverdale does not deserve to be served by this hospital. I have not heard from any constituents who think Cloverdale doesn’t deserve a regional cancer centre. One has to wonder what the motivation of the former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale was to moving it from its current location.

[4:10 p.m.]

More recently the opposition has been categorizing the new Surrey hospital and cancer centre as a primary urgent care centre. I’m not sure how that happens. It has a certain amount of — whether the word is ridiculous…. But to call it a primary urgent care centre….

The first one that opened in Surrey, which was the fourth one in the province, was about $3.1 million. That’s a one-time capital cost. If I compare that to Kamloops, that was a $3.4 million capital cost. So to be calling the hospital an urgent care centre and spending $1.66 billion seems a little bit ridiculous. It’s the second-biggest health project in the province right now. The only project that’s bigger is the rebuild of St. Paul’s.

Urgent care centres don’t have ERs, operating rooms, in-patient beds. The new Surrey hospital will have all of those things.

While it’s true that it’s smaller than Surrey Memorial, there are very few hospitals of that size in the province. The new hospital of 168 beds is comparable to Langley and Peace Arch Hospital. I don’t think there is anybody here that would claim that Langley and Peace Arch are not real hospitals. I don’t think anybody from Langley or Peace Arch would say that they’ve got urgent primary care centres. I believe that they say they would have a hospital. It’s misleading to characterize the new hospital as an urgent care centre and not a full hospital.

The new Surrey hospital cancer centre will help meet the needs of the growing aging population in Surrey. The scope of the project includes 168 in-patient beds, an emergency department, medical imaging department that includes CTs and MRIs, surgical suite, pharmacy, laboratory and academic space. The new cancer centre will include an oncology ambulatory care unit; chemotherapy; radiation therapy; functional imaging, including PET and CT; cyclotron; and space for six linear accelerators. I don’t know what a linear accelerator is, but they’ve got space for six of them.

The scope of the project also includes a child care centre and underground surface parking. The hospital has been designed to achieve zero on-site carbon emissions and will be one of the first hospitals to achieve this status in Canada. Construction is planned to begin in the summer of 2023, as I’ve said, with the new facility planned to be open for patients in the summer of 2027. Again, $1.66 billion, fully funded by the province. So I’d have to ask: does this sound like an urgent primary care centre?

When you look at the developments of hospitals in other areas of the region, you’ll find vibrant growth around these hospitals. You take a look at Royal Columbian. You take a look at Surrey Memorial. What do you see around them? You see new communities. You see walkable communities. You see economic growth. The constituents of Surrey-Cloverdale are looking forward to being serviced by this new hospital in the near future and the community growth that comes with it.

Budget 2022 also includes $5.895 million over the next three years for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain. We’ve heard it in this House, and I jokingly say it here. It goes all the way from Surrey centre all the way to Langley. It’s not that far, but it is monumental in how it’s going to get people out of their vehicles. The project will be completed in 2028, after the government decided to take this on as their own project. That will be two years earlier than it was originally planned. It will include eight stations, three bus exchanges and park-and-ride spaces.

The work is already done in one area of Fraser Highway to relocate some of the utilities that need to be done in that area that’s there. That SkyTrain extension goes from a dead end over 30 years ago, where it has not moved an inch since then. I can happily say that in my riding, there will be two stops. The connectivity between SkyTrain and our new hospital will also be the connectivity to other areas of the city, into Campbell Heights.

[4:15 p.m.]

The Surrey SkyTrain project is going to bring many jobs to the area. There are a lot of local families that are in the area that will have those jobs, the jobs that we talked about creating in our jobs outlook, with all of the trades that were there.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that KPU — while not physically in my constituency, it does service the students of Cloverdale — has a top-notch trades program that is there. Talking to those students late last year about the prospects of working at the hospital across the street, or working at SkyTrain that is a few kilometres away, or the new schools that are coming — it made their days. The electricians, the carpenters, the welders were all looking forward to working in a place where they don’t have to cross a bridge to get themselves to work.

Last year’s fires, floods and other natural disasters were on the forefront of everything that we’ve seen. When I take a look at the budget, $145 million in new funding will strengthen B.C.’s emergency management and wildfire services. B.C. Wildfire Service will shift from a reactive, proactive approach by moving to a year-round workforce, and it’ll deliver the pillars of emergency management prevention: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

Throughout the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government accounts, we heard from across the province that we have to be more proactive on those items that are there. As a person who worked in the wildfires in 2003 — no secret here — I was scared to death being inside of there. I told people I would rather be in a four-storey wood-framed apartment fire with a half a tank of air on my back than ever go back into those forests.

What those men and women do out there is truly remarkable. It becomes disheartening at times for people to second guess the work that we’re doing, but that’s what Monday morning quarterbacks are good at.

Back in 2004, there was the Filmon report that was commissioned, and talked about a number of things that needed to be done within the wildfire service. Fuel management and other mitigation factors were mentioned in there, and nothing, that I am aware of, was ever enacted in that report of 2004.

Then there was another one that was performed in 2018, I believe — the Abbott report. Inside of that report, they started talking about FireSmart, and they talked about other mitigating factors that were inside of there. What this is doing is providing additional resources at emergency management B.C., so it will improve the things that they need to improve, like the public alerting system for wildfires, and better support people in the communities during real, climate-related events.

An additional $98 million over the plan to fund wildfire prevention work and maintain forest service roads to respond to forest fires. We’re going to talk about $210 million to support community climate change preparedness emergency management, including the FireSmart program, the community emergency preparedness fund, Indigenous-led emergency management priorities, and to support communities and First Nations to build more resilient dikes, floodplain mapping and other risk reduction activities.

When I read this, and you talk to the people that are out there, you can see the potential that our nations can create their own wildland firefighting forces. There are plenty of times when we have to go outside of the province and resource the people to work in B.C. Whether or not they’re coming from Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Australia, Mexico, they’re coming here. Well what better opportunity than this to provide the training and education to our nations, who have a vested interest in protecting the lands that they’re on.

The ability that is here to have one nation help out another nation, should there be a fire in theirs…. It’s staggering to believe that the opportunity is there now for them. They know the forests better than anybody else. They know the wildlife that’s there. They know the fruit and berries. They know what’s there. It’s theirs to protect. This gives them the opportunity, I believe, to participate in this.

[4:20 p.m.]

I also want to address the one part of the budget that talks about the increased risk of homelessness faced by former youth in care by improving how we support the thousands of young adults aging out of government care up to the age of 27. When we sat on that government Finance Committee, we heard from numerous groups, and we were given the stats of the bleak outlook that was there for these youth as they were basically told: “You’re 19. Goodbye.”

We now have the ability to provide the education and help to make them survive. Their homelessness rates were astounding, and when the government takes this on and moves it forward, this is a humanitarian effort that should not be forgotten.

Inside the report, we talk about watersheds. We talk about the investments that were there. That was the other part that we heard loud and clear as a Finance Committee — that we need to make sure that the grants are there to protect B.C.’s watersheds. We put that inside there with $30 million.

Probably as a bit of a data-wonk, building the data collection to pinpoint how and where and how we can do the mitigating for climate change…. The way that we forecast streams, the way that we take a look at the level of Okanagan Lake and how the water falls out of it and how the water comes into it, all of that data needs to come into the new world of what we have that’s there. We need to be able to protect those areas that are there, and we need to be able to forecast.

That goes back to the wildfires. Going full-time will allow the province to go into those areas of interface between the communities that are there and reduce the fuel on the forest ground. They’ll be able to get those funds to FireSmart their programs. When we take a look at Logan Lake, we take a look at an example that worked very well.

FireSmart is just exactly what it is. It’s a program that’s designed for someone to go out there, to provide you with the advice, to provide you with some of the funding and to reduce your chances of your property being affected in a forest fire — how to protect your property even, in some cases, from flooding. But again, that goes right back to being a proactive approach and having the new ministry take a look at this and bring it forward so that those people that have those properties, that have those interfaces, can deal with their own property in a very proactive way.

I go back to it and harp about it because I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I’ve seen all that’s there. We hear the stories from those constituents that love the beauty of the forest in their backyard, but they also live with the danger that’s associated with it when you have these climate events where there’s no rain for great lengths of time.

It’s my hope that the weather gods may help us out this spring and that we’ll be able to go out there and do the burns and cleans that we need to do to protect the properties that are there. It’s also important that the First Nations have that ability for their own burns that they do and resume what they were doing in the past.

This is at the tail end of a pandemic that everybody has been going through. I’ve said it here before: I think everybody is sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I believe I’ll close it off with what I feel as one of the members of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We heard from British Columbians what they wanted. We heard from British Columbians as to what they needed. We heard from British Columbians, from experts and from laypeople and from advocates, as to what they wanted to see to make British Columbia a better place to live and prosper.

[4:25 p.m.]

We heard about how to make jobs a priority. We heard about the environment. We heard about lands and waters. This budget reflects what that committee heard. I believe that as a committee, we heard what British Columbia wanted, and we delivered it in this budget.

A. Olsen: I’ll be the designated speaker for the B.C. Green caucus.

Today I’ll be building on the comments that I made in my response to the throne speech, where I highlighted the importance of the government to honour and respect the processes of this Legislative Assembly. Each process is a necessary step leading to the next one. Skipping steps makes it difficult for the public, media and, importantly, the members in this assembly, the members of the opposition, to hold the government accountable.

The point of the Speech from the Throne is to clearly lay out the vision, objectives and goals of the government so that when we take the next step to the budget, we can see the choices government has made to achieve their stated vision. These are the building blocks of democratic accountability. If respected, the processes of this assembly can produce an effective and, dare I say, efficient governing body that creates systems, which produces services for all the people.

It is timely for us in this chamber to consider democracy and autocracy. Democracy means that the power or authority is in the people. Autocracy means the power or authority is in the self or individual. We have agreed that we exist in a democracy. To advance our collective interest, this government was organized over a matter of hundreds of years. A series of checks and balances was created to regulate against the dangerous concentration of the power of the people into an individual or a small group of individuals.

For this institution to function properly, there must be a healthy, respectful tension between the government and the opposition. The government must not use their temporary access to this concentration of power and authority to limit the opposition from using tools they have to provide effective oversight of the government. Nor should the government interfere or obstruct the opposition’s ability to enforce the accountability of the government.

One of the highest values to be protected in this assembly is truth-telling. Without transparency, the credibility and integrity of the entire democratic institution is in question. Concentrating power and authority is incredibly tempting for humans. We are witnessing the terrible and tragic events of the unquenchable thirst to gain and maintain power right now in Europe.

I think this is one of the reasons why it’s troubling to hear any member of this assembly openly desire a majority government or to suggest that the only way this assembly can work well is if there is an unhealthy concentration of power and authority, because that is fundamentally antithetical to the proper functioning of this institution.

Majorities are the goal of another entity that lurks in the halls of this assembly: political parties. The goal of a democracy is to ensure that power and authority remains distributed and out of the reach of individuals or small groups of individuals, while political parties are that workaround. All the members of this assembly should be in service to our constituents who elect us.

Unfortunately, political parties pursue power and refocus the efforts of this institution. They create a four-year partisan race to see who can advance their own selfish interest, not those of our constituents. Autocracy, not democracy.

As the stewards of democracy, who are all part of a political party, the members in this assembly should always be vigilant and balance the interests of the people we serve with the aspirations of our political parties.

[4:30 p.m.]

Remember when the Premier went to the Lieutenant-Governor’s house to request an election? Remember when the Premier told British Columbians that they needed to elect a majority government to get anything done in this assembly? I don’t think the person who said those words will fashion themselves as an autocrat. However, the core of those words is autocratic.

In the summer of 2020, the Premier moved to concentrate more power into his office by gaining an overwhelming majority of seats for his political party. Indeed, the B.C. NDP captured 65 percent of the seats of this assembly with only 47 percent of the popular vote. However, it’s worse. Only 54.5 percent of eligible voters in British Columbia voted in the 2020 election, so essentially, the B.C. NDP secured 47 percent of the 54 percent of the voters who voted.

It is an astounding accomplishment, really, that basically one-quarter of the B.C. voters yielded a consolidation of power where the Premier enjoys an automatic confidence of 65 percent of the seats in this assembly — no questions asked. These are obedient votes. That’s precisely why the B.C. Green caucus expended so much energy in our fight for proportional representation and why I believe that minority governments are an essential component to a regulated, healthy distribution of power and authority in our democratic assembly.

Unfortunately, this B.C. NDP government, under this Premier and his chief of staff, are increasingly autocratic. Despite long consultation, community and stakeholder engagements, many who participate in these NDP processes describe them as exercises in futility. They go away feeling unheard, bitter, frustrated. This government is increasingly top-down, paternalistic, autocratic. Call it whatever suits you. Their approach is subverting our democracy.

Autocrats control the flow of information through the use of propaganda and political rhetoric. They are the most powerful tools autocrats use to preserve power and authority. A troubling sign of an increasingly brazen, autocratic government is the use of the public purse to control the message they want heard and to limit the access of the opposition, media and public to vital information they need to do their job. Indeed, I have seen numerous accounts of reporters complaining about the very small room that ministers of the Crown are now going to, to make their announcements, with no access to the media to ask questions.

This propaganda is a powerful tool to control the narrative and to confuse. It does not matter that life is not more affordable under this B.C. NDP government. Repeat it anyway, and eventually everyone — including the official opposition, apparently — begins chasing the message.

It is at that point that we are no longer debating what is actually going on but rather chasing each other around in a constructed alternate reality — basically a simulation. So when it comes to the annual budget, it takes weeks and months for the opposition, media, special interest organizations, academics and economists to cut through the rhetoric, cut through the noise that government has created to pitch their budget and to find out what is in the hundreds of pages dumped on the table in the form of the Minister of Finance’s speech, presentation, budget and fiscal plan, budget highlights, estimates, supplement to the estimates, ministry service plans and Crown agency service plans.

It’s important to get past the slogan “Making life more affordable for British Columbians” referenced endlessly in question period, government communications and this budget. Rhetoric like “stronger B.C.” is a powerful way to simply communicate complexity. So if the cabinet’s goals and objectives are to “make life more affordable,” the budget should show us how they are making life more affordable.

[4:35 p.m.]

This B.C. NDP government has been consistently building on this “making life more affordable” narrative for several years now. Don’t be confused if your life is not more affordable. The point is not necessarily to make life more affordable but to repeat it often enough that you believe that your life has indeed become more affordable.

It’s as if the more you say, “our lives are more affordable,” it will overwhelm the bitter taste of the growing unsustainable and unaffordable cost of our basic needs — shelter, food and fuel — and our consumptive wants that are increasingly out of reach for most people. Answers to questions about why the revenue that all of the spending in this budget is predicated on are actions that are detrimental to the stated outcomes of making life more affordable — those answers will never be forthcoming.

For example, this B.C. NDP government has created what they call a climate budget, one that forecasts increasing natural gas production and declining natural gas prices. They are spending billions of our dollars on responding to the devastation caused by climate change by accepting less actual value for the fossil fuels we are extracting, which are causing the climate emergency, and making up for it by ramping up the production of the climate emergency.

Then came the astonishing debate in question period over the past couple of days. Last summer I read the desperate pleas of my colleagues seeking relief from wildfires. Then those pleas turned to the devastation caused by the floods and the stifling heat dome that took hundreds of lives of British Columbians.

This is a challenging time, and we are all trying to act in response to the terrible and illegal attack by Russia on Ukraine. We know that at the root of this conflict is energy — specifically, fossil fuel production and distribution. My colleagues in the official opposition have been asking important questions about divesting Russian assets from British Columbia pension investments. Somehow, though, these questions morphed to the permits for the expansion of fracking, gas liquefaction and exports in British Columbia.

To be clear, we have no existing capacity to replace the loss of fossil fuel energy in Europe, to make up for the supply that has now been cut off from Russia. As a response, though, the official opposition is suggesting that we ramp up permits of fossil fuel production in B.C., while totally ignoring the reality that fossil fuels are exacerbating the climate emergency that has been so catastrophic for communities across our province.

We have the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy trying to limit the impact of climate change. At the same time, the Minister of Energy is ramping up production. That is a climate change budget in British Columbia? We have an official opposition that is apparently so out of touch that they’re leveraging a devastating war in Europe to try to increase the LNG industry in British Columbia at a time when we are facing a climate crisis caused in large part by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels.

Let’s add some context, shall we? The report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this week said the following: that any further delay will mean missing “a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and a sustainable future for all.” As Hoesung Lee, the chair of the IPCC, said: “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction. It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our well-being and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks…. Half measures are no longer an option.”

[4:40 p.m.]

As António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, said:

“I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this. Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership. People and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change. Nearly half of humanity is living in the danger zone now. Many ecosystems are at the point of no return now. Unchecked carbon pollution is forcing the world’s most vulnerable on a frog march to destruction now. The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal. The world’s biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home.”

As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We know the significant risks climate change poses to our health and safety, and we know the climate plays a decisive role in shaping the trajectory of peace and prosperity in the world. While political and economic decisions are the primary drivers of conflict, climate change will increase as a threat to global and local stability.”

I could go on. However, I don’t think I need to say anything else to underscore the complete absurdity that has been displayed in this assembly over the past couple of days. The fact that the official opposition would advance the notion that we should use these intersecting crises, now including a war in Europe, to expand fossil fuel production and combustion, creating a bigger climate emergency, bigger town-destroying fires, more dangerous deluges, is asinine.

We should be doing everything we can to transition as quickly as possible, not making new investments in fossil fuel infrastructure. Most certainly, we should not be investing public money to subsidize multi-billion-dollar multinational fossil fuel corporations.

It is important to be honest about the fact that we aren’t creating or changing systems in B.C. to reduce the output of fossil fuel extraction or the impact of our forestry practices. We are spending on a disaster response. There is absolutely nothing in the budget for conservation financing. The biggest increase in funding under climate change is for the CleanBC program for industry.

The climate actions in this budget are largely inequitable. PST exemptions and rebates on zero-emission vehicles and heat pumps require you first to be able to afford a vehicle and a house. Then you must be able to afford making an investment in those assets. Most British Columbians are finding it more difficult to stretch their income to meet their basic needs. They don’t have the ability to grab a fistful of cash from an endless money pit. Most British Columbians can’t just borrow billions of dollars against their future. Most of the climate actions in this budget are designed for the privileged, the CEOs, tenured university professors.

We must be honest about our response to the climate emergency. If we are going to borrow billions of dollars against our future, then let’s make sure it improves our future. The missed opportunity in Budget 2022 is not going further than a basic response — frankly, a dishonest attempt to misrepresent the impact of the extreme weather events — when what is needed are dramatic investments in transformative change to protect and improve our relationship with the land and water.

For the past five years now, the B.C. NDP have touted their efforts to build affordable housing. When we asked the Minister of Finance to reconcile the obvious conflict of interest created by revenue generated by the property transfer tax, she just stands up and repeats that it’s her goal to make life more affordable. Then she goes on to list her ever-reliable list of accomplishments, like eliminating the MSP several years ago — the “largest middle-class tax break in a generation” — cracking down on housing speculation and so on. The list is long. We’ve all heard it.

The Minister of Finance never reconciles the issue that our increasingly unsustainable housing market actually benefits the bottom line of her budget directly. Let’s not pretend this is the Lego Movie with our very own home­grown Tegan and Sara song, “Everything Is Awesome” soundtrack, reinforcing our own narrative. Overall, life is not more affordable for all British Columbians. This is most certainly true with respect to the cost of housing in most communities in this province.

[4:45 p.m.]

With respect to reconciliation and Indigenous relations, I see this government has finally created a secretariat to coordinate the efforts of cabinet, fulfilling the mandate provided by the Premier, their service plan and the commitment made unanimously in this assembly on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, the Declaration Act. Who do we hold accountable for that work and the $12 million budget — the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, the Premier’s office? This secretariat has the potential of 18 staff. I can imagine that the three-year budget commitment will be sucked up by HR and administrative costs alone.

I ask the question. If Indigenous reconciliation is a commitment of this government — and, as the Minister of Finance suggests, the budget reflects the cabinet’s choices — then this B.C. NDP has either little or no priority on the 79 actions in their 79-point action plan. I see nowhere in any of the estimates of the cabinet a line item for actual action on the action plan. Are the actions being funded through the base budgets of each ministry? If so, good luck.

This B.C. NDP government tells you that it is important, but then it puts zero priority in the budget to fuel the important work of reconciliation that this Legislative Assembly committed to over two years ago.

I hear the government talk a lot about protecting the health and well-being of British Columbians. Thousands of people in my riding alone are without access to equitable, universal primary health care.

In the early days, the B.C. NDP embarked on an ambitious program developing primary care networks, team-based primary health care. However, the minister got bogged down in politics — politics of the doctors and party politics. The unwillingness of this B.C. NDP to confront head-on the internal politics of physicians and the remuneration models, with our constituents at the centre of their work, and the desire of the B.C. NDP, as a political party, to be able to announce patient attachment numbers or the need to celebrate ribbon cuttings forced a change midstream. The focus went away from primary care networks and, instead, focused on health authority–run urgent care centres.

The difference between these UPCCs and PCNs is big. PCNs, or primary care networks, create longitudinal care for people, whereas UPCCs, or urgent care centres, are more like walk-in clinics offering episodic care.

I’ve heard from the experts in my community that the UPCC model has been disastrous on the delivery of longitudinal care for my constituents. Primary care providers locked into fee-for-service models cannot compete with health authority–operated UPCCs. Health authorities are poaching medical assistants and doctors, yet they never have to show the actual numbers of these UPCCs.

We hear the minister and his government tout the success, but they’re not showing their work. How much does a patient visit at a UPCC actually cost? Is it $31, $250? How many people do they see in an hour? How many patients have actually been attached? Even though these questions are never answered publicly, in Budget 2022, this government is expanding the UPCC model by 26. How are we evaluating the success of the UPCCs — by the increased number of ribbon cuttings?

Let me be clear. I heard it from the family physicians in my riding. The primary care networks that the Minister of Health was originally invested in were a good model. It was just poorly executed.

[4:50 p.m.]

I continue to hear that this ministry is increasingly autocratic. They don’t listen to the advice from the grass roots. The program is top down, paternalistic, not evidence-based — unless the goal is to destabilize primary care delivery in every community where UPCC doors have opened.

How many articles have been written about family physicians walking away from their practices? Frustration, exhaustion, anger and resentment are being repackaged as retirement. Let’s be honest about what is happening to the equitable, universal primary health care in this province. It is being undermined and eroded, because the minister and members of this assembly are more engaged in petty politics than actual evidence-based decision-making.

Need I remind this government that very recently a government in Nova Scotia changed because more than 150,000 Nova Scotians didn’t have access to longitudinal primary health care? This issue is motivating my constituents, just like it is motivating constituents across the capital region, Metro Vancouver, the Interior, the coast, the southeast and the North.

How did they solve this issue in Manitoba? Well, rather than autocratic, top-down decisions and provided cover by slogans, they listened to the communities. They actually got down into the grass roots and provided funding for solutions that were developed for the people, by the people, in the community. Instead of doubling down on an autocratic approach in Manitoba, they embraced a democratic one.

One doctor in my community said to me that they don’t believe this government cares for the health of its citizens. It’s a doctor in my community saying that they don’t believe this government actually cares for the health of British Columbians. How did we get there? You can say it’s ridiculous, but how did we get to a position where that exists? It’s time to build services from the ground up.

Look, I can understand that this is an emotional topic, and it’s one that conjures a response. That’s something that the cabinet on that side of the table and the government on this side of the House need to reflect on, because I didn’t make that up. I’m giving voice to people in our community that are speaking to it. So if it’s something that is conjuring an emotion within you, then you need to have that conversation around the cabinet table, because it exists. Pretending like it doesn’t is a mistake.

It’s time that we build the services from the ground up — a community-informed response, rather than the top-down, autocratic approach that this ministry has been taking on this particular issue. What is outrageous is that this B.C. NDP government is now sitting on the sidelines while a corporate tech giant and others disrupt our universal health care model, entrenching access to the layers of services based on privilege.

Back in 2007, this Minister of Health decried the Copeman clinic for finding cracks in our policy to establish basic primary care accessible by all and premium services available only to those who can afford the premium fees attached. To be clear, the so-called premium services — prevention, screening, access to diagnostics — were always part of a primary health care plan. However, astonishingly, this Minister of Health, who apparently believes in equitable, universal health care, is justifying these changes by defending the fact that this company is B.C.-based.

Sure, the minister will always be able to say to British Columbians that there is episodic primary health care services, walk-in clinics, in person or virtual, paid for by billing the government. However, if you want premium services, then you must be able to pay an initiation and annual membership fee for the longitudinal health care club. Think of it like a private and public golf club. Even poor people can golf, but you need an ivory tower to golf in the Uplands.

[4:55 p.m.]

What is the impact of the emergence of Telus and others in the primary health care sector? Well, according to the health care providers in my community, they’re also poaching medical practitioners and paying them much larger salaries than can be afforded by primary care providers working under the fee-for-service model.

However, they’re also picking and choosing their clientele through an extensive weeding-out process. All of the complex care cases — like the 90-year-old patient with everything wrong with them, the one that costs more than the clinic can recover…. Well, they’re left out in the cold.

If this is a people-centred budget, then the B.C. NDP have a different definition of people-centred than I do. It feels like the Minister of Health knows that these programs are failing, and he is hoping that the likes of Telus can sweep in under the radar and provide services that he is not delivering. Perhaps that’s why he was so visibly shaken when I shone some daylight on this in question period. Well, he’s going to have to answer for these decisions because, as one family physician in my riding said to me recently: “There will be a reckoning. They should have listened to us, but they have ignored doctors for years.”

Primary health care is just one of many health care challenges to be tackled by the government. With more than 8,000 deaths in British Columbia since the public health emergency was called in 2016 due to toxic drugs, exposing our lacking mental health and addiction services, we have been trying to get this B.C. NDP government to act with urgency to decriminalize, destigmatize and provide an accessible safe supply to protect lives. The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions rises in this assembly to openly discuss her initiatives often. However, the response has never really been urgent enough, nor has it gone far enough.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Many advocates openly and regularly question the B.C. NDP government’s commitment to solving these issues. The Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions does not stand on its own. It is within the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health delivers, through health authorities, much of the programming for Mental Health and Addictions. The Minister of Health speaks very little on mental health and addictions. He rarely mentions these words. Frankly, it’s left many wondering whether he supports the initiatives or whether he is an obstruction to them.

I’ve tried in question period to get his perspective on the record, yet he stayed seated. And then I was called a bunch of names on Twitter for apparently undermining the authority of the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions by asking the Minister of Health this important question. So if the Minister of Health is indeed not an obstruction and an impediment that some consider him to be, then he needs to take the opportunity in this assembly or one of the many media interviews he does to provide unqualified support for decriminalization, destigmatizaton and safe supply programs in British Columbia. There is no harm in our Minister of Health saying those words on the record.

As I noted earlier, the B.C. budget is a sprawling collection of information, and over the coming weeks we’ll better understand whether this B.C. NDP government has got us closer to the goal of making life more affordable for British Columbians. Does this budget create a more fair and just society? Is there greater equity on behalf of all citizens?

I have given a handful of examples where the initiatives are not necessarily accessible or applicable to all British Columbians. I think about an issue that I have raised several times over the years. AccessBC has been advocating for free contraception for British Columbians for a long time. As a cis male, contraception is widely available to me. There are numerous places I can access a lifetime supply of free or nearly free condoms. However, for virtually all other British Columbians, contraception is expensive, and the public health care system must get involved to provide prescriptions.

Toilet paper is widely available in every public washroom. However to access menstrual products, those, in most places, are something you have to pay for. There is inequity in the decisions that are being made by this government.

[5:00 p.m.]

In the B.C. NDP’s 2020 election platform, right there on page 14, under the heading “Making Health Care More Affordable,” is the promise. It reads: “Making contraception free: cost should not prevent individuals, particularly young people, from their right to make choices about their reproductive health. While condoms can be easily found for little or no cost and vasectomies are covered under MSP, prescription contraception is not covered. It’s time to make contraception free for all.”

When? Not in the 2021 budget. In Budget 2022, the notion of free contraception for all remains a goal for a future time. Why? Why has this B.C. NDP government not found the resources to make good on this election promise? It’s a promise that is supported by all the political parties represented in this assembly.

The Premier tweeted, just a few days before the 2020 election day — on the same account that he uses as the Premier, I might add: “Cost shouldn’t be a barrier to making choices about reproductive health. We’ll change that, making sure everyone can access the contraception they need. #BCelxn2020, #bcvotes.”

The Premier remained seized with the idea of free contraception for all in the early days following the election, when he produced the Minister of Health’s mandate letter. On page 14, it says: “Make prescription contraception free for all.”

I make a big deal about this issue because, well, it’s a big deal for millions of British Columbians. It makes no sense that this issue has not been solved yet. As the Minister of Finance has said, budgets are about choices, and it does not appear that making good on the promise of free contraception for all is a choice that this government was willing to make, at least for two successive budgets.

I will continue to raise my concerns about the autocratic trends that are emerging in this assembly. Government must be mindful of its responsibility to the people of British Columbia through this institution. Confidence in our work in this chamber is founded in truth-telling, in the openness and transparency of those entrusted with the greatest amount of power and authority, in the respect those members of the government pay the accountability measures given the opposition to guard the public’s interest in this democratic government.

There is always the potential for members to try to consolidate more power than any one person or small group of individuals should have in this assembly. When political parties and individuals lose sight of whom they are to serve and accept — or desire a majority, even a false majority — this institution becomes increasingly secretive. That is not in the interest of democracy, and it must be treated as a move towards autocracy. Let’s call it what it is. Any move towards autocracy is a selfish and self-interested act. In our system, power must reside in the people and is only temporarily bestowed on a government and members of this Legislative Assembly.

Budget 2022 is largely a status quo budget. Sure, there are investments. Sure, many of the investments are new. But every one of the B.C. NDP’s budgets have featured flashy expenditures. Cutting through the rhetoric, the “Making life more affordable” slogan, the B.C. NDP must be honest about the situation that we’re confronted with. But they’re mostly concerned with their communications plan, maintaining the controlled, celebratory, silly narrative that their random, episodic interventions are amounting to overall greater affordability for British Columbians.

The erosion of the role of the opposition in this assembly is deeply challenging. We, as the members of the opposition, must re-centre ourselves around what our role is in holding the government accountable on behalf of all British Columbians.

[5:05 p.m.]

I believe it’s time that this assembly pulls up its bootstraps. This must remain a democratic assembly. The opposition is the oversight of this operation. We must have teeth. So let’s go back to the beginning. Every act here is a deliberate and necessary act. We do not serve here at the pleasure of the Premier and his cabinet, ideologically and obediently defended by a political tribe, populating seats in this chamber through a false majority.

We serve here on behalf of the people of British Columbia. It is their interests that must be defended first, long before the colours of our banners. If we do a good job, then they may choose us to form the next government. That should be the outcome of our effective work, not the goal. Unfortunately, for political parties, it has become the goal. So political parties in this assembly need to be reminded of their proper place in our democratic institution: subordinate.

Through the throne speech, the government should clearly articulate their vision and objectives. In the budget, we see how they’re going to activate their vision by where they spend our money, or our future money. They make their choices and priorities known. In the coming weeks, I and my colleagues in the opposition will engage in detailed debates in budget estimates, each minister with their priorities. I hope that the quality of their responses increases and that the excessive time-wasting decreases.

With that, I will take my seat, having completed yet another necessary step in the cycles of this governance institution. I hope that with each one, I am improving the quality of our collective service to the people of British Columbia.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM.

Deputy Speaker: Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development — except it probably has a new name now.

Hon. K. Conroy: Yes, it does — very excited about that and very happy to be here.

I’d first like to recognize the Indigenous nations on whose traditional territory we’re all gathered today. I’m pleased to join you today from the territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking people, the Songhees and the Esquimalt Nations.

Last week, our government announced the latest round of investments brought forth in Budget ’22, all of which will help improve the lives of British Columbians and build a stronger B.C. — not what I would call flashy announcements. I would call them really sound announcements, really sound investments in the people of B.C., in the people of this province.

Last year was unprecedented. We had record flooding, and then we went to unprecedented wildfires. The last couple of years have been so challenging for so many British Columbians. I know the Speaker is well aware of this. We spent some time travelling together last summer and looking at the horrible devastation to Lytton and other communities.

The past season, the Premier and I — I believe there were a couple times that the Speaker joined us — flew over those fire-ravaged landscapes, and we visited the impacted communities. As I mentioned, what was announced, this new funding, during the budget…. We toured over Lytton, and we spoke to the devastated residents. We spoke to the wildfire professionals, the people that were out fighting the fires.

Some of those people we spoke to, some of those firefighters, had lost their homes, while still out there fighting other fires. One firefighter said to me that while he was out fighting another fire, he got a text from his wife. All it said was: “It’s gone. It’s all gone.” He didn’t know what she was talking about. He did not know what she was talking about until he got back into cell range and could actually try to get hold of her to find out what she was talking about.

[5:10 p.m.]

We had a really long chat about what had happened and how it had affected so many people. Then he said something that just astounded me and astounded the Premier. We were both quite taken by this.

He said: “I’m going back out to fight the fires.” He said: “My family is safe. They’re where they need to be right now, and I’m going to go back out and fight fires.” He was part of the rattlers, they call themselves, Indigenous firefighters based out of Lytton. That commitment to not only wanting to fight fires, to accepting what’s happened, but getting back out there — it stayed with us.

He also spoke about wildfire mitigation, and how we need that in this province. They talked about the need for work to be done on a year-round basis. Talked about the need for…. Who better to do it, actually, than firefighters? People that truly understand firefighting, truly understand wildfires. For them to be able to do the mitigation, it just made sense.

I also had the chance to tour a number of the fire camps and talk to people. Not only talk to people from across the province who gathered to fight fires every year — they come from all over the province to get together to fight these fires — but also from other provinces across Canada and other countries. I had the pleasure of meeting with the delegation — the firefighters from Australia.

What resonated with me is the firefighters said that they’re from Australia, where they’re used to fighting wildfires. They have significant issues with wildfires. But he said never in their lives had they seen such an erratic fire as what they saw last summer. Never had they been faced with the consequences of a fire and what they saw. They also said — and I’ve got to give these kudos to the people fighting the fire — they have never seen such a well-managed system of fighting the fires.

All of that goes to the people that are fighting the fires — those people that are based in those fire camps that are based in our firefighting centres across the province who do such an amazing job. They said how eye-opening it was for them to come and be part of that this year. I saw the devastation at Monte Lake and Paxton Valley, and toured the Okanagan Indian Band with Chief Louis and not only saw the destruction of his nation, but we saw the benefits of cultural burning. We saw how the FireSmart program was working.

The interesting thing with the cultural burning is Chief Louis took us to his aunt’s home and showed us how she has been doing cultural burning for years. She’s in her 80s. She’s getting more help with it now. She used to do some of it by herself, but now she’s getting help, he said, and her place was a little oasis, surrounded by all these other places that had been burnt by this erratic wildfire. We saw that in a number of places, where one house would be untouched and the house right next door was gone. It made us go: “Oh my gosh. We have to do more.”

We also saw how the FireSmart program worked. When we flew over Logan Lake and saw how the fire had come right up to the edge of the community and then veered away, and saw the effects of the work that that community has been doing for years, and saw how what they had done was actually working and saw how it saved their community…. We witnessed firsthand what adaption looks like during challenging and devastating conditions, and what that looks like. The countless examples of resiliency, compassion, and a real strong spirit of community and pulling together.

It reminds me of my visit…. A couple of times, I was at the fire camp in Vernon. The community banded together, because there was a lot of negativity, and it was being tweeted about as: “This was wrong and that was wrong.” Those firefighters — it’s interesting when you speak to them. A lot of young men and women. They don’t get their news, when they’re in the fire camp, by watching the different news on TV. They get it from their phones. They pick up their cellphone and they get the news.

What they were getting were these disparaging comments about the work they were doing, and that’s how they saw it. That’s how they felt it. The community took that to heart. The community of Vernon got out there, and every day they were out there supporting and cheering on the firefighters.

[5:15 p.m.]

They were there first thing in the morning. Some of those firefighters went to work at four o’clock in the morning. They were cheering them on at four o’clock in the morning, and then they were there at night when they came back. I met some of those community members, and they said: “We just want these firefighters to know how incredible they are, give them support, tell them we love them, we love what they’re doing. And we just want them to know how much they’re appreciated.”

The firefighters took that to heart. They couldn’t talk enough about how much that helped them to get through those trying times. It’s long days, long hours and, like I said, an incredible firefighting season.

We know that climate change is contributing to dryer and hotter summers, resulting in an extended wildfire season, and it’s highly likely that this trend will continue. I mean, yes, we just saw the three worst years of firefighting that occurred in our last five years in this province, and we’re all concerned about the impact on our lives, our homes, our local economies and forests.

That is why our government announced in this budget that we are making significant investments to transform the B.C. Wildfire Service into a year-round service and shift from a reactive approach to a proactive approach. We took the advice we got from firefighters, we took the advice we got from municipalities, from Indigenous nations. We took that to heart.

As part of Budget ’22, we are providing $145 million in new funding that will strengthen B.C.’s emergency management and wildfire services. This model will allow us to deploy highly skilled B.C. Wildfire Service staff, including incident management experts, to assist with natural hazard responses year-round. They can now do this, be employed 12 months of the year and be able to do this mitigation work that so many people have been asking for. So many of the nations have been asking for it; the municipalities have been asking for it.

We will also increase the capacity to strengthen our relationships with First Nation governments to develop wildfire mitigation and preparedness strategies. I can’t remember the number, but a significant number of nations reached out and said they wanted their members to get the training so that they could protect their nations. They wanted their people to learn more about the FireSmart programs and to be out there and do that work.

As well, we will improve our ability to work with communities on cross-training and planning for cultural and prescribed fire projects. I don’t know how many of them…. It wasn’t just Chief Louis who said that. It was other nations who said they wanted to be involved in cultural burning.

It’s not just the First Nations that have said that. It’s people that are really involved in the wildlife conservation. They recognize how beneficial prescribed burnings are to wildlife in our province as well. As we move forward, we know we will be better placed to expand our wildfire community engagement with stakeholders and enhance our public education and awareness activities.

In addition to this vital new funding, there is capital investment of over $26 million over three years that will be used to upgrade B.C. Wildfire Service facilities and fire camp infrastructure to make sure we are equipped for wildfire and natural hazard responses, to make sure we have those really important pieces of equipment, like the sprinklers that go on top of roofs in communities. I definitely saw them at Logan Lake and saw them in other communities where they saved homes. To have that kind of infrastructure — to have the proper hoses, to have the proper equipment — is so critically important.

We talked to our wildfire folks in the different fire centres across the province that I visited. Our provincial centre, Kamloops, talked to them there, and that was one of the things they said. We need to make sure that we have the equipment needed to fight these fires.

We also have an additional $98 million over the fiscal plan that will fund wildfire prevention work and maintain crucial forest service roads used to respond to forest fires, like those roads that are utilized to get the equipment in so they can actually fight the fires.

Budget ’22 also provides $90 million in community grants for the FireSmart program to help make homes and communities safer from wildfire risk. We are doing this in collaboration with the Union of B.C. Municipalities so communities can apply for this funding. Also, we’re working with the Indigenous nations to apply for the funding.

We can look at communities. I know in my own community, it was quite frightening in the beginning of the year. There was a fire just outside of Castlegar.

[5:20 p.m.]

My father and his friend got evacuated and had to come to stay at my house for a night. It was frightening, and it showed me…. When you watch the collaboration between communities, so between the city of Castlegar firefighting department, the regional district of Central Kootenay…. Actually, the fire was on their land right outside of the community, so they were in charge. Then, of course, B.C. Wildfire Service. They were involved as well. To see that collaboration amongst all the different levels of government, to see everybody working together, was really incredible.

But also to hear people saying: “We have to do more of the mitigation work. We have to do more to protect our communities.” Now there’s $90 million to do this. I don’t think that’s, as the previous member…. The member for Saanich North and the Islands said that we’re making flashy announcements. I don’t think that’s flashy. I think that’s substantial. I think people are looking for it. They want it. People recognize that climate change is an issue, and we need to be prepared for these disasters.

In addition, the community emergency preparedness fund will receive $120 million to support communities and First Nations to build more resilient dikes and do that floodplain mapping to be able to assess the risks, to map flood hazards and develop a broad range of flood risk reduction options, including potential upgrades to orphaned dikes by local governments. We need to make sure that we have those dikes in place, that we can do that assessment to assess the risk of future flooding.

These investments are about people and our plan to support communities as we cope with the ongoing impacts of climate change, which are significant. There are significant dollars that have been invested for the coming years to ensure that we have the funding, we have the people that can do that work, that can do the mitigation. So I’m really happy those funds have been announced in Budget ’22. Good things for many communities across the province.

It also is a time of great change in British Columbia. One thing that remains constant is how important forestry is to British Columbians, how important it is to our province. It is and will always be an important industry for our province. The vast majority of British Columbians care both about our forests and forestry jobs.

This past June, through the intentions paper, we released our modernizing forestry policy. Our government put forward a vision for strengthening B.C.’s forest sector. Our new vision for forestry is one where we take better care of our oldest and most ancient forests, where Indigenous peoples are full partners in sustainable forest management and where workers and communities benefit from secure, innovative forestry jobs for generations to come.

For me, it’s generations to come. I can’t stress that enough. I know how…. I said to a group of people…. I’ve said it before; I’ve probably said it in this House a few times. I’ve got nine grandchildren, and if those grandchildren want to work in the forest industry — right now the youngest is five; the oldest is 21 — I want to make sure they have the opportunity to work in a sustainable, resilient forest industry that’s here for them to be able to work in.

I also want to make sure that they have the opportunity to walk in an old-growth forest, have the opportunity to see the benefits of an old-growth forest for all of us when it comes to climate change and mitigation, in that sense. So I want to make sure that we have those in place.

I was actually really happy, too. This last summer my oldest granddaughter actually did work at the local pulp mill in Castlegar, where she was a summer student. She was the fourth generation in our family to work in the same pulp mill. I want to make sure that if she’s still in Castlegar…. She’d probably say: “No way, Granny. I’m moving on.” If you’re still in Castlegar when you have kids, honey, I hope your kids can work in that pull pulp mill too, because I think it’s really important that we have the opportunity to ensure that we have a forest industry for generations to come.

To realize this, we’re making policy choices to build a more diverse, inclusive sector and better share all the benefits of our forests with local communities — with smaller value-added operators and, most importantly, with First Nations rights and title holders. And we are working to implement the 14 recommendations of the old-growth strategic review and transform how the province manages its old-growth forests.

I’m pretty sure…. I know, definitely, the members from the Green caucus are very supportive of this review. I know, definitely, our members are all supportive of it. I hope the members opposite are also very supportive, because the majority of the people in the province support the old-growth strategic review recommendations.

[5:25 p.m.]

They consulted with hundreds, actually thousands of people when they did their strategic review. They got feedback from thousands of people through emails, through direct contact, through phone calls, through many, many meetings. Thousands of people provided their support towards that.

I’ve heard from people who are concerned about the potential impacts of the temporary deferrals in the forest sector. I want to assure all — like, everyone — that we hear you and that we’re bringing together strategically coordinated and comprehensive provisions to help forest workers, communities and First Nations with the necessary supports to offset job and economic impacts that may follow new harvest restrictions.

In our budget, Budget 2022, it provides $185 million over three years to support forestry workers and communities that are affected by old-growth logging deferrals. With the $19 million coming from this year’s budget that still can be utilized till the end of this fiscal year, that’s over $200 million to support forestry workers and communities.

These programs will include connecting workers and contractors with short-term employment opportunities and providing education and skills training. Now, we’ve talked to workers who’ve said: “You know, I recognize that this job might not be here for me, and I actually am interested in this and want the training for it.” We’re looking at ways to support people so they can get that training, so they can move to different jobs.

We’re looking at ways to support…. You know, if one spouse might work in the forest industry, and the other might not, then the other spouse might want to get better training or new training to be able to move into a different type of job. We’re looking at that too. We’re looking at it as a family, as a collective unit.

Funding will also support the bridging to retirement program, which will provide up to $75,000 to eligible forestry workers and contractors 55 years or older to transition to retirement. I know there have been some — I wouldn’t say disparaging — comments about this program. But when we did this program in 2019, it was oversubscribed. There were more people that wanted to do this program than we had enough funding for. People said they want to bridge to retirement. They want to do that and ensure that younger people can stay working in the industry. That’s what we’re going to do.

The province will also work in partnership with businesses and communities to develop new supports that’ll assist rural communities to create jobs through diversified economies and infrastructure projects and innovation and industry. And this is over $200 million. I can’t stress that enough — that we are there to work with people to ensure that we have a forestry sector for years to come. The government will be with those people every step of the way to make sure that we’re there to help you with it.

In this time of challenge — of wildfires, drought and floods — our goal is to attack climate change from all sides. Climate change has fuelled our devastating wildfires and the mountain pine beetle epidemic that we’re still feeling the repercussions of. It impacts the air we breathe, the burning of our forests, the flooding of our lands, in some cases causing devastation in entire communities.

It’s why we’re working so hard on these issues, taking action to reduce greenhouse gases and waste and identifying new technologies and opportunities that will help government and industry to meet our long-term climate goals so families, communities, the forestry sector and our climate itself can thrive for generations to come.

The forest bioeconomy is one of the key pathways of our CleanBC Roadmap to 2030. This includes actions like growing and caring for B.C.’s natural carbon sinks, supporting investment in bioproduct development and integrated manufacturing, and minimizing slash pile burning, while encouraging better fibre utilization.

To support this work, Budget ’22 allocates funding of $22 million over three years. It’s allocated to promote emissions and reductions in B.C.’s forests. We’ve already had companies reaching out to us, saying they want to work with us on this. There’s been some incredible work done by the forest innovations at UBC.

Minimizing slash piles. People in the Interior…. I mean, not too many people did slash pile burning. It doesn’t happen too often in the Lower Mainland, but in the Interior, people see those huge piles being burned. It’s the smoke, the greenhouse gas, all those things, where these piles could be utilized in a better way. They can be utilized in pulp mills. They can be utilized in pellet plants. They can be utilized in the bioeconomy where we have to say we need to use our fibre in a better way. We have to ensure we’re using all the fibre, that we’re not letting it go to waste in the forest by burning it.

[5:30 p.m.]

So $22 million over three years is allocated to make sure that we do just that. This includes $50 million over the fiscal plan to strengthen B.C.’s forests, to improve their ability to sequester carbon, another really important thing about our forests, and also $4 million over the fiscal plan to expand the Indigenous forest bioeconomy program to include an accelerator program.

We’ve heard from Indigenous Nations who want to be part of this. They want to work together with us, so we’re really excited about that. It’ll help participants commercialize and scale up innovative forest-based products. Supporting innovation is a key to achieving our goals for the forestry sector. It’s part of our vision to modernize forestry; to create new, sustainable jobs and low-carbon products that are marketable at home and around the world; and to fight climate change, so we can sustain our forests for life and create secure jobs through innovation.

I just want to say a few things that have happened with this budget, in our area, which have been hugely beneficial to the people of the Kootenays. I think one of them that I just want to comment on is the building of housing at Selkirk College.

There’s been no new housing at Selkirk College for many, many years, and the fact that we have been able to announce this new housing at Selkirk has been a huge boon to our community. It has total project funding of $24.5 million. It’s going to create 148 new student housing beds using modular wood construction. I can’t tell you how happy people are, because it benefits the entire community, not just the students at Selkirk College.

I also want to acknowledge the work done at the regional hospital in Trail, which is a regional hospital for our entire region. The ministry is continuing to invest in the regional district Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital. I’ve had the fortune to be able to see some of the new areas and see the ongoing renovations. It is just a huge impact to our community, and I can’t tell you how much that benefits the people of the region for years to come.

One thing I do want to acknowledge is the investment in schools in our region. We are getting a brand-new school in Glenmerry, scheduled to be completed in 2024. I want to thank the Minister of Education, the former and previous, for that good work, because it will be finished, and people in the community are so incredibly excited about it.

Our budget has incredible opportunities for people. It is not flashy. It is solid. It is going to improve the lives of British Columbians. It’s improving lives as we speak and will as we move forward. It is something that I know that, in many people’s ministries, there’s a lot of really good work that came through this budget and will continue to help people in this province for generations to come.

With that, I thank you and take my seat.

C. Oakes: It truly is a pleasure and an honour to rise today to speak on behalf of the constituents of Cariboo North.

Sometimes I sit in this House and I listen to the members of the NDP government, and I feel that we are absolutely in a different universe. For the Minister of Forests to stand up in this House and talk about how rosy and how great everything is in the province of British Columbia, how you have workers’ backs and how you’re putting all these things forward, when at 4:50 a.m., 700 workers in the province of British Columbia just received temporary layoff notices…. Where is the money to support those families? Where is the money to support those workers?

I’ve heard the Minister of Forests stand in this House on multiple occasions and talk about — and she even said it today — the potential impacts that could happen and that they are strategically aligning all of these supports for people in the forest economy. Yet here today, just moments ago, as I get off the phone talking to workers and talking to families impacted, I hear from this minister all of the great, grandiose things that will be done.

To this government, I’d like to see action. I want to see how the money in this budget that she just announced is going to get into the hands of people in my community and in communities right across this province — and for those 700 workers that have just been impacted, less than a half an hour ago — before the minister gets up and delivers a speech.

[5:35 p.m.]

I want to know where people will find the supports. This government repeatedly says that they have your back. Where are those supports?

The minister stands up and talks about this grand, new vision for the Wildfire Service. How disrespectful to the people of the Cariboo wildfire service and to the Blackwater crew that have been working year after year, year-round, to make sure that they’re FireSmart in our communities, to make sure they’re making investments, whether they’re doing the rehabilitative work in Barkerville, whether they’re making sure they’re doing these investments.

They come up. They make these announcements that these are new investments: “We’re doing this new, grand scale.” Well, look, people on the ground have been doing this work. For the government to stand here in this House and say that this is somehow new that we’re making new investments, it’s disrespectful for the people that are in our communities that are working hard every single day.

Sometimes I sit in this Legislature and I listen to the NDP and I cannot help but feel the very real distance and disconnect that this government has to the people living in my riding, the people living in rural British Columbia. In reality, this distance feels as vast as the true distance, the geographic distance, that forms the reality for people living across the province of British Columbia.

In reviewing the history of British Columbia and in interviewing and listening to our Elders, our pioneers, our builders, our volunteers, our community champions, it is the incredible, unique diversity of our province and our people that is our legacy and our foundation for our path forward. We cannot and we will not succeed as a province or as British Columbians unless we understand this geographic vastness of our province and our unique community circumstances and the needs of all people in our province. It cannot and it should not be ignored.

I want to start, of course, by recognizing the support of my family and the incredible staff that I know are watching back home. I want you to sincerely know how much I appreciate the compassion and the support that you provide constituents in Cariboo North.

Does Budget 2022 meet the needs of the constituents of Cariboo North? Has the NDP government met their promise to you that under their government they’re going to make your lives more affordable? Have they delivered on the housing affordability and availability in Cariboo North? Under the NDP government, do you feel that your health care services have increased? Under the NDP, have services for seniors improved in Cariboo North? Are we supporting and meeting the needs of individuals in Cariboo North with mental health and addiction?

Do you or a loved one or a family member with a disability feel that your service levels have increased under the NDP? Under the NDP government, do you feel safer? Do you feel our community is safer? Are you a forestry worker, and do you feel that the government really has your back? Do we see in this budget the much-needed investments following the 2017-2018 wildfire season in Cariboo North, the climate adaptation that they continue to talk about year after year?

Then we see the significant impacts in communities like Lytton, the incredible flooding that has happened, yet we hear year after year that this government has these grandiose plans. They’ll go out and consult, but let’s see some real action. Where are the Cariboo Recovery Road Projects? Couldn’t find that in the budget.

At the same time that this budget is being introduced in this House, at the same time when 700 workers from across this province have just received some pretty devastating news, at the same time as we are debating and going through this budget, there’s another process that’s happening. I heard the member for Saanich North and the Islands talk about the need in this House for democracy and the very important real need for our voices of our constituents to be heard here in this Legislature.

Well, there’s another very real process that is happening across British Columbia that could have a very significant impact on people living in rural B.C. We’re paying close attention, because, quite frankly, the process that is taking place could potentially redraw British Columbia’s electoral map.

[5:40 p.m.]

There is major concern in northern British Columbia that our representation, our northern voices, our ability to ensure that government understands what is north of Hope could be greatly impacted.

We have great reason to be concerned when, just moments ago, we heard the Minister of Forests talk about how everything is rosy when, in the same breath, half an hour earlier, 700 workers just received some very, very difficult news.

We feel that this government does not understand what is happening north of Hope. We feel that in rural British Columbia, this government, this budget does not reflect the very real needs of people living in communities across this province. It is a government that continues to talk about equality for all and universal care. Yet we all know — we all know because we live it — that we just don’t see that equality that the NDP talk about that they’re delivering for people in our communities, whether it’s health care, whether it’s training. We just don’t see the same level of access to these services in our communities.

This is the sixth budget presented by the NDP government, and a review of the election promises of the NDP of 2017 and 2020 clearly highlights some significant failures to British Columbians. We’ve heard in this House the talk about gas prices in British Columbia now being the highest in North America. If you live in a riding like Cariboo North, you need to fundamentally understand the need of transportation to do the type of work necessary to drive this amazing province of British Columbia.

Now we look at housing prices that are at an all-time high. Talk about a lack of action on that side. Grocery prices are way up, and even rents. Let’s review the housing. The NDP government promised five years ago that they would introduce a rental supplement of $400 to all renters. That was in their first 2017 election promises. They scaled it back a little bit in their next promise, but that’s never been in any of these six budgets. They’re now in their second term. They have a majority government. I guess, you know, I’m just disappointed that they’re not addressing the pressures that families are facing.

If you’re living in Quesnel, if you’re living in Wells, Horsefly, McLeese Lake, are you able to find affordable housing? Are you able to find housing? Under the NDP, they talk about all of this great stuff that they’re doing on affordable housing and making life more affordable for you, but do you feel that? Do you feel that in Cariboo North?

One of the significant challenges that we have with the recruitment of professionals to the Cariboo is the fact that we really do not have access to housing, housing that the NDP promised to deliver to British Columbians. The affordable housing units that have been delivered to Cariboo North…. I would remind members of the government that whether it’s the Lions senior facility, Dakelh housing, even the Bridges housing, all of those projects were developed, funded and secured under the B.C. Liberals.

The NDP like to take credit for those numbers. It’s part of the — what did they promise? — 114,000 housing units that they’re going to be delivering. To date, they’ve delivered 5,269 housing units. I think if we were to dig deeper into those numbers, so many of those housing units, like the ones I just announced in the community of Cariboo North, were actually delivered and the financial pieces put in place under the B.C. Liberals.

What have we actually seen developed and built under the NDP? If you’re a first-time homebuyer, do you feel you will have the ability to own your own home? Just look at the housing supply. What is the NDP doing to encourage this? Under the NDP, you’ve got 25 percent of all the costs…. Of every new home purchased by British Columbians here in British Columbia, 25 percent of those costs are taxes. It’s the property transfer tax. It’s the community amenity contributions, the development cost charges, the provincial sales tax, GST. The list goes on.

What our leader, Kevin Falcon, wants to make very clear is that under the B.C. Liberals, we want to look through the lens of a first-time buyer, because we want to make sure that our young people have a reasonable, realistic prospect of buying their own homes one day. The NDP have failed. They have failed to set forth a vision for young people in this province of British Columbia, and that’s why I’m incredibly proud of what our leader has stood up to say, moving forward, for young people.

[5:45 p.m.]

All they’ve done is add more costs and more taxes to housing. That does not make housing cheaper; it makes it more expensive. And it’s having a terrible impact on families that are just trying to get into the housing market.

Now, let’s look at the cost of heating your home. I know I’ve heard from many constituents in Cariboo North on the significant increase of heating your home that you’ve seen on your bills. It’s the sticker shock. I cannot believe the rising costs, and it’s taxes, and it’s all of these other layers that the NDP have cumulatively put on our bills that are making it far less affordable.

Now let’s look at putting gas in your car. Anyone who has filled up at the tanks recently in Cariboo North certainly has seen how those prices are. I believe the Premier had made that promise that he was going to make sure that gas prices would be far more affordable. He was going to tackle that, just like he was going to go down and get a good softwood lumber deal as his first order of business. We saw how that worked out. What was the response from the Premier to the increase in tax when we raised: “What are you going to do about the increase in gas prices?” You know what he said? “Why don’t you take transit? I think people should take transit.”

Well, news to the Premier. If you’re living in Horsefly or Likely or Kersley — I could go through so many lists of areas of Cariboo North — we do not have access to transit. We would like it, but it’s just not something that the government has delivered, and it’s unrealistic.

That is why we say there is such a strong disconnect from this government and this Premier. They say they’re standing up for all British Columbians and they have their backs, and then they tell us to go take transit. Maybe tell that to the 700 workers that just got some really difficult news. Maybe they could take transit, if they had it in their communities.

How about the NDP adding a tax on the purchase of a used vehicle? Think about that young person. All of us have those young people in our families who get to purchase their first used car. They’re so excited, and they save for so long to get that first vehicle. I remember my first vehicle. It was a Chev Citation. To my good colleague from Abbotsford West, I’ve maybe updated from my Chev Citation. I have a 2008 Jeep Compass now. That’s pretty exciting.

But for people who are buying that first car, a car from this century, so that they can go out and get a job, so that they can go out and save money for their schooling and for all of those reasons…. This government has decided they’re going to tax that young person who is just trying to buy their first car. Like, is that really making life more affordable? Is that really where you need to go to, to get the revenue for this budget? Do you really have to go to young people who…?

When we talk about sustainability and we talk about affordability, a lot of young people are now turning to the marketplace, so whether they’re buying clothes on the marketplace, or whether it’s on Facebook, there are so many things. It’s not just young people. Frankly, people are looking at ways they can help save money in these difficult times.

The NDP, what are they going to do? They’re going to tax that as well. “We’ve got young people’s backs, but we’re going to tax you on your cars. We’re going to tax you on any chance that you’re trying to maybe buy something on Facebook through a marketplace or any of those other items.” That’s the government’s message on making your life more affordable. Quite frankly, I think it’s doing quite the opposite.

We heard earlier today that 53 percent of British Columbians are $200 or less away from insolvency. Again, I go back to those 700 workers that just got really difficult news today. Think of that family. You’re looking at $200 or less away from insolvency, and you’ve just found out that you’re going down, temporarily, to a reduced work week.

You heard the Minister of Forests earlier get up and say that she’s got your back and she’ll be there for you. I hope she’s going to help make your mortgage. I hope she’s going to help actually pay some of those expenses that you have, because they’re still coming in. I hope this government understands, when they say that they’re there for people and they’re going to line all these things up, that people have real costs, and they’re worried.

[5:50 p.m.]

Let’s turn a little bit now to our health care system. Like so many people have talked about in this House, how grateful we are for all of the incredible health care workers across the province of British Columbia…. Today is B.C. seniors day and caregiving day, and like so many members, I had the privilege of meeting some extraordinary individuals last night at the B.C. caregivers awards.

But I think about the people in Cariboo North. I think about the nurses that I’ve talked to at G.R. Baker Hospital. I think of the calls I’ve taken from the care aide at Dunrovin. I think of the doctors I’ve talked to and just the stress that they’re feeling.

We heard earlier that 900,000 British Columbians don’t have access to a family doctor. I think of the pressure the people that I care about…. Those doctors are doing everything within their power to make sure that they’re supporting our communities. But the pressure that they’re feeling….

I wonder. I go through the pages of the budget, and I wonder where the health care human resource sector strategy is. We keep hearing that that announcement is coming. Every week that goes by, the frailty of our health care system gets stretched, and I wonder what the breaking point will be. I wonder what the breaking point will be for those hard-working health care workers that are putting their hearts and souls and compassion into caring for the people of Cariboo North. I know that they’re wondering: in this budget, where is the relief for them?

How about our seniors? Where is the money that was promised for the business plan for the added long-term beds in Quesnel? I looked through the budget, and I can’t find it. If it’s there, that is extraordinary news. How about the support for home care? If you’re a senior on a fixed income…. Let us not forget that so many of our seniors were small business owners, farmers, ranchers — like mine — that do not have the government pension plans that a lot of us have access to and are privileged to have. Think of the costs of their medication.

You know, during the heat dome, I reached out to many of the seniors living in Cariboo North, many living in B.C. Housing facilities, facilities that didn’t have air-conditioning. In smaller communities, we couldn’t even find fans. I looked in this budget, and I tried to find the government’s priorities in supporting our communities in rural British Columbia. Where are those simple things? Where is that capital investment in things like an air conditioner for a senior so that if we have another climate heat emergency, they’re not dealing with the devastating consequences?

Think about end-of-life care in British Columbia. Under the NDP, why do people have to pay a daily fee when they’re deemed end-of-life? We talk about this universal free health care system, except when you’re palliative or ALC. At that moment, when you are at end of life, to have that conversation with family members: “Well, we’re now going to start charging you a daily fee….” That’s not good enough. In a province and in a country like ours, it’s not good enough.

I wanted to see that in this budget. I wanted to see the support for hospice care. This government is not addressing it.

I’m deeply concerned about the increase in violence and sexualized violence in our communities and our post-secondary institutions. What are the governments doing to respond to the requests from student organizations to address these very serious concerns? If you live in the Cariboo today, do you feel safer?

Just today I received a letter from the Quesnel Downtown Association. I want to read it into record.

“In the last few years, we, as a business community, have seen an increase in theft, shoplifting, vandalism and general bad behaviour in and around our businesses. We, as a business community, have been proactive in installing better video surveillance, reporting practices and coordinated action as a business group.

[5:55 p.m.]

“Though we are able to identify the individuals responsible, we’re not seeing the court system pursuing charges and punishment. It has become our understanding that since the crimes are valued at under $5,000, Crown prosecutors are reluctant to pursue charges. As small businesses operating in an already difficult economic climate, this is very disheartening. With profit margins around 2 percent to 4 percent, a theft of a $100 item requires us to sell up to $5,000 just to regain our loss.

“We feel helpless. Even though we’re doing all the right things to document, report and submit evidence, the criminals are going unpunished, and there is no effective deterrent.”

Where, in this budget, is there an increase to the resources to the Crown to prosecute prolific offenders? Where is it? How is the NDP making communities safer?

I want to take a quick moment to talk about a few things around the impact that communities like Cariboo North have felt when it comes to the significant wildfires that we experienced in 2017 and 2018 and the real-life consequences that we live with every day. Last year, via Zoom, at the very same time, I urged all members to pay attention to spring freshets. I requested all members to understand the very real consequences that we are experiencing on the ground in our communities.

I consider the impacts of the fires that we’ve seen this year. I consider the flooding that we’ve seen, and I just…. I’ve heard words from the Minister of Forests, but again, I’ve gone through the budget, and I just don’t see the very real, necessary investments that are going to be required to help us through another difficult spring freshet.

I’ve talked a lot in this House about the need for upgrading culverts. People often say: “Member for Cariboo North, what is a culvert going to actually do to help your community with your road network and your infrastructure network?” Well, after fires, our culvert and our infrastructure system changes. If you do not make those investments, you’ll see hundreds of roads get destroyed.

Last year we had, I think, over 150 roads that were impacted by spring freshet. The year before was equally as bad, if not worse. Year after year, we’re talking about hundreds of roads in our communities that are being impacted. Last year almost every community in the region of Cariboo North was almost cut off. That is significant.

I look in this budget for the types of investments that I know, under the line items, are necessary to put that investment into our communities. I looked at the side road rehabilitative program in the Ministry of Transportation. That was a critical budgetary item when we were in government, to make sure that we were taking care of side roads and we were making the types of investments so that we could ensure that our roads would be stable come freshet.

Lo and behold, the budget has been reduced. At a time when members who have been impacted by fires this year, and floods, know that we are going to have an extraordinarily difficult spring freshet, we are seeing reductions in the very items in budget that are going to help resolve and be proactive in those areas. I’m deeply concerned about spring freshet. I’m deeply concerned about the actions that are being taken by this government.

I’m also curious to know…. I certainly didn’t see it in the budget, but I hope it’s there. I’ve heard this government talk on multiple occasions on how they’re there for the people and that when these emergencies happen, they’ll be there for the people.

Well, I’m looking specifically where the Cariboo recovery project for transportation is. I’m looking for the funding for the Quesnel Hixon Road, Highway 97 at Cottonwood. I’m looking in this budget for the funding for the Blackwater Road at Knickerbocker. I’m looking in this budget for the funding of Quesnel-Hydraulic Road. I’m looking in this budget for Highway 20 at Hodgson/Dog Creek. I’m looking in this budget for Kersley-Dale Landing Road. I’m looking in this budget for Bastin Road at Bastin Hill. I’m looking in this budget for Durrell Road, Highway 97 at Cuisson. I’m looking for money for Soda Creek–MacAlister Road.

[6:00 p.m.]

I’m hoping that the Minister of Transportation is here. He’s heard our requests. We’re hoping that the Cariboo road recovery project is moving forward and that money will be available to people who have been so critically impacted in Cariboo North. I hope this government delivers on their promises.

Finally, as I close out my remarks…. I’ve got, probably, another 20 to 30 pages. I always do. I want to end my remarks, again, talking about our forest community and our workers and the type of supports and programs that are necessary for those 700 people that just have received some very difficult news. Because it’s not just the workers, it’s the people that are working, actually, out in the bush. It’s the logging contractor. It’s that 30-year-old that just bought one million dollar piece of equipment. It’s the processer.

The message that this government has repeatedly stood up and said, that “we’ll be here for workers and contractors” — I’m just trying to clearly understand what that support will be, because telling a 30-year-old that you can bridge to retirement is not a strategy. Saying that you will retrain somebody, when I’ve talked to my local college…. We know that these impacts are very real, because they’re happening right now in our community. We don’t actually see the investment and the training seats in our community, in our college, for all of the workers that are going to be impacted.

It makes us ask the question: where are the training programs that the minister has talked about? Where are the supports for the forest worker? What does that 30-year-old do now that has to come up with a mortgage and a payment on their equipment? What are they going to do? And layer on all of the affordability challenges that they’re now faced with. Do you know what the gas bill is for a logging truck or a processer? We are talking double-digit numbers. It’s a significant cost. You start looking at the payments, and under this government, under this budget, life is not more affordable.

In my final moments, here is my message to Cariboo North. I want you to understand what this government is doing. I want you to understand that they just do not understand rural British Columbia. If you live in the North, I want you to understand that your voices could be disenfranchised by this government. I want you to pay attention to the Electoral Boundaries Commission. I want you to stand up and I want you to go and I want you to present.

I want you to ask this government…. I want you to make your voices heard. It is important that this Legislature, that this chamber, understands the very real needs of people living in our communities. Because if you don’t stand up, we’re going to lose that opportunity to sit in this House, to sit in this Legislature. You will see that bubble — that isolated disconnect with rural British Columbia — just get bigger and bigger.

We have a great, geographic, diverse province in British Columbia. The Electoral Boundaries Commission is going out today to talk to you in your communities about your representation. I just kindly ask you, for all voices in rural British Columbia: please show up, and let them know that they can’t take our voices away, they can’t silence us and that we matter to the province of British Columbia.

R. Russell: It’s nearly, I guess, a year and a half into this work. I still feel a pretty overwhelming sense of pride and honour that my constituents elected me to come here and speak on their behalf in this House. I’m pleased to be here to do that advocacy, to do that representation, for my very rural stretch of B.C. I do believe that I may be the only riding that does not have a Starbucks, which may be a good definition of what a rural riding is. So pleased to be here. Happy to have this privilege.

I will come back to some of the previous speakers’ comments a little bit later on. Specifically, I would say, in terms of what I would recognize as a lack of vision for what rural B.C. actually is and will be, as opposed to rooting our vision for rural B.C. on what it was in the past. But I think, of course, given where we are today, it is most important to open with a recognition of what is happening in Ukraine. This is heartbreaking, of course, and unsettling to all of us.

[6:05 p.m.]

It’s hard for me, certainly, to find the words to recognize the magnitude of this, so I’ll echo the words of the Minister of Mines last week, when he said: “I have no doubt the people of Ukraine and people of Russia want to be peaceful neighbours. They have been peaceful neighbours. This war is not the result of two societies in conflict. It is an unwanted war of aggression, and it must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.”

I like those words, because they recognize, to me, the fact that, I think, the vast majority of both Ukrainians and Russians are hopeful for peace. Personally, I certainly had some hope renewed by the crowd that joined in the front of this Legislature on Sunday. The unity in that crowd of strangers — to me, at least — that came out in the rain to show their condemnation and shared passion for condemning this act was powerful.

At that event, the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure made a powerful observation to me as well. He spoke of the ill intention of Putin but noted that one consequence of this illegal act of aggression was that it had solidified and united a global, collective voice for peace. Tens of thousands of people at rallies across the planet in opposition to Putin’s action, including, importantly, at over 50 Russian cities. This, indeed, gives me some renewed hope in humanity.

The heart of this budget, as well as in our economic plan, includes an explicit recognition of the notion that a healthy economy, a healthy society, includes much more than just dollars flowing through our hands, but actually relies upon a safe and supportive social system and a healthy environment. These are parts of the necessary scaffolding upon which we can build a consequently healthy economy.

In this House, and in Houses like this around the world, there has been a history of making decisions on short-term vision — three years, four years, whenever the next election may take place. That short-term thinking has brought us to a place where we’ve incrementally moved many of our communities, our subnational states, our nations and, indeed, our world to a place that we have come to from short-term thinking, that focuses on short-term indicators of success and misses the mark on what we actually care about as families, as community members and as part of a larger society.

Yesterday there was a report released by the IPCC. I will quote a section of that report. In terms of climate, this got us to a point where António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, said: “I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this. Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.” I’m so pleased that this budget and our economic plan recognize these connections as vital to all of us and helping create thriving, sustainable economic systems and communities, including in rural B.C.

Of course, I love the nature and the impact of poetry, so I will open with a quote from another brilliant mind that we lost last month, Thich Nhat Hanh:

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain. Without rain, the trees cannot grow, and without trees we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not there, the sheet of paper cannot be either. So we are to say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.

“If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine, so we know that the sunshine is also in the sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are.

“If we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. We see wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread and, therefore, the wheat that became the bread is also in the sheet of paper. The logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.”

Over time, I’ve always been fascinated by these types of indirect connections and generally dedicated a great deal of my energy to advocating on behalf of them.

[6:10 p.m.]

The unseen, the difficult to count or the intangibles are often the most important elements of our lives. The historic work that I’ve done and am most proud of generally has been — in some way, shape or form — an effort to recognize, celebrate and support these hidden connections. In many cases, they’re what makes life precious.

Today I rise to speak in favour of this budget because of these kinds of long-term and sometimes hidden and intangible connections that the economic plan, the budget and indeed the throne speech represent — not the quantitative and immediately obvious. Those are the low-hanging fruit of politics that are mostly long behind us or that so clearly put us in a bad place that we know to look beyond them. Rather, I want to speak to the intangible values, those unseen connections and the long-term goals that support the vision we have for making this province a better place for all of us.

I interpret this budget as a call to action for us on those measures that we recognize as fundamental to improving quality of life. When we look at what is happening in Ukraine, I’m pleased and unsurprised that this House is united in our condemnation of an illegal and unjust invasion. If GDP were our only metric of prosperity, this war of aggression would be deemed a net positive. We know this isn’t so.

Looking beyond GDP is essential to understanding what matters to us, and overreliance on simple and short-term measures like GDP has taken us too far off focus from what matters to us as people. We can and are doing a better job to recognize the real metrics of success — include healthy and inclusive society, include environmental systems that are resilient and supportive of us. If we think of our own economies, the economies of our life within our own families, we all viscerally know that those decisions are based on those more complex values that we hold.

The wrapping of environmental and social values into our collective vision of our budget is intended to support what is often referred to as ESG — environmental, societal and governance. It’s a framework for including these non-financial indicators and factors into the process of identifying the risks and opportunities for an organization or, in this case, for a government.

What does that really mean? When my wife and I were going to have our first baby, like most of us, we didn’t sharpen our pencils, do the math and say: “You know what? This baby is going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars. Let’s not do this.” In today’s economy, a baby is really, typically, a very bad financial investment. But certainly for most of us, it’s the social value, the joy, the wonder that mean that we still celebrate that addition to our family.

Similarly, if I came to you and offered a great deal on a clean diesel generator that you could operate inside your house and told you, “It’s going to be way cheaper. In fact, the technology is so good, it’ll likely not actually cause death for ten or even 15 years, and it’ll save you a lot of money,” would you say yes? Most likely not, because of those impacts.

Similarly, yesterday we heard in this House unanimous disdain for the notion that we would be earning money for B.C. Pension’s plan by supporting Russian oil investments. We don’t come to that place by looking at the best return on the investment and damn the consequences. We come to that position because we care about good governance choices, we care about the consequences of decisions we’re making and the nature of how we in fact make those decisions.

My point here is that on a personal level, we know what ESG is, and we need it to be the foundation of our decisions about economic process. Governments before have been too scared, too focused on short-term wins or too distracted by corporate goals to make this as explicit as we have here.

This is a budget and an economic plan that aligns more closely with how we all make decisions in our own lives, which makes sense, because it’s a vision and a plan to implement that vision that is designed to make life better for all of us in British Columbia, for today and for generations to come. The focus, if well done, will attract more investments to this province and will attract and retain more bright minds to this province. It’s an exciting potential.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

So let’s talk some specifics on what this looks like in the budget. Mental health is a great place to start, for all of the obvious reasons. Let’s look at a group that knows a thing or two about mental health, and hear what they had to say about our budget, the Canadian Mental Health Association. They said in their statement:

[6:15 p.m.]

“The $164 million allocated for ‘complex care housing’ are important new resources for people experiencing profound vulnerability and risk relating to severe mental illness, substance use dependence, trauma, brain injury and precarious housing. The overall allocation of $633 million to support individuals at risk of or experiencing homelessness is welcomed by CMHA B.C. This expansion of supports aligns with CMHA B.C.’s call to focus some spending in this budget on adults and older adults.

“CMHA B.C. further applauds the budget’s inclusion of investments designed to support youth aging out of care, survivors of sexualized violence and enhancements to primary care capacity. In particular, the creation of new First Nations primary health care centres is an important step.”

Jonny Morris, the chief executive officer of CMHA B.C., says: “It is encouraging to see a total of $1.1 billion of increased spend on mental health and addictions since Budget 2017, which looks like a $375 million increase in spending per year.”

Further investments in our people and our communities include increased funding for those 20 new complex care housing developments.

We’re continuing a strategy to reduce wait-lists for surgeries and diagnostic imaging, with $303 million in a new base funding budget over the next three years; reducing emergency call wait and response times by adding more paramedics and dispatchers, with $148 million over the fiscal plan, for the B.C. emergency health services action plan; and continuing to support actions of the Pathway to Hope plan, to expand mental health and addictions care, supported with significant Budget 2021 investments that bring increased annual expenditures since 2017 to over $375 million.

Budget 2022 also invests an additional $875 million for 2022-23 for pandemic recovery contingencies, including ongoing vaccination programs, PPE for health care workers, enhanced measures to limit the risks for long-term-care vulnerable residents in assisted facilities.

Increased mental health supports for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Providing $35 million over the next three years to respond to the heightened risk of homelessness by former youth in care through improved supports for these youth beyond their 19th birthday.

Doubling the current number of community integration specialists to help people experiencing homelessness navigate government programs and available supports in communities throughout the province. These are the kinds of investments and social values that are core, fundamental to building an economy that works for all British Columbians.

I want to turn my attention to Princeton and what community-led recovery looks like when it is done right. Princeton is a great example of where the community is leading as it should, strongly and effectively, to navigate recovery for their community. I need to make sure to open that and recognize the strength of that local team.

I applaud Mayor Spencer Coyne and his group of municipal staff that are working so hard on behalf of their community. I know very well how important these people are and how utterly exhausting it is to navigate that for a community. I’ve heard this from mayors, from community leaders, from First Nations Chiefs, economic development leaders, non-profit leaders and more, and I certainly am familiar with it.

There was a constituent yesterday who made a statement. Rhonda said on the radio: “People think this is over, and it’s certainly not over.” I think that’s a good statement to remind people that recovery takes a very, very long time. In Princeton, they are months in, and there still are many, many months yet to go.

I’d like to highlight a quote from the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin. He said: “The MLA for Boundary-Similkameen blames outdated legislation for his failure. Maybe he didn’t sign an NDA, so he doesn’t know that the province declared a state of emergency to cut through red tape like this.” I highlight that because perhaps the partisanship in politics that tend to permeate these walls has led the member to forget that we’re here to be legislators for the people of B.C. — not partisan fearmongers.

I’m happy to clarify and inform the member a little about what the EPA, Emergency Program Act, actually does and doesn’t do for us. It is, of course, the exact legislation that I speak about as outdated. This government has been active, since 2017, working towards modernizing this piece of legislation. This process has involved a great deal of engagement with municipalities and with First Nations across the province from well before my tenure in this assembly.

[6:20 p.m.]

To better support communities navigating disasters and recovery is precisely why we need to modernize this act. Happily, we expect to have it in front of the House this fall. One of the challenges of this legislation is that although it provides good process around response, it does little to expedite recovery.

So as the member pointed out, it is in fact precisely this legislation that comes into play in a state of emergency, and this why we need to update it. It’s so we can be more agile and supportive of those local communities — like Princeton, like Lytton, like Merritt — that are trying to navigate, on behalf of their residents, disaster recovery. Of course, we can still do that, and we still do, as indicated by the massive financial and human resource support to those communities.

Stepping back even more, this government was the first in Canada to endorse the Sendai framework. This framework, endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 2015, advocates for “the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses of life, livelihoods and health in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries.”

The Sendai framework focuses on addressing these three dimensions of disaster risk, which are exposure to hazards, vulnerability and capacity, and the hazards’ characteristics, to help reduce and prevent the creation of new risk, reduce existing risk and increase resilience. This is the kind of legislation that we want to see and we are going to see in this province.

That member also challenged my ability to help the community with temporary housing, although he hasn’t asked outright. He hasn’t come to me to ask any questions about it. I suspect that might remove the ability for it to become a partisan chess piece for him. I’m, of course, very happy to talk further about it, about all the work that is happening on the ground and in Victoria here to help us get to where we are.

I can explain some of the details of the countless conversations that I have had with the mayor about what they need for those residents and how we’re helping them get there. Creative solutions are the core to that conversation and how we’re going to be able to deliver upon those.

Disaster risk reduction is just one more powerful example of how this government is using the principles of environmental, social and governance criteria, in addition to the traditional financial measures, to define success for the people of British Columbia.

There has been a lot of conversation in some of the previous members’ speeches from the opposition about Lytton, so I feel it appropriate to mention a few words about Lytton and what is happening there. I was asked publicly by the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin: “All the member and the people of Lytton want to know is what is the plan to rebuild their community — if there actually is one. What is really concerning is that the member for Boundary-Similkameen is supposed to be leading recovery for Lytton.”

I will correct the second statement eventually, but first I will explain a little bit on the first. The province is funding more than a dozen positions in the village’s recovery team specifically dedicated to community recovery in the village. It’s also funded the Fraser Basin Council to support the village and develop a short-term plan. We’re in the discussion with the village around longer-term planning at this point.

By working with officials in Lytton, we’re doing what we can to help the village address the challenges and speed up recovery efforts. We’re also working and coordinating with insurers, NGOs and the village of Lytton to help them fund and coordinate cleanup of debris and removal. The Ministry of Environment is working with the village on options to dispose of waste and debris. We’re working with the Nlaka’pamux and the village of Lytton to create a workable plan for debris removal, while respecting the important and long history of the region.

Beyond that, last week we announced $8.3 million more in support of their operations and recovery. So $2.1 million of that funding will be spent for three years of operational funding for the village, so they can focus on recovery planning and rebuilding.

Noting the hour, I reserve my right to continue later.

R. Russell moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. K. Conroy moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:25 p.m.