Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In Committee A, we will be dealing with the estimates for Agriculture. Then after that, we’ll be doing the estimates for Advanced Education.

And third reading on Bill 11.

Third Reading of Bills

BILL 11 — COMMERCIAL LIENS ACT

Bill 11, Commercial Liens Act, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call second reading, Bill 12.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 12 — PROPERTY LAW
AMENDMENT ACT, 2022

(continued)

R. Merrifield: I’m very pleased to rise today to continue this debate on Bill 12. It’s really hard for me to call it a debate. It feels a little bit disingenuous. I’m not exactly sure what the bill has, because it is so vague in what it states.

[1:05 p.m.]

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I could also call it, you know, continuing debate on Bill 12, but calling it a bill feels even a little bit misleading. The legislation before us is really little more than a shell. It’s simply enabling the minister and cabinet to make all the decisions and decide on all the details through regulations and away from public scrutiny, away from this House, away from the input of opposition.

I actually said, “Yes, put my name forward in an election.” I wanted to serve my community in debates just like these, voicing how they feel about a bill of this nature. Today I don’t even know what to tell them about it. It’s so brief on any detail whatsoever.

What cannot be ignored, before moving on with the debate, is this deeply troubling lack of government transparency that this bill represents and furthers. Once again, we can see why the NDP has been named the most secretive government in Canada by the Canadian Association of Journalists.

We can’t forget that we are also dealing with a little bit of déjà vu here, because this government has actually taken great strides to strip away transparency and accountability rather than improve them. So yes, with Bill 12, the NDP is asking the House to pass a piece of legislation that’s made up entirely of regulations that we haven’t seen. But the Minister of Citizens’ Services did the same with the controversial Bill 22, which left the details up to regulation, and we all know how that one turned out.

It’s clear that the best interests of British Columbians were not served during that process of Bill 22. They’re not served during this process of Bill 12, because the best process happens when we have a bill with regulations that we can debate, that we can reflect on, that we can ask questions about, that we can actually know, that we can put into record.

As a result of Bill 22, well, the Minister of Citizens’ Services has completely destroyed this government’s credibility when it comes to just trusting them with regulations. To make matters worse, there is a report that is coming from the B.C. Financial Services Authority, or the BCFSA, that hasn’t been made public yet, so we don’t even know what this bill is based on because we don’t have the report that would inform the regulations. We’re just supposed to trust government?

We need a bill that is drafted in a way that can be debated. It’s completely unreasonable that a government would not want that, would not want transparency, would not want to actually have that on record. Furthermore, it’s unreasonable that they would ask us to vote on something that hasn’t been made public, on regulations that are yet to be determined, on a report that has yet to be released.

In effect, this government is trying to ram the bill through without leaving that space — that space for genuine, informed debate. British Columbians deserve more. They deserve better. They deserve a fully functioning government, one in which opposition can ask questions, can be informed, can actually debate on regulations. I came here to do that work. We all came here to do that work, to perform that function of government.

If this government wants to do so much through ministerial order, then why are we even here? Pass a few overarching laws that allow you to do whatever you want through regulation, and then at least we can stay at home. How about our constituents? Have more face time.

[1:10 p.m.]

Oh, wait. You are passing these bills, these bills like Bill 12, that really say nothing, that leave a lot to regulation, that leave a lot to ministerial order, except that we’re going through this farcical process right now, without the ability to actually debate.

I’d love to say next: “Let’s talk about what this bill says.” But we can’t, because the bill doesn’t say anything. We don’t have the regulations on which this bill will be passed. We need better. We deserve better.

Then I ask: “What’s the rush? Why aren’t we waiting for the BCFSA report? Why aren’t we waiting for regulations to be drafted?” This is really made all the more serious in light of what this bill is actually supposed to do, how it’s supposed to help housing affordability, which is a massive crisis right now. But the reality is that it could impact housing affordability by worsening it.

This bill seeks to implement a cooling-off period in the process of buying and selling a home. More precisely, it’s enabling legislation respecting a residential right of rescission on home sales. But we don’t know how that cooling-off period is going to work.

The government is modelling this from the same provision in the Real Estate Development Marketing Act for presale condos, and having had lots of experience with REDMA, I can honestly say that these two transactions are completely different. With presales, you can’t have a home inspection, because there is nothing built yet. You can’t actually walk through it, because it’s not built yet.

The regulations that are going to be determined after this cannot be modelled after REDMA, because these are homes that people already own. These are life savings that are already tied up. These are the biggest purchases of their lives at stake.

One of these details that we need now, that we need today, is the prescribed number of days after the sale. How long is it? And imagine. That right of rescission — seven days. Let’s say it’s just seven days and a very, very…. Let’s take a one-week time frame. In that one week, what does that seller do? Well, they go out, and let’s say they’re going to put five offers down that have another seven days. What happens with those buyers? Will they put another five offers down with their seven days? This has such a trickle-down effect that has not been contemplated. But we can’t contemplate it because it’s not even written yet.

What other details will we need? Well, we need limiting waivers of the right of rescission and the circumstances in which that right may or may not be waived. What happens if I, as a buyer, just say: “No. You know what? I waive my rescission right”? Well, if I do it, everyone else has to. Have we gotten any farther forward? No. No, we haven’t. We haven’t fixed the problem.

Respecting service of a notice of rescission, penalties paid by a purchaser to the seller if the purchaser exercises their right of rescission…. Is there going to be a penalty? There isn’t under REDMA. Is there going to be under this? We don’t know, because that detail isn’t in here. How about the timing of a payment of deposit under the contract? How about any of the regulations associated with that deposit?

Having some experience in the development industry, I know the regulations under REDMA that are put in place to protect from money laundering. What happens if a money launderer puts five offers down, five deposits down, and then gets five cheques back?

[1:15 p.m.]

Have we contemplated that yet? Have we had a debate on that? Have we understood how this could affect our real estate industry, how it could be used as a tool for evil if allowed.

What about ending procedures for the payment deposit under a purchase and sale agreement? Have we thought about that one yet? Well, that was the provision under REDMA that took years of a legislation to actually figure out. But that legislation had the benefit of having an act that actually went through this House in vigorous debate, so that legislation, those judges could use as indication of what was intended. How will that proceed under this bill? It won’t.

Do we have any detail on exempting types of property or classes of buyers? Nope. This bill could have incredibly damaging effects on an already insanely white-hot and, I would consider, fragile market, because it has the potential to go way, way, way higher than what it already is.

I want to use this time to debate these aspects of a bill, but instead I’m debating whether or not this NDP government deserves the title of the most secretive government in Canada. Why do I want to debate it so desperately? We have a huge housing affordability problem. Housing prices have never been higher.

Just let me read a couple of headlines that I pulled from yesterday. I’m going to quote: “B.C. Home Prices Expected to Climb 8.5 Percent in 2022 Amid Supply Shortage.” “Average B.C. Home Price Will Reach $1 Million for the First Time in 2022.” Average in B.C. That’s not a Vancouver number. That’s not a Kelowna number. That’s a B.C. number. Another one: “Real Estate Market Will Hit New Records.”

Some people are celebrating this cooling off of the real estate market because sales volume is going down. I have a news flash. There is no inventory. Our inventory numbers are the lowest they have been in 30 years, which is why home prices are still going to go up. We don’t have enough supply.

The lack of affordable housing in B.C. is one of the biggest issues our province is facing, from a competitive advantage, from servicing our families, from a health perspective. But when you have the average Vancouver home that costs $600,000 more — not $600,000 total, $600,000 more — under this NDP government in five years, people can’t afford it anymore. Businesses are leaving.

You know, it’s not just houses for sale. Far too many people can’t even afford the rent today, let alone the purchase of a home. We have assessment increases in places like Chilliwack at 40 percent. Langley, 39 percent. Abbotsford, 38 percent. My riding on average was a 42 percent increase on assessment. How are people that are renting ever going to be able to afford? We desperately, desperately need to see measures to improve housing affordability in B.C., but this bill is going to do nothing to accomplish that goal.

If I sound frustrated, it’s because I am. This NDP government has promised time and time again that they were going to fix it. They were going to improve affordability. They were going to give rental rebates. They were going to once and for all make it happen.

[1:20 p.m.]

They have failed. Under their leadership, we’ve seen all of these indicators get worse. The NDP say the right thing, but they have failed to deliver when it counts.

According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the B.C. NDP has utterly failed to deliver on its promise of 114,000 new affordable homes. In fact, that number is about 5 percent of what they promised. So we are halfway through their ten-year plan, and we’re at 5 percent. Well, I can tell you that 5 percent, when it should be 50, at minimum, is a failing grade.

What about that rental rebate? It was promised in 2017. It was promised again in 2020. What about that rental rebate? Where is it? I actually thought it was going to be in this budget, especially when the Attorney General stood up and said, “We’re working on it,” within weeks of the budget being delivered. Where is it? Instead of delivering on that promise of relief, well, they’re going to introduce legislation that might even make it worse.

Experts have been clear about what the NDP’s bungling is going to do. Experts far smarter than I talk about how it’s going raise costs even further and how it’s going to create greater strain on people — and all this in the middle of an affordability crisis. Those headlines that I read — every single one of those headlines is related to supply.

Every single one of those headlines is because we don’t have enough housing, and we don’t have enough of the right housing — housing that accommodates growing families, aging seniors and emerging adults. We have not adjusted to what the needs of our society are. We are the lowest supply of housing in the G7, and B.C. is one of the lowest in Canada.

It’s not rocket science as to why we have a housing affordability crisis. But instead of solving it — instead of putting forward bills that would actually do something about it — we have a bill that we cannot debate, on regulations that we do not know, based on a report we have not seen.

Instead of providing solutions and instead of providing reassurances, all we have are more questions as to why the NDP is choosing an option that’s going to raise prices rather than lower them and why they’ve decided to go about introducing changes in the least transparent way possible.

The Attorney General and Housing Minister actually went on record saying: “We’re not going to tax our way to housing affordability. We also are not going to quell demand. We’ve seen that that doesn’t work.” So introducing yet another tool to try and quell demand is actually the wrong way to go about housing affordability. I mean, yes, there is a winner when the market is high, and it’s not who you think. It’s not the seller; it’s the government.

[1:25 p.m.]

See, the government profits off of a white-hot market. The government profits off of property transfer tax. While we have suffered under a lack of housing affordability, this government puts those profit revenue numbers in their budget every single year on an upward trajectory. Could interest rates have a cooling effect, like the minister supposes? Possibly. It’s not going to affect prices. What it will affect is how many people can afford to buy. We have a supply problem. We need bills to deal with supply.

What all of the experts agree on is that we haven’t tackled that effectively and that this bill doesn’t do it any justice. But here’s a little lesson in economics — that’s why prices keep going up: supply and demand. Rather than actually getting into the supply side, and if you’re going to slow the process down rather than actually fix it…. We need a bill that fixes it. We need one that addresses the repair necessary. We need a tool that actually can repair the problem.

If you have something that’s gone wrong — let’s say a house repair — what do you do? Well, you assess the actual damage and what needs to be repaired, and then you get all of the right tools and then you start the repair. The repair is not going to be done properly if you don’t have the right tools. In fact, you might run around a lot to hardware stores or different supply stores, but you’re not going to actually fix the problem.

I can’t even tell you if this is the right tool, if it’s the right size, if it’s the right shape, if it actually works, if it’s going to repair anything. I’ll leave that to the experts who say no. What I can tell you is that we have a housing issue, and instead of actually creating a holistic plan that will address supply, this government is failing on promises to deliver and introducing bills that are only going to make it worse — bills that are unnecessary, inadequate and, honestly, could cause further damage to an incredibly vulnerable system.

Now, if the NDP were that trusted contractor — if we knew that they could fix things — well, then we might be inclined to say: “You know what? We’ll leave this repair with you.” But this government is not a trusted contractor. This government has proven the exact opposite.

Today’s bill is not going to improve housing affordability. In fact, the minister has said that. This bill is about consumer protection, which is why it’s really unclear as to why we have this bill in front of us right now. We’re not trying to solve consumer protection issues. We’re trying to solve housing affordability issues. British Columbians are asking for housing affordability.

I have more questions than I have answers for right now. I don’t know why the NDP is choosing an option that is going to raise prices rather than lower them — the wrong tool, the wrong way, creating uncertainty, creating chaos and unknowns. As a result, I’m sure we’re going to have a really long debate on this one — hopefully, clarifying some critical points — when this bill moves into committee stage.

We can only hope that at least then the minister is prepared to provide us with real answers, because we don’t have answers in the report that is yet to be released, creating regulations that are yet to be determined in a bill that is just simply the wrong tool.

N. Letnick: I’m popping up because I was totally expecting somebody from the government side to defend the bill. I guess the bill is not worth defending, so they’re not standing up to do so. That’s very strange, which actually fits well into what I wanted to talk about.

[1:30 p.m.]

I would defer whether this bill will actually help with housing affordability to people who have way more knowledge on the issue than I do, like the member for Kelowna-Mission, who’s built, I would say, thousands of houses in western Canada, has covered so much government red tape in her life, probably enough to wrap up all of Kelowna in red tape.

Or members like from Peace River South, who is our critic for Housing and has obviously been in contact with the industry to get their perspective on how this bill may or may not help housing affordability.

I, indeed, have a call this afternoon, after I speak, with the industry to hear their particular perspective and what they are concerned about and what maybe they’re optimistic about. I don’t know yet. For me, when I look at this bill….

In my 13 years in this place, I still believe in this place. I still believe that if you get 80-plus MLAs — maybe 90, after the next election — that come from all across this wonderful province in a room like this, or in committee rooms or over the phone, they can come up with the best solutions by working together. This bill doesn’t provide any solutions other than a catchy title, which I guess is what it was meant to do — that is, get the interest of people through the media to say: “Well, the government is working on it, and here is the solution.” But no details. No details in the bill.

The details are being set aside until cabinet can make those details or the decisions around those details in private. Therefore, the official opposition doesn’t have an opportunity to criticize in this wonderful place. I guess that would help the government because their message would be heard louder without criticism from us, but that’s not the way this place was designed. At least, I don’t think it was designed that way hundreds of years ago. Quite frankly, I don’t think it’s the best way.

When I had the privilege of being the Minister of Agriculture — seems like a long time ago now, a few seats ago, actually — I had an issue with abattoirs. I also had an issue with farming, not the kind of farming you’re probably thinking of but farming our oceans, and whether or not we should continue to harvest farmed salmon.

I basically took the same perspective I’ve done all my life in business or in teaching or in municipal government. I said: “Well, let’s get the right people together, and let’s discuss the issue and see if we can come up with the best solutions.” Get the best people, the knowledgable people and come up with the best solutions. I think that’s what’s missing from Bill 12, that kind of approach. Indeed, even being a politician…. I think we’re more community servants in here than politicians — or should be, anyway. Leave the politics to the elections.

I invited my critic, the current Minister of Agriculture, to come in on these meetings and listen in and propose solutions and be part of the solution, rather than just out there criticizing. I did say to her ahead of time, and to my critic on aquaculture: “You’re certainly welcome and encouraged to criticize whatever we come up with afterwards, but I want you to be part of the solution, part of the process.” She did so, and I respect that.

Same thing happened when I went across the province asking people about how we should go about protecting nurses and firefighters and peace officers when blood or other bodily fluids are splattered on them by someone that might be carrying a contagious disease. MLAs around the province, both on my side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle, opened up to me to come into their jurisdictions, their ridings, bringing people with knowledge to these meetings.

[1:35 p.m.]

From that, we were able to introduce in the House a private member’s bill — I think it was before your time, Madam Chair — which immediately turned out to be unanimously adopted by the government and the opposition. It doesn’t happen very often that a private member’s bill does that. That’s because we took a different approach than what Bill 12 is doing, bringing everyone together and trying to find the right solution.

Indeed, if this is an example of the worst way of doing things, an example of the best way of doing things is the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health, when he was looking at the professional health providers in our province, thought he needed to do some changes. Again, I approached the minister, and I said: “Well, there are two ways to do this. You can either do it the traditional way, where you do it on your own, and I’ll criticize you” — at that time, I was the critic for Health — “or you can try this other way, the way I did it when I was the Minister of Agriculture, and invite me to the table.”

Much to his credit and to the credit of government, who let him do this, he invited the Leader of the Third Party and myself to review the Health Professions Act, which needed, and still does need, review and change. We spent months in a process. The government hired an expert, looked at the whole situation, looked around the world for the best solutions and presented the solutions to us. We then went to the public and said: “Here’s what’s being proposed. What do you think? Tell us what’s good about it, what’s not good about it.” We took that and came up with our own set of recommendations.

We then went back to the public and said: “Here’s what we’ve come up with, based on your input. This is where we’re at right now. What do you think of that?” Through that iterative process, finally we made the final decisions, which we issued in the form of a report.

It doesn’t bind government to it, of course. At the end of the day, the Minister of Health is accountable to do what’s necessary with our decisions. But it was a much better process. It was a process that got the whole province involved, that got experts involved, that came up with the right solutions that hopefully have the least amount of unintended consequences.

Bill 12, by punting everything to cabinet decision through regulation, will be full of unintended consequences, because it relies not on the people of B.C. but on a select few people that write a report, that provide it through administration, that provide it to cabinet, and they will come up with what they believe is the right solution.

Again, I think it’s a squandered opportunity, especially since the problem is so serious. The problem is so acute, not only in places like where the member for Kelowna-Mission comes from and I come from but also, of course, in our more urban centres, like Vancouver and right here in Victoria. I think we need all hands on deck to solve that problem. I don’t mean all 87 hands here. I have great respect for all 87 people in here. I mean all British Columbians.

What good does it do to have a cooling-off period, if someone needs to buy another house? Could you just imagine the stress, what’s going to happen with that buyer-seller relationship? They can’t decide to move to another place, because they have to wait and see what’s going to happen. Again, I’m not the expert. I’ll wait and hear from the experts. But clearly, what I’m hearing so far is that this is fraught with danger.

My hope is that the minister will actually hear that, hear from experts across B.C., not just the ones that are producing the report or her administrators but from all across B.C., and say, “You know what? Maybe we jumped the gun on this. Maybe this is going to be one of those bills that we put out there to get some feedback on, and after second reading, we’ll delay committee stage until we actually have a bill that we can introduce that has some details in it,” so that the official opposition has an opportunity and so that all British Columbians have an opportunity to provide the best possible solutions to this very serious problem that Bill 12 says it wants to tackle.

I’m not going to go through all the same points that my colleagues have gone through. I think they’ve made our point very clear. I think that some other colleagues will also reiterate them.

[1:40 p.m.]

I just want to finish soon by saying that there is a better way to do this. The current Minister of Health has clearly shown the path, the right way to make major changes that brings people together to solve problems, as opposed to this path, which is very political.

At the end of the day, if it doesn’t work, well, the government will be accountable for it. They can’t blame anybody else but themselves, because they didn’t listen to anybody else but themselves.

While politically I see this as an opportunity, maybe in two years, in the next election, I just don’t want people to have to pay more for their houses than they should. I want the supply to go up. I don’t want this bill, which purports to interfere with the free market — at least, that’s what I think it’s about to do — to cause even more harm than what’s happening right now in the marketplace because of a lack of supply.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before in this House. I think maybe I’ll mention it now. The best way to increase supply is to increase supply. Not just to say you’re going to increase supply but to actually increase supply.

That’s why I have great respect for the member for Kelowna-Mission. It’s because that’s what she has done in her professional life. She has gone out and tried to walk the talk. Instead of building places that are aimed at high-end, expensive 20-, 30-, 40-storey-high penthouse suites at astronomical costs of construction, she’s building homes that people can afford.

Not all people. There is no way you can, when you put in all the taxes and the cost of land and the cost of building and everything else…. You can’t build it for free. Some people won’t be able to afford it. That’s where the government comes in, on the entry-level rental, subsidized rental, fixed-income supply. Then you have the ones in between, the ones that can afford to rent, and you need to have the tools to help them out as well.

It’s a range of options that you need. Everything from what the member for Kelowna-Mission is doing all the way to the supported housing that the government provides and has been providing long before this government and the government before that and the government before that.

I would just ask the government to continue focusing on how we can increase that particular section of the market. It’s everything from entry-level housing for young people, first-time homebuyers, maybe buyers that are moving up…. They have one child, and they want to find a little bigger place because they’re going to have two children or something like that. All the way from there to entry-level for people who just can’t afford it. They have no income.

With that, it’s my hope that after the minister and government hear these speeches, they’ll decide to pause on this and have sober second thought and invite everyone to the table to solve the problem.

I was walking, as I usually do at lunchtime, outside and listening to music, and I heard different songs. One of the songs was Paul Simon, who basically said: “People will hear what they want to hear and then do what they want anyway.” Unfortunately, that’s probably what’s going to happen right here.

I was actually looking forward to hearing what the government MLAs had to say about this bill. So I’ll reiterate my surprise from the beginning that they are not willing to stand up and defend it. If so, that speaks volumes as to why we’re not going to vote in favour of it either.

[1:45 p.m.]

M. de Jong: Well, it’s customary to make comments like: “I’m pleased to be entering the debate.” I’m not particularly pleased to be entering the debate, for reasons that the committee has already heard and, I think, will hear for some time.

This is a pretty sad day. It’s a sad day with regard to the substance of the issue before us and the tepid response the government has offered. It’s a sad day because what is taking place here has ramifications that go far beyond an issue which is, admittedly, very, very important, and that is the availability and affordability of housing.

I’m going to take a moment to reflect on a little bit of history around this place. When I and the party I am a member of formed government in 2001, it was on the strength of a document and a platform called the New Era document. It was chock full of material and undertakings and objectives. I reflect fondly and positively and with a measure of pride on the steps that were taken over the subsequent years to breathe life into that new era.

I think we are entering another new era, although I don’t expect to hear anyone from the government side use these terms. In fact, it doesn’t sound like we’re going to hear anyone from the government side say much at all about a subject matter that everywhere else, they want to talk about. Everywhere else you go, the government wants to talk about this issue. Except when they table a bill that they claim addresses the issue, they don’t want to talk about it.

Why is that? Well, I’m going to suggest it’s because we are entering a new era in legislative drafting, a new era in the opaqueness of laws, a new era in attempts by government to deliberately shield their intentions and hide their intentions.

This bill, in ways that have been hinted at previously, makes a mockery of the parliamentary process. I cannot think of another way to describe Bill 12 and the provisions contained on the page and a half that it represents. It makes a mockery of the legislative process.

Somewhere in Nanaimo, there is a mayor by the name of Leonard Krog who is looking at this and remembering every single speech he made about the dangers of governments avoiding this parliamentary process and hiding behind the creation of regulatory powers. For Mayor Krog, this represents the climax, the highlight, the absolute moment when government has decided that it will no longer have regard for the parliamentary process that takes place within this chamber. It will assume unto itself, within the walls of the cabinet chamber, exclusive responsibility for governing the province of British Columbia.

I remember those speeches from Leonard Krog. To be fair, he made them when my colleagues and I were in government, but he also made them when his colleagues were in government sometime ago. He’s not here anymore, and it seems no one else within the government benches is at all troubled or wants in any way to defend what we have before us.

I thought to myself: what does the parliamentary world look like in this new era that we are apparently in the midst of creating, that the government is in the midst of creating?

[1:50 p.m.]

I walked into the chamber and people…. Actually, they can see it, so it’s not a prop. If you look behind me, there’s a shelf. It’s right there. The shelf contains the laws of British Columbia. There are, I think, 16 volumes of laws of British Columbia, but it has occurred to me that in the new era the government is embarking upon, we won’t need those laws, because those laws represent the statutes that have been introduced and debated, clause by clause, in this chamber. But in the new era, we won’t need those.

I took one of them. It’s the Statutes of B.C., volume 1, A to B. I said: “I wonder what this approach that the government is now signalling, not just in Bill 12….” Others have referred to what we just went through with a bill from the FOI minister — Citizens’ Services — where, in legislation she brought before the House, she asked for permission from this House to create regulation.

She wouldn’t tell anyone during the course of the debate. She wanted the power, the authority, the legal authority to create regulations — laws that would govern British Columbia — but when asked how she intended to exercise that power, she refused to engage in any kind of a conversation to justify why she needed those authorities. “I haven’t made the decision yet,” she said. Except that within minutes of being granted the power, with the bill receiving royal assent, she exercised the authority, and she signed off on the regulations.

If the government wonders why people are suspicious and why, in particular, the opposition is suspicious, it’s because there is a track record of opaqueness and of abuse. It is abuse of the parliamentary process. What does the new era legislatively look like, given the approach this government clearly intends to follow? Well, you go to the A’s.

There is an Administrative Tribunals Act. It’s 191 sections. That’s one of the laws on the books; 191 sections. It’s 30 pages long. It talks all about…. It was introduced into this chamber. It’s been amended by past governments. It creates the authority to have certain administrative tribunals, the rules that govern them — the procedural rules — and it’s all laid out.

If changes are going to be made, this assembly must be involved. Ministers must defend those changes. In the new era, the Administrative Tribunals Act will say this: “The government may create administrative tribunals. Details to follow.” It’s a little thing.

There is an Adoption Act. Pretty important stuff; 103 sections of law that were introduced, debated, questioned, discussed in this chamber that set out all of the details, all of the protections around adoptions. In the new era, the government will say the new version of this, under this government: “The government may create rules around adoptions. Details to follow.”

The Adult Guardianship Act. Pretty important stuff. Go a little bit further along in volume 1 — 66 sections, 25 pages of details around adult guardianship. In the new era, there won’t be a lot for MLAs to discuss, because the government will say: “A person may make a representation agreement. Details to follow.” If I’m wrong, if that’s not the case, someone from the government benches will stand up and point out why that is not so.

[1:55 p.m.]

Why, in the new era, the agricultural land title act, which today is 91 sections and 45 pages…? Why, in the new era, shouldn’t we just expect a piece of legislation that says: “The government may create an agricultural land reserve. Details to follow”?

Is no one troubled by the direction this government is taking, legislatively? Is no one troubled that a member of the cabinet, just a few months ago, would stand up and ask for the power to make laws, which is what regulations are, and refuse to discuss at all how they intend to exercise those powers? Does that not trouble anyone?

They’re called the New Democratic Party. What happened to the democratic part? This is where the democratic exercise is supposed to take place. But there is something that makes members of this government uncomfortable about having to come into this chamber and answer questions about the laws they want to create. Far better for them, far easier for them to have a little discussion amongst themselves in the cabinet offices.

“We don’t need an architects act that’s 85 sections long. Why do we need an architects act that’s 85 sections long? Why don’t we have a one-page architects act that says: ‘The government may create the profession of and regulate architects. Details to follow’?”

There must be an element of embarrassment. There has to be. I wouldn’t excuse it, but I think I’m more troubled by the possibility that there isn’t even an element of embarrassment.

Bill 12 purports to alter some basic rules around the law of contract. Now, my colleagues and I would like to discuss and debate the merits of what is being proposed: an attempt by the government to reshape rules around the law of contract that’s been developed over centuries. I was going to say it’s hard to do…. It is impossible to do that when the government refuses to disclose the nature of the changes they want to make.

I predict we are going to get the same answer from the sponsoring minister that we got from the Minister of Citizens’ Services: “I’m not going to talk about it. Give me the regulatory power to do everything, and well, you’ll find out what my intentions are around how to use that power at some point in the future.”

This is the “Laws of contract will be changed; details to follow” act. If I’m wrong about that, I want to hear a member of the government benches explain why I am wrong. We have heard — and we will continue to hear from, it sounds like — opposition members of this assembly who are concerned about how these powers may be exercised and what the impact and the effect may be.

It’s all speculative, as the speakers prior to me have been forced to admit. It’s all speculative because we don’t have a clue. We don’t have a clue how the government intends for these powers to be exercised.

How do you have a meaningful conversation? Ironically, the government does a disservice to itself. It does a bigger disservice to the public and the people of British Columbia, but ironically, it kind of does a disservice to itself because with more details, the government might find it actually attracts some support from the opposition benches. But it’s not going to get support from the opposition benches with a piece of legislation that says: “Give us the power to do something generally, but we’re not going to tell you what we’re going to do.”

[2:00 p.m.]

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I wonder what Leonard Krog would say about this. His successor is here. Leonard Krog would not remain silent in the face of this. Leonard Krog would denounce this as an example of fundamentally flawed legislative drafting — and not accidental. It is entirely purposeful. There is a representative from Nanaimo here, a successor to Mr. Krog.

Leonard Krog and I had all kinds of battles in this chamber. Sometimes I was sitting over there; sometimes I was sitting over here. But we agreed on the respect that this chamber and the people that occupy it are due. This is a profoundly disrespectful piece of legislation. Yes, disrespectful to the individuals but, more importantly, disrespectful to the institution itself and an indicator and an indication that what we saw from the Minister of Citizens’ Services is but a glimpse of what this government intends to do in the future.

Armed with that majority, the belief in the need to bring matters before this chamber for meaningful discussion and debate has disappeared every bit as quickly as a supply and confidence agreement. That’s no longer on the agenda.

There are 45 sections, about 100 pages, dedicated to the Auditor General Act. Well, the good news is in the future, we won’t need that. Just need one-page legislation. Government may create an Auditor General, details to follow. We’ll get back to you. Just give us permission to create an Auditor General, and we’ll look after the rest. We’ve got this great office. I’ve seen it. It’s right above the Premier’s office. It’s called the cabinet room. Now, no one is allowed in there. It’s a small group. There are 20, or whatever it is — 21 people. It’s gone up.

No one is allowed to hear what goes on in there. In fact, there are laws that preclude anyone from talking about what goes on in that room. But that’s where all the details will be worked out. Details to follow.

We’re trying to guess how the government might want to exercise the power it is seeking to achieve here. We are told that decisions in that regard will be influenced by a report that is due on the minister’s desk, if it’s not already there. She hasn’t been clear about that. The manner in which the powers that are being sought in Bill 12 will be exercised will be influenced by the information contained within a report, but we’re not allowed to see the report.

The minister wants this chamber and the people in it to vote on granting her and the government the powers — and the government, in perpetuity, the powers — without even seeing the report that she says she’s going to make those decisions based off of. People watching this…. I suspect there aren’t that many, although, given the nature of the subject, I think the audience is growing.

I think the audience is growing because the nature of the subject is of profound importance to so many people. Obviously, people who are looking to purchase and sell a home, the professionals, the tens of thousands of professionals who are engaged in that noble profession, are asking us…. I’ll tell you what they’re asking us. How are we going to vote on this? They ask that.

[2:05 p.m.]

They know how the government is going to vote. It’s their piece of legislation. So they ask the opposition: how are you going to vote on this? Part of that is: how do you think it’s going to work? Our answer: well, we don’t have a clue. We don’t have a clue because the legislation refuses to provide any indication of how this is intended to work. The minister is refusing to provide any details. She has purposely tabled the legislation apparently days before a report she is due to receive which she refuses to share with any of us.

If recent past history is any indication, when it comes time in these proceedings to put the detailed questions to the minister about how the general powers being sought in Bill 12 are going to be exercised, she’s going to say: “I can’t talk about it” or “I won’t talk about it.” If I’m wrong and if we’re wrong and if we’re being unfair, then I presume some member of the government will have the parliamentary decency to stand up and point out why we’re wrong.

The issue itself is so important. The impact, the effect of a change like this, we are told, could be profound in terms of the cascading effect of changes to the law of contract. That’s all speculative because we don’t know the details. That, in and of itself, is cause for tremendous concern and should be the subject of a vigorous debate in this chamber.

You can’t debate in a vacuum. You can’t debate meaningfully a provision that says: “Give us a power, but we won’t tell you how we intend to exercise that power.” That is why, given the trend we are seeing from this government, I am perhaps presenting as a little more agitated than the normal.

I mean, maybe this is part of the clean green movement. We’re not going to need any of those books anymore. We’re going to save a lot of paper. We’re entering the age of one-page bills. The government may amend the laws of contract. Details to follow.

It will be interesting to see if anyone from the government benches, and particularly from the cabinet, accepts the standing invitation that of course exists in this place to defend this piece of legislation. I take it that we had one private member attempt to do so. Based on my listening, it didn’t go very well. It doesn’t sound like we’re going to hear from anyone else.

Aside from the specific issue itself, this government’s new era of legislative drafting format represents an abuse, an abuse that is amplified by their refusal to engage in a meaningful discussion about how they intend to exercise the broad regulatory powers they seek approval for and, by the way, are going to get. They’re going to get it. I never was great with numbers — odd thing for the former Finance Minister to say — but 57 trumps 29, or whatever the numbers are.

[2:10 p.m.]

That doesn’t make it right. “We’re doing this because we can,” as others have said during the course of other debates, in particular the Citizens’ Services’ freedom-of-information amendments. “We’re doing this because we can. We’re stonewalling because we can. We’re not sharing information that is essential in rendering an informed decision on the part of members. We’re withholding that information because we can.” It doesn’t make it right.

I’m going to send him the transcript, because I don’t think he would ever have expected to see the day when I stood in this place and cried out: “Leonard Krog, where are you?” Leonard Krog would be embarrassed. Leonard Krog would be embarrassed to have his name attached to a piece of legislation that seeks to shield the government from any meaningful parliamentary scrutiny of the exercise of its powers.

I have absolutely no confidence that the government is going to change its mind about the path they are on. The path they are on…. This is yet another example of an overall approach and strategy. It is an egregious example, to be sure, but it is only yet another example of the mockery they are now making of this parliamentary institution.

I cling desperately — perhaps naively, perhaps foolishly — to the hope that a member of the executive council and members of the government caucus will have the courage to stand up and try to defend a piece of legislation that, for reasons that I have laid out and others will continue to lay out, is indefensible. It may be indefensible substantively, in terms of the impact it will have. We don’t know that yet. It is entirely indefensible procedurally. It is entirely indefensible procedurally in its present form.

As I say, I get the numbers, but a reliance on the heavy hand of a parliamentary democracy to achieve things that are indefensible speaks to a government that has acquired, in a few short years, the kind of arrogance that it usually takes governments over a decade to achieve. And I’m well positioned to say that.

I’m going to leave the chamber in a moment. I’m not supposed to say that. I apologize. I withdraw that remark. I’m going to go to my office. I have this television. It’s a small television, but it’s a small office now. I’m going to turn it on. Every time I turn it on, first of all, I’m impressed. It’s the first colour TV I’ve owned, and I’m not even sure if I own it. I don’t think I do.

I’m going to watch this debate unfold. I am going to cling to that faint, desperate hope that in the face of this abuse on our parliamentary institution, at least some members of the government stand and try to rationalize and explain why it is justified. In my view, it is not.

[2:15 p.m.]

S. Furstenau: Just as the member for Abbotsford West was mentioning, I had my television on — no, we don’t own them — in my slightly bigger office than his. I was listening to him speak to this. After listening, I felt compelled to come up and add my voice to this debate, because he’s making a lot of really important comments.

I’ve talked a lot about democracy. You could go into Hansard, and you could search through there, right back to 2017. One day maybe I’ll tally up how many times I’ve talked about democracy and my commitment to democracy and how important it is that we protect and nurture and improve democracy. Because it’s never done, the work on democracy, but it’s always at risk. It’s not been the natural or regular way of governing through most of human history.

The other night when we were all together, I talked about when I bring shadows into the Legislature. I had one today, Darya. She’s a student in high school. Her family is in Russia, and they are deeply concerned about their safety and well-being. There is a country that is not a democracy. It has the appearance of democracy. There are elections, but the outcomes of those elections are predetermined.

I talked the other night about the role that we all have to play as elected representatives of our communities, as members of this chamber, as occupiers of these seats — that upon us is a burden, and it’s serious. It is the burden to protect the democratic institution that we’ve been elected to. It is the burden to protect the processes and the procedures and the rules that govern this institution. It is a burden upon us to ensure that the dignity of this institution is upheld in how we comport ourselves, how we engage in debate, what we bring.

It is important for us to remember that we represent the citizens. We also serve them. We serve.

As has been talked about quite a bit in this debate, there is a trend that’s happening, and it seems to be accelerating. That is a trend of legislation coming before us for debate in this chamber, and that legislation has enormous gaps. This piece of legislation is, actually, spectacular in that it consists of nothing but gaps.

When our policy staff had a briefing on this piece of legislation, at the end of the briefing, they were so agitated. For every single question they asked, the response was the same. “We can’t answer that. That’s a question for the minister. There is no answer to that question.” There is no substance in the legislation.

The legislation, as has been pointed out, gives the ability to cabinet to put into it anything it wants. Details to follow. The examples of this, as I say, have been accelerating.

[2:20 p.m.]

Back in December of 2020, there was a piece of legislation around paid sick days, but it was missing a significant piece. How many paid sick days? What it did grant was for… Again, it was enabling. It granted the government to come up with a number on their own.

For that not to be subject to not just debate but to the process that is meant to happen in here, which is investigation…. What is the intention? How is that going to work? What are the implications for individuals? What are the implications for small businesses? How does this get covered?

Now we have this piece of legislation that is significant, potentially, in this housing crisis, yet we can’t really investigate or be able to probe what the intention is, what the outcomes are supposed to be. How are we going to measure the success of those outcomes? How are we going to interpret what the intention is? There isn’t anything in the legislation to be able to do that with.

A parliament is, essentially, where things are to be spoken of.

An Hon. Member: There’s a word for that.

S. Furstenau: Parler.

On Monday night, I was actually going to talk a little bit about the Magna Carta, but I was advised not to by my staff. My wonderful, incredibly wise chief of staff, Maeve, said: “Those words should never be spoken in a speech that you’re giving, Sonia.” I’m going to prove her wrong.

When I studied medieval history and then became a teaching assistant in medieval history, we would get to the Magna Carta. Inevitably, we would get to the Magna Carta, this document. It’s often thought of as being the foundational document of democracy.

Well, it was really kind of a power struggle between land-owning barons who were trying to wrestle some of the power out of the hands of the most powerful baron, which was the king…. These were disgruntled barons who were tired of feeling overtaxed and taken for granted and not being engaged and involved enough in the important decisions that were being made, particularly around how much taxes they were going to pay.

While it may not be really the origins of democracy, it was the origin of the idea that there should be a check on power, that a problem that we have in society stems from unchecked power.

Then, as we know, the development of a parliamentary system, the Westminster parliamentary system — we are all descendants of that in here — was to establish institutional checks on the power of the monarch in England. The idea was that you had a parliament that was engaged in the expression of power, in the recognition of how authority and power play out in people’s lives, and that you had representatives inside this institution who brought forward the issues of the people.

[2:25 p.m.]

Here we are today, the 21st century. We are part of this long tradition of parliamentary democracy. We have a government in place that won a majority of seats, 57 out of 87 seats, in an election in which just over 50 percent of eligible voters voted. Right around just under 50 percent of those voters voted for this party that is now in government, which means 25 percent of eligible voters in British Columbia delivered a pretty overwhelming majority to one party.

That party and that caucus get to make decisions every single day, with every single act, with every single piece of legislation, with every motion. With every way in which they interact in here, that party gets to make decisions about how much it strengthens the parliamentary democracy or how much it weakens it.

This decision, this bill, weakens it. This puts the weight on the wrong side of the scale. I know that the member for Abbotsford West was saying he wants to hear from the members of government, from the executive, from the caucus, to stand up and make the case for why this is a legitimate approach to bringing legislation to this chamber.

We wanted to hear from members of government on Bill 22, the amendments to the freedom-of-information act, which had many of the same problems. In fact, we didn’t even get to finish debating that bill. The current Government House Leader was actually stopped mid-sentence because time allocation was called. Debate on the bill was closed, and a few minutes later royal assent was granted. Not long after that, oh, suddenly the figure for cost of freedom of information — the cost of that now for citizens to access what is their information, what is public information — was determined.

I had a friend who was considering running, and she reached out to me. I said that you need to write a letter to yourself. If you get elected and you find yourself on government benches, you’re going to find that the first time will come, guaranteed, that you will be expected to vote in a way that does not align with your principles and values. Before you get to that moment, you need to write yourself a letter, as the person you are exactly right now.

When you’re faced with that decision of voting in a way that doesn’t align with who you are, with what you believe in, with what your values are, you need to read that letter to yourself, because you need to make that decision now: how you are going to respond in that moment. You need to make the decision now: are you in service to the people of British Columbia? Are you in service to the institution that you have been elected to? Are you in service to the idea of democracy? Or, and this will be the decision you’ll be faced with, are you in service to a political party?

[2:30 p.m.]

I said that the first time you make the decision will be the hardest. The first time you vote for something that you don’t believe in, that doesn’t align with your principles and values, will be the hardest time, but after that, it’ll get easier. Then it will become, in your mind, justifiable.

It becomes: don’t listen to the people on the other side of the House. Don’t listen to what they’re saying, because it’s all just a game. They’re just trying to score points. Don’t worry. We’re doing this for something bigger. Don’t worry. On the whole, we’re doing good things. Sometimes we have to make hard choices. Sometimes we have to compromise our values. But it’s okay, because, on the whole, we’re better.

You slowly but surely start to justify these decisions over and over again until you don’t even have to think about them anymore. You don’t even know what you’re voting on. You just stand up and vote according to what your side says to do. We did it this week. We debate motions in this chamber on Monday mornings. We debate the motions back and forth, and then we don’t vote on them. Why not? Why not vote on them?

Deputy Speaker: If I might draw you back to Bill 12.

S. Furstenau: There’s so much in there. You’re right. I shall focus on that.

Deputy Speaker: They are the rules of the place to debate the bill in front of us.

S. Furstenau: It sure would be great to know what it is we would be voting on when we vote on Bill 12.

Interjection.

S. Furstenau: This is true. It is a little challenging to know exactly where to focus the debate and where to focus our comments. It seems to be pretty wide open, what’s going to end up in this legislation, which one day we will see, after it’s brought in through regulation, by cabinet, in a room that nobody gets to go into or know what was said or done or why.

Again, on legislation. On voting. The premise of democracy is that citizens understand why governments are making the decisions they’re making. Citizens get to have access to that information. Citizens get to hear governments make the case for the legislation that they’re bringing forward and for the policies and proposals.

That’s the idea. Shine a light. Make it public. Put it on the record. Tell us what you stand for. Tell us why you’re making the decisions you’re making. Bring the public into that conversation. Make the case. If it’s good legislation, and you believe in it, make the case to the public for why it’s coming forward, what it’s going to accomplish, how you’re going to measure its success and how it’s going to serve the people.

Believe me, in a housing crisis like we’re in, the public is starving for solutions. They’re starving to know that the government feels this crisis as urgently as they do. People are faced with being unhoused in a two-income family with children. They’ve never faced these conditions before, and there is nowhere for them to go. They want to know from government: if you’re bringing in a measure about housing, help us understand exactly how this is going to be a solution to the crisis that we’re facing in every single one of our communities.

Most people don’t have time to pay attention to the debates, to the ins and outs of what happens or the procedures in this House. That’s why we’re elected to represent. That’s our job. It’s in here.

[2:35 p.m.]

We are legislators. That is our number one job. If we can’t do that work on behalf of our constituents, on behalf of the citizens, then we’re all failing.

I think it’s really important to hear this as a plea, really, to bring our best selves to this work and to remember we are all only temporarily here. We are transient occupiers. But the order that we leave this place in matters. If we diminish it, government over government, parliament over parliament, and we just diminish it a little bit more each time, and we justify that diminishing by saying, “Well, the folks before us diminished it, and they showed us some diminishing, so now we’re going to diminish it a little bit as well, and that justifies our diminishing,” then we send a signal to the next people.

Believe me, there will be next people, and they’ll be able to say: “You know what? These procedures — so cumbersome, so inefficient. We can get so much more done if we don’t have to spend time in the Legislature talking about it, debating it, hearing from the opposition about the problems, or about ways to improve, about proposed amendments. We don’t have to spend time in the Legislature actually collaborating on anything, because it’s so cumbersome. It’s so tiresome being criticized or being told that this isn’t perfect.”

The next generation that sits in those benches is going to point to the last generation and say: “Well, they diminished it, so we’re going to diminish it a little bit more.” This has to stop. This has to end, because at some point, it gets diminished to the point of not mattering, and I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t think anybody here wants to be a part of that.

I think people here care. I think people here do want to bring their best work and their best selves. I believe that deeply. But it is a matter of asking: what is the level of priority of my service? Where is the top? Is it to the people of this province and the future of this institution, or is it to a political party? That’s the question that has to be asked.

Along with the member for Abbotsford West, I echo this. I hope to hear from members of the government caucus about why approaching legislation in this way is justifiable, is appropriate. How does this not diminish the parliamentary work that we’re supposed to be doing in here? I can’t see a justification for it. Efficiency is not a justification. The whole purpose of this institution is actually to be inefficient. It is a check on power. It is oversight. It is accountability. It is transparency. That’s why we’re here. Shine a light.

I’m certain that members of the government caucus would be echoing these sentiments exactly if they were on this side of the House. I guess the question to ask is: which side of history do people want to end up on?

[2:40 p.m.]

B. Stewart: Well, I want to thank the member preceding, from Cowichan Valley, and the member for Abbotsford West for making some interesting points about a bill that has been brought in….

I love the terminology about the new era. I’m thinking about: is that really what it is? I have to say that one of the things that I can remember around the cabinet table is having the discussion about the legislation and what the drafters had time to work on and create and make certain. It is a new era in the sense that we continue to see challenges with bills that are written, and they’re coming back here for amendments after they’ve just been passed.

I have to wonder: is that really what we want? Is that what we’re talking about? I mean, we’re talking about a piece of legislation that is really nothing more than a shell. It’s kind of the framework about how we would do things. I could see this as a guiding document in terms of what it is that the minister has outlined in her remarks, etc., but the bottom line is it’s incomplete.

The bottom line is that I’m not even certain. I’d be interested…. Probably, the member for Abbotsford West knows better. Is this really proper parliamentary procedure, to be drafting a bill that’s so hollow and shallow and without anything in it? Is that what the government…? Is that what the people of British Columbia expect? Is that what the hundreds of years before we got here in this Legislature actually expected parliament to do?

It was designed to bring laws in, as has been eloquently stated, about the fact that it’s meant to help govern and make this a better place to be, and also deal with other issues. But in this particular case, when it was announced in early November…. I mean, it’s talking about consumer protection. This is not the first jurisdiction that this has been attempted or tried to be instituted in. I understand that it’s been tested in the U.K., in Australia and other countries. The bottom line is it is not perfect. It is about the lack of….

I mean, it tries to create certainty around the fact that a willing buyer and a willing seller come to an agreement on a contractual arrangement to buy a piece of property, that is intended to have a cooling-off period — make certain that things aren’t overlooked, like home inspections, and other factors like that are not overlooked.

I have to say that the whole idea…. I know that the idea of having transparency with this type of legislation is important, but we’ve got a problem. Why are we dealing with this in the first place? I mean, the Minister of Housing is not here. The Minister of Finance, who was the former Minister of Housing…. The reality is….

Deputy Speaker: Just to remind the member, we don’t comment on the presence or absence of members in the chamber.

B. Stewart: What I’m really referring to is the fact that we have this housing crisis. Nobody here. We’ve talked about it. The government has talked about it time and time again, about building more supply and making certain that there is supply. The Minister of Housing has made it very clear, over the last number of months and the past few years, in the use of tools that the government has in order to force municipalities to help achieve certain results in terms of zoning, the timelines and the speed at which to get developments done.

Now, the Premier’s own riding, just down the road here, has the city of Langford. It is probably a model in terms of what the mayor and his council have been able to achieve over the number of years in the speed and the certainty — the process — of getting development through their community. Why is there an attraction for development out there? Why are they a community that’s been able to take input, like the community contribution agreements, DCCs, put that into a pot and been able to come up with first-time homeowner grants? What an incentive to buy a home in Langford.

The part about it is…. We have lots of other municipalities that don’t meet that timeline or don’t meet those standards. One of the things that we’re talking about is we’re trying to regulate or legislate this whole problem, and really, we know that it’s a supply issue. It’s about densification.

[2:45 p.m.]

I mean, I know that in my own community, we’ve seen the same as the rest of the province: skyrocketing housing prices. Why is that? Because the supply is choked off. The fact is that we’re not getting to yes.

You can’t have a province that’s growing at 60,000 people per year and expect that…. The minister said in the House earlier that the government had started measuring, and they had something like 53,000 new rental units created in the last 12 months. I think that’s his statement. If that’s accurate, then we shouldn’t have the housing crisis that we have, but we do have it, and it’s a shortage.

The fact is that we’ve got market conditions, low interest rates. The fact is that people were sitting around and starting to rethink their future with COVID the last two years. We’re just past the two-year mark. And the reality is that people have made a conscious decision that they want to take savings or whatever it is and buy that first house.

Not everybody is going to be able to afford a house, nor are they going to be able to afford a house at the high prices. But when it comes to protection, consumer protection, the easiest way to get consumer protection is bring back and bring on the supply that everybody is desperately talking about. We have lots of councils and lots of neighbourhoods and people that speak out against development. They’re against it. Why is that possible?

Many British Columbians, I’m sure, have travelled around the world, and they’ve been to communities that are millions of people living in a city. I mean, okay, so Vancouver is 2½ million to three million people in the city and surrounding areas. What about London? What about New York? What about Hong Kong? What about Beijing? Shanghai? They’re not sprawling. They’re not going out. They have farmland right outside the city. You jump on the train from Beijing to Shanghai, and you’re in farmland within the next ten or 15 minutes.

The reality is that they have densification right in close. They have transit and everything. We talk about all the things that we desire about a cleaner planet and all of those types of things. But when it comes to this cooling-off period, as Bill 12 talks about, the whole thing about it is: is it really addressing the issue? What it is, is it’s window dressing around the outside.

Here’s an article that came out yesterday in the Vancouver Sun written by Vaughn Palmer. He quotes the minister. “‘People need to have the protection as they are making one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives,’” said Minister Robinson in a news release.

Deputy Speaker: Of course, no names, Member.

B. Stewart: Okay. Minister of Finance, I should say. Thank you.

The fact that in this particular…. When it was announced and the bill was brought in, the press conference was done, and there are next to no details. Some of the things that the bill’s proposed amendments to the Property Law Act would create — the right of rescission, whereby a property buyer can rescind the deal by written notice to the seller within a fixed number of days after the offer to purchase was accepted…. However, the relevant details of the so-called homeowner protection period were left to be determined by the NDP cabinet once the legislation passes.

It’s a fairly significant activity in the province of British Columbia — real estate transactions. Even on the government revenue side, we’ve seen the home purchase tax, the property purchase tax, increase to somewhere north of $3 billion per year. We’re fiddling around with the marketplace with what is stated as consumer protection. We’re not really getting to what I think is….

People are making conscious decisions. I know from my own experience buying my very first house…. It was a very modest $28,500, which is a few decades back. Needless to say, the part about it is that I didn’t really know. The house was built in 1908, and I can tell you that there were probably all sorts of things that I knew nothing about. I had a basement that was more of a crawl space with a furnace in it. Honestly, I’m sure that the home inspection services today would probably say that this isn’t inhabitable. But it was good enough for me at that price, and it worked out. Anyway, I doubt it’s still standing.

[2:50 p.m.]

Anyway, I think that the other thing that was mentioned in here…. It’s unusual.

Vaughn Palmer, as most of you know, has been around this Legislature for some time. He’s well respected, and he says: “Just in case the New Democrats forgot something in the drafting stage, the open-ended powers allow the cabinet to define ‘a word or expression used but not defined’ in the legislation. Call it the Humpty Dumpty clause,” as he refers to it, “after the character Alice in Through the Looking-Glass: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I chose it to mean — neither more, nor less.’”

I have to say that I go back to my earlier comment about the fact that when we were working on legislation, ministers like myself pored over the wording with staff and the legislative drafters to make certain that the intent…. I’m sure that some of the members in the House here, in government, sit on leg review. You review it, you go back, you perfect, or you try to catch all of those things.

I don’t know whether that’s something that…. Maybe that committee doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe it doesn’t have to because everything will be done in regulation, and it’ll be determined by the minister so that leg review won’t actually have to review this because there are clearly undefined statements and policy that are going to be by regulation.

“So sweeping are the regulatory powers that at one point in talking to the reporters, the Minister of Finance herself appeared to have overlooked one of the provisions. A reporter asked if a willing buyer and a willing seller could choose to waive the cooling-off period and simply cut a deal. ‘The idea is to not allow that,’ the minister said.”

I think that this is where we’re starting to believe that we can control, regulate, through bureaucracy, what is happening with the marketplace. It doesn’t work that way.

The minister also “justified the lack of specifics by saying she was waiting for the results of consultations with the real estate sector undertaken…by the B.C. Financial Services Authority.” It’s my understanding from other clippings that I’ve read that that review is now complete. I’m not certain if the minister has it, but that’s essentially the grounds: that we want to rush this into the House, get this passed so that we can make the regulations and get this in place sometime by summer.

I think that it just…. You know, in all the years that I’ve been in this House, and I’m sure in the decades that the province has been around, that type of approach with legislation would never be accepted. The idea that some things are controlled by regulation — we’ve taken it to a new level, as the member for Abbotsford West said. A new era.

I think that the other thing…. We have already had a recent example with Bill 22 about the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act modifications, which was hotly debated in the House — what everything meant, what were going to be things such as the cost, etc. But what ended up happening was that it was closed in terms of debate. The government used closure — the introduction, the timing of it. I haven’t gone back to look at when it was introduced and how many days it was actually debated.

The bottom line is that that’s what this House is here for. It’s to make certain that rules that are going to be imposed on the citizens of British Columbia through law are debated and to make certain that they’re passed with the idea that we have debated it. I understand that there are exceptions to that, and that’s the whole idea of closure. But the idea of closure on bills that have no information — there’s no guts to them; they’re by regulation — is just…. I mean, that’s unprecedented and a poor example of what this parliament is supposed to be doing.

I think that, you know…. I mean, I don’t need to remind the members on the opposite side. There has been some criticism about transparency, secrecy, in that particular bill, Bill 22. I don’t think that it’s any surprise that in that particular case, that this bill, Bill 12, is lacking in a lot of specifics that the public, the industry, the buyers, the sellers, expect.

This idea that we’re going to be able to hand-hold them through the transaction, make certain that every deal is…. That they’re not buying into something that is going to be like a leaky condo or something like that….

[2:55 p.m.]

There’s a comment about the support from the home inspection industry, and I don’t disagree. I’ve used home inspectors buying property, etc., and I think that there is a place for home inspections to point out the obvious things. I also know that the home inspectors are often…. They go through a training process, etc., but they’re not perfect either. I know that in selling a townhouse that I had a few years ago, it was pointed out by the buyer that there were some imperfections on a house that was only a few years old. I was a bit surprised. I didn’t even notice myself. So there is a value in that.

I guess my point about this is that I think the idea that we might end up with mandatory home inspections…. I mean, that’s added cost, for one. Secondarily, I’m not certain that they are all professionals. I know that some people have way greater understanding of construction and the methodology. Think about the eras of construction and how the building code has changed over time. Constantly I hear from engineers and people like that, “Well, you can’t do this, because it doesn’t meet the building code of today,” or whatever it is. And it is substantial.

We passed legislation earlier this session on handling or removal of asbestos in buildings. It’s important. But it was used for a period of time, and many of the homes that are in our province have products like that that are inside the home, etc., and we need to be aware of that. I’m not certain that every home inspector would be able to identify that unless he knew that file intimately in terms of homes built between 1963 and 1970, or whatever it is. I don’t know the numbers. But I have been surprised myself, in doing a renovation to one of our buildings back in Kelowna, where we had to do asbestos removal, and it was a considerable expense.

I don’t disagree that there is a place for home inspections, etc., but the idea that we do it by regulation…. Most times I think that it’s like buying a used vehicle. I mean, you can get it checked out, but there’s no mandatory car inspection service. You don’t have to do that. I would say that in a case of a willing buyer and a willing seller, sometimes there are unforeseen gaps in terms of what’s happening.

Now, in this particular case, the minister herself has said that if there’s a willing buyer and a willing seller, we’re still not going to allow them to close the deal. There’s going to be a cooling-off period regardless.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

What’s going to prevent the willing buyer from not putting in multiple offers, putting multiple offers in on different properties and becoming part of the problem, where they’re tying up real estate that should be in the marketplace? It should be there for other people to consider, and it could be tied up under that cooling-off period, under Bill 12.

I do think that this bill, Bill 12, is very much like what we saw with Bill 22, and that’s not the way that regulations should be handled. They should be for fine-tuning things that we want statutory officers to be approving or making certain that they’re the ones that are making the adjustment.

I have to say that this label that the government has taken on as being the most secretive government in Canada…. I’m thinking: “Well, geez. How did you get a label like that?” Well, if you’re hiding things…. That’s kind of what I would say Bill 12 tends to do. It’s hiding what the rules are going to be, because it’s going to be done by regulation.

The government says that it’s modelling this from the same provisions in the Real Estate Development Marketing Act for presale condos, but it’s a completely different type of transaction. Those are new builds. They’re not complete yet. There is a cooling-off period in those situations where you can purchase, and then you’ve got a seven-day cooling-off period. Also, with presales, you can’t necessarily do a home inspection on those particular types of purchases. So it’s a completely different type of transaction we’re talking about — homes and buildings. I mean, the limitations on where this starts, where it stops, is undefined at this point.

[3:00 p.m.]

These details that will be decided at a later date include the prescribed number of days after the sale where the offer can be rescinded; limiting waivers of the right of rescission and the circumstances in which that may or may not be waived; respecting service of the notice of rescission; penalties paid by the purchaser to the seller if the purchaser exercises the right of rescission; the timing of payments of the deposit under a contract of purchase and sale despite any provision of the contract to the contrary; establishing procedures for the payment of the deposit under a contract of purchase and sale; respecting the return of the deposit paid under a contract of purchase and sale if the purchaser exercises the right of rescission, including exempting the types of property and classes of buyers.

It continues to…. There are a lot of regulations or rules that are going to be done by regulation that I think Bill 12 doesn’t properly address. I guess I did question whether this is the new era. Is this a way of doing legislation? Or is there something in our history, Westminster rules, that maybe makes this type of legislation illegitimate? Is it the type of thing that is not the way to be doing things? Is it a backdoor route to doing things?

I know that in the U.K., they’ve instigated a model where it’s turned out to be a complete disaster in terms of having a cooling-off period. It can take upwards of four months to see property change hands, and deals fall apart. So how can members of this House adequately debate this legislation when it appears and raises far more questions than it answers? We want to adequately debate this legislation because we know that it will have a profound impact on so many people.

We want to talk about housing affordability, which, even though this is consumer protection, from what I’ve read, that the minister has suggested, I think the fact that the lack of affordable housing in B.C. is certainly the biggest issue that the province is facing, in terms of certainty for people that want to live here, want to work here. We know that there’s no shortage of jobs, but we certainly know that there’s a shortage of housing and the fact that a Vancouver home costs nearly $600,000 more today than it did five years ago.

Far too many people can barely afford the rent, let alone purchase a home in this province. We desperately need to see measures to improve housing and housing affordability. But this bill will not accomplish that goal. The average home price in B.C. surpassed $1.1 million, up 25 percent just in the last year alone. It now takes 36 years to save a down payment on an average house in Vancouver, according to the National Bank.

B.C. Assessment figures. I think everybody here that’s a homeowner would know that assessments are up significantly. Chilliwack, 40 percent. Langley, 39. Abbotsford, 38. Port Coquitlam, 35 percent. Surrey, 34 percent. Squamish, 31. I know, in my home area, that it’s around 40 percent. So it’s a big number to have assessments going up like that.

The fact that people are paying what appear to be unreasonable prices…. I’m sure that the members opposite are aghast. Why would people have to pay $1.1 million for an average home in British Columbia anywhere, let alone if it was Vancouver? I’m sure that number is more than double, the $1.1 million.

I think that the situation is that I’m surprised by it. I think that the main thing that we should be recognizing and the government should be trying to do with Bill 12 is to bring in things like I suggested earlier, like the city of Langford uses, in accelerating development through certainty and procedures that staff use at a bureaucratic level where they get to yes.

I know that the mayor himself has told me that if it doesn’t have the rezoning within 90 days, he wants the file on his desk so he can see it himself and find out why it is, why we are having these problems. The culture in Langford has changed, whereas other communities are still lagging behind. We need to change that culture in order to get the housing supply that we need.

We desperately need to see measures to improve housing affordability in B.C. This bill is not going to do anything to accomplish that goal. It’s incredibly frustrating because this NDP government has promised time and time again that they would improve affordability.

[3:05 p.m.]

I know that we’ve talked a bit about that during question period. But under their leadership, we’ve only seen it get worse. As always, the NDP say the right things but then fail to deliver when it counts.

Well, in my new critic role, I haven’t seen too much accomplished when it comes to transportation — lots of rhetoric, lots of announcements.

I mean, we’ve got the Massey Tunnel that was under construction in 2016. Now it’s been stopped, and we now have a promise that we’re going to build a new tunnel, but we have to do more environmental studies, and it’s not going to start construction for another three years. It will be complete in 2030. Many of the members that actually drive and take ferries here would be using that new bridge this year that would’ve been complete had it not been, you know, paused on.

The Pattullo Bridge….

Deputy Speaker: I’ll remind the member that we’re speaking to Bill 12.

B. Stewart: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m really referring to the housing.

The government made the promise in successive elections: “We’re going to solve the housing problem.” You have the tools. You have the answers. That’s what you’ve said. In Bill 12, all we’re seeing here is more bureaucracy and regulation. We’re not getting to the solutions.

Interjection.

B. Stewart: That’s right. Why don’t you stand up and speak to it, Member?

I don’t need to reiterate some of the things that I know that we’ve heard before here about the annual renters rebate. We still haven’t seen that. That was even asked earlier today. Madam Speaker, that’s not about Bill 12. So we’ll get back to the point here.

I do want to talk a little bit about some other things that the B.C. Real Estate Association…. When this was announced in early November and they were given the information, there was considerable concern, obviously, by the Real Estate Association of British Columbia. It’s a change, and who’s not going to be concerned about a change, upsetting what has actually become a super-heated market? There’s no question about it.

The idea of the government is…. This article came out from the B.C. Real Estate Association on November 10 about this particular concept. So I guess, really, considering how much substance is in this bill, Bill 12, we were still in session, and the fact that the minister had asked the B.C. Financial Services Authority to investigate, consult…. Well, why didn’t we just bring this bill in back in the last session and get ‘er done and do it through regulation the same as it is here today? The bottom line is that it wouldn’t have been very popular, and it’s not very popular today. I know that there are many people still concerned.

As I mentioned, in Vaughn Palmer’s article in the Vancouver Sun yesterday, this is a…. I mean, it’s a bit of a charade in the sense that it’s not necessarily getting to the protection that consumers are really needing. I mean, it’s creating an artificial waiting period which allows for all sorts of other things in the background to happen.

I think that one of the concerns that the B.C. Real Estate Association says in this article:

“While the government’s goal of the cooling-off period has increased transparency, it’s worth considering the potential impact the policy could have on B.C.’s housing affordability crisis. If implemented, more buyers would likely bid on more properties, potentially causing an increase to housing prices. That’s over the 40 percent of B.C. Assessment. In B.C.’s extremely low supply conditions, this could increase prices by an additional 2 percent to 3 percent on the initial research done by the B.C. Real Estate authority.”

In addition, the minister had asked that the consultation include following consumer protection policies, restricting blind bidding, mandatory conditions such as home inspections or financing — which I touched on about home inspections earlier — and other practices that may be identified as consumer protection risks.

Bill 12 is a blank sheet of paper without any of the real rules about how we’re going to get to consumer protection and safety. It’s being done by regulation. It should be right here in the House, where we get a chance to debate the bill and make certain that the public knows what’s coming and what we have in front of us.

[3:10 p.m.]

On that particular point, I find it difficult, without the information, to be properly supporting Bill 12.

L. Doerkson: I had hoped that someone from the government side would have stepped up to speak to Bill 12, the Property Law Amendment Act, but it doesn’t appear that’s going to happen this afternoon.

I’ve spent most of the afternoon sort of tuning in. I was tuning in for the purpose of hearing the opposite side speak to this bill, to hopefully offer some clarity. Of course, that hasn’t been offered up.

Bill 12, of course, comes as a shell of legislation, and it doesn’t provide any clarity for anybody, really, to make any kind of a decision on where you might place a vote on this legislation. I’m shocked, to be honest, that it’s before the House. I mean, we’ve heard many comments this afternoon…. In fact, we just heard comments like, “a new era of legislation,” which is, to me, shocking and frightening.

We’ve heard other comments from two opposing parties that have been the only people to speak to this bill. I think it is imperative for someone from the government side of this House to stand up and explain why they would vote “yes” to a bill that does not provide any information as to how long these cooling-off periods will last, how those cooling-off periods will be passed to a second or a third offer. There’s no information about that.

As we’ve heard this afternoon, and we’ve heard multiple times, those decisions will be made in a cabinet room with no one else being privy to that information. I’m not sure how everyone outside of cabinet is able to vote to pass a bill like this unless they know information that we don’t as opposition.

I’ll suggest again that both opposition parties have spoken quite extensively against this bill this afternoon. I certainly hope that someone, this afternoon, will suggest something. As I said, it’s been suggested that this is a new era of legislation, which frightens me, to be honest. Others have said, “Is this even proper parliamentary procedure?” with respect to Bill 12.

How can a bill come to the floor, to have a very serious decision be made this quickly, on something that is so serious for the people of British Columbia? So serious. I suspect that a lot of people are watching this, and I’ll get to the reasons I think that in a moment.

We’ve heard comments this afternoon that would suggest that bills like this weaken democracy, that they create more secrecy. We have seen other times in this House when no one gets up from the government side to speak to convince me or others that this is the right thing to do. For me, as I said, I have actively watched and tuned in as much as I could this afternoon, because I was hoping to learn more about the contents of the bill.

We’ve heard other members say we’re proud. I think I probably said it right off the top — that I’m happy to add my comments to the debate. But it’s hard to suggest that this is actually debate. Again, as I have pointed out, it is simply two opposition parties that are making a desperate plea to a government to clear up the confusion that once again has been introduced to not only the House, but certainly to the people of British Columbia, by way of Bill 12 and other bills that are not complete. They don’t make sense in many ways, and there’s been no clarity offered.

The thing I heard most this afternoon with respect to Bill 12, that really stood out for me, was the comment that one of the members made earlier, saying that they still believe in this place. I’m a new member to this House, and I’m proud to be here. I’m proud to represent the folks of Cariboo-Chilcotin.

[3:15 p.m.]

I am deeply saddened and deeply concerned that when we see legislation like this come before the House, we know it’s likely going to pass later because, simply put, the government has, obviously, very strong representation here. We know it’s going to pass in spite of the effort that we make on behalf of British Columbians to question bills like Bill 12.

Today, so that people that are watching know and understand fully what I’m talking about, is the fact that we have a bill that has introduced a suggestion that we will see cooling-off periods between buyers and sellers in the British Columbia real estate market, and simply put, we don’t know anything about that. We don’t know timelines.

Again, we don’t know how things are going to be passed on. I do want to talk about that a little bit. What I mean by “passed on” is how they’ll be passed on to second-place and third-place buyers, and how that’s going to affect vendors.

I am very concerned that we’re not debating this bill, that we’re simply opposing it and trying to share our comments on behalf of British Columbians and industry members, realtors, appraisers, etc. I just don’t get a sense that this government is listening to the stakeholders. In this case, the stakeholders are, for certain, British Columbians that are faced with an unbelievably unaffordable time to live in.

With respect to the affordability, I can appreciate that Bill 12…. I would suggest that it was hoped that it’s going to somehow to create affordability, but I can assure you that in many ways, it could create a lot more problems in the real estate market than it’s going to solve. I want to talk a little bit about those for a moment.

First off, we’ve heard numbers like 1.1 and 1.2 and all of those things with respect to homes in the Lower Mainland. I can assure you that this is a massive problem for residents in rural British Columbia as well. I have lived in Williams Lake for two and a half decades or so, and I’ve lived here twice. I remember coming here as a young man, thinking how affordable real estate was here at that time. I can assure you now that it is definitely not affordable in a way that it has ever been before, and that price is rapidly rising.

We see that even in small dwellings, apartments, those types of things, that are available in both communities — 100 Mile or Williams Lake. There’s no question that the prices are on the rise in a very, very steep climb. I know that we need to deal with this, and I definitely want the government to make strides to help in some way to make homes more affordable. We all agree that it is supply and demand — and a shortage of supply — that we are seeing in this province. I have heard the government acknowledge that myself. We know that this is a serious issue, but where this legislation comes from is beyond me.

Frankly, as I’ve pointed out before, it’s not something that I can support the way it’s been presented. I mean, if there was any more information about it or its intent or how long these cooling-off periods would last for, then certainly, I could give it consideration. But at this point, for me, I am unable to support this bill.

I do want to talk a little bit about what it aims to do. It suggests that it’s going to protect buyers. I would suggest, and certainly others….

I do want to read a quote from the Victoria Times Colonist, from Darlene Hyde, who is the chief executive of the B.C. Real Estate Association. She has said that this measure could create more problems than it solves. She actually suggests that the cooling-off period could increase competition for property and that it could actually drive prices up.

I think the member from Kelowna, speaking just prior to myself, had suggested that very thing — that we could certainly see people that are now in a position as purchasers to make multiple offers now have a way to get out of some of those offers.

[3:20 p.m.]

I want to see, just for a second, what impact that might have on a seller. As much as we have talked about buyers and what the price is right now for homes throughout all of B.C. — rural B.C. and, certainly, the cities — I want to talk a little bit about a vendor.

Oftentimes the sellers are actually buyers at the same time. None of the information that I have seen has been able to clear the air for me with respect to how that seller will actually make an offer on another piece of property. Now, I can understand that they can make a subject offer, and that’s all well and good. I’m not sure how they line up dates. I’m not sure how they line up dates not only to remove their own subjects if they’re unaware of when their subjects will remove, and I’m not sure exactly how they will set completion dates or anything else.

Now, I’ve reached out and spoken with realtors and professionals in this industry. The simple fact is no one is really clear on that, and the reason is because they haven’t been fully engaged in the conversation.

Again, I mean, this is a bit of a theme that we’re seeing from this government. It’s not just bills like Bill 12. We’ve heard this from other stakeholders, with respect to other bills and other changes in government, that they have not been consulted, not in a fair way.

I understand that there has been some conversation, but it hasn’t been significant. I think that the stakeholders — certainly, the realtors of this province and appraisers — are looking for more conversation between the government and themselves to come up with a solution. I’ll get to a couple of potential suggestions that some of those industry players have made.

With respect to vendors, I want to just talk a little bit about a personal situation that my mother has found herself in, to be honest. She often watches. I hope she’s watching this afternoon. If she is, I’ll give her my best — Mom.

She was in a position of selling her property recently. I was shocked to see how much pressure there is in the real estate market. It’s not as though I don’t think that there’s a problem. There’s definitely a problem. In my mom’s situation, she was not a vendor and a buyer at the same time.

One of the things that I want to note is that her property was tied up with multiple offers as well. As someone that was trying to help their mother get through a very complicated situation, my concern was: when you accept one offer, what happens to the other offers that are waiting to be a part of the purchase? The fear for me was…. By accepting one offer over another, the other offers, of course, move on.

In this case, she had multiple offers that were different in nature. Some were subject to financing. Others were cash. Others had different dates. To be honest, in my mom’s case, she had a difficult decision to make. There was an interesting offer that was subject to financing, but it was more money than a cash no-subject offer. That decision, obviously, is a complex one. She didn’t want to risk not selling the property and, of course, losing the other buyers that were interested in the property.

I want to say that if she was to accept an offer in what appears to be a very hot market and lost the other offers…. For her, she is really going back to square one and starting over. That might be okay in a market like this, in her situation, where she’s not necessarily in a panic to sell and where she’s not buying another piece of property and connected to other dates and other obligations.

Certainly, for a lot of people, that is a very bad situation to be in for a seller. I guess that’s one of the concerns that I have. How much thought has been given to how this will impact the sellers that, as I pointed out, oftentimes are buyers?

[3:25 p.m.]

Going back to the multiple offer situation…. One of my colleagues was just mentioning that it could have the effect of driving up the market. Of course, now there’s all this perceived activity that really isn’t there. I mean, the activity is on paper. Yes, there are multiple offers out there, but it’s not connected to an actual purchase, right? Any one of those offers can collapse at any time. Again, where does that leave our vendors?

I want to talk a little bit about conversations that I’ve had with respect to Bill 12 with industry professionals. Now, appraisers are concerned about this legislation, and the reason they’re concerned is that they’re concerned that legislation, often once in place, is perhaps difficult to remove or change. One of the concerns that appraisers have is that this market, of course, is rocketing upward. They don’t see how this will solve that problem. They don’t feel like they’ve been consulted. But their fear, of course, is when the market starts moving in a different direction, in a downward trend.

What happens in that moment when…. Again, we don’t know how long these cooling-off periods are. We don’t know how that will be moved on to a multiple offer or a second offer in wait. So how will that affect a vendor in a market that is falling quickly? It’s not as though we haven’t seen those before. I mean, we’ve seen those in my lifetime. I’ve certainly been a victim of that in my own real estate purchases.

The fact is that there is a grave concern that if those are week-long cooling periods, or two-week long cooling periods, and then passed on to a second buyer that’s in second place or third, does this vendor or seller now end up with their property off of the market for a period of three or four weeks? Of course, in a falling market, that’s not so good. With all due respect to the minister that’s introduced this, it’s not great even in a rising market, to be honest, because the vendor, if they are a purchaser, can be left behind.

In other words, on March 1, you’ve accepted an offer, and perhaps you’ve accepted two or three that fall in place. Now, while everything else is rising, you have determined the price of your property. If we’re talking a period of three or four weeks in a really hot market — and as I’ve said, I’ve just witnessed how hot the market really is through a personal experience of my own — that could be the difference of thousands of dollars for a vendor. So there is a lot of concern about that.

I wanted to talk a little bit about realtors too. They’re very concerned about this, and they’re concerned about the impact that it’ll have on the vendors. Of course, realtors have a complex relationship, and by and large, they represent vendors. I know that they show property, and their aim is obviously to sell property.

Oftentimes they probably build a closer relationship with a buyer, but they’re actually contracted to the vendor in most cases. Now, I know that there are special exceptions, etc., that would have them contract to a buyer as well, but for the most part, they are contracted to a vendor. So their obligation really is to do the best job that they can for that vendor.

Part of the problem, I think, that realtors have…. I’m going to read this from a B.C. Real Estate Association pamphlet that has just been released as a bit of a brief. It’s under, I think, on the second page…. “The stakeholder engagement” is the title. It says:

“BCREA, regional real estate boards and realtors are disappointed that a mandatory cooling-off period was announced without adequate prior consultation with the real estate sector. The intent to introduce a cooling-off period in legislation was announced without a problem statement, supporting rationale, review of alternative measures, evidence of its anticipated effectiveness based on a case study analysis or consideration for its impacts on the many real estate sub-markets.”

Of course, they’ve offered up a few recommendations as well that haven’t been completely heard or digested, and I guess that is my biggest fear, is that we have time to put the brakes on this legislation.

[3:30 p.m.]

We have the time to fully understand the impact that Bill 12 is going to have on the people of British Columbia, the impact that it’s going to have on both buyers and sellers and how that impact could carry out through a domino effect over multiple deals that are connected to one home sale. We have the time. We have the ability in this House to debate and to have real and meaningful conversation about how all of us could have input on how to best help the people of British Columbia.

One of the recommendations that came from this pamphlet I have been consuming is that instead of a cooling off period, the realtors of the province are suggesting that there could be something referred to as a pre-offer period. I know that is one of the tools that was basically used in the sale of my mother’s property. It was helpful to be able to gather those offers together. I think that all of the purchasers were aware of what was going on. They had a time to view the property and those types of things.

I can appreciate that there is certainly stress on both sides of this equation. I can appreciate that the government is making an effort to try and introduce something that might help. But I just can’t see how this will. Even in my wildest dreams…. Unfortunately, it’s the only way to do it. In the absence of information, we have to fill in the blanks ourselves. In my wildest dreams, even if these are a week or ten-day cooling off periods, I can see how people will find their property off the market for two or three weeks, easily. I can absolutely see that.

Again, to the point that the appraisers have made that I’ve discussed it with…. I’ll confess. It’s only a couple. They bring up a fantastic point in that no matter which way the market is going, this really exposes, or could expose, a vendor, depending upon how fast that market is moving. Again, we’ve seen it a lot of times.

I think, more importantly, that Bill 12 has done something else here, this week. It has opened up the conversation around what I started to discuss at the top of my comments, which was that this is somewhat a new era of legislation, when a bill can come to 87 members representing all of British Columbia and the content really is just not there to be able to make a decision.

I’m not sure how even members opposite could support it. As I said before, I don’t know how a member could vote for Bill 12 unless they know something that the opposition parties don’t. At this point, I just can’t see my way to supporting this bill.

It’s been a pleasure to be part of the conversation today. I can’t call it a debate. I would certainly take that comment back if I heard from some of the members opposite this afternoon just to hear some of the details that perhaps they know that we don’t.

I certainly do look forward to more information this afternoon on this bill. I think British Columbians and the members of this House are all owed that information before we are forced into a position to make a decision that, as I said, will have a very serious impact on the people of British Columbia.

With respect to that decision…. I mean, I’m certainly not introducing anything new here today. The fact is that this is oftentimes the largest investment of people’s lives. We have heard over and over that the cost is rising and that people are trying to get into the market. We’ve heard contrary to that. We’ve heard that there are potential bubbles and that prices can quickly go down as well. So there is a lot of anxiety in this marketplace right now.

[3:35 p.m.]

The problem is not a cooling off period. The problem is one of supply and demand. That supply and demand, as I said before, is having a very serious effect throughout rural British Columbia, as well, where it’s getting more difficult every day to get into a home. That is an impact that is largely because of people moving out of the Lower Mainland and coming to places like Cariboo-Chilcotin, which are certainly some of the most beautiful places on earth.

That is definitely having an impact. There’s no question about it, but I just genuinely cannot for a moment believe that legislation like this bill is going to do anything to cool off the prices. I think that I’m going to have to side with industry professionals that know about this. They certainly know far more than I do.

I’m going to have to side with the people of British Columbia and say to the minister and to the government that we absolutely demand more information before we are made to make a choice on this. As it sits right now, I will certainly be voting against Bill 12.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the time here this afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to inject my comments on this bill.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the Minister of Muni­cipal Affairs. [Applause.]

Hon. N. Cullen: Thank you for the enthusiastic support from behind and, I’m sure, in front as well. [Applause.]

There we are. All good politicians know how to call in applause from a crowd.

I’ve been listening to the debate, and opposition members have been very, very enthusiastic to hear from some of us in government. They might not have tuned into the Minister of Finance’s discussion about this, both in the public when introducing this or…. The bill is not long, but it has details in it that explicitly talk about what this measure is, which I’ll speak to, as well as the process that the Minister of Finance has talked about.

The process is already taking place in terms of consultation with many of the varied people that the opposition is concerning themselves with — as we, too, are concerned — and the process that follows out of this: the regulation-making powers that exist within this bill and the consultation with those same interested parties to make sure that it does what the stated intent of the government is.

Now, I represent Stikine — as you know, Madam Speaker — a great big, beautiful, vast, very rural part of our province, the largest jurisdiction in this House. We have, for a generation now almost, been watching the effects on our friends and family, particularly in Vancouver, of some of the overheated aspects of the housing market in B.C.

The days of it being concentrated within a few neighbourhoods or within a few communities are long over. The effects of the housing crisis, the overheated housing market, are I think affecting, I can safely say, all of our communities. We are watching, particularly for the generation coming up behind us, the ability to own a house going further and further away.

As one young person said to me…. They have a pretty decent job. They’ve gone and got their education and are working hard. They can’t save their way into a house, no matter how prudent they are, no matter how careful they are with their finances. With what’s happening in our housing market now, and has been happening for the last number of years, it just moves further and further away.

I think that’s important, certainly, for some generations to appreciate, because I think there was a lot of criticism landed upon generations to follow, saying: “They’re eating too much avocado toast. They’re not being respectful of what we all did and struggled, and generations before mine did to struggle, to own a house.”

Well, we have heard testimonials in this place this afternoon from members of a slightly more advanced age talking about their first house purchase at $28,000, at $35,000. Fair enough, that was in 1910 maybe. No, probably closer to 1940 and ’50. The hon. members that I’m trying to make fun of may not be here, so it’s not as much fun to poke fun.

The point is this. There is sometimes a generational gap going on in this conversation. “Why can’t you kids save like I did and get a house?” Well, if the starting average price is $1.2 million, unless you come from substantive means and someone is cutting you a bequeathment cheque, that’s very difficult.

In Stikine, we’ve been seeing this reality as well. We’ve been seeing not only housing prices rise but that frenzy that happens around a house becoming available and people making offers, as we’ve all talked about, on one of the most significant decisions in their lives — especially your first house but any other house that follows after that — and making it in a panic, a panic buy.

[3:40 p.m.]

You wouldn’t go out and, probably, buy a bicycle that way, unless they said: “This is the only bicycle. There are 100 people in line, and you need it to get to work.” Suddenly our normal calculus changes. The pressure has changed.

What Bill 12 attempts to do is address one piece of this conversation. We don’t make claims of great affordability measures in this. Our government has done a number of other things on the question of affordability — speculation tax and on down the line — and that’s important. Despite all of those efforts, all of those changes to law that have happened since we have formed government in the last four or five years, the pressures on the market remain.

We’re adding more supply. We’re trying to cut down on the speculators. We’re trying to cut down on the people who are being exploitative in the market — foreign currencies and whatnot that have distorted the market realities. This has been, as some realtors and some economists have talked about, a market failure, where the supply and demand has been distorted by other effects that have come in. And it’s also just an incredible place to live. We happen to live in a really amazing place.

If anyone had told us that we were going to have a global pandemic that would last — still on — and that the severity of it would be two years, and in that two years, housing prices would, in fact, go up…. No one was predicting that. No one was saying: “People are going to stay at home and then go out and get another house.” Or they were going to stay at home and then look to improve their thing. With all the economic uncertainty that the pandemic created, we still watched the rise in housing prices.

Now, this is a protection for buyers in a market, without attempting to — the intent is serious; I’ll talk about the consultation process — create any undue harm to the seller. It’s always the two participants. We have known with…. Everybody in this place should have examples, and it wouldn’t take much of a Facebook post or just standing at your Tim Hortons and saying: “Has anyone experienced what it’s like to be in the bidding process when it’s just ramped up and ramped up?”

The pressure is on the buyer to remove normal restrictions, normal conditions, that we would all say are reasonable, like a home inspection, for example. Buying a house without a home inspection is rolling the dice. How’s the foundation? How’s the roof? How’s the heating system? How are the major costs that could hit you after you purchase the house? How are they doing? We know in some of the overheated housing markets in this province — this is a startling figure — as much as 70 percent of the purchases are now being done while all conditions are waived, including home inspections.

Who is one of the groups who is supporting this effort today, the seven-day cool-off period? The Home Inspectors Association. I have the quotes, and I can read them out for members. The experience, as a home inspector…. I have friends who are home inspectors. They know a friend or a relative who is in the process of buying a home — we live in a small town; everybody knows everybody — saying: “Have you had the home inspection yet?” They say: “I had to waive the condition. If I didn’t, I would have lost the opportunity to buy the house.”

We have a near-zero percent vacancy rate in my community, little Smithers, B.C., northern B.C. It’s been that way, actually, for quite a while. It’s a very livable community. It’s hard to build housing stock — very expensive.

The home inspector says: “That’s not smart.” It isn’t smart. It isn’t. Generally speaking, to waive a condition on something as big as a house purchase when…. We know that the inspection is there for a very good reason — to understand what it is that you’re buying. Is it going to fall apart? We heard some anecdotes from members opposite earlier, buying their first house — again, at a much lower price some decades past — and realizing after they get in that the basement tends to flood and the foundation wasn’t…. “But we worked it out.”

Imagine that if your debt burden is going in to buy a $1 million, $1.3 million, $1.5 million house, and you found out that you’ve got to redo the foundation. You’re stretched already. You’ve just made it work. Maybe you have a renter or two in the house. You’re just making the ends meet, and then you get a $50,000, $80,000, $100,000 bill, because you didn’t do an inspection.

Some people say this is unprecedented, what we’re doing. That’s not true. This measure exists already on pre-construction sales. So when someone is making a purchase on a pre-construction sale, there is a seven-day cooling-off period. There is a seven-day period of consideration and reconsideration. That’s on a place that hasn’t even been built yet. But it exists. It hasn’t hurt the pre-construction sale industry at all. It exists.

[3:45 p.m.]

There are some important things that have been said in various speeches that we just have to correct — that this measure doesn’t exist anywhere in B.C. law. Not true. People have said this was just invented out of whole cloth. Not true.

Let’s talk about the process that happens next. We see the intent. We understand the pressures on the buyers. They’re trying to get into a market. We have this somewhat strange blind-bidding process in B.C. Anyone who has ever bought a house has been through the process. You engage a realtor. You see the price. You don’t know what the other bids are going to look like.

It’s the opposite of an auction. I don’t know if anyone’s been to a Rotary auction or anything.

It’s a strange way to do an auction, where you have these blind, sealed bids, and your realtor says: “It’s listed at $800,000. It’s listed at $1 million. But you shouldn’t bid that. I think you should do $1.1 million.” They try to do an assessment of what’s going on.

We see the propensity…. I think this is happening more and more — a very aggressive underlisting of housing prices to encourage the bidding war. That’s the seller’s purview, and the realtor will give advice sometimes. I’ve seen that advice given as well. “Let’s mark it clearly well below what it’ll get. We want to encourage a lot of bids coming in, and we want that stoked-up feeling to happen.” That’s the seller’s prerogative. That makes sense if you’re trying to maximize what you can get for your home. But into a housing market like this, it is clearly causing systemic challenges for those who are trying to buy a house, particularly for those who are trying to buy a house for the first time.

The opposition has talked about the enormity of this financial decision. We agree. We very much agree. And the sobriety of going into it, into many of our communities if not all of our communities…. I know there are some exceptions, not many, in which the heat of the market and the fear of missing out and the story after story….

I’ve talked to families who have been through 25 bidding processes trying to get into a home and just getting outbid and outbid. They overbid. They don’t start with this. They scrape everything they get. They get a partial forgiveness loan from their…. They’re doing everything they can, and they get beat again and again, and they have housing insecurity.

You get desperate, understandably so, and then maybe get into a house that is actually beyond your means. We now know, from our central bank, the notion of rates continuing to go up. We see it in the U.S. Fed as well. It’s very likely. I don’t think there are economists out there who are suggesting rates are going to stay the same or go lower. They’re likely to go higher.

There are those of us — and I hope it’s all of us — who are preoccupied with what the effect is going to be in an inflationary market, where we are right now. The inflation rate is very high globally — uncertainty in Europe, the effects of the pandemic and all the rest. If the central bank regulators decide to raise the interest rate, which they have indicated they will, what will that effect be on those families that are just meeting it or are actually overcommitted? They’re too far above but locked in at a rate that comes due this year, next year, and the rates go up 2, 3, 4, 5 percent. I hope not, but we don’t know. That’s certainly not within our control.

What is in our control is this. In terms of process, the BCFSA went out for consultation with all of the people that the opposition has talked about today — talking to the realtors, the appraisers, the mortgage agents, the homebuyers associations — talking to them about the notions, the various tools that could be put on the table. How does the bidding process work? What about a cooling-off period? What about all of these different tools? They came back with conclusions that said this is something the government should consider, but we need a legal framework in which to allow it.

The details as to the…. I don’t want to say overbidding, but multiple bidding — nefarious or speculative bidding. There was a word, “frivolous” — frivolous bidding — that the regulator talked about — somebody putting in dozens of offers and essentially trying to capture many, many units but only really with an intent to buy one. There’s the notion of penalties that the regulator has considered, and that’s what the second round of consultation, with the framework in place, was to talk about.

I understand. I spent some time in opposition. I understand the frustration of saying: “What about this detail? What about that detail? We want to know this detail before we vote on that.” Clearly, the framework we’re talking about is a relatively straightforward notion, a buyer-protection notion of a cooling-off, a calming period of a week, in order to get the inspection done.

We have seen cases when a bid has been accepted where, within a few days, the purchaser is actually able to go and secure more favourable financial terms. That is a huge, massive benefit over the lifetime of a mortgage, if you’re able to secure a quarter point, half point off what you originally sought when you went and got your mortgage approved before you had a bid on a house.

[3:50 p.m.]

That exists. You get a bid and an approval from a bank or a credit union, and you have a certain amount of time where that offer is good. We know that sometimes when a house is then acquired — or you’ve agreed to purchase a house — and you return back to that same, or a different, financial institution, you can improve that rate slightly, and the “slightly” matters when you’re talking about a 25- or 30-year term. It can matter tens of thousands of dollars for a family. So in that period, one would imagine that.

The home inspection piece. You’ve secured the house. You’ve made a bid. The bid has been accepted. You now have seven days. In the heated market, your realtor is saying you’ve got to get your bid in, and it’s got to be in now, and it’s got be about this point. You do, and you accept it. You’ve now got the house, but you’ve got the seven days.

You go in, and lo and behold, the seller didn’t mention the fact of this, this and this, and the inspector tells you these things. That, to me, seems clearly rational and thoughtful. So opposition can be against that.

I heard the member from Cariboo and others saying; “Well, we just don’t like that, and the realtors are concerned.” I have no problem and no qualms with the realtors defending their interest as realtors. This is what their association does, and that’s what the association should do. But the tension that some in the opposition have talked about as realtors is between the interest of the realtors, the interest of the sellers and the interest of the buyers.

Sometimes, though, there is significant tension between those interests. Our interests — I hope we share this — are predominantly with the B.C. citizens looking to either sell or buy a house. Particularly in a market like this one, a so-called seller’s market — and it’s been a seller’s market in most of our regions for quite a while — our interest is very much on the buyer. How is the buyer doing? How are we protecting the buyer? Are we doing enough? Should we consider other tools to try to protect the buyer? This again, seems imminently reasonable to me.

The second round, if the Legislature chooses to enable the framework for this, is the BCFSA. This is an independent body. It’s independent from the government. It’s the regulator for this industry. It’s the regulator for financial institutions. It returns back for that same consultation period to consider the actual specifics with the experts who know what this means and how to roll it out.

If this is the intent, to allow something to not do any undue harm to the seller and to protect the buyers further, how would the regulations then be elicited and back in for public disclosure and all the rest that members are asking for?

There have been some speeches that I’ve listened to that have countered the claims that we haven’t made as government. They’ve said: “This isn’t going to do this and this and this for prices.” We haven’t said anything about that in terms of affordability. We haven’t said that this is the measure that’s going to drop and make things more affordable. This is purely about buyer protection.

On affordability, as I mentioned earlier, we put billions of dollars into increasing supply across the entire spectrum, from the very, very low-income and social assistance housing, to low-income, to medium-income, to market-priced housing.

As Municipal Affairs — following the former Municipal Affairs and the former one before that, who’s now the Finance Minister — I have been asked by the UBCM, the municipalities association, to put more tools in the toolbox for municipalities on the permitting side to get more housing stock into the market.

That’s something we hear from developers consistently. I think all members in this place have heard this from realtors, from those trying to get stock onto the market. The permitting process…. The project isn’t wrong. The permitting process takes so long that it ends up killing the project itself.

We have looked for densification opportunities, particularly in our urban environment, places where we can build up the city to greater densify, particularly along transit routes, because that just makes sense. Our government has put further billions of dollars into affordable transportation and active transportation. It makes sense, then, to not have all single-family units surrounding the SkyTrain and the whatnot. We’re looking for opportunities with the Transportation Minister and UCBM.

UBCM has been asking. The municipalities have been asking for these tools, and we were looking to provide them. We passed some legislation in this place to do that. There’s more to do. Every time I meet with municipalities….

Let’s be fair. There is a spectrum, I should say, of municipalities in our province. Some are very, very keen on permitting and building lots of houses. My critic across the way will know. Some are kind of in the middle. Some, no permit. Some that kind of…. Then some that say: “Why do we need more housing? Our community is fine.”

Well, this is an interesting moment of an individual problem for someone trying to get a house and a collective problem for us as a province. The Minister of Jobs has pointed out clearly that our evidence shows that we’re going to need about 100,000 jobs filled every year for the next ten years. Seventy percent of those people, we estimate, are coming from out of province. That’s a challenge, just on housing.

[3:55 p.m.]

Enabling our municipalities to build more stock is one of the things that we talk about in terms of helping affordability and just that basic right that we believe in — to have a roof over your head.

A small tangent, but I think it will be relevant to members here. Part of my portfolio is, of course, managing the immigration file, which we do jointly with Ottawa. They have the preponderance of authorities when it comes to immigration.

We’ve all watched with great interest and sadness the tragedy going on in Europe. We are now seeing the applications coming through the new streams that the federal government’s made available for Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s war and the invasion of their country, the destruction of their country. We’ve now seen about 70,000 or so people that have applied through these new streams. B.C. has a little less than 20 percent of the Canadian-Ukrainian population. We expect many thousands will be applying, receiving permission and landing on our shores.

We will do what we do as British Columbians to welcome them, to make sure that they have a place. But this is the first question that all of the immigration and settlement groups ask us: where are we going to put 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 refugees fleeing Europe? It’s a really important question.

All ministries on this side are involved, and I know opposition members are very engaged, as well, at the community level. A lot of it is going to be very organic, with community members coming forward — Ukrainian or not — to offer up.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for that small tangent.

On this, we know that in those overheated housing markets, which are more and more every day, we’re seeing 70 percent of all conditions waived and not because the buyer wants to waive conditions. Maybe other members are fine. That scenario would give me heart palpitations. Such a big purchase. Never mind the inspection. We first saw this in Vancouver, probably a decade ago or a decade and a half, this sort of creeping notion of the seller saying through their realtor: “Well, if you want this, one of the conditions is waive. Bring cash and waive conditions.”

Oh, my goodness. I’m a very — members will be shocked — fiscally conservative person. That is terrifying to me and for my friends who have gone through that process. But what other choices have they had? They simply can’t get into the housing market, in some housing markets, without those types of non-conditions existing, those preconditions being waived.

This is what the bill does. This is what it allows that tool to exist. The specifics and the making sure the curtailing of frivolous, the consideration of penalties, all being done by the independent regulator, the Financial Services Authority — independent of us. Maybe members would want it another way, but I think that’s actually a very prudent way to do it, because that is the regulator that has regulation and jurisdiction over many of the folks that we’re talking about.

Then we’ll be in consultation with the realtors, with the appraisers and with others that are implicated by this industry and have the expertise as to the implications of this, how it would be best rolled out and how it would offer protections to consumers — the buyer that we’ve been talking about — and exist in cases of the pre-construction.

I’m glad the opposition has made the case that they have. They have both said they don’t know what is in the bill, but they know enough that they’re going to vote against it. They don’t know what’s in the bill, but they know all of the effects that it’s going to have, and they’re all going to be terrible.

That’s allowed to be. The speculative opposition is certainly permissible. But we’ve described clearly what the frame is, what the intent is and the process of pre-consultation that got us here, the consultation that will follow, who will do the consultation for us, who will be involved in the consultation and what the intent of the bill is.

Opposition is, of course, granted the right to disagree with that and vote against that and say: “Buying a home without preconditions is fine. That’s how it ought to be. Who cares?” The opposition can say that things like home inspections should maybe be done, maybe not be done. Again, who cares? I understand the desire to, you know…. Just elected a raging free marketer that made a lot of money on speculation. Fine. I’m sure people will be thrilled by that notion of leadership, but so be it.

On this side, we’re looking after the consumer. We’re looking after the buyers. We’re trying to look at the market in a holistic way to say: “What do we do when there is so much pressure on the market and has been consistently.”

I don’t remember hearing any of these concerns in those long years in office that the Liberals had. I don’t remember, when there was rampant and clear speculation, when there was the involvement of cartels in our housing system, so much concern coming from the Liberals when they sat over here about affordability, about what we are going do about this. What are we going to do about the housing stock? None of those concerns existed when they had the actual power to do something about them.

[4:00 p.m.]

We do have that influence now, as government. We have heard clearly from the people that we represent here in British Columbia that there are measures that we can take and that we should prudently take them in order to ease the strain, the stress, the pressure on those buyers as they enter the market — some of them for the first time.

D. Ashton: Before I start, I would just really like to thank the Minister for Municipal Affairs for standing up. I haven’t been privy to all the conversations that have taken place on this particular bill, but it is very, very nice to see a member of government standing up and, in his own terminology and his own thoughts on the process, give us a little bit more of, maybe, the direction — maybe the direction — that the government is heading on.

Just to follow up on what he had said — that they were going to be doing it by regulation — I would draw his attention to regulations for section 42: “The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may make regulations for the purposes of section 42, including regulations as follows….” May make. That’s the issue.

Madam Chair, you and I were very fortunate. We got elected in ’13, right? We got elected with some people that I consider friends, people that I got to know better because I spent an exorbitant amount of my time here in Victoria with my peers, both my peers in opposition, currently, and with my peers that are in government that were formerly in opposition.

I look at the member from Port Moody. I look at the member from Comox. I look at the member for Surrey-Panorama. I look at the member for Maple Ridge–Mission. I look at the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan. I look at the member for Vancouver-Kensington. I look at the Minister of Energy. I look at the Minister of Transportation. I look at the Minister of Health. I look at the Minister of Attorney General and Housing. I look at the Minister of Finance.

I look at the Premier, the Premier of the province of British Columbia. I look at the Minister of Public Safety. I look at the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources. I look at the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. I look at the Minister of Social Development and Poverty, who I had the incredible opportunity of working with on the Finance Committee, touring around British Columbia and getting input all the time. I look at the Minister of Agriculture. I also look at the Minister of Labour. I look at the member for Vancouver–West End.

I haven’t seen one of those people stand up, not one of them stand up and talk about this bill.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I can tell you, Madam Chair — and now Mr. Chair….

Thank you very much, hon. Chair. Welcome.

When they were in opposition, and if they were presented with a bill that we could pin to a tree, and I could go to my good friend in Abbotsford South and those hard-working farmers that grow wonderful blueberries, I could get a handful of blueberries and throw it at this piece of paper pinned to a tree and not hit anything of sustenance in here that we can put our teeth into. I have the respect of the Minister of Municipal Affairs bringing forth his ideas of what may be coming forward.

We as opposition, myself included, take a look at this bill — pretty light. Pretty light for the most important purchase of an individual’s lifetime: a home. The most important sale of someone who wants to sell their home and move up.

I just think that the government could have done this differently. That adage of saying fool me once, shame on you and fool me twice, shame on me. Well, I’ve got the freedom-of-information bill that I’m still sweating over of what happened and what transpired, and I think it was wrong. I’m not against the minister. I’m not saying against the minister. I’m not saying it against the individuals on that side of government.

What I’m saying is whoever is drafting these things up and bringing them forward into the House is not bringing them forward in a democratic process, a process that we all stand by. The government calls themselves the New Democratic Party. This isn’t democracy. This is bringing something forward, and they may have the best intentions in the world. They may have it, but give not only the opposition….

[4:05 p.m.]

Let’s give the people of British Columbia something to see, something to digest, something that is going to bring them, maybe, a tiny little bit of satisfaction when they step forward to that big purchase.

I might be a bit…. I lost my first house. I lost it to interest rates that were at 22 percent. My dad gave us, each one of our family, a piece of property. We had the opportunity back then, but we all had to pay for it. The property that my father gave to me was a third of an acre off of our farm. We had two titles on it. It was valued at about $30,000 at that point in time. I’m going to the early ’80s, 1982-83.

I started a house. As a kid, my parents…. I learned it from my mom, actually. She would always get clippings, like Better Homes and Gardens and those magazines that we all had around, even National Geographic. She would see something that she would like to have in the future and that she wanted to bring into our home and redecorate, etc.

Well, I was clipping out for years. I was clipping out what I wanted my house to look like. I was clipping out for years what I wanted it to look like inside. I had all these illusions of grandeur that this is what I could afford. When it came down to it…. Boy, it was a real shock back in those days. I ended up putting $140,000 into a home, first house.

I had the incredible, fortunate opportunity to be with a gentleman — I won’t mention his name in here; he’s passed — a wonderful man that was an incredible friend of our family, that helped our family build stores around British Columbia. That’s where I learned it.

I wasn’t the best. I wasn’t the best carpenter. I wasn’t the worst carpenter. I was building my house, so I really cared about it. This gentleman was behind the scenes saying: “You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that. Here it is.” And I would do it.

I’m going to tell you point-blank. I built that house with my two hands. When I got down to it, when the bank was saying, “Rates are going up again, Mr. Ashton. Now it’s going to be this much a month,” there was no way that I could hold on to that property.

I have to tell you that I’m glad government…. We, collectively, should be looking at something. Caveat emptor doesn’t cut it any more in these types of markets. We should be looking at something that is going to help facilitate it.

In Penticton, where I live, a wonderful spot. One of the most beautiful places, as each and every one of our places are that we come from. Lake on the south end, Skaha Lake. Lake on the north end, Okanagan Lake. To the west, the beautiful lands of the Penticton Indian Band. To the east, a mountain range that heads up past and starts getting to the high country, where it’s just not viable to build because of the cost.

Penticton is like this. We called them the K-Streets as kids growing up on it. These were homes that the Kenyon family, actually, started. The business started…. They’re incredible builders, now known as Greyback. They literally build around the province. They started off on the K-Streets. Those were those wartime homes. Returning men could come back, get a Veterans’ Land Act mortgage. The lot cost $500. The house cost $5,000. Today in Penticton, you cannot buy one of those homes on the K-Streets for under $650,000.

I have two children. My son is 25 and a bit, almost 26, coming up. My daughter is 23. My daughter is in Whitehorse working, building up a big nest egg. She works for the government of the Yukon. My son is working in Penticton. They both have degrees. Building up that nest egg, you know. Dad is going to be there to help out the best he can and to try and get them into a place. I look, and I go….

Please, hon. Speaker, do not get me wrong. I’m not casting anything on the people that live on the K-Streets in Penticton, but I scratch my head at the value of what is being asked for those homes.

As a former mayor of Penticton, a former chair of the regional district, a councillor for numerous years…. We had huge pressure, up until 2008, to try and do expansion in Penticton. People wanted to move to Penticton. There were a lot of people, unfortunately, that moved to Penticton that said: “Shut the gate. I’m here right now. I don’t want Penticton to change.”

[4:10 p.m.]

I moved from a place, fortunately…. To people that lived in Vancouver, that had the opportunity — my dad’s family included — where they watched the price of their houses just go through the roof. They came up to the Okanagan with a big nest egg in their pocket and were able to purchase homes and start driving the price up.

I don’t want to see that. I want to see people that have the opportunity to raise a family, like I’ve done — like you, hon. Chair, are doing right now. I want to see that, to be able to own a home, or maybe rent if they want to rent. People in Canada and, I’d say, specifically, British Columbia…. Most people want to own a place if they can have it, and I want to make sure that people have that opportunity.

Again, I’m going to say I think it’s important for us, collectively, as government to ensure things are being done right. But by bringing Bill 12 forward in the condition and the shape that it looks in right now, with the promise that: “Oh, well we’re going to bring in….” The Minister of Municipal Affairs says: “Here’s our framework. Here’s the bill. We’re going to fill the Ps and Qs in.” I want more of it before I would ever support something like this.

I have the greatest respect for people. I actually have some friends that are home inspectors on it, but they’re not the all-power and authority of what should be transpiring and driving this. People have to make that collective decision.

Governments — not only the province of British Columbia, the government of Canada, the government of the United States — have poured ungodly amounts of money into the system, and it’s running rampant, running around trying to buy. I would encourage everybody, if you have the opportunity…. So 60 Minutes has a one-hour presentation on why housing in the United States is getting out of the reach of most Americans today. We’ll translate that into Canada. Let’s all take a look at this 60 Minutes. It’s really interesting to see what’s transpiring, who’s buying houses.

BlackRock, a multi-multitrillion — T, trillion — dollar enterprise based out of New York, are sucking up residential homes all across the United States, cleaning them up real quick, splash and dash, upping the rent and saying: “Here. This is what you’ve got.” It’s people that are bidding. Well, I’ll let you see it. I would just encourage you, if you have an opportunity to see it, because it’s not just a problem that’s here in British Columbia.

Getting back to Bill 12, we have an opportunity in this House. We have a really good opportunity to come forward with some wonderful legislation that benefits everybody. No political parties involved in it. Let’s talk about the citizens of British Columbia. We have that opportunity here right now with Bill 12. The Minister of Municipal Affairs was quoting a report…. FSAs, I think he said, that are coming forward. Apparently, there’s going to be a report coming forward on it. What’s the rush?

I’ve heard there’s up to 30 more bills coming into this House. We’re here until the first week of June. Why don’t we wait? Why don’t we wait on this bill that involves literally everybody in British Columbia? Why don’t we just hang tight a little tiny bit here until we can get it?

Get the government to fill in that framework. Don’t forget: when you look at a picture, you don’t look at the frame. We want to see what the picture is in there. So give us the picture of what the government’s ideas are for going forward. Give us that opportunity as an opposition.

More importantly, give the people of British Columbia — give those buyers that have got money burning a hole in their pocket that they probably borrowed from the bank or their in-laws or their father or their mother — the opportunity to see what we, collectively, in the House of the people here, are going to give them for protection.

I don’t think there’s anybody on this side of the House in opposition…. I look respectfully at government. But I don’t think that there’s anybody here that…. If this bill was filled and showed the proper picture that is going to be presented to the people of British Columbia, I’d make you a bet it would go through unanimously, because we are all concerned about what is transpiring and what may continue to transpire.

If I turn the clock back to the ’80s, if I turn the clock back to the ’90s, early ’90s, 1991, ten years hence, one of those business cycles, seven- to ten-year business cycles…. We’re pushing our luck right now in British Columbia. We’re pushing our luck in Canada. We’re pushing our luck in North America. There is going to be a downturn coming. The Minister of Municipal Affairs eloquently said things could change pretty quickly. What’s going to happen to those people that have gone and borrowed with their heart and soul — probably borrowed more than what they should have?

[4:15 p.m.]

It’s fine and dandy when interest rates are 2.3 percent, getting a house. I’ve heard people got in at 1.7 on a five-year mortgage. You know what the difference is between 1.7-and-change to 23 percent? I’ll tell what you it is: me losing a house. That’s what is going to happen.

We don’t want to see that. We don’t want to see that for anybody in this province. We don’t want to see a young family get into a house and have to explain to the kids that they’re having to move because they can’t afford the mortgage payments anymore.

Governments are having to start to curtail. They’re starting to have to pull back. I just really hope that there will be some common sense in the government at this point in time in British Columbia — that is listening not only to me but listening to the professionals out there and listening to people that have the opportunity to own a home, that have the opportunity to maybe sell it and move up, that have the opportunity to represent a buyer or a seller, and that have the opportunity to be a lender — to ensure that what is being proposed in Bill 12 is being proposed and is going to work.

At this point in time, with the utmost of respect to the government of British Columbia, I don’t see it here. I do not see it at all. I just see a rough draft line.

I don’t want to wag fingers, and I don’t think that anyone should be wagging fingers in here. The freedom of information bill that came forward — and it was Bill 22, if I remember correctly — was not a good indication of the direction that I think any government should do or any government should bring forward. I really think that there was an opportunity for the minister, again, to put the brakes on and say: “Hold tight. Let’s just talk about this. Let’s just wait.”

I really think that there’s an opportunity right now on Bill 12 for the government to say the same thing. We have a report coming forward at some point in time, here. I’ve heard a week. I think that I actually heard the Minister of Finance say that it could be as early as a week or so, if I remember correctly.

Why don’t we just wait that little period of time? We’re going to be off for Easter. I know the hard-working staff in government that are not elected in the House, here, will have the opportunity to get that report. They’ll have the opportunity to digest it. They’ll have the opportunity to present it to the ministers and to present it to the government. Hopefully, we’d be able to see it. The entire House could see it. We would be able to make a collective decision unanimously, going forward, for people that are going to have the opportunity to either buy or sell their premises.

Government’s funny sometimes. There seems to be a rush forward, a rush forward to get things done. Time, for us, is going to be limited. We’re here until, I think, the first week of June or the second week of June. The number of bills…. I understand that the government wants to push things forward, to get things done and to show that they’re acting on the best behalf of the citizens of British Columbia. But the track record, unfortunately, that’s taken place before isn’t the best at this point in time.

I would hope that those of the executive council…. I don’t know who they are, but I would hope that those people that probably work in the Premier’s office or work in the government offices in Vancouver, down on the waterfront, would say: “Jeez, we haven’t been doing so good lately on it. Let’s take a slowdown period here. Let’s re-examine this. Let’s bring these facts and figures out so that everybody can get a benefit to take a look at it.”

Again, I don’t want to be critical, but there are an awful lot of people that deal with real estate on a continual basis. Whether it’s your friendly bank manager or your friendly credit union or lending officer, whether it’s a realtor that you know, whether it’s somebody else that’s lending you the money, whether it’s a home inspector, there are a whole bunch of people out there that could collectively get this report in their hands, take a look at it and bring their ideas forward to what I would hope would be a listening government and a government that may say: “Hmm, that’s a good idea.”

[4:20 p.m.]

When we bring the regulations…. I know, Mr. Speaker, that you don’t like…. I won’t hold it up, but Bill 12 has a lot of white space in it. It has a lot of white space in it. There’s an opportunity for some real experience to come forward and fill that white space in and do the job properly for Bill 12. Do the job so that the people that are going to be affected by Bill 12 know that that government, and the government in here, has done the best job for them to be there to protect them.

Again, we have a lot of quotes about what’s been right and what’s been wrong in the past, about what has transpired, unfortunately, with some of the bills that the government has brought forward. I would just hope that the government would take a second look. I would hope that somebody over there would stand in front of the mirror and say: “Is this actually what we wanted to do, everything that we said that we were opposed to when we” — the government — “were in opposition? And everything that we thought that was being done on that side — are we doing things better?”

I hear the Premier, and I hear the sincerity lots of times from everybody in government, saying: “We’re trying to make life more affordable. We’re making it more affordable for the people of British Columbia. Are we doing that the best way that we could and should be doing?” With all due respect, I don’t think that we are — on it. There just seems to be a rush to get this stuff out. There seems to be a rush to get bills filled with resolutions, bills filled with regulations on it that aren’t properly debated in the House — Bill 22. Now, again, Bill 12 is similar.

I sincerely hope, really sincerely hope, that those that are maybe listening, those that maybe think along the way that I do on that side of the House…. Like I said, there are an awful lot of good people. I want to retract that. Everybody in this House that I’ve run across I have the utmost respect for.

I really, really think that whether you’re sitting in the executive council, whether you’re a minister of state for this or whether you’re like myself, an MLA representing the people, we have a lot of passion for the area that we’ve been so fortunate to be selected from to come to Victoria, to come to be a member of the Legislative Assembly. We are going to do the best and everything possible for those individuals.

I think — this is not derogatory — that a sober second thought is used on it. I think there’s an opportunity here for sober second thought. Bill 22 should’ve been a good learning experience for the government on how not to do something. Bill 12 seems to be a cascade of that.

I really hope the people that work in the Premier’s office, the people that are in this Legislature that we don’t see other than walking down the hallways and saying, “Good morning,” “Good night” or “Have a good weekend,” to…. I hope that they will take the comments not only from myself and not only from my peers on this side of the House but from ministers and MLAs, like the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

Pick the brains of the former Minister of Municipal Affairs, who was a mayor of a gorgeous little town in British Columbia that has a lot of pressure — a person that has a huge amount of experience through UBCM and other legislative bodies that that minister has been involved in. There’s a wealth of experience in here.

Let’s do this right. Let’s do this right for the people of British Columbia. Let’s do this right for our kids or our grandkids. I heard today about a grandchild that was born. I can’t remember who it was. There’s one right there.

Let’s do this right for those kids that are coming forward. Let’s make the difference on it. Let’s make the difference, going forward, with something that is a lot thicker than three pages that means something to somebody that is going to be buying or selling a house in the future.

[4:25 p.m.]

Mr. Speaker, you’ve given me a lot of latitude today on Bill 12. But you know what? It looks like this. That’s about the context of it that I see. There’s an awful lot of airspace in between it. But I really do appreciate it, and I really do appreciate my peers in this House, whether on the government side or whether on my side listening to me.

It’s a passion that I think that we all need to take, because we’re here to represent the people that duly elected us. We’re here to represent the people that not only voted for us at home, but that maybe voted for somebody else, right? We have to cherish those people’s thoughts and bring them forward.

Let’s take a look at this. Let’s take another hard, hard look at this. Let’s bring it forward with some real substance in it. Let’s see the regulations. Let’s see the report. Let’s go forward together and make a difference for all the people of British Columbia, not those that maybe just signed a little mark and said: “I nominate this person.”

Thank you, sir. Thank you for the latitude.

Thank you to everybody in this House for listening to me. Have a great weekend.

D. Coulter: I do share a lot of good feelings with the member who just spoke, and I really appreciate his words. I’m hoping that I can bring my wealth of knowledge to this debate.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

What I want to talk about are the people that this will affect. I’ve heard a lot of debate in this House around this bill, but no one is talking about the people and about the kinds of things that these people are getting into when they are making no-condition offers.

I’d like to talk about a family from Nanaimo who, on the advice of their real estate agent, paid over asking price with an unconditional offer. I’m talking about Wendy Ettinger and her son Matthew Noel from Nanaimo. They paid over asking, without conditions. They were told it was a brand-new home. It was a brand-new build. As Matthew said: “It looked immaculate on the outside. They made it look that way. It said, ‘Beautiful, brand-new, one-year-old, fully authorized home.’” It was a brand-new build, but it had been sitting for six years and flooded multiple times, so it had mould in it.

As Wendy said: “It’s just sad. This house is ruining our lives.” Wendy’s son Matthew could not move into the house because of the mould. They were told to remediate this mould in this house. It was $100,000. This is the biggest purchase of people’s lives.

To go in like that and to come out with such a negative outcome — I just couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t fathom it at all. These aren’t just houses that people are buying; these are homes. When you can’t move into your own home, something has to be done.

Around 70 percent, people say, of offers on homes right now in British Columbia are made without conditions, because of the overheated market. It’s very scary. Very scary — because of the overheated market.

This bill will take some of that pressure off of people in the overheated market and allow them due diligence and to get a proper inspection done of a home when they buy it. Like I said, this is the largest investment in people’s lives. It’s sort of bizarre to think that this might become the new normal, with 70 percent of houses being bought without conditions of an inspection.

[4:30 p.m.]

What this bill does is actually restore, in a way, what the normal was. The normal was for people to get inspections on homes. We can’t let no-condition offers become the new normal. We need to take pressure out of the market, take pressure off of buyers that are making these no-condition offers so that they don’t get into trouble like Wendy and her son here.

They can’t even live in their own home that they just purchased. Then they have to spend $100,000 to move into their home. It’s outrageous. The member previous said: “Well, you know, we would support this bill.” Well, I was on a radio show with the member for Peace River South. The first thing that he said was this bill would do nothing. Absolutely nothing. He opposed it. We’ve heard from members in this House during this debate already about how they would support the B.C. Real Estate Association’s suggestion of a pre-offer period. Well, pre-offer periods have issues.

Some realtors are already creating a version of that right now, to encourage multiple offers and bid up prices. A pre-offer period is also unlikely to address concerns about the risk of buyers not making financing a condition for their offer. I looked up this pre-offer period suggestion on the B.C. Real Estate Association’s website. They’re talking about a five day pre-offer period. This would do nothing to bring pressure out of the market or help folks who need to do due diligence and get inspections done and get their financing in order.

Why does the opposition oppose this bill? Why are they on the side of real estate agents? We were elected to look after people here. This B.C. NDP government — that’s what they do every single day, try and look after people. We’ve put people at the centre of politics. We took the big money out of politics. Thank god. The opposition here, even without big money in politics, is proving that they care more about developers and real estate agents than they do homebuyers.

They just elected a builder, someone who has no reason to support this bill, because in his previous job, his most recent job, he was benefiting off of this kind of thing. Absolutely benefiting off of this kind of thing. That’s why they don’t support it. They are all about helping the wealthiest people in this province. They’re all about looking after the 2 percent — their friends, their buddies.

You can test drive a car. You can try on clothes. You can squeeze bread and grapefruit. You should be able to get an inspection on a house. It’s the largest purchase you will ever make in your life. You should be able to have an inspection on that house. This is restoring this to the normal way it was and should be.

Noel and his mother Wendy said the whole house was filled with Penicillium and Stachybotrys — I can’t even pronounce it; what is that? — which are both toxic moulds, life-threatening moulds. “I can’t breathe in here,” said Noel. What’s interesting here is that the B.C. Real Estate Association opposes this measure, but the president of the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board, Don McClintock, said that this case, Wendy and Noel’s situation, is why inspections are so crucial and why buyers shouldn’t be tempted to pass on them. From a president of the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board.

He says: “Without any conditions, then they have unconditionally purchased the home. They have no further recourse.” Did I tell you already? These people had to pay $100,000 after they purchased their home. It’s outrageous.

[4:35 p.m.]

The other side here doesn’t support this, doesn’t support this bill that would address this, for a number of reasons. I am sure it’s because their leader profits off of this kind of thing.

Now, like I said, I just wanted to talk about the people that this bill affected and, you know, put them at the centre of what this bill is about, at the centre of what we’re doing. We do that every day. We’ve taken tolls off of bridges, another measure that their leader opposes.

We have a speculation tax, which opened up 18,000 rental units for British Columbians, homes for British Columbians. Their leader has come out against it over and over again. You know what that speculation tax is a tax on? People who own two or more homes and leave them empty. Those are the wealthiest people in this province. That’s outrageous. They should be ashamed. Ashamed.

Noting the hour, I reserve my place and move adjournment of the debate.

D. Coulter moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

Mr. Speaker: Members, Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor is in the precinct. Please remain seated while we await her arrival.

Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor requested to attend the House, was admitted to the chamber and took her seat on the throne.

Royal Assent to Bills

Clerk of the Legislative Assembly:

Attorney General Statutes (Hague Convention on Child and Family Support) Amendment Act, 2022

Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2022

Commercial Liens Act

Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2022

In Her Majesty’s name, Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth assent to these acts.

[4:40 p.m.]

Supply Act (No. 1), 2022

In Her Majesty’s name, Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth thank Her Majesty’s loyal subjects, accepts their benevolence and assents to this act.

Hon. J. Austin (Lieutenant-Governor): Thank you very much.

ÍY SȻÁĆEL NE SĆÁLEĆE.

It’s great to see all of you today on the international day of Indigenous languages and also Transgender Day of Visibility. I hope you’re enjoying celebrating these two days, as we are.

I’ll say, also, what an absolute delight it was to welcome you all to Government House a couple of days ago. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to connect a bit personally with all of you, and I do most sincerely look forward to seeing you there more often in the time to come.

All the very best. Take care.

Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 10 a.m., Monday, April 4.

The House adjourned at 4:43 p.m.