Orders of the Day

Hon. L. Beare: In this chamber, I call second reading, Bill 16, Transportation Amendment Act.

In the Douglas Fir Room, I call Committee of Supply, estimates of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation. In the Douglas Fir Room, following the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, it will be Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

[2:30 p.m.]

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 16 — TRANSPORTATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2022

Hon. R. Fleming: I move that Bill 16 now be read a second time.

It’s my pleasure to rise today to speak about Bill 16, the Transportation Amendment Act. These proposed amendments to the Transportation Act will enable the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority to acquire and improve land for the purpose of facilitating transit-oriented developments. Transit-oriented development is meant to promote greater development of the amount of residential, business and public space within walking distance of public transportation services. This promotes the development of complete, compact and connected communities that can be served in all regions of our province by B.C.’s world-class public transit systems.

These amendments are necessary to ensure the act’s purpose and those of the BCTFA reflect the evolution of public transit to shape land use and make life more affordable for British Columbians. The amendments today that we are introducing will allow us to work with our partners, to shape growth along transit corridors, to increase transit ridership per capita, to support the province’s CleanBC climate action targets and to advance key government priorities such as housing, child care, education, job creation and economic recovery and economic development.

Specifically dealing with the amendments that are before the House and which we will discuss at committee stage of debate, the proposed amendments include two new definitions to the act: “transit station” and “transit-oriented development.” These are necessary to clarify where transit-oriented development may occur and the type of developments that are intended to support public transit use.

There is also in this bill new regulation-making authority provided to allow the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to adjust the definition of transit station and to prescribe a distance from a transit station within which the BCTFA is authorized to facilitate transit-oriented development. The BCTFA is given new authority by this bill to dispose of lands by way of lease for below-market rent, subject to the approval of the Ministry of Finance. This change will facilitate agreements between the BCTFA and agencies such as B.C. Housing to advance government priorities for transit-oriented development.

I want to describe, in this stage of debate, some of the opportunities that this legislation will provide in different communities around the province that are part of a $6 billion investment in transportation networks that is provided by Budget 2022 over the next three years. I have given an overview just now of the powers and authorities that this bill will allow the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority to have, to be a lead agency and coordinate across ministries and work collaboratively with public transportation authorities like TransLink and B.C. Transit and others, as well as local and regional governments.

This is an exciting tool that we have consulted with the Union of B.C. Municipalities and others about. It is one that will be able to create stronger partnerships — new and enduring partnerships that were previously not possible under the existing legislation. It will give the province the ability to shape transit-oriented development, of course, as I mentioned, and the benefits that flow from that.

We have lots of examples internationally and right here in B.C. and in different parts of Canada of what transit-oriented development is. It can be very good in terms of improving the efficiency of our transportation networks. One thinks of the Canada Line, for example, and some of the density and development that has occurred down the Cambie corridor and into Richmond.

It can reach back into very old examples — a century ago, perhaps, if we want to look at my city of Victoria, where one of the continent’s best uses of streetcar systems once occurred and then disappeared in 1948, or thereabouts, but left a legacy of transit-oriented development in parts of our city, like Fernwood, Fairfield, Oak Bay and Esquimalt.

[2:35 p.m.]

That’s really the concept of it. But what we want to think about in this debate, and are thinking about as a government, is what transit-oriented development should look like in the year 2022 and the 21st century, in a jurisdiction that has very high line costs indeed. We share that distinction with some other places around the world.

It’s very different from the 1980s, when the Expo Line was built, for example, going back to the Metro Vancouver area. Very different from the Millennium Line in the 1990s, when housing was vastly different, even very different from the early 2000s.

To give members maybe just an example of what we seek to do here in terms of linking the transit investments we seek to make with the public benefits of affordable housing and using those investments to leverage complete compact communities that also address the needs of British Columbians in communities as they grow, I’ll reach back just 20 short years ago and illustrate what is happening with land costs and why affordable housing is a considerable challenge — indeed, our greatest challenge around affordability for working families in B.C.

In 2001, in greater Vancouver, the average apartment cost $160,000. The average detached home in that year cost $355,000. Fast forward to 2017. The average apartment had escalated to $555,000. That’s the average. The average detached home in the region was $1.5 million. That’s in 16 short years. It’s gone up even further over the last five years. The average detached home in Metro Vancouver is now $2.1 million. This is what our constituents, our citizens in British Columbia are talking about: how government can work with non-profit housing agencies and regional governments, utilize the conveying powers that the Crown has to ally its transit investments with other public goods.

I would add to that list things like child care, things like new schools. We need tools to shape the growth that we have. As you’ve heard members of government recently talk about, I think we were all caught by surprise looking at the 2021 in-migration data to British Columbia: 100,000 people coming to British Columbia. It’s the largest year-on-year increase in population in a very, very long time, and perhaps ever. That’s why we need new and significant, ambitious tools to help us to address the affordable housing crisis in our province.

We’re making the transit investments anyway, but right now, the law restricts us to only purchase land that is absolutely necessary for the transit project itself: the footprint of the Skytrain station, if we’re using that example; the right-of-way for the guide rails — those sorts of things. It does not allow us to actually participate in transit-oriented development.

What we currently have — and what we saw in the Canada Line, to go back to that example — is purely market-oriented, transit-oriented development. Very expensive. The fact is that if we had done it differently, if we’d had these tools….

We would have had to have a different government with a different philosophy about this, for sure. But if we’d had this bill in effect, this statute, and we were doing that project over again, we could enter into agreements and partnerships with the city of Vancouver and the development community and the non-profit housing community and others that wanted to come to the table: service providers, job creators, those seeking to move their businesses and places of work and make investments.

We could have, for example, made it a requirement to have 200 or 300 deeply affordable homes adjacent, within 800 metres walking distance of those stations. Times ten stations, that would be 2,500 to 3,000 affordable homes that we don’t have in our inventory because that didn’t happen. But we have projects on the books, going forward, that I think are very exciting for new, dynamic, fast-growing regions like the Fraser Valley.

The Skytrain expansion from Surrey to Langley is the best opportunity that we have before us right now as a government to demonstrate the authority and the benefits that this bill is going to have.

[2:40 p.m.]

We’re going to use these powers to make sure that Surrey and Langley families get as a benefit — and the province gets as a benefit, for the significant investment in a $3.95 billion project, I would add, which we are accelerating by two years — that we have housing that is affordable, truly affordable, for families as a legacy and a major component of what we’re trying to do with the Surrey-Langley Skytrain.

Retroactively, and working with the city of Vancouver, we’re trying to do that with the Broadway subway expansion project as well. There is very recent news about some densities around stations and some good decisions that the city of Vancouver has made, as recently as last night, that will provide those kinds of benefits, and we want to see those kinds of benefits.

I think I’ve described the problem that we’re trying to solve. It’s really a limitation on what the province can do — that we’re really only in the business of building transit infrastructure; we’re not in the business of facilitating transit-oriented development. That’s what has got to change. That’s what a number of jurisdictions have done successfully.

I haven’t spoken too much to the climate benefits of why we’re doing this. I’ve spoken to our interest in affordability and expanding child care and providing education and creating job centres, and those will flow from the successful passage of this bill. But we should also talk about our commitment to 2030, to be a world-leading jurisdiction on fighting climate change and reducing GHG emissions. This is absolutely essential to the effort that we are making as a government to do just that.

There are some great examples of that. I think in first reading I provided one around Stockholm, Sweden, where they built a transit-oriented development that was anchored in a new public transit spine through the city and ancillary lines. They successfully achieved, within eight years I believe, a 35 percent reduction in the carbon footprint of citizens in that city.

This will make a contribution towards what we’re trying to do collectively. It’s about, of course, electrifying all sorts of things that are currently powered by fossil fuels. But it’s also about how we live with a lighter carbon footprint and live in more enjoyable, aesthetically pleasing, complete communities.

I know that local governments are going to be enthusiastic about this. They have had difficulties.

I go back to the Canada Line. At a time when I was Education Minister, Richmond desperately wanted to have a downtown elementary school. They had densified around Richmond Centre SkyTrain — lots of families living in two- and three-bedroom units there that were around the SkyTrain infrastructure, the Canada Line infrastructure. But another branch of government was responsible for buying the land and, whoops, they didn’t. So a $7 million parcel — I believe I’ve got my figures correct — prior to the Canada Line’s completion was now $30 million. It was uneconomic, and it didn’t happen.

We can’t make those kinds of mistakes when we’re making major investments in public transit and see it in silos or isolation from other government priorities, including services like education. What could be more important than that?

Again, this bill will give us some tools, some leadership, some coordinating power and legal authority to buy land and to be part of developing transit-oriented communities in the areas where we are making these investments.

This is an exciting bill, and it’s a necessary one. I do want to assure members on the other side, as well, that we have done some consultations. We have done some thinking. We’ve done some comparisons with other jurisdictions that have this authority, that have done this well, and we will be making some commonsense regulations that will accompany this bill when it becomes law.

For example, I do intend to propose that the area of definition for a transit-oriented development be 800 metres, which is international best practice and is a ten-minute walking distance, for example, of what a TOD boundary would look like, where we seek to create them.

I’ll close here because I know other members want to participate in this debate. But I do want to spend a couple minutes on…. I have to apologize for being very Metro Vancouver centred on this.

This is exciting for all kinds of regions, including the critic’s, across the way, for Kelowna, where I know that his mayor and council have recently made some, in my view, visionary updates to their official community plan and how they contemplate Kelowna in the 21st century and going forward. They, obviously, have some incredible institutions, some of which are quite new. They have a growing airport, which is, itself, part of the transportation network there. They have UBC Okanagan, and they have a very congested highway system — the main routes connecting downtown to neighbourhoods, commercial districts and other things.

[2:45 p.m.]

We do, through B.C. Transit, have a bus rapid transit strategy for communities like that. We do have an opportunity, through the definition of the bill we’re discussing here today, to define transit stations as transit exchanges. So we would, in the case of Kelowna, be able to look at how we shape the form of development going forward, how we link employment centres and maybe repurpose the acres of surface parking by making public transit a significant mode of choice. And how we also prevent sprawl.

I know that in Kelowna’s case, you’ve got wildfire interface and other constraints in terms of growing up the hills. And how we get people to revitalize the downtown and surrounding neighbourhoods in a city like that.

The same goes for my region here in greater Victoria and in the capital region. We also have a bus rapid transit strategy that the capital regional district, the province, B.C. Transit have approved, and we made that public in the summer of 2021. That contemplates bus rapid transit technology to the West Shore down Highway 1. We have the beginnings of that as far as McKenzie — or elements of that, I should say.

We have some projects being constructed right now that also will allow us to build a bus rapid transit network down Highway 17. That can be an area where we do transit-oriented development going forward. That can be an area where the Crown looks at land purchase possibilities to, again, shape growth, work with mayors and councils and do things differently going forward.

Affordable housing in my region is just as much a preoccupation for young families and families of all types as it is in Metro Vancouver. Housing prices here are a considerable challenge and a barrier that people have to deal with.

I’m proud of what our government has done and is doing around reducing the tax burden on working families, on getting rid of things like the MSP, on making child care significantly more affordable, on making post-secondary opportunities more affordable, as well, with grant programs — and all those good things. But we do need more investments, more effective investments, in transit-oriented development. We need a vehicle to do that, like the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, which is proposed in that bill. I think that’s a solution to a big problem that will help develop tens and tens of thousands of units of housing that will accompany billions of dollars of investments in transit.

It would also be an added advantage to see these things happen sequentially. I think the old philosophy has been “build it, and they will come.” Maybe that worked for a time. I mentioned, you know, 25 years ago how cheap land prices were, and that it was not the preoccupation of people living in Metro Vancouver — those housing prices. Today it overshadows almost everything else.

Now we can make investments and congruently have affordable housing occur in the areas where we’re making those public transit investments. We don’t have to wait and let the market decide when it’s the right time. We can work with market actors. We can work with local governments. We can work with employers seeking to make investments and change land use. Instead of it being a big windfall for speculative activity, and we have seen that happen, the public interest can be represented in acquiring land and taking the value enhancement and putting it into affordable housing for families.

That might change the overall housing market too. We certainly hope it does. We’re going to find that out — again, through the $6 billion worth of investments in our public transportation network that we contemplate. But we need complementary legislation like this to advance other social and economic development objectives in the province of B.C.

I look forward to hearing from other members on this bill. I think that this has transformative capabilities about how we do business, how we introduce new thinking into the province’s way of doing business on these types of investments. I think that it will significantly spur positive economic development and growth and prosperity as we go forward and clean growth in the way that the CleanBC plan gives us a roadmap to do.

[2:50 p.m.]

I hope this bill will be supported by all sides of the House. I think that without Bill 16, all of those things — affordable housing, more child care, more education institutions, more job centres and orderly planning around different types of land use — will be far, far more difficult going forward, with the land prices that we face in most of the province, without Bill 16.

I will conclude my comments there, other than to say that I am also pleased that this legislation contemplates working with Indigenous communities. It’s absolutely in the spirit of the DRIPA legislation. I think that the kinds of conversations on the journey of reconciliation that we’re going to have, which includes building more livable communities with tools like this, are especially of interest to Indigenous people, communities and families right across our province.

B. Stewart: It gives me pleasure to rise today on Bill 16, the Transportation Amendment Act. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to speak about this.

Certainly, this piece of legislation will help shape the future of transit and community planning in British Columbia. It takes me back to an earlier time when the government of today was in power and it created the agricultural land reserve. I think that there’s no question that that changed the future of land use planning in British Columbia in many ways. It also has been a constraint, limiting where communities can develop and grow.

We know that across B.C. and particularly in the Lower Mainland, there’s a critical need for new and expanded transit services to meet the transportation needs of the travelling public, connect communities, reduce congestion and meet our climate objectives. The minister’s comments that talk about the OCP changes in the Central Okanagan and Kelowna and active living — there are challenges created between the way that the communities have grown, the ALR and the fact that there are geographic constraints, whether it’s the lake or the mountains. So I do think that these are important parcels, or pieces, of a solution.

We also know that transit services provide opportunities for community growth, densification and building a transit-oriented development. We can also support increased housing supply, hopefully off-setting the skyrocketing housing prices. As our province’s population continues to grow, there’s no disputing that our cities will have to grow as well. The most logical way for our communities, like those in the Lower Mainland, to increase housing supply is through densification.

Building these areas of dense development around transit corridors and in tandem with new transit lines will absolutely be essential in bringing prices under control and creating more livable and sustainable cities. The minister also mentioned about bus rapid transit, which I know was announced even before I got elected in 2009. I would say that it’s wildly successful — perhaps even more successful, meaning that there is a limitation and a constraint around that, because buses pass by people sitting at the BRT stops, so there is a need for increased transportation.

We see that the spine and lines going out really do need to reflect the population and where things are going. But we do have those challenges — long distances between communities. Look at the Lower Mainland. Between Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Langley, there are so many of these communities that are surrounded by agricultural land. The reality is that what we haven’t done…. I know that it was certainly my belief that the government, both the one that’s in power and the one that hopefully will come in the future, supports the idea that we continue to make it so that it’s easy for people to get to where they work, etc.

[2:55 p.m.]

I think that transit-oriented, livable communities…. I don’t know if 800 metres is the right number. I have heard that number from a number of associations in Vancouver in terms of what the public is willing to accept. I’m not quite certain the public…. Based on what I heard yesterday, on the Broadway line, in terms of the same kinds of pressures, they don’t want to see tall buildings. They don’t understand what that is.

I hate to say it, but the landscape in the Lower Mainland and across British Columbia in urban communities will change dramatically. We really need to incentivize communities to find a way to get this to happen.

You know, building these areas, it’s important…. We really want to make certain…. We see Metro Vancouver — of course, we have the highest prices, the most acuity. And the minister’s mention of 100,000 new people immigrating into British Columbia. If we have to continue at the ability where we welcome other Canadians, etc., we have to build more density and transit-oriented communities.

One of the concerns we have is that this plan, and the idea that we’re going to acquire this land, requires planning, and it requires some execution. We can’t just go out and buy land on every transit station. I think that there are somewhere north of 50 or 60 SkyTrain stations, more being added every day. The reality is that we need to make certain that we have a plan as to where the priorities are and where we’re going to do it — and work with communities, as he mentioned.

While it’s somewhat frustrating that it’s taken time for the government — well, five years — to introduce a bill that takes advantage of transit corridors, it is encouraging to see that the NDP is turning its mind to this concept. That being said, the legislation before us today is certainly not perfect and will not accomplish many of the goals we all want to see realized.

Firstly, there’s so much more we need to do to encourage densification of our transit corridors, and this is something that this bill, largely, either overlooks, or it isn’t addressed in there. What we need to do is to harness the power of the market.

The minister mentioned the Canada Line and the densification that’s taken place. I think that the words that I heard him use were that we would like to see more affordable densification, and I do think that’s mixed-use land use planning. I totally believe that our government in the past has supported the idea of mixed uses rather than segregated communities. We need to have affordability mixed in with other people that want to live in those communities to have diversity.

I guess the question that I have is that this particular legislation is about the government spending money. I don’t quite know where the money is going to come from for this infrastructure and how it’s going to get developed. Where are the tools that are going to be able to allow the government to partner up, as the minister says, and create these partnerships?

Is it going to be through incentivized infrastructure spending? Is it going to be through…? If the government has this property, how exactly will it be planned to be utilized? Even though the government might acquire it, are they going to buy the land and then come back and say: “We’ve got this property. This is what we’d like to see”?

I really believe that if there’s any shortcoming in all of the governments that have developed SkyTrain, it has been that they didn’t really work with the local government the way that we could have. And we probably didn’t foresee it being able to get to the level of densification around transit infrastructure. So it raises the question about the government’s intentions, future plans.

I know that the minister has mentioned affordable housing a lot on this particular piece of legislation. With this legislation, are they planning on going into the property development business themselves? Or do they intend to work with the private sector? Either way, what will this look like in practice?

Transit-oriented development could be built in such a way that it would not only contribute to increasing housing supply but also help to support the expansion of future transit lines. But the way that this legislation is currently written, we see a number of missed opportunities. Additionally, we have significant reservations about this government’s ability to get this right, when they are already failing on so many fronts.

I think about the active living and the whole discussion about one of the replacement pieces of infrastructure that’s often talked about. I have to say that the Massey Tunnel replacement still drags on. I’m not quite certain what it will be named when it comes to reality at the promised deadline of 2030. But I do think that it’s an important and an integral part of the mixture and the mixed use. Until we get to the transit-oriented communities of Delta, Tsawwassen and all of those communities — the ferries, maybe the Peace Arch; maybe it goes all the way to Seattle — the reality is that we have to think big here.

[3:00 p.m.]

I do think that that’s one of the things. We don’t want to see things stalled out because of the fact that we don’t like someone else’s plan. We want to make certain that we’re able to deliver on these plans, and we want to see that it happens in a time period where we’re not actually out of the government, in the sense that we’ve been in for five years and we’re going to delay it another six, seven or eight years.

We want to make certain that this happens in our lifetime, to help improve future generations and make certain that the communities that could be impacted…. I imagine that the Canada Line could easily be attached to what was proposed. I don’t know how that’s going to fit in. Maybe it’ll be like into South Surrey. A line will cross the Fraser at some point and be able to go over. We do need to think big about how the transit is going to work.

I want to make certain that when we do talk about this bill, we want to hear about the minister’s and the government’s plans. It’s an indisputable fact that housing unaffordability has soared under the NDP government, with prices hitting record highs while supply hits historic lows. We have to address that, and I think all parties agree on that. All this while this government rakes in record profits off the crisis, collecting billions in property transfer tax. We need to direct that in the right way.

The NDP, I know…. I hear all sorts of numbers. We heard a lot about that in question period today. The numbers that B.C. Housing reports show that only 5 percent of the promised 114,000 units are actually built, up and running, and occupied. I know there’s stuff that’s planned, stuff that may be in construction, but the reality is that 114,000, based on the population growth that we’ve just experienced in the last year, is not nearly enough. We have to reach out to the private sector. We have to get communities to being able to help embrace the idea of densification.

That particular number that I just said was supported by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which has expressed profound disappointment on this particular project or this promise. As well, the government promised to deliver a $400 annual renters rebate, which was promised in not one but two consecutive elections. I don’t know if….

Deputy Speaker: If I might, Member, we’re discussing the Transportation Amendment Act. If you could draw it back to the act, I’d appreciate it.

B. Stewart: Well, Mr. Speaker, the minister has referenced being able to increase housing. It’s very difficult to separate the two where the government proposes to spend billions of dollars of taxpayer money in acquiring land. Are they going into the land development business, residential development?

The point is that this bill, as it’s written, is about the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority being able to purchase the land that is there. So I think that there is a relevancy. I don’t think the $400, in today’s market, is going to solve the housing affordability crisis.

People were so disappointed that there was no affordable housing included in the first concept art for the new Broadway subway stations. Are we going to have to wait years for this to materialize? I think that the Broadway line…. We did see approval yesterday, as the minister mentioned, of a tower, but I still think that we’re talking about that 800 metres. We do need to see swifter, more decisive action, and we have to have cities coming along and not necessarily being held by the fact that cities are going to grow.

What about the other infrastructures, with the CBAs? Constant delays, reduced scope of projects and cost overruns. This government has proved, time and time again, that it just can’t get anything built. We’re still waiting. I know that I’ll look forward to the Massey Tunnel replacement. I’ll look forward to the Rogers Pass being completed, as I know it’s working, and many of the other projects. Therefore, because this government totally lacks a successful track record when it comes to building infrastructure or housing of any sort, we don’t have the confidence in its ability to successfully deliver on the increased housing with this bill.

What about municipalities? How does the government intend to work out the rezoning or the zoning issues and the desires of city councils? This bill doesn’t address how these changes will be navigated at the local level. What is the long-term vision? This bill is a step, but does the government have a plan for where they want to go from here? While much of the bill contains positive steps forward, it’s unfortunate that it will likely be wasted on this NDP government that doesn’t know how to get the big stuff done.

[3:05 p.m.]

While we are broadly supportive of the goals of this legislation, we have serious questions for the minister about what this will look like in practice. There are some areas where we have questions about the possible ramifications of the legislation and the power it gives the government.

I do like the fact that the minister cited an experience in his own community about the fact that electric trams or cars that ran here many years ago created communities that were built around that. The old B.C. Electric lines that used to exist in the Lower Mainland — of course, taken out. I’m sure that we had a love affair with the automobile, and that’s why we have all the highways. I think we’re going to have to get a love affair with the transit-orientated plans of the future. I and the rest of the opposition look forward to exploring how we can do that with this bill, working with local governments.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the time in the House.

Deputy Speaker: Recognizing the member for Saanich North and the Islands.

A. Olsen: I’ll wait, if you want to clap. [Applause.]

No, no, not for me. That never happens.

It’s my honour to stand and speak to Bill 16, the Transportation Amendment Act. Certainly, I listened with interest to the previous member’s comments. I think when we take a look at this bill, we look at the opportunities that it presents, granting the power to the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority to acquire land for the purpose of transit-oriented developments. I think that this is a very positive step forward from the government.

Part of the challenge with the cost of housing that we’re facing today is the cost of land. It’s a huge portion of the cost of housing. So when the member previously asked the question about whether or not the provincial government was going to get into development, well, the reality is that the provincial government has a tremendous amount of power to be able to deal with the increased land costs and to actually deliver housing that is non-market or that is dealing with the market pressures as they currently exist.

Private development can’t do that. Private development has to buy the land for what the value is and then develop it at the cost of that development. Increased, escalating construction costs, escalating building supplies, have made it incredibly difficult for the development industry to deliver units of housing, homes for British Columbians, at a rate that they can afford.

We can say that it’s below market, but if the market is higher than most people can afford to pay, then it’s truly not affordable housing. It is actually simply less expensive than what the market would be, but that doesn’t mean that people can actually afford to live in it. Oftentimes, in many cases, over 50 percent of people’s income they’re paying for their housing costs.

I think one of the opportunities that this bill presents is the creation of livable communities. I grew up in Brentwood Bay. At the time, it was a livable community. It was small. It was self-contained. It was a great place to grow up. For the most part, my parents didn’t have huge pressure coming down on them for the cost of living.

I know my peer group, as I talk to my peers…. I’m in a different situation because I live on an Indian reserve in this country, so there is a different situation there altogether. I do know the impact that the cost of housing has for many families, most families in British Columbia. I think one of the things that those families, families in British Columbia, yearn for is the ability to live in their communities, feel part of the community and not feel like there’s constant pressure taking them out.

[3:10 p.m.]

With the provincial government taking the steps, through this bill, through Bill 16, to be able to purchase land next to transit lines…. We know that this could increase the availability of more affordable, perhaps even non-market units of housing — hopefully, non-market units of housing, homes for British Columbians. But the other big cost that British Columbians carry is around transportation. The transportation costs, increasing gas prices, increasing energy prices — all of these increases are further making life less affordable than previous generations had it. So the ability to….

Of course, we know, those of us that have been in local government, that the development of communities, the development of residential neighbourhoods is always far more connected to the transportation network than is perhaps noted in the way that we organize our laws and the way that we organize zoning and who owns the roads, etc. By making sure that these connections are made, by making sure that there is density in and around where the transit lines and transportation are, allows for greater efficiencies within our communities.

I think that the provincial government absolutely has a role in this. As the member previously raised, there will be, necessarily, questions with local governments — absolutely. That will be the role of the provincial government — to connect with local governments and to make sure that there is open, transparent communication on this and to make sure, rather than having an adversarial process, that it is a process that’s open and that is transparent. It’s certainly my hope for this, because local governments don’t have the capacity to be able to ensure that — to keep the land costs down. The provincial government does.

We know that these transit-oriented developments…. The number that I have here in my notes is 800 metres. I’ve talked to students in my riding that are students from Germany and from European countries. I met with a few of them a couple of years back at the local high school, talking about how there are more frequent transit stops closer together. Making transit more convenient for people is a way to encourage them to move away from single-occupant vehicles to the transit and the transportation and the mass transit that’s being provided. Making sure that there is density in and around those systems will ensure that those systems are able to be maintained and that there will be ridership on them, and certainly that’s something that we can all support.

When I take a look at this bill, I’m pleased that the government is taking these steps forward. Of course, we will be asking questions. I’ll be listening, with great interest, to the questions that are coming from our colleagues in the official opposition. We’ll have questions of our own. I would say that…. Well, maybe I’ll just leave it at that. I’ve addressed the issues around the potential tension between municipal and local governments.

If there’s one flag that I will raise here, it is that the success of this initiative isn’t going to be government granting themselves the ability to do this — the provincial government. It is going to be how it is executed on the ground with the local governments and ensuring that there is collaboration with our transit providers — B.C. Transit, TransLink — and the local governments and regional districts who have transportation authorities. All of the players need to be at the table. All of the people need to be around the table to have this discussion.

The step here that we’re doing to grant government the opportunity to do this is just the first step. It will be the steps that follow that will determine whether or not this initiative is actually successful in delivering what the promise is.

It’s really important that we do ask those questions. It’s also really important, once this bill is out of our hands and into the hands of government and into the hands of the Ministry of Transportation, that the provincial government proceeds with a very open and collaborative process to ensure that all of those that are affected by this, all of the different governing bodies and authorities that are affected by this decision and by this new act, this new law when it passes, will be brought along in these conversations as partners in it, rather than what potentially could be, which is decisions being made by the provincial government and dragging those partners along with them.

[3:15 p.m.]

Certainly, my hope is for the former rather than the latter, and that will be the encouragement that I will continue to have to the minister and to the government. But this is certainly a positive step forward and one that at this stage of the debate — and I don’t see any of that changing — I certainly support.

Thank you to the minister for bringing it forward and to the government for bringing it forward. I look forward to the remainder of the debate.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM.

Hon. B. Ma: I am so excited to rise today to speak about a bill that the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure has brought to the floor, Bill 16, the Transportation Amendment Act. I am afraid that it’s a little bit of a boring, bureaucratic-sounding act, because it really betrays the importance and the excitement that should surround this act.

I’m glad to hear, from some members of the House already, some generalized support for this bill. I certainly do support it as well. Indeed, it’s a bill that will enable something that I’ve had many conversations with colleagues in government about, which is integrated transportation and land use development — in particular, the creation of more transit-oriented developments.

In short, this bill allows the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, or the BCTFA, to acquire land for purposes that might not appear directly related to the delivery of transportation infrastructure, like highways, subway stations, and so forth. But it is actually an incredibly vital and forward-looking approach to transportation.

I’m really…. This is a topic that I could spend quite a lot of time talking about, so I’m going to take this opportunity to really nerd out about it. I’m excited to let you all know that for the next 120 minutes, I’m going to be telling you about how excited I am. No, I’m joking. I max out at 30 minutes, and I’ll try to not take up all that time either.

We are talking about building complete, walkable communities with housing, child care, jobs, community amenities and more near transit hubs, an approach known as transit-oriented development. Now, what does transportation have to do with homes and child care? What does transportation, the Ministry of Transportation, have to do with grocery stores and employment centres? Why should the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, a ministry that has historically had a pretty singular focus on highways and building highways, be in the business of acquiring land for housing, as an example?

That’s what I’m going to talk about. It should be pretty clear from this bill that our government is taking quite a different approach to transportation infrastructure and transportation systems, very different from the approaches of the past.

For many decades spanning the majority of the last century, North American jurisdictions have tried to do what is often described as “build their way out of traffic congestion” with ever-more lanes of roads or ever-more highways for cars, only to find themselves facing more and more congestion and oftentimes spending more and more money to acquire more and more land to lay pavement that might otherwise be used to build livable communities and housing. They’re trying to accommodate more and more cars that are looking to take people to and from their housing and to wherever else that they’re trying to get to.

After all of that investment, that time, that effort, that energy — all that building — people who are travelling end up no better off than when they first started. And what’s worse is that the critical goods movement that depends on those roads and those highways often is also stuck in the same traffic, in the same congestion. It costs time. It costs money. It impacts our economy, and it’s very, very frustrating indeed.

Why does that happen? Well, it’s because the number of trips or travelling that a person or a community or a family makes is not absolute. It actually changes depending on a whole lot of different factors, one of which is the availability and ease of the infrastructure made available to them to choose different modes of transportation at various times of day.

You see, this refers back to a well-demonstrated phenomenon that I’ve talked about in the House before — a demonstrated phenomenon in the transportation field. It’s known as induced demand. It basically comes from the very well-known phrase in planning circles that you cannot build your way out of congestion by simply laying more pavement.

[3:20 p.m.]

It’s much more complicated than that. In fact, it sounds counterintuitive in a lot of ways. Despite that, it has actually been demonstrated that in busy and growing areas, laying more pavement to create more space for cars actually produces more car movements than before, which generates more demand and ultimately leaves us trapped in congestion again.

Let’s be clear now, okay? I mean, we’re talking about transit-oriented development as part of this bill. The minister has also noted, though, that it could be applied to other areas of the province, not necessarily just in urban areas.

Speaking and thinking about other areas of the province, I want to emphasize how important our highway networks are, particularly in a place like British Columbia. They’re so, so important. We’re quite spread out. It’s a very large province. There are many communities outside of urban areas. In those communities outside of urban areas, highways connect people to their families. They connect communities to services and goods to market. They are, for all intents and purposes, very, very necessary parts of our transportation system.

They also cost a lot to build. They cost a lot to build, to widen, to expand, to maintain — as is all transportation infrastructure, be they bridges, tunnels, SkyTrains or more. So it is incumbent on governments and provincial governments to ensure that those kinds of investments are being made in a very wise way and in a forward-thinking manner that ensures that they last, that they generate value for British Columbians and that they take into account what is needed in the years ahead as we continue to work to improve affordability, to create livable communities and, of course, to tackle climate change.

It turns out that taking all of that into account demands a different, newer approach to transportation — one that our government is taking. That is an approach that is multimodal, that is holistic and that considers what our actual goals are for our transportation systems.

Let’s talk about the goals of a transportation system. What is the purpose of having a transportation system? What is our purpose in building out transportation systems? I mean, if you think about it, very few people enjoy spending their time trapped in their car in congestion, spending hours of their life commuting to and from work. Very few people enjoy driving in their vehicles for the sake of driving alone.

I mean, I highly doubt very many people think to themselves: “You know what I would really like to do today? What I’d really like to do today is get into my car and be stuck in highway traffic for two hours. That sounds like real fun. That’s what I’m going to do today.” Very few people are going to say that. Nor do I think that many people think to themselves: “Oh man, what I’d really like to do today is to get out, and I really need to clock 150 kilometres on my car, just in a big circle. I just need to drive around in a big circle. Drive around on all of the roads I can find. I won’t feel good unless I drive at least 150 kilometres a day, just for no other reason than for driving.”

People tend not to travel for the sake of the actual driving itself. Then why is it that governments often measure their transportation success in the number of kilometres of lanes that they’ve built or paved or the number of trips that they’ve generated on this system or that? Why would we measure success that way, when the goal for most people in our communities is certainly not to log as many hours in traffic as they can?

Instead, perhaps we should seek to take an approach that understands why people travel. That’s what Bill 16 is about. So why is it that we travel? Why do we do it? Why do we travel? Why do we get into our cars? Why do we commute? It’s because we’re trying to get somewhere and not just anywhere. We’re trying to get to someone, to a place. Maybe our place of work or a place of study, for instance, or maybe we’re trying to get a good or a service, and it’s only available in a place.

There’s a book called Human Transit, and it’s by an international consultant in public transit named Jarrett Walker. This book was recommended to me by a local planning consultant, Brent Toderian, and in this book, Mr. Walker suggests thinking about transportation as a system that enables access.

[3:25 p.m.]

It’s not really a sexy way to look at it, I realize, but I do think that it’s a very productive and helpful way to look at it.

I want to read something that Mr. Walker says about this. He says: “Whoever you are and wherever you are, there’s an area you could get to in an amount of time that’s available in your day. That limit defines a wall around your life. Outside of that wall are places you can’t work, places you can’t shop, schools you can’t attend, clubs you can’t belong to, people you can’t hang out with and a whole world of things that you can’t do.”

You think about that. If transportation is about access — about increasing your access to people, places, things, accessing the people that you love, to spend time with them, the services that you need, the goods that you consume and your place of employment that you earn income from, the schools that your children learn at — then what would happen if we put all of those things together in a short distance from one another?

What if we could walk to all of those things? What if we didn’t need to get into our cars and drive 50 kilometres to access them? What happens when you build housing people can afford close to the jobs that they earn incomes at? How much travelling do they need to do then? What if we build affordable housing close to jobs, close to schools, close to child care, close to grocery stores and close to community centres? What if you build them all into walkable, complete communities, and then you centre them around transit hubs?

Then not only would you be creating communities within which people have the freedom to access everything that they need in a day, but you also position them to be able to access the amenities, the services and goods, places, people and things at all of the other complete transit-oriented developments that exist along that transit line or that transit system.

You can give them that access, all without the obligation of bringing their cars with them, without the obligation of needing to battle traffic, fighting for parking, paying for parking, watching the price of gas, worrying about whether you’ve had too much to drink at a dinner out in order to drive home or if your car will get a ticket because you’ve been on the street for too long — the freedom to choose what you spend your time on and how you move around.

I want to talk a little bit, then, about the automobile. Since the proliferation of the automobile in the early 20th century, we’ve been told that cars were our way to freedom and independence, and everybody wanted one. Our cities and communities were totally built around the expectation that you would have one, two, three cars — maybe more.

That expectation and that wanting and that design of communities to require cars eventually became no longer about having the choice to want a car, buy a car and own a car, but a necessity. So over time, it was no longer about something that you were free to choose and something that gave you freedom and independence, but something that you could not function in society without — until it was no longer about that independence, but about total dependence. That dependence has become a chain around a lot of us. It’s hard to think about living in most of British Columbia without a truck or a car.

In fact, regularly, when I talk about transit or active transportation, like walking and cycling, as options that we need to encourage people towards, it is very common that people will respond by saying: “But I can’t use those modes, because I need my car or my truck for a variety of reasons.” One line sticks out in my mind. I remember somebody told me: “Bowinn, I can’t and I’m not going to take my chickens on the bus with me.”

[3:30 p.m.]

Let me be clear. When we talk about needing to enable more people to take the bus or transit or ride their bike or walk or live in transit-oriented developments, and so forth, we are not talking about forcing everybody to give up their vehicles and get on a bus. That is not what we are talking about. I’m not going to be suggesting that anyone should be designing our SkyTrain cars, for instance, to transport cows to the processor or to be able to move steel beams onto the construction site by public transit. You’re probably still going to need your vehicle for that.

Governments are about making life better for people. One of the ways that we can do that is to give people more choice about how they move around and how they live their lives. Give them the freedom to choose to leave their car behind for a night out on the town. The freedom to know that their children can safely travel to and from school on their own. The freedom to have the option of not sitting in traffic three hours a day. The freedom to not have to worry about whether the price of gas is going to impact your ability to afford the rest of your bills.

On top of that, given that transportation accounts for well over a third of greenhouse gas emissions here in this province right now, providing residents with the choice to live without being dependent on a car is way, way better from a climate perspective as well.

That’s what Bill 16, the Transportation Amendment Act, is about. Not an exciting name. At its core, it is about a new approach to transportation that focuses on why we invest in transportation in the first place, which is the people. Enabling better lives and more livable communities in our province well into the future and making life better for people, families and communities in British Columbia.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

A. Mercier: I am so excited about this bill, the Transportation Amendment Act. This piece of legislation is going to allow the province, through the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, or BCTFA, to acquire land for the purpose of transit-oriented development around transit stations and bus exchanges — notably, around SkyTrain stations.

The SkyTrain is coming to Langley. We promised it in 2020, and we’re building it two years ahead of schedule. With that investment are coming incredible changes to Langley. SkyTrain opens up a world of possibility for folks in Langley and Langley city around Metro Vancouver.

We’re going to be getting two stations in my riding that will see folks having access to downtown Vancouver, to Waterfront station, within 65 minutes. It’s the equivalent of a ten-lane highway with no traffic jams that gets you downtown in an hour. It is fundamentally changing the community.

With that, it’s incumbent upon us as government and, I think, us as legislators to make sure that we get this investment right. There are few things government can do that are more defining and more impactful on the development process than transit infrastructure. In fact, if you look at surveys of municipalities across North America, you’ll see that the same types of constellations tend to crop up around transit stations because their impact is so strong. With that, it’s incumbent that we get it right and that we unlock the potential around these stations for transit-oriented development.

I’ve got to say that in Langley, particularly Langley city council, we have a willing partner in making sure that we are building more affordable housing, building more mixed use and building transit-oriented development around stations. I can say anecdotally that under the new official community plan, which is built around SkyTrain and which contemplates this form of development that is contemplated by this act…. The new official community plan is radically changing Langley north of the Nicomekl River.

[3:35 p.m.]

Currently, of all the developments that are under construction or are going through the approval process right now, 40 percent of them, just over 40 percent of them, are for rental stock. This type of development has a real and demonstrable impact on housing supply and on the type of community we want to live in.

It’s important that government has this ability to purchase land for this purpose around stations — before that land is bought up by speculators for other purposes — to help shape growth so we are not in a situation, like we’ve been in for the last 20 years, where we’re chasing growth after the fact but where we can get ahead of it and work with our municipal partners to make sure that we’re helping shape what the community looks like.

I’m going to keep my comments brief, Madam Speaker.

In particular, there are significant opportunities within Langley. I mentioned we’re going to get two stations. The first station is going to be on Fraser and 196 Street at the Willowbrook mall, which I can tell you, as a Langley boy, was a haunt. I spent a lot of time in the arcade there playing air hockey when I should have been in class in high school.

The White Spot in the Willowbrook mall is going to become a SkyTrain station. So I’d say to folks in Langley: if you want to go to White Spot, you should go now, because we’re building the train ahead of schedule. So you’ve got a narrowing window of opportunity.

It’s surrounded by a desert of barren parking lot that is a remarkable opportunity, in the situation we have now, to build more commercial and residential buildings to allow for different economic activity and places for people to live. We’ve added over 100,000 people in the past year. We’ve added almost 100,000 jobs since the beginning of the pandemic. What we need to do is add more housing.

We have phenomenal partners in Langley city and Langley township on this, but we need to make sure that we get it right. So being able to enter the market, in the province, to ensure this is critically important. Although we might have great partners, they’re also small compared to the financial footprint of the provincial government. The economy of scale we get through this act is really remarkable.

I think of the 203 Street station. Madam Speaker, if you’ve ever been to Langley, you’ve probably been to Gabby’s Country Cabaret, and you were probably saddened, like everyone in Langley was, when it closed. Right around the former site of Gabby’s Country Cabaret will go the 203 Street station. That area is going to undergo remarkable change.

We need to ensure that as that happens, we’re working with our partners so that we’re developing a livable and green community and the kind of community we want to live in. We’re about to attract a whole ton of people just through the amenity of the SkyTrain and the ability to get downtown, and we need to make sure that we’re doing it right.

The train opens a new world of opportunity to Langley city, and we need to take up that opportunity and meet that challenge. For that reason, I’m in favour of this bill.

I said I’d keep my comment brief, so I’ll take my seat.

M. Starchuk: I want to quote something that the member for North Vancouver–Lonsdale had said. Nobody jumps into a car to drive around for 150 kilometres, in a circle, just for the fun of it. Nobody gets into their car to be stuck in rush hour traffic for two hours, just for the fun of it.

I can tell you that SkyTrain…. When you’ve got a grandson…. You’re heading over to North Vancouver, and you get on the bus that goes across the water. That’s fun. That’s enjoyable.

With regards to SkyTrain and the act and Bill 16 and my support for it…. Work has already started in Surrey. Like my friend across, I’ve got two stations coming to my riding in areas that are going to be well supported by the young families that are there and that are looking for more affordable housing, which is coming.

I can tell you, Madam Speaker, that the area through Green Timbers, where there is an urban forest, has been completed. The street is there. The curbs are up. They’re just waiting for that thing to be put in the middle of that road to start its way out to Langley.

When I think about what this act is going to do…. Public transit is more than just getting people from their house to work or their house to the shopping centre, other things like that. Public transit has the ability to reduce those greenhouse gases, to get those people out of their vehicles and for a very long time.

[3:40 p.m.]

When I think about the best time that’s ever suited, if I have to go downtown…. Being on the SkyTrain is the perfect place to do your work. Grab your iPad. Grab your phone. Let somebody else take you down there and get out at the bottom.

These amendments will give the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority the ability to do what it is that we want them to do and to purchase land for housing in other areas that are there. When I think about the stop that will be in my area of Clayton, I think of the potential that’s there. People that are buying in that area right now are looking at properties that are already green buildings.

There was a recent building that was put up there, a condo that was basically EV-equipped, LED lighting, all the amenities that are all there. By the time the for-sale sign went up, it was gone. So the people that are in my riding are very conscious of what their footprint is that they’re leaving behind.

The work has begun, and the thought of having the transportation authority purchasing land and developing that, in a greater sense, is an awesome thing. When we think about a highrise and we think about how many people that will be there, we think about that person that buys that unit on the 24th floor. There are commercial retail units on the ground floor, and their transportation to work is an elevator for 23 floors. No need for a car. They can walk about. They can do all of that.

With regards to what this is going to mean for us, I know our local council has already amended the OCP to take into consideration densification along this corridor that’s there. This will go a long way into supplying those housing units that are out there that we need to come to Metro Vancouver in a fairly quick way. The way that we’re going to see mixed use with this bill coming forward is going to change the landscape of my riding forever. It’s important that we’re there before it’s built — that we learn what we need to have in the community.

One of the other things that puts a smirk on my face is that that one station that will be there, with the possibility of a hub, will take people to the hospital that’s coming to Cloverdale. We can’t forget that. Somebody that needs to get that kind of care will have that kind of transportation to get them there, because we all know what it’s like to park at a hospital. It’s much easier to use transit that’s there.

When we think about the transportation that is there…. I know it doesn’t look like it, but I do spend a fair bit of time on my bike. I do ride my bike to my constituency office. This kind of transportation, built at the same time, will include those bike lanes, those walking lanes, those pathways to make it active lifestyles for those people that are out there.

These transit-oriented developments…. We talked about the 800 metres. I know, as local government, that’s what we used as well — 800 metres, about a ten-minute walk, even for me, to get to those areas that are there. We’ll be able to see those hubs that will be built around there and best utilized, when this act comes forward.

The legislation changes all the future transit that’s there, and it’s just for the people. It’s just for those people that are looking for a place to live, for those people that want to get out of a car, for those people that want to get to work in a clean and efficient manner.

We know that when you provide transit into an area, it gets the people out of the cars. Right now for anybody in my riding to want to drive into downtown Vancouver, we’re probably looking at an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes. If you’re within 800 metres, it’s probably going to be closer to about 47 minutes. You just think about how that compounds itself on a week, on a month, and how many days in a year that you spend behind that wheel that you no longer have to so that you can now spend that time with your family.

The last thing that I’ll leave it with, in support of the bill, is that, specific to my riding, when you build it right there, they’ll be able to jump on it. They’ll be able to go to the rec centres. They’ll be able to go to the libraries. They’ll be able to go downtown. They’ll be able to go to all these other areas that are built within the city. The use for a fossil-fuelled vehicle is no longer there.

On that note, I thank you for the opportunity. I’m looking forward to this thing passing.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, does the minister wish to close debate?

[3:45 p.m.]

Hon. R. Fleming: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Thank you to all members from all parties who’ve participated in this debate. I appreciate the thoughtful comments and some of the questions that were raised, which I’ll have an opportunity to respond to when we get to committee stage of debate.

I’ll just be very brief in my summary and offer this additional comment. How this legislation should be seen is another tool in our toolbox to help address our goals around housing, child care, education, jobs and making life affordable and of high quality here in British Columbia. But I would see this and maybe explain this as being not like any other tools that we have legislatively but a bit of a power tool that gives us a significant ability to shape growth that aligns with transportation investments that we’re making anyway or contemplating making.

I do want to assure members that the intention of the legislation, as well, is to work collaboratively with various partners to achieve this goal. We’ve had some very good comments from members whose constituents will most directly benefit — although the entire region will benefit — from the Surrey Langley SkyTrain investment that we’re making. This legislation will allow us to do a lot more than what we’ve typically done in previous SkyTrain developments, which was, as I mentioned earlier, just confined really to the station and the immediate needs of the transit project — the guide rails and those sorts of things.

In practical terms, we can now look at larger sites that will contain both the station and adjacent facilities that we all need, and we do have a budget that does account for the work that we will have to do on that project. This bill is also about our ability to more proactively pursue the development of complete compact communities that are being developed in transportation-oriented development proposals in regions right across the province. We will work with both the private sector that has an interest in developing commercial investment and job centres as well as real estate and building housing product.

We will work with the non-profit housing sector. We will work with different levels of government. We’ve talked about local government and regional government, and I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention school districts as well, who have long-range facility plans and other documents that need to be aligned, again, with some of the transportation investments that we’re contemplating.

Again, I appreciate debate here at second reading and members on all sides of the House. I will now move second reading.

Deputy Speaker: Members, the question is second reading of Bill 16.

Motion approved.

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

Bill 16, Transportation Amendment Act, 2022, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. L. Beare: I call second reading, Bill 10, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act.

BILL 10 — LABOUR RELATIONS CODE
AMENDMENT ACT, 2022

Hon. H. Bains: I move that Bill 10 be read a second time now.

As Minister of Labour, my mandate includes a commitment to ensure that every worker has the right to join a union and bargain for fair working conditions. To support this commitment, Bill 10 amends the Labour Relations Code in two ways. First, it returns B.C. to a more fair single-step union certification process that limits employer interference. This process is often called a card check.

Second, it addresses an outstanding issue respecting the ability of workers in the construction sector to exercise their right to change union representation. The Labour Relations Code, commonly referred to as the code, is the primary labour relations legislation in B.C. The code governs a wide range of labour relations matters that are central to supporting workers to organize so they can bargain collectively for fair working conditions. This includes the certification of employees to be represented by a union and the ability of employees to change union representation.

[3:50 p.m.]

Tomorrow is the annual Day of Mourning, where workers’ reps, workers themselves, supporters, their colleagues, will gather to remember those killed or injured on the job. It happens far too often, that someone’s parent or sister or brother or friend, parents, goes off to work and doesn’t come home at the end of their shift. We know that one of the best ways to keep workers safe is to give them the ability to speak up when they see a potential hazard. The provisions of this bill allow those workers a voice. We think workers should be safe, and this bill will give those workers one more tool to keep themselves safe at work.

British Columbia’s code has a long and storied history. It has been reviewed, amended and updated over the years to ensure that it responds to the changes in B.C.’s economy and labour market. In 2002-2003, it was amended by one person with very little or no consultation with anyone. Most recently, 2018, I appointed a three-person expert panel of special advisers to review the code, consult with stakeholders and provide recommendations to support a growing sustainable economy and promote harmonious and stable labour relations.

Later that year the panel submitted a report making a number of formal recommendations to improve the fairness and effectiveness of our labour relations system. These included recommendations that specifically called for amendments to the code. Those recommendations were implemented by Bill 30, which was passed in this House in spring of 2019. Those amendments focused on improving the fairness and effectiveness of our labour relations system while maintaining the code’s basic structure and fundamental principles.

With respect to the first issue, regarding union certifi­cation, the panel recognized that there is employer interference during certification, and they found this to happen too often. Bill 30 made some changes to union certification that supported workers’ access to certification, hoping that it would prevent employer intervention during the certifi­cation process. But we left the two-step union certification process intact.

Now, under the two-step system, for those who are not familiar, the first step of the process is that if 45 percent of workers in the proposed bargaining unit sign union membership, and if this threshold is met, the union applies to the Labour Relations Board for certification. Then there is a second step, where the board will order a secret ballot vote to be held a number of days later. If more than 50 percent of workers vote in favour of certification, the union is certified to represent the workers.

This two-step process, which requires a secret ballot vote for all union certifications, has been in place since 2001. However, there are long-standing concerns that this process gives employers the opportunity to influence how employees vote. Employers can, and they have, use the window between the certification application and the secret ballot vote to illegally interfere with the free choice of workers. For example, some employers have used this period to fire key union supporters. Others have threatened broad layoffs in the event of certification.

[3:55 p.m.]

Think about that. This is the right that is enshrined in the Canadian constitution, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for all Canadians: our right to association. That right should not be impeded by anyone. It is happening under the two-step system. Bill 10 will help stop that, so that we can uphold Canadians’ right to association without interference by anyone.

This is a matter, again, I want to repeat: upholding a worker’s constitutional right to association, right to organize and to speak up for better working conditions if that’s what they want and if collectively they want. It is their right. It is a worker’s right. No one should interfere with that.

The Canadian constitution is clear that there should be nothing that stands in the way of that right. The multistep process gives the employer the ability to interfere with workers’ free exercising of their right. Workers in the service industry are already subject to an employer’s whim about their shifts. So as soon as an employer finds out that one of the workers is involved in a union drive, poof, that person suddenly is without shifts. As a result, they’re losing wages, tips. Or worst-case scenario, workers find themselves out of a job entirely.

Of course, that is interfering with the organizing, and it’s precisely why we’re doing this. Workers should be able to organize if they want, without interference. The review panel examined this issue extensively and concluded that if the code properly prevents employers from engaging in such unfair labour practices, then the secret-ballot vote can be an effective mechanism for employee choice.

I want to repeat this. The panel went around the province. They heard submissions. They had submissions, and they heard the voices of workers, from employers, academics, and they gave their input.

The panel said this — that if the code properly prevents employers from engaging in such unfair labour practices, then the secret-ballot vote can be an effective mechanism for employees’ choice. But it hasn’t. So as such, we follow the advice of the majority of the review panel and Bill 30 and reduce the time between certification application and the secret-ballot vote, from ten calendar days to five business days. That was one of their recommendations to stop employer interference.

This shorter timeline was intended to support workers in exercising their right to join a union by reducing the opportunity for the employer to unduly influence or interfere with the workers’ choice. We also made amendments to the remedial certification, as was recommended by the panel — provisions giving the Labour Relations Board broader discretion to grant union certification when an employer is found to have unduly interfered with the certification process.

While these measures were an important and significant change, experience since 2019, when we implemented those changes, has demonstrated that this is not enough to ensure that B.C. workers have access to fair collective bargaining. In addition, since 2019, unfair labour practice complaints continue. Unfair labour practice is a key sign of employer interference with employee choice to unionize.

We can see that the periods in B.C. history on the other side, with the single-step process, are clearly associated with a higher level of union certification and workers access to collective bargaining. These statistics demonstrate that more action is needed to ensure that every worker has the right to join a union and bargain for fair working conditions. That is what is at the core of this.

[4:00 p.m.]

Workers want to exercise their right under the constitution, right to association, but they are afraid for their jobs. They are threatened during the certification process, so they’re not able to exercise that right. That’s what we’re trying to do with Bill 10, and that’s what the panel said.

The panel said that if those changes are not enough to prevent employer intervention during the certification, then there is a compelling case for card check or single-step certification. Clearly they said that, and we have said that. I have seen it. Since 2019, when we implemented those changes, unfair labour practices continued.

The outcome was contemplated by the review panel. While the majority supported maintaining the two-step certification, there also was support for more significant changes if Bill 30 did not address employer interference and delays in the certification process.

Now, we can go through example after example after example of how that interference takes place today, but I will be more general here today. Specifically, they said, and I want to repeat again, that if the changes do not prevent employer interference, there will be a compelling argument for reintroduction of single-step certification. That’s exactly what we’re doing, and since 2019, employer interference continues.

This process was in place in B.C., by the way, from 1947 until 1984 and ’93 to 2001. This single-step certification process streamlines certification procedures and supports workers seeking union representation. Under the proposed amendments, how it will work…. If the union obtains signed union cards from 55 percent of the workers in a proposed bargaining unit, the union will be certified to represent workers without the need for a second-step vote. However, a secret ballot vote will still be required if less than 55 percent but more than 45 percent of the workers sign a union card.

Clearly, in this scenario, where the wishes of the majority, a clear majority, are there, then the union certification is allowed. But if the wishes of the majority are less clear, as in the second case — which means if less than 55 percent of workers sign union membership but more than 45 percent — a secret ballot will help to clarify the wishes of the employees and bring certainty for the employees in the union and the employer.

Now, some will argue that Bill 10 somehow takes away workers’ democratic right to secret ballot. I’m sure you will hear that, Madam Speaker. I read that in the newspapers, in the media. The expert panel had much to say about that. They say about the use of the certification vote system, especially when it comes to the significant power imbalance between the workers and the employer….

Think about this. In a general election, different parties, different candidates are free to stand up and talk about their platform, talk about their policies, without any repercussions. They have a list of voters. They can phone them, talk to them without any repercussions. I will quote the panel when they were talking about the difference between a general election vote versus a secret ballot vote at a workplace during certification. This is what they say.

[4:05 p.m.]

“While secret ballot votes are integral to our democratic political system, we recognize that certification votes would occur in very different circumstances than political votes. Certification votes occur in the context of the power imbalance between employers and workers in the workplace. Employers control the operation of the business, have the right to fire employees and can curtail or close the business.”

In that situation, the workers do not have the right to talk about union certification during their working hours, but the employer has unrestricted access to those employees during working hours. So you cannot compare the political secret ballot vote right to the certification vote.

Now, someone will argue that we’re making it somehow easier for unions to organize. Let’s examine that. I’ll use that as an example. Say you have an operation with 100 employees. Under the two-step secret ballot system, if 45 percent of them sign union cards, a secret ballot vote will take place. Now, all it takes is 50 percent plus one to vote in favour of the union. So in that situation, if 80 workers vote, all it takes is 41 workers to decide whether there is a union or not.

Under single-step, 55 percent of them must sign union certification in order to be certified. So it’s not that easy. It’s not easier in the single-step than the secret ballot. But it is a fair system. That’s what Bill 10 does, because that’s what the constitution says — that workers and all Canadians should be able to exercise their right to association without any interference by anybody. During certification, there is interference. There are cases. It’s not just hearsay. There are cases, cases after cases.

There is no dispute that unlawful employer interference can significantly influence or undermine the exercise of employee choice. One of the most significant barriers to the exercise of employees’ choice is employer opposition and, more importantly, unlawful interference. During the public consultation process, we received numerous examples — the panel did — consistent with studies that unlawful interference has a significant impact on the certification success rate.

The panel was clear about the power imbalance in the workplace. Workers without a union are afraid to speak out against unfairness, because they know that if their supervisor or manager is vindictive, it is going to cost them, sometimes with their jobs. It is the same power imbalance that keeps them from having the opportunity to form a union.

This bill is about getting those workers to decide amongst themselves, without interference from the employer, how they see issues in their workplaces, so they can have a say about their schedules, about safety, about their wages, about their benefits. Again, this is the right enshrined in the Canadian constitution, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Now, those who might oppose this bill clearly are taking the position that those workers should not have a voice — that those voices continue to be suppressed. But I think workers should have the right to a voice, to have their opinion, to have a collective voice. I stand, and I know my colleagues stand, with those workers’ right to association without any interference and the right to collective bargaining.

[4:10 p.m.]

The approach we are proposing is consistent with several other Canadian jurisdictions as well. Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and the three territories all use single-step certification, in addition to federally regulated workplaces. The sky isn’t falling in those jurisdictions. Rivers are still flowing. The sun still comes up in the morning, and the businesses are still going on. You will hear that the sun somehow will not come up after this bill is passed.

It is about fairness. It is not about employers. It is not about unions, because I know there are people who are going to make that as a case. It is somehow for the unions or against the employer. It is not. It is about Canadian citizens — their right, under the constitution, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms: the right to association. There should be no impediment for them to exercise their right. Imagine all the rights that we have if somebody says: “No, we are going to put some barriers in your right to exercise your constitutional right.”

The right to speak, for example. What would we be doing? I know that collectively we would see that as wrong in this House. I think that is the same principle here. It’s not about taking sides. It is about workers. Now in B.C., we have switched from single and two-step certification in the past. Experience has shown us that single-step certifi­cation is the best way to ensure that the workers have free and unrestricted access to their constitutional right to collective bargaining.

We know that the use of single-step certification in B.C. coincides with increases to union certification. For example, in the 1990s, when single-step certification was in place, we saw an average of roughly 400 certification applications per year. This went down to an average of 100 per year since 2001 with the reintroduction of the two-step certification, and it has remained at this level since. This is the case even with the shortened time frame for voting that was established in 2019.

Clearly, there is a message. The time between when the application is made for certification and the vote takes place used to be ten days. We changed it to five days because that was the recommendation by the panel. They clearly said there is interference. They clearly recommended two major amendments to deal with that issue, but then they went on to say, as I said earlier: “If those changes do not stop employer interference, there is a compelling case for card check.” That’s exactly what we are doing.

As one member of the review panel said: “Single-step certification remained the single most effective mechanism to avoid unlawful employer interference, and to ensure employee choice.” This underscores the most important aspect of the certification process: the right of workers to decide whether to join a union or not. This is their right. No one should be interfering with that right.

This choice, again, must be free from employer influence and interference, and workers should not be put into a position…. Think about this. The workers should not be put in a situation or position where they’re asked to choose between their employer and the right to be represented by a union and the right to exercise their constitutional right. No worker should be put in that situation.

Single-step certification minimizes the opportunity for unlawful employer interference. It also avoids a contentious atmosphere in the workplace in the buildup to the vote, one that erodes trust between the employer and employees, and it is divisive.

[4:15 p.m.]

Think about this. I have organized. I was there. When the workers give you a clear majority by signing their membership to join a union, and when we apply to the labour board…. From that day until the vote takes place, that was the time when there was all that divisiveness, the mistrust. Who is talking to whom?

That is not a very good working relationship. I’ve seen people on pins and needles. It destroys the relationship between employer and employee for a long time to come. Bill 10 will avoid that. If a clear majority decides to join a union, it’s a done deal. Bargaining will start, and give-and-take takes place. Now the employer knows what the rules are. Now the workers also know what the rules are.

After the certification, even though the employer opposed that certification process…. When I sat across the table from the employer during bargaining, and when we settled the first collective agreement, more often than not, they would tell me: “Actually this is a good thing for us, because now I deal with one book, one set of rules. I don’t have to deal with 50 different employees and 50 different systems in place.”

Bill 10 will establish a healthy, respectful workplace where collective bargaining can succeed, give life to employees’ choice to unionize. Some may be concerned that a single-step certification may not adequately represent the true wishes of workers, but there are important safeguards in place.

For instance, a 55 percent threshold for certification represents a clear majority, again, like the example I gave earlier. So 55 percent of the entire bargaining unit must sign in the proposed bargaining unit, compared to the secret ballot, then only 50 percent plus one of the workers who vote. Many fewer workers in that system can decide whether they have a union or not than in this system.

In addition, there is no compelling evidence to suggest that signed membership cards do not adequately reflect employees’ wishes. The Labour Relations Board administers rules on the form of the cards to be signed, and the quota is designed to ensure that the process is consistent and clear.

I just want to add one more thing here. Those are adults. They can go to a bank and sign a loan for their home, a mortgage for their home. They qualify. They sign papers. It’s a done deal. No one is second-guessing those signatures. No one is asking them to go out there, have a second thought, come back, vote, or go prove yourself somewhere else.

You sign. The loan is yours. You get married. You go there and sign. There’s no second-guessing there. Those signatures are good enough. But only here would some argue that those signatures are not good enough, that you have to prove a second time again. That’s not fair.

As such, the return to single-step certification provides a balanced approach to union certification that reflects my commitment to ensuring that workers can freely and fairly access their constitutional right to collective bargaining. Moving to single-step certification will also assist B.C.’s economic recovery by providing the stability that comes with unionized jobs. Those are jobs with the family-supporting wages and benefits.

[4:20 p.m.]

With respect to the issue of changing unions in the construction sector, Bill 10 will re-establish an annual opportunity for construction employees to change unions. Currently the code places limits on when unionized employees can change union representation in the construction sector. These limits are designed to promote industrial stability by limited ongoing union rates in the workplace. That is in accordance with the changes made in Bill 30 in 2019, where workers with collective agreements for more than two years in duration can only change unions in the third and subsequent years of a collective agreement.

When we amended the code in 2019, we heard loud and clear from construction workers that they should continue to have an annual opportunity to change unions if they wish. This is because many construction projects last two years or less. So a three-year collective agreement can restrict many workers from changing unions for the life of an entire project. Due to the amendments introduced by the official opposition and passed in this Legislative Assembly by the opposition parties in 2019, our government was not able to address this concern at that time.

Today I’m pleased that Bill 10 amends the code to ensure that the workers in the construction sector will not be effectively shut out from changing union representation if that is the choice they wish to make. These changes will give workers a reasonable opportunity to change unions, even if the project is of a limited duration.

We will hear, and have already heard, many, including the opposition side, claim that they are protecting workers somehow by opposing single-step certification. I’ve seen some quotes from the opposition in the media. Somehow, they’re speaking for the workers. They want to advocate on behalf of the workers and continue to give them, somehow, that right to a secret ballot. That’s their democratic right. Somehow, we’re taking that away. I spoke about that at length earlier. The panel spoke about that earlier, as well.

Let’s hear from actual workers. Izzy Adachi was a worker at Starbucks here in Victoria who was involved in a union drive. Ninety percent of the workers at their location signed union cards — 90 percent. They wanted to be represented by a union, but the old system still required them to have a certification vote. Izzy said: “The two-step system gave management time to ship corporate union-busters from across the country to talk to us in person and hold captive-audience meetings during the height of a pandemic to try and intimidate us out of unionizing.”

When the folks on the other side stand up to claim to speak on behalf of the workers, what they’re really saying is that they’re siding with a system that allows a huge corporation to fly in suits from across the country to intimidate workers who are only trying to exercise their rights under the constitution. That’s all they’re doing. We think that if a clear majority of the workers want to be represented by a union, we should listen, respect that choice and allow that union certification to happen.

Listen to Izzy. Here’s another quote: “Removing these barriers levels the playing field after decades of employer-dominant policies and is going to help us bring back protected, fair-paying union jobs to our communities.” These are real workers speaking.

[4:25 p.m.]

To conclude, all changes proposed in Bill 10 support workers and their ability to come together to bargain for working conditions that meet the needs of the modern economy. As we focus now on strengthening the economy in this province by building an economy that works for all British Columbians, it is more important than ever that the Labour Relations Code provides workers free and fair access to collective bargaining as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill 10 will further that objective by improving access to union certification to the benefit of the workers, the employers and the economy as a whole.

I ask all members of the Legislative Assembly to join with me and this government and support these important legislative initiatives. I look forward to further debate on this bill.

G. Kyllo: It certainly gives me a great amount of pride to stand today and to speak to Bill 10, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2022. As we stand here today in the Legislature, we have to give consideration to who is asking for this legislation and why we are here today.

The secret ballot is a fundamental tenet of our democracy. It is something that is enshrined in our constitution, with respect to electing governments. It is something that is incredibly important as we conduct ourselves, whether we’re looking at the way we conduct ballots for positions for municipal governments, for regional districts. The secret ballot provides all British Columbians and all Canadians that opportunity to make their choice in secret. For the minister to somehow try and characterize the secret ballot as something that strips workers away from the right to choose to associate is offensive.

I support unions and union workers. My father, Glenn Kyllo, was a carpenter, and he was a member of the carpenter’s union for many, many years. This is not about for unions or against unions. This is about workers’ rights.

The choice that’s enshrined in our constitution, the ability of workers to choose to associate, also provides the opportunity for workers to choose not to associate. I think we can all appreciate that. It’s important enough to be part of our constitution. But to strip workers from their right and ability to make their decision without any undue influence, in secret, is so fundamental to our democracy. For the minister to try to characterize that secret ballot as some way taking away from the rights of workers, I find extremely troubling.

For 30 of the last 38 years, workers have been entitled to a secret ballot. Since 2002, the last time that the secret ballot was put in place, we’ve had labour peace in this province.

As we look to recover from COVID and the pandemic, there is a huge imbalance right now. The imbalance is that there is a significant shortage of workers to meet the needs of businesses. We have a booming and growing economy right now, and for this bill to come forward at this point in time, you kind of have to ask yourself: “Who is asking for it?”

I’ve been the Labour critic now for a little over a year and a half. I certainly have not heard from any workers that are concerned about the ability for them to have a secret ballot. The minister references the three-member panel that went out and provided recommendations to government with broad consultation.

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

The three-member panel specifically suggested to the minister, and recommended, that the secret ballot, the two-step process, remain in place. They did not ask for the removal of the secret ballot.

[4:30 p.m.]

Their recommendation to this government…. By the way, members that are watching from home, these are individuals that the government selected to be part of this panel. Those individuals went out, they consulted broadly around the province back in 2018, and they recommended to this government and to this minister to maintain the secret ballot.

They also provided some other recommendations, in­cluding increasing the length of time for which a union certification card would be valid. It previously was three months. They felt that that was inadequate. They wanted to extend that to six months. That was undertaken as part of Bill 30 just a year and a half ago by this government.

When we talk about the opportunities to provide more opportunity for workers to choose to associate, that was done, and that was effected with the increase from the three-month to the six-month provision by which a union certification card would remain valid. There were also concerns that once a secret ballot was identified and was going to be moved forward to a vote, there was a ten-day process. There was concern, and a recommendation came forward to reduce that process from ten days to five days.

In many instances, employers are only even made aware that an application for certification happens when they get a letter from the labour board. It used to be that the employer would have ten days of notification, ten days of opportunity to speak with their employees, many of them long-term employees, to provide their potential perspective on it, their side of the argument. But through Bill 30, that was reduced from ten days to five days. So two very important initiatives were already undertaken to help strengthen workers’ rights.

Here we are talking about stripping workers’ rights, taking away the most fundamental tenet of democracy, which is the right to make their choice for choosing. Whether they choose for union certification or they choose not to, your ability to make that in secret is being stripped away and taken away by this Premier and this government. And we’ve got to ask ourselves why.

Why is this coming forward? Well, I think we only have to look to some of the large supporters of this government. Steelworkers, for one — one of the single largest political contributions made in the history of this province to a political party. There is a huge amount of pressure and a big movement by this government to support their union friends and insiders.

Where is the worker in all of this? It is incredibly troubling to have the removal of the secret ballot. There was a letter that I received a few days ago that was put forward by 23 different business associations and business organizations, representing roughly half of all workers, of all men and women that are working in the province of British Columbia.

This letter is very succinct, and it’s important. I’m going to read this into the record — a letter dated April 25, 2022, addressed to the Premier and President of the Executive Council.

“Dear Premier,

“On behalf of 23 organizations in our collective membership, we write to express our dismay with changes your government has proposed to the certification provisions of the Labour Relations Code.

[4:35 p.m.]

“These changes will have economic repercussions across the province as businesses work to recover from the impacts of COVID-19. They will also needlessly destabilize the labour relations balance in British Columbia. It is disappointing that Bill 10 was tabled without adhering to Minister Bains’s mandate letter.”

Deputy Speaker: If I might remind the member, we don’t use names in this House. Thank you.

G. Kyllo: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

“It’s disappointing that Bill 10 was tabled without adhering to the minister’s mandate letter, which directed him to ‘engage employer and worker representatives in consideration of any changes proposed to workplace legislation to ensure the widest possible support.’ It is also concerning that your government has proceeded to introduce this legislation outside of the long-standing section 3 review process, which was introduced in the early 1990s. Under changes to the code your government introduced in 2019, your government must undertake a further section 3 review within five years. Neither approach was utilized by your government, calling into question your commitment to open and transparent consultation.

“Regrettably, this is not first the time that members of the business community have expressed frustration about how consultations are conducted on employment legislation. It is now a pattern that is extremely concerning, especially given your instructions in the minister’s mandate letter to consult widely in advance of making changes to workplace legislation.

“In addition to the lack of consultation, we also note that implementation of card check, or single-step certification, goes against the majority recommendation of the 2018 section 3 Labour Relations Code Panel Review report, chaired by Michael Fleming.

“The secret ballot is a fundamental component of our democratic system and a standard that should apply in workplaces just as it does in other facets of public life.

“Workers in British Columbia have a right to join a union, and our organizations believe in and respect the collective bargaining process. Workers also have the right to make this decision in a manner that is free from influence. The secret ballot is essential to protecting that right.

“Our view, expressed to your government in the past, is that the province, employers, organized labour and workers do not benefit from see-saw labour regimes as government inevitably shifts over time. British Columbia needs labour stability as we turn our attention to recovery from the pandemic.

“The Labour Relations Code and the Charter of Rights uphold the right of workers to choose union representation. The Labour Relations Board, as an independent tribunal, is mandated to ensure fairness in the current certification process. While we would not characterize the system as a perfect balance, it is certainly better in its current form than if Bill 10 is enacted.

“Fundamentally, Bill 10 weakens the democratic rights of workers and undercuts fairness, clarity and certainty for workers and employers alike.

“At a time when the government is seeking to create a more inclusive economy, implementing changes as proposed in Bill 10 will foster divisiveness within the workplace at a time when we all need to be focused on recovery and growing our economy for the benefit of all British Columbians.

“We call on the government to withdrawal Bill 10 and to undertake proper consultations with stakeholders.”

Now, this letter was signed by the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Business Council of B.C., Restaurants Canada, Independent Contractors and Business Association, B.C. Hotel Association, British Columbia Construction Association, Alliance of Beverage Licensees, Vancouver Island Construction Association, Northern Regional Construction Association, Vancouver Regional Construction Association, Southern Interior Construction Association, Progressive Contractors Association, Surrey Board of Trade, B.C. Trucking Association, B.C. Road Builders, B.C. Care Providers, B.C. Maritime Employers Association, Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, and Canadian Oil and Gas Producers Association.

Hon. Speaker, 23 business associations representing roughly half of all workers in the province also have significant concern.

[4:40 p.m.]

As we look to the importance of the secret ballot, the minister made reference to a number of jurisdictions that currently have a single-step process. Quebec was one — not a province that I would necessarily set aside as the hallmark of good labour practices in our country. But the provinces that do continue to uphold the importance of the secret ballot — Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland — most industries in Ontario…. We are not the outlier here. Removing the secret ballot, as proposed by Bill 10, would make B.C. the outlier in Canada, when it comes to the majority of folks that are represented in our country.

The secret ballot is actually strongly favoured by the majority of B.C. workers. A recent poll identified that 79 percent of British Columbians — think about that: 79 percent of British Columbia residents — support the secret ballot for union certification. Only 9 percent thought it was a good idea to remove it.

When our Premier was elected, he made a commitment that he was going to be governing for all British Columbians. Yet this bill goes totally against the recommendation of their own panel. It’s clearly in opposition and against the wishes of 79 percent of British Columbians. So if 79 percent of British Columbians uphold and think that the secret ballot should be upheld and maintained for union certification, and if the government’s own hand-picked panel has recommended for retaining the secret ballot, what is guiding and what is driving this government to strip that democratic right from workers?

The minister speaks about upholding workers’ rights and being on the side of workers. I learned last year, through the estimates process, that the employment standards branch….

Now, the employment standards branch is the organization, the government entity, that actually upholds the Employment Standards Act. For all private sector employees in the province, if you have a challenge or a concern with your employer — maybe you’re not getting paid overtime, or maybe you have a dispute with respect to severance pay — you reach out to the employment standards branch. The employment standards branch, which is funded by government, is there to help uphold and to find justice for workers.

But you know what has happened since 2017? The backlog of complaints in the employment standards branch in 2017 was two months. So if you had a concern with your employer and you reached out to the employment standards branch, you’d have two months before somebody would be actively working on your claim and trying to provide justice.

Under this government, that backlog has grown to 18 months. This government talks like they’re on the side of workers. How is pushing an employee that has a complaint with their employer, making them wait 18 months before somebody actively works on their file, just or fair? We have a government that is clearly supporting unionized workers. But when it comes to private sector workers, they’re left to flounder for 18 months without justice.

[4:45 p.m.]

In this year’s estimates process, when I had further inquiries with the minister with respect to what efforts they’re undertaking to bolster up and increase funding for the employment standards branch so they could actually reduce that backlog and provide justice for workers: “No increase in budget.”

A gentleman by the name of Laird Cronk, who’s the president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, spoke to the Finance and Government Services Committee and pleaded with government to increase funding to reduce the backlog. How has this government responded? By ignoring it — by absolutely ignoring it.

We have seen significant public sector job growth. We all, as British Columbians, can recognize the great value and the importance of our nurses and our teachers and our public servants. They do yeoman’s work on behalf of all of us. But we also have to have a strong private sector, because the public sector, those public sector jobs, consume tax dollars. The private sector is largely what creates the wealth in this province.

I certainly appreciate the value that the public service provides for all of us, but there has to be a balance. What we have seen is a steady decline in private sector jobs and a significant increase in public sector jobs — those jobs that consume tax dollars, as important as they are. At last count, 120,000 new public sector jobs in the last five years. Over $10 billion a year of additional wage expense. A 34 percent increase in the last five years. Yet the public sector is continuing to struggle.

The other section of Bill 10 reflects on union raiding. The current legislation provides it for the construction sector. In the third year of a collective agreement, they’re subject to raiding. This is where members might choose to maybe go with a different union, and they have the opportunity to come in. It creates a lot of unrest on the construction site. But for many employers who are trying to maintain that relationship with their employees and with the union representation that actually represents their employees, to think that, in each and every year, that might be possible puts a huge amount of administrative burden and much more uncertainty, both with the employees and the employer.

Under this proposed legislation, instead of that opportunity only coming along every three years, government is entertaining the ability to actually have that happen each and every year. It creates a huge amount of uncertainty. Think about a construction company that might bid on a two- or a three-year construction project that might span a number of summers. The union raiding, under the provisions of this bill, would actually be in July and August of each year, at the height of construction, at a time when employers and employees need certainty to be focused on the job.

To have to run the potential risk and the concern of other unions coming in and interrupting that flow…. Again, I don’t know who is asking for this. It certainly was not something that was actually recommended by the panel — certainly not that I’ve been made aware of. Yet here we are yet again, providing more uncertainty to employers with the potential concern of driving up construction costs in our province.

[4:50 p.m.]

I see I’m coming close to the end, but there’s one other piece that I thought I should make mention of. When we talk about a Premier and a government that govern for all British Columbians, I think we have to give thought to who this government is actually focusing their energies on.

As we said earlier, all workers have the right to choose to associate, and from that, I think the provision would be that they also have the right to choose not to associate. But this government has chosen, in a number of different areas, to take that right away from workers who choose not to associate. That is reflected in the community benefits agreements, the CBA agreements.

This is an agreement that government moved forward on which actually requires, for any worker working on major capital infrastructure projects — for Highway 1 construction, the Pattullo Bridge; it’s been now expanded to the Cowichan Lake hospital, also the new BCIT trade centre — that unless you are a member of one of the government’s handpicked select 19 unions, you can’t work on that job.

It’s not even just union versus non-union. You can’t even be a member of a progressive union. You have to be a member of these hand-selected unions that the government has actually identified to work on these projects. I guess that’s their prerogative, and they’ve moved forward. However, it comes at considerable and significant cost to British Columbians.

There’s a small highway expansion project in my riding of Shuswap and Salmon Arm. It was announced in the fall of 2016, $162.3 million project for 6.1 kilometres of four-laning. The project went out as one of the first CBA tenders in the province of B.C. The project, the last time I was provided an update, is anticipated to be $20 million over budget. So $162.3 million and $20 million over budget. Okay, we get it. Construction costs are higher. But get this: they’ve cut the project in half. It’s only 3.3 kilometres. So $20 million more for half the project.

The former Transportation Minister told this House that they anticipated the construction cost would only go up between 4 percent and 7 percent. Well, $20 million more for half the project is a lot more considerable than 4 to 7 percent.

The Cowichan Lake hospital was reviewed by Infrastructure B.C. Now, this is a government organization that reports directly to the Minister of Finance. They undertook a project evaluation of the Cowichan Lake hospital before it went to tender. They identified in the report what they saw as the estimated cost difference between going to a typical progressive design-build, without a CBA requirement, or moving forward with the CBA arrangement. These aren’t my numbers. These are government’s own numbers — Infrastructure B.C., which is a government entity.

They put forward a 363-page report evaluating the costs that would be associated with a CBA agreement. On the Cowichan Lake hospital, without a CBA, it was projected to be $718 million; utilizing the CBA — $882.2 million. That’s a $164.2 million cost overrun or additional costs, a 23 percent increase, and a CBA that means it can only be built by the 19 handpicked unions that the NDP government have actually identified.

They’ve talked about increasing hiring ratios for women and Indigenous peoples. I support that, but that could be undertaken under a typical project labour agreement by just establishing the hiring ratios. But they’ve spent $162 million of additional funding in order to support a project which is tied to their union friends, donors and supporters. That is offensive.

[4:55 p.m.]

That $162 million additional cost could have built five or six other high schools in this province. They’re choosing to be disrespectful to taxpayers’ money on many different fronts, and I find that extremely troubling.

As we go back, just in closing, the removal of the secret ballot strips workers of a fundamental right: their ability to make a decision, which is a personal choice, without any undue influence from either union organizers or the employers.

I think that we would all agree that when we step into that voting booth to be able to mark that ballot without anybody else watching us, it is one of the most fundamental tenets of democracy. This government is choosing to strip that right from workers. That is offensive, and that is why I will not be able to support this bill.

A. Mercier: I am honoured to stand here today in this House and speak to Bill 10, which will amend the Labour Relations Code to ensure that every worker in British Columbia has the ability to exercise their right to join a trade union without barriers.

Single step certification. Free association in the workplace. The right to join a trade union isn’t just a fundamental part of our democracy. It’s a charter right. The benefits of unions and worker organizing to employers and to workers and our economy are clear.

For workers, unions provide higher pay and safer workplaces. The evidence backs that up. Just in 2019, there was a study in the New York construction industry that showed that unionized worksites have lower accident incidences, using occupational health and safety data. A similar study was done by the Ontario Construction Secretariat in Ontario in 2021, finding similar findings. Unionized worksites are safer worksites. The pay is higher. For employers, there’s better retention and productivity. There are lower training costs and less turnover which, in an economy that is booming like ours, is a direct benefit to employers.

I’ve been listening to the debate and listening to the member of the opposition, the member for Shuswap, and I think that there needs to be a basic understanding of the B.C. Labour Relations Code. The basic thrust of the Labour Relations Code is conservative in nature. The point of it is really twofold, and this goes back to the late Paul Weiler, arguably the dean of labour law in Canada, who drafted the Labour Relations Code.

The point of the Labour Relations Code, the basic thrust of it, is twofold.

First, it’s to facilitate access to collective bargaining. Workers who want to unionize should be able to and should be allowed to without barriers.

Second, it’s to constrain the ability of strikes to happen — strikes and lockouts and industrial unrest. In fact, if you read the labour code, you will find in part five, between sections 57 and 61, a whole manner of regulations prohibiting strikes. Strikes and lockouts are prohibited, save and except for the end of a collective agreement, when collective bargaining has occurred, there has been an impasse, a vote has taken place pursuant to the code and sufficient notice has happened.

The reason that I bring this up is because this idea of a dual-step certification, a mandatory vote, is very American, much like the right-to-work argument that we just heard from the member from Shuswap. It’s very American. It comes from this notion in the United States that it ought to be difficult to join a union, and the national Labour Relations Act is set up that way.

Workers can strike easily and for all manner of reasons in the United States. Your friend gets fired? You can walk off the job. That is not the case in British Columbia. We have had stable industrial relations in this province because we have had a code that facilitates access to bargaining and constrains economic power once we’re in. That has been the basic thrust of the code when it was written in the ’70s and when it was repealed in the 1980s to be the Industrial Relations Act. Then it was reintroduced in the 1990s.

What this bill does is that it really addresses that first point — facilitating access to collective bargaining. There are two key approaches to certification. Certification is a legal process that workers have to go through for their union to be recognized as their representative in the workplace.

[5:00 p.m.]

There’s the single-step system and the two-step or dual-step system, which is the system that we currently have in British Columbia. The single-step system is membership evidence based on cards indicating worker intent. The minister explained it very eloquently. Workers determine they want to join a union or form a union. They get together. They sign cards showing their intent to join a union. Those cards are then filed with the Labour Relations Board. The process is worker-driven.

Now, in a single-step system, the Labour Relations Board — which is a neutral third-party, very judicious entity — will scrutinize the cards, make sure that they’re accurate and valid and not fraudulent and will then grant certification pending some legal technicalities about the bargaining unit, the appropriateness of the bargaining unit, who ought to and ought not to be included.

Now, under a two-step system, once that certification application is filed, a window of time starts to tick down for a vote. A vote is ordered. Presuming that you have 45 percent of the amount of employees working for that employer who signed cards, a vote is then ordered. Now, what the vote period does…. That then creates a window, which is five days right now. What that does is create a window for, effectively, an election campaign.

I want to make a point here, which is that workers can’t campaign on company time. They can’t organize on company time. They have to do so entirely outside of the workplace. But what the two-step system does is it creates this campaign window, and it invites the employer into it.

I can tell you that anti-union campaigns are well-worn ground in this province. They follow a formula. The formula is so run-of-the-mill that I have too many examples to get into. It’s legally driven, and it is so textbook. Union-busting is a cottage industry in this country.

It starts like this. Oftentimes, the employer doesn’t know that the workers are looking to form a union until the application is filed. Well, then they find out. So that creates the window of time for the campaign. The first step, normally, is that letters will go out. If the employer finds out beforehand, the letters go out beforehand. The letters are designed to be intimidating, warning employees of the negative impacts of joining a union. “Unions are bad,” is essentially what it boils down to.

Then there will be captive-audience meetings, getting employees together in small groups and flying in senior executives, with an obvious power imbalance, telling them why they shouldn’t join a union. Keep in mind that this is the employer. This isn’t a forum for workers to get up and speak about anything. This is the employer speaking to workers. This is mandatory. You don’t have a choice. You are going to this meeting.

Sophisticated employers use proxies within the workplace. You’ll have supervisors…. I can think of an example from my own experience in the garbage industry. You have someone who…. It’s not difficult for employers to figure out who the union supporters within a jobsite are. You might have 25 people working for you, or you might have 100. You’ll get a pretty good sense of who the lead people looking to form a union are. Those people are harassed and intimidated. Spurious discipline occurs. If there’s an assignment in the job that is the worst assignment that nobody wants to do, you’re doing it. It’s your shifts being cut.

This intimidation starts, and it’s intended to send a message. Needless to say, these campaigns do not follow the Marquess of Queensberry rules. They’re very bare knuckle, and they lead quickly to termination of pro-union employees. This is my point, where it’s not difficult to figure out who the people supporting the union are once the employer enters that campaign period. This creates a climate of fear.

The employer will come in, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a blatant unfair labour practice under the code. An employee can be fired. This has an immediate chilling effect on workers looking to join a union. It’s intimidating.

[5:05 p.m.]

Now, the union can go and file an unfair labour practice at the board and say that the cause of termination was anti-union animus and you lack proper cause. But I’ll tell you, and I’ll tell you from my own experience as both a labour lawyer and a union leader, that it is easy for employers — especially large, sophisticated employers — in this province to come to the table with a big pile of money and a cash settlement, saying: “You can go find another job. We’re going to offer this as an incentive” — that’s difficult for people to turn away — “but we want you to sign a confidentiality agreement. So you can’t tell anyone else in the workplace what just happened.”

That has a real practical effect — those types of settlements — because the workers on the shop floor, the workers in the workplace, never find out what actually happens, and fear wins the day.

Another really clear problem with unfair labour practice complaints in the system and policing these campaigns…. The board does an amazing job of adjudicating them. We have a very fair and impartial board that understands the workplace, but the process is complaint-driven. You need witnesses to testify.

The reality of it is many workers fear testifying, and they fear testifying in front of their employer. If they testified what their employer actually said…. You might have an employer that gets everyone in the room and says, “I’m going to shut down the company if you form a union” — clear and obvious unfair labour practice. You try to find someone to testify to that. They’re terrified that if the union doesn’t win the vote and they get their job back, they’re going to go into a terrible situation with a target on their back that will outlast the campaign.

I would add that in my experience, it’s particularly difficult for new Canadians, who have had relationships with courts from countries where the rule of law is not respected like it is here, to take the step to testify against their employer. So these create clear and obvious barriers to employees and workers exercising their rights. That is a function of a dual-step process that creates this campaign window.

Now, this is not the first time in this House where this debate has happened, and it’s not the first time in this country, because these changes have happened in other provinces. I found myself, preparing for this speech, turning to the words of Paul Weiler. Paul Weiler is a giant in labour relations — the late Paul Weiler, the first chair of the Labour Relations Board, the first modern administrative labour relations board in Canada. When he was done his time chairing the board, he wrote a book, and that book is called Reconcilable Differences: New Directions in Canadian Labour Law.

Professor Weiler, when he was chair of the board, found himself in a position where he had to give advice to the Social Credit government caucus on labour relations amendments. He implored them: do not get rid of single-step certification. Keep a membership card system. Keep single-step certification. Do not go to the secondary mandatory vote.

I’m going to read out his advice that he gave to the Social Credit caucus. It’s interesting, and it’s very on point, because what he does is he talks about these employer campaigns. He says — and keeping in mind, this is the free enterprise coalition’s then-formulation, as the Social Credit Party:

“I’ve always found it incongruous that the employer should be given a central role in the representation play, even if its campaign is perfectly legal, without a whisper of economic coercion of the employees. Suppose the employer simply mounts a sophisticated Madison Avenue kind of electioneering, complete with highly paid lawyers, consultants, psychological survey teams, perhaps even films. Is that consistent with what collective bargaining is all about?

“In making up their minds about union representation, the employees are really choosing how they will deal with their employer, how they will participate in settling and improving their terms of employment. The employer and the employees have an inherent conflict of interest in that topic.

“Clearly, the employer is affected by the employees’ judgment about whether they will be represented by a trade union. Yet surely, that collective employee choice should be as off-limits to the employer as the employer’s choice of a vice-president of industrial relations is off-limit to the employees.”

He goes on to say:

“That is why an employer has no rightful role to play in the process by which the employees make up their minds about how they will deal with their employer. Indeed, I can think of a much better political analogy.”

Political analogies seem to be the order of the day here. He says:

[5:10 p.m.]

“Take the case of a Canadian election, either federal or provincial. Obviously, the United States does have a major interest in which party is elected in Canada, related to their contrasting policies about defence, trade, natural resources, energy and general continentalist attitudes. Surely no one will argue that the United States government should thereby have the right to participate in a Canadian election campaign to try to astutely get Canadians to vote for a government favourable to the United States.

“The rightful reaction in both Canada and the United States is that this would be a clear conflict of interest. It would be condemned as American manipulation of the selection of the Canadian authority, which must deal, often in an adversarial manner, with the United States government. No one will seriously deny that the only legitimate response is a hands-off attitude on the part of the American government.”

Weiler then concludes:

“Employees, with their contrasting viewpoints, should rightfully debate the issues. It is the employees who decide whether to go with the union or not. The employer does not campaign in the interest of the employees. The employer’s concern is not that employees make a free and informed choice in their interest. Rather, the employer wants to influence the employees to make a choice in his interest.

“I do not think that the law should try to penalize any but the grossest form of such employer activity. But at the same time, I believe the law should design the certification process so as to avoid any suggestion that the employer is being invited into the campaign, that it has a rightful place as the central opponent to the trade union for the allegiance of the employees.”

This is a question among the workers of a company. It becomes a question for the employer if and when a trade union is certified and collective bargaining commences or begins.

Now I want to answer some of the objections about democratic fairness that we’ve heard and that we heard from the member for Shuswap. We heard about undue influence from union organizers.

I want to say that I have been involved in hundreds of union organizing campaigns, as has my friend the Minister of Labour — probably thousands or tens of thousands. The risk of union unfair labour practices is laughably low. The overwhelming, crushing majority of unfair labour practice complaints that are brought to the Labour Relations Board are committed or alleged to have been committed by the employer.

The people signing union cards in British Columbia are rational adults. It’s important here to understand that when these cards are submitted to the labour board, the employer never sees who signed a card. They give a payroll list to the board. The board scrutinizes it to get the percentage or the number, but they’re never released to the employer.

Similarly, there is a law of revocation. Any employee who signed a union card who feels they’ve been unduly influenced or feels they have made a mistake can phone the Labour Relations Board and revoke their card. The union will never be told by the board whose card was revoked. They’ll be told: “A card was revoked. We’re not telling you whose.” Once those cards go to the board, what happens with them is kept secret and strictly confidential.

Further to this, there’s a law of decertification. If employees find that they don’t like collective bargaining or they don’t like the relationship between union and employer, they can decertify, or they can join another union in a raid.

The whole code is structured around employee choice, which leads me to ask: what is the opposition afraid of? Why do they oppose this bill? The only answer I can come to is that they oppose single-step certification because single-step certification is effective.

There was a recent academic article written by Sara Slinn. Sara Slinn is a professor of law and labour relations at Osgoode Hall faculty of law at York University in Toronto. It’s called “An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of the Change from Card-Check to Mandatory Vote Certification.”

What Slinn does in her study is…. She looks at all previous studies that have been done across Canada but looks at all the jurisdictions that have switched from single-step certification to mandatory vote or from mandatory vote to single-step certification and what the impact has been on certifications.

[5:15 p.m.]

What she found was really interesting. This isn’t looking at one jurisdiction. Oftentimes numbers are thrown out on this, and they’re from one particular jurisdiction where there might be historical circumstances. This is a very broad-ranging study.

What Professor Slinn found was that in areas that went to a mandatory vote from single-step certification, successful certifications at labour relations boards dropped by over 21 percent. Conversely, where single-step certification was put into place, successful certifications rose by 21 percent. That is strictly due — and she talks about this — to the effect of the employer campaign.

Slinn also found that introducing a single-step certifi­cation law or process disproportionately benefits part-time workers in the private sector when it comes to access to collective bargaining. That isn’t surprising, because part-time private sector workers — think Starbucks, your fast-food enterprise or McDonald’s — have the highest barriers to certification. We’re seeing that in the news right now, as we look at what’s a very typical anti-union campaign being waged in the United States by Starbucks.

These workers are young workers. They’re racialized workers. They’re predominantly women. They’re the ones who have been the most affected by the pandemic. They’ve been at the front line. They’re the delivery drivers. They’re the Starbucks workers, the Amazon employees, the Amazon courier drivers, the Uber drivers.

Why is the opposition so terrified of allowing these workers their right to organize? In a high-inflation time, are they afraid of workers getting a raise, of entering collective bargaining and negotiating a raise, or having fair access to a reasonable, third-party adjudication of workplace disputes? Is there something wrong with safe workplaces? What are they afraid of?

All I can think of is that they don’t want workers to join a union. I think back to their record on collective bargaining, when Gordon Campbell was elected — and the first thing that was done was that collective agreements were ripped up — or when we found, with the BCTF, through the court process, that the Liberal government was deliberately seeking to provoke a strike. This is good?

We’ve heard from the member for Shuswap, who just characterized access to collective bargaining as a risk. He said it is a risk that needs to be managed for employers.

I don’t know who rationally — who believes in freedom of association, in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that people should have a voice at the table — could oppose this bill.

I’m very, very honoured to have spoken to this today. I’m very proud that I’m going to be able to vote in favour of this.

I’d like to thank the Minister of Labour for doing the hard work necessary to get us to this point here today.

B. Banman: It is, indeed, an honour to get up in this House and debate a bill, to do so openly, to have different discussions on one side from the other. I appreciate the opportunity.

I listened with great intent to the minister. I agreed with him when he started talking about the safety of workers and that anyone who goes to work deserves to come home uninjured, unhurt, that these are loved ones that go off to work. He’s been to my city many times, once a year. There is, in fact, a beautiful monument that was erected — the Golden Tree — because, sadly, there were three lives lost and 14 people injured.

[5:20 p.m.]

I think every one in this House can agree that worker safety is something that we all need to address and we all need to work on together.

What the minister may not know is that in my family, one of my uncles was fundamental in organizing the union for the maintenance department in the school district of Chilliwack. I sat as a child, as a young man, and listened to the stories of that. So I’m not scared of unions or against unions. I was in a union myself at one time, when I was up in Fort Nelson, working in a plywood mill. So that’s not the case.

One of the things that the minister said that I wonder about a little bit is…. No, this side of the House does not think that the sun won’t come up tomorrow and that the rivers will stop flowing and that all of these things will happen if this bill goes through. I think the minister puts a little bit too much emphasis on his own self-importance — and perhaps drinking too much Kool-Aid or whatever it was he was drinking prior to that. I do appreciate the levity of it, but no, I don’t think we’re going to set our hair on fire. One of my colleagues may have done that already here, based on his hairdo, but that’s not going to happen either.

As I’ve said in this House before, the uncle married my aunt on my father’s side, and my family escaped from Ukraine in the 1920s, from the Russian revolution. Democracy was always very near and dear to our hearts. Canada opened up its arms and accepted us when very few other countries would. We were allowed to gather, live in freedom and secretly cast that ballot for whomever it was we wished.

It’s the foundation of democracy. In fact, it’s embedded in the federal NDP party. “At every convention that is not a leadership convention, a secret ballot vote will be held to determine whether or not a leadership election should be called. If 50 percent plus one delegate supports the calling of a leadership election, such an election will be held within one year of the convention vote.”

This secrecy of a ballot is nothing new. It’s important. It’s not to try and give one side an advantage over the other. I have heard that there is undue influence by employers. I think there are other avenues upon which to go, if that is in fact happening, to be able to restrict that. Because, quite frankly, it’s wrong.

It is also wrong to have undue influence from either employers or those wanting to unionize. That’s why the secrecy of a ballot, that one point where no one knows what you truly want and what you truly wish is private. It is intimate. It is protected. That’s what I find offensive about this bill.

The rest of the issues and a lot of the issues…. I think there are other avenues upon which to solve those and find issues without turning our back on what is, to many, the foundation of democracy.

[5:25 p.m.]

As you heard my colleague say earlier, a recent poll showed 79 percent of British Columbians opposed doing away with the secret ballot, and only 9 percent support card checks. Bill 10 ignores that. It’s not just by a little. Overwhelmingly, British Columbians value the secrecy and the privacy of putting your X, yes or no. That’s what this side of the House is opposed to.

Let’s find a better way to do this. But removing the sanctity and secrecy of a ballot just is not the way. I know that my uncle would not support removing the secrecy of a ballot. We need to think long and hard about that.

This is not because this side of the House has anything against that. At least, on behalf of myself, I certainly do not. I believe it is the fundamental right of an employee and their colleagues to decide whether or not they wish to unionize. I also believe it is also the risk of those employees to decide if at such time either that union no longer suits their needs or they wish to decertify. That’s democracy. That’s enshrining the rights of that individual.

I worry that now we have set a stage where there are six months that can transpire, upon which to make sure that those cards are signed. There is no limitation or there is no regulation with regards to what kind of intimidation may or may not be put on those people to sign the cards, and it’s troubling.

[J. Tegart in the chair.]

I think that’s why 79 percent of British Columbians, in part, support the secrecy of the ballot. This is not the only place where this is allowed.

Here are some other elected positions where the secrecy of a ballot is held in high regard. A party president; a treasurer; a regional representative of a party executive; the northern caucus representative; the party executive; the chairs of the participation of women’s committee; the New Democratic Youth of Canada; the racial justice and equity committee; the Aboriginal commission; the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender committee; the persons living with disabilities committee; and the federal caucus representative all hold the secrecy of marking your X in very high regard, that it’s enshrined.

There are other secret ballot applications as well. Political parties. Many of us have them. Internal positions, such as the president of a political party. Candidates during contested nominations, such as mine was when I ran. Party leaders. It’s held in municipal governments, whether it be a mayor, city council, school boards, park boards, in the case of Vancouver and others.

It’s also done in regional districts, provincial referendums such as the 2018 electoral reform referendum. We even bring it in to our schools — school council. The secrecy of a ballot when it comes to strata councils, elected directors underneath the Society Act and the winner of Justin McElroy’s latest bracket on the best small town in British Columbia, even.

[5:30 p.m.]

We’re not scared of this. We just think that the secrecy of the ballot is there for a reason. It’s there at that moment when you want to cast your ballot. You have no influence. You have the privacy and the sanctity to be able to vote as you truly wish without fear of retribution, without fear of intimidation. It is the hallmark of democracy. It should not be removed lightly. In fact, I don’t believe it should be removed at all, especially when there are other avenues to explore. If we find that employers are unduly influencing, there are avenues to correct that.

The thing that I find puzzling is that when the NDP picked their own committee for this in 2018, the Labour Relations Code Review Panel, that report recommended keeping the secret ballot. Let me repeat that. The NDP’s own 2018 Labour Relations Code Review Panel report recommended keeping the secret ballot. The NDP have ignored that advice and plans to scrap it anyway.

What’s the point of having a review panel if you’re going to ignore that advice? Clearly, the NDP’s hand-picked review panel thought it was important enough. The only way to ensure there was no influence on one side or the other was to keep the sanctity of a secret ballot.

I heard allegations that this side of the House is scared of something. We’re not scared of giving people raises. We’re not scared that they may choose to join a union. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we’re scared of is undue influence.

I heard the stories, sitting around the dinner table, of influence. I guess I am reminded by the stark realization that when my grandparents left Russia — Ukraine was underneath Russian rule at that time — they were given three choices. You can give up everything that you hold dear. You can give up your religion. You can become part of the collective. You can pack what you can carry and run, or you can give up your life.

Democracy is not perfect. There are issues that need to be addressed. It continually evolves. But the one golden stake is the secrecy of the ballot — that one point, those few seconds where you take your pencil and you put your mark. That is something incredibly precious. It’s the only way you know that there’s not going to be influence during that particular moment of time.

Perhaps it’s because of the ministry I’m the critic of, but I can’t help but find the irony in the government that’s now got the award of being the most secretive…. They won an award for it, for crying out loud. The most secretive government in Canada wants to strip and rip away workers’ rights to a secret ballot. “Hey, hey, hey. Do as we say, not as we do. It ain’t right for us, but it’s right for you.”

[5:35 p.m.]

It’s hypocritical. “We don’t want you to know what we’re doing, but we want to take your right away so we can watch what goes on.” It just doesn’t seem right.

That’s not the only issue that this side of the House has with this particular bill, as was touched upon by my colleague. It’s commonly referred to as union raining. I applaud, actually, the choice of someone being able to say: “Hey, you know what? As a group, this union no longer works for us. We’re going to go explore our options for a different union or no union at all.” Unions can come by now and campaign and talk to workers and say: “Hey, you know what? We can get a better deal for you if you come over to us.” It gives those employees the right to be able to change unions if they see fit.

However, the timing of when that is allowed is right in the heart and the middle of the highest construction season, right in the heart of summer, when the days are longest and the most work is able to be done and there are construction projects all over the province. The timing of it could not be worse, from what I’m hearing.

That particular issue also goes against the recommendations from the government’s own panel. Again, some of this is now left to regulation. We’ve gone down this rabbit hole before.

It just reminds me of Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day. It’s the same thing all over again. “Hey, trust us to get this right. We’ll decide it behind closed doors, because we want to be secretive, but we don’t want our workers to be secretive. They get no rights to privacy and secrecy anymore, but we want to be able to put regulations in that have no oversight whatsoever, behind closed doors.”

Go look up hypocritical in the dictionary. It just reeks of it. It just reeks of hypocrisy. This is going to create instability. It’s not going to create certainty. It’s going to create instability and disruption in the construction industry. Whenever there is disruption, time equals money, and that is going to be increased costs and hikes to vital housing and infrastructure projects across the province.

The opposition would like to find things to work with this government on. They outnumber us two to one. In a way, I’m probably just wasting my breath up here, because they can go pass anything they wish. I don’t even know why they bothered with a review panel at all. Clearly, they knew what they wanted to do ahead of this.

Why else would you have a review panel? We go: “Well, thank you very much for all the time and effort you put in, but we don’t like your recommendations. We know we asked for them, but we’re not going to follow those. That doesn’t suit our political agenda.” And this is a political agenda. Otherwise, they would have followed the review panel. I guess this comes similar to some of the other pieces of legislation that we’ve seen through when it came to, dare I say, FOI fees.

I’m troubled by this in many ways, none of which have to do with a worker’s right to unionize, a worker’s right to change unions, a worker’s right to decertify or a worker’s right for better working conditions.

[5:40 p.m.]

If you were to ask this side of the House, we would all say that workers have the right to have their working conditions improved and to bargain for a fair wage. We’re not scared of it at all. Personally, I embrace it. I think it is, as put out under the Charter, an employee’s right.

What I think is blatantly unfair is…. We’ve now looked at the community benefits. There’s not a heck of a lot of benefit to the communities that I can see. There’s not a heck of a lot of benefit to workers looking for work that I can see, because you have to be a member of one of the chosen unions in order to be able to work on publicly funded projects.

So let me get this straight. We all pay into these projects, yet only a very few select people, who happen to be a member of the correct union, the flavour of the month, this week…. I don’t know what unions will be next, next year and how that even goes to be picked. It just seems blatantly unfair to me.

This side of the House has trouble with this bill for a few reasons. Very few of the ones that I’ve heard have got anything to do with why I object to this bill.

When you remove the secrecy of the ballot, it is a step too far. That has taken the pendulum clear off the string. The ball is now bouncing down the road. It is one of the most important and precious areas, as I’m concerned, when it comes to democracy. There are no guarantees that I have seen on what kind of influence may be restricted as we are getting people to sign their cards. That has not been addressed at all that I have heard.

Sadly, I don’t believe that this bill is actually going to improve and get the goals that this government wants it to get. For the reasons that I’ve mentioned, I cannot and I will not support this bill.

I thank you for the time and the privilege to be able to stand here and express my thoughts. It’s an important part of democracy. Sadly, I think it’s landing on deaf ears, at least based on the chatter that’s going on across the way. I do appreciate the Chair’s tolerance and time to allow me to express my thoughts as to what I find wrong with this bill and why I can’t support it.

S. Chant: I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this bill.

When I’m speaking to you today, I’m coming from the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh. I’m very, very grateful for the opportunity to be able to work and learn and live on that shared land.

I am honoured to be able to speak positively about Bill 10, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, as brought forward by the Minister of Labour. Clearly, this is something that has been needed for a while in a whole variety of circumstances.

I’ve listened with interest to the last several speakers, starting with the Minister of Labour himself and everybody else who has spoken to the bill. I find it very interesting that everybody feels very comfortable with the ability for workers to associate. Everybody is very comfortable with the ability for workers to choose to get together, to work together to make an environment safer and better for them to work in.

[5:45 p.m.]

There is a concern that somehow or other, when it comes right down to it, a worker can’t make up their own mind as to what is the best working environment for them, that somehow or other there is going to be undue pressure applied by a union member or another co-worker or something to make them sign a card when they don’t want to.

Now, the secret ballot is not completely gone. It is there if there’s any clarity needed as to whether or not a group of workers wish to associate. That’s what it’s there for. It’s there to clarify the situation. It’s there to figure out whether or not the 55 percent of people who signed cards initially are all still in favour after having some time to think about it. It’s there to clarify that if they only got 45 percent signing up, they’ve got enough people to have an association.

I am very fortunate. For most of my adult life, I’ve worked in a union-based environment. Both myself and the people around me have been in a variety of different unions. I’m familiar with a number of different contracts, as I was in a leadership role.

Those contracts are very important. They provide workers with a lot of security. They also provide employers with security, with a consistent set of standards that says: “This is what the employer needs to do. This is what the worker needs to do. This is how we all get along.” It’s able to be referred to and mediated if you need to, and it allows for the opportunity for both the employer and the workers to adjust how they do their work, if that’s what’s needed.

The other feeling that I’m getting here is…. If there is a group of people who want to form an association and perhaps join a union, there’s usually a reason for that. They’re not entirely happy in their workplace environment. There’s something that needs to be changed. It may well be that they have tried to address that unsuccessfully so that their working environment can be better.

There are so many things that make a working environment unsafe, unhappy, toxic. So many different things. If people are individuals, they don’t have the strength to manage those things successfully and effectively.

In this day and age, when we are truly saying that we live in a democratic society, we need to allow people to make choices for themselves. To determine whether or not it is their decision to work as a collective or to work as individuals. To be in environments that either are managed through a collective agreement or that are managed as individuals. Those should be available to all of us as adults.

The other piece of this that I find very interesting is that a lot of times…. The environments that are unsafe and are not good working environments or are disrespectful are often environments where folks who are somewhat marginalized are working. People who may not have a good voice, a strong voice. People who may not have a voice in the language that everybody else speaks. People who may not have a voice with the same degree of education or economic stability.

What we need to do is to be able to say to those folks: “Yes, you, too, have an opportunity to do well, to have a safe and respectful workplace that you can go to day in and day out, know that you’re going to come home safely, know that you’re going to get your job done and know that you’re going to be treated fairly and appropriately. If you’re not treated fairly and appropriately, you’ve got some recourse, and you’ve got some support from your colleagues. If you need it, you’ve got support from your union.”

Again, I, as I say, have worked in a union environment for many, many years. I’ve been fortunate. I haven’t needed to fall back on the union itself to support me. But there have been times that I’ve gone to my steward and said: “Hey, what’s going on here? This is happening. It doesn’t feel right. Somebody is being treated like this, poorly.”

[5:50 p.m.]

Have a discussion with the union steward as to where that stands. Usually what happens is that there’s a civil conversation, and the issue is resolved. I can work on behalf of my colleagues that way as well.

I’ve also worked in non-union environments. I worked in an American hospital in Hawaii, and I also worked in Saipan. In both of those environments, I was working in a non-union situation. Things went on that were really inappropriate.

For lack of a better word, in those environments, I was an educated, privileged white woman, and people did not put me in situations of severe discomfort. But I had colleagues, who were friends of mine, who were having very difficult situations, where they were being spoken to in private, inappropriately, unsafe, and they didn’t have anywhere to turn because they were worried that they would lose their jobs. They had nobody to go back to.

There was a group of us that actually worked with them to try and make it so that the employers understood that if you want people to work with you, if you want people to stay in the jobs, if you want a good working environment that’s productive and effective and safe, you need to treat people well.

That’s what we need to do. We need to allow people to be treated well, respected — be safe and be able, in their environment, to know that they are listened to and heard. That’s what happens when people associate. They start feeling safer, and they start being able to be heard.

The secret ballot is still there if there’s clarity needed. It has not been taken away. If 55 percent of the people want to sign the card, they will. Then the association can get certified. The union can be certified. If 45 percent of people sign the card, then there is a secret ballot held to determine whether that 50 percent or more — 50 percent plus one — are wanting to be part of a union. It’s, in my brain, very simple.

The other piece of this is giving people choice as to how they’re represented and who represents them. A lot of our young workers on the construction sites we’ve talked about, in various other things…. They get into something, and they sign up. Maybe the union is already in place, or maybe they sign up as part of a process. They don’t know a lot about what their workplace looks like yet.

Now, if you lock them in for three years before they can change that, you are making a real negative trajectory in some situations. We need to allow people the opportunity to be able to assess their own situations and work with their employers and have those opportunities to change if they need to.

Again, as an employer, one of your jobs is to make sure that the people want to be on your worksite. If it’s uncomfortable, unsafe, disrespectful or, dare I say, toxic, people don’t want to come to work there. That’s when they’re going to start associating and talking to each other and saying: “How do we make this better?” As an employer, one needs to take the responsibility of listening and working with the employees if you want to keep them.

I am very grateful that the Minister of Labour has listened to his panel that originally did the assessment and originally said: “Okay. We can leave the two-step in place, assuming that it works, assuming that we don’t see an influx or an ongoing issue of unfair work practices being exerted at the Labour Relations Board.” They left it in place.

[5:55 p.m.]

However, the problems continued to occur. There were still allegations and proven times that employers were exerting undue pressure on members of their workforce to not go through with unionization. We’ve seen a variety of examples of this.

We look at that, and we say: “Okay. We trialled it. It didn’t work. We need to change it. We need to strengthen it. We need to give the workers a better opportunity to be able to be representative of themselves and each other.”

In this step, what we do is say: “All right. If 55 percent or more sign the cards, then we can automatically go forward. One step. If 45 percent sign, we can have a secret ballot to clarify if we’re going to get over the 50 percent mark. Then, if it does, we’ll go forward.” It’s very simple, and it’s very clear. It should not be a significant deterrent to employers.

The relationship between employers and employees can be very, very one-sided. It can also be very, very effective and collaborative if the workers are valued and respected and if their welfare is important to their employer. All those things are difficult to create. They’re difficult to maintain. They take thought. They take work. They take ongoing attention and care.

We know that in the last two years, there’s been a lot of difficulty in a lot of workplaces for a whole variety of reasons. We also know that our population as a whole has evidenced a much higher level of mental health needs. We also know that our population as a whole continues to experience problems through deaths from opioid overdoses. All of these things are parts of being part of a group of people or not, feeling like you’re part and safe and well supported.

We want to let people feel in their workplace, in their homes, in their lives, in their families, that they are safe, that they have somebody who cares about them, that they have somebody who is there to support them. We all know that as clever and tough and everything else as we consider ourselves, we need somebody else. If that comes through getting an association in your workplace where you all have common goals and common needs, then let that work. Let that work be done. Make it so that it is not subject to undue influence.

The concern about getting a product out over the safety of people, of getting a deadline met, of getting things done at the expense of the people doing the work is a very old concept. In this day and age, it needs to be let go of. We need to be able to work together, we need to be able to work safely, and we need to be able to work respectfully.

I am very pleased to support this bill. I think that it is going to have a very good impact on our labour force. I think it is going to strengthen the workers and the work environments in British Columbia. I think that it’s a very timely recommendation and implementation to be taken for our workforce.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am finished with my remarks.

[6:00 p.m.]

C. Oakes: I am proud to take my place in second reading of the bill today, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2022, and to represent the constituents of my riding of Cariboo North.

First, I think it is, of course, critically important, as a way of background…. I am, certainly, supportive of unions. Many of my family members are part of unions. In our communities, our rural communities, our forest-based communities…. We certainly recognize the importance that unions play in our communities.

I want to thank the member opposite for her words. I also agree that having a respectful workplace…. All workers should ensure that they have access to safety and that they’re treated fairly and appropriately. That is a critical desire of all of us as legislators in this House.

For the past two decades, the secret ballot for union certification votes has been the law in British Columbia. It ensures that neither the employer nor the union can coerce or intimidate workers when they are deciding whether to join a union. Votes are fair and supervised by a neutral party and the Labour Relations Board. If an employer interferes, the union is automatically certified. So there is already in existence a strong protection against company intimidation. At the end of the process, both the employer and the union know the true desire of the workers. That is the current system that we are working under.

What we are hearing today in this bill, Bill 10…. The provincial government is now looking at rolling back to the 1970s and rolling out a card-check system that is notoriously open to manipulation and abuse. Using the blunt force of their majority, the B.C. NDP will strip away the best protection from intimidation granted workers in the workplace, that being the secret ballot.

In 2018, an independent panel appointed by this same government defended the secret ballot, finding that it is the most consistent with our democratic norms, that it protects the fundamental right of freedom of association and choice, and it is preferred. Let’s take a moment to reflect on what the independent panel that has been appointed by this government, who actually stated that the most consistent with our democratic norms, protects the fundamental right of freedoms of association and choice, is preferred….

The reason why members on this side of the House raise considerable concerns about this bill, and many of the bills that the NDP government has brought forward, is we have consistently seen, time and time again…. We’re seeing a government that strips away accountability, transparency and has a significant impact on outcomes in the province of British Columbia.

We want to defend workers. We want to ensure that legislation that is brought before this House has accountability and transparency and that we have a clear understanding of the steps and the decision-making process that the government is putting in place before they bring legislation like this forward in this House.

The challenge becomes, and it’s a critically important one for us to reflect on, that almost every bill that we have seen brought forward in this House has some element of removing the ability for legislators to understand the full meaningful outcomes of bills that are being brought forward and to understand those consequences in communities like Cariboo North and the impact on society in general.

Time and time again, whether it’s the freedom-of-information bill, whether it is even the Skilled Trades BC bill, Bill 4…. We are seeing, time and time again, a government that leans to the fact that the executive council makes decisions, and they’re not being brought forward in this House.

[6:05 p.m.]

There is such an element of secrecy. So when we see the fact that the government wants to strip away fundamental rights of individuals, we raise serious concerns.

I was going back through a number of bills that have been debated before this House. With your approval, hon. Speaker, I think it is important to look at some of the previous bills that have been brought before this House. They’re very relevant to a process of what democracy means in this House and the impacts of some of the bills that are being brought forward.

I went back and looked at the professional reliance bill that was brought forward during the third session of the 41st parliament in 2018. The critical impacts of…. When you are looking at some of the bills, sometimes they seem really innocuous, and you wonder: well, what is the full impact of those bills? It sometimes takes several years for us to understand the true consequences of some of these bills that are being brought forward by the NDP government.

At the time, it was about professional reliance. It was looking at several colleges, whether it was the professional foresters, the engineers or what have you. It seemed pretty…. Like I said, what are the true impacts of this going to be?

Well, we are certainly seeing it in communities like mine, when professional foresters no longer have the ability, because of previous bills that this government has put forward, to step up and explain how they feel. Freedom of choice. Freedom of democracy. Freedom of being protected and the ability to bring things forward. The government, at that time, has stripped away that. So that is an example of why we have fears on what is happening here today.

Government ignores the recommendations of the independent experts when it suits them. We’ve seen that time and time again. Look at the Small Business Task Force that recommended what steps need to be taken. Look at the recommendations in the past on….

Some might be wondering, for example, who has been consulted. A critical component that we hear, time and time again, from this NDP government…. When it suits them, they will go out to consultation on a whole array of different topics. Any time that it is to their benefit that they see, they’ll say: “Well, we’ll go out and consult.”

I spoke earlier this week about the critical importance of moving on a consultation report that was done several years ago around any sexual assaults on campuses and the steps that could be taken. We hear, then…. We can drag out consultation processes and get a report. Then if the report from the expert panel doesn’t suit their needs…. They’ll go back and say, “Well, we’ll go out and consult,” when it’s something that the government wants to delay on making a decision.

In an example like Bill 10, they can skip all those steps. They can skip all the consultation. No entrepreneurs, job creators, industry or business associations received a call on this bill. But surely the workers were taken into consideration. Again, no.

Polling shows workers overwhelmingly favour the secret ballot. Most workers, when given the choice, decide against joining a union. Of B.C.’s nearly 250,000 construction workers, more than 85 percent of them are not members of a traditional building trades union. The percentage of unionized workers has been slipping for decades as workers embrace the opportunity of more flexible work arrangements and reject the rules of bureaucracy. A different approach to a workplace.

Killing the secret ballot is out of step with this new reality and what we are hearing from members or people across our ridings. It’s going to have a significant impact in our communities, when we look at the impacts.

For 30 of the last 38 years, the secret ballot has existed in this province. It’s helped protect the privacy, independence and democratic right of every worker to vote either for or against union representation without coercion, intimidation or harassment. The secret ballot is the norm in most of the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and most industries in Ontario. The secret ballot, as I said, is strongly favoured by the majority of B.C. workers. In fact, as I mentioned before, the expert panel recommended not to scrap the secret ballot.

[6:10 p.m.]

It is alarming that the NDP government thinks it’s okay to take away a democratic principle, which is so important, and be so casual about it. The legislative changes in this bill will open workers up to pressure campaigns, where they could be coerced or pressured into joining unions against their will.

Why on earth would the NDP want to scrap the secret ballot when the majority of British Columbians support it, when we’ve heard members from the government who say that they want to respect what workers are saying? Why wouldn’t they respect what the majority of workers in British Columbia are saying? How do we reconcile the message that we’re hearing from the NDP government versus what we’re hearing from workers in British Columbia?

It’s not just the elimination of the secret ballot component of this bill that will have consequences for British Columbians. Clause 1 in this legislation will allow union raiding to take place in the construction industry between the months of July and August of every year, as opposed to every three years as was previously allowed. It’s obviously no coincidence that this practice will now be allowed to take place annually, during the busiest construction period of every year.

For folks in Cariboo North, you know full well what our building season looks like. With our long winters and our frost not coming out of the ground until late, we do have a very short ability to get the critical infrastructure needed in our communities. Everyone understands the critical importance of construction in our communities, whether it’s housing, whether….

We are extraordinarily proud to see the building of our new middle school in Quesnel. I had the opportunity to have a tour. April was construction month. We’re very proud to celebrate that and recognize all of the incredible construction workers and companies across British Columbia. I think that’s important to recognize here in this House. But it’s a fantastic building. We’re so proud, and we are so ready to get our students in that middle school. The construction team of individuals are so proud to be working on that project.

Look, they’ve had their challenges, as all construction projects have had during COVID. It’s been difficult, of course, with supply chain challenges. It’s been difficult with accessing construction workers. It’s been a real challenge.

Anything that is going to impact these types of construction projects is going to have critical impacts on each of our communities. I would hate to think of what significant changes every single year would mean, when a lot of these major projects take many years to build, what the consequences of these incredibly valuable projects in our community would look like.

We’re also really proud to have a hospital expansion that’s going on — again, critical construction in our community. What would it mean for taxpayers, if you sign on and you say, “This is what a project is going to cost,” and then each year you really don’t have an indicator because costs rise? I mean, certainly we’re seeing supply costs rise in the construction sector, and that’s creating incredible challenges. But now you have a labour force that could potentially be impacted every single year. It’s going to have significant impacts on outcomes of construction in British Columbia.

Let’s talk about housing for a moment. In Cariboo North, we all know the difficulty, right now, of accessing housing, like every community in British Columbia. Rural communities are not alone or immune to the fact that construction projects and housing are critical. We desperately need to build the housing unit — that new, complex vision of building out for long-term care. It has a whole bunch of different…. There’s a building case that’s being brought forward through Northern Health and, hopefully, to treasury that I think is going to be critically important for the residents and constituents of Cariboo North. So we need long-term care housing.

[6:15 p.m.]

We need basic housing. The number one thing I hear from every professional association — whether it’s doctors, whether it’s nurses, whether it’s the Ministry of Transportation, whether it’s our teachers. you name the association — the most critical barrier that each of us has in our communities right now is finding housing. Anything that’s going to impact or delay or cause issue with building housing should be a concern for each of us in this Legislature.

If we have protection right now in place for workers, if we have what the expert panels have said — “Look, it’s working right now” — why is the government so apt to make significant changes that could have significant outcomes on the construction of projects across our communities and this province? Because it is going to have an impact. How is that entrepreneur, you know that person….

We have Icon Homes in the Cariboo. What a fantastic company — Joe Hart and his team. He has won many awards, and we’re so proud of him. He is building absolutely fantastic housing in the Cariboo and in other communities as well. I’ve talked to Joe on a number of occasions. He could be doing a lot more construction in our communities, but he has a really hard time finding the labour force. One year I think he got seven resumes, and now we’re seeing it even harder and harder to get workers in construction.

It’s critical. We can’t build if we don’t have the construction workers to do that building. So I think of all of the fantastic homes that Joe and so many of our other construction companies are doing right now, critical infrastructure in our communities, and without that necessary housing, we absolutely cannot meet the needs of so many other services in our community. Any impact on our housing market and our construction sector is going to have a critical impact.

Like the professional alliance bill — that innocuous bill where we thought, “Well, what are the consequences of that bill?” You start seeing it two years down the road, those impacts. We’re going to bring this bill back up and some of the other bills. When we start seeing the consequences of what the bills and the policies that the NDP government is doing that are directly resulting in a continued housing crisis in the province, we’re going to remind them.

In two years’ time, we’re going to make sure that British Columbians understand exactly the types of decisions that this government is making — ignoring what the majority of workers want, not listening to expert panels when it suits them, but making sure in other instances that they go in the complete opposite direction. We’ll be holding the NDP to account on this, as I know every single person who is looking for housing in our community will be asking the very valid question and be holding the NDP to account.

The legislation and the policies that they are making are having direct impacts, negative impacts, on how we build British Columbia. While the government claims that this is simply to appease workers who may be unhappy with their current union, this union rating clause will undoubtedly serve as a tool for this government and their labour insides to pressure more workers and create chaos and uncertainty on jobsites. It threatens and creates instability and disruption in the construction industry and could result in further delays and cost hikes in vital housing and infrastructure projects across this province.

In conclusion, what we have before us is a bill that is being tabled to not better workers in British Columbia or respecting democracy, respecting the rights of workers and individuals. No, it’s doing the opposite.

[6:20 p.m.]

The vast majority of those who choose not to be part of the union…. Rather, it’s to serve the interests of this government. It is a bill that could worsen the housing and affordability crises that we are currently finding ourselves in at this time.

Look, let us make it clear here now, today, that this NDP government has got to stop pointing fingers at other people for the challenges that we are living with every single day as a result of the decisions and the legislation and the policies that they’re making right here in this Legislature.

If nothing else, it is incredibly hypocritical for the most secretive government in the country to remove people’s right to a secret ballot. It’s almost as if the NDP expects full transparency from everyone else but themselves. We have many concerns with this legislation, and we’ll be using our time in committee to express our concerns, the concerns of British Columbians who oppose these actions. For these reasons, we cannot support this bill.

R. Merrifield: I’m proud to rise today and speak on behalf of the fantastic residents of Kelowna-Mission. It was beautiful there today. I was getting pictures from constituents, and they were making me jealous. But I ran in my riding because I love democracy. I’ve stood up many a time and talked about my love and my belief in democracy and what it means for us today.

Recently, in the last couple of weeks while I was back at home, I was having a meeting with some university students. One of them spoke towards the end. He looked at me, and he said: “You really believe in this institution, don’t you? My generation doesn’t anymore. I don’t believe that democracy is possible or that my voice even matters.” The hopelessness in his statement was heartbreaking.

Rather than be torn down, we as representatives and as legislators must stand up against any threat to democracy, against any threat to that voice. While, I will admit, it’s much harder to effect change sitting on this side of the House than that one, especially if that side of the House is uncollaborative or dismissive, I still feel I must try. I must at least stand up.

Today I rise to speak to the second reading of this bill. It is a bill that threatens the very democracy that this place stands to represent. The secrecy of a person’s ballot is an integral pillar of our democracy, a pillar that no person, no government, no organization should ever seek to threaten, a pillar that we depend on when we’re voting for our elected representatives, a pillar that workers depend on when they are voting on whether or not to join a union.

Bill 10 is the latest move from this government that tramples on people’s rights by removing the secret ballot from workers as they decide on joining a union. Let’s review the other attempts by this government to limit accountability, transparency and democracy.

Well, there’s the frequent tabling of sham and hollow legislation that leaves fundamental changes up to regulation and at a later date and out of the purview of this House — its debate — and the public. There’s the creation of barriers to information, through the freedom-of-information fees. They even signed an order without regard for the committee that was struck or without any consultation outside of this House, despite consistent reassurances that this would be done before any fee would be set.

[6:25 p.m.]

This government continues to disregard fundamental democratic rights as it continues to strip away measures that promote greater transparency and accountability. If someone had just said that statement about me and my behaviour, I’d be standing up. I’d be standing up and trying to make things different.

Why is the secret ballot so fundamental? For 30 out of the last 38 years, the secret ballot has existed in our province. It’s helped protect the privacy, the independence and also the democratic rights of every worker to vote either for or against union representation without coercion, intimidation or harassment.

The secret ballot, as you just heard from my colleague from the Cariboo, is the norm in almost all of the rest of the country, except maybe Quebec. Not sure that that’s the province that we’d like to emulate. The secret ballot is also strongly favoured by the majority of B.C. workers. In fact, the government’s own report, their own expert panel, recommended not scrapping the secret ballot.

The recommendation of the 2018 Labour Relations Code Review Panel report cited: “The secret ballot vote be retained providing there are sufficient measures to ensure the exercise of employee choice is fully protected and fully remediated in the event of unlawful interference.” But this seems to be the norm for this government.

They’re ignoring their own experts. They’re ignoring the workers. They’re ignoring the associations. They’re only listening to their big union cronies. That’s alarming. We should all be very concerned with how casually the NDP are willing to sacrifice and disregard such a fundamental right in exchange for political gain.

Let’s examine the motivation for Bill 10 and why the NDP government would make this change. The legislative changes outlined in this bill will open workers up to pressure campaigns where they could be coerced or pressured into joining unions against their will. “Pressured,” “coerced, “against their will” — does that sound like a democratic change? Does that sound like anything that should take place in British Columbia and especially in our workplaces? So why would be the NDP want to scrap the secret ballot when the majority of British Columbians support it?

It’s because these collective changes only benefit NDP-aligned unions and insiders and not everyday British Columbians, not the 70 percent of workers who have chosen not to join a union. These NDP-aligned select unions, which have traditionally been the strong financial and political supporters of the NDP — they’ve seen their numbers shrink over the past 20 years. Let’s not forget that the NDP did receive the largest donation — and I’ll just say the exact number, $672,576 — in B.C. political history from the United Steelworkers in 2017.

I listened as the minister claimed to speak for workers. But he’s hearing different things than I am when I speak to the workers. As of 2021, the current rate of unionization among B.C. workers only sits at 30 percent, while an overwhelming number, 85 percent, of construction workers do not belong to an NDP-aligned building trades union.

Looking back to the NDP government’s community benefits agreement, this unholy relationship between the NDP-aligned unions and the NDP government is really nothing new. The Premier himself has made it no secret that he intended to scrap the secret ballot for union certification and transition to card checks as soon as he had the opportunity to do so.

[6:30 p.m.]

Back in 2019, when he tried to push through labour code amendments that would have taken the secret ballot away, he couldn’t garner the support of this House, because this House recognized the threat that this change would pose to the democratic right of workers.

Now that this government has a majority, thanks to the unnecessary election that they called in the midst of a pandemic, they’re in a position to pay off their political backers and insiders. Oh, how I wish it were just more compli­cated than this. But it’s not. It’s a simple move to shore up political support from their big union administrations.

It’s not just the elimination of the secret ballot component of this bill that is going to have consequences for British Columbians. No. Clause 1 in this legislation is going to allow union raiding to take place in the construction industry between the months of July and August of every single year instead of every three years, as was previously allowed.

Look, I’ve been in the construction industry for 22 years. I have not had a July or an August that is not the absolute busiest within construction, ever. To think that they would use the absolute busiest time frame to try and bully and coerce workers into doing something that they historically have not wanted to do and, furthermore, to a construction industry that has just barely made it through the pandemic….

The NDP government will claim that this is simply to appease workers who may be unhappy with their current union. The truth is that this union raiding clause will serve as another tool for the NDP-aligned labour insiders to just coerce and pressure more workers and then create chaos and uncertainty on jobsites. This move threatens to create insane amounts of instability and disruption to the construction industry. It could further result in delays and increased costs.

Oh, to what? I don’t know. What’s the construction industry involved in? How about vital housing, infrastructure and projects across the province?

Delays and cost hikes. Wow, that sounds familiar. We’ve seen this show before. In fact — spoiler alert — I already know the ending. Cost overruns, delays in completion and frustrated and overtaxed taxpayers.

Let’s recall that community benefits agreement. Remember the 114,000 promised housing units? Have they been built? A small fraction. What about the cost overruns of Site C? Well, those can be somewhat attributed to the change and to the increased cost of CBAs.

In fact, the government’s community benefits agreement, which favours NDP-aligned unions, drives costs up by hundreds of millions of dollars and has slowed down public infrastructure projects. It’s actually estimated that the CBA could add as much as $4.8 billion more to the cost of public infrastructure projects. So $4.8 billion more to the taxpayer of B.C. and to the residents of the Kelowna-Mission riding, $4.8 billion that they cannot afford with the cost of living skyrocketing, inflation through the roof and the out-of-control cost of housing that has emptied their wallets.

[6:35 p.m.]

Oh, then don’t mention the forest fires and the floods. We’ve got citizens that aren’t even back in their homes yet and heat domes that have cost lives and devastated large parts of our province. We need all hands on deck to help rebuild our communities, to get people into homes and to restore our confidence. Now is not the time to assault our democracy, to coerce and pressure tired workers and employers and drive a wedge between unionized and non-unionized British Columbians. Now is not the time to introduce further divisions and further tensions in the workplace.

This last week I attended two different construction events. Is the construction industry resilient? Absolutely, yes. Are they tired? Oh, yes. They have had change after change after change, COVID regulation after COVID regulation after COVID regulation, desperate to stay on their feet and at their jobsites. They do not need this right now.

The community benefits agreement requirement to have employees join only the NDP-aligned unions for major construction projects…. They see that as a part of the NDP’s plan to increase the unionization of the construction sector. For example, we know the Cowichan Lake hospital will be subject to CBAs. The December 2018 Infrastructure B.C. report assessed the CBA arrangement. It’s going to increase construction reserve and contingency costs by $174.3 million for just this project alone.

There are countless other examples of the negative impacts of CBAs for taxpayers, with Trans-Canada Highway construction projects being downscoped and signifi­cant cost overruns. We’ve seen how this movie ends, and it doesn’t end with a benefit to the B.C. taxpayer.

Then what happens to fixed-price contracts with construction companies that could be raided every single year? What if a construction company bids on a contract that’s going to take four years to build? How do they actually accommodate a new labour agreement every single year? Spoiler alert. They increase the cost to make sure that they have coverage to match that level of uncertainty and to make sure that there is just enough revenue to match whatever any union might throw at them.

What does that do to the general public, then? Disruption, higher costs, more uncertainty to a province that is desperate to have a construction industry firing on all cylinders.

A higher cost of housing, a commercial space, a manufacturing facility, a pipeline, an LNG plant, a dam, a transmission line to power our electric vehicles, a bridge, a tunnel, a highway, a hospital, a school, a daycare, a long-term-care facility. All at increased costs because this government doesn’t value democracy and is putting into place legislation that is anti-worker.

There is only one taxpayer. Implementing policies that threaten to further drive up costs and create additional delays is the last thing that the taxpayer needs right now.

I didn’t want to presume, so I went and I talked to some union workers, even one that worked for a union administration themselves. They told me that this would be a disaster, that Bill 10 would absolutely result in “intimidation, bullying and threats.”

[6:40 p.m.]

In fact, one of the workers had actually worked under the former card-check system and said baseball bats were the norm when a union was coming in. This is someone who has worked for a union for 40 years. I asked him how you protect the workers. He said: “The secret ballot was the best thing that ever happened to us.”

The only way to protect the workers from this level of intimidation, from this level of bullying and threats, is to protect their anonymity, to protect their democratic right to a secret ballot, to protect them from harassment, retribution, anxiety.

In addition to the issues caused by inflation, out-of-control housing market and climate change, we also have a mental health crisis. Suicide rates within the construction industry are massive — the number one industry for opioid overdoses. Why would this NDP government seek to add to the burden felt by these workers?

One of the concerned union employees who reached out to me said: “This feels like a George Orwell message. We’re taking away your rights, but it’s really good for you.” So who thinks this is a good idea? Not Restaurants Canada, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Vancouver Board of Trade, Business Council of B.C., B.C. Chamber of Commerce or the Independent Contractors of B.C. Oh, wait. They represent over 55 percent of B.C.’s workers — the majority, enough to win an election.

Now, it’s already been read into the record. So I won’t quote the entire letter as recorded by the MLA from Shuswap. I will highlight words like “express our dismay.”

The changes will have economic repercussions as they “needlessly destabilize the labour relations balance in B.C.” And “It’s disappointing that Bill 10 was tabled without adhering to Minister Bains’s mandate letter, which directed him….”

“It is also concerning that your government has proceeded to introduce this legislation outside of the longstanding section 3 review process.” It calls into question “your commitment to open and transparent consultation. Regrettably, it’s not the first time that members of the business community have expressed frustration about how consultations are conducted on employee legislation.”

It’s a pattern. But I’m not surprised from the award-winning NDP — the least transparent government in Canada.

They also said: “The secret ballot is a fundamental component of our democratic system and a standard that should apply in workplaces, just as it does in other facets of public life.” Where else would it apply? Oh, I don’t know — from the national NDP constitution? It’s how the NDP actually elect their officers, their leader. It’s through a secret ballot vote.

Well, there are others that are actually secret ballot, like party president, treasurer, regional representatives. But then there are also ones like — I don’t know — student council, strata council. And then there’s the winner of Justin McElroy’s latest bracket on the best small town in B.C., all done more democratically than we are going to do for the workers in B.C. Are these measly organizations? No, they represent the majority of workers in B.C. and the vast majority of construction workers of B.C., over 85 percent of them.

So who is this bill good for? If it’s not good for the majority of workers or the vast majority of construction workers, who is this bill for? I think you know the answer, Madam Speaker: the NDP-aligned union cronies. This draconian bill is not being tabled to better serve workers in British Columbia, the vast majority of whom choose not to be part of a union but rather to serve the interests of this government along with its NDP-aligned political backers and insiders.

[6:45 p.m.]

It is not a bill that increases democracy. High school student councils are operated more democratically. And it is not a bill that’s going to benefit British Columbians. It is a bill that could worsen the housing and affordability crisis that we currently find ourselves in.

We are all hearing from our constituents about how difficult life is, how difficult it is for them to find a home. I know that in my riding of Kelowna-Mission, average home prices are over $1 million, and rentals are scarce. We need every tool in the toolbox to help solve this crisis, and this bill is just going to add fuel to the fire.

Our job in this place is to serve all British Columbians, not just the ones that are aligned with the government of the day. We should use the powers vested us by the citizens of British Columbia to serve them and not our own interests. This bill serves only one master. It’s this government’s latest step to erode democracy, expand government control and remove government accountability for their benefit and the benefit of their NDP-aligned friends.

We have here the most secretive government in the country, as we have witnessed through the pandemic, removing the people’s right to a secret ballot. So just another case of, “Do what I say, not as I do,” as the NDP government demands transparency from everyone else but themselves and their NDP-aligned friends. There are many concerns with this legislation, and on this side of the House, we’re going to be using our time in this place and in committee to express our concerns and the concerns of British Columbians who oppose these actions.

It goes without saying that I can’t support this in its current form.

M. Morris: Before I get into a lot of the things I have to say…. I know I don’t have much time here today, but I will continue on later.

I just want to acknowledge the sensitivity with unions. I’ve got many constituents who are members of private and public sector unions. My brother-in-law was the president of the PPWC local in Prince George for years, decades. I associated with many of the union members with the PPWC and am familiar with a lot of the things that took place back in the ’70s during the union raiding days and a lot of the antics that were behind there.

My brother-in-law and I were very close. He’s recently passed away, but I like to think that I drew him a little bit further to the right. He claimed that he dragged me over to the left side a little bit more. Maybe we met somewhere in the middle. But we did meet. We used to discuss issues affecting labour relations, not only within his unionized environment, but labour relations within my environment as an RCMP officer and as an HR manager and whatnot. There was a lot of common ground in there.

I’ve got many constituents who belong to these public and private sector unions that have voted for me. They have faith in me. They voted for me using a private ballot, or a secret ballot, to represent them in this House. I often think about what they will be thinking right now, thinking that this government has disdain for the democratic process and is taking that secret ballot away.

It’s good enough to elect me and put me in this House, but it’s not good enough to support representation by the various unions that we have out there. I think a lot of them are going to be troubled by that. In fact, I know some of them are, because I’ve already discussed that with many of my constituents.

We’ve got this government bringing about the community benefits agreement, where they have select unions representing the construction trade and other areas that are the only ones that are eligible to bid on the billions of dollars’ worth of government contracts that are being let out right now. CBAs are what they call them. I am going to get into that probably tomorrow, when I continue on with my talk here, but that element alone is cause for concern.

[6:50 p.m.]

You add to that the prospects of taking away a secret ballot so that unionized workers…. Some of the discussions I had with family members and friends who are in these unions…. We used to talk about the union raiding that took place, back in the development of the PPWC in British Columbia here. It was an international union. It was a lot of American affiliations.

When they went to some of the mills in the area, trying to subscribe to join this new union that they’re going to get…. I used to look at the guys that went to these information sessions. They were the biggest dudes they had in the local. Good friends — I know some of them quite well. Just the look of them at these types of information sessions would get people thinking twice.

You know, my size…. In court, I’ve been nailed many times by defence counsel for intimidating witnesses and intimidating the accused person that might be attending in court, just because, at that time, I was 6 foot 4, and I was 225 pounds. It doesn’t take much to start intimidating other people in some of those kinds of environments. We need to be very cautious as we approach this.

We have a government here that should be upholding the right of democracy for every single citizen in this province, no matter what the circumstance is. I think this is denigrating the democratic process, by taking away the secret ballot.

This is something that we need to really reflect on as we go through, and some of my comments will surface the concerns that I have here. But we should be looking at more ways to bring democracy to our great province, more ways to enhance the rights of our citizens — whether they belong to a union or not — more ways to make it better for us to do our work in British Columbia.

Like I said, we’ve got billions of dollars of capital waiting to be spent on government-funded projects in British Columbia. Build our hospitals. Build our schools. Build our highways. Build our bridges. That will be only available to those select government unions.

I think that eliminates — like my colleague was saying earlier — 55 percent of the workforce from British Columbia. It eliminates them from even tackling those jobs. The government is forcing them to join a particular union that they delegate, not the individual’s choice.

The individual’s choice is a part of a charter right, your right to association — anybody that you want to associate with or any organization you want to associate with. It’s something that we have to be cautious, moving forward on with this.

I hope there is some good debate on this, moving forward. I know a lot of us will be curious to see what happens during the committee stage on this particular bill. I think we’ll be able to pop the hood open on it and get into some of the nitty-gritty on that.

I know there has been a lot of discussion on this issue or similar issues at the Supreme Court of Canada level that I’m sure the labour lawyers in this room and elsewhere would be familiar with. We might touch on some of that down the road here. So we’ll see what happens.

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

M. Morris moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

[6:55 p.m.]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

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

Hon. L. Beare moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:56 p.m.