Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: In Committee A, Douglas Fir Room, I call the continued estimates debate for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. After they are finished, we will be going to the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training.

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 8 — POWERS AND ROLE OF
HEALTH COMMITTEE

Hon. M. Farnworth: In this chamber, I move Motion 8, standing in my name on the order paper:

[That the Select Standing Committee on Health be empowered to examine the urgent and ongoing illicit drug toxicity and overdose crisis, and in particular:

1. The increasing toxicity of illicit drug supplies in British Columbia, including but not limited to, trends in the patterns of use of illicit drugs, the illegal drug market, the role of organized crime, and the rapid increase in toxicity coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic;

2. The systems and services guiding government responses to illicit drug supplies and toxicity deaths and injuries in Canada (federal, provincial, territorial and local) and other jurisdictions; and,

3. Relevant and recent reports, studies and examinations as the Committee deems appropriate.

That the Committee make recommendations with respect to:

1. Responding to the crisis with reforms and initiatives by the Province and local governments, including those which may require federal approval;

2. Continuing to build an evidence-based continuum of care that encompasses prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery; and,

3. Expanding access to safer drug supplies, implementing decriminalization, and disrupting illicit toxic drug supplies.

That, in addition to the powers previously conferred upon Select Standing Committees of the House, the Select Standing Committee on Health be empowered to:

a. appoint of its number one or more subcommittees and to refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee and to delegate to the subcommittees all or any of its powers except the power to report directly to the House;

b. sit during a period in which the House is adjourned, during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and during any sitting of the House;

c. conduct consultations by any means the Committee considers appropriate;

d. adjourn from place to place as may be convenient; and,

e. retain personnel as required to assist the Committee.

That the Committee report to the House by November 2, 2022, and that during a period of adjournment, the Committee deposit its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and upon resumption of the sittings of the House, or in the next following Session, as the case may be, the Chair present all reports to the House.]

Motion approved.

T. Stone: I would rise today to move an amendment to the motion. Does the vote need to conclude first?

[2:30 p.m.]

Mr. Speaker: Member, the House has already voted on the motion, so there’s no debate on it.

I understand the member’s concerns, however, when the Chair moved the question…. At that time, if the member had stood up to ask for space, a place to debate, we would have done it.

The vote has already taken place, so the Chair will not allow to continue to have the debate on it.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

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

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 12 — PROPERTY LAW
AMENDMENT ACT, 2022

(continued)

D. Coulter: I’d just like to talk about where I left off on Friday. What I wasn’t hearing in this House when we were debating this bill, or when others were debating this bill, was what this meant to the people that would get caught up in no-condition offers and that would be hurt by it.

So I’d like to maybe rehash the story of the folks from Nanaimo, Matthew Noel and his mother, Wendy Ettinger, who bought a house. They paid over asking, and they were pressured into buying the house without conditions, so that meant they never got an inspection. When they took possession of the house, the whole….

[2:35 p.m.]

I will just quote Noel here. “The whole house is filled with penicillin and Stachybotrys, which are both toxic moulds, life-threatening moulds, and I can’t breathe in there.” He cannot live in this house. As a matter of fact, when he did this interview for CHEK TV, he had to do it outside of the house.

They thought that this house was brand-new, only a year old, but it turns out this house was sitting for seven years and was flooded off and on. That’s why it had this dangerous mould in it. Now, what happened was they had to pay $100,000 to repair the home.

The president of the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board, Don McClintock, says this case is why inspections are crucial and why buyers shouldn’t be tempted to pass on them. Without any conditions, they have unconditionally purchased the home, and they have no further recourse.

These people weren’t just buying a house. They were buying themselves a home, a home to live in. After they paid over asking price and were pressured into making a no-condition offer and not getting a home inspection, they could not move into this home.

It used to be the norm that houses were bought with conditions, usually conditions of financing and a home inspection. This used to be the norm. Now, up to 70 percent of homes are bought without conditions. We’re creating a new norm here, and we shouldn’t be doing this. This endangers folks who are buying homes. They can get into situations like this.

Like I said Friday, you can test-drive a car. You can make sure that clothes are the right size for you. You can go to the supermarket and squeeze bread or a grapefruit, or another fruit. You can make sure that you want to spend your money on these things. Why can’t you do that when it’s the most expensive thing you will ever buy in your life — a home to live in? You should be able to get an inspection. This bill allows a period of time after the offer is made to have an inspection done.

I’m not hearing from the members on the other side about the people that this affects. I’m not hearing about people at all. Going back to produce, this side acts like they just fell off a rutabaga truck and rolled in here, as if they weren’t in power for 16 years and set up the conditions that are pressuring buyers into buying houses with no conditions. They set this up, and now they’re demanding that it be fixed and fixed immediately.

However, they don’t really want it fixed. They want to take the B.C. Real Estate Association’s suggestion of a pre-offer period of five days. We know that pre-offer periods have some issues. I’ve heard that some realtors are already creating a version of that right now to encourage multiple offers and bid up the price.

What the B.C. Real Estate Association is suggesting isn’t tenable, but it’s no surprise that they support people who are benefiting off the overheated housing market — no surprise at all. They claim they care about people. Well, I’d like to see some action that they care about people. Why not support a bill that helps people? They don’t want to do that.

I’ll tell you why they don’t want to do that. Their leader opposes the speculation and vacancy tax. That’s a tax on people who have more than one home and leave them empty.

[2:40 p.m.]

These are the most wealthy, privileged people among us. That’s the kind of people they support on that side. Now that their leader is running in an election campaign, I hope he explains exactly how that helps everyday people. The other side can’t support any bill that actually helps people out.

Interjection.

D. Coulter: I will point to one thing in the bill that helps people out. It gives people a period of time so that they can have an inspection done.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, Members. Members, the member for Chilliwack has the floor.

Let’s not engage in back crosstalk, Member.

D. Coulter: The other side heckles because they don’t want to do what’s right for people. They would rather support business. They’ve proven time and time again, when they were in power and when they sit in the opposition benches, about who they care about — exactly who they care about.

I just would like to see them support a bill that helps folks out. I would like them to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and support a measure like this. But they can’t do that.

You know, I have a friend…. I have a friend….

Interjection.

D. Coulter: Once again heckling me because they don’t support real people.

Interjection.

D. Coulter: Okay. Talking to each other about how you would like big business to get ahead — it’s nice.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: All right, Members. This is the….

Members.

D. Coulter: My friend bought a home in Victoria with his brother and sister-in-law. He was pressured by real estate agents to buy with a no-condition offer. He is now doing renovations to this home, and he doesn’t know what he’ll find. He has no recourse if he opens up a wall and finds mould in there. He can’t sleep at night just trying to get some repairs done to his home.

How can you not support this bill that would help him sleep at night, that would help people who are buying homes — to remove some of the pressure off of folks, some of the pressure from the overheated market, and support these people? `

They’ve proven time and time again…. They come in here and act like they care about real people. When they were in power, all they did was give large tax cuts to corporations and make fees on services for regular people. Right?

I want to see them support this bill — put their money where their mouth is and support this bill. That’s what I would like to see.

You drive the car into the ditch. You dent it all up to all heck. Then when it’s being pulled out of the ditch, you start pointing at the dents and go: “You must fix this, and you must fix this now.”

Interjection.

D. Coulter: No. That’s the 16 years you were in power.

Deputy Speaker: Okay, Members. I know it’s getting spicy, but let’s focus on Bill 12, the Property Law Amendment Act. Let the member for Chilliwack have the floor, and then you’ll get your chance.

D. Coulter: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

You know, even though this bill is about consumer protection, sometimes we veer into housing affordability. Rightfully so — we’re talking about housing. But we’ve accelerated record investments in building homes, and we have 32,000 homes already built or underway. That’s way more than they built in 16 years.

We’ve turned more than 18,000 empty condos in the Lower Mainland into homes through the speculation and vacancy tax, a tax — like I said before — that their leader opposes, a tax on the richest people in this province that actually frees up 18,000 homes for regular people.

We’re going to work with local governments to speed up new approvals of new homes. We have more new rentals since 2017 than the previous 15 years combined.

Deputy Speaker: If I might, Member. Just draw the speech back to Bill 12, the Property Law Amendment Act. That would be appreciated.

D. Coulter: Absolutely. I’d love to talk about Bill 12.

[2:45 p.m.]

Let’s hear from other people who support this bill. Let’s hear from Ted Gilmour, a Vancouver home inspector for over 20 years. He says that anyone making an offer without conditions of a home inspection is gambling with their future. “They don’t know what’s in the next chamber” — I assume that’s a gun reference — “and their welfare is at stake.”

This bill is to protect people from being pressured into dangerous risks like that. The B.C. Liberals are siding with those who have a vested interest in this overheated housing market instead of everyday people. We have a quote from a recent homebuyer, Michael Renaud:

“I am lucky that I am a red seal tradesperson and could inspect homes I viewed myself and with friends. I’d be very uncomfortable making an offer on a $1 million home without a house inspection or the time to get good advice.

“As a recent buyer, both viewing and financing felt rushed, and I would have appreciated more time to review everything on such an important purchase. I think this is a step in the right direction, and I hope more policy is implemented to help first-time homebuyers, in particular.”

Think about this. This is the largest purchase of your life. These people aren’t buying houses, they’re buying homes. And they’re at risk. This market is overheated, and they’re being pressured into making no-condition offers that could get them into major peril. Like Matthew and his mother Wendy from Nanaimo.

Let’s also talk…. We have a quote here from Helene Barton, executive director of Home Inspectors Association B.C.: “Every B.C. homebuyer must be allowed the opportunity to conduct their own due diligence prior to a purchase and avoid the high risk of buying without a home inspection.”

Let’s hear from Paul Taylor, president and CEO, Mortgage Professionals Canada: “The introduction of a short, unrestricted cooling-off period or a separate, longer period to ensure that appropriate financing can be arranged would remove uncertainty from home purchases and sales and potentially save both buyers and sellers considerable costs over time.”

Why does this side oppose this? This is how homes used to be bought, right? This overheated market is benefiting folks who profit off of it. Let’s be clear. What is a commission on million-dollar homes these days? And then you’re pressuring homebuyers into making offers without conditions? Making offers without conditions — that’s the aberration here. Homes used to be bought with conditions, and that’s the aberration. We cannot let it become the norm.

This legislation that the Finance Minister has introduced is great. I support it 100 percent. I wish the other side would too. I wish the other side would support something that helps everyday, regular people.

B. Banman: I’m pleased to rise today to continue debate on Bill 12. But I have to say that calling it a bill, at least to me, seems somewhat misleading because there’s nothing in the bill. It’s left to regulations. What the member for Chilliwack fails to understand is that if the bill had substance to it, this side of the House would be more likely to be in favour of this bill.

Interjection.

B. Banman: I’m sorry. Does the speaker from Chilliwack still have time, or is it now mine?

Deputy Speaker: Absolutely yours, Member. He’s now done.

[2:50 p.m.]

B. Banman: It’s like Groundhog Day all over again. We went through this in this House previously with bills that have been here. In particular, the one that’s near and dear to my heart happens to be Bill 22 with regards to FOIs.

That was all left to regulation as well, and quite frankly, it ended up, in my opinion, putting a minister in a very bad spot. Had the regulations been put forward, or had it actually been included in the legislation, we could have debated the regulations. But literally within minutes of royal assent, the very thing that this side of the House was asking about, which was fees, magically appeared. It put a particular minister in a very bad spot.

Healthy debate is a great thing, but there’s nothing to debate here. I find much of what the previous member has said, the member for Chilliwack, extremely entertaining, especially when one considers that it was that member that said he was the last generation that would ever be able to buy a house.

The last generation ever to afford to buy a house — nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just inaccurate. There were plenty of homes that were sold. I have talked to developers. I have talked to realtors. I have talked to people that are in the home market that have done multiple offers. I have talked to sellers. I’ve talked to a lot of people about this very bill. To portray this side of the House as if we don’t care is just laughable. It’s also insulting.

We all come to this House to do what’s best by our constituents. Now, we may disagree as to what that is, but quite frankly, it’s insulting to listen to the words of the previous speaker. It is. To think that we are opposing this…. You know, here’s a simple solution. You make a home inspection part of what is required to list a home for sale. Problem solved. Problem solved, if that’s all it is: a simple home inspection.

The previous speaker insulted the integrity of realtors. It’s like he doesn’t understand that realtors speak on behalf of both the purchaser and the seller. They’re different realtors. That was taken care of a long time ago — that with realtors, one represents the seller, and the other represents the buyer. In order to get around that, there’s a raft of paperwork that has to be signed, and the purchaser knows that they are on their own.

But to solve the issue of an inspection is quite simple. You just make it part of what’s required. It’s no different than the statement that someone signs with regards to a disclosure statement on their home. It becomes part and parcel so that someone would look…. Now, I don’t think that this side of the House would have any problem with that whatsoever. Yet what’s being proposed is: “You know what? Trust us. Hey, we’re going to settle this behind closed doors. It’ll have zero public scrutiny, but hey, you know what? You can trust us.”

We did that dance before with the whole FOI thing. Look how that turned out. A minister ended up having their integrity questioned on the floor of this House as a result of that. Clearly, regulations behind closed doors are a bad idea for everyone, including government. It literally casts a huge shadow of suspicion because it…. Especially something like this.

[2:55 p.m.]

This is not rocket science. This should be rather sim­ple. Put the regulations there. There was no reason to push this and rush this as it is. As soon as there was any baffling on this side, it should have been removed, sent back and come here with the actual legislation clearly written out for all to see.

Did we talk with realtors? I don’t know that we did. I have a letter here from the B.C. Real Estate Association. I would like to read it into the record, because I think it’s important.

“On behalf of the province’s eight real estate boards and 24,000 realtors, the B.C. Real Estate Association, BCREA, supports the government of British Columbia’s intent to introduce a homebuyer protection period. However, the B.C. government’s cooling-off period fails to meet the needs of British Columbians. A recent independent survey of 1,157 British Columbians shows that only 35 percent of consumers support introducing a cooling-off period.

“‘Policy should equally protect all parties involved in real estate transactions, while also contributing to a smooth functioning market and improved housing affordability. But the province’s plan to amend the Property Law Act to create a cooling-off period in real estate transactions leaves B.C. consumers with more questions than answers,’ says the BCREA chief executive officer Darlene K. Hyde. ‘A cooling-off period will likely increase competition for any given property, has the potential to increase prices and does not clearly take risks to sellers into account.’”

She carries on.

“‘Given that the government has again announced plans for policy changes without publicly stated and evidence-based reasoning or proper consultation in advance of committing to the direction, it’s no wonder that consumers don’t have confidence in what they’ve proposed,’ adds Hyde.

“B.C. Real Estate Association urges the government to consider the following before proceeding with regulatory change. Any new policy should protect both buyers and sellers equally. Sellers often become buyers in a real estate transaction, and the cooling-off period exposes sellers and the market in general to greater risks and uncertainty.

“Provide evidence-based reassurance that the government’s cooling-off period won’t unintentionally worsen affordability.

“Ensure that consumers and the real estate professionals who support them are appropriately supported during the transaction.

“As the voice of B.C.’s 24,000 realtors, BCREA rejects any suggestion that realtors are not invested in consumer protection and housing affordability. On behalf of realtors, in February 2022, BCREA presented the B.C. government with a white paper with more than 30 recommendations on how to improve housing affordability and strengthen consumer protection.”

It was called A Better Way Home: Strengthening Consumer Protection in Real Estate. It is “a white paper that incorporates findings from focus groups with consumers and realtors, years of survey data and a detailed analysis of economic and secondary literature, including the impacts of attempted housing market interventions worldwide.”

“Instead of a cooling-off period, a key recommendation in the white paper” — a recommendation — “is the introduction of a pre-offer period of a minimum of five business days from listing, during which prospective buyers could hire home inspectors of their choice, review important documents, ensure financing and complete any other due diligence prior to making an offer.

“‘The realtor profession does not benefit from overheated market conditions that leave most of their clients frustrated and discouraged as they lose out again and again on their home-ownership dreams,’ says Hyde.

[3:00 p.m.]

“‘It’s time to let go of that harmful preconception and acknowledge the important contributions realtors can make to better protecting consumers and improving housing affordability.’

“Seventy-one percent of British Columbians say that realtors should be consulted when it comes to developing and implementing policy impacting real estate markets.”

That’s the end of their letter.

Yet once again, Groundhog Day all over again. Were people consulted? “Oh, yeah. Yeah, we consulted them.” You wouldn’t want to go to the people that are actually experts in the field, that deal with this day to day, and talk to them. It appears as if they were not consulted.

That’s nonsensical to me. It makes no sense. Why would you not want to go talk to the people that it is their business? Yes, of course, bring in home inspectors. Yes, of course, bring in bankers. Bring in others to figure out what we can do to protect consumers and the sellers.

Everybody deserves to be able to afford a home — everybody. The realtors that I’ve talked to…. Once again, it is not the first time in history that we’ve gone through periods where there have been heated markets.

There were some extraordinary circumstances that got us here. Nobody could foresee that there was a bunch of people that decided, because of COVID: “I can’t go world travelling. But, you know, I’m about ready to retire. What I can do is, I can sell my house. I can help out my kids by giving them a down payment, and I can go afford and buy that little cottage on the lake or wherever it is that I want to go.” The problem with that is that it added to the heat of the market.

Now we’re not just dealing with someone who lists their home for sale and wants to go purchase somewhere else. We now have them helping out their family. So potentially, you have three purchasers all in the market at the same time — three people looking for the place to work at home instead of one. It was unprecedented times. Nobody could have foreseen it. But here’s the good news. In my neck of the woods, I’ve talked to a few realtors. They’re now having open houses again. It’s cooled off.

This legislation is going to come at a time that’s only going to make things worse, and it really isn’t actually needed as much as people think it is. Now, that does not mean that we should overlook the fact that nobody should ever buy a house if it needs a home inspection. But to leave it to regulation…. “Trust us. We’ll do it behind closed doors.” We already did that once, and it didn’t turn out so good. It put both sides into a big fight, and it left a minister having to defend their integrity.

I don’t ever to see that happen in this House again. Talk about disrespectful. It was disrespectful to both sides. It was embarrassing. The potential to have this happen again lays right in front of us, because what’s to be trusted about lack of input, behind closed doors, where regulation can be done willy-nilly however somebody feels during the day, with no debate in this House?

That’s why we were elected: to take a look at legislation and find ways to improve it, be that through debate, be that through an amendment. That’s what’s supposed to happen in here. But this government is now developing an unnerving pattern of bypassing consultation and going directly to regulation behind closed doors.

That’s what this side of the House is offended by. That’s what the previous speaker from Chilliwack just doesn’t seem to understand. It’s fine for him to throw barbs at this side — that we’re this, and we’re that. That’s the part that’s missing from all this — the fact that good legislation requires good debate. It’s the long-standing history of it. It shouldn’t be circumvented at all.

[3:05 p.m.]

You know, I ended up buying a home that needed a lot of repairs. I know what it’s like to think you’re going to do a simple little bathroom reno, and you open up a kettle of worms. I’ve been there; it was devastating. I didn’t sleep for weeks, because it wasn’t just one area of my house. It was a number of areas of my house.

I have great empathy for those that find themselves with…. A little bit of lipstick and paint has hidden some sins. It shouldn’t happen to anyone. I think this House would be in agreement. If we can prevent someone from being maxed out — every last nickel to try and get into a place — who finds that they are now in a position where they can’t even live in their own home, I can’t see anybody in this House who, if they could, wouldn’t find a way to help someone prevent that.

Together we can find ways to help that, but there is no together here. It’s like writing a blank cheque. I don’t do that with my kids. It’s not that I don’t trust them; it’s just bad practice. This is bad practice, and it needs to stop. You can’t just say: “Hey, trust us. Ah, we’ll deal with it later, behind closed doors. Yeah, yeah, we’ve consulted people. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got your backs.”

Then, when it’s pointed out by professionals that there may be a problem with this particular plan…. Rather than stop, take a pregnant pause and go, “Oh, okay. Well, what seems to be the issue with it?” no, we don’t do that. We get all offended, call the other side names, and we double down, when really what’s happening is someone’s waving a red flag and saying: “Wait a minute. There are some issues here that perhaps you haven’t bothered to think about.” That’s what good parliamentary debate does.

This is not the way to go about business in this House. It may be efficient for the one side. They outnumber us two to one. They can do whatever they want. Really, the only chance that this side has is to actually use common sense and reasoning, to say: “Wait a second. There are some issues with this particular legislation. We think you should reconsider parts of it, and together we can come up with a good plan that’ll help protect all British Columbians.”

To insult the integrity of realtors — I don’t think that’s wise. To insult the integrity of those who want to sell their home — I don’t think that’s wise either. If someone wants to finally cash out and sell the home that they’ve spent years trying to pay off so that they can go retire and buy their little cottage in the country, or their dream, or buy their condo somewhere — wherever it is that they want to downsize and go do — that should be applauded. It shouldn’t be insinuated that they have nefarious reasons for doing so.

There are alternatives to this. I just am at a loss, sometimes, as to why this government thinks that hiding stuff behind closed doors — for regulation, without public debate, without proper scrutiny — is wise. This is how you end up making really, really bad decisions.

Then there were comparisons to presales. Well, of course, you can’t do a home inspection on a presale. Here’s a news flash: it ain’t been built yet. How are you supposed to inspect that? You can’t inspect something that hasn’t been even put in the air yet. That’s why it’s a presale. It’s a totally different set of rules. It’s different.

[3:10 p.m.]

The details that are missing from this legislation are vast. One of the details that will be decided at a later date is the prescribed number of days after the sale where the offer can be rescinded. Let me talk about that for a minute. There is nothing preventing a person from putting in ten offers on ten different homes and having them accepted. The time period goes by, and they could rescind on all ten. This could happen multiple, multiple times. Not a thing can be done about it.

As a matter of fact, it was brought to my attention by one realtor that there would be nothing at all stopping someone from dropping $9,500 cash on every single offer that they made. No record of that cash would need to be made, because it’s under the FINTRAC $10,000 minimum. They could then cancel them all, and they’ve just now got $95,000 that comes back to them that’s been cleaned. That wasn’t talked about, but it’s potentially there.

The other details that will be later held behind closed doors are limiting waivers of the right of rescission and the circumstances in which that right may or may not have been waived; respecting the service of a notice of rescission; penalties paid by the purchaser to the seller if the purchaser exercises that right; timing of the payment 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, purchase and sale; respecting the return of the deposit paid under the contract to purchase and sale if the purchaser exercises the right to refuse or to renounce the offer, including exemption types of property or classes of buyers. That’s a ton of stuff that should be here.

You know, I get that we want to do something now. I’ve never made a decent decision ever when I felt panicked. This legislation seems ripe with panic. We’ve got to do something now. We’ve got to do something now. We’ll sort all of the details out later. Let’s just get it on the floor and get it done, so we can say we’ve done something. Talk about getting a car into a ditch. That’s how you do it. We need to pull this legislation. We need to have sober second thought on this legislation. We need to have input and consultation.

The sad thing is that, as I mentioned, this boom might very well be turning its corner and levelling out.

Interjection.

B. Banman: While the members may laugh about that, that’s exactly what’s going on with a number of realtors that I’ve talked to in my area. We have the threat of high interest rates. Those that wanted to sell in the market and move on have done so. All of the indicators are pointing that this panic buying could soon be over. All of this frustration, instead of coming up with good legislation, is a knee-jerk reaction that at the end of the day, won’t be helpful.

There is a lack of affordable housing in British Columbia. We all know it. One of the biggest things we can do to make houses more affordable is to increase the supply. Part of the legislation in this, I believe, should be dealing with that very question. The single biggest reason that homes are priced the way they are is because there is a lack of supply. Yet it’s not mentioned. It is not even discussed.

[3:15 p.m.]

Since this government came into power, under this government’s watch, the average price of a home has surpassed $1.1 million. That’s up 25 percent in the last year alone. Not the last 15 years; the last year. One of the single largest price raises of all time happened underneath the NDP’s watch.

We all want to find reasons to make houses more affordable. Here’s why. My own personal reason: I don’t want to see my grandchildren forced to move somewhere else. It’s one of the reasons why I decided to get into politics in the first place: to make sure that my grandchildren and their friends and future generations could choose to stay in this beautiful province if they wanted.

If they choose to go elsewhere, well, that’s one thing. My heart will still be broken, but it would be their choice and their dreams. What I don’t want to do, as I’m helping them pack up their belongings in their car, is to have to say, when they ask me: “Papa, I don’t want to leave, but I have to. I can’t afford to live here. Papa, you were there. Why didn’t you do something?”

What I’m saying is that this side of the House wants to come up with solutions to that. The other side of the House — government — needs to listen. They need to allow us to participate. We’ve got a lot of expertise on this side of the House. We’ve got colleagues that have built homes. I was the mayor of the largest city by land in British Columbia. We have people that were former realtors or have relatives that are realtors. My neighbour did home inspections.

We want to participate, but if this government continues to go down this road of, “We know it all. We know better. Trust us. We’ll deal with it behind closed doors. We don’t need your advice. Just go sit over in the corner and be quiet and watch this. We’ve got it,” it’s going to end in a disaster. That’s not how you come to get good legislation and good, decent decisions. You do that by using all of the knowledge and power in this House.

My colleagues on the other side are not bad people. Their intentions are the same as this side. We want our children to be able to afford to stay here, together. Together we can do that, but it requires listening and communication on both sides. This is the parliament. It comes from, as my colleague from Abbotsford West said, the French version of parler, which means to speak, which means to discuss. This one-sided tone, this leaving it to regulations is not working, and it needs to change.

T. Wat: It is always an honour and a privilege for me to stand up in the House, in this people’s House, be it introductions of my visitors, the stakeholders; making a two-minute statement; presenting a petition to the House on behalf of my constituents; or engaging in debate of the bills. I always feel it is such a great privilege and honour, especially…. I am an immigrant. I came to this great country, this great province, in 1989, from Hong Kong, when it was still a British colony.

[3:20 p.m.]

I am sure many immigrants, even in this House — I’m sure many of us, or a few of us, are immigrants — have decided to emigrate to Canada, to British Columbia, for a whole lot of reasons. One of the reasons is because we want to live in a place where we can have full democracy, where we can have full debate of a bill. The government will provide information for opposition members so that they can study the bill. They can do research and come to this House and have a constructive debate so that any government, any governing party who is in the government, can listen to the other side and come up with the best policy for British Columbians.

That’s what we are for, and I’m sure that every single one of us who decided to run for politics, all of us, wants to work for the interests of British Columbians.

But this afternoon I really feel so sad. What a waste of the time of this people’s House and a waste of time of all of the opposition MLAs to stand up and to debate Bill 12, the Property Law Amendment Act, 2022. I can say that it is virtually a blank piece of paper.

I was wondering. Last night I was having a nightmare. Was it April Fools’ Day? If the bill was presented on April 1, I thought that the minister was playing an April Fools’ joke. No — I pinch myself — this is really the kind of bill that we have to debate.

Honestly, I don’t know how and where to start. I’m glad that eventually two members of the governing party stood up in this House and, supposedly, debated on this bill. I wish more members of this House could stand up and debate on this bill, especially if the government claims themselves to be caring for the interests of each and every one of British Columbians and trying to make life affordable. I don’t understand why, of my colleagues across the aisle, only two of them stood up.

The minister of municipal services stood up last Thursday. He was trying to defend the minister, saying that there has been consultation, which is a joke. During my time, my allotted time, I will read out letters from my constituents and also from British Columbians. Also, a letter was sent to the minister that there was no consultation with the real estate association. What was the minister of municipal services talking about?

The member for Chilliwack, who spoke before my colleague from this side of the House…. The comments he made were so insulting. That member said that the opposition doesn’t care about the interests of British Columbians. We do. I must say that members of the governing party…. They are all kind-hearted. I’m sure each and every one of them also wants to do good for British Columbians and for the people of this province. It’s just that they don’t know how to do it.

The government just doesn’t want to listen to the professionals. Quite frankly, I’m not surprised — but I’m certainly disappointed — that this bill allows the Premier and his cabinet to make all the decisions and decide on all the specific details, in yet another piece of B.C. legislation, through regulations.

[3:25 p.m.]

As my colleague, the member for Abbotsford South, has said so eloquently, the Premier and the cabinet just wanted to ram through the regulations away from public scrutiny and without the input of the opposition. I call on the Premier and the cabinet ministers. Many of them were in opposition before. They do understand the role of opposition, and they made many constructive inputs when they were in opposition. But here we are, given a bill that’s like a blank piece of paper, without details — nothing. How can opposition do our jobs?

We honestly treasure the time for this debate and want to give the best of our input from what we heard from our constituents, from the professionals, from the stakeholders, but we haven’t been given this opportunity by this government.

This bill has potentially disastrous consequences for housing affordability in B.C. and for my constituents in Richmond. If this government is really serious in tackling housing affordability, they should have consulted professionals and listened to British Columbians.

We have seen this government use every excuse for the horrendous state of the housing market, including standing idly by when they could have refuted the racist stereotypes that today’s housing prices are the sole result of Chinese foreign investors, a stigma that has led to unjust and unfounded stereotypes for young Chinese-Canadian families buying homes.

I was being stigmatized, too, because I’m part of the Chinese-Canadian community. We saw this perpetuated in the 2015 Andy Yan report that was decried as racist, a study that a member of this current government participated in. Having an Asian name doesn’t make you guilty — or at least it shouldn’t. For this government to tie the housing market, which this government has done nothing to cool, to one ethnic group was bad enough. But then the link was made to money laundering, adding another arrow into the racist quiver.

It is not appropriate to distort facts that contribute to cas­ual racism. The issue here is supply, supply and supply. I hope that this government uses this opportunity to remove racial stereotypes in our housing market and, instead, bring forward real, viable solutions.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

As if this bill was not bad enough, something that deeply concerned me is that the bill continues to reinforce secrecy, which is not what I expect to emigrate to this democratic country. It really disappoints me after all these years. And this bill fails to uphold transparency for British Columbians. This legislation is concerning, but it is an incredibly concerning trend. We have experience with this administration over these past few years.

[3:30 p.m.]

Once again, this government provides yet another example as to why they were deserving the most secretive government in Canada award by the Canadian Association of Journalists. I don’t know how members of this government, how the other elected members of this governing party think about their government being awarded the most secret government…. If I were them, I would be ashamed of myself for being connected with this government.

Especially for those who are immigrants to this beautiful country, to this beautiful province, we want to see democracy in full play. It’s not here in this House. If my husband were still around, he would ask me to quit. He would tell me: “There’s no point debating in this House, because look at this government. It’s totally secretive. What’s the point of wasting your time? You should spend more time with your grandchildren.”

I find it quite troubling that we are dealing with a government that has already taken great strides to strip away transparency and accountability, through controversial policy and legislation like Bill 22, rather than improve them. That’s why I find it incredibly difficult to debate this bill. I’m lacking words, especially as an immigrant. English is my second language. I particularly find it difficult to really reveal how I feel. I will try my very best. If I could speak in my mother tongue, it would be much better.

If we consider Bill 12, the NDP is asking the House to pass this legislation that is entirely made of regulations we haven’t seen yet. I must quote Vaughn Palmer’s article. It’s so well written. It lays out what British Columbians feel about this Bill 12. Vaughn Palmer’s article appeared on March 30.

He quoted the minister in the news release as saying:

“‘People need to have protection as they make one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. We want to make sure people buying a home have time to get the information they need to make a sound decision within limits that still gives sellers the certainty they need to close sales.’ But the actual text of the bill the minister introduced Monday said” — let me emphasize this — “next to nothing about how the cooling-off period would work.

“All relevant details about the so-called homeowner protection period were left to be determined by the NDP cabinet once the legislation passes. How long is the cooling-off period? That will be up to the cabinet. How big a deposit must be paid in advance to exercise the right? That, too, will be set by the cabinet. How big a penalty, if any, must the prospective buyer pay to the seller if he or she backs out? Cabinet, again.

“You get the picture. The sections in the bill delegating regulatory powers to the cabinet are three times as long as the brief opening bit creating the hypothetical right of recission.”

[3:35 p.m.]

Actually, there is so much in Vaughn Palmer’s article. If I have time, then I will continue to quote him, because it’s so enlightening. Don’t listen to the opposition, Members. Just go on the website and take a look at Vaughn Palmer’s article.

As elected representatives, it is our duty to act on behalf of our constituents and advocate for our communities. But again, I have to say it’s difficult to do so if we are given blank pieces of paper.

We know that this is not the first time the government has tried to pass shell legislation and then make all of the decisions through regulation. This government and this minister have completely destroyed the government’s credibility when it comes to “just trusting them” with regulations. We saw that with Bill 22, and it’s déjà vu all over again. Who knows? This will be repeated over and over again until they are overthrown in 2024.

We see it again in Bill 12 now, but if that wasn’t bad enough, this regulation they seek to implement behind closed doors will be based on a report from the B.C. Financial Services Authority that hasn’t been released to the public yet. No one has seen the report that this legislation is based on, so how can we, as members of this Legislature, debate a bill that we haven’t even seen yet?

I really pride myself on being able to advocate for my community in Richmond, but my constituents feel like they are being left out of their own democracy. My constituents and the rest of Richmond find that housing in Richmond, in the beautiful city of Richmond, is so unaffordable. I really want the other members in Richmond…. Now they are the majority, they can make more noises heard by this government. I am the single voice, so I might not be as effective as they are. Hopefully, my other three members will listen to the young residents in Richmond to know how difficult it is to even find rental space.

This is reported in Richmond News. Let me quote Mark Lee, who is a Richmond resident. He told Richmond city council last Monday that he moved to Richmond after being outpriced from Vancouver, but he is finding Richmond unaffordable as well.

Another Richmond-born, David Yang, also talked about the outlook for the younger generation in Richmond. He said they are looking to stay and live in the beautiful city of Richmond, but now the outlook is not looking good at all.

David Yang said: “Working families, young people and seniors are at a crossroads with the city’s affordability cri­sis.” The following quote, I hope the three members from Richmond will listen to carefully: “At this critical juncture with no end in sight and rising housing costs, homelessness and growing inequality, policy-makers and decision-makers simply have to step up big-time, or they have to step down.”

It is completely unreasonable for the government to ask members of this Legislature to vote on this bill.

[3:40 p.m.]

As I said earlier, without the BCFSA report being made public first — and, yes, they are doing just that — we are expected to vote blindly, with my eyes closed, and I do not support that. I do not stand for this lack of transparency and secrecy in our legislative process.

The reality is that this government is trying to push this bill through without leaving space for genuine, informed debate. This is what I have learned since I became an elected official nine years ago — this is my third term — and I always valued this opportunity for informed and genuine debate. The government is erasing the ability of this House, in particular of the opposition and the Third Party, to do their job.

British Columbians are noticing, and our constituents are recognizing, that this is becoming a pattern for this government. They are worried. Many of them called me and talked to me over the weekend when I got back to my riding, and it’s rightly so that they are worried, especially those immigrants who come here for democracy. What’s happening to democracy in B.C.?

This bill also truly worries me. Bill 12 seeks to implement a cooling-off period in the process of buying and selling a home. More precisely, it is enabling legislation respecting a residential right of rescission on home sales. The government is modelling this on the same provision in the Real Estate Development Marketing Act for presale condos, but this is a completely different type of transaction.

Does this government not realize that with presales, you can’t ask for a home inspection because the building hasn’t even begun construction? This is simple ABC; it’s completely different. That’s why I started my comments, at the beginning, that members across the aisle are all kind-hearted, but they are totally not competent to take on this job.

It really breaks my heart to see young families, people, students in my riding of Richmond North Centre and even in the city of Richmond being forced to leave because of this government’s mismanagement of housing. Young people, working families and seniors are at a crossroads with the affordability crisis, and this is a sentiment that is not unfamiliar to most British Columbians.

Why are my constituents worried? Well, I’d be happy to tell you. The reality of this means that the details of this bill will not be decided in this people’s House but entirely by the minister and cabinet after the legislation has already been passed. It worries me that this government can decide key elements of this bill behind closed doors, bypassing everyone. This sounds like what country in the world? Everything is behind closed doors. The public is worried. My constituents are worried, and they are frustrated with this pattern of theirs.

When you consider all this, there is no question why today’s bill won’t do anything to improve housing affordability. I really don’t understand why the NDP is choosing an option that will raise prices instead of lowering them.

[3:45 p.m.]

I truly do want to adequately debate this legislation. I try to do all the research I can. Normally, I’m extremely hard-working, but I can’t find anything, because there’s nothing in the bill. I know that it will have a huge impact on so many people in our province. I know the lack of affordable housing in B.C. is one of the biggest issues our province is now facing. Far too many people can barely afford rent, let alone purchase a home in B.C.

I’d like to respond to my colleague, the member for Abbotsford South, who said he got into this job because he wants his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to have a house of their own, a home of their own. For me, I only have one daughter. She cannot find a reasonable, high-paid job, and she has to get out of here and work overseas, where she can find a much better, more fulfilling career.

If this government continues on their pattern, a lot of investors and businessmen will leave, leaving no jobs. They are doing nothing now to try to improve housing affordability. I don’t know when my daughter can come back. My worry is the same as my colleague from Abbotsford South. We desperately need to see measures to improve housing affordability in B.C., but this bill will not accomplish that goal. Experts have been clear about what the government’s bungling will do: raise costs even further, putting even greater strain on people during an affordability crisis.

On behalf of my constituents and my community, I urge this government to reconsider backroom business and to instead be transparent and work collaboratively to address this pressing issue for all British Columbians.

M. Bernier: I delayed my time in getting up because I was waiting to see if somebody from the NDP would choose to speak. It’s unfortunate, as we’ve seen this debate go forward, that we’ve had one, maybe two, members from the government side of the House that have had, dare I say, the courage to stand in this House and speak to this bill.

For those watching, for those in the House that are partaking in the debate today, we’re talking about Bill 12, the Property Law Amendment Act, which this government has put forward. Typically, when a bill is presented in the Legislature, it comes with details; it comes with information. Government will present a bill. They’ll present a process that they want to follow through with. They’ll present details. They’ll present what their initiatives are, with the information laid out descriptively within that bill — usually after it’s gone through a legislative reviewing process — so that this House can do their job: to scrutinize and debate the bill.

Now, I probably should have started at the beginning by saying that although there is not much in this bill to talk about, I probably will have a fair bit to say. I will notify that I will be the designated speaker on this bill. The reason why I brought up…. Oh, I just noticed the clock has changed, and I have two hours to speak. That’s what that means now. I’m hoping that everyone is grabbing a coffee and sitting back for the ride.

What’s really important, though, is when we’re talking about putting legislation in front of the House…. I’m looking at all members. This is not just about opposition. This is for government members as well.

[3:50 p.m.]

It’s our job and their job to look at that information, to decipher the information and the direction that government wishes to proceed on and, as I said, debate the merits and the details within that bill, within that legislation. Contrary to the member for Chilliwack’s comments and rant earlier about this, there have been many times when a bill has been presented in this House with the appropriate details for people to look at what the objectives are, where members of this House can make a fair and reasonable decision on whether to support or not support that bill.

In a surprise to those who might be watching — and, obviously, to the member for Chilliwack — there are many times where this House will unanimously agree on a bill, unanimously agree on an objective that’s going to help the people of British Columbia. We’ve seen that over the last couple of years through the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve seen it around initiatives that are going to make lives better for people in British Columbia. We have those debates, those discussions. As I say, there have been many, many times when we collaborate. We work together to help people.

Unfortunately, though, this bill is, for the most part, one page, one section. Government could have put, basically, one phrase that just says, “Trust us,” because that’s what they’re asking everybody to do. With no information — I’ll get into some of the details, or should I say lack of details, in the bill a little later on — government has put this on the floor and said: “We have no information. We’re not going to tell you what we’re doing. We’re going to be secretive. We’re going to discuss this behind closed doors, at some future date. Don’t worry. Just pass this. We want you to support this, but we don’t know what we’re even asking you to support yet.”

It’s basically a shell, maybe even a bit of a shell game that this government is trying to do. They don’t want to be accountable. We saw that with Bill 22, which the Minister of Citizens’ Services put forward — the very controversial bill that was put in this House, where government tried to, I’ll say, pretend that they didn’t know where they wanted to go. Yet miraculously, ten minutes after the bill was passed in this House with no information, they obviously had an epiphany and decided what they wanted to do, even though they’d stood in this House and said they had no idea.

You’d think this government would have learned their lesson just a few short months ago when that whole controversial issue happened, where the integrity of the minister was called into question in this House, where pretty well every media outlet in the province of British Columbia was going after this government, saying that what they were doing was wrong. It wasn’t transparent; it was secretive. It was not serving the people of British Columbia in the way this House, this Legislature, is supposed to treat the people of British Columbia.

By the Canadian Association of Journalists, this NDP government was awarded as the most secretive government in Canada last year because of the way they’ve approached this Legislature and the way they’ve taken advantage, I would argue, of a majority-government situation after they called a snap election in the middle of a pandemic — which they’d said they wouldn’t do. They took advantage of the people in that process as well. Then this government continues to take advantage now in this House.

Well, I guess they won an award for it, so they can be proud of that. They can brag about that. The whole idea…. We’ve heard from numerous members — whether it’s the official opposition or members from the Third Party, the Green Party — who have stood up in this House and said that this is really a slap in the face to democracy.

[3:55 p.m.]

We wouldn’t continue saying this if it weren’t so. You wouldn’t hear every member who’s speaking about this complaining about the lack of transparency if they were being transparent. We wouldn’t be complaining about the what-ifs if they actually had detail in the bill. Now, I’m going to assume, watching this all play out, that the NDP members are incredible dancers, because they’ve really mastered the sidestep. But it’s time that they actually do their jobs as well¸ which helps this House do its job.

The Minister of Finance, in presenting this bill, acknowledged, when she put the bill on the floor, that there was basically no information. It’s almost as if she was proud of that, to say: “Don’t worry. Trust me. When I get information from the B.C. Financial Services Authority” — which, by the way, could be any day — that’s what, this minister and this government say, they’re going to use to help shape the legislation. But they’re not going to tell us about that until after they ask this House to pass the legislation.

This government — we heard the member for Chilliwack; I believe we’ve even heard the minister — is basically calling into question the integrity of the Real Estate Association, of the profession, of the almost 25,000 people who work in the real estate industry in the province of British Columbia — saying that, basically, they’re part of the problem. I see members almost nodding as if they’re agreeing with that.

Here’s the challenge. This government, again, is out blam­ing everybody else for their failures. We’re talking about an affordability crisis. We’re talking about what everybody is saying is one of the most important things facing the people right now in the province of British Columbia, and this one-page — basically, one-section — bill with no information is the best that this government can come up with.

This is the shingle they’re hanging on the door saying…. This is what? What’s this going to solve? There’s no information. This isn’t going to solve a thing. Most real estate professionals who looked at this said that because of the lack of information and the way our sector is right now, the real estate sector out there in general…. I’ll talk about some of the housing stats later on in my speech. Almost everybody who has looked at this, including most of the mainstream media, has said: “This is going to do nothing for affordability. This is going to do nothing to help people.” In fact, this could backfire and actually increase the cost to get into a home.

Now, the B.C. Real Estate Association put together a white paper. Why did they do that? Well, I’ve talked to many of them. Frankly, they were insulted about the fact that we’re talking about something that’s paramount and fundamental to what they do, yet they weren’t consulted. They weren’t asked about this — 25,000 people on the ground who understand the industry, who understand what’s working, what’s not working, the challenges and the opportunities. Did this government give them an opportunity for themselves to be part of the discussion? No.

They put out a white paper — quite extensive, actually. They used that expertise that they have, and they put forward 30 recommendations. I won’t bother reading all those recommendations into the House, because my hope would be that the government, that didn’t want to actually take any of their advice, would have at least looked at those recommendations, would have at least looked at that white paper themselves. Most of what they’ve said — it was a bit of a slap in the face, of not being included — is: “This is not going to work.”

[4:00 p.m.]

House prices have doubled in the last five years under this NDP government. Anybody who has been fortunate enough to own a home and buy a home, I’m sure, is quite pleased with that, if they’re in that situation. Anybody who’s struggling right now to get into the housing market, to own a home for themselves, for their family — we’re hearing those struggles.

Many people are forced to rent — if they can afford rent, because that has gone up by $3,000 a year in this province as well and continues to climb under the NDP. The government, when they put this forward — to talk a little bit more about how the real estate industry in the sector works — said: “Well, we’re actually putting this in place and using the Real Estate Development Marketing Act as kind of a tool to reference.”

Well, that act talks about presales. That act talks about different transactions and how they take place, especially with presales. For anybody who knows anything about presales and who has, maybe, put an offer in, you’re basically buying a concept. You’re looking at a drawing. You’re not looking at the physical structure, because it hasn’t been built yet. Presales are a way for the developer to get money up front to help offset the development costs, to be able to build the development so that people can then move in.

So when this government says, “We’re modelling it after the Development Marketing Act,” like presale condos, where you can have an inspection, well, I don’t know about you, but if you hire a home inspector to go inspect nothing, you’re going to get about the same as what this bill is: nothing. You cannot inspect something that hasn’t been built yet.

Should there be discussions around home inspections? Sure. I can see that as being important. I can see that as being why that’s the only association that was a validator for this bill. But we need to look at all of this holistically. This whole discussion started because of the affordability crisis.

This government has been pressured and pressured to do something. In fact, all they had to do was fulfil or make good on at least one of their affordability promises around housing, like a $400 rebate — we’ve talked about that lots in this House — but none of these promises have seen the light of day. They’ve never come to fruition.

They’ve made great glossy slogans at election time, when this government, the NDP government, stands up and says: “We understand that affordability is so important to all of you, so we’re going to do something about it. Here are all our promises. By the way, don’t expect us to fulfil any of them.” But it sounds good to get re-elected.

This government should have been listening to everybody — all of the stakeholders, not just the ones that they’ve stereotyped and blamed, like a real estate agency, where they try to say they have a vested interest.

Well, a news flash for you: the people who have the most vested interest in the high real estate market right now are the NDP government. They’re collecting almost $3 billion a year in property transfer tax — $3 billion. That has almost doubled as well. It seems to be the theme with this government — doubling. Double the taxes; double the debt; double the deficits; double down on broken promises. It seems to be the theme.

When we’re talking about the words that members of this House make and how important they are, we need to remember that there are lots of different sectors out there that are working around housing, around the real estate profession.

[4:05 p.m.]

The real estate agencies themselves…. There are eight boards, as I mentioned, almost 25,000 realtors in the prov­ince, and they’re ticked off. They are mad and insulted by the way they’re being treated by this government, by the comments of the minister. We even heard it again, just 45 minutes ago, from the member for Chilliwack, who called their integrity into question.

I’m going to read into the record. As the Housing critic, I’ve received literally hundreds of emails in the last couple of weeks on this bill. I’ve had numerous — probably close to a dozen now — Zoom calls and meetings with different associations who are upset with the approach this government is making.

This one here I want to read into the record because it kind of highlights a little bit of the frustration. It’s a little long, but as I acknowledged, I do have time as the designated speaker. This is from an award-winning realtor that emailed me, Robert. I won’t use his last name, but he’s from right here in Victoria. His words to me, actually, were quite powerful. It highlighted not only the dis­connect but some of the challenges that people are facing with this government.

Let me start by reading a good portion of this email. Of course, it was addressed to me.

“If the minister was willing to have a respectful conversation with the real estate profession and listen to concerns based on actual work experience in the field by us, I doubt that this law would have been introduced at all. My primary concern, though, however, is how this act is now being misrepresented by this government. The act contains no requirement mandating sellers to provide access to their homes, either for a building inspection or appraisal, during the so-called cooling-off period.”

I will add in here: maybe that’s the plan later? We don’t know. Because the real estate profession wasn’t included and there is nothing in the bill, we have to go with what’s not in there as well.

“The bill’s purpose is being promoted as confronting some of these very issues. However, this is now confusing for consumers, as buyers and sellers would still have to agree contractually for the buyer to even have access to the house for a building inspection or appraisal during that cooling-off period. A seller can simply say, ‘No, I’m not letting anyone in my house; it’s my private residence,’ or choose an offer that does not provide any such property access. Furthermore, the delegated regulation-making authority does not appear to empower this minister to mandate inspections or appraisals. It almost makes you wonder if the minister herself does not even know what she is proposing.

“At the heart of this issue is a government disinterested in understanding the property-buying and -selling process, yet this is also a government that seems to be eager to make policy that will have consequences in a billion-dollar market in British Columbia. If they cannot be trusted to propose any evidence-based policy or something as straightforward as a home-buying process, how can we have any faith in this government’s ability to foresee the consequences to the market of their reckless meddling with this bill? Policy based on strident personal views, distorted logic, all of which is entirely free from evidence-based facts which have been proven by time, do nothing to enhance affordability of housing in your province.

“It is my hope that this act and the inflammatory language used by the minister and members of the House in relation to the real estate profession can be resoundingly condemned in the House by all those with an interest in truly improving our property-buying and -selling process, which will be truly in the interest in all consumers.”

I mean, that’s just one of hundreds of emails that I’ve received from people who are frustrated with this government.

[4:10 p.m.]

Now, on the bill, I want to thank — I should thank, genuinely thank — the minister’s staff. The critic for Finance, myself…. We were offered a briefing on this bill. Of course, we took up that offer. I want to thank the staff — the ministerial staff and the bureaucratic staff — that sat in on that briefing.

I also feel horrible for them, for the position that they were put in for that briefing — that the minister would actually agree to a briefing of nothing, basically throwing her staff out there. To every single question we asked — which, we thought, would be just a logical question, based on the information that we had with the bill presented — pretty well every answer we got was: “That’s a good question,” “You’re going to have to ask the minister,” “It’s not in the bill,” “We don’t know.” Every answer was: “You’ll have to ask the minister.”

Now, that is not meant in any way to be critical of the staff. That is not their fault. The staff didn’t have the information. I know, because I’ve sat through in my years here, that when we’ve had briefings, staff genuinely want to assist and share information where they can to help the process move forward. That’s what briefings are supposed to be, so that you have a better understanding of the bill. It’s so when you come to this House as opposition, you’ve been given that background, that information, so that you can make a rational decision and have a rational conversation based on the merits of a bill with that information that’s presented.

Again, I thank the staff for that. I don’t want to say it was a waste of time. That wouldn’t be fair. It’s not staff’s fault, but again, how awkward that must be for the staff to be put in that position.

Here’s where I go with this, though. We’ve got a couple of situations here — I’m trying to figure out which this is — when it comes to this bill. We’ve heard that basically nobody from the government side of the House wants to speak to this. They don’t want to defend it. They haven’t been able to, I guess, frankly, because it’s really hard, even when we heard the member for Chilliwack trying to say how excited he is to support all the information in this bill.

If I were a constituent in Chilliwack, I’d be contacting him and saying: “Okay. I’m glad you’re happy to support this. What information are you supporting? Where is the detail that you’re supporting as a member of this Legislature?” There is none, which leads me to a really weird crossroads that I have to ask this House.

Either all of the members of the NDP know exactly what the recommendations are going to be…. They’ve had a secretive meeting — we know how they win all those awards — that says: “This is what we’re going to do. Here are all the regulations. We know exactly how this is going to look. No, we did not put it in writing. No, we didn’t put it in the legislation, because we don’t feel we have to share anything with this House, but we’ll let all of you know.” I’m hoping, in some weird way, that that’s maybe what happened.

Otherwise, we’re going to have every member of the NDP, government members, cabinet members, backbench members…. How are they going to vote? How do they look in the mirror? How do they go back to their constituents and say: “I am so proud that I represented you in the Legislature today by approving a bill of nothing. That’s what I said I was going to do. If you elect me, I’m going to go the Legislature and be secretive with the NDP government, not tell you anything, and I’ll support all of it.”

[4:15 p.m.]

Now, we all know…. I’ve got a member to my right who has been here a few years longer than me, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen a time where one NDP member has stepped away from the ranks and voted against something that they were told to vote for.

Even if they have no clue about the details — I say that respectfully, because there are no details — they’re going to be told how to vote. They’ll stand up, one by one, and say they’re going to vote in favour of it, because they were told to. At what point, though, do you look at yourself and say: “Is this why I ran? Is this why I was elected? Am I truly serving my constituents properly?”

Either all of the members of the NDP know all the details, and they’re just hiding it from this House, like I said…. If that’s the case, we’ve got bigger problems in this Legislature, and we have massive issues, not just about secrecy, but for the trust in the establishment of this facility, if that’s the way that this present government is going to treat the people, not only of this chamber but of the province of British Columbia.

Either they know the information, which is why they feel confident supporting it, or even worse, they have no clue of what the regulations are going to be. Based on the bill that’s in front of us, they have no clue of what’s going to happen later on this year, yet they’re going to be told to support it anyway. Now, we’ve heard other members before myself — the member for Saanich North and the Islands, and others — who have talked about, basically, the need for respect for this facility, for this Legislature, for the process. What we’re seeing here is the lack thereof.

I don’t have to go much deeper into it, because we did see and hear some great examples and some heartfelt opinions about why we’re going down the wrong path here with a bill like this. The challenge we have is that this government is not looking in the mirror, where the issue lies. For the last five years, it has been deflection after deflection. First, if I remember correctly, around four or five years ago — affordability crisis — this government gets into power, and they blame foreign buyers. “Not our fault. We’re going to fix it. We’re going to blame foreign buyers.” Then the prices of houses went up, and this government got more pressured that they had to do something.

What did they do? Well, they came out with another blame tactic: “Let’s blame speculators now. The blame on foreign buyers didn’t quite work. Prices went up. Let’s blame speculators.” The price keeps going up. Meanwhile, they’ve done nothing. Now five, six years later, still under pressure, they haven’t fulfilled any promises around housing affordability. Things are getting worse for people trying to get into the market, so what do we do now?

The Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing now comes out and says: “Well, it’s not our fault either. Now it’s local government.” This government has now shown no leadership on this file, aside from finding an avenue to blame everybody else around them, rather than looking in the mirror for what they’re doing themselves.

Let’s talk about the bill in a bit of detail for a moment. We were talking about a democratic process. At the beginning of my speech, I talked about what we normally see in a bill and how a bill is presented in this House. Sometimes we agree, and sometimes we don’t agree, but we’re agreeing or disagreeing based on facts and information laid out in print.

Typically, an idea for a bill comes forward. Those of us who have been on the government side and the opposition side, who have had the privilege of presenting bills in this House, know the process.

[4:20 p.m.]

A concept turns into some detail, which then goes to a legislative review committee, after a bill has been drafted to really look at the legalities of it — to ensure that it fits within the framework of any present act that might be being changed or modified with a word, a bunch of words or, in this case, a section. Sometimes it doesn’t happen quickly, because it is a lot of work. That work is done because of the process that’s required in this House. After all of that work, then a bill will be presented to this House.

As I said, we’ll have those really robust, vigorous debates on the merits. Then we go through committee stage, as we all know, where we can go line-by-line with the questions on the specific details within that bill to ensure — as an opposition, first of all — that we’re representing not only the public but challenging government. Did they think of all these other things that could or could not be affected with any changes that they’ve proposed within an act?

But normally, bills aren’t read in the House anymore. A bill is presented by the supporting minister, and then we get into a debate like this, based on the information in that bill. But in this case, since it’s so short, I’ve got an opportunity where I’m actually going to read in parts of this bill. I know it won’t take a long time, because there’s not a lot of information.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: Well, normally, it would take a long time, because as we know, with so many bills, there’s information. There’s section after section that explains the ration­ale of what government is proposing.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: I’m asked if I have time to read this in. But since I am the designated speaker, the whole bill…. You might want to start the stop clock on this one just to see how long it actually takes me to read this. But I’m going to look at this. It’s basically one section, and it’s all enabling legislation. What does that mean? Back to one of the first comments I made in this House, it might as well have just said: “Trust me. I don’t have to tell you. I don’t have to tell the House. I don’t have to tell the public. Trust me.”

This piece of legislation is just adding two sections to the Property Law Act: “A purchaser of residential real property may rescind the contract of purchase and sale for the property by serving written notice of the recission on the seller within the prescribed number of days” — so they may do it after a prescribed number of days, which we don’t know — “after the date that the acceptance of the offer was signed.” May, may not happen — don’t know how long you have.

The other section added is, “The Lieutenant Governor in Council may” — may, again — “make regulations for the purposes of section 42,” which I just read out, including regulations as follows — respecting waivers of the right of recission, respecting service of a notice of recission, respecting an amount to be paid by the purchaser, respecting the timing of the payment, establishing procedures for the payment, respecting return of the deposit, and that’s pretty well it.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: Was that one minute? Well, that’s one minute of your life you’ll never get back — one minute, basically, to read a bill that should have just said: “Trust us.” Every single thing in there says: “We may do this.” The minister is on record saying…. In her scrum with the media, when they said, “Well, it says you may do it,” she said: “Yes, I may. I may let you know at a later date. I may have information this fall.”

Meanwhile, on the other hand, they’re saying: “Oh my god. This affordability crisis…. We need to do something now, even though it’s been five years of us saying we have to do something now” — the now is a nothing, and that nothing…. “We will tell you more about that later on in six months.”

[4:25 p.m.]

It talks about respecting an amount to be paid with a penalty. What’s the penalty? We’re hearing now that multiple bids could come in on a house, which we’re seeing already. But now a person can do multiple bids of their own, because they’re going to go out and do bids on maybe four, five, six different houses. We’re seeing that right now in the market. I understand the pressure that purchasers are under.

We want to see this issue resolved and solved as well, to help people get into a home. But if there’s going to be a penalty, what does the penalty look like? Is that penalty going to now affect maybe that mom and dad with one kid that are excited to get into their first small home? They’ve done everything they can to scrape, scrimp together and save for years for that down payment. Or they were fortunate enough maybe to get money from a family member to help them, because we all know that it takes, with today’s unaffordability crisis, about 34 years to save up enough money for a down payment now, under this government.

They go out and put in multiple bids, because they’re hoping to at least get one place. But now they’re going to be afraid to do that because of a possible penalty that they may or may not have. They don’t know what that penalty will be. So in essence, the only people that are going to be able to do multiple bids now are going to be developers, investors, speculators — all the ones that we’ve heard the members here talk about.

Service of notice. We’ve heard three days. We’ve heard five days. We’ve heard seven days. We’ve heard the member for Chilliwack say how he supports this, yet there’s nothing in here to support, because we don’t know what the information is. Is it three days? Is it seven days? Is it ten days? Maybe he knows something that nobody else in this House knows. How can you put a bill on the floor with nothing, with no information, and ask this House to support it?

As I said, we know that this government is getting a lot of pressure because of the housing affordability crisis. It’s only gotten worse under this government, and people are now asking them to follow through with even a small bit of any promise that they made to help with affordability. Where in this bill does it help affordability? Where in this bill is there anything that’s going to lower the price of a home? Where in this bill is there really anything in detail that’s going to help somebody buy a home, get into the housing market to begin with? There’s nothing.

Again, we get back to…. Under pressure from the public, this government has done nothing. Now, they’ve had to pretend to do something. We understand that. So it’s basically a pretend bill, because there’s no information in it. In fact, if you read through the media, read through a lot of the experts, read through some of the people that…. Even the NDP, in some circles, will brag about how their endorsers…. So many of these people have come out and said this will do absolutely nothing to help people, to help affordability. In fact, it’s more likely going to backfire. Prices are going to go up, and this is only going to make it harder.

I’d like to say that’s not the case. I’d like to be able to look at the details of this bill and actually say to people, “I can support this, because this is going to help you. Here’s some detail laid out that is actually going to help solve the issue,” but it’s not here.

Again, I know there has been a lot of pressure. I cannot believe that this government’s rush to try to solve something doesn’t solve anything. When you look at housing in general…. We’ve talked about some of the challenges people are facing right now in the province. The average house in the Lower Mainland is now up to $1.2 million. That’s doubled.

[4:30 p.m.]

We have talked about how rent has gone up by almost $3,000 a year. But don’t worry. They are working on the $400 rebate. People were excited to hear about that, even though it’s not in the budget.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: Well, that was interesting. I just said that they broke a promise, that it’s not in the budget, and the member for Chilliwack applauds that. That was very interesting. I’m sure he’ll be applauding most of what I have to say, because it talks about the flaws of this government and even some of the issues that he’s raised. I know the member for Chilliwack has said that he’s the last generation to ever be able to afford a home. Good for him. It’s unfortunate that he has no optimism for the next generation.

On this side of the House, in opposition, we’re trying to actually solve this issue by making sure that people understand that we need to do better to lower the prices, to worry about making sure that we have supply. I know the Attorney General, the Minister Responsible for Housing, has had that epiphany as well and said: “Yes, we need to worry about supply.” I’m glad we can all agree that that is one of the challenges that needs to be dealt with.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

I can see why the member for Chilliwack and others, though, would be concerned, saying that the last generation to own a home…. In fact, in Chilliwack in the last year, the price of a home has gone up 40 percent, just in Chilliwack. So I can see the struggles that people are facing, the challenges that people would have to get into a home in Chilliwack.

I’m not blaming that on the MLA from that region. What I am saying, though, is that government needs to do a better job to understand what some of these challenges are. I mean, Langley is up almost 40 percent. Abbotsford is up almost 40 percent. Port Coquitlam, Surrey, Squamish, 40 percent.

As I said, when it takes almost 36 years right now to raise and save enough money to get into your first home, I can see the pessimistic approach from the member for Chilliwack, saying nobody would ever get into one again. I can see why he would think that. But that’s not what the people of British Columbia want to hear. They want to hear what we can do. How are we going to fix this problem? Where are those promises from this government, and why are they not being fulfilled?

We talked about the real estate agents, who were not consulted at all, and the frustration that they have. But we also heard from this minister that they really didn’t, for the most part, consult anybody. If they did, there would have been more information in this bill. It’s a wait-to-see approach based on what the B.C. Financial Services Authority will present very soon.

I understand why people are frustrated. There’s no leadership, and there’s no support from this government on this file. We’ve all agreed, and we’ve heard other members in this House say that this is the largest investment that you will probably ever make in your lifetime, unless you’re fortunate enough to maybe live in Richmond and own a G-Class Mercedes or something. But for most people, this here is a huge issue for many people.

We need to ensure we are looking out for that next generation, that we’re looking at ways to help people get into housing. We’ve talked about all of the pressures they’re under and how things have doubled and changed. I also love the fact that we continue to hear from even the — I can’t believe I’m quoting this — Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that the B.C. NDP have utterly failed in delivering their housing promises. We’re halfway through their ten-year plan of 114,000 homes, affordable homes, and we’ve opened up somewhere around 5 percent, with people living in them.

Interjection.

[4:35 p.m.]

M. Bernier: The minister can laugh all he wants, be­cause we have had that discussion here in the House. I mean, you can initiate all you want. “Initiate” does not have somebody living in a home.

Interjections.

M. Bernier: Yeah, it’s nice that they reference stuff that was initiated under the B.C. Liberals that’s now open with people living in it. That’s really a pleasure to be able to have that discussion.

I appreciate — I don’t believe that he’s spoken yet — that the Minister Responsible for Housing has a lot to say off the record. I hope he’s got more of a leadership speech than just that, because otherwise, they’re in a lot of trouble over there.

When you look at the bill….

Interjection.

M. Bernier: The minister has so much to say right now off the record, when the microphone is turned off. When I’m done, he has every opportunity to stand up and explain to this House why he is supporting a whole bunch of pieces in the legislation that have no detail, no information. I do find it actually insulting to this House the way that they’re treating this.

Well, we’ve already heard the member from Chilliwack say the 25,000 real estate agents are not real people. He’s already been challenged on that on the radio. During a talk show, he was questioned on that, and he said: “Nope, they’ve got a vested interest.” So that’s the insulting thing.

Interjections.

M. Bernier: Home inspectors. Interesting. I know this government has a vested interest.

Deputy Speaker: All right. Members, we have one member with the floor. Let’s let him speak. He’ll finish his speech, and then you get your chance to have yours. Thank you.

M. Bernier: Well, we’ve finished lots of speeches, and the NDP have not taken us up on the offer to have their chance to speak yet. Two of them, I believe, have, and that’s about it.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members. Members. No, I have said, to be clear to everybody, we have one member with the floor. If the other member over here wants to heckle that, you can question that, but I did say that very clearly. Let’s let the member have the floor and not heckle our own either.

M. Bernier: I appreciate, Mr. Speaker, and your guidance, as always. To be fair, the heckling from the government members really doesn’t bother me too much, because they’re saying more at that point than they are about the bill. So that, to me, says a lot.

I said it earlier, too, that I can’t believe that we’re going to have members in this House voting on nothing, members that are going to be able to go back to their constituents in Chilliwack or wherever they may be from and say their proud moment of the day was to stand up and vote in favour of a bill that had no information. That’s why they got elected.

Again, it’s unfortunate that we’re at a point where the secretiveness of this government continues to happen over and over again, regardless of how they get questioned on it and challenged on it inside and outside of this House, and continue to double down. The Minister of Finance, who presented this bill — as I said, it was basically a “trust us” bill, because there is no information — is on the record saying that information will follow later.

To other members, government side or not, the minister has said there is no information until a later date, yet you’re still going to vote for this? You’re still going to vote in favour of it? Now, I know how it works in the NDP. You’re told how to vote.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: I don’t have to speak that way, because I am speaking through the Chair. That’s how this process works. That’s how debate works. I know it quite well. Thank you very much. I can speak in third person all I want, and that’s through the Chair.

[4:40 p.m.]

It’s back to that same challenge, where people are going to stand up in this House after hearing their own minister say that there’s no detail, after the minister herself has said that information will follow at a later date. The minister herself has said that the decisions will be based on the Financial Services Authority, who are doing the work behind the scenes. Once this government has that information then they will be able to look at the regulations.

That’s not how this place is supposed to work. That’s not how a bill is supposed to be presented. That certainly is not the way that a government should be presenting something in this House, asking for this House to support it.

Back to my point. I know, and we’ll find out…. I stand to be corrected — and, yes, I’ll probably stand — if the NDP members are going to support something that has no information and how they justify that to their constituents. That will be interesting to say the least. So I’m going to give them an opportunity. I’m going to give the members of the NDP an opportunity here to do the right thing.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: How am I going to do that, I was asked. That is a great question. But wait. We need to do the proper process. I think that it’s only fair, not only to opposition, but I think that it is only fair to all the backbenchers who I assume don’t know anything about this either. They have no detail. They have no information. I think that it is only fair that they get that to make an informed decision as well. I know they’ll still vote in favour of it, but I think that it’s the proper process.

If I can be so indulged, I’d like to move an amendment to this bill. I’ve got copies that I made to help out that we can circulate.

I move:

[That the motion for second reading of Bill (No. 12) intituled Property Law Amendment Act, 2022 be amended by deleting all the words after “that” and substituting therefore the following: “Bill 12 not be read a second time until after the Minister of Finance has laid before the Legislative Assembly the report from the BC Financial Services Authority that — as has been stated publicly by the Minister — will inform the use of the regulatory powers enabled by Bill 12 and enable Members of the Legislative Assembly to better contemplate the impact, intent and effectiveness of the regulations contemplated by Bill 12”.]

Mr. Speaker, I’ll leave that with you, and then I’ll speak to the amendment when you allow me.

Deputy Speaker: I will just confer with the Table, and then we’ll proceed shortly. Thank you.

Please proceed on the proposed amendment.

On the amendment.

M. Bernier: I’m now speaking to the amendment that I’ve put forward on the bill, which I know I get time to do now. As I just heard…. Granted, for the record, I will say it’s from my colleagues who said: “That’s a reasonable amendment.” In fact, I believe it is. Because it’s important, when we’re making decisions in this House, that we make decisions based on fact and information. That’s how this House is supposed to work.

[4:45 p.m.]

The reason why I said that this extension of time will be important — not just for us but for the sector, for the media, for the backbenchers of the NDP who aren’t sitting at the cabinet table so probably don’t have the information — is that it’ll give them an opportunity to have a clean conscience when they vote in favour of this. Then, at least, finally they’ll know what they’re voting for too. Right now they don’t.

On this bill, the reason why I put this amendment forward is that the minister has said: “It’s all regulation.” The minister herself and other members of this Legislature have acknowledged that the regulations will be based on the information from the Financial Services Authority.

This government has waited five years to do something. Yes, something needs to be done. To respect the integrity of this House — to maybe help them not win the most secretive government for the second year in a row — here’s an opportunity for them to do the right thing.

I’m not asking for the world here. I’m asking for a couple of weeks, possibly. I’m asking for them to do the right thing. I’m asking for government to get the information that they said is coming, that the minister herself has said could be any day, to get that information presented.

That gives the minister and this government the opportunity to either pull this bill and reintroduce it, maybe amend it. I’ll leave that to government. All we’re asking for is: “Give us some information.” The information is coming; they’ve said that. Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do?

I’m not holding my breath, because I’ve seen how this usually plays out, this movie — we’re in a couple of sequels here — of the secretiveness of this government. But here’s an opportunity for them to do the right thing. Contrary to the chuckles we heard earlier from members of the NDP, if they were to do the right thing and actually bring this forward, we could have a proper debate with information — based on the recommendations, I guess, of the BCFSA.

Now the minister and this government can come forward to say: “Yes, this is what the timelines will be. This is how the penalties will work. This is how the rescission process will take place.” At least then we can have an appropriate and, I would argue — proper for this Legislature — debate. Then we can do that in here.

With that information, we can make a reasonable decision now on whether this is going to hit the mark to help people and vote in favour of it, or whether government is still off track and not. That’s how the process works here. That’s how we can make a decision. That’s how the public can look at the information and decide whether this government is on the right track or the wrong track. Right now, the way it’s presented, nobody knows.

Again, it will be interesting when we see the information from the BCFSA, the Financial Services Authority, when it comes forward. I’m interested to know what they were asked to look at. Were they asked to look at the entire issue to come forward with recommendations?

Or were they told, by this government: “We’re putting forward a bill about a cooling-off period. All we’re asking you to do is give us advice around the cooling-off period.” What if the BCFSA themselves came back and said: “This cooling-off period is actually not a good idea. We don’t think it’s going to work. Our members, the board, have looked at this”?

My fear is that they were told they can’t look at that. My fear is that they were told not even to consider that, to only consider what this government is proposing around a cooling-off period, to help shape some ideas of how they could make that work — not whether it’s good or not. We need to know the number of days. We need to know the penalty. We need to know about the waivers and the right-of-rescission circumstances, how that will all play out to help people.

[4:50 p.m.]

I’d like to see, anywhere in the discussion, how this is going to help with affordability, how this is going to help people get into a home and how it’s going to lower prices. Right now this cooling-off period has a great tag line, and that’s about it.

We saw that play out when we watched the media scrum with the minister, question after question where there was no answer, saying: “I’ll tell you later. I’ll tell you after I’ve see the BCFSA report, maybe later this fall. Then we’ll bring forward the regulation.” It was back into the whole “trust us.”

For those watching, don’t forget what that “trust us” means. That means cabinet can make whatever decision they want under an order-in-council at any later date. They can do whatever they want around this bill since it’s in regulation, and they can determine all of this later. They can actually just say, “Trust us,” even though they’ve proven, in this House — really hard to trust them.

I put this amendment forward, again, to allow this House the opportunity to get that information, so it’s not just a “trust us.” Under those OICs and under that whole process, where this government is asking for the blank cheque of decision-making behind closed doors, we need to remember what that means. That means they no longer have to bring it to this House for discussion. They no longer have to bring any of their ideas, any of their decisions or any of the policies back to this Legislature.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around how most of the NDP members can support that, unless they actually know what’s going on. If they don’t, that’s, again, a scary thought — that they’re going to vote for something when they have no idea what it is.

So I think this is a very appropriate and reasonable amendment to bring forward, because it’s the respectful thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. I understand politics. I understand what government is trying to do. I understand how the voting process and all of that works. That doesn’t mean….

Interjection.

M. Bernier: The member for Chilliwack sure has a lot to say, but he’s had his chance. If he wants to continue to try to be insulting, he can do that with me in the hallway later if he chooses. Right now I’ve got the floor, and I’m going to continue to speak, if I may.

Interjection.

M. Bernier: Well, it’s true. I never thought of that. We’ve got an amendment on the floor. He can speak to the amendment, give us all his wisdom about all the details that he thinks that he has, if he wants to present those to this House. That’s what this amendment is about — looking for that information and that detail that the member — not minister, I don’t think that’s going to happen — actually thinks and talks about what he knows.

I understand that members on government side are getting a little testy and worried about this, and they should be. They should have concerns for the way they’re treating the integrity of this Legislature and the people here in it. I do understand how the politics and the voting works in here. Just because they have a majority government doesn’t mean that gives them the right to ignore the process in this facility of bringing forward good information for a vigorous, appropriate debate on a bill.

I think we deserve that. The people of British Columbia deserve that. This House deserves that. That’s why this amendment was put forward.

[4:55 p.m.]

I probably wouldn’t have considered the amendment — I just would have voted against the bill, because it’s a nothing bill — if it wasn’t for the fact that even members in this House have said, like the member for Chilliwack and the minister responsible, that they’ve got all of this information coming real soon. If they have that information coming real soon, do they not owe it to this House to present that information before we vote on a bill? That would be the respectful thing to do. That would be the appropriate thing to do. That’s the normal legislative process, I would argue.

With that, I will take my place on the debate now of this amendment, only asking — not holding my breath — respectfully that government considers this, because I think that it’s the right thing to do. They have time. We’re here for another couple of months. The information is coming, supposedly, in a couple of days. They’ve waited five years to do anything around this issue. Unfortunately, I would argue another week or two probably won’t make a heck of a lot of difference other than making sure that we have the details of how this bill is going to help people get into a home and make life more affordable here in British Columbia.

With that, I thank the House for the time that I’ve been given to speak to this.

M. de Jong: Thanks to my colleague for the tabling of the amendment.

I think there is going to be a fair amount said — I hope there is; I hope there’s a fair amount said — about the amendment that my colleague has tabled before the House. At the moment, the preposterousness of the situation that the House is confronted by is really quite staggering. I’ll talk a little bit about why I see things that way and encourage others in the House to offer their views.

When you look at Bill 12 — the amendment, of course, is a response to a fundamental conundrum that the House is confronted by: the manner in which the bill has been tabled and presented for us — you ask yourself, at least I do: how does a bill like this actually get created? The process that I am familiar with, admittedly over a period of time when I occupied office in the executive council, involved a fairly elaborate procedure. It began with the creation within a ministry — in this case, the Finance ministry — of a request for legislation, which is a document.

It is an actual document, where the sponsoring minister and the sponsoring ministry…. The minister has lots of help. There’s a policy department within the ministry that says: what is it that we want to do? What is the objective of the piece of legislation? Actually, it goes further than that. What is the problem we’re trying to solve? What is the approach we intend to take? That’s laid out. What are the ancillary issues that we need to consider? “We” being the government of the day, in terms of developing that piece of legislation. So it’s actually a fairly lengthy document and a fairly detailed document.

I’m not sure if one was developed for this particular piece of legislation. If it was, it would be a fascinating document to read, because it chose not to identify all of the ancillary issues that are very relevant to determining whether or not the bill itself is worthy of support. But if it did consider those, it apparently had the equivalent of “details to follow” or “will be dealt with in regulation” included in that column of the document.

[5:00 p.m.]

The bill then goes to — once the request for legislation has been finalized — the legislative drafters. The Attorney General, who is here, and the legislative counsel — who are very skilled, able at the art of drafting legislation — do their work.

Eventually, the bill, at least in the process I was familiar with, ends up at something called the legislative review council, and it’s analyzed. Again, it’s analyzed from the per­spective of accuracy in drafting — accuracy with respect to the request for legislation. Is it accomplishing what we, the government, want it to accomplish? Is it addressing those issues? Are there any ancillary issues or unanticipated consequences that might flow from that? And are the variety of ancillary issues addressed?

That, too, must have been a fascinating discussion with respect to Bill 12. It was either a remarkably short discussion or a remarkably frustrating discussion for anyone…. I don’t know who on the government side sits on the legislative review committee. I don’t know if the bill actually went to a legislative review committee. But we’ll ask. We’ll find out, because it would be interesting to know who on the government side engaged in that exercise of review.

That’s the approach I and some members of the opposition are familiar with. But apparently, there’s another approach. There’s another kind of procedure. This occur­red to me actually by accident when my review of Bill 12 — that didn’t take long — intersected with me flipping through the channels on my Magnavox television, and there it was. It became crystal-clear to me. The process that I am not familiar with but that I believe the government follows is the Jerry Seinfeld approach to the development of legislation. This is the bill about nothing, just like the show about nothing.

I can imagine what that conversation must have gone like for the people that were involved. Those who know the television show…. You can imagine four or five of the ministers sitting around in a diner and saying: “You know, we’ve got a problem here that we need to deal with, because issues around housing availability and housing affordability for the great middle class of society haven’t gotten better. They’ve gotten much, much worse. Much, much worse. Every attempt we’ve made to kind of explain that by pointing to other things hasn’t really panned out very well, because the dream of home ownership for the middle class has gotten further out of reach, not closer.”

And someone must have popped up. Someone must have said: “What about a bill?” “Yeah, yeah,” the rest of them said. “A bill — that sounds good. Let’s do a bill.” And someone, maybe it was the Minister of Finance, must have posed the question: “Well, what are we going to put in the bill?” And then whoever Minister Costanza was said: “That’s the beauty of it. We don’t have to put anything in the bill. This is gold, Premier. This is gold. We don’t have to put anything in the bill. All we have to do is give ourselves the power to do whatever we want later, when no one can see what we’re doing.”

That’s what Bill 12 is. Bill 12 is the bill that says: “We’ve got this idea about rescission of a contract.” Now, there are members on the government side who, I think, understand that the laws around contracts have evolved over many centuries. That doesn’t mean that they have to be stagnant and static and that they can’t change.

[5:05 p.m.]

It does mean that changing them is a big deal and worthy of consideration and worthy of review. But no, we’ll give our bill, in this Seinfeld world of legislative creation….

Deputy Speaker: If I might, just to remind the member. We’re not speaking on the bill, but we are speaking on the amendment.

M. de Jong: Yes, thank you. It’s a useful reminder that is of great comfort and guidance to me, Mr. Speaker, in ways that I can’t even describe.

We’ll give this concept a title. We’ll call it right of rescission, and then we won’t say anything about it. This is the really golden part of it, Mr. Premier. We’ll tack on one more section that says: “When no one is watching, the next time we gather in the diner, when no one else is allowed to be here, then we’ll decide what we’re going to do.”

I think, as I listened to the one or two members that have spoken from the government side, perhaps there is some level of frustration with the degree to which the opposition has chosen to devote time to pointing out what we see as fundamentally flawed, not just about the bill but the procedure that the government is following — the process they’re following here and the approach they’re taking.

I will say this. The government is paying a price. The government is paying a price for having squandered the trust of this chamber, and we don’t have to look back very far. We only have to look back to Bill 22. Trust is a precious thing. It can exist, I think, in an adversarial climate, which this chamber is at times; sometimes more adversarial than other times. But there can still be trust.

But when the government, through the Minister of Citizens’ Services, spent the better part of several weeks refusing to answer questions, telling this chamber that no decisions had been made, seeking approval for an additional power from this chamber and refusing to offer any hint as to how the government intended to exercise that power — in fact, telling the chamber that, “We haven’t made up our minds about how to exercise that power,” and then, literally, minutes after acquiring the power going out and signing orders demonstrating they had that information…. They had their intentions. They knew what they were going to do the whole time.

Is it any surprise, therefore, that members of this chamber, particularly on the opposition side, are suspicious? We would be fools in the aftermath of that episode not to be suspicious of what the government is doing here, because they’re doing exactly the same thing. “Give us a new power.” I hope people watching understand that.

By the way, there’s nothing wrong with governments asking legislative assemblies for new authority and new powers. Nothing wrong with that at all. But refusing to provide any information whatsoever about how they intend to exercise those powers — that is wrong. That is an abuse. That is irresponsible, and that is something that the opposition in this chamber will not be a party to.

The added irony, of course, is something that my colleague from the Peace and others have pointed to. The sponsoring minister…. Look, all of the ministers, all of the members of the executive council are entitled to the respect of other members in this chamber. But this is the Minister of Finance. This is the $60-billion minister. She plays a significant role in the affairs of government in this province.

[5:10 p.m.]

What she has said to this assembly is, “One, I want you…. I’m asking for you to give me a power that we don’t presently have; (b) I am including nothing in this legislation that will indicate how my exercise of those powers might be influenced or constrained; and thirdly, by the way, I’m going to rely upon a report,” she says. She says: “I’m going to rely upon a report, and that will influence how my colleagues and I exercise this new power that we are seeking from you, but I don’t have that report yet, and even though it is potentially available in a matter of days, I want the rest of you to vote in the absence of having that information.”

Does that not strike people as odd and nonsensical? “Give me a power. I won’t tell you anything in the legislation about how I intend to exercise that power. I will get that information from a report that apparently is almost ready. It’s days away from being delivered, but I want you to vote on this now before you’ve seen that report” — before, apparently, she has seen the report.

Now, I don’t like saying this. I really don’t like saying this, because I think everyone’s entitled to…. In this chamber, we operate on the basis that everyone is entitled to the benefit of the doubt and to be presumed honourable. But we’d be fools not to be suspicious, given what this government did just a few months ago, because we were sold a bill of goods.

So what is it that is so unreasonable about what the member for Peace River South has just proposed? That is my invitation to some member of this government — private member, member of the executive council. Somebody tell me, my colleagues and the millions of people watching…. Someone tell us why it’s unreasonable to wait until the report that this minister says is crucial and fundamental to the exercise of the powers she is seeking from this House — to wait until we have all seen that report.

What is so unreasonable about that? What is so…? What are people scared of? What is the problem with…?

The bill has been tabled. I think the bill is flawed fundamentally by virtue of how it abuses the use of regulatory powers. I will say that. I haven’t abandoned that line of criticism on the bill. But for heaven’s sake, when the minister says: “The manner in which I wish to exercise and allow others to exercise this new power that we are creating will be determined by a report from a government agency….”

A government agency, by the way — we’re not waiting for something from the United Nations or some agency down in the U.S. This is a B.C. government agency. I presume they talk. It’s an agency that she has ministerial responsibility for. So I presume they told her when the report’s going to be due, when the report will be prepared. Yet the government presents this bill and says: “Give us a power. We’re not going to tell you anything in the legislation about how this new right of recission is going to work.”

[5:15 p.m.]

I mean, fundamental to transactions that involve the largest purchases most families will make…. Isn’t that the irony? The government is proposing to alter the law around the contracts for the purchase and sale of real estate, family homes — the most significant purchase most families will ever make.

I don’t think that anyone on the opposition side has said that we are fundamentally opposed in principle to changing some of the rules that apply to the law of contract around the purchase of a home. We’re saying that before you can actually ask our opinion, you’ve got to tell us how it’s going to work. But that, apparently, is a horribly unreasonable thing to be asking. I’ve heard some of these words: “obstructionist” and “reveals an unwillingness to address the issue” — this request for basic information about how the change to basic contract law is going to work.

If we were to hear from members of the opposition, of course, the honest answer is: “Well, we don’t want to tell you because that might make things a little more complicated for us in government. We’re not going to tell you because we don’t have all of the answers. And by the way, don’t worry about it, because at the same time we’re introducing this concept of right of rescission, we’re including a new section 43 of the Property Law Act, which is going to give the cabinet all of the power they need forevermore to make these decisions, and you in the Legislative Assembly won’t have any role to play or any opportunity to question those decisions because it will all be done from the cabinet room, away from any public scrutiny.”

There are, on the government side, many, many people — thoughtful people. It doesn’t mean we always agree. It doesn’t mean I agree with them a lot of the time. It doesn’t mean they agree with me a lot of the time. But they’re thoughtful people.

So think about this. Think about what you are a party to doing in this chamber with this bill. Think about how you felt in the immediate aftermath of what the Minister of Citizens’ Services did. I know there were members of the government that were embarrassed. They were embarrassed by a minister in their government refusing to ans­wer questions, refusing to provide information, refusing to concede that decisions had already been made and then, moments after royal assent was gained, signing off on an order that confirmed that it had all been one great mirage.

They’re setting themselves up for it again. Mere months after embarrassing themselves, they’re doing it again.

When we were in second reading, I went over behind me to where the statutes are. I talked about what appears to be a new era in drafting that this NDP government is particularly drawn to and how that is going to influence legislation, going forward. I think that is another legitimate area for the opposition to be expressing our concern.

[5:20 p.m.]

This trend we are seeing, the trend that a former colleague of the members opposite and now Mayor Leonard Krog used to speak about regularly — how the executive council is appropriating more and more and more power to itself to be exercised away from the scrutiny of this place — is a trend that is gathering steam.

I grabbed another…. I grabbed the “L” binder. Lots of interesting…. And they’re big, right? They’re big pieces of statutes and legislation. There’s a labour code under the L’s. Golly, the labour code is 160 sections and 78 pages of legislation, all of it important. It evolves; it changes. When it changes, it has to change in here, because it deals in detail with matters touching on the important area of labour law.

But the direction we’re headed in, if this keeps up, you won’t have to go much beyond…. The 78 pages will become two pages, because we’ll get a bill, if we carry on down this path, that has the headings “Unfair labour practices,” “Acquisition of bargaining rights,” “Collective bargaining procedures,” and the bill will say the government may make regulations dealing with all of these matters.

People say: “Oh, you’re exaggerating.” Well, I wish I was, but there is this growing body of evidence that that’s the direction the government, this government, is heading in, particularly when dealing with matters that they are uncomfortable dealing with. They do not want to have these matters discussed in detail on the floor of this assembly. The way they can avoid that happening is to assign to themselves a regulatory power that allows them to have these debates elsewhere, away from the public scrutiny that is part and parcel of this parliament.

It’s really not gold, Jerry. It’s kind of sad. It’s disappointing. If the members of the government think about this, in a way, they’re selling themselves short, because armed with proper information, armed with proper explanations, you’d be surprised how much we can agree upon in this chamber. But we’re not going to agree to a blank cheque. And no, particularly in the aftermath of what happened just a few months ago with Bill 22, unfortunately, we’re not going to trust the government.

They have squandered that trust. They are now, I’m afraid, displaying the arrogance that it usually takes governments a lot longer than four or five years to acquire — legislative arrogance, I will say, insofar as how they are misusing these instruments of legislative drafting.

I was listening, and the absurdity and offensiveness of what I find happening here deserves, I think, a bit of special recognition on this day, with respect to this amendment. So I offer this, with apologies to Robert Service.

There are strange things done in the midday sun by the folks who write our laws.
The NDP embrace secrecy. “Why?” you ask. “Well, just because.”
The Speaker’s chair may well despair this bill bereft of detail,
But hold your nose, as the saying goes. Through this House it soon shall sail.
The Premier’s band wrung their hands. Their efforts all had all failed.
Home prices rise before our eyes. The government is assailed.
We need to say: “We’ve found a way to stop this harmful trend.
But what to do? And turn to who, before we reach our end?”

[5:25 p.m.]

Perhaps with a bill, we’ll finally instil a sense that we do have a plan.
Specifics don’t matter; we’ll weather the chatter. We’ll do it because we just can.
So here we sit with Bill 12. This is it — the bill with details all to follow.
Three decades I’ve been, but never have seen an act so pathetically hollow.
There are strange things done in the midday sun by this group who write our laws.
The NDP embrace secrecy. “Why,” you ask. “Well, just because.”
The Speaker’s chair may well despair this bill bereft of detail,
But hold your nose, as the saying goes; through the House it soon shall sail.

It’s kind of sad. It’s kind of sad that, confronted by a reasonable alternative which the member for Peace River South has offered — to simply wait for a report that is days away from being completed — the government would say: “No, that’s too much a bother for us.”

I think it’s sad. I think it’s an abuse. I hope someone on the government side will answer my previous question about why what has been proposed with this amendment is so unreasonable and not worthy of support. I think it is eminently reasonable and eminently worthy of support.

Hon. D. Eby: I rise on the proposed amendment, just to correct the record on a few things. There is lots there in the legislation, so much so that the critic for the Liberals, the member for Peace River South, was on CKNW explaining, to the public, the implications of the bill. He was asked by Mike Smyth: “Liberal MLA” — he said his name — “do you think this will solve anything?” He said:

“Absolutely not. It’s not going to solve the issue as the NDP think it’s going to. In fact, it could create even more problems. The B.C. Real Estate Association even put out a white paper calling on the government to reconsider this.” He goes on: “But you know, one of the concerns is that people might start putting in multiple bids on places. If they can just back out, that’s going to be really problematic.

“We’re thinking about purchasers, maybe, but we’re not thinking about the sellers, and we have to think about the whole system holistically, around supply and demand.”

He’s going on the media. He’s talking about the bill.

I’m going to read a couple of sections of the second reading speech from the Minister of Finance.

“This legislation…and the regulations that will follow before this summer, will give people buying homes more time to consider their offers, to ensure...financing...and obtain a home inspection. Instead of feeling like they need to waive these conditions…. During that period, people will have the right to rescind their offer” — in the legislation.

“These amendments establish the framework for a homebuyer protection period for residential real estate” — in the legislation.

“The parameters, such as the length of the protection period, and the potential consequences for exercising the right to rescind, will be established by regulation after the ministry has received advice from the B.C. Financial Services Authority….”

The report the members are excited about will inform the regulations.

“For this reason, the amendments include regulation-making powers” — in the legislation.

“This will ensure that the framework for the protection period can be flexible, and it can adapt to changing conditions in the market and be responsive to what is happening in the market in different regions of the province.”

“We also know, from the consultation work that has been undertaken, that people want our future regulations to be responsive” to different market conditions.

“I’ve asked the Financial Services Authority to consult on the parameters of the homebuyer protection period…as well as other consumer protection issues” — last fall.

The details of the legislation are in the bill that’s in front of the House. It’s all there. The member is doing media interviews on it. Subsection 42(1): “A purchaser of residential real property may rescind the contract of purchase and sale for the property by serving written notice of the rescission on the seller within the prescribed number of days after the date that the acceptance of the offer was signed.”

The member says: “How many days?” It depends on the market conditions, which can change very quickly.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

Welcome to the Chair. Nice to see you.

I say that poem sits very ill in the mouth of the member for Abbotsford West, not just because of the content of the poem — with all due respect, I see why he chose politics as a career — but because he was here.

Interjection.

[5:30 p.m.]

Hon. D. Eby: He is wounded, but he is still here. If I’d thought for a second that a veteran like that would be wounded by that, I wouldn’t have said it. But he was here in 2012, when the B.C. Liberals introduced 14 bills in the last 15 days of the session, 12 of which passed without debate or discussion. He was here in 2016, when the B.C. Liberals cancelled — I know it’s hard to hear — the entire fall legislative session and, instead, attended nine different party fundraising events. The then Premier said that this was a sick place; she would avoid it as much as possible.

So to listen to a poem about accountability in the Legislature is a bit rich for the member for Abbotsford West. Now, I understand that he disagrees with this approach, to put in regulations the details around responding to market conditions and being able to respond — is it working the way we intended or not? — and to be flexible in that way, but that is exactly what we are here to debate. The amendment that’s put forward will not address the concern. When the report comes, it’s about what the content of the regulations will be, not what the content of the bill will be.

For that reason, I’ll be voting against the critic’s proposed amendment, which defers this indefinitely. I encourage members to call the question, so we can get back to debating the bill and to whether or not the cooling-off period is a good idea, which the opposition opposes — I understand that; that’s fine — but which the government is in favour of.

Deputy Speaker: Member for Saanich North and the Islands.

A. Olsen: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Nice to see you today.

I think any argument that starts with, “Well, the Liberals did it, so can we,” is…. Well, there was a whole litany of offences against democracy that, therefore, appears to be some sort of justification for the whole litany of offences to democracy under this government. I think the reality is that there is a perspective, on the other side of the House, that the best day in opposition is worse than the worst day in government.

Interjection.

A. Olsen: I never said you said that, actually. What I said was that there is a perception that that’s the case.

It’s that kind of perspective that then allows for a government to undermine and erode the role of an opposition in a democracy, where one need be strong and need exist. Indeed, as was pointed out by the member for Abbotsford West, when the members of the current government were on this side of the House, they complained often about enabling legislation that was based on giving the government — the executive, the cabinet — broad, sweeping regulatory changes, where those changes could happen at any moment that they choose, as many times as they choose, without the scrutiny of this House. Yet it basically is now overlooked, now that they’re on that side of the House.

I can’t imagine that any members that sat in opposition in any one of our legislatures across the country, or the parliaments, would feel that this was an appropriate way to do legislation. It’s actually contempt for this institution, where we can’t get the information. We have a process where the minister has said to the Financial Services Authority here in B.C., to take a look at an issue, to review the issue, and has then brought legislation before anybody in this province has publicly seen this document.

[5:35 p.m.]

That’s a process that I thought we talked about being incorrect, I think, last fall with Bill 22. I’ve yet to hear anybody, other than the members of the government, claim that that was the right way to do business. We’ve seen how that business actually has negatively impacted the statutory requirements to review that piece of legislation, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We’ve seen how the process that the government undertook last fall is hampering that work. It’s going to put significant challenges for the committee, in terms of the recommendations that are made, considering that the bill was so recently amended.

As I discussed in the second reading debate on this bill, Bill 12, the reality of the process that’s being undertaken here to use this enabling power and this regulatory power is, in all likelihood, going to cause trouble for the govern­ment and for people who are purchasing and selling homes.

The inability to be able to scrutinize it, if the members of government want us to scrutinize whether or not a cooling-off period…. If that’s the fundamental question they want us to ask, we have the right and the responsibility, as members of the opposition, to be asking about the details of that cooling-off period.

If we’re just in here having generalized, broad conversations about ideas that may or may not be good policy, and then are not able to actually have the specific conversations about how that’s going to impact people — different aspects of what the minister may or may not choose to do through the regulatory power that this House will likely give the minister, because the government will use their majority in order to achieve it — then a massive part of what the role of the opposition is doing here has been taken away, undermined.

We don’t even know, as has been pointed out, if the B.C. Financial Services Authority may come back and say: “This is a dumb idea. This is a stupid idea. Don’t do it. Do something else.” We don’t know. That might be the recommendation that comes. We’ve already, then, passed the legislation to embark on a journey, and the group we’ve asked to study this may come back and say, “No. Don’t do it.” — unless, of course, they’ve been explicitly told that’s not something that they can say. Then it might show up a little bit more cloudy, a little murkier, than straight, outright advice to us and to the minister.

How different aspects of this policy, the details of this policy, interact with each other…. It’s what we on the op­position side of the House are supposed to do. The now government, when they were over here, loathed this role so much that it wasn’t really undertaken with any seriousness. It was just: “We’ll just oppose that.” I sense that in this debate, as I’ve watched it. Because the members of this side of the House are questioning the good intentions of the government, the very idea that we’re raising this in debate, that we’re asking for this to be delayed until we can see the Financial Services Authority report, is offensive.

Well, this is our job, to do this. Done right, we can make sure that the government is creating laws that have been…. We might not agree, and we might agree, but the whole point of an effective opposition — if the government allows the opposition to be effective and if the opposition acts in an effective way — is to understand the detail and to make sure that the bill has been tested, to understand the details and how they’re going to interact with other aspects of the bill.

Frankly, it has been a very rare occurrence, actually, in my experience here over the last five years, where the government has said: “Here’s an idea. It’s just an idea. Let’s legislate it and figure out later the details in regulation. We’ll just legislate the idea,” because that’s, frankly, what this is now. “We’ll figure out the details later.”

[5:40 p.m.]

As the member who spoke previously, before me, said and demonstrated, there are bills that are dozens — over 100 pages long. The members of the opposition walk through each, clause by clause. That’s the reason why the committee stage exists, so that we can go through each clause and we can understand, on behalf of our constituents. This is the problem with undermining and eroding the role of the opposition. Really, what’s happened in this place over the years has been that it has become a place where it’s just a partisan difference of opinion.

This is less about what the details in the bill are and more about staking out your position on an issue, so that then you can go and do something with it later and take advantage of it in the media. But the actual real role of the opposition is to test. It’s to make sure that the questions have been asked, because the people of B.C. who are buying and selling real estate, the renters now who look to be future homeowners at some point, rely on the members that have been elected here to represent them in the 87 constituencies to test.

They rely not only on the members of the opposition but also the members of government to be making sure that those questions are being asked and answered. But they more rely in terms of this process — through second reading debate, through the committee stage, through the ability to move amendments like this, where the opposition is saying, “Look, more time is needed to review this.” They rely on us to be able to do this work. They rely on government to be putting legislation on the table that we can make a rational decision about — the impact of it — so that we understand what the impact is going to be on the housing market.

We have a housing market in this province that is in chaos. It’s been in chaos, a social and economic disaster, as has been talked about an awful lot over the last five or six years that I’ve been in this House. That chaotic housing market doesn’t benefit from the Legislature putting ideas on the floor and not letting it be tested, not letting it be well understood, not giving it the benefit of due process. It’s fine for the minister responsible for housing to stand up and say: “The point that we’re making here is that we want this House to debate general ideas.”

But that’s not the work we do in here. We do detailed work in here. That’s the reason why there is a clause by clause stage of debate. How does one clause interact with another clause? When a bill is an amendment bill, there are consequential amendments that are made. When you change one section, it impacts the other sections. We all agree to that. That’s the work that we do in here every day.

When the members talk about the thousands or millions of British Columbians that are watching this de­bate, we do kind of snicker at that, because it’s not likely that there are millions of British Columbians watching this debate, but in another way, there are millions of British Columbians watching this debate, because millions of British Columbians rely on this Legislature through the processes that have evolved over hundreds of years to get it right.

We have to be prepared to be willing to stand up and say to any one of those millions of British Columbians that we did well by them, that we undertook a quality, intensive, maybe boring process to ensure that the statute that fills those books that I think only the member for Abbotsford West knows exist back there, that fill all the statutes of the shelves in the backside of this room….

[5:45 p.m.]

How they impact the British Columbians that are making the decisions about their homes, about whether to purchase another home, to sell their home…. Unfortunately, with this legislation, we can’t be certain, at this stage, that the B.C. Financial Services Authority is going to come back and say: “Yes, this is the right policy to be enacting.” That very basis alone should give us pause.

We can’t be certain that they come back and say: “There are five other things that we need the legislative process to be doing here in addition to….” Even if they do come back and say this is a great idea. They might have other recommendations that we could be doing at the same time as this. If that was the case, then we’d be in, yet again, an embarrassing situation where the government is bringing yet another piece of legislation, scrambling to the finish line, closing debate, because we didn’t allow the work to unfold as it should, or the government didn’t allow it to, didn’t give the members of the opposition the benefit of the doubt to do their job well.

Part of the reason why we have this institution, why it is what it is, is because those millions of British Columbians that we jokingly refer to as watching this debate need be doing other things. They need to be able to put their trust in us. Not every British Columbian can be sitting in this room asking the questions and learning through the process.

What we need is a government that is going to embrace the processes in this institution and not show contempt for them. Increasingly, that’s what we’ve seen — contempt for them. When we ask questions about it, the members of the government are offended by it. We understand that the government’s intentions on this are pure, but ultimately, what we are looking for are the outcomes. What is the impact of the decisions and the ideas that they’re putting on the table? What are the outcomes? They intend to be good outcomes for British Columbians. But is that, indeed, what it will be?

In this bill, other than being able to have a very general discussion as to whether or not cooling-off periods or homebuyer protection periods or whatever it is that it will be called next week, as it gets reframed from being a cooling-off period to a consumer-protection initiative…. Since the fall, it’s been reframed and repackaged. That in and of itself should leave British Columbians with some unease. What was proposed in the fall is not what we’re seeing here. The sands are shifting. The idea that we’re being asked to debate is a different one today than it was back in the fall.

I don’t know that there is any legislator that gets elected to this House that would embrace this kind of enabling legislation on this side. It takes a special kind of ability to disrespect the well-worn processes that have evolved in this House for good reason — to protect the public. That’s our job in the opposition — to be guardians of this democratic process, to ensure that the government is following through on them and to be questioning the government on their legislation to ensure that (a) it makes sense and (b) when we go to the people of British Columbia, we can say: “Yes, we tested it.”

We may or may not have agreed, and when we get to the vote at the end of this, members will be asked to go on the record with their vote. It might be different then than it is today. That’s part of a good democratic process. We should be able to approach this with an open mind. All I ask is that the government embrace that democratic process that has evolved in here.

[5:50 p.m.]

At this stage, I think that it’s absolutely appropriate to have an amendment to this bill to delay it — not in perpetuity, not endlessly delay it, but delay it until we have the opportunity and the benefit to be able to see the advice given by the B.C. Financial Services Authority, at the very least.

If the minister suggests that that report is coming soon and the information is going to be laid before us sooner than later, then there is no reason why we wouldn’t delay it. We’ve got a ton of other work that we can be doing in here. There are other bills that are ready for debate. We set this one aside. We’ve been waiting for Bill 7. It was apparently going to be debated, and then it wasn’t.

We could do the same thing. We could just set this aside for a few days until we get that information, and then we are going to be able to do our job, which is an important job, an important part of this institution. We’ll be able to do it well.

S. Furstenau: I’m delighted to stand up in support of the amendment that has been brought forward. Just to be clear, the amendment is that the motion for second reading of Bill 12, intituled Property Law Amendment Act, 2022, be amended by deleting all the words after “that” and substituting the following: “Bill 12 not be read a second time until after the Minister of Finance has laid before the Legislative Assembly the report from the B.C. Financial Services Authority that, as has been stated publicly by the minister, will inform the use of the regulatory powers enabled by Bill 12 and enable members of the Legislative Assembly to better contemplate the impact, intent and effectiveness of the regulations contemplated by Bill 12.”

This is a reasoned and very reasonable amendment to be making. Picking up on what my colleague for Saanich North and the Islands just pointed out, it enables the work of the members of this House, and particularly the work of opposition — although it could also be work of the non-government caucus members — to do our jobs of overseeing what is in legislation. Questioning it, understanding it, putting it on the public record, ensuring that the public understands, ensuring that the legal community can refer to the debates that happen in here and be able to understand the intent of legislation that is being brought forward.

I think that an amendment like this is exactly the way that this Legislature is meant to work, which is a piece of legislation has been brought in. It consists almost entirely of amendments that provide broad regulatory power to government to bring in regulations, not in the legislation that we’re debating here, but in their cabinet room. Not under the watchful eye of the members of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition or members of the hard-working Third Party caucus but simply in a room behind closed doors where there is no record of what happens or the debate that happens or the decisions that inform those regulations or the intent behind those regulations or the expected outcomes of those regulations or how we’re going to measure success of those regulations.

None of that is available to the public when the process is simply, basically, an empty framework of legislation that allows government to then take off their papers and go do this behind closed doors.

I know that we’ve had a lot of discussion about this in here on this bill. I think the case for the amendment is strong and important because it gives government the ability to say: “You know what. We’ve heard the debate. We’ve heard the comments from the members of the opposition, and they make good points.” There are members on the benches on the government side who have been in opposition, either in this parliament or in other parliaments, who have made impassioned speeches, who have stood up and made the case for how important democracy is, how important the processes are and what a responsibility we have here.

[5:55 p.m.]

Those members have the opportunity today to stand up for those values and those beliefs that they have put on the record in the past. I would certainly hope that they would do that today and support this amendment.

It’s not an amendment that ends the legislation or sends it to committee. It simply puts it on hold until we actually have some sense of what we’re trying to achieve with this legislation. That should be the bare minimum of what we expect from legislation in this House or in any democratic parliament — the bare minimum — that we understand what the intent of the legislation is and what government expects to achieve with that legislation.

I don’t think anybody would expect a democracy to operate in any way other than that — with that really basic level of transparency. With that goes accountability, because then government can be held to account. Did this legislation achieve the outcomes you said it would? Your intention was this; did that happen? Those are the two fundamental principles, the pillars of democracy — not just that every four years you get to go to a voting booth and mark an X on a ballot. That’s a mechanism of democracy, but the actual democracy is in here, and the pillars and foundations of that are transparency and accountability.

Show us your work. Show us what you intend to achieve. Show us that you’re measuring those outcomes. And respect the fact that in here, the role of all of us is to hold government to account.

So I will strongly exhort my fellow colleagues to support this reasoned amendment, to support this effort to ensure that we are upholding the dignity of our democratic processes, the dignity of our legislative processes — that we actually believe in this institution that we’re part of and what informs that institution.

P. Milobar: I’m pleased to rise to speak to the amendment. Listening to the debate, it struck me that the premise of this amendment is really, at its core, that the bill will be on hold long enough that all 87 members of this chamber can receive more information, do a little bit more research and have a little bit more due diligence done before proceeding with the bill.

Now, what does that sound like? Well, it sounds like the concept of the bill, which is actually supposed to be to try to provide purchasers of a home a little bit more time, a little bit more opportunity to gather information and a little bit more time to have proper due diligence done on the purchase of a home. We need a cooling-off period for the bill on the cooling-off period, and that is exactly what this amendment is.

Yet somehow that’s offensive to this government. It seems to be offensive to this government that elected officials want to do due diligence on a piece of legislation that will affect all British Columbians — some positively, some negatively — with actual detail and facts to back up why we’re doing it.

The fact that the members of the government find that to be an action that is not supportable is shocking to me. It’s shocking, because when you consider the track record of this government…. We’ve heard about the losing of trust based on the actions of the Minister of Citizens’ Services to this chamber, the lack of trust by the public, the lack of trust by the media. Apparently, there seems to be some drinking game going on with the government. So yes, the exhibition of arrogance by this government — that’s what this bill is. It embodies all of that.

[6:00 p.m.]

This amendment would provide the opportunity to try to rebuild some of that trust with the public. How do you know there’s not much trust in the public on what this government is doing, especially when it comes to housing? Well, if you want to take the good polling numbers, you’ve got to look at all the polling numbers within that same poll. Some 88 percent of British Columbians think this government has been a complete failure when it comes to housing and housing affordability.

I get why the Housing Minister would get up and try to defend things. That’s understandable, staring down the barrel of those types of numbers, being the minister re­sponsible for that type of public-viewed failure on action. Especially — it’s no secret — if certain members have designs on being future leaders of political parties, that makes for a tough start to kick off a leadership campaign, with those types of polling numbers.

Let’s look at this amendment. Let’s look at what’s even more important about this amendment. The language from the minister, in the bill, does not guarantee that this Legislature actually gets to see the BCFSA report. We know that regulation — decided in a cabinet room, in private — is supposedly going to be based on those recommendations, but there is no guarantee that this Legislature actually gets to see that report.

This amendment makes it clear that it has to be tabled to this chamber, for all the 87 elected members and all five-million-plus British Columbians to be able to look at, if they choose. This amendment is not just about trying to buy enough time so that everyone can kind of understand some of the parameters that might be in the regulation based on this legislation. It also guarantees that the information will actually be provided in a public fashion.

But to the most secretive government in Canada, that’s reprehensible as well. How dare the opposition demand the public have access to some sort of information that will directly deal — as we’ve heard time and again from all parties — with people’s single largest investment decision of their lives, for the vast majority of British Columbians? It’s a piece of legislation that’s going to impact that positively and negatively. How dare anyone actually want information on that, from a government that has got an 88 percent disapproval rating — disapproval — on the housing file?

In these four walls, the government can pat themselves on the back all they want and trot out all the little factoids they want about housing. In the real world, outside of these four walls, people aren’t buying what’s being sold to them — 88 percent.

Now, the Attorney General wanted to quote my colleague from Peace River South. I was listening to that Mike Smyth Show. The member for Chilliwack was on that Mike Smyth Show. First off, there was a little licence taken with the context in which the member for Peace River South was quoted, but he’s been around this chamber enough times.

I don’t worry myself with pulling off transcripts. I just listen to it. I heard the member for Chilliwack, answer after answer, have to say: “I don’t know what’s in the legislation.” He was put up by the government to be their spokesperson and had to say he didn’t know what’s in the bill. So he couldn’t answer any questions ahead of time.

Earlier today he was talking glowingly about the cooling-off period. So does he now have more information that the public doesn’t have? He’s not a member of cabinet. He wouldn’t be in on any confidential cabinet meetings. Did the 57 government members suddenly have insight into more going on in this bill than we do? They shouldn’t, but we won’t know.

[6:05 p.m.]

That’s what this amendment actually does. This amendment will provide time for everyone to get a better sense of where the government may go with regulation on pesky things, like how many days a cooling-off period would be. That’s critical. You will find groups out there that will probably agree with the concept of cooling-off periods if it’s five days or seven days. If it stretches to 12 or 14 days, that starts to probably become fairly problematic for them. If it goes to the 16 weeks — as referenced by staff during our briefing, in the U.K. — that’s a huge problem.

To this government, that’s a pesky detail that people, with their life investments or a future investment at stake, don’t deserve any type of answer to. This amendment would provide for that. We’d at least have an idea. We could then properly scrutinize and understand whether or not the direction of our regulation is actually matching up with the best practice and the best recommendations from the BCFSA.

Why would we know that? It’s because this amendment also demands that paper of recommendations be tabled to this chamber. They’d actually be presented, not redacted, not “No information found; no documents found,” as we get every time we FOI the Minister of Citizens’ Services — unless, of course, it appears to be a decision note. That one probably slipped through accidentally, I guess.

We still haven’t had confirmation from the minister whether she’s actually got the report already or not, or has seen a draft of the report, or has provided preliminary direction for edits, or if any of her staff have done that. We don’t know. That’s the problem. That’s why the amendment is so critical to support.

It wouldn’t delay things unnecessarily. It could still be passed by the end of this sitting, when we’re done in the first week of June. It could still be dealt with, but it would be dealt with on a backdrop of information. It would be dealt with on the backdrop that we, as opposition, when questioning the minister in committee stage, could get a better sense of what her preference would be on regulations moving forward.

We saw what happened when a minister decides to duck and dodge and evade those questions, like the Minister of Citizens’ Services did on the FOI legislation, which totally circumvented process as well and ignored the statutory committee allowing them to actually do their work before a bill came to this House. We see the same thing happening here.

Again, the premise of our cooling-off period amendment to the cooling-off period bill is to let us take a step back, gather extra information and do due diligence. Supposedly, that’s what the government wants people to be able to do if they’re purchasing a house. I say “supposedly” because they seem to be really bent out of shape about not wanting to support something that would deliver that exact same thing on the exact same topic.

Frankly, after seeing the polling, you would think that maybe they would take this opportunity to give themselves a little bit of time to actually re-evaluate what their policies and processes have been doing, because in the eyes of the public, it’s an abysmal failure, and 88 percent say it’s an abysmal failure. Now, I know the Finance Minister, whose bill this is, used to be the Housing Minister. I don’t think that even under her tenure as Housing Minister there was an 88 percent disapproval rating in what they were doing for housing. It definitely seems to be going in the wrong direction.

[6:10 p.m.]

To be that confident, as a government, that this policy that you bring in…. That’s really all we have in front of us: a policy, a concept, a premise — certainly not true legislation. To have that sitting in front of us today…. It’s a government so arrogant, overconfident, dismissive on a subject area that they are polling at an 88 percent disapproval rating of a poll of, I believe, 5,000 people or something. That’s a pretty big poll. It starts to be a pretty accurate number.

It’s shocking. You would think they’d be looking for the off-ramp, like this amendment gives them, to take half a step back, save a little bit of face, and maybe get that disapproval rating on the housing file to go from 88 percent to 86 percent.

But it’s hurting people. It’s hurting their ability to know what to do around house purchases, moving forward. If this amendment does not pass, it means the government is intent on railroading through at whatever timeline they deem acceptable. They can be releasing their orders-in-council, which are the new regulations. They can be doing those very quietly on a Friday night, as government’s been known to do. I think the chief-of-staff raise went through on a late afternoon, OIC in the middle of summer, hoping no one would notice that the chief of staff was in line, at the Premier’s office, for a massive raise.

That’s what happens with these orders-in-council and these regulations that get made that way. That’s the problem with the bill. That’s why the amendment is so important: to try to shine a light, to try to get a better understanding — to try to get a better understanding on where this government is going. Are they actually trying to improve their 88 percent disapproval rating? Or is it going to wind up being a 90, 92 percent disapproval rating? Frankly, great for us, politically — horrible for the public when a government is failing that badly on a housing file.

We want to see people actually get ahead, to thrive, to feel like they can find housing. Polling would suggest the government is doing the exact opposite. The actual deliverables on the ground, between pricing, housing supply, rental cost would all suggest the exact opposite.

They don’t have to listen to us. They could listen to the 88 percent of the public — that would be, what, around 4½ million people — that say the Housing Minister, the Finance Minister, the Premier, the executive council have been a complete failure at housing. Maybe they’ll listen to that 88. They’re certainly not worried about listening to the 29 in opposition.

Let’s hope they listen to the 4½ million voices out there that say they’re a complete failure on housing and maybe could withstand a couple of weeks’ delay on their next endeavour so that we could actually work from a basis of facts and information as we move forward through what is record unaffordability and getting worse under this government’s watch, with policy after policy that they have rammed through. They now want a blank cheque to do even more, and that’s simply not acceptable. It’s not acceptable to the opposition, and it’s really not acceptable to those 4½ million British Columbians that don’t agree with anything this government is doing on the housing file.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, does the member wish to close debate? No.

The question is on the amendment to the motion.

Division has been called.

[6:15 p.m. - 6:25 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

Hon. M. Farnworth moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:29 p.m.